Fall by Shiloh Hollis

Author:Shiloh, Hollis [Shiloh, Hollis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spare Words Press
Published: 2014-11-29T23:00:00+00:00

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A few months can be a long time in a boxer's career. They were in mine. I was winning more matches than I was losing, moving steadily up the rankings, fighting hard for each place I gained.

My headaches were worse. I still wasn't visiting my parents much. In fact, I sometimes spent Sundays visiting illegal fights and drinking with the other boxers. Why not? It was cheaper than more painkillers. If I was careful, I didn't get too hung over. And I liked the distance from my feelings, the way things got numb and easier to handle. I wasn't one to cry into my beer or get violent; it just made me sleepy and happy, which I thought was nice. I wanted to be happy again. It had been a long time.

I knew in a way that I was pushing things too hard, too fast. I could feel my body breaking down. I was a delicate guy compared to many of the boxers. Even in my weight group, I could have been heavier. But I couldn't seem to put the weight on. I was more a scrapper than a natural. I had speed and cunning, but each skill I earned was hard won, more through stubbornness than actual giftedness. I was all heart and hard work. But it wouldn't be enough to see me into a long career, one like Masters had had. I'd be out in a few years at most, and all I could hope was that I would find a soft enough place to land, without being completely broken first.

Maybe I would win enough to get a training position, and work with other young boxers, helping the hopefuls rise through the ranks. It would be good; then my salary would be a steady, weekly thing instead of a catch-as-catch-can payment based off my earnings.

Whenever I thought of the future, I was frightened. Because I could feel my body breaking down already. Every morning, I seemed to rise more slowly, with more aches and creaks in my joints, as if I was older than I was. My thoughts came slower, hazier. My head hurt so much, and so often.

And maybe I wasn't thinking clearly enough to really care some of the time. At any rate, one Sunday after watching the boxing matches, I went to an alleyway.

You know the sort of place, a hookup place, where men like me could meet similar minded men for cheap, stolen sex. Or even hire someone.

I hadn't gone to any of those places before, but I knew where they were. I was a city boy, and the pulse of the city beat in my blood. I knew the places to avoid, and the places to go to find the things my mother wouldn't want me to have.

In this case, sex with men. Men I didn't even know.

So I went there, and I was planning to approach the first man I saw, in a kind of self-hating rebellion of pain and rage. If nothing else could make me forget Ettore, perhaps this would.

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