“Pop, this is ridiculous! You’re too old to be taking a fight. Especially on such short notice. This is suicide. What do you got to gain?”

“I’ve been fighting since before you were born. So don’t tell me about fighting. I’ve been on my own since I was a kid. You ever hear of El Gato Negro?”

Only about a hundred times since the age of 5.

“He was the best fighter in all of Zacatecas. Mean. And a cheater. I found out years later he loaded his hand wraps with plaster. We fought ten rounds. He broke three of my ribs in the fourth. It was a slugfest. My trainer wanted to call it. But I refused. In the tenth I came out and landed a devastating over-hand right when Gato threw a haymaker that barely missed. I laid him out cold. And you know what I did it for? I’ll tell you! A plate of beans and a couple of tortillas. It was never about what I stood to gain. A fighter, fights!”

“Pop, you’re a liar. Nobody goes through all of that for a plate of beans.”

He slugged the heavy bag.

“Ok, plus 500 pesos! You know how much that was, in those days? Five dollars. And I sent half of that to my Tia Carmine in Naco.”

It was pointless arguing with him. He was a stubborn as ever. He would never listen to reason. My only option was to pray he came to his senses.