CHRIS INGRAM - THE PRICE OF THE PRIZE

Chris Ingram was born in St Louis, Missouri and raised in Oyster Bay Cove, on New York’s Long Island. He spent over thirty years broadcasting, mostly as a newsman in markets of every size and at CBS News in New York. He has also been a disc jockey, cook, truck driver, and a high school wrestling coach. Recent works include.”The Heights,” and “Redemption," published by the Sadina Literary Review and Flash Fiction Magazine respectively.
Chris now lives in South Jersey and writes full time. His website is chrisingram.org

THE PRICE of the PRIZE
​

            Hoooooonk! Honk Hoooonk! "Thumper" Ray Lydon can hear the horns blaring over the expectant murmur of another sold-out arena. It's clearly a smaller venue, where fans employ hand-held air-horns to express their excitement, displeasure, joy; desire for a fried snack. Ray advances in his fighting stance, fists on either side of his face, right knee leading, and launches a devastating series of punches and kicks to his opponent's head and thighs. Hooooonk! Another horn blares. He howls, "Enough with the horns already, We're in a fight here!"  He looks up, expecting to see his counterattacking opponent racing across the ring with murderous intent, and sees instead... Light. Blinding, searing sunlight. It's as if he's been sleeping soundly in his bed and the blinds have suddenly been cast open. Through tightly squinted eyes, he sees pavement beneath his feet, painted with thick white lines. He's in a crosswalk on Oakland Park Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Or is it Broadway, in New York? West Madison in Chicago?  He can't tell. Nothing looks familiar. And he can't move. The clarion of the crowd has been superseded by the cacophony of honking cars; that electric murmur supplanted by the enraged hollering of inconvenienced motorists. "Thumper" has wandered off again. 
            Would-be samaritans, inclined to lend a guiding arm to a clearly confused man, are put off by his fighting stance, and it's a good thing. Last time this happened, he laid out two helpful citizens before the cops (and an ambulance) were called. Luckily for Ray, his last knock-out victims were fans; when they found out who he was they declined to press charges. A five-figure pay-off and some autographed striking gloves helped grease those skids. This time he's alone. His head jerks side-to-side, dodging invisible punches as he falls back into his earlier revery, until a familiar voice breaks through.
 
"Pop! Hey Pop! It's me, Chuck. Come on with me Pop!"
"Chucky?" Ray's tensed shoulders relax a bit as he looks around for his son. But what is his boy doing in the cage? "You better get outa here, son. There's only room for two in the ring!"
"No, Pop, no. It's not a ring. We're in Lauderdale, Pop. You're holding up traffic. Again." The last word is stifled; he doesn't want to start an argument in the middle of rush-hour traffic. And if his intent is to shame his father, to hurt him, well, that ship has sailed. He places a gentle arm on Ray's shoulder. It takes considerable force to guide the confused man, walker in tow, across the street and then to a bus stop bench. 
"Have a rest, Pop. Here, take a sip." He hands his father a 12-ounce spring water bottle, half-filled with the only thing that seems to give Ray pleasure anymore: Svedka vodka. Chuck sighs. "At least you have cheap taste in liquor."
"Thumper" takes a furtive, exploratory sip. His eyes widen in recognition, and he takes a long pull, distorting the bottle's sides as he drinks.
"Ahhh! That's a good son!"
"Yeah, that's me all right Pop." He rubs his father's shoulders with something just shy of conviction. “You promised to stay in the van, Pop,” he whispers, as if to himself. ”Come on, drink up. We should be getting home."
A flicker of impatience crosses the fighter's brow, "Don't you rush me! You don't tell me what to do!"
"I know Pop, I know. It's just hotter than hell out here. Don't you want to get in the air conditioning and watch some old fights?”
Ray sucks on the vodka. "Those aren't just 'old fights,’" he snarls. “Those are history." He looks at the bottle. "We got more of this at home?"
Chuck rolls his eyes upward at the setting sun. "Oh, you know it, Pop. A case, at least."
"Ya know, I learned to love Svedka when I was training for my first title. Couldn't even get it here when I moved back to the States. Had to smuggle it in, order it special. It was good enough for me then, and it's good enough for me now. Why mess with a good thing?"
Chuck is mouthing the words as Ray speaks them. He's heard them at least ten-thousand times. "Words to live by, Pop. Words to live by. C'mon, let's go."
He helps his father, suddenly very weak, rise from the bench. "I'm still parked around the corner at the Walgreens. Can you make it?"
Ray simultaneously pushes Chuck away and clings tighter to his son’s arm. "Of course I can make it. I'm the champ of the world!"
There's an anger in those words that saddens his son. Where Ray had once uttered that phrase with pride and a little healthy irony, it has become a hollow declaration of entitlement gone-by. A desperate cry for recognition. A plea for proof he even exists. It doesn’t help that his “world championship” is only recognized within a few countries in Asia.
Chuck helps him into the Jeep, lifting his feet, one-by-one, over the lip of the door jamb. Ray cries out in pain, as if he's being tortured on the rack, and it sickens Chuck. It's not as if Ray had ever been particularly stoic about his injuries (when it came to his ability to take pain, jokes made the rounds that "Thumper" was a "pussy, not a hare").  But he used to have some restraint. Now, Chuck is convinced, his pained cries are just another way to get sympathy; to be noticed is to be.
            Chuck puts the Jeep in gear and drives the mile or two to his dad's apartment tower on the beach. There was a time, he recalls, when even past his prime the name Ray Lydon could
sell out major arenas. At least in those states that permitted Mixed Martial Arts competitions within their borders.  Those days are over, thinks Chuck as he pulls into the garage beneath the tower. The only one who doesn't know it is you. He looks at his father, who is rapt as a baby at the nipple, desperately trying to suck the very last drop of vodka from his plastic bottle.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            "Thumper" Ray Lydon had been the best. 30-years earlier he had won his only major title as the only non-Asian fighter to win the highest Muay Thai “World” championship in Bangkok. As the outstanding fighter of all the weight classes in the tournament, he was awarded a lion-skin robe. He’d be called, “champ” for the rest of his life.
            Of course, since he'd been left on the streets of Bangkok at the vulnerable age of sixteen, Ray's learning to fight was no matter of choice. The alternatives were few; starvation or prostitution. His father had deserted him after one of their usual set-tos; Ray had a vicious temper eclipsed only by his father's. Ray had left him on a street corner with a couple of hundred Thai baht, worth maybe ten bucks, and told him if he didn't like his itinerary to make his own. He'd stayed there for four hours, though it seemed like the whole day, hoping the old man would come back; ask if he'd learned his lesson. But even then Ray knew he'd have replied that he hadn't, and to fuck off, so he wasn't shocked that he never saw his father again.
            It didn't take long before he encountered the violent world that would come to define him. The first time he pulled out a bill to pay for a stick of skewered insects he took a blow to the kidney so hard he was enveloped in a field of blue stars. He held on to his dinner, and his cash,
but only after a brutal row that left him battered and dizzy. His stateside training in traditional boxing and folkstyle wrestling had given him a leg up on any Nattapong-come-lately, but he
knew his chances against the better kick-fighters, like the ones his father had taken him to see, were much worse. He had dragged a numb right leg and several cracked ribs to a deep corner of a dank alley that night. Keeping a constant look-out for another assailant, Ray endured the pain of chewing the crunchy crickets with loosened teeth. Eventually he fell into a troubled asleep filled with dreams of the bloody bouts his father had taken him to, and visions of a great yawing emptiness; himself in a leaking dugout canoe.
            In time, after he'd fought off a few efforts at strong-arm robbery, he developed a reputation. He was the farang who wouldn't quit, the white guy with guts. After one battle, when, it seemed, the entire neighborhood had taken up spots from which to spectate, he managed to hold off four older boys. He took a beating but never went down. The fight seemed to last for hours, and was only broken up when shopkeepers, alarmed at their loss of commerce, threatened to call the police. It was the first time Ray heard the sound that would  drive him through the rest of his life: the cheers of an audience. The love of the crowd would replace the love of a father.
            He had heard applause before, at high school wrestling matches and and amateur boxing bouts, but this was different. It was a deep-throated, animalistic, savage roar that nonetheless enveloped him in a warmth that was the closest thing he'd ever felt to love. He managed to raise a hand, bruised and bleeding like the rest of his aching body, before limping off to the corner of the alley he'd made, and defended as, his home.
            Oddly, it was his worst defeat that led him onto the crooked path to greatness. One of the kids he'd beaten, badly, a week or two earlier had an older brother. That Ray had been defending himself from a robbery was irrelevant; the boy's honor, and therefore his family's, had to be
reclaimed. The elder brother was a full-time fighter; one of the elite who battled in gruesome conflict in the dingy, smoke-filled dens where the rings were just oases of organized violence in the middle of a raucous river of unrestrained vice.
