CLAYFIGHT PART 2

Clay “Clayman” Huntington.
Twenty six fights – all won, but for a few close point losses at the shaky beginning of his career. Out of the number of wins – twenty two to be precise – eighteen have been so by KO. Fierce, relentless, self absorbed – I doubt that there is even the slightest possibility for a modern world champion of anything, to find a different breed of identity. I download his bouts from some MMA website, the quantum processors of my computer completing the transaction of money for movie files within seconds.
To be perfectly honest, he proves to be quite the let down, but in fairness – it is as I had expected. The glorified wrestlers whom after a few months of foot-flex training and the occasional kicking instruction, with sluggish bodies and minds that murmur about naught but fame and wealth – these individuals, who are raised to the skies, titled the gladiators of the civilized world, brought forth and streamed through the grainy cyberspace of show business by investors and greedy managers – they will never be able to put up any sort of struggle against a mind roaming free in a body imprisoning weakness and pain within the dungeons of the forgotten.
However, he does throw a hard punch, and he seems to withstand a not entirely insignificant level of physical harm. A blow to the temple throws him off balance for a mere second or so, whereafter he is back in the game, using his attacker's success as fuel to fire up the engines of repercussion. His vengeance is furious and thoughtless, breaking through his opponent's defenses by a sheer act of willpower, sending the fighter to the floor – he doesn't stand a chance. The blows from Huntington upon the lying individual, fending for his prospect of getting back up and reversing momentum, land sloppily and unmeasured, but manages to fulfill their assigned purpose. As the body of the opponent turns loose and inanimate but for some jerks of his hands, the referee stands in, removing the fired up victor from the vicinity of harmfulness. The “Clayman” starts jumping at the sides as the crowds salute his once again claiming the title of World Champion. The loser is woken up and led to his corner, a trail of bright red blood left by his opened up eyebrow. The concierge, a peculiar man named Mo Horgan - who used to host the TV-show “Scar(r)ed”, where subjects challenged each other to compete for sums of imaginary money by acting as test dummies for various unapproved medical treatments – greets the champion with a microphone, asking him how it feels to have defended his title with such grace and skillfulness. To which Huntington replies that he is happy to have showed the world so many times over that he is the best of the best, and anyone who wants to give him a challenge is welcome to do so.
For a moment, I am absolutely convinced that he is speaking directly to me.

Press, PR, management – these issues are not problems to a man of my capital and achievements. Every agency in the world would be struck by the glittering textures of fortune at the chance of getting to represent such a hype circus manifest in a Nobel prize winner entering the realm of what some perceive to be the bottom scrapings of entertainment.
How terribly unfortunate for those individuals and organizations then, that I am not in need of their services. All I am in need of is an assistant to make the most rudimentary arrangements for my convenience. Perhaps they will have to conduct some management action here and there, but you don't regard the cleaning man as being the executive of a company for the simple reason that he puts his gear away and sits in the boss' chair on Friday afternoons when everyone has left work.
I contact Stephanie, my assistant from the time when QR was first published, where I needed some help booking and unbooking interviews and alike. Apparently, she is working in New York City these days, doing things that are really none of my concern. All I want to know from her is if she is willing to work for me once again. In fact, I do not even approach her with such an inquisitive and tentative stance – rather, I simply tell her that I am going to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion of the world, and that she must immediately devote her time to finding out the necessary details for carrying out such an enterprise. Uh, I is her reply, followed by a short pause, whereafter she says, in the voice of someone with food in their mouth:
Ok, Mr. Stone.
I correct her. Doctor, is how I am supposed to be addressed.
Doctor Stone, dear Stephanie.

According to Stephanie's intelligence, there are two requirements I need to fulfill to get a chance to fight Clay Huntington. I need to have gained a reputation such that it makes sense to put me up against the champion, which basically means that there need to be some ways for the managers and producers to market and make significant amounts of money from the prospect of the fight – that needn't worry me. Second, I must be a registered MMA participant and attain a few won games, which shouldn't be a problem either, since they will surely agree to let me on after no more than two or three fights on account of the profit they will gain from setting up the whole debacle.
I instruct her to do all she can to get me registered and set me up for as many fights needed as soon as possible. In the afternoon, she calls me back and tells me that I should come to Chicago, to set up my license, which should be of no worry. Unlike many fighters, I have no felony convictions or registered mental illness. Besides, a lot of people know of my name and my person to some extent, something I am sure will give me leverage in this fame obsessed culture of ours. I have no medical records, and my physical state I will simply demonstrate in practice.
The next morning, I board my solar plane after saying goodbye to Air. Mamo and Styx are there. I bid them goodbye too, and at ascending, a sense of purpose occupies my mind.

