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The sound of fists meeting pads surrounds me as soon as I walk into 5th Round Gym. It’s a mixed martial arts gym owned by Johnny DeLucci and it’s where I spend most of my days when I’m not at Barbarity. I’ve been here so often that I practically live here even though my new apartment is across town. Ever since I got that damn text from my mother’s nurse, my heart has been shattered and I couldn’t bear to be in the apartment we shared together so I moved out—but now, my place feels empty.
Fuck my life.
My mother went into cardiac arrest and though she was able to survive it, she never woke up from the coma she slipped into. Against the advice of doctors, I left her on life support hoping and praying she’d wake up. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months when finally, with the DeLuccis and Jefa by my side, I let the doctor unplug her.
“She can finally rest,ragazza.”Girl. Johnny and Jefa were my strength on that awful day.
My tears were pain-filled, yes. The loss of my mother was a painful experience and one of those moments that I’ll never forget but my tears weren’t only from pain or heartbreak.They were filled with rage and hatred. Tears ripped straight from my heart and spilled to the ground like meaningless drops of water.
That cruel day, the unfairness of life created such a deep and violent rage within me that my skin felt as if it were peeling back. Since then, fury runs rampant in my veins like an unchecked virus, infecting every cell in my body. So I focused on getting ready for my fight in order to keep myself from exploding.
“Yo, Silver! You’re late and today is the fight no less. You’ve got three minutes to change or you’ll be running extra time on the tread!” Johnny’s stern voice blows away the heavy cloud of self-pity and brings me to the here and now.
I give Johnny the finger over my shoulder as I half walk half jog to the locker rooms. Normally I wouldn’t allow someone to speak to me that way but Johnny is like my big brother and he’s also my trainer so I save myself the headache by just listening.
He and Jefa have been helping me through everything from grieving my mother to preparing for tonight. All year I’ve put my aggression into my training. From the moment I wake up to the moment my head hits the pillow, I live and breathe footwork, combinations and routines.
Not a moment of rest.No days off.
I finish changing and grab my water bottle on my way back out to the floor. Johnny is set up in the back within the boxing ring. This is my last sparring session before Barbarity Night begins so we’ll just be keeping my body loose.
Climbing through the ropes, I ask Johnny, “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” he tosses me the headgear and begins pulling on his own as I answer him.
“There’s an additional middleweight fight tonight. Blanca called Jefa last night and asked her to find the next best fighter of that category for his new guy.” Johnny and I do some stretches as I wait for him to reply. Johnny has always been slow to speak and though I love that quality about him, it drives me nuts when I’m excited about something and he lacks my enthusiasm. Like now, he looks contemplative as he pulls his arm straight across his chest then does the same to the other arm.
Just as I’m about to continue my story, which I should have done to begin with, he finally asks, “What happened to that cocky asshole who was fighting for him?”
“Jefa said Martin got his arm broken in an arm bar during his last fight in California. Blanca wanted to see how true the rumors were of that guy, Twitch, so before coming here yesterday he made a stop at Mesa Ring and checked him out. Turns out the rumors are to be believed and now Twitch is a Blanca fighter.”
Johnny lets out a low whistle before he suddenly comes at me throwing punches. He always tries to catch me off guard. I’m surprised he even let me finish the story because most of the time he’ll attack while I’m focused on telling him some tea. Never works though. I was raised in a home that required all my senses to be at one hundred percenteveryday, all day, so I’m never caught slipping.
I block a few punches before I duck right and throw some of my own combinations at him. He backs off and shakes his arms out. “Good job but you're getting sloppy on the hook. Let’s work on that a bit more then move onto your kicks.”
Sloppy? I call bullshit. I know he’s just trying to make sure I’m battle ready but I amnotsloppy on the hook. It’s one of my favorite punches.
I learned to fight when I was fourteen years old. Johnny, who went by the nicknameBones, had his own fight club with his friends. It wasn’t anything special really, just a bunch of neighborhood kids doing three minute fights behind the school. I used to follow them around, sticking to the shadows and watching them fight. Johnny was good, even then. His dad, Alessandro DeLucci put him in boxing at an early age so it was always him who dominated the school kids.
He never knew I followed them around until one day Johnny had just won a fight against this punk ass kid who didn’t like losing. While Johnny's back was turned the guy pulled some brass knuckles out of his pocket and slipped them on.
I didn’t think, I just reacted. I jumped out from my hiding spot behind the sport’s equipment storage room and ran toward the punk. I jumped onto his back, just as he was gearing up for a sucker punch, and took him down. He rolled over onto his back but I was faster. I straddled his chest and began laying down punches to his face. By the time Johnny pulled me off, my hands were bleeding and one of my knuckles was dislocated.
Since then we’ve been best friends and he started teaching me what he was learning.
Johnny’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Alright, that’s enough for today. We have a few hours until tonight’s events so make sure you eat those protein bars before seven. And for the love of God, stay away from that nasty ass food you like so much.”
“Pizza is not nasty, Johnny. It’s Italian food, fool!” I don’t understand this guy sometimes.
“It’s not Italian when you put fish on it! That’s just nasty, Silver, and you know it too you just do it so you can watch me gag.” He walks away shaking his head.
It’s true too. Johnny gaging is the funniest thing ever.
“Not my fault your gag reflexes are crap.” I laugh when he throws his finger at me. I swear, when he and I are together, we’re kids again.
My phone rings as soon as I get into the locker rooms. Looking at the screen, I see it’s Mr. Blanca.
“Hey, Diego. How are you?” I’ve never called him any term like boss, don or jefe but he respects that and because of that, among other reasons, he has my respect. I may not know Hangman Renzetti personally but he’s my Don and is the only one I’ll call boss.