            When the vengeance-seeker showed up at the entrance to what had been dubbed "Farang Alley" by area shopkeepers, all conversation stilled. The silence reached Ray like a wave. He pushed aside the tapestry that served as a door to his wood pallet shack, and saw danger personified. It was clear this Thai man-child wanted a piece of the white boy; to send him on his way once and for all. He stood six-feet tall, with long, sinewy muscles rippling like taut bands beneath his shining hairless torso. Ray stood up from his cross-legged position in one fluid move. The stranger assumed a fighting pose. There was no way out now; once a man raises his hands one either fights or flees. Flight was out of the question. Ray could not afford to start from scratch in another neighborhood. Besides, this moment would only come again, in another time or another place.
            The fight was spectacular, but ugly. As usual, Ray took the offensive. He landed a punch to the bigger man's chin which did little damage except to the other man's pride. Ray was preparing to wade back in again when a sharp kick to his left ear sent him sprawling. He managed to stay off the hard-packed dirt only by crawling along, like an orangutan, on his hands and toes. He reached a moldy stone wall and righted himself. He couldn't afford to take the time to regain his senses, even if he couldn't quite see straight. He hurled himself toward the spot
where he believed his foe stood, and caught him in the ribs before taking a shot to the right side of his face that closed his eye. He replied with a blocked punch at his foe's nose, and ducked just in time to avoid another sweeping kick to his head. As his opponent spun to recover from the delivery of the kick, Ray swarmed in with hooks and uppercuts, landing just enough to force his foe backwards in an effort to regroup. Ray kept coming, knowing his best - his only - chance was to fluster the more skilled, disciplined fighter. He even surprised himself and his opponent by grazing his chin with a front kick. But it was all downhill from there. Fortunately his wrestling skills allowed him to avoid or minimize some potentially devastating blows. But the bigger, stronger foe delivered sharp punches and wrenching kicks almost at will in a display of surgical striking that Ray would never forget, and barely recover from. But he never gave up, even if it was obvious he could never win. He refused to go down, never took a knee, until the end when, after even his opponent was exhausted from delivering the beating, Ray sank to his haunches, bowing his battered, bleeding head in surrender. His eyes swollen shut, gaze cast downward, Ray never saw the display of respect he received from his opponent, who reared up to his fullest height, buried his right fist in his left hand, and bowed deeply before walking, gingerly, out of the alley.
            When Ray awoke, days later, in an unfamiliar bed, he first wondered if the fight had been just another dream; that he was back home in Boston. When he tried to lift his head from the soft pillow, burning pain radiated from the base of his skull throughout his body, all the way to his bruised feet. He knew the fight had been no dream. As he tried to deduce his location he sank
back into another series of feverish dreams, of combat, and of that leaking canoe, him aboard, enveloped by an eternal horizon.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Ray is throwing combinations again. Chuck counts the punches from the kitchen of their Ft. Lauderdale high-rise. Ray is in a deep slumber, on the far side of their luge living room on a recliner/lift chair facing the big screen TV, his back to the ocean view. From the combinations, Chuck can usually guess what fight his father is reliving: left cross - right jab - left uppercut - foot sweep; Chuck surmises he's fighting Trevor "Freight Train" Johnson. He's pretty sure it's the second round, the one in which he did the real damage. "Freight Train" surrendered on his stool before the third.
            Smoke is overwhelming the inadequate vent fan above the stove where a two-inch-thick steak sizzles. "Hey, Pop, you ready for your vitamins?" Chuck watches his father's quivering form. "Pop?" Part of him hates to wake him; part of him wishes he'd never wake up. Chuck has been a willing prisoner of this penthouse penitentiary, even as he plays the role of warden. It strikes him as ironic, until he realizes that's probably how most prison wardens feel, living on prison grounds. The old man has been descending, in fits and starts, toward what Chuck can only imagine will be a short, fatal stay in an adult care facility. He knows that will be the end for him. By the last days of a wasted two-week attempt at in-patient physical therapy ten months earlier, the one before Melanie left him, Ray didn't even know what state he was in. He gave his father a month in an old folks home before he'd die.
            When he wanted to give his old man credit, Chuck supposed he could believe that he became so abusive toward Melanie, his third wife, to spare her this. When he'd met her, she was an accountant with his management team. He had been divorced once, and had barely survived the calamitous final fight of his career. They stayed married for 17-years until she just couldn't take his cruelty anymore. He told her to take half of everything and scram. She did.
            Chuck won the job of taking care of the ex-champ by default, and only then did he really appreciate how many balls Melanie had been juggling. From submitting bills to the insurance companies, paying the taxes and disability for the aides, Taking Care of Pop had grown into a small business. Chuck knew he was dropping some of those balls, but he did his best to stay on top of the unending stream of paperwork and bills. That Ray’s two other children ("fruit of my loins," as he liked to call his progeny) never helped a bit didn't trouble Chuck. They had families, jobs, responsibilities, and were far across the country. It made perfect, excruciating sense that Chuck was the one who'd preside over his father's protracted demise. He was the one who followed him into the "family business." That his fighting career had been a bust was undeniable: six pro fights, three wins, one draw. He'd tried coaching, but his failures loomed too large in his own heart to permit him the fantasy that he had anything to offer the up-and-comers who trained at his dad's gym. And he would ever forgive himself for allowing Ray to get into the ring that one, last time. So what else was there for him but to become his father's caretaker; his "keeper," as Ray liked to call him in his increasingly common fits of pique. Chuck takes the steak out of a cast-iron pan, laying it to rest on a wooden cutting board.
            He grabs a zipper-lock bag with vitamins, blood thinners, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, blood pressure, thyroid and anti-seizure medication; his evening dose of pills. Filling a short plastic glass with water from the freezer door, he shouts over the blare of the TV. "Time for vitamins, Pop!" He shouts again as he nears his father, laid out on the leather lift chair. "Here ya go, Pop! Vitamins, then steak and potatoes!"
            The old man stirs. "How 'bout some Svedka? Ya know, I learned to love Svedka when I was training for my first title shot.. Couldn't even get it here in the States..."
"That too, Pop, That too. All in good time." He scoops five pills at a time into a plastic soup spoon and dumps them in his father's open mouth. Strands of saliva stretch across the void.
"Here' ya go," says Chuck as he brings the plastic cup within range of Ray's faltering grasp. He watches as the old man's trembling hand struggles to bring the cup to his lips, and tilt the water into his mouth. It takes at least thirty seconds before he manages a sip. Chuck brings the spoon and the empty bag back to the kitchen.
            Ray eats from a tray secured to his lift chair. Chuck sits at the dining table 40-feet away, the better to employ his knife and fork. He's already cut Ray's food for him.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Charles Anthony Lydon was born to Ray and his first wife Alice while Ray was fighting in Southeast Asia. Kick-boxing was still barely even a novelty in the States then, and Alice and "Cal," as she called him, an acronym of his initials, maintained a home base in Somerville, Massachusetts, in a two bedroom apartment in a "triple decker" in the shadow of Route 93. Ray came home to meet his first-born son, then departed two weeks later for another series of
fights. Alice died in a car crash before he would return. Chuck (his father could never bear to utter the name Cal again) had been un-restrained in a play-pen set up in the "back-back" of the Country Squire, and survived without a scratch. Ray missed the funeral, and remarried eight
weeks later, to a widow with one daughter from Cambridge. The next ten years would be hell for the champ's son.
            The stepmother, Annika, was an angry drunk. Chucky provided the perfect canvas for her expression. She'd shriek profanities relating to his shortcomings as she'd lift him by his ankles, bouncing his head off the oak floors of the Somerville walk-up. She'd stuff his face in the downstairs toilet, and pull the lever. He'd float away and above himself then, observing, as if the abuse was being meted out to someone else. Fortunately, Chucky had learned to swim before this particular treatment began; he knew enough to slowly exhale so as not to take in the toilet water.  All things being equal, he preferred the days she'd lock him in the hall closet.
            In time, Chuck learned to entertain. Stepmother, teachers, classmates; all were potential threats that could be diverted with a well-timed quip or facial expression. He didn't realize it then, but the elements of his ever-sharpening wit - his impressions, his ability to form a quick one-liner and deliver it without giving offense - these were the weapons in his own arsenal. Ray may have had his jab, his uppercut, his roundhouse kick; Chuck had a nimble mind.
 
