I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Also, PAFA stands for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, a visual arts college in Philadelphia and Fuzznugget is inspired by my own cat, Cato.
Finally, sorry about this chapter, and the repeat of the fights. I know you've seen them, but Jane, alas, has not. And, as I've stated before, Tommy is not exposed as Thomas Conlon in this story, so no one during the match makes the deduction that he and Brendan are brothers.
Happy birthday, everyone! And happy birthday to me (in about an hour.)
Chapter Nine: Cat's Out of the Bag (part One) or "What's MMA?"
Jane meets Carlos and Michael for coffee and brunch late Saturday morning. The walls of their apartment are lined with prints, drawings and paintings, many of which are by Carlos himself, a PAFA graduate who works at the diner partially to help support his art and partially because he actually does love cooking. In fact, he's the a making feta cheese and spinach frittata with lox in the kitchen while Michael pours them each a cup of coffee and shows ironclad self-discipline by not prodding into her personal life, but she's pretty sure Carlos has told him a little something.
"Anything new?" he asks, sounding way too innocent. Their cat, a small, vocal marmalade tabby named Fuzznugget, wanders into the room when he hears their voices, mewling at them to announce his presence. For a moment he sits on the floor between, watching them, and jumps onto Jane's nap, purring as he kneads and makes himself at home, vaguely watching their conversation from his new vantage point.
Jane grins at the both of them. Fuzznugget purrs louder and settles on his fluffy white belly as she scratches him under the chin and behind the ears. "I bet Carlos told you," she says.
Michael grins back, "Ah, kind of," he admits, "But since he has a vivid storyteller's imagination I figured his information might not be all that reliable."
"Why? What did he say?"
"That you snagged yourself a tough-looking guy with Angelina Jolie lips, a guy who walked in, asked you out in front of the whole diner, and walked back out."
"I wouldn't say I 'snagged' him, but the rest of it's true."
"He also said you're in a better mood than usual. And then implied it's because of your new guy."
Jane smiles a little out of embarrassment, feels her face grow warm. "That part is true as well," she admits.
A genuine smile crosses Michael's face and he leans forward. "That's great! I'm glad you've found someone. Let's just hope he's worthy of you."
She isn't sure what to say to this, so she calls to the kitchen, "Do you need help with anything?"
"Nope," Carlos answers. "Everything's pretty much done."
She absently continues petting the cat, who gives a small squeak as he curls up in her lap and dozes off. "I like him a lot. He's just…he's a grown man. He's not some frat boy with a douchebag haircut who says 'like' every other word. He doesn't really talk about himself, but it's clear he's been through a lot, and, shit, I don't know." She groans a little. "I'm new to this. I've never been taken out on a date before this guy, and I keep thinking, 'What's the catch?'"
"Don't you worry," Michael assures her. "There is one. There always is, in every relationship there's something you don't like, or that worries you or pisses you off."
"And what about me?" Carlos demands, bringing in food from the kitchen and setting it on the table in the living/dining room.
"You snore like a chainsaw," Michael says, grinning. "And you like Lady Gaga."
"I thought you said one. Okay, it's ready."
It smells amazing. Jane gently picks the cat up before she stands and places him on the couch, in the spot where she'd been sitting. He opens his eyes and looks up at her, then chirps at her as if giving her permission to go eat, and falls back asleep.
"It looks so good!" she says, taking her seat and taking in the sight of the frittata and lox, herb-roasted potatoes ("You can have brunch without booze, but you can't have brunch without potatoes," Carlos told her once) and fragrant orange sections, water glasses already at the table as they set down their coffee. "I love lox."
"Heh. It's funny 'cause you're half Jewish."
"And I inherited that love from the other half."
"Really?"
"No." They dig in, and at first enjoy the food way too much to talk, but after a couple of minutes Michael pipes up.
"Wait, so, continuing our early discussion, did you add him on Facebook? A picture would kind of help…"
Jane shakes her head through a mouthful of orange. "Fat chance of that. He doesn't have one."
