At midnight I paddled my kayak out to the middle of a pond in Maine, and I looked up at the sky. Small houses dotted the shore and white lights glowed from low-watt bulbs; I was alone.  The stars above Maine are quite indescribable.  The cool air brushed my kayak with a subtle burst of wind, and tiny waves made me bob in the water like a frog riding on a leaf.  I stowed the paddles on the bow of the boat, and I rested my head on the back of my seat. 

The beauty of the unknown glowed above me, and the trivial worries I had about life evaporated.    

Phat Dadde's Dressing Room

I looked beyond the man standing by the ball room’s main entrance and noticed a large, uninviting boxing ring.  “Here kid, put this on.  Stick with me and you’ll be alright,” Russ said.  I looked down at the pin in my hands and noticed two words in large letters: “Guest Official.”  I thought of everything that was wrong about this situation: I don’t think I’m supposed to follow you back there.  Don’t you think I’ll look a little out of place?  

“They usually try to give me the biggest and meanest one.  Just stick with me and you’ll be alright.”  Russ continued to say that horrible phrase as if it was supposed to allay my fears and bring about a sense of tranquility.  In reality, his insistence of having me by his side only made me more tense.  What if we should become separated?  What if the people looked right through my “Guest Official” badge and knew exactly what I was?-- A terrified twenty-five year old who didn’t even know what boxing looked like.   

Russ was a big-whig in the world of boxing inspectors.   He was the man who taught other inspectors how to do their jobs and what to look for, and as we walked into the room with the ring, it was clear Russ was in charge of it all.  He knew Phil, the security guard, and asked how his kids were.  Russ introduced me as a “young eye,” and I nodded cordially as to not give away our secret.  

“That’s right,” he patted me on the back, “let me do all the talking.”  We walked through the room to a hidden door and plowed through it.  He barged into a large holding room where the “light weights” were suiting up.  

“We’re not going to be in here, but I wanted you to see it all,” Russ said.  He told me about the room as if it were an amusement park ride.  “This is where they new guys change, put their gloves on, and warm up.”  I looked around at various changing cubicles and saw children donning silk boxing shorts, tapped noses, and black eyes.    

“Each fighter has a cubicle.  Once the fight is over, the ones that are still standing come back here, collect a check, and go home.”  Russ made the event sound orderly.  I was too consumed with fear to listen to him.  If we were not going to be inspecting the “light weights,” then who could be left?  Big, scary images of sweaty, overgrown men popped into my head.  These people were okay to observe from the security of a television set, but I couldn’t turn this off.  I had never sat down to a fight, or even wanted to for that matter.  Russ took a piece of crumpled paper out of his pocket and starred at it.  He slapped it with his left hand and turned to me, “Looks like we got the headliner,” he said.  

“The what?” I replied.

“Yeah, the biggest one of the night.  He’s the last fight.  This is the guy ESPN is here for.

I think Russ could see the instant panic his words incited because he patted me on the back and repeated his mantra: “Stick with me, don’t say anything.”  Russ didn’t have to worry about me saying anything because I was choking on my own fear.  

“Phat Dadde is the guy’s name.  Listen, it may get a bit ugly in there, but just stay out of the way and you’ll be fine.”  Russ walked down the long corridor to a closed door at the end of the hall.  I followed closely.  He knocked on the door and yelled: “Inspector.”  The door opened and a room full of large, muscular men fell silent as Russ said, “what’s going on guys?”  He went in and the door closed behind him before I had the chance to step forward.  

“No problem here,” I thought.  I walked down the hallway searching for the exit.  I felt a steady stream of sweat run down my forehead as the “light weights” gawked at me.  What would I do if they decided to use me as a warm-up punching bag?  

I found the main arena and sat in the last row of seats.  Twenty-five minutes later Russ languidly walked into the arena and found me pretending not to notice him .  “Phat Dadde is about to tape up,” he said.  “We gotta watch him.”  My heart raced.  “This time, stick right with me.”

Russ knocked on the door once again, and we both walked into Dadde’s dressing room.  Phat Dadde’s arm muscles were the size of my body.  Russ barged into the room and found a comfortable seat on the couch next to Dadde’s manager.  I found a comfortable corner in the room to stand in.  My eyes did not leave the floor for forty-five minutes.  The group of men started blasting rap music that instilled fear in my barely breathing 125-pound skeleton.

ESPN entered the room and starting taking footage of Phat Dadde “relaxing.”  I stayed out of the camera’s line because anybody who was watching ESPN would have questioned the lifeless, pale me standing in the corner. 

Russ announced that it was time to “glove up.”  I was relieved to find out that  “glove up” simply means taping large boxing gloves to the hands of the wrestler and was not some archaic medical exam that the words naturally lend to.  Phat Dadde stood up and noticed me in the corner of the room.  “What’s the matter with him?” Dadde said.  “You look nervous or something.”

I started seeing stars.  One of the largest, strongest men I have ever seen spoke to me and accused me of being “nervous.”  I was terrified; nervous didn’t come close to the reality of the situation.  I felt blood drain from my face as I forced a smile.  I let out a release of air from my parted lips and clenched teeth.  I tried to laugh, but the resulting sound was a mix between crying and choking.  

Phat Dadde walked over to me, introduced himself, and also introduced me to the other men in the room: family members, his father, agent, manager, and friends.  Russ beckoned me to watch him cover Phat Dadde’s monstrous hands with large, shinny gloves.  Russ taped the gloves to the Dadde’s arms and then signed them with his initials.  

Dadde stood and began to warm up.  His eyes changed from a dormant lion to a blood thirsty animal.  Phat Dadde was no longer the inviting fighter who had introduced me to his closest confidants.  He was whirling about the room, jabbing the air with his lethal arms, and making terrifying noises.  A man barged into the room and screamed, “It’s time!”  ESPN rushed a camera in front of Phat Dadde’s body and led him down the corridor to the fighter’s den.  We entered the massive arena, and thousands of people were screaming.  The room was no longer the refuge I found earlier in the night.   I stood in the back of the arena and watched Phat Dadde demolish his competition.  Sweat turned into blood, and blood turned into money.  As I watched Phat Dadde both take and receive seemingly lethal blows, I couldn’t help but think about what lied below the taped gloves of a man-eating boxer.