My Fight / Your Fight (25 page)

“Roxie, calm down,” I said firmly.

A guy I had never seen before walked across the street in my direction.

“How would you like it if someone jerked you around like that?” he asked me.

“Motherfucker, you don't have any idea what's going on today. Do not fuck with me!” I snapped. He looked at me like I was crazy, then walked away.

It took more than an hour for AAA to come.

By the time they arrived, it was too late to pick Mochi up at doggie daycare. I didn't know how I was going to afford paying for two overnight stays. When I finally got home, my apartment was cold. Money was tight, and I had decided that while electricity and water were necessary utilities, gas for heat was not.

My room was dark and I just climbed straight into my bed. I didn't have sheets (they cost money that I didn't have), just a sleeping bag. It was so cold. Roxie climbed up onto my bed. I covered her with my sleeping bag and wrapped my arms around her. We spooned all night for comfort and warmth. Tears poured down my face.

While DPCG was in rehab, he would write me long handwritten letters filled with apologies and declarations of love. I'd lie in my sheetless bed reading them and spooning his dog, and crying, thinking,
He loves me, that's all that matters.

I missed him a lot. I had been around him every single day for months. I had actively started pursuing my MMA dream, and he was the one person I felt really believed in me. I wanted him back.

I went to see him on visitors' day about two weeks after he had been there. He looked a million times better than when we had dropped him off. The light was back in his eyes. We sat on a little couch in the visiting area holding hands, then he took me on a tour of the well-manicured grounds. He was embarrassed that I had to see him there, but happy that I had come. I had been there for an hour and then it was time to leave. As I walked out the door, I realized I wasn't ready to go. I wasn't ready to let him go.

A few hours later, I pulled into the parking lot of 24 Hour Fitness in North Torrance. I sat in my car, trying to muster the strength to walk in. It had already been an emotionally draining day, and of all the jobs I was working, this was my least favorite and the most thankless. I closed my eyes.

“Just wait,” I told myself, launching into the internal pep talk I pulled out whenever I needed some cheering up. “I'm going to be super successful one day, and I'm going to write a book. It's going to be a kickass autobiography. And this is how it always happens in the book. This is just that part of the book where the character is going through hard times. This is that sucky part of the story. Just get through a few more pages, and it's going to have an amazing ending.”

I took a deep breath, stepped out of the car, and walked into the gym. I sat behind the counter and spent the next several hours jerking my head back as I tried to keep myself from nodding off.

“I hope you fucking die,” Eileen spat at me, snapping me out of a semi-sleep.

“Huh?” I shook my head slightly, pulling myself back into the moment.

“I hope you fucking die,” Eileen repeated.

I put on my best customer-service smile.

This is just the sucky part of the book
, I reminded myself.
And you
, I thought, turning my attention to Eileen,
will be one of the villains.

The last person I wanted to deal with was Eileen, an alcoholic lady who lived in her car. She reeked of booze and her dirty blonde hair looked like it rarely saw a comb. She had bags under her eyes and a cluster of pimples along her jawline. She scowled at me, and though she was probably in her mid-thirties, she looked closer to fifty.

I had less than an hour until I could clock out. The air conditioner kicked into full blast at five every morning and I was freezing cold. I just wanted my shift to be over.

Eileen would wish death upon me every week when she would put the tip of her finger, where the finger and nail meet, on the scanner and, of course, her print wouldn't register.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I would hear the angry tapping of her fingernail on the scanner's glass.

Eileen would glare at me. “It's not working! It's not working!” she shouted. “Just let me in.”

She would always fight with me. She'd scream that I was stupid and I would calmly explain that she had to place the pad of her finger down, but this morning I just couldn't bear to guide her through the process again.

She kept jamming her finger into the scanner. Finally, by chance, she got it right and the machine registered her print.

“You're all set,” I said in an overly cheerful tone. “Have a great workout.”

Eileen stormed into the workout area.

As the clock slipped from 5:59 to 6:00 a.m. I grabbed my keys and headed to the car in the cool November air.

