A Fighting Chance (12 page)

He directs me down a scenic route to the
Plaza De Armas
, the busy town square, where people are milling about. On the way, we cruise past a cathedral and the fortress of a city hall that loom over the quaint, quiet town. I marvel at my academic wet dream and try not to bore them by pointing out the imposing, symmetrical French Baroque elements in the structures. Tepatitlán is beautiful, and just beautiful enough to hide the pipeline to a seedy underground fighting nightlife.

We end up at a popular upscale café that doubles as an art gallery, a place not too far from our
motel, where twenty-something hipsters and urban sophisticates are sipping wine under impressionist paintings. The sea of foreign words swamps me and leaves me feeling incredibly out of my element. Miguel orders for the table when a waiter approaches: beers for them, mandarin Jarritos for me, plus tamales and panes dulces for everyone. After eating in our comfort zone at American places during the drive, Drew and I indulge and get seconds of everything. While we’re cramming food into our faces, Miguel explains that all fights here are not created equal. Amateur fights, which have a lot of unknown fighters, don’t draw much attention or bets, which means the prize money is abysmal. The next tier has some cartel-sponsored fights—and better fighters—and these attract bigger audiences and have a more respectable payout. But the five-figure wins, The Cull fights, will be out of reach until I either get a drug lord sugar daddy or I’m just so popular that it doesn’t matter.

“So,” Miguel says, rubbing his palms together like some evil mastermind, “which clubs are we hitting up tonight?”

“We’re not,” I say. “I need a gym, and I need you to get me into a fight in a few days.”

Miguel
frowns. “Yeah…yeah, but this part is important, too. This is how you get people to notice you. This is how they get to know your name. We’ll walk in, get a table, and buy a couple bottles. Make some noise, you know?”

“Just get me a fight…”

“Are you sure?” Drew asks, her hand landing on my knee. I want to treat it as a friendly gesture, something people do when they’re interacting, but this is Drew. So electricity explodes on the spot then travels to far-off nerve endings. The weight of her hand is heavy with the memories of being touched in other ways, of touching her, too.

“Yeah, I might as well get it over with.” I keep my eyes fixed on my pastry, afraid she’ll see my attraction to her shining in
them. She’s absently stroking me where her fingers are and, holy fuck, my erection is growing quickly. “We’ve got a long way to go,” I choke out.
Jesus Fucking Christ, get your hand off my knee, Drew.

“I need to take you out and introduce you to people,” Miguel argues.

Drew rolls her eyes. “He took Buck and me out the last time we were here, and he kept us out until five….
introducing us to people.
” She squeezes my thigh, causing ripples of heat to roll through my body. “You just want to go clubbing, Mig.”

“And you don’t?” he says as he links their hands and swings them to whatever rhythm is in his head. I shudder out a deep breath,
grateful to have her hand gone. But also dreading the blue balls I’ll have to deal with later.

“Fine.
We’ll
scope it out. Me and you,” Drew says, relenting. “But only if you make sure he has a place to work out and he’s in the ring in a few days.”

****

Miguel finds a gym for me just outside of the city limits. It’s not
really
a state-of-the-art boxing gym, but it has a lumpy heavy bag and a flimsy speed bag. I even convince a guy there to spar with me, and then I spend my evenings on a treadmill, while Miguel and Drew go on their recon missions. After enduring almost an entire week of Miguel’s failed insistence that he show me off, we get a call from “his guy,” who tells him to just be ready when he calls again. The call comes a day later. Miguel leads us to a rendezvous point on the outskirts of Tepatitlán, and a bus shuttles us off to the unknown. The fight locations change often, Miguel tells me, to elude the few cops who refuse to take bribes. Very few people know the actual address of the fights; most just get a text a few hours before with the meeting point of the buses, which look exactly like regular tour buses. Everyone has to remain at the fight location until all the night’s fights are over. Then everyone is dropped off again or they find their own way home.

