Return

Life has been busy keeping me from my writing. Gee, I don’t even know where to start. So to continue where I left off from the last post…so much has happen, this will be a lengthy one to catch up…

July 31st
I’m sipping my morning coffee heading to the airport at 11am for my flight to Philly at 1pm. The flight was just under an hour and a half. It was smooth sailing right through from Toronto Pearson Airport to Philadelphia International Airport to the Holiday Inn Philadelphia Stadium. My impressions of Philly was that it was just like just another busy, clustered city which made me fantasize the Las Vegas lavish hotels and lifestyle that I was used to. There was no time to get accustomed to my new surroundings. As soon as I dropped my belongings off at the hotel room, it was time to get prepped up for the promoters’ meeting. My manager and I briefly touched on our expectations on the elevator going up to the business suite.
“I invested a quarter of a fuckin’ mil and I can’t get these cheap fuckin’ sponsors to sponsor 10% of what I put in….for fuck sakes, 25 grand isn’t even a month’s worth of lap dances at the titty bar,” said the fat gentleman in his 40’s. His name was Kevin. He was big fellow, his body type resembles a bear and his skin was so pale that it seems as though he hasn’t seen sunlight in some time. I laughed thinking to myself if he stopped going to strip joints so much, maybe his marriage would work. He continued as though he was read my mind, “Fuck! Too bad my wife let herself go 3 years ago…now to get back on topic…” there was knocking on the door, a pretty secretary walked in to serve us refreshments. Half of the gentlemen were trying to get in her pants, a quarter of them were checking her out in her low cut top and short skirt, and the rest of us just didn’t care and wanted to get the meeting over with to move on to better things. She seemed unfazed and seemed as though she was used to the attention she was getting. She was friendly and kind of sweet; I guess it was in her job description when she got hired. She had long stringy blond hair, a nice tanned complexion, compact frame, angular face. The kind of girl you’d meet in the sales office of a gym. Once our refreshments were served, she exited the room quietly. For the rest of the 3 hour meeting, nothing productive was accomplished; just these 15 or so men released their testosterone, personalities and egos upon one another. The collective bargaining and negotiations for the September 10th bout all seemed to have failed. Finally, we agreed to call it a day and revisit this meeting tomorrow. We were all sick and tired of staring at each other for so long anyway and some of them had bad breath and serious body odour problems. I was last to walk out of the board room, the pretty secretary was just outside waiting for us to leave the room so she could clean up. I coughed as I exited the room and I turned to her saying, “We need some frebreeze in here. It’s a workplace hazard in there.” She chuckled, “I’ll be sure to have a bottle for you tomorrow, Mr. Fung.” I smiled as I walked past her. I turned around to where she was standing. She was still standing there looking my way. I told her that I was new in town and asked if she wanted to hang out since I wasn’t staying in town for long. “Are you asking me out?” She replied with a devious smile. “Yeah, of course! Look at cha!” I said. She laughed. We exchanged numbers and went our own merry ways. Her name was Veronika. “Sounds like a name of a porn star,” my manager said after I told him about her. “Well, I’m hooking you up with one of her friends.” I said as I browsed through my call log. I called Veronika and suggested dinner with her. “I’ll be downstairs in 20 minutes,” she said sweetly. Just as I was going to hang up, I blurted out, “Oh ya…” I put my phone on speakerphone, “my manager needs a date for tonight, are any of your friends available?...and cute ones please… he’s a good guy, warranty certified.” I heard through the phone in the background of another girl giggling. Veronika laughs and says the predictable, “All my friends are pretty, tell him to get ready, my friend doesn’t like men that take too long to get ready. I’ll be down at the hotel in 20.”
She picked us up in a BMW M3 convertible. Her friend, Allison was in the back seat. She was a model tall brunette with big sparkling eyes, wearing a tight white tube top. Definitely a worthy date for my manager. Veronika looked great with her red dress extenuating her hips; she had an impeccable fashion taste. I rode shotgun and I turned around and I can tell my manager was excited, looks like we are in for a good night.
