Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(37)
Lawson: You had to mention a hamburger. Making weight is super fun.
Me: What’s making weight?
Lawson: To be able to fight in my weight class, I have to come in under a certain limit. I’m a welterweight, so max 170 pounds.
Me: I assume they check and they don’t just have a mean person look at you and tell you it looks like you’ve put on weight.
Lawson: Yep, before the fight we have a weighin to officially confirm.
Me: So no pancakes for you.
Lawson: Haha, nope.
Me: Too bad because I’m sitting in bed right now eating a giant stack of them.
Lawson: Oh yeah?
Me: Giant. Like 16 pancakes. Smeared with butter and sticky fake maple syrup. I’m eating them with my hands and wiping my hands on my sheets. I’m gonna roll around in them when I’m done.
Lawson: Hahaha stop.
Me: NEVER. I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THIS DELICIOUS SWEET FLOURY PASTE IN MY MOUTH. MMMMMMMM BABY.
Lawson: I’m actually pretty grateful that you’re grossing me out right now.
Me: I know. So assuming you make weight or whatever, what am I looking for at this fight of yours?
Lawson: I’m gonna try to hit the other guy until he’s knocked out, or the ref or ring doctor stops the fight. Or try to submit him, which is where you get him in a jujitsu hold so he taps out. And I’m going to try to avoid any of those things happening to me.
Me: Can you try to make him tap out with emotional pain? Get him down and whisper that he’ll never impress his mother? That his friends consider him ridiculous?
Lawson: LOL. Oh, and if neither fighter gets knocked out or submitted, it goes to a decision from the judges, who award points. The only thing worse than winning by decision is losing by decision.
Me: Who are you fighting on Saturday?
Lawson: Kody “Hollywood” Clemmons.
Me: Hang on, where is Hollywood Clemmons from?
Lawson: Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Me: Oh, so pretty much Hollywood. What’s your fighting nickname?
Lawson: Don’t have one.
Me: Too bad “Hollywood” is taken because you’ve been on TV like twice now.
Lawson: True.
Me: Lawson “Lawman” Vargas.
Lawson: Hahahahaha no way.
Me: Lawson “Lost in Translation” Vargas.
Lawson: That one doesn’t even make sense.
Me: Because “Lawson” sounds like “Lost in” and I love the movie Lost in Translation.
Lawson: Haven’t seen that.
Me: WHAT. FIX THAT.
Lawson: I’ll only watch it with you.
Me: Fine, Lawson “The Punchin’ Pancake” Vargas.
Lawson: No.
Me: Lawson “The Beaglemaster” Vargas.
Lawson: We need to get to know each other better so you have more material for names.
This is a perfect place to leave him hanging. I’m feeling a lot better. I start to get back into my show, but this weird impulse compels me to see if there are any of Lawson’s fights on YouTube. There’s only one, and it has twenty-seven views. He looks a lot younger. The fight isn’t super interesting. A lot of circling around each other, cautiously punching and kicking. I guess looking for holes in the other’s defense. An opening. His opponent is bigger than him.
For a while, they grub around on the ground. I think the official term is “wrasslin’.” Lawson looks like he’s losing. Then, suddenly, they’re a tangle of frantically wriggling arms and legs. Lawson emerges from the tangle, pulling his opponent’s arm between his legs, which are over his opponent’s chest, pinning him down. A couple of seconds like that and suddenly Lawson jumps up and starts running circles around the ring, arms outstretched in victory. His opponent kneels, head bowed, looking dejected. Lawson runs to the side of the cage thingy they’re fighting in, pulls himself to the top, and starts high-fiving and hugging three guys who look like they could be his older brothers.
He drops back down and hugs his now-standing opponent and whispers something in his ear. They pat each other on the back and head and shake hands as best they can with gloves on. Then the referee announces Lawson as the winner and raises his arm high. Lawson’s face is incandescent with joy, beaming, triumphant.
I watch the video a few more times because it’s something to do, and also he does have a very nice face.
“Hang on, you actually told Royce Kiser that that dream meant he was terrified of impotence? You didn’t just think it in your mind?”
My mom pulls open the glass door of the Goodwill. “What was I supposed to do? Lie?”
“Royce Kiser, who parades around downtown in cargo shorts and camo Crocs, carrying an assault rifle and one of those huge yellow flags with the snake that says ‘I hate Mondays’ or whatever?”
“?‘Don’t Tread on Me.’?”
“What?”
“That’s what’s on the snake flag.”
“Oh, I thought you were literally saying not to tread on you, and I’m like, ‘Fine, I won’t.’ How’d he react?”
“Guess.”
“Badly.”
“It’s like you inherited my gift of vision.”
“Royce’s always carrying that gun around probably helped your diagnosis.”
Eau de discarded treasures fills our nostrils. It’s my favorite smell that’s not, strictly speaking, terrific or pleasant. “I wonder what makes thrift-store smell. Like chemically.”