All boxers are liars. They have to be. If you knew what was in a fighter's heart, if you knew what he was thinking, he'd be easier to find. He'd be easier to hit.

I met a fighter once who told me that while you were in the ring you had to be Mona Lisa's smile and always keep everyone guessing.

It's a tricky thing revealing one of the most intimate, personal aspects of your life and having your opponent know less about you as a result.

There's a very strange, naked, deeply unsettling sensation when your life comes together with another human being that you've never met before, a person who has done no harm to you or anyone you know, and for a handful of rounds you're expected to find motivation to shatter their will. If possible, you're obliged to steal every ounce of hope, hijack any instinct for self-preservation, take hostage all determination they have for remaining in front of you and impose your history onto their future.

Then there's the fact your opponent is working himself up to do just the same against you. You've made an enemy of someone simply by proximity in a shared, enclosed space.

A lot of times the single most shocking thing about fighting against a stranger is how your opponent recognizes you immediately. All at once you're every person they never stood up to and every person they never stood up for. I was always trying to defend the fact that I'd only stepped foot into a boxing gym because I'd never stood up for myself outside of one.

Then if you happen to find this narrative isn't especially helpful making you feel relaxed, you've got the added stress of knowing you're a sitting duck and too slow to do anything about it. Even worse, you'll be waiting for an excuse to get tagged and stare up at the lights. You'll be grateful when his fist meets your jaw or connects with your liver and pushes your off button. It actually might be a sweeter, more welcome feeling than your first kiss and you can spend the rest of your life pretending you're ashamed about it.

Forget about inspiration. If you're waiting around for that breeze to fill your sails you have no business swimming upstream against anything in the first place.

Even how hard you've worked might not matter. I've seen marathon runners crumble after a round of sparring just from the mental and emotional fatigue.

It might be true that boxing is one of the only places where people with prison records and otherwise rotten resumes don't start at the bottom, but then again, nobody's a more dangerous fighter than a happy fighter. Did Ali ever look like he was having a bad time when the odds were stacked against him? Was he lying when he whispered in George Foreman's ear that he was God's instrument?

One thing is guaranteed, if you're thinking about anything, you're too slow.

And so what if you're more afraid of being embarrassed than getting hurt?

What everyone's waiting for is getting to the bottom of who you are and what you have to say about it for a little while.

Tell us a story.

Deep down you feel a bit like that Voyager Probe they launched into space with that Golden Record tossed in as the best argument earth could make that we're worth preserving. The Voyager Probe has Beethoven's 9th, you have to find your own best excuse justifying why you belong.

Where exactly are you supposed to look for that loot?

When the bell rings often you start in the middle somewhere. Sometimes there's no way to connect any of the dots into what's going on. Then another time there's the spooky harmony of a one-night stand where everything clicks. You've got the world by a string.

It might be why nobody can ever predict the emotional nature of a great fight before it happens. Which, as far as most entertainment is concerned, is almost always preordained. Even after a fight you might have a tough time sorting it out. Technically speaking, the only difference between a comedy and a tragedy is how they end. Many fights---like many lives---lack the dignity of an ending. Time expires.

Many extraordinary fights might stop, but they don't end.

I think for me boxing was always about keeping a dirty secret. My career ended before it started. I held onto that secret as tightly as I could, tighter than a lot of my opponents could hold onto dreams of getting out of dark situations. Anybody can see that boxing is a lighthouse for a lot of lost, troubled lives. It was for mine. But I always knew a punch was on the way that would expose me.

I just never expected it would be a punch I landed.

I never had a great fight or even a great round. I did land a great punch once against a great fighter. His name was Ronnie Wilson. I was 16. It had only been a year after I first started with boxing. I landed that punch on Ronnie's jaw the first day we met. He ended up in my corner.

Ronnie was born a few months after my dad in 1949. At 18 he moved to California and turned professional. By the time Ronnie Wilson was 23, he had competed in 78 professional fights. He must have been one of the busiest fighters in the world during the 70s. Before too long Ronnie got married and his wife gave birth to a child. I don't remember anymore if it was a boy or a girl. Maybe he never mentioned the sex. Maybe it wasn't even him who mentioned the child at all.

