Chapter 48

Waking up, I had the nagging feeling that today was going to suck huge sweaty donkey balls.

Getting ready after my morning run, I went into the kitchen to grab some juice before leaving.

“You want some coffee?” Grandfather asked.

“No, I’m good.”

I headed out to summer school for my last final. The exam wasn’t difficult, just very tedious. The majority of it required almost a paragraph answer, and once again, it took me almost all of the class to finish it. Turning in my books, I was glad that it was all over with.

There was lunch waiting for me when I got home, as Grandmother had an array of stuff to eat. There was so much good food that it caused me to need a nap.

There was yelling that woke me up.

“Get the hell up, it’s time to go.”

I had napped a bit too long. Getting in gear, I headed out to the truck. Grandfather was already out there waiting on me after he had woken me up. He didn’t look at all happy which didn’t bode well for me.

The drive stayed relatively quiet but as we pulled into the parking lot, he got serious.

“So, did you make a decision as to having a conversation with your mother?”

“Yes, I did. You were right, I was being ridiculous about the whole thing.”

“Good to hear the you recognized it. Let’s go, there’s work to do.”

We went in and I got changed. As we were heading to the ring, Grandfather told me to go ahead and said he’d meet me in a minute.

Trying to make this a short fight was the main thing they were trying to get through to me. The guy I was sparring with asked where my hot girlfriend was, so I just gut-punched him.

It had gotten around what happened, and I don’t know why he brought it up. Master Boripat got him out of the ring. I headed straight to change and was waiting in the truck when grandfather came out. He prepped me on the way home as to what was going to happen.

“So, your mother will be waiting for us at the kitchen table. You two can have your conversation while your grandmother and I will be there for moral support.”

I shot him a look.

“Hey, don’t blame me, she was with your mother when I called.”

Great, I had to figure out how this was going to go down. I spent the rest of the drive thinking about it. I couldn’t decide whether to just tell it all or omit stuff that would embarrass everyone. I’d have to figure it out quick as we were almost there.

Pulling into the driveway, I was a little panicked about the whole thing. I grabbed the bags while Grandfather went in and I decided to control the whole thing from the beginning.

As I walked in to the kitchen, I told everyone, “I’m going to take a shower. We’ll have this conversation when I’m done.”

During the shower I decided to just lay the whole thing out and let the chips fall where they may. The reactions to everything would be interesting to say the least.

Walking into the kitchen, I sat down across from mom and started.

“I have something I’d like to say, and I’d appreciate it if everybody would hold comments or questions until I’m done.” Mom and Grandmother had skeptical looks on their faces. I let it set in before I started.

“Mother, do you remember the Friday evening when I was crying in the truck? Then said I didn’t want to talk to Ellie ever again.”

“Yeah, somewhat.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you why, the whole unvarnished truth.”

I explained the whole thing from beginning to end, leaving out explicit details and stuck to generalities when needed. When I came to the big shockers, the other girls and the evening of discovery, I got the expected reactions.

There was no reaction when I took a shot at mom regarding her comments about Kiku, and how I wasn’t dating anybody at the time even though she seemed to feel differently. I could see both of their eyes were wide the whole time.

“Mother, I apologize for not saying anything about that night before now. I believed that it was my problem to deal with and you didn’t need to be a part of it.”

“I can understand that thought process. Though I’m skeptical. One, I find your description of the relationship abhorrent and also hypocritical. Also, you have been known to lie about things so I’m having a hard time to believe the whole thing wasn’t your idea to begin with.”

“Lilka, you need to...”

“Grandfather, there’s no need to intervene.”

In my younger years Jan and Stosh were always getting in trouble while Erin and Randall were the focus of most of mom’s attention. I’d been known to lie a lot which I think had been a cry for attention as being the middle child, I just kind of faded into the background when we moved out of my grandparents’ house.

Hell, some of the stuff I came up with was actually comical. In the 6th grade, mom got a call from my English teacher. I had told her that I couldn’t do the homework because I couldn’t get help at home as we only spoke Polish at home. It was a masterpiece in my mind at the time. Looking back, I should have just done the work, it was a hindrance at this point.

“Mother you may not believe me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Whether you want to approve isn’t the issue, however the additions to the relationship were her idea and not mine. I benefitted from it, but it was a concession to her. I didn’t break the agreement about the relationship, she did. It’s broken and that’s the end of the relationship, there is no going back.”