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
 
            Ray's rise through the ranks of the Muay Thai world was neither easy nor smooth. It took over a month to recover from the gruesome beating he took in the alley. He was spoon-fed by strangers for the first week. He later learned that the boys bringing soup to his lips were doing so against their will. Feeding the farang was a punishment, like cleaning the toilets or mopping blood from the canvas floor of the ring.
            He wasn't sure how long he'd been there when he became aware of the same scrawny old man sitting in a corner of his room, past the foot of his bed and the open window with its billowing white curtain that obscured his presence. But he certainly noticed when the
man rose, seemingly out of nowhere, to send one of  his feeders packing with a smack when he started throwing spoonfuls of food in Ray's face.
"You are worth ten of him," the man told Ray as he took the chastened kid's place and resumed Ray's feeding. "But you have much to learn." His english pronunciation was impeccable. "I am
Master Bo." When Ray responded with an outstretched hand and a croak, "Ray Lydon," the old man seemed surprised, and pleased. He lay down the spoon and gently grasped Ray's bruised hand. "Pleased to meet you, Ray Lydon." He let Ray’s hand fall from his own and returned to the feeding. "Now you must eat. Then rest. Great things await you, but not today." Ray soon lapsed back into his turbulent sleep.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
            The wireless electric doorbell rings in the Fort Lauderdale penthouse. "Come on in Ben," Chuck rises from a low-slung leather seat beside his sleeping father's chair. "He seems to have calmed down now. He was really swingin' about an hour ago. I think it was the Monrovia fight in '74. Five rounds. Broke his jaw in the third. KO'ed some Korean with a minute left. Just a bloodbath."
            Benedict, a Nigerian kid, compactly muscular, polite almost to the point of obsequiousness, smiles and nods. "He is a great man with man great memories to live over
again." Chuck shrugs, and presses the button to raise his still groggy father to his feet.
"Funny, he only remembers the stuff from the ring. He can't even name his own children."
Between the two of them, Chuck and Benedict coax, chide and just plain muscle the old man into a wheelchair. Both know it's just a matter of months before the Champ would be unable to walk at all. Chuck leaves the really intimate cleaning chores to the professional, stepping in only to hold the old man up as his ass is washed, or as his three layers of diapers and absorbent pads are fastened. Another wrestling match gets the 300-pounder into bed.
"I wanna go home" Ray moans.
"You are home, Dad," replies a weary Chuck.
"This is NOT my home." Ray’s voice seems to rattle the hurricane windows. "I live in Somerville, Massachusetts. And you are NOT my son."
Chuck sighs, tired and depressed. "Who am I, then?" Ray opens his eyes wider than they'd been all night. "You're my brother."
Chuck doesn't even have the energy to torture the old man, as he would some days, with a quiz about where he was, or in what year they were or what state, which would inevitably leave his father tight-lipped and confused.
"Okay dad, get some sleep."  Chuck walks down the hall, leaving Benedict to the details of which light to leave on, and gathering the shit-stained wipes to bring to the garbage chute.
            Chuck pours himself three fingers of bourbon and ads three curved ice "cubes" from the freezer's ice-maker. He turns the giant flat screen back on and absently travels up and down the guide before settling on a reality show about a woman tattoo artist.  In no time he's reliving his version of the old days, thinking about the rescue that saved his life.
            After the divorce from his second, child-abusing wife, Ray sent the kids to boarding schools as he travelled the world looking for fights. For Chuck, he settled on Cushton Academy,
a top-notch prep school in north-central Massachusetts. It was there where Chuck first encountered role models, men and women, who were respected for their intelligence and wit; emulated for their kindness and generosity - not for brawling, might-makes-right bravado.  It was the place where, still too deep in the midst of his trauma to qualify as suffering from post-traumatic stress, Chuck stepped haltingly from his protective shell. Where he learned to trust
others and believe in himself. Where he learned he could excel even while risking, even courting, failure. And where he learned there were far worse things than not winning. Not trying, for instance. It was one of the few decisions about his son the Champ had gotten right. Chuck had to give him credit for that. Chuck settled on wrestling as his "main" sport. Lacrosse and soccer filled his springs and autumns. But wrestling, with its individualistic essence; the knowledge that the only one to blame for his mistakes was himself, helped him focus his energies like no other sport. He had played lacrosse far longer, but was still not sure sometimes where he should be on the field. With wrestling, the coaches drilled you on the moves, and you mastered them or you didn't. Everyone would see it. In just a couple of years, Chuck had been elected Varsity team Captain and made the podium in a tough league. But he would never be another Ray Lydon. Not even close. Chuck thought about his father's path to the top of the heap, and managed to feel sympathy for the mean old bastard.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            After about ten days in bed, 16-year old Ray Lydon was permitted to make his way around the Dojo that had claimed him from the streets. Its name, hissed at him by a student
clearly annoyed to have been interrupted by so unworthy a piece of flotsam, translated roughly into English as "Joyously Embrace the Battle," and was built into a hillside about three miles outside Bangkok. There was a central, open-air ring protected from the sun by a thatched roof extending at least ten feet beyond the ropes. It was supported by four ancient posts, hewn from four single trees, bearing the dents and scars of generations of punches and kicks. Three
buildings embraced the ring's north, east and western sides, with the southern end of the complex open to the dramatic view of the city beyond. The sturdy but simple house at the head of the ring had seven steps leading to a  broad porch with a central doorway. It was here where Master Bo and his subordinates resided, and where to his astonishment Ray had been housed during his recuperation. To the east stood the dormitory, filled with rickety bunks bearing sawdust-filled mattresses and single crates for each student's possessions. The western building housed the kitchen and dining hall. A single water pump stood in the corner between the kitchen and the Masters' house.
            As a new student and beginner at organized fighting, Ray had been assigned the bunk farthest from the entrance, closest to the toilet that hovered over an open pit at the dormitory's rear. His chores included cleaning that primitive privy, and to rake out the pit's contents when its drainage path was blocked. He embraced those duties with vigor, surprising the toughs that populated the dorm with his willingness to shoulder any job with his head high.
            At first, Ray's presence was tolerated, just barely, by the other sleek, sinewy boys and men who battled, ate and played within the confines of the dojo. But their disdain was kept in check for two very good reasons. Camp champion Kane, who had beaten Ray so mercilessly in
the street, was the one who had brought him to the attention of Master Bo. Under the protection of Kane and the elderly Master, no one dared to pour pepper sauce in his fish head soup or rig his bunk to collapse as they did to other newcomers. But they were permitted; encouraged even, to take out their contempt for the round-eye in one place only: the ring. And they happily obeyed. In a defensive drill called "shark bait," one student after another, from the smallest to biggest, would take their turns throwing blows or kicks. The job of the man at the center of this
maelstrom was to successfully block, dodge, or preemptively disarm each attack. In the early days of training Ray suffered the ignominy of getting knocked out of the drill by some of the littlest children in the place. Even Kane had joined in the derisive laughter of his fellow students.  But Ray took his disgrace as a lesson, motivating him to learn the ways of  discipline, focus and sacrifice. Within a year he was ready to challenge Kane for primacy of the Dojo.
            The relationship between them was more complex than the surface indicated. Kane certainly protected Ray as a big brother would his younger sibling. In fact Kane's blood brother, the one who had started the fight with Ray in the first place, never got over the sense that he was supplanted by another boy; a white one at that. He left the dojo soon after Ray's arrival and disappeared into the whirlpool of iniquity that was always waiting outside its gates.
            But there had developed a much stronger bond than that of adopted brother and his protector. Though Ray never learned much Thai besides the basic ring instructions (i.e. Fight - chok, Punch - mat, Elbow - sawk, Knee - khao, Kick - dtae, etc), he learned to read Kane's eyes for insight into the events around him. A simple raised eyebrow was enough to sit Ray down
when he was rising to meet a challenge from a jealous training partner. If a master witnessed the insult, and Ray's refusal to take the bait, the offender would be punished. They shared an
intimacy that was never expressed physically, but was tender nonetheless. They also had to fight.
            For six months, Ray had been traveling with the Dojo's best, taking on the cream of the many area dojos in the region. At first, Master Bo won great sums, trotting out his "round-eyed wonder," and watching him annihilate his overconfident opponents. Eventually word spread about Ray, and he continued to bring honor (and money) to his dojo, never losing, never hitting
the canvas in a dozen bouts. Kane was similarly successful fighting more seasoned competition. But in a recent bout, not far from the alley where he discovered Ray, his 42-fight win streak crashed to a halt with a dislocated kneecap from a clearly illegal (to all but the referee) blow to the joint. It took the sight of the venerated Master Bo himself, assuming a fighting stance in front of his fighters, to clear a path to safety through the ensuing melee.
            Back at the dojo, the good news was that the trainer/healers found no evidence of structural damage. The patella had been forced back into position shortly after the escape from the fighting den, and a full recovery was predicted. But the rules of the dojo were clear and incontrovertible: Any fighter who suffered a defeat was required to defend his position on the ladder against the next highest ranked teammate. And the next fighter was required to make that challenge. Kane was ranked first. Ray was next in line.
            Their challenge bout was held six weeks after Kane's knee injury, and he had been able to train at full speed for almost two weeks. The ring was surrounded by every member of the little society on the hill. Cooks and dishwashers wagered on everything from how many rounds it
would last to who would land the first punch and kick. Master Bo stood at the center of his porch, arms crossed, solid as the ancient posts supporting the ring’s thatched roof.
            Inside the ropes, Ray was besieged by doubt. He had no interest in beating his friend, though he was confident he was capable of doing so. He knew Kane was a powerful man; it was only a little over a year since he had beaten Ray to a pulp in Farang Alley. But Ray knew Kane's deepest secret: partial blindness in his left eye. It limited his peripheral vision, leaving him open to a well-timed punch or kick from his opponent's right. It was the kind of weakness that, if known, could be fatal. Ray was one of only a handful of people who knew. Ray patted himself
on the abdomen, enjoying the 30-pounds of sinewy muscle he had developed thanks to intense exercise and a healthy, protein-rich diet. Should he exploit the weakness, and in so doing, divulge the secret? Was it possible that the masters expected him to do so, looking for a new lion to lead their pack? Ray decided that he would fight, and defeat, his dearest friend without capitalizing on his knowledge of his friend's Achilles heel.
            Kane had other plans. He came out in a whirling onslaught of spinning kicks and back-hands, fighting with an urgency none of the assembled witnesses could recall seeing from their champion in years. Ray was accustomed to a more patient, probing style from his mentor, and was caught off guard. When Kane landed a powerful kick to Ray's right ribcage, it as all Ray could do to trap the leg in the crook of his arm to gain a moment's rest and clear his head. He attempted to sweep Kane's back foot, but dropped his head within range of a powerful uppercut that landed flush on his chin. Stunned, Ray only regained awareness of his surroundings after having sunk to one knee. He managed a strategic retreat for the rest of the first round, blocking
most of what Kane sent his way, landing a few tepid blows meant mostly to maintain a safe space between himself and savage opponent.
            Back in his corner, the boy assigned to tend to him implored him. "Chok! Chok" "Yeah, Fight. No shit," Ray took a mouthful of water and spit it out. It was red as wine. "Shit." He reinserted his mouthpiece and rose for the second round.
            Round two began like the first, but Ray was better prepared for the barrage. He focussed on his footwork, feinting and bobbing, managing to end up where Kane's fists weren't; throwing the occasional tenderizer to Kane’s ribs and liver. He could sense frustration working its way into Kane's psyche. The older fighter began throwing haymakers that missed and left him off-balance
and vulnerable to counters from Ray, who was only too happy to oblige. After two rounds, Ray was a bloody mess, but Kane was fading. The tide turned in the fourth, when Ray landed yet another crushing blow just below Kane's sternum. Now it was the mentor's turn to drop, taking a knee as his body and brain struggled to reestablish communication. After the fifth, the medical trainer visited Ray's corner to make clear to that he was on borrowed time. The referee was ready to stop the fight if Ray took much more abuse. Ray knew what he had to do.
            He came out with a steady series of lefts to his taller foe's ribs, from just above his pelvis to his armpit. He dodged most of Kane's reposts, and just as he loaded up for one more left, sensed Kane turning to block it. That's when Ray took what he knew would be his last shots of the bout. As Kane turned to protect his right ribs, Ray suddenly turned and spun, delivering a crippling kick to the left side of Kane's head. With his partially blind eye, Kane didn't see it coming until it was too late. Ray followed the kick with a sharp right hook. He saw Kane's eyes roll back, and bowed slightly before spinning to return to his corner. He heard his friend hit the canvas without turning to see it. Tears rolled from both eyes as he waited for his stunned seconds to clamber into the ring.       
            Hours later, sitting with Kane, who was now resting in the masters' quarters in the same room in which Ray had been nursed back to health a year ago, Ray tried to apologize. He was still raw, physically and emotionally. As Kane was taken from the ring,  Ray's hand had been raised before a silent camp. Then, one by one, the 30-students climbed through the ropes to bow to their champion. It was his coronation. It felt like a wake. Now, Kane shook his head, waving off his apology with a handful of swollen knuckles. Master Bo appeared in the doorway.
"You fought with courage today. Ask yourself. Do you think Kane would apologize to you if your situations were reversed?"
"But, Master," Ray spoke softly, head bowed. "It was selfish of me to take advantage of a secret weakness. It was..." Ray's shoulders rose as he inhaled deeply, fighting back a sob. "It was cowardly."
"No!" Kane lifted his head from his pillow. "Not coward. Courage!"
Master Bo patted his shoulder, and the he lay back down.
"This was your graduation day. Today you became a fighter. You faced defeat. You turned it to victory. We must do what it takes to survive. One does not find honor by hobbling one's self. You find it in defeating doubt; by overcoming fear; by using your training to its fullest. Today was your greatest test. I knew this. Kane knew this. Now you know: honor your opponent by doing your best. If you hold back, you make both of you..." he searched for the word. "Smaller? Do you understand?"
Ray looked at his friend, who lifted his head and stared back through blackened eyes. "I think so, Master..." He saw Kane drop his head on the pillow, tension leaving his body as the penny dropped. "But Master, I never wanted... this. I never wished to be the top man."
Master Bo smiled, his long white beard illuminated in the gloaming.
"That is a good thing, because you can never lead this dojo. Your fate lies beyond these walls. You came to us from the wider world, and it is to that world which you belong."
Ray sensed the truth of his master's words before he finished uttering them.
"Then why..?” Master Bo patted his shoulder in a way that reminded Ray of his father.
"Why did we bring you here in the first place? Why did we train you as we did? Why did you have to fight your only friend in the world?"
Ray could only manage to squeeze a strangled, "Yes," through the sob welling up in his throat.
Master Bo continued. "Do you know why we brought your here? When Kane came to me, ashamed of tarnishing our house by beating an untrained foe, I could see that you must have been a special fighter. To erase the harm done to our honor, I sought to give you the training that you lacked. We provided you a home, food, even friendship, because we owed all of these to you. Today's fight was the final payment of our debt to you. You have honored us as a fine student, and we have honored you like a son. But now it is time for you to go.
"But Master, where will I go? I have no home but this school."
"This school is no longer your home. We have packed this sack for you. It contains clothes, shoes, some food and a little money. It is enough to start a life." With a slight bow, Master Bo solemnly handed Ray a silken pack, then ushered him to Kane's bedside. "Greet our newest Master, and say good bye."
            Suppressing a sob, Ray bowed deeply before his friend. "Master Kane, you honor me." His battered friend managed to rise up onto one elbow.
"Honor yourself as you have honored this place, and all you have been given will be repaid. Go now, friend. You must never return."
With another solemn bow to Master Bo, Ray turned to leave the structure. What he saw as he stepped into the late afternoon sun took his breath away.
            All the students, Masters, cooks and cleaners stood in two lines facing each other on either side of his path;  somber sign of great respect. Ray thought he might prefer to take
physical blows than endure the wrenching farewells from those who had become his brothers and role models. As he passed the men, each bowed deep and long. Some cried openly. Ray managed to maintain his own silence, but felt tears, first hot, then cooled by the evening breeze, flow freely down his cheeks as he proceeded, head high. He didn't dare look back as he exited the open gate and heard its bamboo doors squeal shut behind him. He was on his own. Again. 
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
           