My manager and I each got our own tables at dinner. It was a fancy restaurant where it was dim and candles were placed on every table to create the mood. The food and service were amazing. I found out that aside from working at the corporate office, she also put her good looks into use by modeling part time. She used to be a GOGO dancer and bartender for nightclubs but stopped as her sleep patterns became irregular. I told her I was gunning for the 2012 London Olympics and that I’m thinking about fighting on the September 10th boxing event. She was really impressed and said I didn’t seem like the type.
After dinner, we went for drinks at a really nice high-end pub while my manager and Allison decided to go back to the hotel together. The pub was pretty packed with all different types of people there. We had a few drinks and good laughs. The Philadelphia crowd was very friendly unlike Torontonians. Random people were buying me drinks as I told them stories of my past fighting as a soldier in Afghanistan. Veronika was sitting close beside me, holding my hand and whispered in my ear, “These people really like you.” Her breath was both intoxicated and intoxicating. Later that evening, there was sudden loud shattering of beer bottles. It stole everyone’s attention and everyone looked in that direction forming a circle around the incident. The pub dropped to a dead silence. “You FUCKIN’ China man!…you spilt your drink all over my leather jacket,” a tall Caucasian man screamed at the top of his lungs. His face was all red and his blood vessels were poppin gout of his temple. He was a big tall, standing well over six feet weighing well over 200 lbs for sure, looked liked a cross between a bar room brawler and a Hells Angels biker. The skinny Chinese guy scrambled to get a paper towel to wipe the beer off the leather jacket.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sheepishly said with a heavy Chinese accent. I could tell he feared for his life.
“Don’t fuckin’ touch my jacket chink!” The biker kicked the Chinese man right in the stomach sending him flat on his back 5 metres away from where he was standing. “You Chinese people fuck up everything, don’t fucking come here…stay in your own country! You fucking Chinese people are a disease!” Some people in the bar were nodding either liking what they saw or agreeing to the statements that this biker was making. I got up from my seat and quickly made my way into the circle where the biker was. Veronika was trying to pull me back to our table but I resisted and continued into the circle. I heard whispers from the crowd as I walked towards the big biker. I heard someone say I was going to get beaten up.
“I’m sorry about your jacket.” I said to the biker looking him in the eye. Everyone was staring at me, I could hear a pin drop. The biker was unresponsive. “But I’m going to have to ask you to apologize for statements you’ve made regarding Chinese people.” He walked a step closer to me, gave me the finger with his left hand 2 inches away from my face and yelled, “Fuck off!” He took a swing at me with his right hand to follow up. My instincts took over, I rolled away from the punch as I had trained for in all my years of boxing but his fists were so damn big that he still managed to clip me in the chin. He took another wild swing at me; I ducked under and threw a powerful left hook on his ribs. I could feel my punch penetrating through his blubber and through his ribs. I felt my knuckles breaking part of his rib cage. I then followed up with a right hook to his chin and just as he dropped to his knees like a ton of bricks. Seeing that my opponent was on his knees and that he was no longer a threat I instantly tried to stop the right hook I already threw at him, but it was too late, my fist buckled his jaw sending one of his tooth flying into the crowd. I knelt down in front of him to make sure he was alright. He was in bad shape. Out of the corner of my eye I can see bouncers just ready to throw me out of the pub. But he was in tremendous pain and couldn’t talk. I said to him, “I’m sorry, I really am…but I did this to show you that regardless of race and ethnicity, we are all equal.” To my surprise the crowd reacted with applause from what I said. His facial expression conveyed excruciating pain but he nodded in comprehension. The bouncers told me I had to be escorted out. Veronika was pleading to the bouncer to let me stay because I didn’t instigate the confrontation. I grabbed her by the hand and looked in her eyes and said, “It’s ok, it’s enough for tonight…let’s go somewhere else.” She nodded and we left the pub. She drove me in front of the hotel where I was getting dropped off. I turned and looked at her, she looked like she didn’t want to call it a night yet. I offered her to come in. Her eyes lit up and she agreed.
I lay flat on my back on my bed. She was massaging my hand from all that bar fight. Damn it, the biker had a hard head I thought to myself. Her pretty eyes look into mine. She snuggles right beside me. I hit the lights…