Landing on a small private flying field owned by a professor colleague – who always seem rather reluctant in letting me do so – right outside of New York City, I venture by rental car to the city of Chicago. I wish I had the possibility to import my solar driven ones – I even considered going days ahead to travel by bicycle, but there were some new moves that I felt urgent to shape up before leaving, and my locale is where I find it the most rewarding to perform my training.
Entering the city – skyscrapers reaching for the skies where haunting clouds fill the view of sight, every person and object seemingly filtered through a steely blue shade, sounds vivid yet distantly disappearing amidst the reflections cast by tall corporate windows siding each street – I quickly find the office where I am supposed to meet up with Stephanie, whereafter we will speak to the people addressed in the object of getting my license.
She is standing right outside, smiling yet looking worn out and tired as I approach her rather lifeless and dull being. She is happy to meet me – why wouldn't she be? I'm making her career.
The three suits handling my application are all but for one, very happy to hear about my plans. The two encouraging ones must repeatedly shut the doubter up, and this scenario that I observe does not surprise me. Naturally, they knew I was coming and were told to pass my application as easily as possible while not breaking any of the rules and standards – which I'm sure that the suits above these suits could rewrite when and if they felt like it. But why waste money, time and effort on such an action, when you may as well use the present regulations, albeit demanding the searching after and finding of a loophole or two?
The doubter is obviously the idealist, the stern believer in the sanctity of business ethics. One may not guess that I bleed for his cause and the strong will and determinedness needed to withstand all the pressure from such a mentality – but indeed I do. Had the circumstances been different, and less at stake with more time, I would without doubt have humored the gentleman's attitude. However, the guidelines of the MMA code does not concern me – I do not care about it. This is not an academic or intellectual doing on my behalf – it is the striving for practical solutions to make it possible for me to perform a physical activity. I need not express my opinions or engage in conversation with these people – in fact, they aren't even people. They are suits, androids, philosophical zombies.
Instead, I let Stephanie do all the talking and meditate within my mind until it is time for me to sign documents.
When all is done, we dine at a fine restaurant, Stephanie occupied with setting up the fights for me. I have told her that they not not be posh spectacles, only registered fights that count as wins in my records. Before we've finished eating, she has found over twenty alternatives and more offers are likely to come as word spreads. There is even one fight this very same evening.
I tell her to make arrangements for me to go two fights this evening. That way, I can return to Everia the next morning.

The arena is small, dark and full of people, reeking of rancid sweat and caries. I tell Stephanie what a good job she has done – posh and spectacle are not words anyone would use to describe the setting. She is very happy to receive the compliment. She is by all means a tool for my mission – but even tools need some care and attention at times.
I find that there is a modest Internet TV-site filming the event, which goes under the inappropriately pompous name “Showdown in Chi-town”. The administrators tell me that I will be going on first in two hours, and then in four hours. I smile, and say to Stephanie that this will be a long night.
Together, we sit in the dark stands, surrounded by cheering, screaming fans, a subtle moment of tenderness intrudes when she nods off at my arm, the noise of people and punches and megaphones swirling away into incoherency and vagueness as I adjust my arm for her to rest more comfortably. As she sleeps and I watch her, timbre orbs sweetly encapsulate and frame us - and hard, black metal chairs, crusty, beer spoiled floors uncomplimentary decorated with popcorn and candy wrappers – red fellows in black tee shirts with prints of their favorite fighter, bumping into ones elbow at every blow being delivered in the ring – the smell of things that have been trapped in tombs for thousands of years and now released upon the world – these things are all no more than a fool's dream.
I nod off too.

Thirty minutes before the bell, I am directed to a cramped locker room, yellow, rusted metal, spots of blood and sweat on the floor. Naked in the center of the room, I meditate for fifteen minutes, and then change clothes. There is not a worry in my mind, I am at total peace and will remain so for the rest of the evening.
I leave the locker room and follow the coordinator back into the arena, where I throw a quick glance at Stephanie before entering the ring. She looks scared and tense, pale and freezing. I throw her a nod.
The first opponent is a fellow from Denmark. I don't register his name or records – only his weaknesses. He is rather the tall man, but from a fighter's point of view, immensely overweight. Thick and slow, he will not pose a threat. Greeting the fighter, fists loosely bumping against one another, I reason back and forth between either giving the crowd a spectacular nail biter, or getting it over with as fast as I can. Looking once again at Stephanie, I choose to go with the latter alternative. I will save the style and finesse for the “Clayman”.
I start charging my fist as the referee raises his arm, and release it the second it has gone through its initializing arc. The Chop Shock - originating and altered from the Madagascan discipline of Swall – lands at the great Dane's trapzius muscle faster than it takes from him to blink his eyes. As he falls, I have already returned to my starting position, and watch as his loose musculature plummets to the floor, sending out damp vibrations as he impacts. The referee steps in, controls the fallen fighter, and signs away the duel as being over. Victorious, I do not take the praise from the crowds – I have no need for it. Stephanie seems to be frozen in time and space, in a perplexed smile of confusion and surprise. I can tell that she had doubted me, her opinion swayed in less than the mere second it took for the force leaving my body to be transferred unto my opponent. I go to the administrator's booth, and tell them that I am ready for my next fight without delay. Of course, they reply by saying that they have a fixed schedule which they cannot alter at a whim. I grab the microphone from off their table, turn it on, and announce to the crowd that I am ready for the next challenger. They soar, and before long – while receiving grumpy looks from the administrators – I observe as my next victim enters the stage.
There is not much to this battle. The Canadian fighter makes the wise decision to back away instantly after the bell rings, but proceeds to err by lunging at me directly thereafter, whereupon I dodge his approach and stun his brain – perhaps, in some sense, even his soul – with the Electric Elbow, so many times carried out on wooden dummies, crafted to perfection.
When all is done, the crowd seems to be wanting more. I could stay and send fighters falling all night long, but my work here is done. I wink for Stephanie to join me, and we leave the dark flesh factory, exiting through the bright light from the open doors, swallowing our shadow cast backsides whole as we go.