Round 3. Having paced himself, Crush figures he’s got some gas in the tank. He charges across the ring and surprises everyone with a wild flurry that ignites the crowd. It’s certainly exciting, but not damaging. Tadeo covers well, then lands a couple of hard jabs that draw more blood. Crush charges again, and again. Tadeo, the boxer, picks his openings and shoots jabs that land beautifully. I’m screaming, the crowd is screaming, the floor seems to be shaking. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and Crush is still out there, charging and charging, his face a bloody mess. He lands a wild right and Tadeo goes down, but only for a second. Crush leaps on top of him and they kick and claw and finally manage to untangle. Tadeo has not gone this late in a fight in a long time, and he begins to press. Crush charges again, and for the final minute they go toe-to-toe in the center of the ring, just two mad dogs beating the crap out of each other.
My heart is pounding, my stomach is rolling, and I’m just the water boy. We assure Tadeo he’s won again as we wait and wait. Finally, the referee walks the fighters to the center of the ring. The announcer proclaims a split decision, with Crush winning by a point. A thunderous wave of booing and screaming rocks the auditorium. Tadeo is stunned, shocked, his mouth wide open, his swollen eyes filled with hate. The fans are throwing things at the cage and we’re on the verge of a riot.
The next fifteen seconds will change Tadeo’s life forever.
He suddenly whirls and throws a hard right into the left side of Crush’s face. It’s a sucker punch, a vicious one that Crush never saw coming. He crumples to the mat, out cold. Instantly, Tadeo attacks the referee, who’s also black, and pummels him with a flurry. The ref stumbles and lands against the cage, half sitting up, and Tadeo pounces on him with a furious barrage of punches. For a few seconds, everyone is too stunned to react. They are, after all, in a cage, and it takes time to mount a rescue. By the time Norberto tackles Tadeo, the poor ref is unconscious.
The auditorium erupts as fights break out everywhere. Tadeo’s fans, most of them Hispanic, and Crush’s fans, most of whom are black and heavily outnumbered, attack each other like gangs in the street. Cups of beer and cartons of popcorn rain down like confetti. A security guard nearby gets hit over the head with a folding chair. It’s total chaos and no one is safe. I forget about the carnage inside the cage and sprint for my son. He’s not in his seat, but through the melee I see the hulking figure of Partner as they make their escape. I go after them, and within seconds we are safe. As we duck out of the auditorium, we pass panicked police running toward the action. In the van, I clutch Starcher in the front seat as Partner takes the side streets. I say, “Are you okay, bud?”
He says, “Let’s do it again.”
Minutes later, we enter my apartment and take a deep breath. I get drinks—beers for Partner and me and a soda for Starcher—and we turn on the local news. The story is still unfolding and the reporters are frantic. The kid is excited and talks enough to let me know he’s not traumatized. I try in vain to explain what happened.
Partner sleeps on the sofa. I wake him at 4:00 a.m. to talk strategy. He leaves for the city jail, to try and find Tadeo, and for the hospital, to dig for information about the referee. I can’t shake the image of Tadeo pounding the guy’s face. He was knocked cold from the first punch and there were dozens afterward, all delivered by a man completely out of his mind. I try not to think about what’s next for my fighter.
I grind beans, and while the coffee is brewing I go online to check the news. Fortunately, no one has died yet, but at least twenty people are in the hospital. Rescue personnel are still on the scene. And the blame is being heaped upon one Tadeo Zapate, age twenty-two, an up-and-coming cage fighter who’s now locked away in the city jail.
Judith calls at 6:30 to check on her son. She’s hours away and knows nothing about the riot we survived. I ask about her college roommate. She is surviving but things look bad. Judith will be home tomorrow, Sunday, and I assure her the kid will be just fine. All is well.
With some luck, she’ll never know.
Luck, though, is not going my way. A few minutes after our brief chat, I check the
