by Brian Bishop

Created on: August 06, 2008

"This can't be happening again. Please God, not again." The world was spinning around him so fast he couldn't focus. There was a buzzing in his head that was so loud he almost didn't hear the bell that ended the ninth round. He never saw the right hook that connected half a second after the bell. He staggered backwards and into the arms of his trainer, who drug him into the corner and held him there, suspended, until the stool was under him. He folded onto it like an accordion.

"Jimmy? Jimmy, are you alright?" His father's voice seemed distant, as if he was speaking through a pillow. He tried to answer but couldn't catch his breath. The temperature in the arena was stifling. It was like breathing in a steam-filled sauna with a wet bag of cement on his chest. He tried unsuccessfully to spit out his mouthpiece. His father, who was also his trainer, dug his fingers past his swollen lips and gouged it out for him.

"Jimmy, open your eyes and look at me." He heaved in two big gulps of stale, smoky air and muttered, "Yeah, I'm alright." Which came out as, "yah-imawite." Suddenly, three very sharp sensations hit him at once. A cold, wet bag of ice was crushed against the back of his neck. A large cotton swab, smothered with adrenalin, was jammed into the gash above his right eye, and a crushed ampoule of ammonia was pressed under his nose. Reality hit him like a sharp, stinging jab. He started to focus.

"I'm alright." He lied, knowing it was the only answer his father would accept. The ring doctor stepped through the ropes and flashed a light in his left eye, then his right, which was swollen almost completely shut. "Can you see out of that?" the doctor asked with a serious expression of doubt.
"Yeah," he lied. This doctor had a reputation for stopping fights. After nine rounds of the fight of his life, with the world title up for grabs, he could not let that happen. The doctor held up his hand to the right of the damaged eye and asked, "How many fingers do you see?" He couldn't see anything on that side. His father, standing behind the doctor, blinked quickly three times.
"Three, I'm fine, doc." He tried to smile but only produced a bloody grimace. The doctor started out through the ropes. "Okay, but if he takes too many punches I'm stopping this."
"It's a fight, not a ballet." his father retorted as he squatted in front of his son.
"Do you want me to stop this?" his father asked, pulling the front of his trunks out with one hand to help him breath easier and squirting

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