Bloodsport

“Are you ready?” She asks.

“Let’s go,” JJ says as he looks up at the camera with what he thinks are his tough-guy eyes. He doesn’t have to try and remember the lines from his favorite action film, he knows them by heart.

“You know what happens when you corner a wildcat?” He asks, walking towards the camera and cocking his head sideways, just like in the movie.

“It strikes back!” He steps sideways on the wall, twisting his body forward, extending his leg and bracing for the ultimate wall kick, only to feel gravity work overtime and pull him to the ground instead. JJ falls on his already bruised elbow. This was not his first try.

“And scene!” Phil explodes with laughter. A deep-throated, hearty sound that makes you doubt whether you're as funny as that laugh deserves. The one that travels through your ears and reverberates in your body, warming your core. It's infectious.

JJ doesn’t hold it against her, that’s what best friends do. They laugh when you fall. To be honest, he would do the same.

“So glad I got that on camera, dude” Phil sits on the dusty, disintegrating ping-pong table and shakes her head, still smiling. It smells like rust and old rubber, and the one remaining swing creaks in the air eerily. They had discovered this abandoned children’s playground in fifth grade when Phil had transferred to his school. 

Philomena Tucker, a girl with a thing for plaid. Currently! - as she would say. She found a way to work it in her outfit every day. Sometimes it was plaid socks, sometimes a necktie and one day, the whole damn attire. She insisted on everyone calling her P. 

“Don’t you think Phil makes more sense? Phil from the ranch with the plaid.” JJ had asked jokingly on her first day.

“And what does JJ stand for? Janet Jackson?” She had quipped, unjarred.

“It’s Jamie Jackson, actually” He had said, a bit embarrassed.

“No way, dude. That’s a cool name.” She had said, with the politeness and emotional maturity of someone beyond her years.

That’s when he knew he wanted to be her friend. That was three years ago.

Today, it was a headband. Phil replays the video a third time, “I’m going to add it to my growing collection. We’ll call it JJ’s epic fails.” She jokes.

“Alright alright, don’t P on my parade” He looks at her pointedly, forcing a grin as he rubs his elbow and as she rolls her eyes.

“You can’t beat Max with these fancy moves, you’ve gotta get that street fight acumen. He’s been picking on you since, like, primary school. You’ve gotta toughen up, maybe drink some protein shakes for starters, he’s twice your size.” She monologues.

“Life only recurs in the echo of your present actions. Pick your battles carefully and wisely, for the heaviest burden you carry is now.” JJ repeats the wisdom of his revered sensei, albeit in the movies. “Also… don’t talk about my guns like that,” He says with mock offense and puts up his arms in a bodybuilder’s pose, giving each of them a little kiss, “These are weapons of ass destruction!” he growls and flexes as much as he can. It doesn’t work.

“Alright alright, let’s get back to oiling those guns. Drop down and give me 30.” She says major military style.

JJ falls into pushups as Phil counts. Did he really have it in him to stand up to Max? JJ thinks to himself. It was true, Max had always been a giant among kids. I mean, the guy showed up to primary school already using the urinals. It was like he skipped a few growth stages while the rest of us were still trying to reach the top shelf in the pantry. Once, in fourth grade, for a whole week solid, Max had taken his lunch and hung it on a branch of a tree where JJ couldn’t reach and he had gone hungry the entire week. It’s funny how you glide through early life in a blur, like skating through an empty ice rink, all white, unchanged - and somewhere in that monotony, images get stuck. Colorful and vivid in their torture. These images, which you did not choose, define your narrative. Who you are and who you can become.

“Wouldn't it be cool… if you could have a montage… in real life?” JJ wonders out loud, timing his words with his pushes, “Like they do in the movies… Just scenes of me working out… in different clothes… months pass in seconds and there I am… a beautiful, buff crouching tiger. But wait… something’s missing”

He grabs his phone from the side and does a couple of pushes with just one hand, as Phil looks on genuinely impressed. “Yes… background music.” He presses play to the amped intro of Eye of the Tiger.

The song has barely made it to the chorus when they hear screams and shouts coming from nearby.

“Someone’s getting beat at The Pit,” Phil says matter-of-factly.