            Chuck has been watching his father, what's left of him, writhing in his leather lift chair. He's pretty sure he knows which battle this shell of a man is reliving in his dream. Four or five successive twitches of his left pectoral muscle, followed by a ducking of the head and the rapid-fire contraction of his right thigh. It's a series he's seen many times. The old man stirs from his semi consciousness.
"Kane again, huh Pop?"
The former champ grunts. "I got him good, didn't I?"
"So I've heard, Pop. I wasn't there yet. Wasn't even born. I wasn't even a glint in your eye back then." Chuck knows what will come next.
"You're not my son."
"Okay Pop." Chuck foregoes the futile argument over his parentage. In times past he would, spiting his father by forcing him to confront his own confusion. Lately, he just doesn't have the desire. He knows the words aren't meant in rebuke; his father genuinely doesn't remember Chuck
is his son. Sometimes he's an extra brother, others an imaginary aunt's kid. But the words still pack a punch. You're not my son. They weigh nothing, yet still have cutting power.
            Chuck recalls the day he realized his father was different from other dads. He was still a kid, attending public school with his siblings on Boston's North Shore. It was the early 1990s and ESPN aired a piece about a fast-growing, still controversial sport largely unknown to Americans; Muay Thai, or Thai Kick Boxing. They included a short feature about an "American Master Making Waves" in the sport. Over grainy films of head-kick knock-outs and blood-soaked canvases, Ray "Thumper" Lydon was described as an alternately savage, gentle, articulate practitioner of a brutal sport. Though his father was well past his prime, Chuck had been proud of the portrayal. But he soon was made aware that others, particularly the parents of his playmates, took away a very different view. He was engaged in an argument over nothing with one of his best friends; one with whom he fought, and made up, often. This time, though, his friend's father burst out the front door, red-faced.
"You don't scare us, young man!" His face was contorted and spittle flew from his lips. "And we're not afraid of grown men who kick when they fight, either. You tell your big shot dad that if he has a problem with that, he can throw his sissy kicks at my Colt .38 Special! Now get off my
property!"
Chuck felt his face burning with a mix of embarrassment and anger. He looked to his friend, who had moved to his father's side, for reassurance that their friendship was still safe. All
he received was a middle finger. Even then, a sixth grader, Chuck knew that they were afraid. And that made him proud.
            Chuck is brought back to present day by his father's croaking voice.
"I wanna cocktail!”
“You've already had your cocktail, Pop. Almost bedtime."
"No it isn't almost bedtime, and go get me my cocktail!"
His father's voice still has the power to jolt Chuck, though the fear behind the shock has been long-gone. Replaced by revulsion and pity. Mostly revulsion. But even his revulsion is diluted by his sense, if not of guilt, of responsibility. He knows he, and a few members of Ray's inner circle bear the stain of complicity in how Ray has come to this state. If only I'd have spoken up in time. Instead, they let him take the beating that, no matter what the doctors say, Chuck believes landed his father in this condition.
"Okay Pop. One Svedka, rocks, on the way."
"Less rocks, more Svedka."
"As always, dear father."
"I am NOT your father!"
"Okay Pop." Chuck opens the freezer and reaches for the vodka.
​            It didn't take "Thumper" Lydon long to find his footing in his new life. It turned out that master Bo had informed a trusted fight promoter of Ray's impending freedom, and after spending
one night in a Bangkok flop-house Ray was awakened by a boisterous voice moving from room to room, calling out his name. "Ray Lydon! Ray Lydon!Where is Ray Lydon?"Ray opened the hollow door to his steamy room. "What? Who is it?" Ray wasn't hung over, but he could've used
another hour's sleep to bury the effects of the previous night's Mekhong rum.
"Ah, so you're the famous Thumper I've been hearing about!" 
The sun, not quite at full height, shone across the room and through the gaping doorframe, illuminating the man's face. Scars ran from the corners of his mouth all the way to his ears, and his right eye drooped weakly. At first glance he had the face of the utterly defeated. But he had the swagger and stance of man unburdened by doubt or fear. Not necessarily a fool, thought Ray, but maybe.  He reached out his hand.
"Ray Lydon. Who the fuck are you?"
"I, the fuck, am Aaron Livingtree, promoter extraordinaire and all-around man about town."
Ray straightened up. He’d heard of Livingtree's reputation as a man who made money for his fighters; who would literally shed his own blood for them.
"Oh, captivated by my winning grin, are you? My 'Saigon smile'? Well, my friend, I got this a long time ago. May 10th, 1973, to be exact. A coupla months after the Yanks pulled out of the 'Nam. I was promoting four of my boys in a Quonset hut at a port just across the river, south of
Saigon. My guys won, but the Man didn't want to pay. Well, I got the money and my boys got out, and I got this as ah, shall we say," his working left eye lit up and he smiled broadly, heightening the effect of his mutilation. “this bonus!" He laughed sharply. "'Course, they call it Ho Chi Minh City now, but I'll stick with 'Saigon Smile.’ Ho Chi Min City Smile’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it!” He peered up at Ray with a crooked grin that accentuated the
droopy eye and garish slashes to his cheeks. "And that's all we will have to say on that front, okay my boy?"
Ray stepped aside to allow him in. "I never asked," he muttered, mostly to himself.
            It was his days under Livingtree that established Ray as a force in the broader fighting world, though he remained effectively anonymous in his home country. He became known as a canny fighter with a cast-iron chin, able to take the worst anyone had to give and come out on top in the end. It was Livingtree who arranged trips to the States in the early 1980s, setting up exhibitions and winner-take-all tournaments that were often illegal but extremely popular in many west coast cities and Pennsylvania and in the Southeast. It was on one of these trips, to Alabama, that Ray met and married his first wife, Alice. She was the married mother of a four-year old girl, working full-time to support her and a slob common-law husband who didn't see the point of both spouses holding down jobs. Ray saw her in the kitchen of the high school where the event was held. Tall and athletic, she had played basketball in college for the two years she could afford to stay. By the end of the night she had packed up her kid and headed to Las Vegas, where Ray "Thumped" another hapless opponent and added a wife and a stepdaughter to his entourage. 
            If his wife's sudden death had any effect on Ray, no one could tell. Tongues wagged when he re-married eight weeks later, but he needed someone to watch his kid. Alice’s daughter was reclaimed by her father and never heard from again. Ray was on the road a week later. Annika moved the family to Ipswich a few months later. It was there, with Chuck as their target, where her internal demons found their full range of expression.
 
