Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Read online

  One of the cities I wound up in was right on a river, almost built right on top of it, and it was amazing to see how a city could grow and thrive so close to something that could destroy it. I thought about Brooklyn a lot while I was there. I wondered what she liked to eat, what kind of jokes made her laugh. Once I decided not to get too carried away in my thoughts of her, I let a bus do it instead.

  If you circle around a revolving door enough, it’ll spit you out eventually.

  I was spit out onto the hot cement of California. I stuck there, somehow just knowing that my time on the busses was over. My legs weren’t used to walking so much after getting off the buses, at first, but I got used to it. I wasn’t angry, wasn’t sad, shit I don’t think I even let myself feel anything those days. I was homeless but I don’t think I gave a shit about even that back then. I remember thinking about Brooklyn’s beautiful and sad face a lot still.

  I didn’t want to get caught by cops, so I couldn’t use my ID. That kept me from getting a job most anywhere, and kept me from renting an apartment or even using most hotels. They’re strict on these things, but I didn’t mind it. I could survive outside in California.

  I was quick to realize just how many other people were like me, thrown out by a rough cycle. The concrete hot under our heels. California is that perfect mix of weather that makes it so much easier to live when you have nowhere else to go. It’s a state that likes to have the best in life, but it’s also coated with a homeless problem like no other. In summer it doesn’t burn your skin off so there’s no worry about heat stroke, and in winter—well there really isn’t a winter, it’s California.

  The only tough thing is how obvious the difference of wealth between people was. People would either be so poor that you’d see them picking out of trashcans any time of the day (you learn not to look), or they’d have enough money they probably wiped their ass with Benny Franklin’s face. It was best not to make eye contact with either of these kinds of people.

  I made myself stick to a routine to keep my mind off Brooklyn.

  Food was the worst of it. I had money for it, so that was fine, but I was never able to get more than I could carry or store in my locker. I blew through a lot of money quickly in the beginning just eating. I’d almost completely ruined all of the work I put into my body by living off fast food. There were healthy places to eat also, but they were expensive and usually didn’t have much in the means of protein. Healthy out there meant mostly vegetables and smoothies.

  Eventually I discovered an Asian fusion restaurant that grilled all of their meats and could give me any veg I needed. I know I shouldn’t complain, I was able to eat, but I needed to be able to eat food that would sustain the body I’d worked so hard to cultivate.

  I slept where I could for the first couple weeks, not having any one spot as my home base I jumped all over California. I slept in front of museums, on peoples’ covered porches, and in parks. People wouldn’t be so keen on kicking you off their porch because a lot of people would drop a shit on your porch the second you went back in if you pulled that shit. I never had trouble like that.

  I considered getting a job so I could get a place, but nothing suited me. Not to mention, most places won’t hire you if they find out you’re homeless. Finally, I figured out the best way to live when homeless.

  I found a gym that had enough of a discount with 24/7 hours.

  Endless showers, a locked place to keep what little stuff I had, a place to keep up my regimen of taking care of my body so that I didn’t have to focus on my mind. I didn’t want to know what happened to Brooklyn’s mother, I tried hard not to think about it, but I knew it was my fault. I knocked the asshole out, and then Brooklyn and I fled so her mom would be left with the mess.

  It was sloppy. I’d lost a lot of control in my life, so I controlled my body. I could make sure what I’d get out of it, what I could put into my workouts, it kept me comfortable. Every push-up pushed me toward who I wanted to be, away from who I knew I was.

  I didn’t always sleep in the gym; I actually tried to avoid it if I could so that they wouldn’t try to take away my membership. I’d sleep in shelters (although getting into those was hell), or I’d find a camp of other people like me and crash there. I avoided personal property, wanting to keep my head down and out of the eye of the law. My money stayed at the gym, and I always stayed within five miles of it. Sometimes people from the gym would offer me a place to crash for the night, but I didn’t wait for or ask for these nights.

  I felt like I was redeeming myself for who I was.

  I’d done enough shit in my life that living off nothing wasn’t even going to scratch the surface. I wasn’t looking to be blameless, or guiltless, I just wanted to be able to exist without it haunting me. Without having to look over my shoulder constantly. If I could sleep through one night without smelling blood, I considered that a success. I didn’t have many of those in the beginning.

  I needed a distraction, and if you ever have nowhere to be, the best place to do that is California. Endless entertainment to draw your eye, an endless carnival of people who are clawing to get that chance, their big spotlight moment. Your waitresses, barbers, gym mates, meter maids, everyone, everyone is looking to get into The Business, and if you miss that you’re blind.

  A lot of entertainment is free—they need studio audiences, or there’s a live street performance, but every now and then there were things I’d actually be happy to lay my money down for. I’d seen a few MMA fights, the events were usually hyped up all over the city. The energy during those was always extremely high, the martial artists so completely in the fight that they didn’t notice the crowds roaring around them. It sounded more than ideal.

  So when I saw fliers hanging up in my gym advertising auditions for MMA fighting my interest was more than just piqued.