The Pit was the resident area of the teenage outlaws. It was where all unresolved resentments came to be ironed out; a fight club for kids, of sorts. That’s how justice was served in the south side of Chicago, Illinois. Most of the kids came from neglected homes. They knew that the world was a fluke. A massive coincidence borne of stars bursting and colliding to give way to life. A tiny, favorable chance in the grand scheme of the galaxy. Where did that leave them? Small, inconsequential and so very lost. This was their form of community. To be free, to be liberated, to hurt and be hurt, to channel their multi-tonal rage.

It was hard to explain. 

“Who do you think is getting their butt whooped this time?” Phil asks, adjusting her plaid headband.

“Only one way to find out.” Replies JJ, pausing the song and brushing off the dust as he rises from the ground.

They make their way to The Pit, essentially just a deserted area under the bridge where someone had once spilled some sand. People had gradually brought in crates and discarded furniture to create a makeshift arena.

The sounds of cheers and boos become louder as they get closer. Half the school is there. There’s that kid from fifth grade infamous for his lack of hygiene. The girl from tenth grade who is a borderline pyromaniac, but also kind of hot. Yes, pun intended. And Max, of course. Max, who is big enough to hang out with the tenth graders, because well, he practically is one.

They were betting on a couple of sixth graders trying to slap each other from a distance, JJ even thought one was crying. It didn’t take experience to see they had been bullied into fighting each other. It made JJ’s stomach turn.

“Hey!” JJ shouts, his voice swallowed by the cacophony. He looks back at Phil whose eyes are wide with surprise as she mouths “You’re not ready!” Something told JJ that if he wasn’t ready now, he never would be. He meets her gaze and with a dramatic nod, shuffles through the crowd, not apologizing for once in his life, as he elbows his way forward.

He spills through the plasma of people into the Pit and feels what feels like to be seen. By hundreds of eyes, all at once. He gulps. No backing down now. This is for JJ from fourth grade and he is hungry.

“Hey!” he shouts again in Max’s direction as everyone falls silent. “Leave them alone, Max!”

Max turns towards him, a smug grin spreading across his face. “Look who it is, Jamhead Jackson” The crowd snickers. “You got a death wish?” He threatens.

JJ forces a confident smirk and hopes it looks less like a nervous twitch. “No, I’ve just about had enough of your crap, pick on someone…” He regrets choosing the specific phrase almost instantaneously but has to see it through. “...Your own size.” JJ finishes. Max roars with laughter and the crowd joins in, He looks up at Phil who gives him an awkward thumbs-up.

“That’s it!” He shouts as the crowd reluctantly complies, “You and me. This ends now.”

It looks like JJ has finally gotten his attention. Max stomps through the crowd as a wave of whispers descends. People step aside as he makes his way towards JJ. As Max gets closer, so does the realization of JJ’s predicament.

Max bends down, bringing his face inches from JJ’s. He never understood why all the bad guys did that, even in the movies. JJ doesn’t flinch, no matter how much he wants to.

“Are you sure you want to do this, shrimp?” Max asks menacingly.

JJ can feel the adrenaline pumping in his blood and going to his head. He takes a deep breath. “The answer is yes, Teletubby. Now, are we gonna kiss?” In a surprising move, JJ shoves Max back and drops into his combat stance, “Or are we gonna fight?” He finishes satisfyingly and the crowd erupts in cheers. Sensei would be proud.

Max falters a few steps and with one loud snarl, surges toward JJ but he’s expecting it, he dunks down and comes around, punching Max in the back. Although the blow lands squarely on his spine, JJ suspects it hurts him more than it does Max.

Come on, JJ! He attempts to give himself a pep talk in his head. Float like a feather, sting like a bee, just like Muhammad Ali said. Or was it, float like a butterfly…

JJ wonders briefly, as Max’s clenched fist hurtles towards his face, how something could move both fast and slow. Max’s knuckles slam into his jaw with a force that rattles his brain and he crumples to the ground.

The floor was an old friend, he thought wryly. That’s it, stay close to it. The crowd is going wild, this is exactly what they didn’t pay for — a straight-up showdown. Max is moving his hands in the air timing them with the cheers, acting like a conductor of chaos. He sees JJ pull himself up and fall back in stance, it angers him. He rages towards JJ like an unhinged bull. JJ steps to the side, bends down and as hard as he can, hurls a punch right at the side of his guts. It lands! Max staggers back, holding his stomach. 