“Well, I have a tendency not to believe you. The information doesn’t seem plausible.”

Well, I tried. I wasn’t going to fight her about the whole thing. I couldn’t provide any more explanation of what was going on, she could believe what she wanted. It was in her hands now.

Taking a pause, I went on. “I will not talk to her again, she and I are completely done. Mother, you are entitled to have your own opinion. I’ve given you the facts, what you do with them is on you. I find it disheartening that you’re willing to believe someone before you do your own son. This is going to destroy all the work you’ve done to rebuild our relationship.”

“Well, I’ve heard Ellie’s side and it seems more reasonable. I think you should call her and work this out.”

“If that’s your opinion on the matter, then we’re done. Do not discuss it with me. If you want to talk to her that’s your business and has nothing to do with me. You won’t be able sway me. I’m done with this whole situation and won’t spend any more of my time on it. I’m going to bed.”

I got up and headed upstairs. Passing through the doorway of the kitchen, I heard Grandfather speak up. From the tone of his voice I could tell he was none too happy. Surprisingly, throughout the whole discussion, Grandmother had never said a word.

“Well Lilka, it seems you are intent on alienating your three oldest children. I’ve held my tongue, but you are being ridiculous. You’ve probably lost Jan, your relationship with Stosh is hanging on by a thread, though this will sever what’s left of that relationship as well. In your own words that young man made the effort to try and rebuild your relationship. Has he been untruthful in the past? Yes. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stand behind him. Those three kids are not their father, so stop treating them like they are.”

Laying down in bed, I thought back to the last statement that Grandfather made. From what I could tell she was putting the sins of the father on her children. I didn’t think that this was going to get any better.

Waking up Friday, I was still kind of numb from the conversation the night before and decided to head to work early.

Seemed mom was staying home from work. I grabbed my work clothes skipping my run and headed to work.

Pulling into the parking lot at work two hours early, I had my work clothes on the passenger seat, so I went and dressed in my running gear. I took a long walk to clear my head.

When I got back, I grabbed my work clothes out as Mr. Pope was pulling in. I had a hobo bath while changing in the bathroom. There was a truck to unload, though it only had to be half unloaded by the end of the day. My goal was to finish by the end of the day. I got to work and kept busy till lunch when Mr. Pope called me into his office. Grandfather was sitting there.

“Have a good lunch. Take your Grandfather to the picnic tables out back.”

Grandfather had a brown paper grocery bag with him. Seemed Grandmother had made lunch for us and I could smell what she made.

Where the hell did she get whole fresh sardines in the middle of Georgia? Lunch was grilled sardines, about 7 inches long on a thick slice of homemade Marfa bread and some tomato slices. This was typical of growing up in my Grandparent’s house growing up. We ate mostly Polish and Portuguese dishes; not many hot dogs or hamburgers.

After we sat down and the food was set out, the expected conversation started.

“Well, I’m sorry that the conversation didn’t go well last night.”

“It’s not your fault. It was a conversation that needed to happen and thank you for pushing me. If we had that conversation earlier, I don’t think it would have changed the result.”

“Well, your mother was a bit out of line as far as I’m concerned.”

“There’s no need for you to make apologies or make excuses for her. She’s an adult, and as such can make her own decisions. The consequences of them are hers to own.”

He just kind of looked at me while we continued talking about other things. Finishing lunch, I cleaned up the garbage as Grandfather went inside. I popped by the office on my way to the back. Grandfather and Mr. Pope were giving each other a hard time, so I left. The whole truck got unloaded a little before quitting time. Mr. Pope told me that I didn’t have to come in due to my fight the next day.

That evening was unique; dinnertime was deathly quiet. About the only time something was said is when somebody wanted something. I just wanted to relax, so when dinner was done, I went and lay down in bed.

After watching TV for a while, I started meditating. Letting my breathing even out and become very shallow. I began going over the film in my mind from my opponent fights in my head. There was still the nagging feeling that there was something that I was missing and couldn’t figure out. It was bothering me and just gnawing at me for some reason. I set to trying to clear it completely out of my mind so that it wouldn’t keep me up all night.