“Damn it!” The gas gauge was on empty. I was surprised, somehow I was always surprised, but the empty tank was strategic. The cheapest gas in L.A. was right by the 405 freeway entrance near 24 Hour Fitness. I would time it so that my tank was at the absolute emptiest point when I had my shift.
It will be fine
, I told myself, it was only a short drive.

But the whole way there I leaned forward, praying that the smallest amount of momentum would be enough to propel my little Honda to the ARCO station.

As I stood there pumping the gas, I was so tired and cold that my hands were shaking as I put the gas in my car.

I put my whole minimum wage paycheck into the tank and my heart sank. I wasn't taking home a single penny after having worked all night. I wanted to curl up and sleep right there in the gas station parking lot.
Keep going
, I told myself.
In twenty minutes I'll be home and in bed.
I was doing strength and conditioning training on Mondays and I had to train in a couple of hours. But if I got home by six-thirty, I could sleep for three hours before I had to work out. I got in my car and turned the heat on full blast.

I pulled onto the freeway, ready to zoom home. Gridlock. Bumper-to-bumper as far as I could see. I forgot it was a holiday weekend. Everyone who had tried to avoid the return-to-L.A. traffic on Sunday was coming home at dawn on Monday.

The traffic was slow. The heat was on. I was so tired. My car was so comfortable.

BOOM!

I woke up when my face smashed into the steering wheel. I opened my eyes. The accident didn't knock me out. It woke me up.

I had rear-ended a silver Toyota Solara.

I pulled over. When I touched my face my hand was covered in blood. I was edging toward hysteria. My breathing was quick. Tears were burning my eyes. I couldn't think. I didn't know what to do. I called my mom.

“I just got into an accident on the freeway, and I don't know who to call. Do I call 911?”

She told me emphatically yes.

Cars crawled past and I could see the passengers staring at me. Neither car was badly messed up, but the accident would have to go through the insurance. I started to worry again about money. My insurance rate would go up and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough for rent.

The woman in the Toyota walked up to me, and I watched as the color drained from her face when she saw me. She kept asking me, “Are you OK?”

The paramedics came. The guy looked me over and told me, “You have a broken nose and maybe a mild concussion. That sucks. Go home.” He may have used more medical terminology, but that was the gist.

When I fell asleep at the wheel, I smashed my nose on the steering wheel and deviated my septum; now my nose is a little deformed. It's one of the reasons why when I get punched in the face, my nose goes flat. If you look up my nose, you can see it's off.

Since both cars were drivable, the highway patrol officer said we were free to go. The paramedics left. Highway patrol left. The Solara driver drove off. I sat in my car on the freeway for another few seconds. I don't know what I was waiting for. I was just waiting. I wanted to close my eyes again and wake up and be anywhere else. To wake up in my bed, rested for the first time in God knows how long. And not sore for the first time in God knows how long. And certainly not looking like I'd been whacked in the face with a baseball bat.

I felt beat down. My face hurt. I was shaken up from the crash. I felt myself teetering on the edge, struggling to find my footing. Everything seemed to be falling apart.

This is the part where I wish I could say that I reached deep down and screamed. That kind of primal soul-cleansing, “Is that all you got?” kinda scream. Where the sun started to break over the horizon, and I saw the beauty and meaning of nature. Where maybe a bird flew overhead as a sign. Then I could say that I knew in that moment that everything would be all right. That did not happen.

Instead, I cried, heaving body-racking sobs. The salt of the tears and the iron taste of blood pooled in the back of my throat. In the rearview mirror, I could see the mess of clotting blood and slimy snot, streaked by tears. I didn't even care enough to wipe it away.

“I'm so fucking tired,” I said aloud, feeling blood drip down my face. Cars kept passing me by and I let them.

Hands trembling, I called my mom again.

“Hello . . .” Hearing her voice, I choked up even more, and—on the verge of hyperventilating and much to her confusion—the words burst out, “I fucking hate this part of the book.”

I was being tested, and while I knew in my heart that I was going to pass, in that moment, it felt like I was failing.

