What They Kept

The foot on the platform. That's the thing I can't shake. I know it wasn't a knockdown — I know what the floor saw and what Briggs's corner saw are two different things, and what they saw was worse. Eighteen kilos on me and the worst moment of the round was me tripping over my own gym's equipment. I came back with the left hook to the body and folded him at the waist, finished it on my feet, but the picture they kept was the stumble. That's the one that goes home in their heads.

The shoulder. Briggs found it in the second with that check hook and the arm went dead for a second. Not pain — gone, like the nerve switched off. I tied him up because I couldn't throw for that second and I know Rob knew. The bruise is purple-yellow now. When I rotated it in the change room it clicked loud enough that Briggs's cutman glanced over. The joint is voting and I'm outvoted.

The autumn date on the back of the contract. I drove home with it in the footwell like a fact I wasn't ready to read. October, maybe. One more sharpen, then taper — that's what I told Rob. What I didn't say is the sharpen is the only part I trust right now.

Voss's last smoker. I stopped the tape where the right hand lands and watched it three times the same way. There's a lesson in there about timing I haven't earned yet but I keep looking at it like it will teach me anyway.

Lou Cassar's name sat in my phone all evening. I didn't tap it. Tomorrow.