but stay mad and you’ll never be bitten.”
-Jack Kerouac
Physical injuries take days or even longer to cure, yet an emotional injury never scars. A thought along those lines drifted along the mind of Hyde, the “Beast”, two days after returning to the gym and three after the sparring incident with his best friend, Franky Canet. Walking along the maze of benches, punching bags, piles of tattered equipment and other things strewn about, he didn’t have to turn around to know everyone stared at him with a mixture of hatred and fear. All those furrowed brows and narrow snake eyes hardly fazed him; on the contrary, they amused him. Did they seriously think some stinky looks would hurt more than a real punch? Surely not. They were aware that they couldn’t lay a finger on him, hard as they may try.
Hyde’s destination was a locker room where a proper change of training clothes awaited him. He made it to the blue door not before being interrupted by coach Guido, who quickly and rudely summarized today’s training menu. The outlaw boxer pretended not to hear as he made his way into the next room. It took him one step to forget everything.
The white tiled room with peach colored walls served its purpose. There were enough benches for a good amount of people to sit down without crowding the place, and the big gray lockers were enough for those who had gone pro. Several colorful posters of local boxing cards -both upcoming and already past- were a great reminder of what kind of atmosphere this was meant to be.
In this particular instance, the room was empty save for a young man with closely cropped hair. He was literally struggling with the lock of one of many lockers. His body, big and virile as it was, lacked the toning and obvious power of dedicated boxers; Hyde soon understood this was a new guy, since his face was not even remotely familiar. He stood a couple steps behind him, having deadpanned a hello out of courtesy.
“Having trouble with your locker?” asked the Beast afterwards.
“Yeah. I’ve been having a rough time trying to open this thing. I’m not even used to this kind of lock, but I think I got the combination down.”
“It happens.”
Hyde changed the topic.
“What’s your name?”
“Juan. Nice to meet you.” answered the other man, greeting Hyde until now due to those troubles with the combination lock.
“Juan? You should get a nickname. You got any idea how many Juans box?”
“If it helps, they called me Sylvester in grade school.”
“Sylvester.”
The Beast just had to ask why.
“I used to spit a lot when I talked. Some kind of speech impediment I got over.” confessed Juan with a voice both embarrassed and nostalgic.
“Huh. That’s a good joke.” Hyde smiled and sat with Juan parallel on the bench, straddling it with his legs. His attention drifted to the lock that still refused to open. “Nothing yet?”
Juan smacked his lips and slammed the small lock against the steel door of the locker.
“Nothing.” he replied. “I’m gonna ask one of the trainers to give me the combination again. Or maybe I can just change lockers altogether.”
“Hey. Be my guest.” Hyde shrugged.
The new guy would have done just that had he not recognized the face that appeared in so many of those posters, the man responsible for six absolute victories, all of them knockouts. In the pictures promoting his bouts, he looked naturally fierce, ready to attack and destroy once the bell rang. In the flesh as he was now, dressed in a shirt and jeans instead of his usual boxing garb, he looked like any other person you might find on the streets. His peaceful expression would lead most to believe this man was weak.
Juan let go of the doorknob and trailed back on his footsteps.
“You’re Hyde, right?” he asked, lifting a finger and grinning.
Hyde nodded, making that grin on Juan’s face stretch another notch.
“I’ve read about you in the newspapers! I knew you trained here, but I never imagined I’d come across you so fast. It’s an honor, man!”
“Don’t sweat it.” answered the other boxer, or rather the dark thing boiling inside of him. “At the end of the day, we’re just training, the both of us.”
“That’s true, I guess.” Juan returned to the bench. “I’m not sure if I’ll really aim for the pros, y’know? Maybe I’ll do some amateur fights first; regardless, having you around will be an inspiration.”
Somehow, the locker room turned colder when those words were uttered. The Beast put up a mask of sarcasm in his face and lifted his legs to hug his knees.
“An inspiration?” Hyde roared with sour laughter. This, along with the strange look in his eyes, alerted Juan. “Do you have even the slightest idea of what you’re saying? You probably don’t. You just got here after all. You come here, look at a face from TV or whatever and then you feel like you’re friends with that person… --that he’s an icon. You ain’t the first. I wish you were the last, but that’s not how this is going to roll, right?”
The rookie sensed something weird and dangerous seething from the Beast, making him back off a few inches. The demon-man that was Hyde reveled in this effortless intimidation, later leaning forward to glance over the lockers, mainly Juan’s. He lowered his head and scratched it as if it was part of some strange tic.
“Don’t take it the wrong way, son. Everybody starts from the bottom, and there’s nothing to gain from stomping all over something so ridiculous. It’s a pity I don’t have enough of what you’d call common sense, you know? Aside from you, there is not a single person in this gym--” he said, pointing at the door to emphasize. “--that doesn’t want to kick me the hell out for that reason. What’s really funny is that I deserve it in spades. If I was smart, I’d probably grab my shit and take my ass somewhere else.”
Juan quirked an eyebrow at the strange monologue started by this man. He knew better than to interrupt.
“It’s a pity I love fighting so much, huh?” Hyde rubbed his hands and took Juan’s lock. Taking a nearly scientific interest in the lines and numbers grafted on it, he began to turn the dial. “If God really exists, I’m sure he made me this way in exchange for taking away everything that would make me a decent person like you are. It’s not a good bargain, but I’m not one to complain either. I just happen to keep going, pulling along what I’ve got.”
The brief and frightening speech ended with the dull sound of something heavy giving in. The Beast succeeded where Juan had failed, opening the lock and prying it away. His eyes went up and down, following the lock that he kept juggling with one hand.
“I guess you didn’t try hard enough.” he said.
