Pain Don't Hurt (14 page)

She was walking ahead of us at a clip that was forcing both Tim and me to speed up. She was walking like she wasn't with anyone else. It was bizarre. Like she had no idea that we were supposed to be going with her. At a stoplight crossing, she stopped and turned her head. Seeing us struggling to keep up, she rolled her eyes and motioned with her hand. “Come on, you are going to miss the light.” As I got closer I saw her hand, a silver band on her ring finger.

“Are you married?” I asked.

She sighed heavily, indicating that there wasn't an easy answer. “Yeah. I am. I guess. I never see him anymore. He just . . . Yeah, he isn't around much.” She dropped her head suddenly and then stomped her foot. “Ugh, this fucking light . . .”

I looked at Tim again, this time almost parentally. He cut me off. “Oh, don't even . . .” And he was right. Who was I to judge?

We got to the bar and a security guard who was clearly enamored with her brought us inside and showed us to a table. Shelby started a tab and instantly ordered shots. This girl was running from something and running hard and fast. I knew this pattern.

“I'm not drinking,” I told her again.

She narrowed her eyes. “That's fine. I'm ordering you a shot anyway.”

“
I'll drink it!
” Tim shouted. Shelby got up and moved to the opposite side of me to ignore him. Her body was turned to face me directly as I was staring straight ahead. Now she was going to start grilling me.

“So what's your deal, man? What's with this ‘brooding sad guy' shit?”

I burst out laughing. “Is it that obvious?”

“Well yeah. And why aren't you drinking? I want you to drink with me.” She held up a dripping shot glass full of whiskey. I grabbed it.

“You want me to drink with you? Okay, fine.” I downed the shot, grabbed ahold of her shot, downed that, and then grabbed a beer. “You don't know what you're asking for.”

“Hey, whatever. So Tim tells me you're flying out of town tomorrow. What for?” She grabbed the beer out of my hand, took a long pull, then wiped the rim with her hand, leaving a red smear across her palm.

“I have unfinished business. And I'm going to watch some fights in Philadelphia. What about you? Tim told me that you're also heading out of town in a week or something like that?”

She straightened her shoulders and ordered more drinks. “Yeah, I'm flying to Cincinnati for a month.”

“Jesus Christ, what for?”

“I'm piggybacking on my friend Josh's training camp. He's a professional fighter getting ready for a fight. I used to train in boxing, and I've been wanting to get back into it. . . . Just been needing a change.” She got a distant look in her eye and reached for the beer again.

“So you're going to be training out there. You ever trained at that level before?”

She laughed. “No, I've never done most of this shit before. But I need to get away. I need to go do something for myself.”

“Are you worried about how hard this is going to be? I mean, you're going to get your ass kicked on a daily basis, honey, you ready for that?”

She passed the beer back to me. “Yeah, well, it's better than sitting in this fucking apartment waiting for attention and drinking myself stupid every night.”

This girl was lonely as hell. She had nothing about her that said married. She didn't carry herself with her the air of someone who was married. She seemed preoccupied and sad. Over further conversation I found out that her husband worked nearly sixty miles away at a place that had opportunities available within five minutes of their home, but he refused to switch locations. He rose at five
A.M
., drove to work, and came home at eight
P.M
. exhausted, expecting food and sex. She had no one to talk to. She was a good conversationalist and was just wasting away in that apartment waiting for someone to engage her brain. So, she had decided to pursue what she loved, and what she loved just happened to be combat sports. I felt my heart swell. I felt proud of my profession for the first time in a long time. After trying to be a compatible half, she was diving headfirst into her own passion. She was just leaving. I had originally jumped into fighting to get away from something else, so I understood. She had this animalistic desperation about her, but if she was afraid of her new ventures, it didn't show.

Later that night a very drunk Tim, Shelby, and I ended up being driven to her doorstep by a mutual friend. As the car pulled up to her door she drunkenly fumbled with her keys and said, “Well, all right, g'night, guys.”

I popped up and said loudly, “Well, a man should always walk a lady to her doorstep,” and I hopped out after her. I could feel Tim's eyes boring holes into my back.

We walked up to her door, and she turned and said, “Hey, thanks for being awesome, I hope you find whatever you're looking for, you know.”

