It was my 11^th fight as a professional.  The first eight were tomato cans, set up for me to knock down and I did.  I didn’t have “Tyson” power, but in those days there weren’t a lot of guys that could take what I had to give them for more than 4 rounds or so.  Those that could, my management was careful not to schedule.  Fight nine they gave me a slight step up in class, the tenth they put me up against a ring technician if I hadn’t got him out in the 10^th round he would have probably won a split decision.

The 11^th fight was on Friday Night Fights on ESPN.  Guy was in his mid 30’s, 27 wins and 10 losses, not in my class, but he had a chin, he had only been on the canvas once and that was against a future champion.  Guy was called Elderick Holder, and he certainly had a chin.

In those days I had a lot of power, of course if you had any artifice at all you could avoid the worst of it, fortunately and unfortunately for me he had none.  In training camp I was told this guy likes to stand and fight, and to go ahead and give it to him, look good for the cameras.  They weren’t sure he had enough ring savvy to hit me too often or enough power to put me in jeopardy when he did.

Sure enough he came right out after me.  I was tentative and worked behind my jab in the first round but he kept closing distance.  So I hit him to discourage him, it hurt him, but it didn’t discourage him.  I stepped back and found my range.  Tough s.o.b seemed willing to trade 1 for 3 but my head movement never let his one connect real solidly.

Second round was like the first except I was less cautious just showing the jab here and there, but letting the right cross and left hook come home again and again.  I worked the body, hard; I think I cracked one of his ribs in round 2.  In any event, he did something between a grunt and a scream when I hit him there, so of course I went back downstairs when I could.

In the third round he seemed to despair a little.  Still moving forward into the hurting I was putting on him, but I could tell he was loading up for one big shot.  I came at him from some different angles to minimize the danger but for a guy with almost 40 fights he sure seemed confused.  Maybe I hurt him more early than I thought.

I was ignoring the corner between rounds at this point, they were seeing the same fight I was, and everything they said was some variation on “keep doing what you are doing” or “finish him off, kid”.

The next three rounds were brutal.  I am in awe of this man’s chin.  I was hitting him with everything, and he kept coming forward for more.  His eyes were swelling but not shutting, and when I went low he sang his special, “my rib is destroyed” song.  I had given up on taking defensive angles, this was batting practice and I was teeing off.

In round 7 I was getting a little tired.  Just from hitting him and hitting him.  He had maybe landed 15 scoring punches total, none of them particularly nasty.  I could tell he used to have power to go with the chin, why else would a guy with 40 fights, fight this way.  He should have called it a career.  Finally, I decided to demoralize him, there was a little risk, but I thought I knew what he had so I let one of those punches he had been loading up with through.  Right uppercut, perfect form, but not as much behind it as he thought.  I let him hear me chuckle and put the one-two on his chin, and added a hook to the ribs for good measure.

Round 8 and it was clear his corner and the ref and ring doctor were doing him no favors.  Somebody somewhere bet the over on number of rounds.  After the uppercut failed to faze me I was fighting a zombie.  But, damn it, it was a forward shambling zombie.  It was like I could hear his brain sloshing around in his skull with every blow. 

I never believed in talking in the ring, but I told him “You WILL go down” his only answer was to put a couple of feeble shots out there, that I blocked with my arms, more out of instinct than anything else.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I threw it.  The best and worst shot of my career. 

I didn’t have to wait for the referee to count him out.  I just went to my corner.  When the doctor came in and they tried to save him, I sat on my stool and wept.

My trainer said, “You didn’t know kid, you couldn’t have known.”  But that wasn’t the reason I was crying.   He didn’t understand, no one ever understood.  I was crying tears of joy.

I was crying because I knew I could make a great living at the one thing I loved more than anything else.  Hurting people.

Our words don’t climb the wall to find their way to your street.   Our votes can push an insignificant number of your puppets off your hill, but the man who replaces him is very much the same.   You are the “job creator” who doesn’t, the innovator who stole the 3^rd best idea and suppressed the others.    You let us vary the genders and colors of our “representatives” some and that is progress, of a sort.  But, whoever you put in place knows when you raise your flag they damn well better salute.