Wait, was he crazy or was the crowd cheering for him? JJ muses, his heart racing like the horses at the derby he once saw on TV. 

Max is closing in. JJ tries to dunk again but this time Max is ready, he catches him by the collar. “Oh no…” goes JJ’s brain. He closes his eyes and braces for impact.

JJ barely has time to register Max’s fist before it makes a high-speed introduction to his gut. He feels like a human piñata, except instead of candy, it’s his dignity spilling out. The punch lands with all the subtlety of a freight train, and JJ is pretty sure he saw his life flash before his eyes — mostly images of him eating cereal and playing video games.

JJ’s feet leave the ground defying gravity for a moment, and as he crashes into the crowd, which parts with the precision of synchronized swimmers, he can’t help but think, “Well, this is new.”

He stumbles onto the ground next to the cool, concrete wall of the bridge. A monument of urban decay with a patchwork of graffiti competing for space, each a colorful story of fleeting rebellion. He tries to catch his breath, but his insides are burning. He can smell sweat and taste blood, probably his own. Above the distant shouts of the crowd, he hears Phil’s warm voice, “Get up, JJ! You can do this!” 

With a heroic level of determination and a guttural groan, JJ puts his hand on the wall and pulls himself up just as Max comes to stand in front of him.

The crowd has gone quiet now, the sense of impending and inevitable doom is almost palpable. It’s not just human eyes watching him, but a sea of smartphone lenses, each one ready to immortalize his potential demise… or the birth of a viral TikTok career.

“Nowhere to run now, I’ve got you!” Max shouts at him, frothing at the mouth.

JJ glances at the wall behind him and stands up straight despite the shooting pains. He looks up at Max with his tough-guy eyes and calmly says “You know what happens when you corner a wildcat, Max?” 

“Huh?” Max looks at him, naturally confused.

“It strikes back!” JJ shouts back. He knows what to do, he’s done it a hundred times. But what he had not previously considered was his weight or well, the lack of it. His weakness was his strength. Because he was lighter, he needed to jump higher to get… just the right torque.

JJ holds his breath and launches himself onto the wall with feline agility, putting one foot in front of the other. For a second JJ is walking on a wall and the next, his leg has perfectly twisted outwards in a beautiful arc with a brutal smackdown at its end. His foot collides with the perplexed face of Max — a wondrous sight. JJ wished he could frame this mental picture and look at it forever, but it’s over too soon.

Max falls to the ground with a resounding thump, motionless and everybody goes silent. JJ’s head is reeling, he can’t believe what just happened. He looks up at the crowd, and spots Phil, looking at him with pride-streaked eyes and a quivering smile. That smile turns into a laugh and the infectious laugh turns into a cheer as it spills across the horde. Phil runs towards him and wraps her arms around him.

“Oof” He lets out his remaining breath. “Easy there” He laughs.

“You did it!” She screams over the noise, laughing with him.

They glance back at Max who is sulking on the ground with a couple of tenth graders, a sour scowl on his face that could give you tonsillitis. Phil and JJ exchange a knowing look and burst out laughing.

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts” JJ says wiping a tear of joy from his eyes. 

Phil puts his arm around her shoulders, “Don’t worry, I’ve gotchu.”

As he limps through the high fives, patting hands on the back and the recurring “Nice, dude!” and “Woah, that was awesome”, he couldn’t help but feel liberated. As Sensei said: There comes a point in life, when the very basis of the truth you had so comfortably believed about yourself, is shaken. Listen to the sounds it makes in your head and the noise it causes in your heart, that’s the sound of your truth. This was that point, the one where he changed his narrative.

They have finally made it past the people. The circle closes up behind them and together, they emerge from it, profoundly changed. JJ with his newfound bravery and Phil for the fact, that anything was possible.

“You know, the one time you should’ve been recording…” He says, half teasing.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we can find some footage.” She says smiling. 

“Hey Phil” JJ says suddenly, seriously. “I know that was epic back there, I defied biological logic, but I don’t know… There’s still something missing.

Phil stops walking and looks at him concerned, “What?”

“Background music,” JJ says with a satisfied smile as he presses play on his phone, filling the dusky, orange air with the wholesome, winning and downright wicked chorus of Eye of the Tiger.