the last bout

Brandon Kowalski slowly pulled the white blanket toward himself, revealing his feet. He pulled some more and saw his bandaged right leg. Stitches lay underneath, he knew. He winced as he expected pain to shoot from the right side of his torso, where a thick pad kept in place by bandages covered more stitches. But there was no pain. His wince uncurled his 33-year-old angular face into wide-eyed wonder. "Morphine," he whispered in his mind.

He remembers punching sand-paperish skin while some 80 yards from the shore. "It" pulled away, leaving bleeding holes on his right leg. Brandon tried to hold on to his surfboard, which was now broken in two. The first bite had punctured his lungs with its upper jaw's teeth, the lower jaw's force cushioned by the surfboard. Brandon barely had time to curse. Wincing in pain, with internal bleeding setting in, he scissored his legs to keep afloat, and to look around: where is it? where is it now?

It came from his left side, his blindside, biting into his left arm. The waves separated surfer from surfboard as the six-footer repeatedly punched the twelve-foot shark's nose. It pulled away again. Adrenaline had dampened the wound-pains. He was trying again to scissor, to prepare for round four, but he had lost too much blood. The green-glistening water around him was now a murky crimson.

The humming of motor boats was getting near. With his head above-water, Brandon passed out. He did not see the shark fin rise some ten feet behind him. He did not hear the whish of the harpoon from the fishing boat that came to his rescue. He was unconscious as strong-armed fishermen, pulling him aboard, grunted under the strain of his dead weight. His bleeding bulk was on deck when the fishermen hauled onto the boat the other bleeding bulk from the sea.

Now, pain-numbed but awake, Brandon touched his left arm, where he had no feeling, and which he could not move. A knock on the door. His manager, Phil, took off his hat and stepped inside Room 312. Brandon closed his eyes and suddenly felt thirsty.

"From the fans," Phil said, gesturing to the flowers inside the room that Brandon had just noticed. Phil's alcoholic 58 year-old face wore the color of a dead man who rose from the morgue because he had a bet going down, and he wanted to know if he had won.

Phil walked to the table beside the bed. He picked up a ball of wet cotton and touched the bandaged man's lips with it. Due to massive blood loss and internal wounds, Brandon was still not allowed to drink large amounts of water. So he sucked on cotton.

Brandon's manager put the cotton on the tray and wiped his hands on his crumpled coat. His lips and lungs ached for a cigarette.

"How bad is it?" Brandon whispered.

"Your days in the ring," Phil said while cupping his pockets for his second pack, "are over."