| Dear Readers: This is the original epilogue to The Fighter. It was excised from the final draft—in the end, my editor and I felt it was best to leave Paul at the airport, heading out of the washroom towards Customs, rather than giving readers a look at where he ended up. It was a difficult cut to make, but, I believe, the right cut to make. That said, some of you might be interested in getting a final glimpse of Paul. I would request that you read the book before going on to this last section; otherwise, obviously, it won't entirely make sense to you. Very best, Craig.
"Over and over again I have said there is no way out of our present impasse. If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors that surround us...we would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws...Could the man who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are now expected of him every moment of the day?" —Henry Miller I wake on a bus moving through an evening rain. The sky is low and purple, the color of a bone-deep bruise; nothing but fields, so flat and endless I can see the earth's curve where it meets the scrim of sky. There's a single farmhouse set acres off the road; I wonder how life must be in the lightless winter months, with snow up to the windows and wind lashing the frame. I search my mind for the remnants of my dream but can recall only black empty space. Strange, as the dreams were once so vivid. Now I sometimes feel as if I've awoken from a nightmare only to discover I was never actually asleep. The driver pulls into a service station and lets me off in the rain. I've come to notice how all rains are different: a jungle rain is different than a city rain, night rain different than morning rain, rain below the equator different than rain above. Tonight's rain is warm and wonderful, fat drops I'd like to collect in a tin and drink. I walk the service station's aisles, squinting my working eye against the halogen glare. The clerk is in his early twenties and talking to a girl I take to be his girlfriend. Typical young lover stuff, silly, but it's nice to be back where I know the language and can duck into and out of the odd conversation. There's a cheese sandwich in the cooler. When's the last time I ate a plain cheese sandwich? As a kid, had to be. Cheese sandwiches and the peaches my father stole from the groves. I pay for it in coins—all I've got left—spilling them over the counter and sorting them with fingers gnarled as roots. The clerk whispers something to the girl, who laughs, and although I heard what he said and could make him terribly sorry for having said it I pretend I'm hard of hearing and only smile. The rain has let off by the time I get back outside. The air's got that tang it holds after a rainstorm, this fresh raw electricity rising from the earth. The sandwich is stale but delicious and I wolf it down in four bites. I shoulder my duffel and head to the road. My body hurts but then my body always hurts and my mind is clear and I believe I am happy. Some people would call it a wasted life; would say I leapt from a crystal palace to land in a pile of shit. I won't argue I've made no mistakes, but then what was the alternative? I was terrified of waking up at forty-three (everyone's got a different age: forty or forty-five or fifty-two; for me, it's always been forty-three) waking up to realize no choice I'd made had been my own, that my life had been plotted and planned and I'd followed it all by rote. Waking up at forty-three still scared of every little thing. Waking up at forty-three without knowing my limits. A lot of people will die never knowing their limits. They'll work to a point where they're comfortable, can pay their bills, and settle. And that's just fine—a lot of people are happy enough ignorant of their limits. But if you test yourself you'll often find all those things you thought limited you, really, they don't. You'll find you possess limits beyond reckoning. Which is not to say there's anything wrong with the safe path. Sometimes—a lot of times, in all truth—I dearly miss the path. A pickup truck pulls over into the dusty shale of the breakdown lane. I tell the driver about the place I'm looking for and the driver says yeah, he knows it, he's going there right now as a matter of fact and I can tag along only he doesn't want me up front so I nod and climb into the pickup bed. There's a dog, this shivering thing with rheumy eyes chained to the bulwark. It flinches, thinking I'll hit, but once it realizes I mean no harm burrows its spade-shaped head into my chest. I find a blood-engorged wood-tick behind its ear, tweeze it loose and clip its head off between my fingernails. The dog looks at me with sad grateful eyes. Elemental pleasures should never be underestimated. Warm rain. The taste of a cheese sandwich. The careless love of a dog. Little things. It's like Lou Cobb said: you'll never really know the sweet until you've tasted the sour. Some people might say I was a cliché. Some people might say I've only switched one cliché for another, become another kind of caricature. But the way I look at it, even if I've become a cliché, well, it's a totally different