Saturday morning, I packed everything for the fight which was going to be at the MLK Arena in Savannah. I don’t know how the promotion putting on the fights stayed in business renting fairly big venues. The last two I was a part of weren’t sold out, though the second was better attended than the first. I didn’t dwell too long, as it wasn’t my concern, I just had to fight.

In the clothes that Grandmother had brought was another pair of kickboxing pants, though these were white with red lettering and the Polish, American and Portuguese flags. Now I had a white pair and a black pair and brought both. I’d have to see if I could find out what Laguerre was wearing before the fight to decide which pair to wear.

I needed something to do as I wasn’t going to sit around the house all day; it would be straining and weird. I decided to head down early and spend time on Savannah’s Riverwalk.

I threw the bags in the truck and went back in to tell Grandfather what I was doing. He gave me a look that didn’t bode well, then turned and walked towards the bedrooms. I found a piece of paper and wrote a note saying I was going to the fight and would be home afterwards.

Grandfather came back and informed me that they were going with me. I was told to wait for 10 minutes and they’d be ready. I stuck the paper on the fridge and headed out to the truck to wait.

I figured that 10 minutes was overly optimistic, Grandmother would never be ready that quick. I was right, it ended up being almost 30 minutes before they came out. The drive down there was fairly peaceful, except for the time Grandmother decided to try and fix things.

It was basically, give your mother time, she’ll come around. To say that went over as well as a turd in the punch bowl was an understatement. My thought was that after 17 years, she was still this way and there wasn’t going to be any change anytime soon. Grandfather did the best thing he could do in my opinion; he didn’t say a word. We finally arrived and I was able to escape the lecture.

After parking, Grandfather and I followed Grandmother as she went through the shops on the Riverwalk. It was once again, my job to be the pack mule. When I asked Grandfather if he was going to help, the only response was laughing. There was a lot of time spent in the fudge and candy shops.

It sucked big time, as eating that stuff close to a fight wouldn’t be a good idea. It was still pretty warm at almost 90F, so all that chocolate was probably going to melt to some degree. I could only imagine what it would be like when we got home.

We ended up eating at the River House seafood restaurant. I guess Grandfather had talked the place up. It wasn’t lunch and it wasn’t dinner; I had no idea what that’s called. I ate somewhat light with fish and a bit of pasta.

The conversation was centered around the fight; neither of us could figure out what troubled us about the fight film we watched. Grandmother was popping into the conversation at random times with “you’re going to win” or “you’ll beat him up”. It was kind of cute seeing her worked up like that.

After letting the meal settle for a bit, we left and went over to the arena. It was almost 6PM when we got checked in. We all went into the locker room, though just before it was time for my fight Grandmother would go sit in the stands. We were in what was the home team locker room, which was supposed to be the nicer of the two. There was an exercise bike, so I started riding after changing into workout clothes. I set a snail’s pace that was maybe a mile or so an hour.

I started my breathing exercises and started to visualize the fight, going over how I wanted to the fight to go. I was probing the edges of the box that held the dark place to try and get a feel for it. I could feel that it wanted to be let out. In either go around, I’d never let it completely free, only getting introspective about it. A phrase that I’d heard or many times surprisingly came back to me. I weirdly remembered who wrote it.

*Every normal man must be tempted to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

H.L. Mencken*

It’s a phrase that had been interpreted in all sorts of ways for many different instances. This was my mantra for the night and probably would be more than a couple more times in the future. I could feel that there was a slow change going on deep inside my mind. The dark place in my mind felt like it was aware that a night out of the box was coming.

Master Boripat and Mr. Singh walked in with Grandmother over to the small area where I had my stuff. Seemed my fight was going to be the last fight of the evening, which meant I probably had between 3 and 4 hours until fight time. I watched Grandmother as she gave Master Boripat the pants she had altered for him. I was amused at them complimenting each other for a while.

I got off the bike and sat down leaning against a locker. I asked Grandfather to nudge me in about 45 minutes so that I could get my hands wrapped.

Closing my eyes, I missed the head rub that Ellie had given me before the last 2 fights. I got up when prompted and got in the chair after stretching for a couple minutes. I asked Mr. Singh if he could find out what color pants my opponent was wearing. He came back and let me know that his pants were black.

After my wraps were done, I pulled the brand-new pair of white pants out of my bag and got changed. I sat down and relaxed again. I was just starting to nod off when I got nudged again. It seemed that two of the fights had ended early. Both had ended with knockouts before the 4th round. I sat down so they could get my gloves put on, laced up, and taped. They were inspected and an X plus initials was put on them.

