Wes had dreamt the same dream every night this week.
He was in his beloved ring again. The canvas was dinged and torn, fading to an off-white. The posts were sturdy but peeling. The ropes and center of the ring were emblazoned with a black-and-red “GBG”. Grayson Boxing Gym. Home away from home.
The ring itself was smack dab in the middle of an empty warehouse room. The ceiling girders were steel and the walls were corrugated metal. Cheap aluminum folding chairs were arranged in concentric rows relative to the four sides of the ring. A single dim bulb hung from the ceiling, casting the scene in a light the color and consistency of spoiled milk.
Whenever he fell into this dream - and he was starting to be able to predict when - he would already be tired. Past warmed-up, and running close to gassed. His vitals - gut, liver, sides, face - ached, as if he had been slipping the punches that didn’t matter so much but taking the shots that did. Wes’ body felt heavy, his breaths coming too slowly, his guard soft and inattentive. The man in front of him, by contrast, seemed hale and hearty. He hopped almost daintily on the balls of his feet, guard hanging loose, no fear in his stance at all. The guy thought anything Wes did, he could just slip, and he might be right -
WHAM. A lead hook thudded into Wes’ right cheek, and black stars exploded across half his vision.
“Ready to give up?”
The other man called as he danced back. Wes knew exactly what he was going to do next. A tired body is a tired mind, in the end, and if the other guy can’t move, he can’t think. He’ll be trying to match when you did before - so what you want to do is trick him -
The other man feinted a jab into another left hook. Wes brought his other hand up to his mangled face. The hook landed softly and - yes, Wes thought, yes, yes - the other man pivoted on his lead foot so that he was now perpendicular to Wes. Wait, no, he’s fast, Wes thought, holy shit, he’s -
WHAM. The body shot smashed straight into Wes’ lower ribs. His flank was completely exposed. In the space between breaths, Wes felt his diaphragm screech and recoil away from the blow. Every single bit of remaining air squeezed its way out of his mouth in a great WOOSH.
It’s a simple biological fact that muscles cannot work when there is no more oxygen to supply them. Wes collapsed backwards, wheezing. His own face towered over him as the other man - himself, but not - stood over his prone body.
“Having an off day?”
“Fuck you.” Wes wheezed. His clone smiled.
“That’d be an experience.” Not-Wes began taking off Wes’ gloves for him. He took off Wes’ right first, then began untying the wraps around his fingers and wrists.
“Not - not fair.”
“Oh?”
“Ten c-count.”
Not-Wes laughed. It wasn’t Wes’ own. It was uproarious and loud, reverberating off of the metal walls. “Really?” It bounced into his ears and eyes, wormed its way into his mouth. “You think you would’ve gotten up. Really.” He kept chortling as he hauled Wes up to a sitting position by his ungloved right, and squatted down so they were at eye level.
“Yeah, I think I would’ve.”
“I disagree.” The two looked into each other’s eyes. One pair, dark brown bordering on black, burning with the desire to just go another round even though his body wouldn’t allow it. The other pair, a flat, shivering translucent red, like layers on layers of flags in the wind. Not-Wes closed his first - the flags stopped waving - as he turned away and shook his head.
“Why not give up? Surrender?”
“Not a thing I do.”
“And what has keeping things close gotten you?” Not-Wes squeezed his hand. “Nowhere.”
“What the hell do you know about me?”
“What don’t I know?” His doppelganger’s grip was excruciating. Wes attempted to pry his hand free, but Not-Wes’ grip was like a vise. He weakly slapped at the hand, strength all but spent.
“Stop.”
“No. Give up.”
Wes cried out in fury and pain, and swung his other hand around, off the floor, in a wild haymaker. But Wes was sitting down, and he knew it was no use. No lower body movement, no hip rotation to torque and throw weight behind the punch. Not-Wes simply batted his hand away, all while Wes could almost feel the bones in his hand grinding together from the pressure.
