The Fighter (40 page)

Paul
stepped back and considered his reflection. His torso was splotched with purple
bruises and scored with gloveburns. Destroyed but still standing. Beaten and
bashed and bloody, but there he was.

With
his right foot set slightly before his left, his body turned at such an angle
as to present as spare a target as possible—
turn yourself
into a pane of glass,
as Lou would say—Paul began to shadowbox. Flashing out the left hand and
puffing short breaths—
tsh! tsh! tsh!—
the sound echoing sharply off the
tiles. He executed the Fitzsimmons shift and threw a right hook at his
reflection. He was warming up; the sweat was flowing. He felt loose and agile
and strong.

He
threw punches and thought about it all. Thought about the kid, Rob, and about
his uncle, Tommy. Thought about Lou and about Stacey. Thought about his mother
and his father and felt nothing but gratitude and love.

Five
jabs in quick succession—
ts-ts-ts-ts-tshh!
—right hook, right hook, left
uppercut, step back bobbing on the tips of his toes, sneakers squeaking. He
considered how it all started as a simple desire. To banish weakness and
inhabit strength. Develop those defensive mechanisms he'd never used. The
porcupine, its quills. The scorpion, its sting. He juked and feinted then
lashed out with a right hand, knuckles grazing the mirror. Drops of
blood-tinted sweat wicked off his brow.

Why didn't you
ever teach me to be a man
?

He'd
wanted to ask his father this question last night. Yet he realized his father
had
taught him how to be a man—a man for this time and era. Where before the
teachings had been learned in fields or factories or foxholes, Today's Man
learned in lecture halls and boardrooms. Where before men wore coveralls or
buckskins or the colors of whatever side they fought for, Today's Man wore
herringbone jackets and loafers, his nails were manicured, his hair smelled of
nectars. His father had taught and he had learned. Those lessons had held him
in fine stead until his path crossed with Yesterday's Man with his bloodlust
and quick fists and old ways; only then did he realize that all he'd been bred
for was useless. Perfect in his element, fragile and susceptible outside of it.
And a man can't live in a vacuum—not his whole life.

Paul
wiped his chest and armpits with toilet paper, donned his shirt and jacket. He
stared into the mirror. Who was that person staring back?

It was...
well, it was him. For better or
for worse—him.

He
was as unlikely a candidate for all this as you were liable to find. Or else he
was the ideal one: a man whose life had always been primed for cataclysmic
change. Or maybe there was no ideal candidate; perhaps the reasons for taking
the road less traveled were as diverse as the histories of those who ultimately
chose to walk it. And why not him? He came from good strong stock. His
ancestors were farmers and before that sharecroppers and before that hunters.
His bloodlines were fierce and he felt that fierceness in his own blood.

Follow
anyone's family tree back far enough and you'll find warriors.

It
wasn't that he thought he'd become a better man; he didn't feel like a Phoenix
risen from the ashes of his former self. And yet there was a former self, a
person who existed once and existed no more. So if he stood for anything at
all, it was as a testament to change.

That
full five percent change. A whole new person.

And
consider if he'd never tried at all. Never fought, never suffered, never given
all of himself. He would have spent his whole life wondering, just like any of
us. And one day he might have woken to the awful realization that no choice
he'd made had been his own, that his life had been plotted and planned and he'd
followed it all by rote. Woken up still scared of every little thing. Woken up
with no knowledge of his limits.

"I'm
coming to your town. Last of the ramblin', russlin', tusslin' fighting
men." The mirror reflected the sly irony in his smile. "Lay out your
best, your fiercest men. Let's toe a line in the dirt."

Paul
Harris butted his fists together, turned from his reflection, and exited the
washroom toward Customs.