It had been three weeks since my last fight. My promoter had been trying to get another fight for me but nobody wanted to step up and take it, especially on such short notice. There was a lot of talk going on around the MMA community.

Everybody knew that I’m tight with Damon and they’ve all been saying that’s why I was getting the fight with Dodson. I knew it was bullshit and I suspected all of them knew it was bullshit too.

I’ve always busted my ass inside the cage to put on a good show for the fans and to try and get noticed. Since there was quite a bit of jealousy going around, nobody wanted to step into the cage with me.

I’d heard that most of the fighters in the locker room wanted me to fail. They knew I didn’t have a camp to train with so they didn’t want to get into the cage with me so I could stay sharp. They were hoping that by me not fighting, I’d go into the fight out of ring shape and blow my big chance.

Even though I didn’t have a fight scheduled, I never stopped training. I’ve always been told to be ready for anything and that’s what I was doing. It didn’t matter If I didn’t get another fight before Dodson, I was going to do whatever I had to to keep myself physically and mentally sharp.

Keeping myself physically sharp was never a problem. I was a wreck mentally, however. Even though I knew my big fight was coming up, it was hard to keep myself from getting discouraged.

I knew that even if I won my fight, it didn’t guarantee anything. There were no guaranteed contracts on the line and there was a chance that my fight would never even be seen by anyone who mattered.

Even if my fight did get seen, what if I came out on the losing end of things? What if I put in a horrible showing and got my ass handed to me in the first round? I’d never had those kinds of thoughts before and they scared the shit out of me.

All I wanted to do was make it to one of the big groups so I could make enough money to bring my brother home with me. If I lost my fight and didn’t at least put in an impressive showing, I could kiss my aspirations of ever making it anywhere goodbye.

Shelly called me when she got off of work. The two of us talking every evening was quickly becoming routine. As a rule, I hate talking on the phone. I always have. With her, it’s different. When I’m talking to Shelly, the rest of the bullshit going on in my life seems to disappear, at least for a little bit.

While we were talking, she started dropping hints that she wanted to come over. I haven’t had a woman—well, not one that mattered—over here since…I don’t even remember when.

“Eh, I don’t think that’s a good idea for you to come over. How about we just talk for a while? I’m sure you’ve got to get some rest for tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m on my way,” she giggled.

I looked around my apartment, terrified of her actually coming over to see it. I'd been to her place a couple of times already. Her home is beautiful and virtually spotless. Her apartment is so clean that you could probably eat off the floor.

My apartment? Not so much. The place was fucking trashed, and I had to move fast. I couldn’t believe that she was coming over.

"It's already getting late and I really don't want you to have to drive through Detroit at night," I tried to persuade her into staying home.

"Jason, I'm a big girl. I think I can handle a drive through Detroit. You know, I've been a hockey fan my whole life. Do you have any idea how many times I've driven to Joe Louis Arena by myself to watch a Redwings game? I’m on my way."

Shit. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. "Fine. I’ll see you in a minute."

"Okay, I'll see you soon."

Since she was in her car already, I had to run around like a chicken with my head cut off to make my place at least somewhat presentable. I went from one room to another, picking up dirty clothes and throwing them into the hamper.

I looked around and decided it was decent enough. I should have done some deep cleaning but that’s hard to do when you don’t even own a broom or vacuum cleaner. I had to make do with what I had available at my disposal.

While I was waiting for Shelly to show up, my phone started to ring. It was Damon.

“Jason, I got a fight for you. It won’t happen for two weeks but it should be a good tune-up for you. This guy’s size is identical to Dodson and, from the training I’ve seen, he has the exact same fighting style.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Chris Peters. He’s a former golden gloves boxer out of Minnesota.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“You’re not the only one. This is going to be his first professional MMA fight.”

“Great. How am I supposed to prepare to fight a guy who’s style I can’t study?”

