'Twas the Fight Before Christmas
Jack McCallum
December 26, 2005
A high-wire experiment in sports fiction, written in nine chapters, sequentially, by nine SI authors, wherein a fast-fading pugilist suddenly finds himself in the bout of his life. Read on....
He squinted up at me. "I see Warren Davis broke your nose for you," he added. "He did mine too. Welcome to the club."
[ IV ]
DOWNWARD-FACING DOG WAS MORE than a yoga position. It was my old man's job title. It surprised me as I stared down at him--the itch I felt in my right hand to introduce him to savasana: corpse pose. � Oh, yeah. I'd taken a few yoga classes myself, so I knew precisely why the perv had taken it up. For the tights. For the tail. For the 22-year-olds in sleeping eagle pose. My only question was ... how the hell, at $15 a pop, could Pop afford it?
He held the position, kiester pointing roofward, potato head dangling between his hamhock arms, bug eyes staring between his fire-hydrant legs. Like he was trying to get to heaven ass-first. I turned my back on him. Every time he'd materialized in my life, he'd shown up doing or saying something half-cocked designed to put me on my heels. He didn't pay visits. He paid ambushes.
"Don't feel bad," he grunted.
"About what?"
"Taking the fight."
"Oh, I don't."
"Or about putting a beating on me. It's my last fight. I'm done, kid. I just need you to stick the fork in me."
So that was why he'd come--to suck all the bliss out of the beating I'd planned for him, all the joy out of the first-round uppercut to his right kidney, the shot that I knew--having shared a toilet or two with him--would have him pissing scarlet for a month.