“Hey, give me your phone,” I said. She handed it to me half-bemusedly. “I'm putting in my phone number, so that you don't do it and forget whose number it is tomorrow when you aren't drunk. We should hang out again, but by ourselves, okay?” I'd already decided that I had every intention of meeting up with her in Cincinnati, even if it meant I had to hitchhike the entire way to get there.

She smiled at me. “Yeah, sure,” she said, and closed the door in my face.

Who the fuck is this girl? And what brought her to me now?

chapter fifteen

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

—
JAY MCINERNEY

I
t didn't take Shelby more than a few hours before she started texting
me after I gave her my number. After that, we were in contact every day, nearly every hour. We talked about authors we liked, what inspired her to pursue combat sports, films, art, everything. Everything except for our sad lives and the stories we were running away from. By the time she landed in Cincinnati we were already good friends. Several days later I was standing inside of a gym called the Sweatt Shop watching a thick-shouldered, bald-headed beast of a man named Shane put Josh, Shelby's friend, through some of the meanest and most creative strength and conditioning work I had ever seen.

“This guy is a fucking genius. He is really who inspired me to want to be a trainer,” Shelby whispered. She was referring to Shane. Moving deftly from modified powerlifting moves to explosive plyometrics, Shane was blurring the line between torture and training. He walked alongside Josh carrying a stopwatch, glancing at it every few seconds and speaking very calmly. There was no shouting, no anxiety-inducing urgency in his voice, just supportive persistence and a constant reminder of the time. Within twenty minutes Josh, a stocky and good-natured West Virginia lightweight fighter, had thrown up twice and crawled through his own vomit once. Shelby was beaming.

“You should see his wife. Strongest woman in the world, and kills at sprints. This guy builds explosive endurance muscle tissue better than anyone I have ever seen. I want to do what he does more than anything. I want to build better athletes.” She was completely lit up. Josh was currently strapped to a sled, vomit slicked on his forearms; Shane was sloshing a hose at him as he passed by. Shane's wife Laura stood to the side holding a small black Staffordshire terrier and smiling a bright smile. She looked like she could bench-press a Ferris wheel.

Shelby had told me through multiple conversations what had led her to this point. She had grown up in a house with parents who didn't like violence and eschewed combat sports. She used to sneak into various friends' houses to watch boxing fights. As she got older she sought them out more frequently. In June of 2003 she saw the third Arturo Gatti–Micky Ward fight. She had been an Arturo Gatti fan going into the trilogy, and this third fight cemented Arturo as not only her favorite boxer but her inspiration. She recounted the fight on the phone to me once with almost shocking accuracy.

“In the fourth round Arturo went to throw this body shot and caught his hand on Micky's hip, breaking it. He telegraphed it right away, shaking it and looking at it. The whole rest of the fourth Arturo was stunned. Then he went to his corner to Buddy McGirt, one of the best trainers in the world, and as he sat down he looks at Buddy and he says, ‘My hand, my hand, I broke it' . . . and Buddy did this thing where he just said, ‘What do you want me to do about it, Arturo?' and Arturo Gatti stopped, thought about it, and said, ‘I just have to deal with it.' Fifth round, he favored his right hand. Sixth round he got
rocked
by Ward. . . . Suddenly, he turned on the jets. Arturo won that fight on pure heart. Changed my life. I started pursuing boxing right after that.”

She had met Josh through a mutual friend. Josh was a character. A five-feet-five-inch MMA fighter built like a fireplug, with a country West Virginia accent so thick he sounded like he was faking it. Josh had incredible tenacity in training and is to this day one of the most amiable people I have ever met. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who has a bad thing to say about Josh. In an act of desperation to find a new path and to get her away from Hollywood, Shelby had asked to come to Cincinnati and train with him in exchange for fixing him a few meals and just generally being company throughout his camp. She hadn't played around either. She went and bought a
gi,
shin guards, a new pair of gloves, and a customized mouth guard, and had packed a small suitcase full of supplements and training clothes and flown out to sleep on a sandy air mattress and train sometimes six hours a day. She had already learned how to burn ringworm off using hydrogen peroxide and Clorox; she had already had her own training session with Shane during which she had thrown up and wept before calling me to tell me how awesome it was. She had busted her nose in a sparring session. She had been kicked in the crotch full force by an Olympic Tae Kwon Do competitor. She had drained a cauliflower ear (Josh's were magnificent) and she had accidentally kicked Josh's kickboxing instructor square in the face during a head-kick drill when he had told her that he doubted she could lift her leg that high. She hadn't worn makeup in nearly three weeks when I got there. For a woman who came from a world of false eyelashes and red lipstick every day, this was a huge change, and she was absolutely loving it. Her passion for it was inspiring. I had almost forgotten what it was like to love the sport so much.