You love to spend your money to promote celebrity culture, because you are killing the middle class and you know it is dangerous when we look around and don’t see anyone doing better.   You also promote credit card debt, serving the double purpose of making you boatloads of money on your usurious interest (Which goes up 5-10 percent if we make even one late payment).  Even better it gives us the illusion of prosperity.  How can you be poor?  You have a PLASMA TV!  You have a cell phone!  (Never mind they barely make tube televisions and our cell phone is in lieu of a landline.)

You understand our psychology so well.  You know that the media makes us feel guilty for being sorta poor, but we misplace our rage.  We don’t hate you!  We know if we said our prayers, took our vitamins and worked harder we would be you.  (Right?!?  That’s what we were told.)  But we become enraged that the really poor look a lot like us.  We DEMAND that there be some class that is doing clearly worse than us.  They are in line in front of us at Mickey D’s….why are they not in the streets with Sally Struthers and famine distended bellies!  I WORK HARD FOR MY LIVING.  (But not as hard as I should, cause I am still not you….sorry I’ll work harder, I promise).

It’s going to end.  Even I might live to see it (and my life expectancy isn’t exactly a road to the infinite these days).  Oh it will get worse before it gets better, well for us anyway, you will just get richer and richer, but it will end.  You just got too greedy is all.  It happens, it ALWAYS happens.   The smarter and savvier among you already see it.  They keep looking around to both sides of them, thinking “really?” before they belly up to the buffet.

You can only perpetuate the myth that you are just reaping the just profits of your hard work so long.  Even if you do own the media.  Sure there is something about the mythology of a welfare mother with a BMW that sticks in the craw of those who drive Ford Focuses , but it isn’t going to carry you all the way to the finish line.  Not if you send ALL the jobs where they are most profitable.  There aren’t enough of YOU to buy the coffee if we are all behind the bar at Starbucks.

It is partially our fault, I admit.  We have to force politicians to do something to please us to get reelected not just the powers that be.  That means we can’t make up our minds based on TV commercials.  We have to get facts, not news marketed to reflect biases we already have.  If you are an Evangelical, you have to realize the corporate interests on the right are using you.  The same goes with the corporate interests allegedly on the left, if you are gay or a minority.  We have to stop hating ourselves for being poor.  Many rich people ARE admirable, but it’s not an automatic thing.

As I type these words it is MLK day.  We still have people (minorities and women most of all, but all poor people) being held down.  The powers that be still use race to distract us, though now they put it in code “hip-hop culture, urban, gangsta” the message is, be afraid of the different people, you are one of us.

Our words will never hurt you?  Of course they will, once they get loud enough that they wake up a sleeping middle and under class.  Then it’s a party at your house, we’ll bring the sticks and stones.

I thought I would be happier without you.  The evidence was easy enough to sort out.  Sure, we had fun when we were together, more fun than I could manage on my own.  But when I left after a visit, we were both relieved in some unspoken way, which was part of what we shared.  Sadly, I never understood, even a little, how much I depended on you.  You were an oasis in the desert and I feared drinking too deeply lest I drown.

Drown me then, my throat is parched, my skin burns off my flesh.  I hallucinate that you are by my side, but when I dip my hand, only gritty brown sand scorches my hand. 

 I thought without you in my life I could do whatever I wanted.  Now, I search in vain for something that isn’t you to want.  I laughed at a thousand little things you did that irritated me, which I would no longer have to endure.  Now I look back on the worst of them with longing and the ghost of a smile.

I don’t believe that any one person can be another’s “everything”.  I never have.  When someone important to you leaves your life it leaves a void, but it is a thing that we have been Blessed with or evolved  (pick your poison) the ability to bear.

I don't want to bear this.  It's inhuman.

I shouldn’t have to bear this.  Even with your infinite charm, life can be nasty, brutish and short,

There is a forest.  Overgrowth so dense it turns midday to dusk.  Where the bright light of noon is like 6 p.m.  That is as bright as it ever gets.  The air itself is hot and without crispness, I labor to breathe.  I move on, because that is my instinct but I lack a definition, much less a destination.

Once I proposed a solution to this devilment…but how easily I rend my paper heart when I think only of myself.  Only when I include you do I feel my heart is safe and sound.

 The whistle for half-time was long since blown…I am well into my second act.  I play what I have with skill, but I miss you.  Know that among the bottles and the cans and the distasteful little unkindness’s.   