Tonight
’s site is a warehouse tucked away in Guadalajara, an hour’s ride, in one of the industrial districts. It’s a gigantic, dingy space with flickering, buzzing lights, and it’s hot as fuck, too. There’s an octagon in the middle, and I know from my days fighting around the South that it’s an easy setup. With a visit to a hardware store and a little Internet research, anyone can build one in a couple hours. There are people from all walks of life here: a few frightened tourists, and lots of excited locals and serious enthusiasts.

“How is it that I’m showing this much cleavage and I’m still overdressed?”
Drew whispers to me as we follow Miguel to where I check in. She’s stunning tonight in a low cut orange dress, standing out from the grunge and the grit. But she’s right. She may as well be in a moo-moo. The female dress code here is tight, short and bare. The men, I’m guessing, seem like they are more interested in accessorizing. Probably with razorblades and guns, even though I don’t actually see any, but it’s a rough-looking crowd. All neck tattoos. I’m stereotyping, but people who come to a secret full-contact fight are probably not knitting and feeding the homeless the next day. There’s security, but according to Miguel, they’re local cops who realize government salary won’t put their kids through college or their mistresses in rented villas on the coast.

“How are you doing?”
Drew asks as I’m stripping out of my shirt and shoes.

“Good.” But a strange and familiar feeling engulfs me as she wraps my wrists and
I slip my fingerless fighting gloves on. It’s a giddiness to be in that cage.

“Good,” she says, but her tone is
flat, like she’s not convinced. She cocks her head over to a group of fighters. “It’s hard to know who you’re fighting, but most of them are amateurs hoping to make it into Cull fights. Might be a few in the bunch who are
really
good, but not many.” When she gets quiet, we aim awkward smiles at each other because a long time ago, this would have been the point when we’d make out in front of everybody. Drew pinches my chin between her fingers. “Make it quick, okay? No showing off.”

“Got it, boss. Thanks for being here with me.”

“I don’t want to see anything bad happen to HJ.” She runs her fingers up my jawline, and it feels so good I close my eyes for just a second.

“You’re in the third match tonight. And what’s your stage name?” Miguel asks when he walks over.

“Don’t have one,” I say.

“You need a name.”

“Okay.
Not Jesse
. Make one up.” A conniving smile ignites before he walks off to where the announcer is standing.

“You’re good to go,
El Americano
,” he says when he returns.

“Real creative, dude,” I joke, but I like it. It’s simple.

“
Good luck,” he says. Then he taps Drew and laughs as he adds, “They didn’t believe you were his cornerman, but they’re going to let you go in, between rounds.”

I don’t really like watching fights before I get in the cage, so a
fter the two fights before mine end, Miguel and Drew come to get me from where I’m standing and mentally preparing myself with Jay-Z’s “The Black Album.” The announcer starts speaking Spanish into a bullhorn, and I have no idea what’s going on until I hear my new stage name.

“You got this, Jess!” Drew yells
as I walk into the cage. The announcer continues with his fast words and my opponent enters: a tall curly-headed guy covered in welts and bruises, some old, some new. His name is José Sanchez, and he was in the first fight of the night. A curvy ring card girl, wearing silver shorts and a pink sports bra with her tits runneth over, steps in and takes a seductive walk across the padded floor. She’s holding a ROUND ONE sign and revving up the crowd with a wiggle of her ass on each side of the cage. Adrenaline kicks up in my body when the bell dings, and the curl of my lips happens involuntarily as we tap knuckles.

I’m so ready.

Until he comes at me with a flurry of furious swings. For someone who fought not too long ago, he sure has a lot of energy left. I dodge most of them and take his legs out from under him with a sweeping kick. But as soon as he lands, pain ricochets through my neck and travels up to my face. He has slugged me in the throat. José thrusts his fingers against my trachea again before I can recover. It paralyzes me for a moment, and I break into a coughing fit, which gives him the opportunity to angle himself perfectly and punch me in the kidney. Submerged in pain, I instinctively scurry backward, but not fast enough to avoid a head-butt and an elbow to my mouth. He
just
misses my eye when he tries to drive his elbow into my face a second time. An excruciating, fiery ache lights up my hairline, and I know I’m cut. The pain disorients me, and I barely have time to duck José’s hand clawing for my throat as panic grips me
.