"No?"
"No cell phone, either."
"You're kidding!" When she shakes her head again, grinning, he sits back, aghast. "How old is he?"
"Thirty."
"I mean, my grandmother has a cell phone. It's a trac phone and she barely knows how to use it, but still…"
Carlos interrupts with something that wipes the grin off her face in an instant. "Does he know that you're…" he doesn't need to finish.
She shakes her head again. It's something she's wanted to avoid with him. "I haven't gotten around to telling him yet," she says.
Michael sobers up. "You really should tell him," he says, "Sooner as opposed to later, in case he decides to take you out to a bar or something."
"Yeah, that's what my sponsor told me." She prods her potatoes with her fork. "And I will. We're going out later.
"But enough about me, how are you guys doing?"
Michael works for an organization that speaks out against sexual abuse and discrimination, and apparently they got new funding. Carlos sold a series of drawings and has been hired to do a portrait. And Jane really needs to talk to Tommy, needs to tell him she's a recovering alcoholic, because normal people in their twenties and thirties go to bars, and it's only a matter of time before he takes her to one.
F
Later that day, about twenty minutes before she's supposed to meet Tommy outside her apartment, Courtney calls her up.
"I know where I've seen him now!"
"Hmmm?" she looks at the clock, wondering why it can't go faster.
"Your boyfriend is Tommy Riordan, right? He's a cage fighter. He was one of the top middleweight MMA fighters in the world before he got injured."
There are so many things wrong with that statement. But Jane's first question is, "What's MMA?"
"Mixed martial arts. Girl, you been living under a rock or something?"
"I guess…" Jane runs a hand through her hair, pacing. "But you must have gotten the wrong guy…"
"Tommy Riordan from Pittsburgh, who served in the Marines and dislocated his shoulder three months ago in his last fight."
"He dislocated it falling down a flight of stairs."
"He lied to you." Courtney calms down. The urgency, the excitement of telling her has faded. Instead, she says a little more gently, "There are videos on YouTube. Start with one where he fights a guy named Mad Dog Grimes. I recommend going chronologically."
Her mouth feels dry. She can't speak.
"You okay?" Courtney asks on the other line, voice sounding a million miles away.
When she finally talks, her voice sounds like someone else's. "I'll see you Monday," she says and ends the conversation. She looks over at her laptop, which rests on her dining room/living room table and opens it, turns it on.
This isn't real, she thinks. This is insane. It's a joke. I'll go online and humor Courtney, see there's nothing there, and forgive her for her little prank.
Once she's on YouTube, she types "tommy r" into the search feed and his name pops up before she can finish typing it herself, along with related searches "tommy riordan mad dog" "tommy riordan Sparta" "tommy riordan brendan conlon." She swallows hard and, per Courtney's instructions, selects the one with "Mad Dog Grimes", whoever the hell that is.
There are two major videos, two fights with him, one of which has tens of millions of hits. She takes a deep breath, clicks on it, and expands the screen.
It goes by fast. She sees the interior of a dank gym and a ring, two figures inside it, and the one in the white wife-beater is visibly bulkier, with serious definition in his shoulders, arms and back but she recognizes him. Even with the poor quality of the video and the added muscle, she knows it's Tommy. She'd recognize that face anywhere. And he's blocking one hit after another from the other guy, catches his leg, and punches him to the ground. And he's on this guy like a fly on shit, pummeling him and, as the other guy, who she supposes his Grimes, evades his grasp and rises to stand, throws him down on the floor with a force that makes the camera shake, face set in a look of…what? Concentration? Excitement? Barely controlled rage? He wastes no time in kneeing Grimes in the face, guarding himself against the punches Grimes throws at him and responding in kind with a blow to the face that knocks the other man out cold for a good fifteen seconds. It's like he's in his element, like he's meant for this.
When the video's over, suggestions pop up. She selects one where she sees Tommy in the icon, one called "First Match Sparta."
