Beginnings
Devin “Demon Eye” Taylor learned of the death from the radio. He sat in the driver’s seat of his truck. Its gray exterior was coated in a thick layer of dirt and mud. Dead flies collected at the bottom of the window pane, crushed by the merciless strike of the windshield wipers. Inside, it smelled of stale coffee and artificial pine. A large brown leather suitcase crowded the back seat. The radio played softly in the background. At that moment, Devin’s truck idled in the Beginnings Boxing Gym parking lot.
Devin removed his hand from the gear shift and reached for the key in the truck’s ignition. But before he could touch the base of the key, Devin froze. He recognized the name announced on the radio.
“Mathew Sanders, the brave and dedicated sheriff of our small town of Beginnings, died last night in a car accident on Highway 207 when in pursuit of a man suspected of robbery.”
Suddenly, Devin felt the need to move; to get out of the car and go far away. He turned the key to shut off the truck – silencing the radio – and pulled it out of the ignition. He ignored the loud buzzing in his ears. Then, he grabbed his small gym bag from the passenger seat. Bag in hand, he opened the truck door and stepped outside. Colors – blue, green, and gray – swirled around him and the ground shifted beneath his feet. He managed to push the truck door shut before resting his back against it.
He closed his eyes. He tried to breathe steadily. He tried to quell the sudden urge to vomit. He had known something was wrong. That morning, Devin had the sudden urge to return to his hometown of Beginnings. He told himself it was to check in with his mother. But no matter how much he reassured himself on the four hour drive from Chicago to Beginnings, he couldn’t seem to stop the dread from building up inside him. And he had been right. Something terrible had happened. Mathew was dead.
Abruptly, Devin opened his eyes. His body shook with the effort it took to control his emotions. He looked down and focused on the parking lot’s asphalt. There was a dirty piece of pink bubble gum next to his truck’s front tire. Devin could faintly make out the indents of teeth belonging to the gum’s previous owner. He stared at those little indentations until he felt his trembling subside.
Devin rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead and winced when he felt a stab of pain in his right eye. Though his left eye had twenty-twenty vision, he was half-blind in his right. At the age of sixteen, a fist to his face had created a hyphema– a collection of blood – inside the front part of his eye. The blood was gone now, but it left behind a milky white cloud that covered half of his sable brown iris. At first, it was disorienting for Devin to see the world clearly through one eye and cloudy through the other. But now he no longer remembered what it was like to have perfect vision.
With his emotions firmly shut away, Devin shook the tension from his shoulders and rolled his neck. He walked past the front of his truck and across the parking lot until he stepped on to the sidewalk. As he made his way to the front of Beginnings Boxing Gym he passed by the display window. Someone had shattered the glass, leaving behind a fist-sized hole. The hole was patched up with cardboard and duct tape. The flimsy barrier did little to conceal the damage.
With his gym bag still clutched in one hand, Devin pulled open the door with his other and stepped inside the gym. He was greeted by cold, dead air. The place was vacant. Dust mingled with the scent of bleach to create a powerful aroma. It burned Devin’s eyes and nose. The walls of the gym were made of concrete and stripped of any adornment. Near three of the four walls were punching bags that hung from the ceiling by thick silver chains. The bags swung gently, hanging like ghosts to warn off trespassers.
But Devin didn’t need to be warned off. He already knew it was a terrible idea to return to the gym. Why would he want to return to the place where he had almost been beaten to death all those years ago? Maybe it was because he had also spent so much time with Mathew here.
Devin looked around the room until he found a long wooden bench, one leg looking close to its demise, against the furthest wall. He made his way over to the bench and sat down with a heavy sigh. He put down his gym bag and immediately opened it, searching for his bottle of pills.
What had began as a slow build of pain in his right eye had now intensified. It felt as if needles were being stabbed into the soft tissue, one after another. He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together, before popping off the top of the bottle and downing two pills dry. He tossed the half-empty container back into his bag and reached for his hand wraps.
Devin earned his name “Demon Eye” from the underground fighting circuit in Chicago. He had a flawless record and his slight blindness didn’t matter when he had a sledgehammer for a right fist. He took out guys in one hit. Winning in the ring made him feel like a king.
But he hadn’t always been that way. Devin remembered the first time he had ever boxed. Mathew had brought him to this very gym, sat him down on the exact bench he was sitting down on now and had wrapped his hands for him. Devin remembered the way Mathew’s fingers had trembled as he wrapped the cloth around each of Devin’s slender, pale fingers.
Now, Devin wrapped his own hands.
He unraveled one of the two pre-rolled strips of cloth. He had made sure to leave the Velcro side facing outward when he last rolled them up. Doing so made the process of wrapping his hands much easier.
Devin thought back to the way Mathew had first done it, how he had grabbed Devin’s left wrist and shook it, his way of silently demanding Devin to open his hand. Once his fingers had been spread to his liking, Mathew had put Devin’s thumb through the loop at the end of the cloth. Then, he had wrapped the cloth around his wrist two times. The side of the cloth with the ugly stitching had been laid flush to Devin’s skin, so the outside remained smooth. Devin remembered how the cloth had felt slightly warm from Mathew’s touch.
Devin followed the same movement now without thought. It was so familiar to him that he could do it in his sleep. He brought the cloth under his wrist and over the back of his hand. After that, it went around his thumb and then returned to his wrist. He repeated a similar process, only this time he brought it to his pinkie’s side and began to wrap it around his knuckles.
