Written by guest writer Rob Borman
Part one
The crowd was still roaring over the victory of the match, much to the chagrin of John. He cut the wraps from the fight off his hands and took the rag from his locker and dabbed the blood and sweat from his face and sank down on the bench behind him. It was a knock out of the century as by the third round, his opponent Dapper Don D’Arcy had taken a right hook to the chin, then James’ punch to the gut. His coach and manager had stepped out to fetch the winnings, giving him time to pause on the knockout, though it really didn’t feel like a knockout.
John Charles Miller was known best by his ring name “The Windy City Wonder”, a title that he despised since he hated the way it sounded. He walked over to the showers and stripped down, letting the water hit his sore flesh, turning it a pale pink. The shower was a deluge of serenity on his aching flesh; the aches of his bout started to fade and melt into the drain. Thoughts rushed his mind like a torrent of hail, then just as quickly faded into the darkness of his mind. Once finished, he moved back to the locker and started to dress. Just as he finished buttoning up his shirt, his manager came in with a leather briefcase and a smile on his face.
“Hey champeen, hell of a knock out in round three, listen, I got your cut right here, it came out to $2500, know I got you a cab it’s been paid for champeen, all you gotta do is just head right up to your apartment and you get some sleep,’’ His manager said, pushing the bag into his hand and nudging him down the hallway. The doors opened, and there stood a dingy yellow cab with the back passenger door standing open. John was pushed in and sped away from the venue.
John was unable to comprehend what the radio was saying as any conversation turned to a muddled slur of nonsense. Out of the window were the passing of the lights of the city against a soft twinkling sky, all of which faded into a black abyss. When the cab stopped at his apartment, he rolled from the back and left the cabby a tip with the cash he had in his pocket. For some reason, the bout had knocked him harder than he had thought; as such, he stumbled to the door of the building and pulled himself up to the third floor and to his apartment door. The wood panel of the hallway added an uncomfortable warmth to the hardwood floor that creaked beneath his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shadow, or something, that disappeared as fast as it came to his attention. Shrugging it off as a minor concussion from the bout, he walked into the apartment.
The single room was spartan in its furnishings, with just an iron frame bed and a thin mattress covered with a set of white sheets. Hanging from a nail on the wall next to the door was a calendar marked with red ink, the date circled for the fight was ex-ed out. He set his leather case on the bed and walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Pabst. Popping off the top, then collapsing into the wooden chair that made his dining set, took a long plug then set it on the counter as he started to remove his shoes. The throb in his feet and the dizziness he felt started to take its toll, causing him to almost roll forward. He slugged down the rest of his beer and stripped down to his shorts, sliding the leather case underneath his bed, and lay down.
The room spun as he drifted off to a floating slumber, which his mind told him was not what he needed to do, but his body overruled. Distant shouts and clamoring played over and over in his mind, the ring bell dinged, and his eyes opened to a fight. Standing before him was a large, faceless man who danced around him; the crowd was maddening and pulsed with the excitement of the fight. His feet felt like they were chained to the ground, and his hands were moving slowly. He felt the sting of each hit from his opponent; all felt like a brick slapping him in the head.
John slipped into his dreams of black figures standing around him in the ring, and a faint chanting. He stood to his feet; his ring attire had been exchanged for a pair of cestus and a pair of linen breeches. A large figure entered the ring, and a bell rang, leading to silence. The pugilist stood, taking John’s blows one at a time, but without a single feeling of resistance, covering his body in a viscous black substance. Before too long, John awoke and sat up in his bed, feeling his breath aching in his lungs. The phone on the wall began to ring.
“Hello,” John answered drowsily
“Listen, Champeen, you’re gonna need to siddown for this. I just booked you on the fight of a lifetime, mo can in Spokan…” his manager’s voice faded into gibberish. He fell to the floor, the heaviness returning.
The next morning, John woke up in a hospital room, the light of the morning beaming into the suite, with his nurse taking his vitals.
“Oh, wonderful, you’re awake, we were worried that you had been damaged too much by the fight last night,” the nurse said
“Where, where am I?”
“Saint Bruno’s hospital and sanitarium,” She smiled as she hung the clipboard on the wall and walked out the door. The stillness of the air hung like a side of beef on a hook, giving John dread within his soul. There was something not right, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
To be continued…