“Let - ngh - go, you piece of shit!” Wes jerked his hand backward and gasped as the pressure painfully ground his thumb in between his middle and ring fingers, so far he heard it crunch as the knuckle dislocated and he could feel the entire finger slide through before bending even further along the back of his hand -
“Victory does not come without sacrifice, Wes.”
- and scrape the space between his middle and ring knuckles before flattening out across the back of his hand, the entire thing mangled together, oh god, it hurt -
“What are you willing to give?”
- And Wes burst awake at 3:12 AM in a cold sweat with a cry of pain, cradling his aching hand. For a brief moment, a pale red glow outlined his prize possession, his tool, his greatest weapon; before it dissipated from around his hand and Wes was plunged into darkness again.
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“To start, I just want to tell you all how great it is that you took the first step by coming.”
Wes and seven others along with the head of their group were seated in a circle in a sparse multi-function room in the district public library. For Wes, it distinctly smacked of a middle-school classroom: Linoleum floors, squeaky chairs and a bad kind of musty-paper smell mixed with mothballs. The forty-something man speaking was seated in their circle, and the way he acted made it apparent that his spot should be thought of as twelve-o’-clock relative to everyone else.
“I’m Dan. I’ve been a counselor with Grieve Together’s Crest City branch for about five years now, and before that, I attended these meetings just like you all after I lost my son and my wife.”
There was a sympathetic murmuring around the circle. Wes didn’t really want to comment, but he noticed he was the minority - the only other person that didn’t say anything was a serious-looking young woman seated one chair away to his left. She was maybe slightly older than him, wearing a leather jacket with shiny buttons. She looked like she hadn’t slept in maybe a week.
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Funny how that works out, Wes thought to himself, as he looked down at his gym clothes. He hadn’t bothered to wear anything else, as he’d planned to train afterwards anyway. A lot of people get kept up by stuff like this. Makes sense.
“Let’s go around and do a little introduction. Just your name and, if you’re comfortable with it, why you’ve come to this meeting today. If you’re not ready to talk about what’s happened just yet, that’s a hundred percent okay - sometimes just listening to other people helps the process.”
“I’d be fine with going first.” That was the girl. Confidence? No, Wes thought. Something like desperation.
“Please do.”
“My name’s Penelope. Penelope Coast.” She paused. “I, um, my girlfriend died a little over nine months ago.” Paused again, and studied her hands in a way Wes thought very much reminded him of how a boxer would. Checking for damage, imperfections. She clenched her fists. “I guess I’m here because I feel responsible, in a way.” Swallowing and clearing her throat, almost involuntarily, she continued: “For her dying. Y-yeah.” Penelope then dropped her hands and looked at Dan. “We’ll talk about that stuff, right?”
Dan nodded in a kind of sagely way. “A lot of us tend to feel that way. A few sessions from now, we’ll discuss guilt in some greater detail. Would you, ma’am, next to Penelope, like to follow up?”
“Oh!” The woman started. She was about fifty and wearing a kind of billowy flower-print dress that hung loosely off her gaunt frame. “I’m Diane. Diane Weathers. I’m here because - well, because -” Diane coughed, and then sniffed. She blinked three times quickly, and when that seemed to fail, turned away. “Because my son passed away recently.”
Dan nodded in his wise-ancient-elder kind of understanding way again, and it began to seem to Wes more smug than anything else. Wes tried to push the thought away, but it dug at him like a splinter too fine to remove.
“And you, young man?”
“I’m Wesley Kong, but I usually just go by Wes.” He opened his mouth to continue speaking, and produced a strangled cough that he quickly covered his mouth over. Fuck, he thought. “The reason. The reason I’m here, I mean.” Dan looked expectantly at him, but Wes blinked and saw -
Blazing orange behind the windows of locked doors. Acrid smoke burns his throat and nose as he charges up the stairs, against the tide of people and into the wave of scorching, dry heat. Screaming and sounds of timber creaking and glass shattering. Up, up. Stinging in his eyes. Dull aches becoming sharp pains in his muscles as he pushes. Up, up. The 12th floor. Desperate pleas for help that he’s forced to ignore. A baby crying. Up, up.
