The smell of brown rice topped with black beans flooded the rookie’s nostrils, as the sauna’s steam rose. Alex, a young man bundled in winter gear, embraced the saliva-sapping scent, forcing his bowels to roar. His hardened caramel body was scraped away with each droplet of sweat lost. 

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“Hang in there,” his voice was hoarse. “A little more.”

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Alex swore that today would be the last time in the wood oven. When he splashed the coals with water, memories clouded his mind. 

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 The young wide-eyed, Alex, hugged his mother, who was resting on the half-inflated mattress.

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“Mama, I’ll buy you a real bed one day,” he cried.

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“Thank you, mijo, but you don’t have to worry about me.”  Her calloused fingers caressed his pudgy cheeks. “All you have to worry about is your school.”

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That was the only thing Alex and his brother Ricardo needed to focus on. Because it was their mother who needed to bear the weight of a false dream, the weight of the father, and the weight of love. The shine of her elbows and knees was sacrificed to dirt-encrusted tiles. Her lips were stained every time they creaked up for the wives who could not even dust their own shelves.

But she never once gave her children a dirtied smile. 

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When the boys were able to walk on their own feet, they both promised they would become the ones to carry that weight.

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Ricardo listened to his mama and tried to enter the medical field. With his own clinic, taking care of her would be a cinch, but opportunity was desert dry. All he could achieve was becoming a public-school nurse without even an office to call his own. Leaving him in a one-person apartment, by a run-down gas station, and with barely enough scratch to support himself.

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Let alone anything for his mama.

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Alex, unlike his brother, realized that what she wanted for them would be useless because they could never reach the peak of the scholar’s mountain.

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Simply, because neither of them was geniuses or blessed with riches.

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So, like a mutt looking for its next meal, Alex searched for a peak where he would not just survive but thrive.

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Thanks to an old man, a janitor of ten years, he would find his “only” path. After seeing Alex beat up a stick-thin boy for calling him gordo, the used-to-be journeyman recommended the perfect place to release his anger and, maybe to lose some weight too.

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Alex did not want to set foot into the boxer’s holy land, gym was already enough exercise as it was, but when he saw a man pummeling another man with his left and right just as he did with that boy. It dyed his vision green. He went towards who the gym’s fighters lovingly called Jefe: a baldie with a thick bushy mustache who wore a skintight black shirt.

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Alex asked, “All I need to do is hit someone, right?”

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“And not get hit!” He slapped Alex’s back. “Do you think you can do that?”

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Alex did not answer Jefe but did train that day. Running up the hilly streets, cutting his knuckles on the sandbags, and then getting his head pounded in like a nail by an older boy’s hooks during a sparring fight was far from what he wanted, but he told his mama he enjoyed it, ensuring a dirty smile did not appear when he did.

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 At the school’s library, Alex used their computer to see his future.

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“Wow…” was all Alex could say when he looked up a pro’s payday.

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Just from one fight alone, a young Mexican featherweight had made over two hundred grand. Just how many beds were that? Alex had no way of counting it, but he knew what to do.

For the next days, weeks, and months he would shape his body into a two hundred grand making machine. 

​

“That’s it, gordo! Keep your guard up!” Jefe yelled at him constantly during sparring sessions. 

Alex wanted to smack his dome every time he brought up his weight, but as time melted away, it became background noise, then nonexistent.

​

When the time had come for Alex to experience life beyond his gym, his body had been shaped from a sugary ball to a bronze arrow, ready to pierce all that came his way.

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Before the fight, Alex would get his first taste of weight cutting. Slicing off a pound or two to make the fight’s designated weight was nothing to the boy. The hardest thing was denying his mama’s second serving, not because he wanted it, but because he hated the hurt echoing from her voice when she said, “Mijo, you’re getting too thin.”

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His debut had arrived.

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Alex felt his chest tightening when stepping into a ring, but when he saw his opponent in the corner, everything had clicked in place. He looked back at his mother, who had her hands tightly clasped together, and smiled at her before the bell rang.

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The boy ahead of him had nothing on those whom he had sparred with at the gym. Alex sent him into the ropes with just two punches and made his whole upper body jut forward with a left hook to the gut. The rising star zoomed towards his path to the top with a right uppercut, knocking the fighter’s mouthpiece out of him and sending his body crashing into the canvas. When the referee declared the K.O., Alex raised his fist in the air and then gifted his mama his first medal before going into her arms. 

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That night, he ate and ate until his stomach felt like it was going to burst, so no pain would come.

But when Alex told his mama he wanted to go pro, he stabbed her. He knew she hated seeing him get hurt, but even assuring he would be okay did nothing to ease her agony.

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Yet she did not deny him her full support.  

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Alex swore her suffering would not be wasted.

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Middle school passed, high school flew, and college was not even a thought, thought of. The only thing that mattered was the fights lined up. Alex fought as if each match was his last. They were rocks for scaling to the top, but victory was not always ensured.

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The first loss occurred at the age of fifteen.

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 It was not by K.O., but it had stung just as hard. Ricardo and Jefe tried to cheer him up, ensuring there was a next time, but that was not good enough for Alex. If he was going to make it to the pros, then all his steps needed to be flawless. A loss, even at this age, should have never happened in the first place.

