“Six.”
“Seven.”
Hunter made a decision.
He reached up, grabbed his mouthpiece with his thick padded glove, and pulled it out.
He dropped the piece of plastic onto the bloodstained canvas.
Then Hunter lay back.
He flattened himself against the floor, staring up at the chandelier, and closed his eyes.
“Eight.”
“Nine.”
“Ten.”
Out.
The referee waved his arms over his head, crossing them in a sweeping motion.
The fight was over.
There was no deafening roar of applause.
The wealthy spectators sat frozen in their velvet chairs.
The Zenith Athletic Club felt like a tomb.
They had come to watch a coronation, a violent confirmation that their status protected them from the grit of the real world.
Instead, they had watched a mechanic’s son systematically dismantle their illusion of invulnerability.
The referee walked over to Tommy, grabbed his right wrist, and raised his cheap leather glove into the air.
Tommy didn’t smile.
He just lowered his arm, ducked through the ropes, and walked back to his corner.
Ernest was waiting.
He didn’t cheer.
He just wrapped his large arms around his son, pulling him tight against his chest.
Tommy buried his face in Ernest’s shoulder, his small frame finally beginning to shake as the adrenaline started to leave his system.
“You did good, kid,” Ernest whispered into Tommy’s damp hair.
“You did perfect.”
Across the ring, Richard Cole stepped through the ropes.
He completely ignored his son, who was still sitting on the canvas while the trainer wiped the blood from his face.
Cole marched straight toward Ernest’s corner.
Cole’s face was a mask of rigid, barely contained fury.
The veins in his neck were thick and corded.
Two security guards trailed nervously behind him.
Ernest turned, keeping Tommy behind his broad back.
He began unlacing his son’s gloves.
“You think you’ve proven something?” Cole hissed, his voice low, strictly for Ernest’s ears.
He refused to yell in front of his peers anymore.
He was trying to reclaim his sterile authority.
“You think you won?”
Ernest finished pulling the left glove off.
He started on the right.
“The referee seemed to think so, Richard. Or do you want to dispute the count?”
Cole reached into his tailored jacket.
He pulled out the slim leather checkbook and his platinum pen.
His hands were shaking slightly, not from fear, but from the sheer toxic humiliation of having to write this particular draft.