  I’d been training in martial arts since I was old enough to get myself to lessons. I’d trained mostly in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, dabbled in boxing as a side sport. It worked because I grew up a lean kid, Jiu Jitsu kept my body fast, and the drills kept my mind in line. My brain was as worked and beaten as my body was, until both could stand for themselves. It wasn’t until I was starting high school and dabbled into other forms of martial arts that I was able to gain any actual mass, and by then I could throw down with the best of them.

  I wrote down all the information on the flier, tucked it in my duffle, and got back to my work out. I’d finally have something to do. Something close to a job to keep my mind off it all.

  10

  Adam

  My dad wasn’t exactly a dream cruise.

  I guess everyone’s old man fucks them up in one way or another though, some people get so messed up they get excited about mortgages or low income tax, I got fucked up in another way. Brooklyn, now her life was unfortunate, but the only reason I was able to help her out was because of my dear old dad. He was the only reason I was even able to go out for the MMA auditions.

  The auditions were bullshit, by the way.

  I was a damn good fighter. I knew that, I’d worked my ass off my whole life for it. They didn’t care about that, though. That wasn’t the immediate thing that caught any of their eyes. They wanted you to fill out registration information before you could even show them what you were worth.

  I just wanted to be allowed in the rink, I didn’t care about getting signed to anything. I didn’t care about TV or the money, I just wanted to be able to fight. My body was a perfectly trained machine and I’d worked so long for that and now it was going to waste in that gym.

  I couldn’t tell them why signing was a problem, I couldn’t explain why I’d been looking over my shoulder since before the last time I saw Brooklyn. A full night longer.

  I couldn’t tell them what these hands had done before.

  I’d never had any siblings to protect.

  I didn’t have a mom around to claim it was for.

  It was selfish, but hell I guess I took after him in that way.

/>   There was a lot of blood, people don’t tell you how strong that smell is when you’re around that much blood. Some part of your brain reads it as your own nose bleeding and you catch yourself sniffling, just accidentally dragging more of that awful smell in. I can’t tell you how many nights I would wake up just angrily rubbing at my own nose to get the smell out of my head. Sometimes I’d go hard enough without realizing that I’d actually get a nosebleed. It was God-awful.

  I wish I could say it had been raining, or was dark that fateful day; I wish I could say he was worse than he’d ever been before, but none of that was true. It was a summer night and sunny as hell, not even dusk yet, and he was the same as he’d been for the last eighteen years of my life. Angry, loud, drunk. You see, I took his wife from him when I was born. It wasn’t a fair trade as he saw it, he thought it was a first indicator of my selfishness. He kept that thought in his head for the rest of his life.

  Not to say I wasn’t guilty for that, I felt guilt every day of my life over her loss.

  I got that he was upset, I understood why completely. It’s rare in your life that you find someone that makes you think you’re actually worth anything. He had that in my mother, she was the only person he’d ever loved, and I snatched that away from him, replaced her with a whiny son instead. So he’d beat me to ease his pain.

  I took it because I loved my father and I hated myself. I hated what I took away from both of us.

  It was one hell of a pattern, but I could always see it coming on. He’d get more and more aggravated for a couple days, at little shit, and then one night he’d get off work and just let the fucking floodgates open. I’d be wailed on until he was tired of me crying, or sleepy from his drink, and then he’d wander off while I fixed myself up.

  He taught me that I needed to be able to take care of myself.

  I had to learn to be self-reliant. I had to learn that if I couldn’t count on myself then I was out of fucking luck. It wasn’t an easy lesson to learn but I had no choice in it.

  I got into fighting so I could defend myself and stop the beatings from going too far. I could wait through it, let him get out what he needed, and then we’d move on like it never happened. I tried to at least, but I usually flinched if I knew he was in the house. Often, maybe once a month or so, he’d go out of town for a week or more and I’d get to relax. It was like losing the handcuffs that usually kept me chained down. I’d use the whole house, instead of just my room. I’d watch television, eat properly and even have friends over.

  Then he’d be back in town and I’d go back to acting like I didn’t exist.

  He worked construction even though he didn’t need to, that’s just the kind of man he was. He needed some extra dough to get an even nicer car than his brand new one, so he got the most grueling job he could. He had enough money from when my grandparents passed, but he had a plan for spending it so he could make sure to make it last. The side hustles were just for perks.

  I didn’t get any perks.

  So that night, with the sun still up and orange above the horizon, my dad was in a mood when he got home. He got off work and was slamming down beers, just chugging them like they were vital to his life. The television was roaring and I had locked my door. I knew better than to go out there and try to eat or use the bathroom, I knew he’d be on me and start wailing.

  I kept my head in a book and distracted myself, doing what I could to drown out the man out there. It didn’t help too much because soon I heard my doorknob jiggle. Immediately there were three loud and punctuated bangs, his heavy fist knocking so hard on that door it was deafening.

  “WHO THE HELL SAID YOU COULD LOCK YOUR DOOR?” he said, angry. I closed my book and set it aside. I was shaking, I was scared, I had trained forever and I knew I could take him down if I wanted, but I was still fucking terrified of him.