The blood comes quick, warm, and metallic into my mouth, and I spit it to the floor as I scramble to my feet.
Most of these are illegal moves in fighting normally, but none of that matters here. He rushes me immediately and I block all his punches, but he suddenly goes for my eyes with his fingers, and I stagger backward until I slam into the cage. My eyes sting so badly I have to keep them closed. He spins me around and pushes my face against the chain-links before he pounds my head and back. A bell finally rings and the round ends.

Drew is by my side as soon as I’m back in the corner, wiping blood off my face and pouring water down my throat faster than I can swallow. She looks as scared as I feel as she wrings her hands.
“He’s fighting dirty…” I tell her. “Really, really dirty.”

“I know, and I’m freaking out. Listen. He’s weak on the ground. He can’t get out of most holds. Take him down and it’s over. Okay? Just get him on the ground,” she whispers.
Ding.
My break time is up.

I’m faster than he is this time, and with a series of powerful punches
that he doesn’t anticipate, I corner him against the cage, trapping him in an upright hold. I feel more comfortable this round and more fluid in my movements. Before he can escape, I deliver intense body blows with one fist, making sure he knows what it feels like to be punched in the kidneys at least once. The crowd roars and it sounds like the walls of the warehouse might collapse. 

“That’s for my eyes, dickhead!” I
shout. Then I drop him with a jab and a cross to the jaw that spins his face to the left, and I follow up with a jumping kick to the side of the head. I draw blood. The cheers that radiate from the stands are as violent as my moves. José lands like a chopped-down tree and I scramble to get him into submission. He manages to get up onto his knees before I can, and I stun him with hits to the mouth and nose, sending more blood flying to the canvas, eliciting more cheerful shouts from the audience.

We tussle in a sweaty, bloody twist of swinging limbs until I lock my legs around his waist and put him in a chokehold from behind. “Y
ou’re done,” I say. “Tap out.” He ignores me and I assume he doesn’t know English well. There’s no ref to end the fight, so if I keep my position he’ll pass out. “Tap out, dude.” He continues to struggle, trying to rip my arms off his neck.
No one is tapping out anymore.
Drew’s words pulse through my mind suddenly, chilling me to the core.
You go until one of you stops moving.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He’s going to pass out.
Dread makes my head spin, and I try to stay focused. I need to figure out how to end this without either of us getting seriously hurt. “You’re done, man. I’m going to let you go, but you have to stay down. Pretend. Just stay down,” I tell him, but as soon as I loosen my grip an inch, he tries to swing out from under me. He’s slow from the loss of oxygen and dizzy from my punches, so he barely moves before I clench him again in a stronger hold. My heart is racing and I have no fucking clue what to do. If I let him go, he could possibly take me down, but I don’t want to keep restraining him like this, either.

José manages to speak through the strain I’m putting on him and murmurs the same words over and over. It’s “no” and something else. I don’t know what it means, but I still say, “
Por favor.
Stop. Please, stop. I don’t want to hurt you.” I ease the hold and he whispers the words again, writhing to break free. “No one will know if you lie still. Please. Please stop.” But he doesn’t. And I have no choice.

Terror skates through me as I tighten my grip a little
, and his pulse beats against my arm. Then his head falls to one side and his eyes close. I pull away from him as quickly as I can and stand up as he slumps against the canvas. The cheers hit an earsplitting fever pitch, but I don’t even bother to look out there. I’m completely focused on my opponent. There’s no movement from him.

My blood turns to ice water as I drop to my knees beside him
, and I slap him hard. “Hey, buddy, wake up.” His arm flops right back down when I lift it. A familiar burning in my chest flares and my throat threatens to seal itself shut. Twisting his head, I shove my fingers under his jaw and find the welcome beat of a strong pulse. I shrug off whoever is tapping my shoulder and urging me to stand. But I do grab his shirt and pull him closer. “
Ayuda
. Get somebody to help him. Now
.
”