Fists

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LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT: I really liked the whole boxing thing.

I don’t know what it was, whether it was the sense of security or the awareness that I was doing something the way it should be done. Maybe both, maybe also the terrific feeling that there was a place where I had what it takes, where I could fight on equal terms.

There was a logic about it. You couldn’t escape it, neither you nor anyone else; you knew who you were fighting, it was always a single person, he weighed as much as you did, and if he beat you that meant he was either better than you or more experienced, and in both cases all you could do was learn from your defeat. I know it seems absurd, but the fact is, you end up going to a place where everyone fights because you feel more secure there.

There was also the fact that I was good at it. It must have been all those videos of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson my dad used to watch when I was little, but when I walked into that hangar-like building for the first time and saw that patched-together ring, which was only standing by a miracle, I imagined myself up there skipping about like Ali and firing off jabs like arrows.

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