The quality for this video is much better. She hears one of the talking heads commenting say, "This guy, let me describe it to you, folks for the few that haven't seen it, and I don't know anybody who hasn't, but Tommy Riordan ripped the door of a tank in the heat of battle, saving lives in the process, and then walked away without claiming a medal. He ripped the door off a tank!" he sounds ready to shit himself with admiration. Jane, meanwhile, is reeling back. War hero? The man who refuses to mention anything about his twelve years in the military? That's the kind of thing you talk about, not avoid talking about. Ripping the door off a tank. Jesus fucking Christ.
"Tommy Riordan is a genuine war hero," says the other guy, "I'm not taking anything away from the guy, he's a very, very tough guy—"
"Goddamn right," Jane mutters without thinking. Since when has she ever talked while watching something, movies or YouTube videos? Maybe it's because she's nervous, her heart is pounding, she's certain she won't like what she sees and she has to blurt out the first things that come to mind.
"—but the tank don't hit back, you know. We've seen YouTube sensations fail on a big stage before…" and she doesn't give a shit what else they're saying anymore, because now the camera follows Tommy stalking towards the…cage? Ring? Doesn't matter, because anyone can see he looks ready to kill, ready to rip someone's fucking head off. He's even more defined here, donned in nothing but a pair of shorts and the sight makes her press pause. It's still winter and she has yet to see him in even a tee-shirt. He's always covered up. Here she sees that he has tattoos not only on his arms but on his chest and abdomen. His deltoids are enormous, and, as the camera follows, she sees muscles in his back and shoulders she didn't know existed. He's not just big; he's a goddamn force of nature. It is, and she can't believe she's thinking this right now, sexy.
His opponent is darker and lankier. They circle each other like predators. The other man makes a few blocked jabs and then Tommy makes his move, knocks him out with a blow that takes the man to the floor. He's out cold, and as soon as the match is declared over, Tommy leaves, lumbering out before he can celebrate his victory. She hears the commentators say, "And now he's walking out of the cage! He's leaving the cage! There goes another rule out the window!"
"Believe it," she mutters to the screen. And, mechanical, not liking it but wanting, needing to see more, she clicks on the next video, the next match. And again, it starts with those annoying commentators. "He doesn't seem to want anything to do with all this adulation," says one of them. "He's just here to fight." In the background she hears crowds chanting his name, over and over again, as Tommy walks in again, ignoring the chants as if deaf, poker-faced and, god, he's menacing. She doesn't envy the guy who has to go up against him. As soon as it starts, he pummels the shit out of his opponent, unrelenting, flipping him over like a rag doll, slamming him to the floor with a thud that reverberates in the audio, and throwing down punch after punch. He has to be pulled off the guy by the referee, and it's not until then that he seems to be aware of what he's doing. And once he's back up, he swings open the door to the cage and storms out, graceless and aggressive. She tunes back in to hear one of the commentators say "…and straight into the final four, ladies and gentlemen!"
It means two more videos. She doesn't know why she clicks on the next video, why she keeps going, when she knows how it's going to end. It sits in the pit of her stomach, making her feel cold and numb as she sees the next one.
It starts, as usual, with the commentators. "Tommy Riordan; coming down the tunnel without his trainer. Once again, no walk-out music."
"I'd hardly say no music, Sam." The camera swivels to rows of men and women in Marine uniforms, singing "the Marine's Hymn" ending, of course, with "Ooh-rah!" The camera, as it swivels back to Tommy, just catches his nod in their direction as he makes his way into the cage. She somehow likes his lack of style. Trying her best to push the pure, unbelievable violence of it aside for the moment, she notices his lack of interest in pleasing the crowd, in attention. The other guys love it, relish it before the fight, come in with music to show how bad-ass they are. And then there's Tommy, with his complete apathy towards the audience watching him, no music, no sense of performance. He's blunt, straight-forward, shoot-first-ask-questions-later. And it suits him. It is him. He's just there to kick some ass. There's something almost comical about it. Almost.