“Jesus Christ, Jason. Just go out there and fight your fight. You’re going to be fine. I’ll get with you tomorrow to go over the specifics.”

Just like that, I had the fight that I needed. Someone to have a warm-up fight with that had a similar fighting style to what I was about to go up against.

* * *

I don’t remember Detroit looking like this.

I remember riding through with my daddy on Saturdays when he would go to the Chrysler plant where he worked to pick up his paycheck.

I was always in awe of that factory. It was so big and when we pulled into the parking lot, I felt like I was entering another world. There were so many new and flashy cars parked throughout the lot, as discounts on vehicles were a big perk for everyone who worked there. Whenever I would bring up the idea of us getting a new car, my dad would scoff at it.

“What do we need a new car for? What’s wrong with the one we have?”

“Nothing daddy, but look at how nice all these cars are.”

“I know they’re nice, sweetie, I build them. Even though this place provides me with a good living, I would rather save my money for important things rather than throw it away on a new car when the one we have drives perfectly fine. When this one starts giving us problems, then we’ll look into new ones. It’s important to be smart with your money because you never know what might come up.”

Since that day, I took the conversation my daddy and I had to heart. Because of him, I save as much of my money as I can. As much as I would love to buy a new car every couple of years, I remember the words he told me and put any extra money I have into savings.

Detroit had changed so much since then. It had even changed a lot in the last five years, which was the last time I drove up for a hockey game. When going to Joe Louis, you don’t see all of Detroit. You just see the highway and the little bit of downtown around the stadium, which the city takes great pride in looking nice.

I certainly wasn’t downtown as I drove to Jason’s apartment. There were more abandoned and boarded up buildings than there were houses that actually had people living in them. The streets were filled with homeless people, and my heart ache for them.

Pulling up outside of his apartment, I noticed the neighborhood may have been even sketchier than the ones I drove through. There were a couple of thugs hanging out by the entrance to the building that were glaring at me as I sat in my car. I didn’t feel safe passing them to get into the building so I called Jason.

“Hey, there are a couple of questionable looking guys hanging out by the front door. Would you mind coming out and getting me?”

“Oh, those are just our friendly neighborhood drug dealers,” he laughed. “I’ll be right out.”

He showed up outside my car door within seconds, ready to whisk me away to his apartment. I got a good look at the two guys as I passed them, you know, just in case.

We got inside safely, even though I wasn’t particularly fond of the looks the men at the door were giving me. I hoped they wouldn’t be here when I left but I had already decided that I was going to have Jason walk me back to my car at the end of the night.

Even though I was already there, he seemed hesitant to let me into his apartment. Looking around, I could see why he might not have wanted me to come over. I took a seat on his couch as I looked around. He wasn’t much for decorating, that was for sure.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

“What do you have?”

“Well,” he said, opening his fridge to survey what was inside. “I can pretty much offer you a beer or water. I don’t recommend the water, though. It tastes like lead. I think the pipes are a couple of hundred years old or something,” he half-heartedly teased.

“I'm all right then,” I said, definitely not wanting to test his water theory.

“I got some news after I got off the phone with you. My promoter landed me another fight. I’ve got about two weeks to get ready.”

“That’s good news, right?” I asked.

“Very good news. I need to stay as loose for my big fight and the best way for me to do that is to actually be inside the cage. The only problem is that this is going to be my opponents first professional fight so I’m not going to be able to watch any video of him to prepare.”

“I see. Is this the first person you’ve ever fought that hadn’t had a fight before?”

“No, I’ve fought a few guys in their debuts. I’ve just never had to do it with so much on the line. It’s like I’m psyching myself out for some reason.”

“You’ve got this. I saw the doctor with your brother today,” I continued. “He’s impressed with the progress he’s been making. I know it’s all baby steps but he’s talking about getting Casey set up with some basic physical therapy to see if we can make something work.”

“That’s fantastic. The other place I had my brother in didn’t even have an option for physical therapy. Does he think there’s a chance he may be able to walk again?”