“Mom!”
“It’s alright, Wes. You don’t have to push yourself.”
“I think I do.” Wes chokes out. He fights back tears, but there’s no sorrow in them. Diane recoils and Penelope raises an eyebrow - Wes’ face is set in a mask of pain and rage.
“I’m here because my mother died, and -”
She’s heavy on his back, unconscious from choking on smoke that had oozed under a crack in the door; why would a hospice ward need airtight doors? He struggles, vision swimming with tears, gasping for breath - he wants to vomit but can’t, has to find a way down, down, to earth, to safety -
And a ceiling beam collapses, a light fixture spraying blue and orange sparks. He shields his face from the gout of burning plaster-dust, and sees a man in a coat.
“Please! Help me!”
The man turns. His black coat billows against the flames, but neither fans them nor catches fire. His face is obscured by a baseball cap and flame-shadows and soot, thick like paint. Only - two perfect circles sparkle in the light of the blaze. Sunglasses? Goggles? For a split second, through the tears, Wes sees himself and his mother reflected twice, and he knows the man sees him. Sees them.
“I don’t know if I can carry her all the way down. Get her legs?”
He turns away again.
“Hey!”
Starts walking.
“You fucker, don’t you turn your back on -” and Wes is seized by a coughing fit, and is covered in a cloud of soot as a terribly charred hand smashes through the viewing-window of one of the rooms and then falls limp.
When he regains the ability to shout, the man is already gone.
“- that I want to find out why.”
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Wes left his first session of Shared Grief with a gnawing, empty anger in his gut and no resolution to show for it. His mother was still dead. Pronounced deceased by paramedics when they were triaging the victims from the hospital fire. He was still pissed, but not because group counseling didn’t work. The rates spoke for themselves. Of course, the problem was with him. Wes knew all these things, gritted his teeth, and kept walking aimlessly. He didn’t really want to go home. The bottled-up guilt and rage of somebody who knows they fucked up and it’s entirely their fault and no one will suffer the consequences but them themselves because of course group counseling doesn’t work if you lie about what you’re really about.
Wes pounded the gritty, unswept pavement of 12th Avenue as he broke into an aimless jog. He brushed past a gaggle of rastafarians - the white guys were probably in the circle as an excuse to score weed, but he wasn’t sure about the others. A man in a dirty wheelchair, holding a plastic cup and a sign reading 6TH MARINE REGIMENT SEMPER FI GOD BLESS. There was absolutely no reason not to stop for the man. Everyone probably had at least some spare change that they didn’t need. And yet, Rastafarians, gangbangers and young, hungry business-types that couldn’t afford an office in the Financial District walked on. Alongside them, mothers pulling kids and aunties pushing prams. So much so that the homeless veteran had fallen asleep in his wheelchair still clutching his cup.
Walls and building-sides of genuinely beautiful graffiti murals and street art alongside gang tags, curse words and dicks. Hawkers flashed impressively fake watches and jewelry from dingy pawn shop storefronts. An argument that was probably going to escalate into a brawl spilled out from a deli onto the street, slowly gathering a crowd of curious onlookers.
All in all, a regular afternoon in Mercury Towers.
Wes wasn’t aware where exactly his treacherous feet had been leading him until he found himself not in front of the gym he’d bought a membership for, but instead in front of a brick building with scant windows and black-and-red-lettering over the front double doors. GBG. Grayson Boxing Gym.
“Shit.” He muttered.
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“We told you to never show your fuckin’ face here again.”
