I was given four things to create this story: a pocket watch, a toothpick, MMA fighting, and Onaga, Kansas. What came out of this random is one of my FAVORITE stories ever. I hope you enjoy!
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Music by:
JuliusH from Pixabay
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INTRO
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Shade of Red
I can see black and white, just like you, and lots of grey, but I can’t see color, so when I tell you his pocket watch has a red letter P on it, it isn’t because I can see the red, it’s because my mom told me. But she isn’t here, it’s just me and Pocket in the locker room.
Pocket is his fight name, but not because of his pocket watch. He got his name because he could pound a guy into a pocket. But that was a long time ago, before Pocket had a long beard.
My mom told me Pocket hates crowds so when he was a fighter he trained in the middle of nowhere. That’s why he was in Onaga, Kansas, where nobody lives, just my mom and grandpa. My grandpa fought Pocket sometimes, but just for practice, because my grandpa didn’t want to end up in his pocket.
Baby, your grandpa fought the toughest man in America. And I watch. I was just a little girl but I watched. That’s how I learned to fight.
My mom was leaning against the ropes when she said that to me. I can see her like yesterday, with a toothpick dangling from her lips. That was how she told me things, leaning against the ropes with a toothpick in her mouth. But she isn’t here, it’s only me and Pocket. And I’m watching him wind his pocket watch with the red letter P that looks grey, to me.
“Ready?” Pocket says.
I nod.
My mom and I never said anything before fights, it didn’t matter which of us was going into the ring, we knew how the other felt: tight in the stomach, ache in the back of the head, thuds in the heart. It wasn’t worth saying how we felt because we both knew, and we knew that once we were inside the ring, all those would disappear, because in there, there’s nothing but fist, foot, elbow, and knee.
Pocket opens two folding chairs and sets them in a small space between the rows of lockers. He turns one backwards to him, that’s the one I’ll sit on. But first I slide the small container in beneath the band of my sports bra, then I take a seat, straddling the chair backwards. Pocket drapes a towel over the back of my chair and an official MMA logo stares at me. It’s so familiar I could draw it. Two outlines of bodies, frozen in fight. Mixed Martial Arts is typed beneath the logo.
My mom told me the logo is bright red but it’s all shades of grey to me, as grey as my own blood, which I’ve been wiping on these towels for years. I call them Mom’s Towels because she won so many of them in her fights.
“Right arm,” Pocket says. He taps the towel staring at me and I rest my right arm on the towel. Pocket slides the other chair closer to me and then sets his pocket watch on one knee. He unzips his small bag and removes the gauze, tape and scissors.
“Open,” Pocket says.
I spread my right hand open, as wide as I can. I gotta do whatever the hell I can think of inside those ropes, if I want to walk out, and that takes every nick of finger I got.
“Wider,” Pocket says.
I clench my teeth and force my fingers to grow in every direction.
“Got your mom’s knuckles.” Pocket says, as he wraps gauze around my forearm and wrist.
Pocket is the best cutman in the business, and I’m lucky he’s here. He doesn’t wrap for just anybody. I’m barely old enough to fight professional MMA, to fight women who kill with their eyes, but I’m not afraid because my mom taught me how to stare down my opponent. My mom was the queen of stare. That’s why it’s so weird that she put me in ballet when I was five. I hated it. I even cried when the teacher told me I had to smile, so my mom let me go back to the gym with her, still wearing my pink tutu and tights. That was the first day I followed my mom into the ring and trained alongside her, pink tutu and all.
I remember that tutu. I wore it into shreds. Then I wore pink tights. Everyday. I wore pink because I like the way it sounds.
Pink.
Plus I’d heard the word my whole life.
Pink kicks ass.
Pocket wraps the gauze between my thumb and index finger, then he pulls it under my palm and over my knuckles. His hands are faster than wind, smoother than water. He must have been goodin the ring, I wish I could have seen him. My mom said he’s still the best fighter she ever saw. Ever.
Pocket loops the gauze around my knuckles before grabbing a small cotton pad. The knuckle pad isn’t much protection, just a thin layer that allows my knuckles to feel every crack of bone on bone.
Baby, you’ve got more heart than anybody. Even me.
When my mom whispered those words into my ear the whole arena was screaming. I’m still the youngest girl to win a junior title. The crowd was so loud they might have made me deaf, but all I could hear was my mom, how proud she was of me. I would have been screaming too, but I could hear my mom draining away. She was so sick. But she didn’t talk about it. My mom and me, we’re fighters.
“Open,” Pocket says. He wraps the knuckle pad into place before securing it with a loop around my thumb, twice more. Pocket wraps firm, but he’s careful not to choke my thumb, he knows I won’t walk out of that ring if I can’t use my thumb.