And as Tommy gets himself ready, the camera swivels to his opponent walking in. It's Mad Dog Grimes again, his douche-ey little Mohawk dyed green as he struts in, prances around the cage, gets right into Tommy's face and barks, grinning, as he makes his way back to his corner.
"What a douchebag," Jane says aloud, over "…Grimes mocking Riordan by having a camouflage motif for his Mohawk tonight, and the Marines are really letting Mad Dog have it." He doesn't need to say it. His voice is nearly drowned out by all the booing. Grimes snarls something at Tommy right before the start of the match. He doesn't have any idea what he's in for.
"…he can't wait to get a piece of Tommy…said, 'they're gonna have to pull me off him.'" She's not really paying attention. She's watching Tommy. He's lower, more grounded, and when Grimes comes towards him, jumpy as hell, all Tommy has to do to knock him off his feet is throw out a right hook that plows right through the guy. Jane can't help it. She bursts out laughing and rewinds that second, thinking, serves you right, asshole. The smile fades, though, because now Tommy's tackled him, and he's straddling Grimes's stomach, punching the guy in the face over…and over…and over…
He's gonna kill him, Jane thinks. She's not the only one who does. She hears panic in one of the commentator's voice as he says, "Mad Dog's in trouble. Please stop this." Even when the referee tries to pull Tommy off him, it's a struggle, because yes, Tommy could and would kill him, and his face, contorted with rage, is all she can see as the audio picks up people screaming, "Stop the fight!" "Break! Break!"
"That's the fastest knockout I think I've ever seen."
"Mad Dog Grimes has been poleaxed. He is not moving."
"Jesus," Jane says to herself, rubs her temples as the camera pans to Grimes lying unconscious on the floor. And, once again, Tommy leaves without relishing or enjoying the cheers from the crowd or even the satisfaction of beating up and humiliating such an unbelievable tool for the second time. Just leaves, shoulders tense and head straight forward, deaf to everything.
She hesitates. The video marked "Final showdown Sparta 2010" is much longer than the rest of Tommy's fights, all of which took place in one round and less than a minute. Does she really want to watch this, knowing what's going to happen? The answer, of course, is no. But by this point she feels like she has to. This is the same man who saved her life, who's taken her out on dates, who's kissed her, who listens to her and who fascinates her. She sensed something of a fighter in him from the moment they met. And he's not just a fighter. He's fucking feral. She has to see this. If she likes him, if she wants to date him, she has to see this part, because it exists, hidden under a mostly calm exterior.
She takes a deep breath, gets up and paces for a few seconds before she sits back down and clicks on the video.
And it's the talking heads. She's sick and fucking tired of the talking heads.
"Pennsylvania natives will be proud to know that the two men in the final fight are both from Pennsylvania. Tommy Riordan from Pittsburgh and Brendan Conlon from Philadelphia, two very different fighting styles—"
"I wouldn't call the way Tommy fights as 'stylish.'"
"Maybe not, but the crowd is going wild. Both men came into this competition as underdogs and now one will come out the middleweight world champion."
The camera pans to Tommy's opponent, Brendan Conlon. He's older and leaner than Tommy and bears far more signs of wear and tear on his face and body. This is the man who will beat him, who will injure him.
The fight starts out with Tommy striking him without Conlon able to get in a good punch, Tommy throwing him down and pummeling him with the same rage as he showed towards Grimes, throws him down over and over, but this other guy won't give up, still shows sign of life. The horn blares the end of the first round a millisecond before Tommy throws down another punch. She winces. The referee seems too excited to point it out. It seems everyone's looking the other way when it comes to rules.
She hates to admit it, but it's a credit to Conlon that he's able to get up and move at all, let alone continue take a beating. He doesn't have all those cuts and bruises for nothing. He keeps going. And then Tommy throws him down with a force that shakes the floor, and this can't be the right fight. Not when the second horn blares and, once again, the referee has to pull Tommy off of Conlon. He's fit to kill this guy. They have to be pried apart. The animosity between Tommy and Grimes has nothing on this.
