I Am Heathcliff. Группа авторов

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 changing room when I enter. You’re talking on the phone, to a colleague about something to do with your work. I look you directly in the eye, the entire time I’m in the changing room. You barely notice me till I walk into the gym.

      I face you in the room, both in our corners. Everyone has left except people coming in for a class. We’re nobodies in the ecosystem of this gym.

      I stare into your eyes. I’ve obsessed about every second of this fight. I know how to dodge your arms. I know how to move backwards quickly. I have worked out every scenario in my head.

      You made me do this. Maybe this was your plan all along. You flap wings at me. The bell rings. I drop my chin, hold up my fists, and breathe.