“Oh my God, I need to shower and then go get somethin' ta eat!” Josh was a sweaty mess but was still grinning. He offered his hand and then laughed as I grimaced at it. “It's all good, man. I'm fixing to go wash off, you can get me back then.”

Over a carefully balanced meal of chicken, brown rice, and steamed broccoli, Shelby started her pitch. “You see, Josh, Mark was a K-1 fighter, and I think he could really add a lot to your camp. . . .”

She was selling me as a coach to this guy.

Normally this would be unheard of. At this point Josh was about three weeks out. Established camps start oftentimes six to eight weeks out. Josh already had a kickboxing coach, but he suddenly piped up with, “Man, I would love to have you help me with my trainin'. And if you wouldn't mind, I'd also love to have you corner me on the night of my fight. My kickboxing coach can't be there, and I would really be honored to have you in my corner.”

I had to go back to Pennsylvania. My son Ben was having a small operation to have a birthmark removed, and I needed to be there for it. But I agreed to come back afterward, to help Josh and to be in his corner. It had been years since I'd been in or near an actual fight. I felt old but excited.

Upon my return I started working with Josh. Every time, Shelby would stand in the corner quietly and watch or would work a bag. Her form was far from perfect, but she was driven. Finally one day she approached me and asked if I would mind holding pads for her, just once. After that I would train both her and Josh at different points during the day. They were both infinitely coachable. Open to listening, committed to perfection, and polite. Even with our friendship, as it were, to this day when we train together Shelby and Josh both call me either “sir” or “coach.”

Josh walked at a heavy weight. Between fights he had a tendency to blow up, that West Virginia diet not suited to his athletic lifestyle. He was around 190 pounds. By the time I met him his initial weight cut was well under way and he had shaved down to about 170. When the time came for him to weigh in the day before his fight, I opted to enter the sauna with him, Shane, his friend Eamon, and a few other friends of his. Shelby would have gone in with us had the health club we cut weight at allowed her to. She was as much a part of the team as I was, and sitting in a steam room with a bunch of naked guys smeared with Albolene wasn't a big deal if it meant being a support. Josh sweated out his remaining weight, and then we made our way to the venue in Eamon's car. He weighed in at 155 on the nose. We headed out to get him fed and into bed. Next day was fight day.

Shelby had never seen an MMA fight up close. She had been privy to unlicensed boxing fights earlier in her life and had even participated, but this, this was going to be different. And it's always worse when your friend is fighting instead of you, because you have distance and time to worry. Josh was the main event. He entered the cage with myself; his jujitsu coach, Jim; and Shane in his corner. Shelby sat beside the cage chewing her cuticles.

Round one, Josh landed some heavy hands, but his opponent wanted to play the blanket game, taking Josh down and pinning him while inflicting minimal damage. Jim kept shouting, “Josh, you
need to get up,
” while Josh desperately searched for ways to grab ahold of a limb. Josh was winded; this weight cut had hurt him. In between rounds I encouraged him to use his hands, stay away from kicks, and cut angles. All three rounds looked virtually the same. Josh would land unholy-sounding blows on the guy, then he would be taken down and smothered. At the end, Josh lost, three rounds to none.

Shelby came running into the back room, pushing past security to where we were.

“Josh is fine, Shelby, he's fine. He's over there eating a candy bar.” I pointed to Josh, who sat smiling his bright smile and shoveling a Hershey bar into his face with ferocity. He had a black eye but was otherwise totally fine.

“I've already been checked out, I'm fine. He's not so fine, though.” Josh pointed with one sticky finger at his opponent, who sat in a chair surrounded by commissioners and paramedics, gagging into a bucket and crying. He was taken to the hospital, and it was determined that he had a multitude of injures—a bruised larynx, a broken nose, bruised ribs, and a few other things. This is why I preferred kickboxing to MMA. In kickboxing, that guy wouldn't have been able to win a fight on takedown points. He would have had to stand and face Josh, and he would have lost. It seemed ridiculous that Josh was sitting here happily eating candy, and his opponent was leaving in an ambulance, yet his opponent was deemed the undisputed winner.

