I could feel the slime of his neck sweat by my mouth. I turned back to the laptop and carried on watching my film. As if nothing had happened. He straightened himself up and apologised, before picking up his bag and disappearing down the train.
I sat there, rooted to the spot till my station arrived. I ran off the train, down the steps, and up the other side to the exit. I ran out of the barriers and I ran to the taxi rank. I jumped into a car. As the car pulled away from the station, I saw him emerge, eating a chocolate bar and staring at his phone as if he had not a care in the world.
I didn’t tell my wife I’d been assaulted. I don’t bruise, and so apart from my cheek being tender to touch, there was no sign of the impact of his fists on me. I got off the train in fear. I hurried to the ticket barriers. I prayed for a short queue for taxis. I couldn’t rationalise the casualness of the assault. I couldn’t bring myself to comprehend the escalation from a dab of barbecue sauce to a full-blown attack. All I knew was that I was attacked, and ultimately that it was my fault for being careless with my rubbish and for not reporting the unnecessary reaction sooner.
The day I signed up to the boxing gym, my wife asked me what had brought on the sudden interest in the sport.
‘I just want to protect myself,’ I said.
‘Then take up self-defence,’ she replied. ‘I’d love to do that too.’
I couldn’t explain to her that boxing would help me take up room. Boxing would give me space to occupy unapologetically, and no one would think twice about hitting me. I would have the confidence to dodge, to take a punch, and if required, hit back.
My first class, a technique one, was when it started.
I felt out of place the entire time. People had brought their own equipment. I was lost. I couldn’t skip. I took some gloves from a bin next to the toilets. The communal gloves stank of the sweat of many people. I was dripping with sweat myself, from ten minutes of skipping uselessly and shadow-boxing self-consciously. I put the gloves on without wraps and flexed my fingers. It stank.
You were my partner. The first thing you told me was that you’re a Southpaw. I didn’t know what that meant until I was unexpectedly hit repeatedly. You leaned in, and, due to your height and reach, you were able to deliver shots I couldn’t block with my elbows. Also, you were happy to use force. We’d been instructed only to tap each other while we were learning the techniques. That didn’t deter you from hitting, hard. And asking me to hit you back hard.
‘It’s OK, harder,’ you kept telling me.
The sensation of being hit when it’s part of the game, the sport, it was confusing. It hurt. It also niggled at something else in me. Why was I not learning self-defence? Maybe my wife was right. Instead, I’m learning to hit but also be hit.
I observed you everywhere around the gym. You took up space. From the way you left your wraps in a heap on the floor after a session, through to hogging the middle of the gym when you skipped, through to the way you winked at everyone.
And after a while I wanted to take that space away from you.
The moment came at the end of our second technique class. I’d tried to avoid partnering up with you, but you sought me out.
‘I like to train with the new guys,’ you told me between rounds. ‘See whether you’re tough enough to stay or you’ll just stop coming cos you like box-fit but not boxing. Which are you?’
Why does it matter so much? I said, in my head. ‘Dunno,’ I mumbled aloud.
The instructor shouted out another combination before I could muster up the courage to say it out loud.
Before I could drop my chin and put my fists up, you jabbed twice, pushing me back, and gave me a left hook that caught me on the ear.
It caught me by such surprise that I dropped to the floor.
The instructor rushed over.
‘You OK?’ he asked. He looked up at the room. ‘You better defend those shots or you’ll be dropping as well,’ he bellowed to the rest of the class.
You took your glove off and gripped me under my arm, pulling me up.
‘Hit me,’ you said. ‘Hit me.’
So I hit you. As hard as I could. You were that space on the heavy bag we aimed for, pretending it was a nose. You were ready, and used your left glove to bat my shot away as hard as you could.
‘Hit me,’ you repeated.
I repeated my movement. You did the same parry, this time harder.
‘Hit … me,’ you said, slower, quieter.
This time, I was slower, and I tried a shot, but you ducked and pushed me back.
‘I said hit me,’ you said, laughing.
I unVelcroed a glove and put it in my armpit. I undid the other. I looked at you and shook my head.
‘Box-fit’s on Tuesdays,’ you said. ‘See you then. Fly away bird, fly away. Before I eat you. There are lions here, and we’re hungry.’
I cycled home, raging, turning over and over in my head the perfect argument with you, the perfect shots, the perfect retaliation. At home, my wife asked me how the class was, and I shrugged. ‘It was OK,’ I said. I didn’t want her to know I felt humiliated because she was right. I didn’t have the stomach to fight. Only the desire for self-preservation.
What was it about you that made me obsess over your words? There was something, a gauntlet, a challenge.
As I worked the bags by myself on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I noticed you in the sparring club. Here the more amateur-level boxers gathered, to spar with the one or two pros training for matches. I worked the bags, quietly in the corner. I wondered if you noticed me. You waited your turn like everyone else, but were never chosen to spar.
Different strands of different pecking orders, I wondered. You were nobody here, so you were somebody there.
One day you saw me, and I flinched. I was between rounds, peeking out of the corridor of heavy bags at you. You smiled and flapped your arms like a bird, giggling to yourself. People turned to see who you were gesturing at, and all they saw was me, the chubby person, trying to get in shape. Someone shook their head at you, which made you drop your grin.
You kept looking at me, and gestured to the ring.
The day we spar, I leave work early for a meeting that doesn’t exist. I go for a run around the harbourside, and then a jog to the gym. Outside, I wrap myself.
I loop the wrap over my thumb and then immediately across the back of my hand. It goes over my hand three times, tight, and then around my wrist, three times, tight. There’s a ritual to this. I bring the wrap up from my wrist in between my little and ring finger, and then back down to my wrist. Up again, between ring and middle, and back down. Up again, between middle and index, and then back down. Each time, the wrap forms an X across the back of my hand. I loop it between thumb and index and then across the palm of my hand, to lock it in. I wrap the remainder of the cloth around my wrist, and then Velcro it shut. I flex my hand, open and closed.
You’re in the