Wes had arrived at the absolute worst possible time. Mack Grayson, owner, proprietor and coach extraordinaire had wandered out of his office onto the floor. Perhaps to watch the new blood spar against the old. Fighters Wes had known from his days with the Gym continued to work hard - some still warming up, others well into their workout. Wes recognized Harry Hart, one from his generation, finally working double-unders into his jump rope session. Wes chuckled internally. Only took him three whole months of trying.
“I’m talkin’ to you, Wes!”
At the sound of the coach’s voice and his name, the old guard - and Harry - perked up. Some turned to look at him. Of those that did, most glowered. One spat.
“Got lost, sir.”
“You did it once, you can get lost again. So get the fuck outta here.”
“I’m here to work, Coach Grayson.”
For his age, the old man was fast. Grayson had been the best semi-pro outboxer in the Towers area during the 80s, and though he was retired, he’d never stopped training or keeping in shape. In a flash, Grayson was jabbing him in the chest with an outstretched, hairy finger.
“No. No you’re not.”
“Coach?” One of the trainees called out.
“Keep workin’ those pads, kid.” Grayson replied. He didn’t take his eyes off of Wes. Some grade-A stink eye, he thought.
“New blood?”
“Don’t try and change the subject. You did what you did. Can’t go back on that. You ain’t welcome.”
Wes had aimlessly jogged here in a self-hating, angry fugue. He was still hot off of that smug prick Dan at the Shared Grief meeting. Angry at himself for not actually contributing anything meaningful, wasting time for no good reason. Didn’t even follow anyone out to try and make a few friends now that he’d lost every connection he had along with the good graces of everyone at GBG. He clenched his fists. Got madder. Ground his teeth. Didn’t help. Breathed out slowly. Instead of air, what came out when he opened his mouth was -
“What do you know, old man?”
“Mouthing off, now? What, you put a kid in the fucking hospital and that wasn’t enough?”
“You don’t understand a single thing about me.”
“I know you’re a lyin’ cheat who’s a disgrace to anyone who’s ever worn the gloves.”
Wes walked up, right up to Coach Grayson. “Shut up. I’m going to the changing rooms.” Jabbed him back in the chest with his own finger. Grayson didn’t flinch.
“You’re not signed up with us anymore.”
“The fuck I am.”
“Try me.”
The gym had stopped training for the last 30 seconds, and the silence was deafening as the coach in his mid-sixties, at five foot eight, managed to stare down his former pupil about half a head taller than him. Heavy air pulled taut between the two men replaced the whooshing of jump ropes and the thudding of padding on padding. Wes began to raise his arms from his sides, already clenched into fists, and in response, Grayson’s feet instinctively shuffled into a stance -
- and Wes dropped his hands.
“What? Put ‘em up, Wes. See where it gets you. Gonna lay me out, too?”
Wes broke eye contact with his old coach as he hung his head low to look at the floor. His clenched fists slowly relaxed, and the white-hot anger began to cool. It was a molten slag, a toxic mix of emotions that separated into chunks and rivulets - guilt, envy, frustration, deep shame. He turned around and headed for the door. Jeers resounded from his fellow fighters as he turned tail. Wes studied the floor determinedly, refusing to let the men behind him see his reflection. His shoes blurred into multicolored blobs as tears began to blur his vision. He gritted his teeth.
“That’s right!”
“Get your ass outta here!”
“Scram, Kong!”
Wes pushed open the doors and rounded the corner away from GBG. Once safely out of sight, he looked up at a clear blue sky pockmarked with clouds. The entire picture swam and bobbed, sharp pinpricks of reflected light shooting into the back of his head. Wes blinked hard, and the tears began to run down his face. He sniffed, but it was more like a gasp into his nose - or a sob.
“Fuck, man.”
A nearby voice called out to him suddenly, causing him to start. He brought his arm up to his face and wiped away the worst of the tears. Of course, his eyes were still bloodshot and his face was still flushed and puffy. What a way for someone to find me.
“Wes? Wesley Kong?”