Though Devin tried his hardest to push aside the past, he couldn’t help but think once again of Mathew.
Mathew had never been Devin’s true friend. He had always treated Devin differently in public than he had when the two were alone together.
Devin remembered a time when he had been walking home from school. Back then, he had been a short, scrawny kid. The other guys couldn’t help but mess with him. Mathew couldn’t help but mess with him.
“Hey faggot! I think my sister has a dress that will fit you!” Mathew called out to him as he raced past on his blue bike with spray-on flames.
Laughter erupted from the other boys who followed Mathew around everywhere he went. Devin had never learned the other boys’ names. They had never mattered to him.
When Devin tried to keep his head down and ignore them, Mathew wasn’t pleased. He turned his bike around and raced back to Devin, skidding to a stop when he was only inches away.
He was so close that Devin could smell his Axe cologne and the mint bubble gum he was chewing.
“Come on, faggot. You sure you have nothing to say to me?” Mathew sneered, a wicked glint in his eyes.
Devin was transfixed. He tried to find some resemblance to the boy who taught him how to throw a punch. That boy had always been patient and kind to Devin. That boy had never wanted to hurt Devin. But this Mathew was not that boy.
Before Devin could say anything, there was a shout from behind them.
“Beat it kids! I won’t have you harassing anyone outside my shop.” It was the elderly man who owned the small grocery store on Devin’s route home from school. He saved Devin from having to answer Mathew’s question.
The other boys immediately raced off at the appearance of the old man. But Matthew lingered for a second more.
“We aren’t finished. You hear me?” he promised Devin, his teeth clenched in a feral grin before racing off with the other boys.
Now, as Devin looked down at his half-wrapped hands, he couldn’t help but realize how weak he had been. He had allowed Mathew to treat him terribly in public, just as long as he was kind to him in private.
But what did that matter anymore? Mathew was dead.
Devin forced himself to finish wrapping his hand. He watched as the cloth went around his knuckles, once, twice, three times, before being draped over the back of his hand to cover the exposed skin. He brought the cloth through each of his fingers, wrapped it multiple times around his knuckles and finished it off by closing the Velcro at his wrist. He had left enough open space on his palm so that he could fist his hand with ease. Then, he began to repeat the same process with his right hand.
Once his hands were completely wrapped, Devin stood up from the bench. At the center of the gym there was a padded mat. Coarse brown rope tied to four posts segregated the mat from the rest of the open space. A large punching bag hung in one corner of the makeshift arena. Devin pushed down a section of rope, stepped over it, and entered the ring.
The air crackled with electricity. Devin’s heart rate sped. He bounced on his feet, breathed in through his nose then out through his mouth. He threw a few quick jabs to the empty air.
Once he was ready, Devin turned to face the punching bag in the opposite corner of the ring. He placed his feet about a foot apart. They were at a slight angle so that the toe of his front foot was aligned with the heel of his back foot. His shoulders and arms were relaxed, his elbows down and in. Then, he brought his loosely fisted hands up to his face.
Devin pulled back his right arm along with his hip. He rolled his hip forward, using the strength of his entire core to add power to the smooth arch of his oncoming fist. He made sure to align his front two knuckles with the bones of his forearm to avoid snapping his wrist back and kept his thumb wrapped around the bottom of his curled fingers to avoid breaking it. The flat surface between his second and third knuckle took most of the impact as he hit the center of the bag was a loud thwack.
After landing the first punch, Devin felt adrenaline race through his body. He became lost in a quick succession of one-two punches and the subsequent blocks. Devin danced on his feet, immersed in the world where he was most comfortable.
But he couldn’t escape Mathew. He would never escape Mathew. Now, the punching bag was no longer a punching bag. It had a heartbeat.
Devin remembered that night perfectly. They had only reached the stage of tentative touching. Mathew had loved to press his warm lips to the shell of Devin’s ear. Yet, when Mathew’s father, Ralph Sanders, had found them together in the gym, the two boys had only been talking. He must have understood simply from the way Devin looked at the other boy.
Devin dreamed of the beating almost every night.
He hadn’t see Ralph Sanders’ fist as it met his face, but he felt the impact of every knuckle, as hard and solid as a block of cement. Pain, like fire rockets, exploded through his cheekbone and eye socket. Hot blood spurted from his broken skin. Devin had clutched desperately at his eye with both hands, unintentionally leaving the rest of his face vulnerable to another attack. With a loud crunch, Devin felt the bones of his nose shatter and thick, metallic-scented blood flood his nostrils. Terrified for his life, Devin had screamed Matthew’s name. Matthew would protect him. Devin had been sure of it.
“You did nothing!” he screamed at Matthew now, hitting him in the face over and over again. On impact, he felt bone shatter beneath his fist. He watched Matthew’s nose break and bleed, the same way Devin’s did that night. He slammed his fist into Matthew's face again, but this time, he aimed for his eye. Devin wanted to hurt Matthew there most of all. He wanted to blind him.
He wanted to kill him.
Abruptly, Devin dropped his arms to his sides. His entire body was soaked in sweat and his arms were weak.
Devin couldn’t kill Mathew. Mathew was just a punching bag; just another ghost.
He quickly stumbled back from the bag. He dropped to his knees to try and control his breathing. He ran his hand through his short hair and stared around the empty gym. He tried his hardest to ignore the lack of sight in his right eye. It had never seemed to bother him so much as it did in that moment.
Devin always knew it would be a bad idea to return to Beginnings.
But here he was.
