A Materials Darkly

The kid was getting ready for a fight this weekend, and they needed a fat guy to lay on him and rough him up.

I was that fat guy.

I got on top of him, straddling him, my legs on either side, and I thrust my hips into him driving the air from his lungs.

Sometimes, when I talk like this and it doesn't seem even vaguely sexual or homoerotic, I begin to realize that I've lost all perspective.

He had just been through five three-minute rounds of stand-up training hell with our trainer. He was working his cardio. Our trainer was trying to exhaust him. With just a week left to his fight, if it had been up to me, I would have liked to see the kid not work so hard. I would have liked to see the taper start a little earlier. But nobody asks me these questions here. Nobody knows who I am. Not that I'm anybody to know, just that ... There was a time, see?

I'm just the weekend warrior who comes in a couple of times a week to hit the bag and roll with whoever will roll with me. And sometimes, on Saturdays, the fight team guys are getting prepped and need somebody to roll with. And I'm there, and the trainer knows my story, so he asks me if, after he wears them out on the feet, I'll get in with them. Roll around with them. Lay on them.

"After he has you on top of him, any of these 185ers or 170ers will seem like nothing."

I am that fat guy.

I layed on him. He tried to escape but I took advantage of the one thing I had going for me; he was exhausted, while I was fresh. I kept the pace high. After the first round he went off to puke. I was tired too, but I wasn't going to admit it. I was supposed to be the fresh one. My conditioning has gone to shit.

At the start of the second round, he lunged for me and accidentally butted my head with the crown of his skull just above my right ear. It hurt like a bitch. My eyes swam. My lungs were burning. I wanted to quit.

I'm old and fat, I thought. I'm not this tough anymore.

But I used to be. So I remembered what that guy used to do and I did that. I kept going. I threw him on the floor again. I got on top of him again. I pushed the air out of his lungs with my hips again. After the round, he tried to go puke but he was just hoarking, just spasming. There was nothing left in there.

In the third round, he escaped and took my back. He got one hook in and was digging for the other. I was moving my head, fighting his hands, trying to keep his arm off my carotid arteries. Trying to keep him from choking off the blood supply to my brain. I managed to survive it. I managed to survive against a guy who's about 85% of my total body weight and exhausted.

I should be ashamed of myself.

"Jeez, man, what do you weigh," he asked.
"Dunno. 220?" I said. I am that fat guy.
"Oh, good. I thought you were 185. This is my first fight at 185 and I thought you were that strong at my new weight. Scary."
"No, man. You'll do fine." He will. I've seen him and rolled with him before. He's very good. He's one of those kids who would run through a wall if you told him it would make him better. I like to think that's how I used to be.

He and our trainer started talking about neanderthals.
That's right, I thought. I remember now. The kid's an anthropology student at the Uni.
"What do you do, man?" he asked, turning his attention to me.
I finished my long pull on a water bottle.
"Writer," I croak.
"Really? What do you write?"
"I write for some trade publications. Home improvement and home building industries."
He nodded for a moment.
"Do you ever write any of your own stuff," he asked.
That's weird, I thought. Most people are content to let it go with the trade pubs.
"Yeah, actually," I said. "I do."
"Like, what of your own do you write?"
What do you mean what of my own do I write, I thought.
"Well, I'm trying for a novel and I like to do personal, non-fiction, memoir-type essays."
He nodded again, then asked me, "What's your novel like? What's the genre?"
And that's when it hit me what he had been asking all along. The poor kid was one one of them. My opinion of him plummeted. My mood sank.
"Well, it's not fantasy. Or science fiction. I can tell you that much."
"Oh, that's too bad man. I love that shit. I don't know how they come up with that stuff. Have you ever read 'His Dark Materials?'"
"Er, no."
"Have you ever read George R.R. Martin?"
"Er, no."
"Oh man, you gotta. You're a writer; you'd love them."
Yes. Indeed.

I drove home from the gym. It's a long way; that's why I don't go that often. Do I have a book in me about orcs and battle axes? God knows I could use the money. Somehow, though, I kind of doubt it.
It's not that I disdain people who enjoy that sort of fiction; I guess I was just happier when NO books sold. To now have to inhabit a world where only ONE kind of book sells, and it is, of course, the genre I have the absolute least use for is a cruel trick played by an unmerciful god. A god who could, conceivably, play other tricks. Like creating dwarves. And giving them battle axes.

Maybe I'll take a run at this fantasy thing after all. Maybe I can be that fat guy, too.