What we were, was special.  And the best of it was you.

About the Author—

Jean-Claude Latreque-  Jean-Claude is 93 years young.  America Sucks:  A European’s Guide to The Least Offensive Parts of the United States is his second foray into travel writing books.  His first volume Canada Sucks (Except for parts of Quebec) earned him numerous literary awards and a formal apology from then Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin.  Jean-Claude is most famous for his contributions to open heart surgery, law, music, and lovemaking. For a time Jean-Claude was an octopus and shark wrangler for Jacques Cousteau aboard the Calypso.  An avid sportsman, Jean-Claude took silver in the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano in the 4 man luge, by himself.

Jean-Claude considers his finest work to be his 14 daughters ranging in age from 84 to 2.  The children’s mothers (including Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Maria De Medeiros, and AnnaSophia Robb) represent Jean-Claude’s eclectic but impeccable taste.  He still maintains that his torrid affair with Rosalynn Carter was the high point of his romantic life so far.  Jean-Claude has accomplished much in his life, including teaching Ernest Hemingway his spare style of writing prose and Jimi Hendrix how to play guitar.  Still the world’s 5^th ranked Jai Alai pelotari, Latreque attributes his good health to a diet high in butter, cream, wine and occasional recreational methamphetamine smoking, though he insists such a diet might be harmful to inferior American constitutions.

Jean-Claude has recently established Latreque Lovemaking Academies in Paris, Nice, Reims, Grenoble in France, Seville and Palma de Mallorca in Spain and Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Currently Jean Claude is excited about his newest project which combines elements of parkour, mime and classic French balloon animal techniques.

Age 0-3

Food Memories- None (I assume breast milk/bottle/commercial cereals and infant fare….not enough food or love or anything according to CPS)

Other memories-  None (don’t remember broken legs or mom’s drug buddies).

Age 3.5- 9

Food memories- Depends on the foster home- off brand pop tarts and cereal, peanut butter, sometimes chicken nuggets.  School food: hamburger day, Chili Mac and good rolls

Other memories- New kid EVERYWHERE I went. Some fostered for the money, one wanted to touch my pee-pee, another was big on “Bible discipline” that made me spend recess in the Nurse’s office.

Age 9-11

Food Memories- I just remember there was less after budget cuts at the group home when I turned about 10

Other memories- Fights (I don’t remember starting any), they started telling people I had Behavioral Disorders

Age 12-18

Food memories- Good school food and pizza, even big Christmas family dinners.

Other memories- I was always behind in school, never had enough friends (but who can ever have enough friends).  The Hendricks’s took a chance on me.

Age 19-22

Food memories- Leftovers from Wendy’s where I worked, taco bell, Kraft Mac and Cheese, Top Ramen

Other Memories- I met my first real girlfriend.  Some rich kids asked me to find them a connection for some pot as a favor.  I probably shouldn’t have.

Age 22-29

Food memories- Oatmeal, some fruit, fish, mystery meat tacos and rice and beans with every meal

Other memories- For the second time I am a guest of the state- this time it is my fault.  I hope the Hendricks’s aren’t too disappointed in me.  I didn’t have that much pot, but one of the kids I sold to happened to have a dad who was a judge.

Age 30

Food memories- Soup kitchen fare and dumpster fare.  Tomato soup  made from Ketchup packages.

Other memories- None worth telling about.

Age 31-32

Food memories- Leftover Italian food, as much of it as I wanted.  I especially like Spaghetti Bolognaise.  Sometimes Natural Light beer (only on Sunday’s)

Other Memories- My dad helped me find a job at a mom and pop Italian place called Primavera.

Age 33-35

Food memories- Same, only maybe I like pork osso buco better.

Other Memories- Promoted to sous chef, met Maria.  Got loans for culinary school.

Age36-37

Food Memories- People really seem to like my Pollo Menichino with a nice insalata mista for starters .  I am back to the Spaghetti Bolognaise though.

Other Memories- I got married.  I am now the main chef.  I cut back on the Natty Light, Maria doesn’t want me to get fat.  We are trying to help Maria’s niece Sabrina to culinary school, maybe when she is done I can save for my own restaurant.  Some of my customers have money to invest.