“It’s highly unlikely but first, we’re going to want to focus on basic cognitive skills before moving on to any type of motor skills.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. I’m glad he’s got someone to work with him, though. It makes me feel a little better about having him in there.”

“He’s in excellent hands, I can assure you of that.”

I paused for a moment, not sure how to breach the topic that I really wanted to talk about. I finally figured that the best thing to do was just jump right into it.

“Speaking of Casey, I never did get any more information about him for his charts. Why are you his guardian and not your parents? Did something happen to them?”

“No, but I wish something would.”

“Excuse me?” I said, a bit surprised by his reaction. “I take it you and your parents don’t get along.”

“I am just counting the days until they die. The world will be a much better place without them in it.”

I saw a side of Jason that I’d never seen before. I could see the rage in his eyes as he spoke but I also saw a hint of pain that he was trying to keep hidden.

“I’m not trying to be nosy, but what happened with your parents?”

“Where do I even fucking start?” he asked. “For as long as I can remember, my dad used to beat the shit out of me on a daily basis. I remember coming home from school every day and praying that he wouldn’t be there. If he wasn’t, I would do my best to avoid him all night, hoping I wouldn’t do anything to get on his radar. It didn’t matter, though. He’d start drinking and, eventually, he’d come into my room to whip my ass for who knows what? It never failed.”

My heart was breaking for Jason but I could tell that he was only just beginning to give me the whole story.

“One day, I came home from school and neither of my parents were home. My dad was in a holding cell at the Detroit PD and my mom was in the hospital. Apparently, she had told him that she was three months pregnant that afternoon. Instead of being happy like a normal person, my dad went off on her about how she was a whore and that there was no way the baby was his. He beat her ass pretty good and the doctors were worried that she had lost the baby.”

He stopped talking just long enough to get up and grab another beer out of the fridge.

“The baby was okay but my mom refused to press charges against my dad. Throughout her pregnancy, he continued to beat her on an almost daily basis. On one hand, I was glad that I wasn’t getting hit on every day but I was also confused as to why she would let him continue to treat her like that. Eventually, he beat her so bad that she went into labor. It was almost three months before her due date and my little brother had to spend the first months of his life inside of an incubator. Because of the beatings he gave her, he was born disabled. He wasn’t mentally retarded then, but everything was much more of a challenge to him.”

“But he seems much worse off now. What happened since then?”

“My dad always yelled about Casey not being his, despite the fact that he looks just like him. He didn’t care that he was disabled, either. He’d beat on him the same as the rest of us. Anytime I thought he was going to give it to Casey, I’d step in and make sure I got his attention. It meant that my dad fucked me up even worse, but at least it spared my brother. When Casey was twelve, my dad got more than a little carried away and knocked him down a flight of stairs. It broke my brother’s neck and compressed the nerve.”

“Oh my God, that’s terrible.”

“Yeah, but that’s not even the worse part. Those two pieces of shit didn’t call for an ambulance or take him to the hospital. They were both afraid of what kind of trouble they were going to be in. I was 18 at the time and just happened to come in and found him in the basement. I called 9-1-1 and had my dad locked up while my brother was sent to the ER.”

“So what happened to your parents?”

“It was a long process but the judge sentenced both of them to fifteen years in prison. They’ve still got over a decade to finish their time and so help me God, if they ever come around him—either one of them—I’ll kill them both. I made a promise to myself that I’d never let anything happen to my brother again. That’s why I’m so particular in the care that he receives.”

Nobody could ever say that Jason Stark didn’t love his brother. I’d never realized that either one of them had it that bad, and honestly in my entire career, it was the most heart wrenching story I’d ever listened to.

I was beginning to understand the reason behind his fights: it was a way to take out his anger and aggression on his opponents. Almost as if he were getting revenge for his brother. It was no wonder why he hardly lost. Jason was one of the best in the biz.