 
            The fires of home, whether those of a child's hell or of a wholesome hearth, held no attraction to Ray. Already in his 30s, he was getting old for a fighter, particularly a practitioner of his sort of combat. As the '80s waned, opportunities to fight in the US were opening up. Some states even allowed their athletic commissions to certify what they were now calling "mixed-martial arts" bouts. Ray envisioned a few big paydays and then retirement, to Vegas or Florida. But Livingtree argued a more conservative (and so far profitable) course. He believed Ray would profit more fighting a few more years in Southeast Asia, with strategic appearances in Japan and the US. He was worried by the rising influence of the Gracie family's style of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, with its devastating and incomprehensible holds that could snap an opponent's arm or detach a tendon in the blink of an eye. Ray had no "ground game," and they both knew it. But Ray believed he could keep the Brazilians at a safe distance, and break them with his blows. Ray and Livingtree parted ways in 1990 on respectful, if not amicable, terms.
            Of course, Livingtree had been right. As "MMA" gained traction, the Brazilian vale tudo (anything goes) fighters and shoot wrestlers dominated the field. Unrepresented, Ray practically had to beg for a shot at the new organizations holding tournaments across the USA. In 1995 in Mississippi, he broke his back against the eventual champion of a new promotion that would rise to mainstream sport stardom. "Thumper" Lydon was sure he'd be left behind.
            In traction at Boston General Hospital, Ray had lots of time to stew in a bog of self-pity. He had some savings; decent investments, thanks to Livingtree. He could afford to retire. But he realized he wasn't ready to quit. The fire that burned so hot in that alley in Bangkok was burning
 
 
still, even if, perhaps, a little yellow had creeped into the blue flame. He considered his mistakes. Training hadn't failed him. He was still as manic in the gym as he was in his youth. No one could
keep up with him there. He hadn't gone soft, having kept his skirt-chasing and boozing and drugging to what he considered moderate levels. He had done everything he needed to do, but it hadn’t been enough. He knew he couldn't become a ground game expert; he was just too old. Until recently, his basic high school wrestling experience had been enough for him to get by when it came to grappling. But he knew that what he lacked was the right defense for the times. If he couldn't learn the new tricks, perhaps he could at least learn to defend against them. If he could draw the grapplers in, then turn their aggressiveness against them, he might have a fighting chance. Thus was born the last glorious flash of Ray Lydon's career. He knew he didn't have long, but he would make the most of what time he had left. He simply loved fighting.
            There was something about the pain of the first blow (but it wasn't pain; more of a shock, really. The pain usually came later) that motivated Ray in a way that words never could. It sharpened his focus and awakened his mind to the myriad techniques at his disposal. And the sight of his own blood; the metallic taste and smell of it, triggered the release of some primordial power that enabled his muscles to work harder even as his body was drained of the medium that carried fuel to them. Thus it was that cut and bruised he was at his best. He felt joy in the full extension of a front kick to the jaw of his opponent; reveled in the transition to a flying back-kick. It was as if he were playing music; body his instrument. In fact, in his best moments, he’d often hear a favorite song or another in his mind as he went about his art. He became aware, he believed, of every fiber of every muscle in his body, savoring the knowledge that his training had rendered him as strong, as flexible and quick a weapon as he possibly could be. He had learned early
 
never to stop moving. In the rare times he found himself in the clinch, or djab ko, he probed for weaknesses in his foe's technique; his balance or footwork under pressure. When he received
a blow, he analyzed his own body position, the distance from his opponent, his follow-through, to make sure that shot wouldn't breach his defense again. He took a lot of shots, and meted out many more. And he loved it. He came to relish the feeling of oxygen depletion, somehow maintaining his poise and throwing kicks and punches even as he felt himself on the verge of unconsciousness. It sometimes felt as if he weren't fighting a man, but all the forces of nature; all men. Those moments, when he felt used up and battered, and still managed to resist the Siren of surrender, were when he felt most alive. But they exacted a great price. Ray would pay for every euphoric moment with years of confusion. For every ecstatic victory came the bill, years down the line; dulled wits, infirmity, dementia. In his later, rare lucid moments Ray would bemoan the number of shots he endured in his pursuit of the prize. But he also knew no one could have convinced him back then, when he was lean and lithe and deadly as a panther, to fight more defensively today lest he end up slow and dim as the weakest prey in the herd tomorrow. If his later condition carried with it any blessing it was that such moments of self-awareness were few, and instantly forgotten. 
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            "Bedtime, Dad," Chuck gently shakes his father's right shoulder until he rouses from whatever half-sleep revery he had disappeared into. Today's 11pm aide, Andrea tonight, has arrived for the overnight shift. Chuck had already set up the collection of metal contraptions
 
required to move him this late, after a few drinks: his walker, used to get him up from his lift chair, and the wheelchair to transport him to the bathroom for his nighttime ablutions.
"What's all this crap? I don't need that!” Ray is indignant.
Chuck replies, weary, "Yeah, Dad, except you do, so, let's just get it done, okay."
"I am NOT your father."
"Then who am I to you?” Chuck reaches behind the old man to wrap a lifting belt around his waist.
"You're my brother."
"You didn't have a brother. You were an only child, remember? As best as we know, anyway."
"Bullshit."
"Okay, okay. Now one, two, three...UP!" Chuck and Andrea pull Ray to his feet, and with the help of the walker coach him forward until there's room to slip the wheelchair behind him. Ray collapses into the chair with a moan.
"What hurts, Dad?" Chuck doubts anything hurts; his father, the terror of countless fighting rings and cages around the world, is a classic Munchausen case.
            After 40-minutes of the familiar abuse and cries from imaginary pain, the champ is in bed and Chuck can relax. Drink a drink of his own. Bourbon. Zone out in front of the 70-inch flatscreen watching miners battle for the scraps of gold left behind by Alaskan mining concerns who couldn't be bothered a hundred years ago. Or a skinny Texan with slicked back hair and his brilliant, long-bearded sidekick buying, creating and flipping bad-ass hotrods. They've created their own "things", and succeeded. Chuck likes that; wonders if he'd ever have the gumption. He drifts off in the bourbon's warm embrace.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            After prep school, Chuck went to Lehigh University, under the grandest of misconceptions that his 4th place finish in a tough New England prep school league, with his
captaincy and selection as MVP of his team, qualified him for the big-time of college wrestling. It took a week of practice to disabuse him of his dreams (and that's all they were; he had nowhere near the focus and drive of those division one studs). He also discovered he liked beer, and was apparently, to his surprise, attractive to women. Boxing, while something he had done well as a young kid, was never his favorite. But when a local bar advertised a tough guy tournament over Thanksgiving break, he signed up. Even through the beer and the coeds, Chuck had kept in shape. He ran early in the freezing mountain air because he liked the solitude, and it helped clear the sticky beer cobwebs from his brain. He lifted weights because, well, he always had. For the first time in years he was eating normally, not starving to make weight. By the time of the tournament we was a solid 190-pounds. He fought under an assumed name; no use bringing his
father's fame into this. As “Chuk Atoms” he knocked out his first three opponents, drunk kids on dares, probably, in under a combined two minutes. In the semi-finals, he had to work a little longer, laying out a 240-pound football player and crowd favorite early in the second round. The worst blow he took was from a beer bottle thrown after that fight. In the finals, nursing an egg-sized mouse on the back of his head, he faced a ringer. The guy was the top man at the local boxing club, and had sparred at Kronk gym in Detroit. Chuck kept his distance, jabbing and dancing, looking for an opening. But this guy knew how to cut off the ring, taking away territory, step by
 
 
 step. Chuck decided to launch an attack before he got boxed into a corner, and unleashed a flurry of hooks and crosses. He dropped his head, and a counterpunch glanced off the knot on the back of his skull. It split open, and blood flowed down his back and into the hollows of his clavicles. Chuck stepped back as the crowd began chanting something he couldn't quite make out at first. “Red-Neck! Red-Neck!” The fans cheered the blood, now painting his neck like a scarf. They'd found a new favorite, an underdog with a blood-red neck. Thus, a prep-school educated Lehigh University student from Boston's comfortable North Shore became known as "Red Nek Chuk.” The outcome of the bout was never in doubt. But "Red Nek" gave them a show, lasting the full three rounds, bloodied, battered, but on this night, anyway, beloved. He quit school before Christmas and hit the road.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            "Thumper" Ray Lydon's rebirth as a fighter took about as long as the gestation period of a rabbit. That his new team logo featured a take on Walt Disney's famed bunny, with a cartoon
sledgehammer instead of a big foot, was, according to his camp, strictly coincidental. By the time Disney's lawyers caught wind of the obvious trademark violation, Ray was retired. But the one month he spent in intense training, not to master the ground game but to defend against it, made him a new fighter. His breakthrough bout came a year to the day after his back was broken, in the final round of a tournament in Alameda, California. Facing a foe who claimed to have trained with the Gracies (which turned out to be false; he was trained by a man who was fired by the Gracies), Ray was taken to the mat in the opening minute. He managed to fight off, in quick
 
succession, an arm bar and a rear naked choke; got back to his feet, and delivered three thunderous body punches and a knee to the chin of his opponent, who was out before he even
started to fall. The win was Ray's ticket back into prime time. After two more convincing undercard victories, he was named to fight in a co-main event at Brendan Byrne Arena, in New Jersey. He was 39.
            As Ray put the finishing touches on his reborn career, Chuck was coming to grips with the fact that, as a fighter, his future was limited. "Red Nek" Chuk Atoms joined a gym outside Boston. He trained hard, but, he knew, not hard enough. Once again he lacked the focus and desire of his cohorts, and the talent that might otherwise have overcome his sloth. When he showed up for training sober, but still rank with the previous night's whiskey, his trainer delivered an ultimatum. Get serious or get out. Chuck considered it for about a minute, and cleaned out his locker. "Red Nek" Chuk ended his fighting career with a winning record and no future.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Ray set up training camp in a little place called Harmony, Maine; rented out a former hunting camp, built by wealthy New Yorkers during the Gilded Age. The original owners had even built a now-disused rail spur leading to the property, which now consisted of a palatial main building overlooking Great Moose Lake, a huge barn and about a dozen cabins. From the 1960s through most of the '90s the place had served as a summer camp for rich kids. Downtown Harmony consisted of a combination convenience store/post office and a few homes housing a dozen-or-so year-long residents.
 