At his peak, Ronnie was in Ring Magazine as a top rated light-heavyweight. But I didn't find out from him. He never mentioned---let alone bragged---about it. He reluctantly brought in the magazine to show me after I'd begged him to, though he insisted on not being in the same room with me while I looked at it. He was shy about certain things.

A few times he came within a fight of challenging for a world title, but it never came through for him. Pretty early on in his life drinking followed by drugs became another struggle Ronnie was up against. By the time I caught up with him, when he was 46 to my 16, drugs and booze had cost him his family and any wealth boxing had brought his way. But Ronnie had pulled himself together and kicked cocaine and was on the wagon with booze. He looked healthy and happy and ready to turn the corner training new kids. He wanted to be in my corner.

His career ended in San Diego, on January 25, 1983, after someone named Marcos Geraldo knocked him out in the third round. His final record stood at 70 wins, 35 defeats, and 7 draws. He spent just shy of 1000 rounds in the ring. That's 3000 minutes. 50 hours. Over two solid days in the ring.

Ronnie Wilson looked an awful lot like Jack Dempsey. Tall, the same boyish haircut and battered, handsome face. Ronnie weighed the same at 46 as he had at 18, right at the light-heavyweight limit of 178 pounds. There was always a bounce in Ronnie's step. He liked to wear button-up checkered shirts that he tucked into khaki trousers and his shoes were always polished. When he sparred he wore a pair of old Everlast trunks over long-johns. Very old-school.

I copied the look within a month.

Ronnie was never a talker, but his voice sounded a lot like an old blender slaving away. Drink and a lot of leather thrown his way, created a kind of rock slide-effect with the features of Ronnie's face. Whenever he smiled it was like he was taking dynamite to all that rubble. Nearly everyday in that gym Ronnie was the sweetest presence around.

Every snapshot I have of him in my mind includes his generosity. He was always encouraging kids, offering his time, willing to listen, totally biased in your favor, doing anything he could think of to help you along on your way. Whatever situation you brought to that gym, you had Ronnie in your corner to stand up for you. For a lot of us kids who knew him he was sympathetic to us when a lot of people who were supposed to be in our lives weren't. Really that was his signature quality. On that score---and I don't know many better that speak well of a human being---I never met a bigger person. And I suppose he must have been punch drunk after all those wars in the ring because he was always too dumb to ask for anything back.

While he was courteous to everyone, something changed after you sparred with him. Then you were family. He wanted to see what you were made of.

The first time I stepped into the gym while he was there he zeroed-in on me pretty quickly. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye while he was sparring with some other people. Ronnie would routinely spar 10 rounds or more with a new, fresh face every round. He'd fight anybody. Nobody who saw him at 46, let alone fought him, ever considered for a moment he was past his prime. Endless energy.

He had finished seven or eight rounds by the time I got to the gym and was looking over at me from the corner. I never saw Ronnie glare at anyone. But then, he never had to. Ronnie was one of those rare people out there who'd been hurt by everyone he'd deeply cared about but never wanted to take it out on anyone, aside from himself. The only thing he wanted to get even for was feeling lucky for still being alive. But I didn't know that up front. I was too busy shitting my pants. All I saw meeting his glance was someone who had probably seen a little more with his eyes than I'd ever be able to handle. The most scary fighters out there are the ones who never have to try to act tough. It never even occurs to them.

As I was on my way to the changing room, I heard Ronnie ask the gym owner, jerking his head in my direction, "Who's the kid?" The owner said my name and Ronnie repeated it before the bell rang. "Say, get Brinny in here before I'm done."

Only the closest people to me ever used that nickname. Only a handful my entire life. The owner of the gym never used it.

I was skipping in front of the mirror watching Ronnie fight a much younger, professional fighter and taking it easy on him. There were a lot of adages on the walls of that gym about not giving up. Posters were hung everywhere of proud champions posing or in battle. My closest friend at the gym came over because he'd heard I'd be sparring with Ronnie in a few minutes. Vincent was a featherweight originally from Fiji with lightning feet and hands. He also had an incapacitated, incontinent, career drunk father at home he regularly had to bathe since his dad had attempted suicide by swallowing battery acid a few years before.

We were both 16 and had showed up at this gym at more or less the same time. The owner had 25 kids who wanted to get involved in amateur boxing so he set us all up to spar round-robins continuously for two hours a night. After a month, 25 kids bled down to just Vincent and myself. It took me weeks before I could catch up to him.

