Faking It(34)

It occurred to me that he might be there because he had heard that I had blown his daughter of and tried to talk her into a post-fight shower. Now there was a conversation I never wanted to have. Not that it had stopped me from flexing at her.

“You’re a hell of a fighter,” said Mason as I toweled off. Mason wasn’t into giving undue praise. Honestly, he wasn’t into saying much of anything, which was part of his mystique. When he talked, people listened. You never knew when he would open his mouth again, which was another reason why it always felt good to get a compliment from him.

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Now it’s time to get Vlad,” I said. It had sounded bombastic, but I had meant every word I said in that post-fight interview. I could not wait to get my hands on him and get that title belt. I was currently the interim champion of my division. Vlad had gotten injured and had been out of action for so long that they made up a fake belt—the interim belt—and given it to me to ensure that I would get the next crack at him. I wanted the real thing. Nobody took an interim belt seriously. It wasn’t Vlad’s fault that he was injured, either. I knew that. You can’t play at fighting, and training to fight means fighting in practice. But it gnawed at me, being on his body’s timetable. And it wasn’t just the injury. In Vlad’s country military service was compulsory. A year into his career the state had commanded him to enlist for two years, which he did without complaining. Honorable, sure, but it put the division on hold. Actually, you know what? Is it really honorable if your government says you have to do it? It’s not like he made a choice.

“But as a person? You leave a little to be desired, Braden.” Mason folded his arms across his chest and sighed. He looked me up and down, appraising and judging like I was on an auction block. Another honorable man, looking at me like I was an unwashed dish. “But there’s a big difference between having heart in the octagon and having a heart.” As always, I thought of his military service. Mason had been a legendary and highly decorated leader in Vietnam. He was not the man you wanted lecturing you about your integrity, because you always suspected that he was right about everything.

I had never told anyone this, but one of my biggest fears was that Mason would end up hating me, because that, in my view, would mean that I was worth hating. It bugged me that I took him so seriously, but there was no turning it off.

I had said it before and I would probably say it again: it’s a terrible thing to be strong and weak. I wasn’t weak, but I had some weakish tendencies I couldn’t seem to train out of myself.

“Not sure there’s a big distinction for me, boss.” I was all about the results. But maybe Mason should have asked the guy who I just about decapitated out there if I needed to soften up a little. Or the women who were lining the halls, praying to go home with me. No, I think I had it all figured out. If my personality was lacking to some people, it sure wasn’t stopping me from getting anything I wanted. Why change if I wasn’t getting in my own way?

“We had a rough year last year. I know you’ve got your sights on Vlad, but nobody’s forgotten about how you performed in the past twelve months.”

“I think most people have forgotten. Those people cheering out there weren’t thinking about that year. They were thinking about the guy I just destroyed, and about how I was going to do the same thing to Vlad.”

Biting my tongue has never come naturally to me, but I did it for Mason more often than anyone else. He wasn’t wrong, though. The year before I had been an aggressive mass of unrealized potential. A couple of years before that I’d jumped into the regional fighting circuit right out of my high school wrestling career. To say that it I took to MMA like a fish takes to water didn’t even do it justice. I was born for this shit. After a few fights, which I won on pure strength and fury, Mason found me and told me I needed some real coaching. I didn’t know who he was, that’s how green I had been.

He took me to his gym, gave me a tour, gave me a key, and for a while, the rest was history. Mason was as hardass as they came. Even though I fought for a living, Mason had been to war. Men who had literally had to fight for their lives were beyond intimidation. In some ways, Mason seemed like he was beyond fear, and that’s what I wanted, even more than his technical prowess. Oh, what do I know? You probably could have dug up a sports psychologist to say that what I really wanted was an authority figure who would wrangle me while letting me still feel like I was calling the shots, but he helped me get bigger. That was all that mattered.

I still fought it at first: the need to surrender to a coach’s will. I thought I was better than I was. It’s part of being young, but it’s even worse when you’re a young tough guy. You feel bulletproof and fearless, and who’s going to tell you otherwise? A good coach, that’s who.

As soon as I took a jump up into a bigger regional show, I nearly got murdered by a guy who’d go pro a month later. The big problem was that I was trying to do college at the same time. I dropped out immediately and didn’t regret it until I told Mason. Now, a couple of years later...

“If you’d just have stayed in college, I think things would have gone better, sooner,” he said. “It’s not just about books. It’s when you learn to learn. It’s how you improve the rate at which you can improve.”

At the time there had been no chance of me going back. Mason had wanted me to stop partying. He wanted me to stop womanizing and chasing after big sponsorships and more money. College wasn’t the place to help me focus, particularly when everyone learned that I was a fighter. Guess who got to be the king of every party? Yours truly. Break this board, show me a kick, take me home, drag me into your bed, and so on. Night after night forever.