 
            A cold wind was whistling through the birches when Chuck hopped out of a warm taxi at the post office to ask directions. The door resisted his efforts to push his way in, before giving
way with a groan. A bell mounted atop it rang as he stepped inside. Snacks and staples seemed to overflow from shelves stacked almost to the low, water-stained suspended ceiling, giving the place a claustrophobic feel. Chuck turned to the counter. Behind it was a bank of mailboxes,
flanked by cigarette and chewing tobacco displays. A heavy-set woman sat reading in a chair to one side. She didn't move when Chuck approached, ancient floor boards, worn beyond creaking, seeming to sigh as they gave way beneath his feet.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help me? Chuck smiled as he leaned on the counter. "I'm trying to find Camp Wild Moose..?"
The woman peered at him, over her reading glasses, above her book.
"Can't get theya from heya." She looked down at her book.
"Excuse me? I'm sorry, what did you say?"
She deadpanned, "You can't get theya from heya. Ya shoulda been heya yesterday."
Chuck felt himself getting anxious. "I'm sorry. I don't understand. What do you mean..."
"Ha! Just messin' with ya!" The woman sprang from her seat with surprising alacrity. "I got ya, too. Hook, line and evah-lovin' sinker! Didn't I?"
Chuck felt sheepish. "Well, I guess you did at that."
The woman put out her hand. "I'm Jane. This is my place. You're lookin' for Camp Wild Moose, ahr you?"
Chuck nodded in the affirmative as she release his hand and continued.
 
"Well, I been told not to tell anyone where Camp Wild Moose is. What do you think about that?"
Chuck started to answer, but Jane kept on.
"Course, I don't work for them, now, do I? Some big shot cage fighter training there, is what I hear. Well if ya ask me, I don't really care for that kind of ..."
"I'm his son." Chuck finally jumped into her verbal stream.
"What's that again?"
Chuck repeated himself. "Chuck Lydon. Nice to meet you."
Jane eyed him with what seemed to Chuck was a mix of suspicion and curiosity, as one might inspect a steak a couple of days past its sell-by date, or a two-headed goat. She spoke up.
"Well if you're his son and he's your father, how come you need me to give you directions?"
"He doesn't know I'm coming. It's a surprise."
She furrowed her hairless painted brow.
"A happy surprise, I hope.
Chuck grunted, "Well, we'll see, I guess."
"Well, I ain't supposed to give directions to nobody. They say I'm supposed to wave 'em off, send 'em packin'. But they ain't payin' my salary, ahr they?"
"I guess not," Chuck rubbed his chin-stubble nervously. "Have many come looking?"
"Nope. You're the first. She paused for a moment. "Well, you seem hahrmless enough..."
Chuck nodded as she directed him to the obscured turn-off to the camp.
"Now, don't you tell 'em old Jane sent you. You found the place on your own, y'hear?"
"Yes ma'am, and thank you." He shook her hand and turned to leave.
 
 
"All right then," she sighed. "All right then." Jane returned to her seat and her book as Chuck bounded down the wooden steps and across the frozen mud to his waiting cab.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Ray hated snow. His only memory of the stuff before he returned to the states was from childhood, and that had been so very long ago. A lifetime. He vaguely recalled shoveling the short driveway, making a few bucks digging out a neighbor or two. But mostly he remembered hating the cold; the way it snuck through the slightest opening to bite his flesh; burned his hands and cheeks.
"What is this, Rocky Frikkin' Four?" He almost fired his newest manager when they arrived just after an unexpected late autumn snowfall. "I tell you what: I am not shoveling a single fucking snowflake." He recalled a scene from the actual film. "And I'm not carrying any telephone poles across the frozen fucking tundra, either."
 The surprise six inches had melted in a couple of days, and Ray had come to enjoy his surroundings. He augmented his usual training methods with canoeing and rowing an old wooden boat.
"Good for your core," his manager had told him.
But, even with the accompaniment of a trainer or some hanger-on in a boat nearby, what Ray really enjoyed was the quiet. Out on the water, even when the wind was whipping whitecaps over the gunwale of the rowboat, he felt a sense of peace and solitude. It was almost akin to his days in Farang Alley. There, too, he was navigating untested, dangerous waters, but could find peace
 
 
in his solitary existence. He had a vague memory of a feeling, perhaps in a forgotten dream, of him in a small boat, rowing…
            When Chuck arrived at his camp, Ray was ambivalent. He was happy to see the kid; always was. But that jollity never seemed to last very long. Ray knew he was a lousy father,
especially to younger children. Once they could communicate and had some level of self-awareness, he was better with them. He knew that was probably because they could leave.
The truth was that Ray almost never thought about his kids, or his step-kids. Chuck was the only one that made any effort to stay in touch, but years could pass when Ray couldn't tell you where even he lived or what he was doing. As it worked out, their time at his training camp would probably be the most mutually enjoyable stretch in their lives.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            The sound of the penthouse door opening at 11am means the dayside aide, Ellen, has arrived. She's probably Ray's favorite; Jamaican, jovial, compact - he calls her Shorty - she
brooks no nonsense from the old Champ. She never gives in on any task, no matter how many windowpanes his thunderous voice might rattle. Daily battles over taking his pills, drinking his
water, standing up to get his ass washed always ended with him in the same state: medicated, hydrated, and clean. Chuck helps out where he can, disinfecting and making the bed, handing Ellen the supplies she needs. But mostly he's around to provide the muscle to get or keep his father on his feet, or transfer him to a chair. The champ is getting worse. Chuck wonders how long it’ll be before he stops walking altogether. He knows it will be a mixed blessing. It'll mean no more
 
wandering into crosswalks, no more sneaking to the freezer to chug some vodka. But it's also a defeat; another in a growing stack that marks the place of his surrender. His doctor has told
Chuck, "there's nothing killing him;" that he could live like this for many years. But Chuck doesn't recognize his father's current existence as any kind of life at all. Ray has parked himself at a green light and is waiting for it to turn red.
                                               
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Chuck told his cab driver to take a left at an unmarked, bough-covered entrance to a dirt road off the main drag.
"Where're we goin," the driver asked, "the Bat Cave?"
"Something like that." Chuck noticed the change in tire noise as dirt gave way to gravel about a quarter of a mile in. After several twists, the path opened onto a large parking area in front of a voluminous red board-and-batten barn. The cab from Waterville ended up costing him 65-dollars, leaving him without enough cash to return to the bus station, let alone to purchase a ticket.
Looks like I'm in this for the long haul, he thought as he threw his black duffle over his shoulder and took in the view. The familiar sounds of training emanated from the barn.
His glasses steamed over with the moisture of body heat and sweat as he slid open the big door at the front of the barn. He was met immediately by a young, muscular kid; shoulders back, chin up.
 
 
 
"Who you?" The kid was trying to be intimidating. Uncertainty in his eyes belied his bravura. Chuck decided against challenging him. He extended his right hand. "I'm Chuck Lydon. And that bad-ass up there," he pointed his chin toward the ring, where Ray was breaking the will of yet
another sparring partner, "is my father." The kid looked Chuck up and down before stepping past him and pulling the heavy door shut.
"We don't open this door. Too cold. Next time, use the side door. It goes into the office."
Surprised at the ease with which he allayed the young man's suspicions, Chuck walked toward the ring. It was set up in the back of the cavernous space. While the barn's exterior may have looked a hundred years old, inside it was almost new. Its broad floorboards looked fresh from the lumberyard, and were crisply mitered and tight-fitting. The walls were sheathed in beaded, naked pine. Several rows of painted benches were set up before the ring. There were no spectators this day, just a couple of up-and-comers brought in to help train Ray.
"Time!" Someone hollered as Ray's partner fell to one knee under a barrage of blows        
            Chuck thought he'd lay low for a while, and surprise his father once his sparring session was over. He tried to hear what the training staff was telling him as another palooka stepped through the ropes to replace the first. His dad looked fitter than Chuck ever remembered him. A sweat-sopped tee shirt clung to his muscled torso like wet paint. Suddenly, something seemed off. Ray was standing him his corner, when he became rigid, his whole body clenched tight. His eyes seemed to focus on the old hay loft in the rafters. His seconds became a protective wall as his trainer hissed.
"Ray. RAY! What's the matter, Ray? You in there?"
 
 
It ended as soon as it began. The men returned to rubbing his shoulders, massaging his arms, giving him water. But Chuck knew something very serious had just transpired, even as the men, and Ray himself, tried to hide it. The trainer waved off the latest human punching bag.
"Know what fellas? That's enough sparring for today. We don't wanna overload the Champ. Thanks for coming in. You can see Horace in the office for your pay. He placed a hand on the
back of the fresh sparring partner as he ducked under the ropes. "That goes for you, too, Tommy. Y'all come back tomorrow at ten, hear?" 
The men gathered their gym bags and pulled on sweatshirts as the kid who had greeted Chuck ushered them out a side door.
           Chuck rushed to ringside. "Dad, you all right?” His father, who had looked so powerful moments before, cast a weary glance at his son standing below. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but issued no sound. One of the men, whom Chuck assumed was his trainer, stepped between them.
"Who the hell is this boy? Who let him in here?" He glowered down at Chuck. "Who let you in here, homey?"
“That's my son." Ray rasped weakly. "He's okay." He sank onto a folding chair that had been shoved into the ring.
Chuck noticed the trainer was still staring at him. "What's wrong with my father? And who are you?"
The man seemed to soften a bit. "I'm Troy Lacey, your dad's trainer. Nothing's wrong with him. He's just overtired from training too hard." He tried to laugh, but it came out as a grunt. "Gotta
 