“I needed that win, damn it. I needed it. Let's go to the bar, I have credit for my fight pay with the casino, we are drinking tonight.” Josh was doing what so many fighters do. You get a win, you party for a few days, then you hit the gym and get back to it. You lose . . . and you party to forget. It makes no sense, but I have seen it done a thousand times. Josh wanted to go drinking, and I knew what this sort of drinking was going to look like. I reluctantly followed him to the bar. This was going to be bad.

Shelby had changed since L.A. She wasn't the same drinker. She had a shot of whiskey and then just proceeded to nurse a beer for the rest of the night. It didn't interest her anymore, almost seemed to bore her. Something had changed. She didn't seem so sad, so lost. Instead, she and Eamon made it their jobs to start removing half glasses from Josh when he wasn't looking and dump them out, for Josh and I were on a mission: Get as drunk as possible. I don't know what I drank; I know at some point I had tequila, Jägermeister, vodka, whiskey, some sort of cherry-based alcohol, all kinds of stuff. Shelby and Eamon kept trying to take glasses from us to limit our intake, but it wasn't working; we'd just order more. Finally, the money started to run out. We had drunk almost all of Josh's fight pay, and while Josh had a room at the casino, we had to drive back to his house to sleep. As we climbed into Eamon's car, Shelby made sure to stick me in the front, saying, “This is a Mustang; when you puke you need to be able to do it out a window.”

Puke? I
never
puke. Not ever.

Twenty minutes into the drive, I puked.

I puked straight into my hands, and then, after Eamon, the ever-tolerant driver, rolled down the window, I tossed it out, only to have it splatter on the back side of the car. Eamon pulled into a gas station to hose off part of his car so the paint wouldn't get eaten off, and to buy me a shirt since I had vomit down the front of mine. I was humiliated. This was not me being cool. This was me clearly being out of control, a feeling I did not like. I could hear my father's angry voice inside me saying, “
Toughen up.
” Eamon came out of the gas station and handed me some four-dollar shirt he had just bought for me to change into. In my idiotic drunken state I simply used the shirt as a rag and wiped the vomit on my shirt off with it. “Or you can do it that way . . . that's one way to do it,” Eamon said sort of bemusedly.

Once we got to the house, Shelby forced me to check my sugars and take insulin. Then she forced me to eat, something I did not want to do. After that, she started a shower and led me down the stairs to Josh's basement, where the washer and dryer were. She stood there tapping her foot while I stripped down to my boxers and handed her my puke-covered clothing, which she dumped into a washing machine. I leaned on the washer, sulking.

“Mark, you'll feel better in the morning. Don't worry.” She was trying to console me, but she was irritated. I could hear disappointment in her voice. She had looked up to me until now.

“Yeah, I'm just mad though,” I slurred. I couldn't make a lot of sense out of my feelings, but I knew I was upset. What I would come to realize was, I hadn't felt proud of myself in a long time. The way she and Josh had seen me made me feel proud again. Made me feel like a fighter again. Made me feel like a person again. And here I was, in neon-blue boxer-briefs, standing barefoot in a basement, drunk off my ass, while the one person alive who saw me as her hero washed my pukey clothes. What a fucking winner. The self-loathing was so oppressive I wanted to crawl into the washing machine and just hide.

“Mark, it's fine.” It really wasn't fine. At all. “Just go upstairs and shower and you'll be okay.”

As if I hadn't already made a lovely impression, I decided halfway up the stairs that it made no sense to wash some of my clothes and not all. So I stopped, pulled my boxer-briefs off, and hurled them at the washer, instead landing them on Shelby's shoulder, and in trying to dismiss the embarrassment, shouted, “
I don't give a fuck, so what,
” as I clomped up the stairs to greet Eamon with my stark nakedness.

“
Really?
This is like the fifth one of my friends I've seen naked today! Can't one of them be female? God!” Eamon shouted, causing Shelby to burst out laughing. He was referring to the sauna, where he had accompanied the rest of us earlier.