I know exactly what Pocket will do next because he wraps the same as my mom. Pocket was her cutman, and she was my cutman. She had to be my cutman because nobody knew how to wrap such tiny hands, there weren’t any girls my age, not for a long time, so my mom sliced tape intostrips so skinny they would fit between my fingers and around my thumb.
Pocket circles wimy thumb one last time and then wraps the gauze in the opposite direction, moving down my wrist and forearm.
“Fist,” Pocket says.
I squeeze my hand into a fist and Pocket grips it with both of his. He presses hard all around my fist until the gauze moulds into one piece covering my hand.
“Open.” Pocket says.
“Fist.” Pocket says.
“Open. Fist. Open. Fist.” Pocket repeats this until he’s certain. Then he checks the pocket watch on his knee.
He’s got such confidence, I know he won every stare contest.
Pocket sets the gauze aside and reaches for the tape. It too is shades of grey, even though my mom says it comes in lots of colors. She tried to explain how colors feel. Especially red. But blood doesn’t look the way my mom described. Fighting is just shades of grey to me, I can’t see the red she feels.
“Fist,” Pocket says. He begins to tape my wrist, over the layer of gauze, and I grip tight until the tape reaches the base of my hand.
Baby, nothing strangles a hand faster than tape, and there’s no knowing what you’ll need to do in those ropes, so make sure your tape doesn’t strangle.
I’m lucky my mom knew so much. I never had to explain the explosion of power I feel when I step into the ring, or the thrill of seeing fight in another woman’s eyes, or the roar of blood when the crowd surges. My mom already knew. Everything.
“Open,” Pocket says. He wraps from thumb to wrist, twice, then tears the tape and presses the loose end closed.
“Turn it over,” Pocket says.
This is my favorite part, when the top of my hand is dissected by three strands of tape, each one following the canal between my knuckles, my mom’s knuckles. This is also when he pulls the gauze off the palm of my hand, which allows me to grab even better.
Pocket finishes all this so fast I almost miss it.
“Open. Fist. Open. Fist.” Pocket says. He watches the movement of the wrap, then he checks the watch on his knee and grunts.
He secures the three dissecting strands with tape but leaves my knuckles with only the thin knuckle pad over them. MMA rules are super strict, they want fighters to feel their knuckles contact whatever they’re hitting.
“Fist. Keep it tight.” Pocket smacks my hand, over and over, giving the gauze and tape a hard packing.
“Grab my arm. Hard.” He yanks his arm back. “Fingers and thumb feel good?”
I nod.
He checks his pocket watch, “Other hand.”
I stretch my left hand wide, then force it wider.
Baby, leave no trace and you’ll gain respect. But first, leave no trace.
I never leave a trace. My opponents are simply different shades of grey, but not like the grey after my mom died, that grey is. I don’t know. Maybe it’s how some people see blood. Too grto describe.
Pocket presses the final strip of tape into place and holds his huge palms before his chest. “Smack here. Hard.”
I smack one fist at a time into his palms, he grabs onto each fist, squeezing and yanking, pressing and moulding. When he’s sure, he checks his pocket watch, and nods. Then he places all the supplies into his bag.
“You got her fight, too.” Pocket says, and leaves the locker room.
I slip the case from my sports bra and unscrew the metal lid. It’s made for waterproof matches but I’ve never put a match inside. This is where I keep my mom’s last toothpick. She died so fast she didn’t leave a trace. Just a toothpick on her nightstand.
This is when I do my ritual. Everybody has one, some are complicated but mine’s presimple.
I kiss my mom’s toothpick, along the side, then press the sharp tip into the skin below my eyes. Then I hold the toothpick between the tips of my fingers so the points press into my flesh: right thumb on one end of the toothpick, left thumb on the other end of the toothpick. I do this for all my fingers, down through the pinkies. THis is how I make sure the tape isn’t strangling my hand, because I can feel the tip of every finger.
Pocket’s wrap is as good as my mom told me. And I wish she was with me. I wish she could hear the crowd in the arena. They’re chanting like I’ve already won the fight.
I touch the toothpick to my forehead and give it two kisses, one on each end. Then it goes back into the waterproof match case, and that goes inside the pocket of my duffel.
If my mom was here she wouldn’t say a word. She’d just kiss my forehead and we’d walk out, together.
My stomach feels tight. And there’s an ache in my head. This is my first professional fight. I guess that means I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. I’m a woman, dressed in a shade of red that looks grey to me. I can grapple, punch, kick, yank, drag, smash, whip, slam, shred, and kill with a stare.
You should hear the crowd, they’re freaking out, chanting my mom’s fight name.
It’s also my name.
It’s our name.
Always will be.
Pink! Pink! Pink!