  “Dad, I’m going to bed early,” I lied. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to get the hell away from my door.

  “ADAM, OPEN YOUR FUCKING DOOR,” he shouted, his words were pretty clear for how drunk he was. I knew that the longer I put it off the worse the beating would get. I was muscular enough, I was strong enough, I knew that I could have kicked his ass, hell he probably knew that, but that didn’t fill the narrative of our relationship. I stood up from my bed and the mattress creaked like it was trying to convince me to stay. The walk to the door was awful, I felt like I was having the shit kicked out of me before I even got to it.

  No sooner had I unlocked it and he was on me.

  Shouting things like “YOU USELESS PRICK”, and “UNGRATEFUL SHIT”, as he just wailed away on me. It hurt, it fucking hurt. No matter how much you work out your mind and your body, you’re still made of flesh and skin, you don’t become stone. I was angry and tired of being blamed by him. I was tired of being blamed by myself. I was tired of being beaten up by a fifty year old trust fund child for the cardinal sin of being born.

  I just wanted him off me.

  So I pushed him hard, I pushed him so fucking hard that he lifted off his feet. He hit the wall and then tumbled down and bashed his head in on the table that my book was sitting on. I knew he was dead before he even stopped breathing. The smell of blood was so thick, so bright. He’d been drinking so his blood was thinned out already, and it just didn’t stop. I shoved some sheets under his head and paced back and forth for what must have been an hour, the top of the sun was now flirting with the horizon.

  I took some deep breaths, had one of his beers, and then started the longest night of my life.

  His car was already in the attached garage, out of sight of the neighborhood, so I wrapped his head in sheets so he wouldn’t drip too much. I wasn’t completely able to carry him out to the car, he was a floppy mess which is hard to grip, hard to direct as you’re walking backwards through a house while trying not to get too much blood on yourself. I got him onto the floorboards of the backseat, wedged in there like a duffle bag someone was bringing on a trip.

  It didn’t feel real.

  The sun was down but it was still too early to do anything without being seen, so I spent a lot of the night cleaning out what blood I could. I puked until I didn’t have anything left in my stomach to offer up. The floor was hardwood so I had that going for me. I used sponges and bleach to get any speckles of blood off the furniture and wall that I could. The table took almost half of the cleaning time,

  It was pretty common knowledge that he liked to leave town—liked to travel and vanish for days or weeks at a time. I knew if I made him disappear that nobody would question it until I had time to get myself out of town for real.

  At two in the morning I decided my cleaning job had been done well enough.

  I got into his car after showering. I had put gloves on. It was summer but I never drove this car. If they found my hair in the car it wouldn’t matter, but with my finger prints on the wheel there would be no doubt what happened.

  I drove slow, careful not to miss a stoplight, careful to stay at the speed limit, anything that would keep the eyes of cops off me. I couldn’t imagine the people passing me on the road, their normal lives. Their cars that didn’t have a parent’s body in it.

  I drove the car into a lake no more than three miles from the house. I had the windows cracked open just enough to let water into them, not enough for his body to float out. As I watched it sink in the light of an almost-full moon I realized I’d now killed both of my parents. A self-made orphan. On the jog back home I started to feel there were eyes on me.

  Eyes that don’t exist.

  I could feel them now and then, it was the middle of the night and I hadn’t slept. I was running down grown over back alleys and roads to get back home. It’s no surprise that I felt paranoid at the time. I hadn’t sleptat all that day. I had packed a small bag of belongings and set it by the front door. I knew there was no chance of anyone finding the car that quickly, but my eyes kept wandering to the front door, expecting someone to knock and come in.

  Al
most expecting my dad to come back.

  It was in this sleep-deprived state that I decided to go and see Brooklyn for the last time.

  I didn’t have any family, besides my dad’s estranged brother, so I wasn’t worried about saying goodbye to family. I just needed to see her and then leave.

  It didn’t end up being that easy.

  Every leg of my journey after that, the buses, the gym, everything, made me worry about them finding me. I had no doubt in my mind that they had found the car in the lake. That they found the body. That they realized those sheets were from the house, from my bed, and put it all together.

  I would take long routes to anywhere I was going if it meant I could just avoid cops. I almost always felt like their eyes were on me. I didn't want to kill my dad! I just wanted him off me. That’s difficult to prove though when you drive his bloodied body into a lake afterwards, I guess.

  Registering for MMA fights would mean they’d have my ID, they’d know who I was.

  Within hours I felt like cops would have me in cuffs and toted off to jail for murder. There was no way in hell that I was going to jail for my dad’s sorry ass.

  So I couldn’t be a professional MMA fighter then.

  I was getting ready to leave the arena, disappointed that I couldn’t even do this simple thing, when I was stopped by someone who was the literal embodiment of shady. He looked like what you’d get if you made a batman villain’s goon from the 1940s into a human being. This was Ricky. Ricky was actually an alright dude once I got to know him.

  “I see you didn’t want to register,” he said, walking at my side and matching my pace, falling in so naturally next to me it almost looked practiced.

  “Mm,” I replied, dismissive. I didn’t want to just go handing out my information to anyone.