Turn 113 of 226

Look for a mirror to see myself. I am extremely hairy, disgusting, fat, muscular and tanned. In fact, I look like an animal. I love it. Then drill my weaknesses until they no longer exist

The mirror is the thing the warehouse does not have. The warehouse has the steel shelf, the cinder blocks, the bag, the concrete, the mess. The warehouse does not have a mirror because the mirror is the old world's object — the object the bathroom held, the object the body stood in front of when the body whispered the wish, the object that showed the body the thing the body hated. The mirror is gone. The mirror has been gone since the apartment. But the warehouse has something the apartment did not have. The warehouse has the loading bay door — the corrugated steel door that rolls up on tracks, the door that is twenty feet tall and the twenty feet is the thing that lets the morning light hit the steel at an angle and the angle is the thing that produces a reflection.

The reflection is not clean. The reflection is the corrugated steel's warped surface — the surface that bends light, that distorts proportions, that shows the body the way a funhouse mirror shows a body. But the body is 8'6" and 950 pounds and the warping does not hide what the body is. The warping emphasizes it. The body stands in front of the loading bay door and the standing is the thing the morning light catches and the catching is the reflection. The body sees itself.

The body is tanned. The tan is the thing the sun has built over months of walking naked outdoors — the deep brown that covers every surface the light reaches, the shoulders, the arms, the chest, the belly, the thighs, the face. The tan is dark and the dark is the thing that makes the body look like leather and the leather is the texture the skin has taken on — the thick, weathered texture that is not soft, that is not the soft the wish's early days produced. The skin is the thing that has been hardened by the sun and the concrete and the training and the hardening is the layer over the soft and the soft is the fat underneath.

The fat is the thing the reflection shows in full. The belly — the belly that hangs to mid-thigh when the body stands, the belly that is not a curve but a shelf, a continent of tissue that sways when the body moves and the swaying is the thing the reflection captures in motion. The breasts are enormous — fuller than any bra the old world offered, heavier than any bra could hold, the nipples dark and wide and resting against the belly's upper slope. The ass is rounder and wider than the reflection's steel can contain — the distortion bending the hips outward, the thighs pressing together, the legs that are tree trunks capped by the feet that are wider than the concrete's seams. The fat covers everything but the fat is not everything. The fat is the layer over the muscle and the muscle is the thing the reflection shows in the arms — the arms that are massive, the biceps that are visible even under the fat, the forearms that are corded with the tendons the grip work has built. The shoulders are broad and the broad is the thing that carries muscle and fat together and the together is the body's architecture — not lean, not cut, but dense. The density is the thing the wish built and the wish's density is the thing the reflection confirms.

The hair is the thing the reflection shows without apology. The body hair is full — the legs, the underarms, the forearms, the chest, the belly, the space between the legs. The hair is dark and long and matted in places — matted with sweat, matted with the dried food from last night's celebration, matted with the urine that has dried in the hair between the legs. The hair on the head is long and unwashed and the unwashed is the thing that produces dreadlocks — not styled dreadlocks but the natural kind, the kind that form when hair is not brushed or washed for months and the months is the thing that has turned the hair into ropes. The ropes hang past the shoulders. The face is the thing the reflection shows last — the face that is broader than it was, the jaw that is heavier, the teeth that are yellow behind the lips, the lips that are cracked and full. The face is not human in the way the old world defined human. The face is animal. The body is animal. The reflection is the animal and the animal is the thing the body loves.

The love is the thing the body feels in the chest — the warmth that is not arousal, not the addiction, not the wish's whisper. The love is the body's own voice. The body is disgusting by every standard the old world held and the old world's standards are dust and the dust is what the animal walks through. The animal turns from the reflection. The animal trains.

The clinch defense is the first weakness and the weakness is the plum clinch — the position De Vries caught the body in, the position that landed two knees before the body could frame out. The fix is the collar-tie recognition. The body drills the recognition against the bag — the bag positioned at head height, the body's hands reacting to the simulated collar-tie grip, the reaction being the bicep block that prevents the clinch from settling. The bicep block is the first layer. The second layer is the over-under transition — the body shooting the underhook on one side while the overhook controls the other, the transition that turns the defensive position into the offensive one. The third layer is the spin — the pivot that takes the body behind the attacker, the pivot that Lena has drilled in the sprawl chain and that the clinch chain mirrors. She drills the three layers against the bag two hundred times a day for five days. The recognition becomes automatic. The bicep block fires before the collar-tie settles. The over-under is there before the knees can launch. The spin is there before the attacker can adjust. The plum clinch is closed.

The distance gate is the second weakness and the weakness is the jab-heavy range fighter — the Diop style, the style that kept the body at range for two rounds. The fix is the feint-layer entries. The body builds three feint layers — the first is the push kick feint that draws the jab, the second is the high-kick feint that draws the guard high, the third is the level-change feint that draws the sprawl reaction. Each feint creates an opening and the opening is the thing the body enters through. The lateral cutting angles are the second layer — the footwork that takes the body off the center line, the angle that removes the jab's straight line, the angle that forces the range fighter to reset. The leg kick disruption is the third layer — the low roundhouse to the lead calf, the kick that takes the base leg, the kick that removes the jab's platform. She drills the three layers against the bag and in shadow work — the shadow work being the body's movement across the warehouse floor, the feet cutting angles, the feints layered, the entries timed. The distance gate is closed.

The two weaknesses are gone. The legal pad records the closure — the same notation the body has used for every weakness since the first tournament. '1. Clinch defense — plum entry closed. Bicep block, over-under, spin chain automatic. 2. Distance gate — feint-layer entries, lateral cutting, leg kick disruption. Closed.' The legal pad sits on the steel shelf. The body is on the concrete. The body is 8'6" and 950 pounds and the body is the animal the reflection showed and the animal has no weaknesses the elite tier has exposed. The phone is on the concrete. The phone is the thing the body does not touch. The body trains. The body waits. The next tournament is the thing the body circles and the circling is the addiction's orbit and the orbit is the thing the body does not leave.