Juan was absolutely frozen. Hyde moved on and took the opportunity to open the locker and browse its contents.
“--Let’s see. Here we have some wraps, grease to clean the gloves, a mouthpiece, some shorts… Holy shit! You must really be into boxing if you already got all this neat junk.”
The Beast placed all these items on the bench with the utmost care, aligning and sorting them properly so that Juan could look at them. Juan didn’t recognize any of these things, at least not as his property. Curiosity overtook him. He began to poke around the open locker with uncertain hands. The boxer at his side leaned away, giving him full leeway to inspect as he pleased.
It didn’t even take three seconds for him to realize the awful truth; all this time, he had been trying to open Hyde’s locker. His face started to burn up, tinting his skin red. How could he not have gotten all those hints? You would need someone beyond distracted or stupid to understand why the locker was not opening. Realizing his mistake, Juan turned to face his senior; something exploded at his right before they could meet each other’s eyes.
The explosions continued, this time going off on each side of his head like battering rams. Juan then understood that Hyde was slamming his skull with the locker door.
It was horrifying. He was conscious enough to feel the pain, but not enough to protect himself or even cry for help. The first punch left his body feeling limp, with the consistency of thick and inert paste; everything else after that was absolutely unnecessary. Juan wondered what he had done to deserve this. His aggressor didn’t care. The Beast kept cussing at him in words he was no longer able to piece together.
The last thing his brain registered before shutting down was the voice of a third man calling for help. Too late. Juan landed on his knees and then went face first against the toiletries that remained inside the locker, knocking them all over the room’s floor. The Beast would have probably continued to hurt him, but fortunately three of the fittest and bravest members of the gym, accompanied by a more than furious coach Guido, stopped his rampage before it caused a greater disaster. Guido immediately checked up on Juan whilst the others held Hyde down with considerable effort .
Once it was clear that the damage hadn’t been particularly severe, the coach ordered the three men to take Juan away. They obeyed without question, dragging the young man away and staring at Hyde while they did so.
Finally alone, Guido tried to explode at his most troublesome and yet most prodigal pupil; however, the pent up frustration was so much that it ended up stunting itself, becoming a knot in his throat. The Beast looked at this with mild but well hidden amusement, struggling with a fit of laughter that seemed to increase every growing second. He smiled involuntarily when his coach and tamer demanded that he sit down, an order he followed just out of curiosity to see where all would lead.
“Hyde.” started Guido after walking in circles for a while. “Do you have the slightest idea of what you just did?”
The Beast shrugged. “The rookie tried opening my locker, so I just put him in his place. That should teach him not to mess with my stuff.”
“He was confused! Don’t you get it?!”
“It’s not my fault that he’s retarded. Look…” the boxer raised his hands to stop a Guido that was ready to interrupt him. “if they gave him the wrong locker or if he got confused is not my problem. I don’t like people messing with my stuff. What’s so bad about that?”
The coach’s expression was blank. A hand slowly rose to his forehead. “Have you listened to yourself lately? What balls can you have to tell me that?” he sighed and allowed his strong arms to hang by his sides.
“What am I supposed to do with you? Train you in an empty gym? It won’t be long before that happens, if you keep causing all these problems. I should kick you out… but I won’t. I thought I knew what kind of mess I was getting into when I first accepted you here.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t?” Hyde replied, ignoring Guido’s conflicted voice.
“Stop being such a smartass, goddamnit!” the coach yelled. “People here pay so that they can train. They don’t pay to have some maniac beat them up over bullshit like this!”
Hyde tensed his brow at Guido and stood up to confront him. “Bullshit like this, coach? You know what you’re saying?” he said, more as a warning than a threat.
“What would you have done if that poor bastard you just roughed up was your new sparring partner?”
Hyde rolled his eyes. “What’s the meaning of that? --Whatever. It doesn’t matter what I answer. The guy was so green he shone like a neon sign anyways. If he was my sparring partner, I would have killed him in the ring later today.”
Expecting an answer of that nature, the trainer didn’t let his temper rise again. Instead, he wrapped himself in unnerving calm. “You damn very well know I haven’t reported any of your stupid childish fits to the commission, right?”
The Beast narrowed his eyes. The boxing commission was the local organization that ruled and controlled all non-profit aspects of the sport, from the condition of the fighters to their conduct inside and outside the ring. It was also the governing body in charge of handing out licenses to pugilists, the certificates that allowed them to fight professionally.
“I hope you’re also aware that the promoters –namely Nelson- would have a ball testifying against you if I reported you.” added Guido.
“You would have told Nelson yourself if you had the chance.” Hyde smirked. The comment was made as a joke, but Guido’s face meant only business. “Wait a minute. You’re threatening me, aren’t you?”
“I’m warning you, boy. I already go out of my way to keep you from getting ganged upon when you pull off shit like this. As good as you are in the ring, you had a limit and you already walked over it.” Guido pointed at Hyde’s face. “If you touch anyone else outside the ring ever again, or if you intentionally hurt another training partner, I’m taking this to the authorities. We’ll see what you do without boxing, kid. From now on consider your stay here a privilege, not a right.”
A low blow. A desperate one, but effective nonetheless. The beast remained quiet without the opportunity to reply. Satisfied with the result of this conversation, the mentor of such a wild animal took off from the locker room, slamming the door behind him and forbidding anyone in the gym from going in until Hyde had left.
Inside, the Beast roared and shouted for nearly ten minutes, aimlessly punching the air with the hope of venting his fury on invisible foes. Guido’s decision turned out to be wise. The fighting monster had not been tamed, but there existed the possibility –wishful as it was- that it had been reined in.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thoughts? Comments? Feel free to share them.