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But his mama told him, “You did great, mijo. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.” 

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Alex told her with a smile, “Got it, Mama.”

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The boy realized he could not let this loss curse him. He needed to turn it into a blessing. From defeat, Alex ironed out his flaws to build the champion his mama deserved.

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By the end of his amateur career, he had twenty-eight wins, zero draws, and one loss, with a twenty-match winning streak to end it.

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When Alex aced his pro test, he celebrated with Ricardo and Mama for his last night of freedom. His bro used as much as he could to buy ingredients, so Mama could cook all of Alex’s favorite meals. 

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Then, the next day, the cutting began.

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Alex comfortably cruised around the super welterweight class, one hundred and fifty-four pounds, but to guarantee the wins, he would juice away nearly twenty to reach the venerated lightweight class. Four weeks was all he had, but two hours of training and a bowl of soup as his only meal made him lose only a meager half-pound in a day.

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 The stripping steam of the sauna would be the only way to make the weight.

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 Was boiling himself like a carrot too much for Alex?

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Of course, it wasn’t, at least compared to what his mama went through. A week of steam could never amount to the time thrown towards toilet cleaning. A month of starvation would never be able to make up for the meals she skipped to keep him well-fed. The years of training were the only things that could come close to all the time she had poured into him and his brother. 

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Three days before fight night, Alex was ready.

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His abs were nicked, and his lips cracked, but the spirit was flawless. The fight’s tickets had been easily sold. Gym mates, former classmates, and even the janitor bought them, ready to see the rising star’s beginning. When it was time for the weigh-in, Alex looked down at his 0-0 foe, not due to underestimation, but because of fact. The blank gaze and his shoe-shined gloves, compared to Alex’s radiant eyes and beat-up mitts, made it clear who was hungrier. 

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This first step would be cleared easily. 

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Alex was ready to be the night’s opener, but before showtime, Ricardo and Mama met him in the locker room. His bro gave advice that he picked up from a sports station and wished him the best while his mother offered him a prayer of safety.

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Alex said, “You don’t have to worry, Mama. You should be praying for a bigger match for me instead.”

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 “Oh, mijo.” She looked at him with her fading gaze. “I don’t care about any of that, just please don’t get hurt.”

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“Like I told you, don’t worry.”  He put in his mouthpiece and followed Jefe out. “You don’t even have to watch the fight. Instead, you should be picking out your bed frame.”

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Alex entered the ring and half-listened to the referee’s instructions. As his gloves yearned to strike for gold, he thought of his path.  

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After this fight, one more, then a promotor, then more fights, and then the belt.

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To the top was just a straight walk.

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For less than a second, his opponent’s eyes drowned him. The fighter’s gaze had transformed into something that Alex could never comprehend-

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At that moment. 

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When they returned to their corner, the rising star choked up the feeling of nerves and forgot everything but what mattered.

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He thought, Mama was not going to be kneeling anymore. Just a little more until all she’ll need to be doing is lying down.

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The bell rang, and Alex went in with his left stretched out. Once their gloves touched, that left would turn into a bullet.

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But what was a bullet to a missile?

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That single tap of respect made Alex’s pores ooze sweat faster than the sauna. How could a fist be so hard? Again, Alex blamed the nerves. With the formalities over, he fired his jab.

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Both boxers struck simultaneously, but only one head was blown back.

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How was that a jab? Not even an uppercut stung so fiercely. With just his left, Alex’s opponent chased and pinned him down to the north corner like a lion hunting a gazelle. The punches drilled his guarding arm before smashing his nose. When red started to run down his nostrils, Alex slipped out of the corner. His opponent did not let him rest and peppered him with lefts, forcing him into the ropes.

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I need to start throwing!

​

The trusty jab, the straight right, and all the moves that Alex “perfected” were devoured without as much as a gag. His opponent was untouched. Not even a sweat droplet from Alex reached him.

As the body blows shook Alex’s gut, his gaze fell towards the tears rolling down his mother’s face.

​

Did Mama ever whine about the hours of sleep she lost waking up before the sun rose to make him breakfast before work?

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No, she didn’t.

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So, should Alex let his rupturing stomach slow him down?

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No, he shouldn’t.

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Did Mama ever cry about her aching back caused by the hours she spent cleaning the floors?

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No, she didn’t.

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 So, should Alex start bawling his eyes out because his nose was gushing blood?

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No, he shouldn’t.

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Did Mama ever complain about any of the pain she carried for them?

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No, she didn’t.

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So, should Alex let this pain keep him down?

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No, he can’t.

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The rising star gritted teeth, loaded up his right and took a hook square to the jaw. As his opponent brought back his fist, Alex threw a haymaker with everything his mama gifted him. 

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Before the clackers could even go off, he realized his place. 

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Truth riding a counter punch struck him, sending his mouthpiece, drenched in spit and blood, plummeting to the canvas. Alex had realized the look in his opponent’s eyes.

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He was not the one scaling the mountain.

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No, it was him.

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Alex was just a pebble on the side of the road, not even worthy of being kicked. An insignificant speck that would be crushed by the weight of a champion.

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That day, the boxer, Alex fell.

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A journeyman was born.

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And his mama continued to be on her knees until it was her first and last time to lie.