The Actual Fight Night.

I was getting ready to go to bed. I was picking up my phone, ready to put in onto silent so no one could wake me through the night. As I move my finger over to the button on the phone that adjusts the volume, I can feel the phone vibrating, it said that there was an incoming call from Chris Tankosic coming through, so I opened the phone before the ringtone starts playing, walk over to my door and shut it so mum doesn’t hear me and wake up. I say ‘hello’ very quietly only to be shut down by the screaming of whomever it was on the other end. Over the screaming I could hear Chris shushing everyone, and once they were all calmed down Chris just said the words ‘fight night’ over and over again with barely any explanation.

Now in case you didn’t know, I lost a penalty shootout with Andrew two months ago and because he won the shootout, his prize was that he can call fight night on me whenever it is that he wants, and unless I have an unbelievably valid excuse, I wouldn’t be excused and I had to go to wherever it was that it would be held and fight Andrew. Now if you actually know me, or you have read all my blogs, or you have read the Fight Night blogs that I wrote back when I actually started writing this, you would know that fight night is something that should have happened a long time ago. As tired as I was, this was not a valid excuse for not having fight night. They said that they were already on their way to mine, and because my excuse was completely and utterly invalid, I tried to get un-tired and get into a fighting mood.

It was earlier in the night that Meb kind of had a go at me because I had never had V before, so I went to On the Run after that and bought myself two V’s for five dollars. I drank one of them and put the other one in the fridge. While trying to get into a fighting mood and be less tired, I remembered that I still had a V in the fridge and I thought to myself, ‘what’s better for waking someone up than a bloody energy drink?’ and the answer that I answered myself because I was the only one there and it was all in my head was, ‘nothing.’

I made my way out to the street where I was drinking V and running on the spot, punching the air, getting pumped. The V had completely revitalised me and I was more awake than ever, I finished it off and put it down on the curb. I continued punching the air when I saw a car turn onto my street, I started running towards it and when I reached it, I got in the car to see that it wasn’t Chris’s car. Luckily it wasn’t just some random’s car, it was Jack’s car, and from there we made our way to Edwardstown Primary School (EPS). The V had done its trick, I was so keen, I was ready to fight, I was ready to win.

Despite being ready to win, and despite being ahead in the first two rounds, I did not win the fight against Andrew. By the end of it I was more tired than I have ever been before, I was completely exhausted and I actually found it hard to breathe. It was a fucked up feeling, but I actually thought that I was just going to collapse, I was breathing as heavy as bloody... a guy who just did something very, very tiring. The points showed that I was winning for the first two rounds but I lost it in the third, and I knew it as well, because in that last round, I just stopped trying, my unfitness caught up with me and smashed the fuck out of me, and that wasn’t really unfitness, it was Andrew, because those last few hits really hurt.

On the car ride home I still felt fucked, like I still felt like I was going to collapse or faint or fall out of consciousness or something. I didn’t though, and during the car ride home, somehow, we got onto the topic of energy drinks, and how bad they are for you. I believe it was Brett that said something like ‘yeah my coach always said that energy drinks are the worst things ever, like especially before sport or something,’ or something, and that really scared me. I got out of the car and made my way to my room to feel my heart beating at a completely irregular way. I normally can’t feel my heart beating unless I stop doing what I am doing, sit there and actually try to hear or feel it. I could hear it, feel it and everything, and it felt like I was dying.

I fell into my bed and started to think of what would happen if I actually died just then. I mean what would I do? Probably nothing, because I was dead, but who would I blame? Would I blame Andrew for getting me so tired that my heart actually had a heart attack and killed me or something? Would I blame Meb for making me feel like a six thumbed, eight eyed lizard monster freak for never having tried V before and making me buy it in the first place which is really what got me into this health situation? Would I blame Brett for giving me the information that made me think so hard about it that it probably made it worse for me because it was all in the mind? Or do I just, not blame anybody because I didn’t die and because this all happened two days ago and I’m still not dead... no, I’m going to blame Chris.