Every time I step into the cage, I am absolutely confident I will win. Not only am I a superior fighter. Not only do I want it more. But I have worked harder than she ever will. That is what truly sets me apart.

Growing up, Mom hammered into me how much harder champions worked than anyone else. When I complained about going to practice or when I hit the snooze on the alarm instead of getting up to go running, my mom would say casually, “I bet [whoever my archrival at the time happened to be] is training right now.”

She had me stay after practice and work on drills. Whenever I pointed out that no one else's mother made them stay, she simply informed me, “Champions always do more.”

Exasperated, I whined, “Mom, I've been here for an extra fifteen minutes. Everybody's already left. I've already done more.”

She simply told me, “Champions do more than people who think that they've done more.”

Tuesdays were the hardest day of the week.

I worked the graveyard shift at 24 Hour Fitness on Saturdays and Sundays, so on Monday mornings, depending on how tired I was, I either headed to my apartment for a few hours of sleep or drove directly to strength and conditioning training with Leo. Leo was in Sherman Oaks, which is completely across L.A. from both 24 Hour Fitness and my house. I worked out with Leo, lifting weights and doing circuits, then showered at the gym (it had free conditioner!). Afterward, he let me sleep on the couch at his house for a few hours before we drove to wrestling practice. I relished that quiet time alone where I didn't have to be going from one place to another and could rest. We went together to wrestle at SK Golden Boys, which was a makeshift wrestling gym in a garage where Martin Berberyan ran practice. The level of competition made up for the thrown-together practice facility. I would go up against all the guys in wrestling, and when I didn't one-up them, I at least held my own. The garage was built to hold cars, not wrestling practice, so it was poorly ventilated and stiflingly hot. It was humid and smelled like sweat. I showered there, in the added-on bathroom, but the minute I stepped out of the shower, the heat was so overwhelming that I immediately started sweating again. We got back to Leo's after eight p.m. and it took me another hour to drive to DPCG's house, where I spent almost every night. He wasn't working, so he watched Mochi for me. After back-to-back overnight shifts and a double workout, I collapsed into bed.

On Tuesdays, DPCG and I woke up at seven-thirty a.m., then drove to the Coffee Bean in the Santa Monica business center. I loved waiting in line with his arms around me.

Then Mochi and I were off to Glendale to train. I took the 405 North to the 134, glad to be going against traffic. My car's air-conditioning was still broken and I only had one working window. I had a pair of laundry baskets in the backseat of my car, one containing clean clothes, the other dirty. Mochi liked pulling the dirty ones out and rolling around on them. The smell of dirty laundry, sweat, and dog slobber was overwhelming. I was pretty sure a new super pathogen was being bred in my backseat, and when Mochi started developing a rash, I considered that proof.

I got to GFC around nine in the morning, before Sevak, and let myself in. Mochi was supposed to stay on the slab of concrete by the door, but she refused to listen and climbed up on the corner of the ring. I warmed up until Edmond came. When he walked in and saw the dog in the ring, he could not hide his disgust, but it wasn't until months later that he politely asked me to stop bringing the dog to the gym.

“What should I do today?” I asked Edmond.

Then I did whatever exercise Edmond told me to do.

Hitting the bags, the little speed bag, the hulking heavy bag, the double end bag. Shadow boxing. Jump roping. Bouncing on the tire. Working with the medicine ball. Doing drills. Going under the little ropes, working on agility. There were hundreds of different things there I would do.

I did whatever Edmond assigned me to do until he realized that he had forgot I was still there doing it, far longer than he had intended me to do it. I never lessened the level of intensity that I put out. Then Edmond told me to do something else.

I spent three hours a day at GFC, and occasionally, if he was in a generous mood, Edmond held mitts for me, not even for twenty minutes. But on these days, I made the most of every second.

Whenever he called my name, I jumped up, ducked under the ropes, and stepped into the ring, where he had me throw a left jab. A jab is a quick, sharp blow, not the kind of power punch where you can throw a knockout with one hit. For months, every session was jab, jab, jab. Sometimes it was a double jab. That was all Edmond let me do in the ring for a very long time.