one. And it's not that this present incarnation is any better than the old one; I'm not a Phoenix risen from the ashes of my former self. No, the point is that there is a former self, a person who existed once and exists no more. So if I stand for anything at all, it's a testament to change. The full 5%. Please don't get me wrong: this is not a manifesto or a mission statement and I wouldn't encourage you to follow my path—unless, of course, no path but mine makes sense. The truck pulls onto the site of an abandoned grain elevator. Vehicles are parked behind a windbreak of silos. There's a farmhouse across the road; I see a family sitting down to dinner through the front window. When I hop down from the bed the dog whines, the most plaintive sound I've ever heard. The driver hollers and the dog cowers and maybe I should say something but then every creature needs to be accountable for its own existence, even a dog. I've never fought in a grain elevator before. Don't know why this should surprise me except that after awhile, you get this feeling you've fought everywhere. It's cold inside but I enjoy fighting in the cold. Hard to breathe on account of all the chaff suspended in the air. Sixty or seventy men. Kerosene lamps hung on nails allow me to make out shapes and faces. A huge black man stands stripped to the waist and the density of his muscle shocks me a little: like obsidian stone rooted to the founding bone. I'd rather not fight him but will if it comes to that. Often the worst you ever absorb is one good punch: the one that knocks you cold. Most guys find it hard to keep hitting a man who's gone unconscious; the skin goes slack, no tension to it, like punching a gutted fish. There is an innately human resistance to such violence. Which is not to say I'm not scared—only that I've switched one set of fears for another. I no longer fear physical pain, the broken bones or the sight of my own spilled blood; nor do I fear loneliness or the prospect of dying unremembered. If anything, I fear that I am destined to die in an ignoble way. I think of the many times I've avoided death: after awhile the percentages begin to work against you. I used to fear I'd die in a fight and my body would be left in a dumpster or in a barren field for the wolves. Now I'm afraid my feet will become tangled in the bed sheets getting up in the morning and snap my fool neck. I'm afraid I will not die as a fighter. And beyond that, I fear what everyone fears: that road not traveled. The possibilities for happiness I've long ago surrendered. But I need you to know that, overall, it has been a life of joy. Six months ago I was walking a sandbar a mile out in the South China Sea. The water was warm as bathwater, the day so bright and clear I could have walked forever. A school of manta rays swam past, destined for the shelf where the ocean met its depths. Fifty of them, maybe more, and as those elegant fans moved round my legs I was awed by their prehistoric beauty, the effortless way their bodies rode the currents. And I think, would I have ever seen that had things stayed the way they were? As luck would have it there are only two fighters here tonight: the black fellow's the other one. I peel my shirt off and hear the Ooohs. You tend to overlook the devastation of your own body after walking around in it all day long. Even my opponent looks a bit overwhelmed. "That John Henry motherfucker's gonna cream him," someone says, and bets are laid. No ring tonight: the two of us locate the rough center and meet there. The black guy's older than I thought. The grooves around his eyes are as deep as fissures in granite. He looks worried, though the exact reasons for his unease remain unclear. "Please don't hate me, son." He shows me his hand. We shake softly. "I gotta eat." "Of course. We all have to eat." He needn't have worried. The only person I ever really hated was myself. And I don't quite hate myself anymore—and for that I am truly thankful. I love this. Sincerely, I do mean that. I love it. We circle in the cold air of the grain elevator. I breathe wheat chaff, snorting and sneezing. The black fellow gives me a moment to compose myself. It's raining again, drops pattering the roof and I dearly wish there were a hole or two so some of those drops might find their way down. I believe I will lose tonight. But I also believe this man will hurt me only as much as he needs to. And I know that tomorrow or the next day, whenever I am walking again, I will set the road to another town and another fight. And one day I'll wind up in your town. And maybe we'll meet, you and I. And if you're willing maybe we draw a line there in the dirt and get down to it. And maybe we get a chance to answer something for one another—in one another. And after I'll shake your hand and if my wallet is equal to the task buy you something to drink. And I look forward to making your acquaintance. Coming to your town. The last of the ramblin', russlin', tusslin' fighting men. Thunderbird Layne in his new skin. So lay out your best, your strongest men. I'm coming. It's a promise. Hey—could be I'm already there.
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