Guard Up

Guard up. Guard up. I can feel his blows on my fore arms. Someone smacks two blocks of wood together. The round is almost over. “Guard up, Joe, goddammit! Guard UP!” Jerry shouts from my corner. The white boy in front of me keeps smashing his fists against my guard, but I don’t drop it. His name is Tommy Woodsman. He’s been state champion for three years, and now he’s a senior, going for four. Unless I have something to say about it.

I can feel the hits coming slower, Tommy is getting tired. Lowering my guard, I swing for his ribs. Two shots land, and then he’s on me. I see the hit coming, but I can’t lift my hands up quick enough. I feel one gloved hand smash against my left eye. Jerry is shouting uncontrollably. They’re all in the dark. I’m in the dark. Then I lower my chest, pivot on my right ankle, and raise my fist into an uppercut. It hits Tommy straight under the chin. He stumbled backwards, dazed. I move forward, trying to run. My body feels like it is moving in slow motion. I’m on top of Tommy now, throwing my hands forward with whatever strength I have left. I can feel the impacts against his head. One, two, three. Tommy falls hard onto the mat, blood dripping from his nose and from a cut on his face. I sway and see the world spin in front of me. Reaching out for the ropes, I grab one and try to steady myself. My knees are shaking, and I lean on the rope. People are shouting. Someone rings a bell. Then Jerry was in front of me. His mouth is moving but no words are coming out.

“You think you’re tough?” shouts a man from the crowd. He’s walking up to the ring, just behind Jerry. “You fucking Injun go back to the reservation. You’ll never get further than this!” Suddenly everything snaps into focus. The man is wearing a dirty tee shirt, stained with ketchup, and has a thin mustache. “You must have fucking cheated, no one can beat my Tommy, no one!” Jerry told me later that the man had been drinking. I lift the rope and jump down onto the ground. My legs shake for a moment, the jump was further than I’d thought.

“What are you going to do? Fight me too? Get over here, Injun!” The man raises his hands, as though he were in the ring. But real life doesn’t have a ring, it doesn’t have rules. There’s nothing keeping you in the fight, and no rules to keep the fight fair. The man clumsily tries to throw a punch and I lift my leg into a push kick. My blow comes first, tossing the man onto the ground, slamming into the folding chairs. Then I’m on top of him, slamming my fists into his face. It looks just like Tommy’s face, covered in blood, eyes shut. “Stop!” A woman is standing over us, crying. Jerry and someone else grab me from behind. I let them carry me up, then break free of them. Tossing off my gloves, I run for the door.

I walk for miles, wandering the country roads until I was completely alone. My eyes stare straight down at the pavement. “Fuck him,” I spit, “What the fuck does he know? He doesn’t know me!” The sound of an engine gets loud, and an old black muscle car pulls up next to me. The driver stops the car, takes out the key, and gets out.

“I heard about what happened, Joe,” Nelson tells me. He not my real dad, but he might as well be. He’s the best man Mom has ever dated.

“What the fuck does that guy know?” I asked.

“Nothing, Joe, but you can’t let him get him get in your head. You’re always letting people like that get to you.” Now that I’ve stopped walking, I can feel how tired my legs are. I sit down on the pavement, looking up at Nelson’s face. I can see his tattoos from the war hanging on his arms like medals.

“Why do they hate us?” I ask him. Nelson crouches low and sits across from me.

“They don’t understand us,” he tells me, “But we understand them, that’s why you can’t let this get to you. You’re always gonna be Indian, no one can take that away from you. But you’re a man too, and a damn good one. Only you can decide what kind of man you want to be, not Tommy Woodson, or his dad, or Jerry, or your mom, or me.”

“Did you ever have someone question you, tell you that you weren’t meant to be where you are?”

“I did, back in the war. When I was in Patton’s tank division, we captured a couple of Nazis. One of ‘em spoke English. He recognized I was native and he asked me what I was doing there. If America killed my people, destroyed my culture, and drove me from my land, what did I owe them? Why was I risking my life for people that despise me?”

“So why were you there?”

“I was there because I was young and I wanted to fight. I was there because I wanted to get off of the rez. I wanted to get paid. I wanted to follow my friends into battle. But I was not drafted. I was told I shouldn’t go, but I did. Now I don’t know if it was the right decision, but the only thing that matters is that I chose to be there. No one chose it for me. I was there because I wanted to be there, I wanted there to be a free country to come back to. Sounds crazy but it’s true. I was there because I wanted to be there, Joe, so fuck all the people who tell you what you can and can’t do. You’re the only person that you have to convince about your decisions. Don’t let other people get to you, because that’s when you have regrets.”