 
keep you outa that rowboat, my man! Too much cross-training." He winked at Chuck. "A non-fighter wouldn't understand."  
            Ray grasped Troy's bicep. Color seemed to be returning to his cheeks. "You're talkin' to none other than "Red Nek” Chuk Atoms, scourge of the Rust Belt. He is a fighter!"
Chuck was shocked, and warmed, to learn his father was aware of his brief fighting career. He looked up at Ray, who appeared very much recovered. "Hey, Pop. You okay?"
Ray pushed away the attendants clustered around him and hopped to his feet. "What, that? That was just dehydration. That's all. I have to learn to drink my water." He turned to his trainer. "Isn't
that what you're always telling my, Troy?" He lowered his voice in imitation of his trainer. "'That Diet Coke is no substitute for clean, fresh water.' Isn't that what you're always telling me?" He
laughed a short laugh, and threw one leg out of the ring, ducking below the top rope while pressing down on the middle one. "C'mon, son. Let's take a boat-ride!"
            Chuck stood on the floating dock on a little inlet to the lake as he waited for his father to change his clothes. He watched Ray walk toward him. The older man's gait seemed slow, though his upper body rocked powerfully with each step. He reached the dock and pointed at a classic Chris-Craft. Nodding at the cockpit, he grunted. "You drive. I'm bushed."
Chuck stood still. "What happened in there?"
Ray removed the stern line from its cleat. "What happened in there was I was dehydrated. And that's all I will say on the subject. Period." He headed toward the bow and began freeing its line
Preferring not to risk their detente so early in his visit, Chuck turned and stepped carefully into the vintage boat. He offered Ray a hand, which he uncharacteristically accepted before plopping
 
 
into a white vinyl seat. A turn of the key and a push on the throttle, and they were off. Cold air burned their cheeks as they cut through it.
"How did you know about my boxing?" Chuck asked above the noise of the engine and the splashing water. "I thought I kept that on the down-low." He was pleased by his father's interest.
"Your mother told me. She heard it from that girl you used to date at college. What was her name? Jane?"
"Jane De Rose. Right." Chuck paused. "Annika's not my mother, by the way. And you're not even married to her anymore. You guys are still in touch?"
Ray rubbed his stubble. "So, I lack imagination. What can I say? As a wife she was a disaster. But in bed..."
"I don't want to hear it!" Chuck took his hands off the wheel to make a cross with his forefingers, as if he were warding off a vampire. "Back! Keep that stuff to yourself! Besides, what about Melanie?"
"Melanie is nice, too. We got married, you know. Almost a year now."
Chuck raised his brow in mock surprise. "So a new wife and an old one on the side? By the way, I never got the invitation." Chuck smiled sardonically.
Ray shrugged. "Well, I figured you wouldn't be able to make it, and I knew you couldn't afford a gift, so why put any pressure on you?
Chuck laughed along with his father as the Chris-Craft sliced a scimitar in the flat water of the lake. "What a family. Hear from any of the other kids? "Nope." Chuck looked back at the camp. It seemed to recede deeper into the Maine woods the farther out they went. "Look, if this is some sort of  'You weren't there for me' trip, I'll pay your bus fare home."
 
”No, Pop, not at all. Sorry. I was literally just wondering. I don't keep in touch with them either. I ust wanted to see how you're doing. That's all. And I'd like to stick around for a while, if that's all right with you, and your boss back there..."
"Stay as long as you like." Ray looked admiringly at his son; his thick mane flowing in the wind. He knew he got that from his mother. "Hell, I'll put you on the payroll, if you don't object to the dirty work."
"Never have, so far!" Chuck grinned as he extended his right hand under his left arm to shake on the deal.
"Okay, you got it." Ray grasped his son's hand. "And he's not my boss. He's my trainer. One of the best there is. He's more like a mother. No..." He tilted his head in mock deliberation. "More like an overbearing aunt."
"Okay Pop. Wanna head in?"
Chuck looked at the sun through the naked trees on the horizon.
"Might as well," he said. It's a bitch parking this thing at night."
Chuck swung the boat around and headed back to camp. Ray continued, ”We're not gonna be able to do this much longer. Pretty soon this whole lake will be frozen solid.” He stood, pointing landward. "Just take it straight to the dock. I'll grab the front rope and tie her off..."
"Bow line," Chuck corrected him.
"Say what?" Ray looked aggravated.
"It's called a bow line. Not a 'front rope.'"
"Well, well," Ray chuckled, as if to himself. "Looks like all those summers away at camp taught you something after all!" He growled in classic pirate voice: "Arr, matey! I'll get the BOW LINE,
 
and tie her up. Someone will come and put our ship away. But shiver me timbers, we can handle the BOW LINE! Arrr!"
The freeze had actually already begun, in eddies and still waters along the water's edge. Their's was the last boat-ride of the year.
             Life in camp alternated between the insanely hectic and the serenely calm. Usually the former characterized the early hours and the latter the evenings. Every day started with Cheffy (the cook had a real name, all assumed, but he preferred "Chef, or Cheffy") banging on a huge,
rusted iron circle that served as the "dinner bell," calling everyone to breakfast. It was the only time non-cooking staff was welcome in the kitchen, so Cheffy could cook the eggs and bacon to order and breakfasters could toast their own bagels or bread on the salamander and serve themselves cereal. Lunch was taken more casually, any time between noon and two, consisting of hot and cold sandwiches, and anything else the Champ might want made. Dinner, with bell clanging, started at seven sharp. Chuck handled nighttime pot scrubbing, on top of sweeping the gym and plowing and shoveling the occasional snowfall. While not fond, he did not share his father's aversion to the cold; could even find it invigorating at times. He enjoyed driving the plow truck; even got pretty good at directing the snow into the banks that would remain long after the last snow. But he'd be gone by then. Camp was scheduled to end two weeks before the night of the fight, New Year's Eve.
           He also assisted with the training; helping get his father's gloves on, donning the huge padded gear that would protect his midriff as Ray worked on his body blows, getting him water between sparring rounds. They sat together almost every dinner, and Chuck felt warmed by the reflected light as his father traded war stories with the reverent veteran trainers and the hangers-
 
on who trailed the fight world like Civil War camp followers. Of course this relative bliss couldn't last.
           One night, about four-weeks in, Ray was regaling his table with tales of his days in Thailand, recounting a semi-legal fight with a man twice his size. "I mean, I didn't know they made Asians that big, right? I figured he had to have some Gringo blood in him." The men at the
long table, including his son, listened raptly. Another dozen or so others, plus Cheffy and members of his staff hung around, leaning in to hear the tale.
"So anyway, this guy comes barreling in at me, and I side-step him, you know, use his weight against him. Now you have to know, theses rings were not exactly engineered to the exacting standards we have in the States. He hits the ropes, and BANG, it pulls away from the turnbuckle, he goes flying into the crowd, and... the rope... and...the..." His voice trailed off as his body went rigid, eyes rolled upward.
"Pop? Pop!" Chuck, seated to his right, grabbed his hand. it was eerily cold and for a second he feared his father was dead. Then, suddenly, Ray's chest expanded with a deep inhalation and he shook his head slowly, blinking.
"Whew, head rush..." A few men mustered awkward laughter as Chuck and Troy Lacey tended to Ray. Troy spoke up first.
"Okay, everybody. Dinner's over. We're overtaxing the Champ here. Let's let him get his rest."
Chuck spoke up as a few diners began swinging their legs over the benches.
"That's right, guys. Time to clear out. The kitchen staff needs to clear all this up before they can prep for breakfast. See you all tomorrow.
 
 
            In a minute or two Troy and Chuck were alone with Ray, who was sweating as he clung to the end of the pine table. The kitchen crew cleared the last plates and condiments from the tables and disappeared behind swinging doors. Chuck rose from his bench to face Troy, who was rubbing Ray's trapezius muscles, gently saying, "You're all right, Champ. You're all right."
"What the fuck was that?" Chuck snarled as Troy raised a finger to his own lips. "No, don't shut me up. And don't feed me that 'he was dehydrated' crap. What's going on here? That looked like some sort of a, some sort of seizure!"
"I can't tell you, even if I wanted to. And right now, with your attitude, I don't think I do. Besides, I've promised the Champ..." Troy looked much more contrite than his words sounded. Ray stood up between the two and turned to his son.
"Chuckie, there are some things in my life, just as there are in yours, that are nobody else's business. You're just gonna have to accept that. Or leave." He turned, slump-shouldered, toward the staircase that led to his suite.
Chuck shouted after him. "I leave? No, you leave. Isn't that how it works? You walk away, whenever the shit gets too deep, or just because you feel like it. You leave your kids with a malignant bitch because you have better things to do. You leave your new wife so you can have a toss in the hay with your ex..."
"Stop it!" Ray turned with more energy than Chuck thought possible, given recent events. "And grow the fuck up. Life didn't turn out as you'd like? Do something about it! You're still fucking young. make yourself a life. Don't come around here whining about getting your ass whipped by your stepmom! I paid for your college, I paid your rent; kept a roof over your head and food in
 
 
your belly. Not enough for you? Tough!" He  grabbed the banister and turned toward the stairs. "Damn sight more than anyone ever gave me. Horace will cash you out in the morning. You're fired.”
Chuck noticed his father could only manage one step at a time, dragging his left foot to join his right. He stood, frozen, just as he had as a child when bearing the brunt one of his father's verbal fusillades. Troy approached quietly.
"He doesn't mean it, Chuck. He'll cool down tomorrow."
Chuck smiled sadly. "Yes he did. You don't know my father; nothing new here." He turned to face Troy. "He's having seizures, epileptic seizures, isn't he? When did they start? Has he been checked out?"
Troy lowered his gaze. "I can't answer that, man." He paused, and caught Chuck's gaze. "Don't worry. The doc says he's fine. He got some meds. But says they slow him down, and he doesn't want them showing up in any blood tests. He'll start takin' 'em the day after the fight. That's just a few weeks away. He'll be just fine.”
           Chuck felt helpless. He thought about taking the story public, or at least going to the state boxing commission. But he knew he couldn't betray his father, whom he knew would rather die in the ring than miss his big chance; his big payday. Better just to leave. He extended his hand to Troy. "Good luck. Take care of my dad." Fourteen hours later he was on a Trailways bus for Boston, a bundle of cash in his pocket. His father had been very generous. Chuck lacked the wherewithal, or pride, to refuse.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
          
This is a bad idea. Chuck sits at his father's side as the Champ struggles to find words. The winter sun angles sharply into Chuck's eyes as he lowers a window blind. The phone is on speaker and Ray is recounting (or trying to recount) his memories of his last big fight, "No
Mercy in New Jersey," as it came to be known. Its 15th anniversary is a few weeks away, and Chuck has agreed to allow a freelancer to interview his father for a piece he says he's pitching to Sports Illustrated.
"It was... ah.. what's the..?" Thick-tongued, slurring, Ray struggles to complete a thought.
Chuck jumps in during one of the long gaps in his father's response. "We are not recording, correct, Marcel?"
"No sir, no recording for broadcast. As agreed."
"Why don't you just shut up?" Ray glowers from his recliner. His eyes icily accuse his son of trying to steal his spotlight.
The reporter speaks up. "So, Champ, as you were saying, what was the turning point of the..."
Ray interrupts. "It was the... whaddya call it..?"
Chuck whispers "The ref. The long count in the first..."
"That damned ref! That's what it was!” Ray is animated. “He... well... he..."
"Took too long on the count in the first." Chuck prompts his father again.  This is a bad idea.
"He took his own sweet time, is what!" Ray turns his head toward his son. "And I don't need you... butting in!"
"I think that's gonna have to be all for now, Marcel. I'll call you later." Chuck disconnects the call before the reporter can respond.
"Where'd he go? Was that it? 'Cause I've got lots of stories..." Ray seems vaguely angry.
 