"You'll do fine," Vincent smiled. "Keep your hands up."

Buzzer rang.

The French-Canadian owner of the gym came over with words of encouragement. "Tabarnak, get the fuck in there."

I tried to lean-in and whisper into his ear, "Can we do it another day? I'm not feeling well."

"Speak up, Tabarnak."

I pointed at my stomach and shook my head.

"Listen, Tabarnak, after three rounds I'll buy you a lollipop. Go on cutie pie."

So you take a deep breath and climb the stairs and hold the middle rope open for one fighter to exit and keep holding it bent so you can enter. The apron is under your toes and you dance around trying to get loose snapping out some punches. Someone turned the music down in the gym and several people broke away from hitting the bags or skipping and take a round off to get cozy next to the ring and watch. You're in the frying pan.

While I was shorter, I had a little more size than Ronnie and at that time there weren't a lot of white kids with shaved heads who weren't undergoing chemotherapy or regularly attending white supremacist meetings. I did everything I could to dress and act like Mike Tyson. It aroused a fair bit of curiosity. My nickname in the gym had become "Baby Tyson".

I was never exactly sure why people seemed to always take a break from training to watch me fight in the gym. I always figured they were hoping to watch me take a beating. I was pretty sure nobody could put on a better show of being knocked out than me.

At 16, I still wasn't ever comfortable in the ring. I was still running away from so many things in my life that I never had a chance to consider anything I might want to move toward. I fought scared every second of every round. Then I discovered that my fear was contagious. The best remedy was infecting others with it. At 12 I was so small and soft I'd been mistaken for a girl a few times. Now, when they watched me fight, they were confusing me with an animal. I didn't mind that misrepresentation all that much. Boxing has a knack for turning every sensitive, delicate, fragile item in your life into something flammable and explosive you can use against someone. It also provides you with a lot of ammunition to use on yourself if you get careless.

When the bell rang and we raised our gloves to each other Ronnie circled me for a while, waiting to see what I'd do. We were both tentative for the first couple minutes. Finally Ronnie settled down and threw a straight-right hand poised to break my nose. In a flash I'd slipped it and his fist mopped some sweat off my shoulder before sailing over. He was off balance with the miss and I was already low and coiled. A split-second before Ronnie had his glove safely protecting his cheek, I took his head off with a left-hook. The impact of that punch echoed across the gym and stopped everything that was going on. Ronnie's feet came off the ground and when they touched down he had spaghetti legs for a second. I was going to try to finish him when I stopped to let him clear his head. Then Ronnie just smiled at me and broke my heart and a few seconds later the bell rang and he gave me a hug.

"So you wanna be a fighter," he growled, massaging his jaw.

Not after that.

But Ronnie still did. He had one last pro-fight on his 50th birthday. He lost in the first round.

He's a junkie now, every disease imaginable. First he went AWOL from the gym and we found him strung-out on a park bench in Pigeon Park. The gym's owner helped him get into rehab. But Ronnie didn't want to stick around.

I met him as a homeless man just before I'd flown to Havana. He had a beard. I barely recognized him. He barely recognized me. But finally he did, without remembering my name.

"Heya, look at this, hey kid? Look where I ended up, huh? Can you believe it? Look where I ended up."

"Are you okay, Ronnie?"

"Look where I ended up. Can you believe it?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm real sorry but I can't for the life of me remember your name. It would really help me out if you could spare anything."

I gave him what was in my pocket and he kept repeating the same thing over and over, "Look at me." Then, instead of saying goodbye, he just moaned with his voice breaking, "Guess I'm all washed up, ain't I?"

My dirty secret is that after I hit Ronnie Wilson with the best punch I ever threw, I knew I'd never understand how anyone could want to hurt somebody like him. My dirty secret is that I wanted to protect him and I didn't have a clue how.

TAGS: Boxing, brin friesen, cuba, havana, Joe Louis, lighthouses, loot, Mike Tyson, Voyager Probe

Brin Friesen is the greatest looking author since Lord Byron. His first novel, Sic, was published by And/Or Press in 2006. His work has appeared in The Toronto Quarterly, Pyramid Power, and Avantoure. He is currently at work on a novel about boxers in Cuba called, The Domino Diaries. Contact him at brinfriesen@gmail.com

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