After two minutes and thirty-nine seconds into the first round, it was all over. Bonecrusher Rocco had knocked out Leftie Louie. The sports reporters flocked around Rocco. They were like pigeons around a large canister of popcorn, except pigeons are polite. Mel Bromley, from a local radio station, had a free lane to Louie.
“How are you, Louie?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, after almost three minutes in there?”
“What time is it? Is that the time?”
Louie’s manager, Al, told Mel to take it easy.
“He needs more smelling salts, not an interview,” said Al, motioning to Stan, the corner man.
The reporter looked to Stan. “Is he hurt bad?”
“I’ve seen worse. Another round would’ve been a lot worse.”
Mel kept questioning and recording. “Louie, was it the right to the body and left to the head that did it?”
“Head? What?”
“When he knocked you down for the third time?”
Twice down was bad enough.
“Wasn’t it a left to the body and right to the head?” said Al, correcting the record.
“I was worried about Louie’s head,” offered Stan, squeezing a wet sponge.
“I plan to hit him with a left to the body, then a right to the jaw,” said Louie.
“It’s over, Louie.”
“You’re right. Once I finish with that right…”
“Leftie,” said the reporter. “It’s over.”
“I told you we need more salts.”
The boxer’s eyes started to focus. He looked better with his eyes uncrossed.
“Al,” he said. “Let’s get this thing started.”
Mel motioned to Stan. “Maybe it’d be easier for him to remember if you bandaged that cut over his eye?”
Leftie Louie wiped away the blood. “Where is he? Do you think Rocco’s going to fight? Or even show up?”
David Sydney is a physician. He writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).