"Yeah, Pop, he had to go for now. We'll finish up later."
"Well, then get me a cocktail."
You sure Pop? It's only four o'clock. You've only been out of bed for a couple of hours.
"Bullshit! I've been up and at 'em since sunrise. You're the one who slept the day away. Now get me a god dammed cocktail.
"Whatever you say, dad." Svedka on the rocks, coming up.
“Less rocks, more Svedka!" Ray smiles in anticipation.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            The walls beneath Brendan Byrne Arena pulsate with the downbeats of electro-pop-synthesized music. In the bowels of this great enclosed concrete bowl built into the marshland of New Jersey, Ray lays, silent in the darkness of a painted cinderblock dressing room. His bed is a padded examination table that for some reason reminds him of getting stitches as a kid, before Thailand; before… everything. He's completed his warm-up and takes this time for himself, planning his first move, reflecting on the work it has taken him to get here, steeling himself for the the battle to come. All night he's heard the thudding of the music, the swelling chorus of the crowds, and the whoops and sobs of undercard fighters on their way to combat and back. The door opens, allowing a sliver of light to slice open the darkness.
"Ten minutes, Ray," his manager pokes his head in. Ray waves him inside.
"Get the lights, Troy. Let's get this party stahhhted!" His exaggerated Boston accent fails to lighten the pre-fight tension. Fluorescent tubes flicker to life as Ray swings his legs over the side
 
of the table and slaps himself in the face. The half-gloves restrict him to the use of four fingers, but his blows serve their purpose. His eyes are wide as two more men from camp, whom he 
barely knows, arrive to rub his shoulders, massage his arms and ready him for the gantlet-walk to the ring.
Ray looks to his trainer. "Any sign of my son?"
Troy averts his eyes. "Not yet, Champ."
Ray hops off the table and onto the cold concrete floor. "Fuck him. He's dead to me."
"Okay Champ. You ready?
Ray is stretching his neck muscles, shrugging and swinging his head from side to side. "Ready as I'll ever be."
They're balked at the door as gurney bearing the loser of the last undercard bout is run down the hall to an emergency exit and a waiting ambulance.
Ray quips. "Such service. In my day you just bled until it stopped. Then, if you could walk, you might get a band-aid.”
Troy slaps him on the back, squeezing his shoulder before leading him out the door. "Well, I'm sure your opponent will be happy to hear that medical treatment has improved."
"Fuck him, too. He's gonna regret ever stepping into the cage."
          The walk to the ring has become Ray's least favorite thing. From the supposedly jaded workers lining the subterranean halls who sneak peeks nonetheless, to the screaming fans whose incoherent shrieking provide no clue as to their allegiance, he never feels more exposed. Stepping into the octagonal ring, enclosed with rubber-covered chain link, brings him peace,
 
 
even a sense of safety. He can hear some chanting above the din. "Thum-Per! Thum-Per! Thum-Per!” He's never really cared for the moniker, but knows that one doesn't pick one's own nickname. He has embraced it now, with a garish cartoon on the front of his ringwear. The crowd quiets as his
opponent makes his way to the ring. Manuel "Man-Mountain" Martinez ducks through the open cage door and snarls. This is the man who broke Ray's back in Mississippi. He's huge, and strong, but Ray has doubts about his chin. He knows he had him dazed and ready to go down  before the "Mountain" dug in a couple of underhooks and body-slammed Ray to the mat.
            The bell rings, and Ray wastes no time. He marches straight across the ring and feints a right then throws a jarring front kick straight into Martinez' chin. The "Mountain" clinches, seeking rest and recovery time as he and Ray trade rib shots and seek an advantage. He shoots for a take-down, and takes Ray to the mat, but "Thumper" fights off  his grappling and the two return to their feet. As his adversary rises Ray lands a knee flush on his chin. The "Mountain" is hurt, and Ray literally smells blood. It's flowing from his opponent's mouth. Ray presses for the kill. A spinning back-heel to the cheek, and four solid body blows, followed by a right elbow to the bridge of the nose, and the "Mountain" is crumbling. The crowd rises to its feet, sensing the kill. Ray feels a buzzing in his brain as he dispatches his adversary with a knee to the solar plexus and a right cross. The buzzing rises above all the noise, even the referee's count. Ray can't move.
            He's standing over his fallen challenger, in what looks like a pose of exaltation. His eyes glare skyward. his fists clenched before him, waist-high.  The ref stops the count, ordering Ray to a neutral corner for the second time. He tries to move "Thumper" but he's rooted to the mat,
 
 
solid as a statue. The bells rings to end the round as the "Mountain" regains consciousness and struggles to his feet. Ray's seizure abates as his cornermen drag him to a folding chair.
"I'm ending the fight." Troy yells over the raucous noise of the arena.
Ray grabs his arm, hard. “You do, and I'll kill you.” His eyes have yet to decide upon which Troy they should focus. "I'm okay. Just get me some water.” 
TV announcers on one of the biggest pay-per-view events to date express amazement, anger, disgust, bewilderment. Did Ray interfere with the count because he wanted to deliver
more abuse to the dangerous Martinez? Is he out of his mind? One even suggested it looked like some kind of seizure, but was quickly shouted down, accused of making fun of the handicapped.
Ray is fortunate to get out of the second round alive.
          Rising like a rocket at the bell, Martinez is upon Ray almost before his seconds have left the ring. Convinced Ray was showboating over his prostrate form, he exacts a revenge rarely seen in any fight before or after. He savages Ray, who can barely defend himself, with an endless barrage of punches, kicks and body slams, only to let Ray back up and do it all over again. To Ray's very good fortune, the referee recognizes his inability to "intelligently defend" himself. He calls an end to the slaughter three minutes into the five minute round. Ray will spend three nights in the hospital, but will carry the damage of those eight minutes inside the cage the rest of his days.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
                                      
                                      
 
             Chuck had vowed to not even watch the fight. His father had sent him a whole VIP kit; parking sticker, backstage pass, front row ticket. Knowing their value, Chuck had done what he thought was the right thing and returned them. He was back in Boston, staying with some
Ipswich friends who were going to northeastern law School and living in Jamaica Plain. It was they who convinced him to join them at Foley's for a few beers and a night of "man's barbarism to man," as one of them put it. Law students, he thought, as he tied his boots and prepared for the 20-minute walk to the old bar.
            He and his friends were already buzzed by the time the co-main event of the evening began. Chuck's friends knew from experience not to tell anyone who his father was; it always ended in awkward social situations at best, and violence and police involvement at worst. His initial nervousness was quickly replaced with relief and pride. "He's carving him up!" His three friends pounded his back as they watched Ray disassemble the "Mountain."
"He's down! He's down!" Chuck leapt to his feet as the tavern erupted in cheers. But he knew immediately what was wrong. He watched his father stand stock-still as a ref literally put a shoulder into his side and tried to move him. The crowd in the bar was incredulous. "Get to a corner, you idiot!" "What the fuck are you doing?" "Holy shit, he let him get up!"
            Chuck was out the door and into the January cold before the bell sounded for round two. He just hoped his father would survive the beating that was sure to come. Looking ahead, he knew no one would ever know what really happened in that ring. Too many people had conspired to put an aging, sick man into the ring with a brute half his age. Chuck knew he was as guilty as the rest of them. They could all face charges, if not criminal then certainly administrative for their fraud. And Ray would lose the paycheck that would underwrite his retirement. Chuck
 
retched into a snowbank behind the local high school track. His friends caught up with him, gave him his coat, and told him how the fight ended on the walk home.
 
                                                *          *          *          *          *
 
            Months have passed since Ray's crosswalk incident. He's abandoned walking altogether. The anniversary of his most famous fight has passed; his camp still publicly blaming the ref for a long count, everyone else wondering what the hell Ray was doing, showboating like that. Those who know the truth carry their culpability in different ways. The doctors, after all, have assured them that while Ray's career caused his dementia, there was no proof that fighting with seizures had made it any worse. But Chuck wonders what blows caused the brain damage. Was it a cumulative thing, and if so, did the beating he took in that last bout put him "over the top?" No one will answer that question.
          Chuck is in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner. The sun set hours ago; the windows of the entire east-facing wall of Ray's condo is a bank of black squares. Ray sits in his recliner/lift chair, watching the same syndicated comedy he views every night.
"Here it comes, Chuckie!" Ray calls for his son. He leaves the kitchen and stands beside his father. The TV blares, "Sit Ubu, Sit. Good dog!" Ray recites the words every night; won't permit any interruption until he hears, and repeats, the production company's tag line. Chuck knows what comes next.
"I wanna cocktail."
Chuck assumes a waiter's persona. "Very good, sir. The usual?"
 
"Damn right, boy. Svedka on the rocks."
Chuck drops the waiter act. "You got it, Dad."
"You're not my son!"
"Okay, Pop. Okay. Svedka was it? On the rocks?"
"Less rocks, more Svedka. You know, I started drinking Svedka when I was training for my title. Couldn't even get it in the States when I came back. Had to smuggle it in. Now it's all I'll drink. Good enough for me then, good enough for me now. No sense messing with a good thing!" Ray smiles vacantly.
His son grabs a fresh bottle from the freezer. "Words to live by, Pop.”