THERE I STOOD, in the corner of a square ring, under the night sky, in the middle of a valley, and in the middle of another fine mess. A crowd of nearly a hundred surrounded the ring. All yelling and cheering. In the opposite corner stood a muscular man wearing a mohawk and red shorts. Wearing MMA gloves, he pounded his hairy chest before gritting his teeth and narrowing his sights on me. Another man, wearing dark pants and a white shirt, stood at the center of the ring.
The man in the white shirt pointed at me. “Ready, black?” he said. Not because of my name or my skin complexion, but because I wore black trousers and a black tank top.
I nodded.
He then pointed to the guy in the shorts. “Ready, red?”
The hairy-chested man nodded.
“Fight!” the guy at the center of the ring shouted bef
