PRETTY SURE IT WAS SATURDAY when I came down the wooden stairs. New gloves in hand, bearing visions of thick arms, a muscular back and defensive savvy. A shadow rolls up the wall.

The worn and faded oriental rug, glazed with shed hair and dried discs of tan yak and the cats themselves hiding in the recesses of the crawlspace. Crouched low like a sand crab.

Pounding, left, right, left, right. Snap, snap, snap, crack. Retreat, head high, to my corner for a slug of warm beer. Want to spit on the rug for effect, but it feels ragged and valuable. Slap the knuckles together in front of my sternum, wriggle my toes in my old canvas vans and lead in, hands up high at the sides of my head.

Stick and move. Stay up on my toes. Knees bent. Eyes down on the target, the yellow patch at the front and back. Picturing Mayweather even though I don't know what he looks like. Leon Spinks, greased up and blasting away at thin air. Floyd Patterson, sandy coif dancing like a candle. Who's that other guy?

How long has it been. No chalk marks on the wall, no sunrises, no sunsets. Just the sorry glow of a naked bulb. Huge left hook and the rafters creak. Someone home.

Hello? I look up—

Back to the crab attack. Low in circles now with my wet eyes beating right out of their sockets, just like a sea bug. Dancing on the balls of my feet in Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit as the gentle waves lick the sand near my toes. In a little farther and dampening my torso. Feeling utterly nerved by the swell of it. The two-thirds-of-everything of it. Stew of life stretching out in front and below, me sticking up and out like a lone whisker on creation's behind. Dolphins. Silhouetted, leaping out of the water in the distance. Maybe six of them or just one jumping six different times. Who are you?

A savage blow to the face. And another. The filthy basement a busted carousel loose on cracked bearings. Stagger past spilt beer, droplets of blood and the cat hunched in my corner laying a stack of logs. C'mon, bro.

Who turned on the strobelight? I lean into the shelves in the corner sounding an imaginary bell with my mouth. Scrambling after the last can from the six-pack plastic. Next to my tea cup—nothing but dust inside—sits a dolphin brain on an antique scale next to a pyramid of yellowed paper towels.

My own grey mass comes out without even moving a lid. I set it on the other scale. It's slippery against the gloves, but I get it centered and still.

Grey me is dwarfed. Embarrassingly short on folds and the dolphin brain taunting as much from below. Over how many thousands of years has the bloodline—curling around my cheek and into the corner of my mouth—been fucking, frolicking, hunting and outwitting? How long have I been sucking down beer while the world ebbs and flows around a struck match? Removing the brain was the decent thing to do.

With the strobelight making a mockery of everything, these things don't go together. The door won't open for a good reason. Maybe I meet the reason and maybe the door will open. Maybe I'll go upstairs and shower. I've got a towel down here somewhere. Back on a mound of dirt, in the ass of the crawlspace, in between two piles of wood and chicken wire I hear the other cat cleaning himself.

Go see who's upstairs. Things are happening just outside. Trees are responding lovingly to a breeze. Ground is settling. Statues are watching people clean up after dogs. Beautiful things.

I hear the whoosh of the invisible glove, rushing in close like a friend's bad breath. Duck, stagger, duck, back to the crab. Leap upright, drunk on inspiration, cocksure but too quickly. Skull valleyed by a cross beam. More blood. Louder strobe light.

Dolphins. Statues. The ocean and sun. T-shirt soaked maroon. I pull it over my head, suffering two blunt body blows because it sticks to my torso like an oil slick. Body blow. Shot to the groin.

This is an odyssey, brother—

Hard ridge of boot to the throat and I'm breathing through a kinked garden hose. Clawing at the cement floor. Waiting for it to crumble and then for the crumbles to crumble until there's nothing but black sand with a million freckles of snails burrowing in as the water rolls away. Snails pulled up into their sleepy little shells, flesh like rubber cement.

I could be swallowing saltwater. I could be riding a dolphin. A dolphin could be riding me. Dolphin on my back, holding our brains, one in each flipper, a toothsome smile on his sleek little beak, me on all fours, with the hunchback of a washerwoman, nose twisted fat and broken, teeth missing. The whole thing carved of marble and smiling while we watch the living scoop up dogshit with garbage bags over their hands.

Gloved, swinging in furious red circles. Hands become fire, consuming walls, furniture and rooftops. Consuming it all so quickly that the house—crawlspace and all—reduces to a moat of lava thinning out over the street, pooling in the gutters and cooling into a whole country. No borders, just ocean.

Back on my feet. Sucking in the cool basement air. Stumbling backward toward my warm beer.

I know it's there and I know I want to beat it.


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