I was able to warm up for a bit, though it was kinda rushed. Grandmother went out to sit in the stands. She was sitting with Mr. Pope and 1st Sergeant Gibbs, who had made the trip down to see the fights. Seemed Mom hadn’t come to see the fight, not that I was surprised.

The entrances to the ring were fairly subdued. We were both standing in the ring when the announcer started his spiel.

“This is the final fight of the evening, it’s a bout in the heavyweight division. The winner of this contest will face the current champion at a later date.”

He gave a dramatic pause to let the stakes of the fight sink into the small crowd.

“Fighting out of the red corner, representing Cobra Muay Thai East. Measuring 6’5”, weighing in at 244lbs with a record of 1 win and 1 loss. BARNIM BADZINSKI.”

Grandmother had taken over moms’ role of being the obnoxiously loud cheerleader.

“Fighting out of the blue corner, representing Beaufort Allied Fight Club. Measuring 5’11”, weighing 235lbs, with a record of 27 wins and 35 losses. RODNEY LAGUERRE.”

About the same amount of applause with one loud old lady who was now booing. We met in the center of the ring and had the usual instructions. Grandfather stood on the apron and popped my mouthpiece in.

“Press him early, take him out if you can.”

I was glaring at Laguerre, the referee asked if we were both ready, and the fight began. I went on the attack from the get go, and had Laguerre backpedaling the whole time. I was concentrating on the body to wear it down for later in the fight. When the bell rang, I headed back to the corner, Grandfather and Master Boripat were both talking at the same time. It all boiled down to keep pouring it on.

The second round started and I decided to change things up a bit to keep him off kilter, though I kept pressing. I launched a side kick to the midsection that connected pretty good, as there was a thwack and a grunt heard as it landed. That successful strike did something it shouldn’t have. It gave me a sense of over confidence; I was blasting kicks anytime I could.

I went to the well one too many times. As the round was coming to an end, I launched a kick. Laguerre moved with it and shot out a right hand. He clipped me with it, I went down though aware of what was happening, I popped back up. The ref ran me through a standing 8 count. We were just about to engage when the bell rang.

Going back to the corner, I could see the ring apron was full. They were talking even before I got close.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“That wasn’t the game plan.”

I couldn’t take the nonstop chatter. “Look, one at a time. You both are confusing me.”

Master Boripat took the pause to hit me with a zinger.

“Look, you’re not a kick boxing genius, hell you’re not even an idiot savant. Stick to the game plan, stay at range.”

“Got it.”

Getting up, I went back to being aggressive. Mixing up jabs and power shots, going to the body early and often. I got hit some but nothing that had me worried. The fourth round was almost an identical carbon copy of the third.

The fifth round started and I quickly realized that I’d been punch happy to this point. My arms were tired, and Laguerre was inside my range before I knew it. I was getting hit consistently by shots left and right. There wasn’t a huge power behind them, but they would eventually add up. The right-hand blows felt different, there were no power differences from the lefts, they just felt harder and stiffer. For every 1 or 2 punches I’d land, I was getting hit with 6 or 7.

I stumbled back to the corner, the reception I got was about as bad as it could have been. There was yelling and cussing from all three of them. I zoned out as the cornerman was working on the left-hand side of my face.

I got up and started the sixth round, which went about the same as the fifth round. I was able to land a few more shots, the rights I was getting hit with seemed to get stiffer. It was strange, then I noticed that the left side of my face was very wet. I was actually a little relieved when the bell rang.

“What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, his shot doesn’t have any more power than they did before, though it’s stiffer. It’s like his right hand has gotten harder somehow.”

“What?”

“I said it’s like his right is harder, I don’t know how else to explain it.”

The seventh round started, it turned into a slug fest. We were trading punches, and I felt something rock hard hit the left side of my face. I don’t know what the hell they slipped into his glove, but they had to have. I could feel that the left side of my face was drenched with sweat and blood pouring down my face from what seemed like multiple cuts. I started loading more power in my shots, I could feel the rage building in me. I hit him with every ounce of power I had to the body. I saw him wince, then leaned in a blasted him again as the bell clanged. I went back to the corner and Grandfather was leaning over the rope.