Then they announce the Star Spangled Banner and everybody is up and singing it. I want to stay in my seat and hide but I have to get up. The guys next to me are passing the joint around. I look over the rail, I am so high, and so afraid of heights, why didn't they give me that ringside seat? The bastards, the fucking bastards.
"Mahvin! We love yoooo!"
"Destroy and destruction," the guy behind me says.
The fight begins. Hagler is playing around.
"Kill that tall skinny prick!"
"Destroy and destruction."
"Mahvin! We love yoooooo!"
The round ends. Fully Insured has missed a lot of punches. Otherwise, nothing has happened.
"Mahvin, we love yoooooo!"
In the second round Hagler starts to fight. Fully Insured is missing all his punches. Hagler bores in, deeper, deeper, his bald head boring in like a phallus. Fully has two inches in reach but Hagler is the one landing the jabs. He is moving constantly and impossible to hit.
"Mahvin! We love you! Do you know that?"
In the third round Hagler comes flying out of his corner and nails Fully with a left hook, and it is clear that Fully's filly will be collecting an annuity before the night is over. It is just a question of when. The guys next to me are anxious. They have a bet on Hagler in six. One of them has smoked too much dope and is snoring. Somebody is throwing his business cards like confetti: "Tint City." It's a glass company.
The rounds come. Fully Insured has nothing. Hagler is throwing everything. Fully can take a punch, though, and he is getting a good chance to prove it. Finally in the sixth Hagler throws his left hook and Fully is on the floor. The crowd is going crazy. "Mahvin! We love yooooo!" Fully gets up. He is moving like a freighter in heavy seas.
"Mahvin! We love yooooo!"
The eighth round starts. The guys next to me have lost their bet. In twenty seconds Hagler has thrown a right and Fully Insured is sprawling like Dick van Dyke. The referee can tell that the next punch is a ticket to the afterlife, and ends the fight. People are going crazy. Hagler's wife is in the ring, jumping up and down, her arms in the air. His kid comes in the ring in a little three piece suit. Everyone is hurrying out. They want to miss the crowds. Hagler is holding his belt in the air.
"Ah, Twinkie," somebody says to his friend. "You couldda beaten Hagler. Wid a gun! Wid a gun!" He is taken with his own joke, and keeps repeating the punchline to gall Twinkie.
"Wid a gun!"
I admire Hagler. He's good at what he does. But when a boxer's not extraordinary the only thing left is the visceral thrill of seeing someone get knocked down. I feel sick, I feel sick inside. I have seen too many bad fights, too many ugly people. Everyone is gone and people are screaming unnaturally in the tunnels to hear the echo. I feel sick, I feel sick. What is wrong with us? This is the essential question for our times. What is wrong with us? What is wrong with us? People are screaming in the tunnels.