Third round. Tommy's on Conlon and punching him again…but then they flip, once, twice, and now Conlon's on him, putting him in a hold. Somewhere in the distance she hears the commentators. "Oh, my God! That's a deep omoplata there. He's got the seats up!"
She has no idea what an omoplata is, but the seeing Tommy down and vulnerable for the first time in the fight makes her stomach lurch. They both try to throw punches through the hold and then she sees it. She sees Conlon push down hard, and, even with the sound of the horn blaring the end of round three, people screaming, all she can hear is Tommy scream. She doesn't realize that she whimpers at the sound.
This is how it happens. This is how it ends.
So why does the fight keep going? Why are there so many minutes left?
Conlon knows what happened, looks alarmed, reaches out and Tommy, with his uninjured arm, rams him into the side of the cage by the throat and has to be pulled off. They both have to be pulled off and into opposite directions.
Why isn't anyone doing anything? Why didn't the referee point it out? Why the hell did neither of the fighters point it out? Tommy paces, snarls, grits his teeth against the pain, reminding her so much of a wounded, wild animal, before he has to sit down. He's covered in sweat and he's not going to back down. He's not going to give up.
She screams at the screen, the shot of the referee walking between them. "Call it off! Call it the fuck off! Are you blind? His arm is popped out of its socket, get him to a goddamn hospital!" She pauses it, breathes in, breathes out, keeps going.
And it hurts to watch, seeing Tommy stand, one arm ready to punch, the other hanging useless at his side, rage, fear and god knows what else fueling this stupid, stupid need to finish a barbaric game he has no chance of winning. The two men are shouting at each other from across the cage, people are cheering like they're at a gladiator match, watching people get ripped to shreds by wild animals. How can people enjoy watching this? Anyone can see Tommy's lost the use of one arm and no one's doing or saying anything. Conlon subdues him, beats him over and over again.
They call an end to the round and it's clear Tommy can barely stand. She doesn't know whether she's going to cry or vomit as he leans into the walls of the cage, body contorted in pain. And he staggers in for the final round. The camera zooms in on his face, all the agony, all the despair, all the hopelessness makes her wonder what he's doing it for. How he can bring his body, broken and abused, to this last insult?
Conlon seems to hesitate before he finally kicks him with a force that knocks Tommy down, pins him to the ground and puts him in a hold. He says something, muffled and strained, that the camera can't pick up over all the noise, and then she sees it. The camera zooms in on Tommy as he finally taps out.
And then, the weirdest thing happens. While the audience erupts in cheers and the camera swoops in on Tommy, on the floor, doubled over and hurting more than she can imagine, Conlon touches his shoulder, looks him in the eye and whispers something before pulling him up.
The fuck? How?…why?...
As the camera tries to get a better shot of the pair of them Conlon puts up his hand, blocking them from view with a snarled, "Fuck off," and leaves the cage, and he's got Tommy with him, the two of them staggering, in pain, bruised and bleeding, worse for wear. The camera follows them a little while, zooms in on their backs as Conlon helps support Tommy as they walk out of the tunnel. She doesn't care what the talking heads are saying. She's long since stopped listening.
She closes out of YouTube and turns off her laptop, closing it down.
He lied to her.
"There's something about him that seems, I don't know, kind of primal."
She'd been right. He is very primal. And he has a great deal of rage. There are other things, why he hid what he did in the Marines from her, but that she can put aside for later.
He is indeed in his element when fighting. That can't be a good sign.
Why on earth would his opponent ignore gushing fans and reporters to show an act of kindness to him by guiding him away from the cage and the flashing lights? Why did Tommy let him?
She puts her face in her hands, feeling sick to her stomach. She barely knows this man.
She hears a knock on her door, and her heart drops to her stomach when she opens it and sees him with a bit less bulk, his shoulder working, his face calm and healed but clearly annoyed.
"I figured since you kept me waiting outside for ten minutes I'd come up and see if you were all right," he says.
"Come on in," she says, priding herself on how she's able to keep her voice even for now. "We need to talk."