“I’ve got this, Millie!” he roared suddenly. “I got this! I got this, baby!”
“Did you hear him, Millie?” I yelled down at her, my eyes never leaving Tag as his eyes stayed planted on Millie’s face. She nodded vigorously. “He wants you to know he’s okay.”
Everyone was staring at her now, and the announcers were wide-eyed and openly speculative as the buzzer sounded and Tag turned away.
It continued on that way through the next four rounds. When the buzzer sounded, Tag would find his corner, find Millie, and reassure her, always in the same way. “I got this, Millie. I got this.”
And the crowd started to believe him. They started to chant for him, a chant that began with Henry.
“Tag Team! Tag Team! Tag Team!” he’d yelled continually, and before too long, the people around us picked up the chant, and it spread through the crowd in pockets and in power, until Shotgun caught Tag on the forehead again, staggering him, causing him to go down on one knee only to surge up and catch Shotgun beneath the chin, knocking his head back with a whip-lash inducing crack.
Shotgun crumpled.
For half a second there was a collective intake of breath, a shared, stunned heartbeat that silenced the crowd before pandemonium broke out and the referee practically slid to Shotgun’s inert form, frantically waving his arms over his head, indicating the fight was over. Tag had won.
“It’s over!” I screamed. “He did it!”
“Tag!” Henry howled in wild delight. “Tag!”
But Millie just stood, shaking, her eyes dry, her palms drenched. Or maybe that was my hand. We clutched each other, and Henry hung on too, the three of us caught up in the surge and swell that raged around us. The crowd was hollering, people clapping, jumping up and down, jostling us, patting us on the back, congratulating us. Everyone had watched as Tag zeroed in on Millie throughout the fight, and they were zeroing in on her now.
Tag approached his corner again, this time with his hands raised above his head. But as he found Millie once more, his eyes narrowing on her face, his right leg buckled and his hands came down, relinquishing celebration for something to hold onto. He swayed wildly, the crowd gasped, and I lunged forward, letting go of Millie’s hand, my arms out-stretched as if I could catch him.
His fingers tangled in the netting, his eyes rolled, and his body jerked, collapsing into a shuddering heap on the octagon floor. And he continued to convulse.
I was up and over the cage wall before anyone could stop me.
The crowd grew silent beyond the octagon, and strangely enough, no one challenged me. I knelt beside him, trying to hold onto him, not knowing what to do, and the referee was immediately at my side, as well as someone from Shotgun’s corner.
“He’s seizing!” the referee said sharply, and someone shoved a mouth guard back between Tag’s teeth to keep him from biting his tongue. I slid my arm beneath his head to prevent it from knocking against the floor.
Shotgun was sitting up blearily, and the medical personnel who had come immediately to his aid abandoned him for the new emergency. From the corner of my eye I thought I saw Molly. Blond hair, blue eyes, silently waiting. And I bit back a curse and slammed down my walls, refusing to acknowledge her.
THE TELEVISION IN the emergency waiting room was tuned into a local station, and Millie, Henry and I sat in numb silence, listening to a Vegas reporter sharing the news of the day. Axel, Mikey, Cory, Andy and Paulo were there too, looking as grim and gutted as I felt, and they raised their eyes to the screen when Tag’s name was mentioned. The reporter stood outside of the MGM, where people were still streaming in and out of the venue, her hand clutching a fuzzy blue microphone, her expression both serious and exultant, telling us what we already knew about Tag’s fight and none of the stuff we wanted to know.
It was fight night at the MGM this evening, the main event one many had been waiting a long time to see, but it was an undercard fight featuring a last-minute fill-in that has been the subject among fight fans here tonight. David Taggert was called up only three days ago to fill the slot vacated by Jordan Jones. Jones had been scheduled to fight long-time UFC favorite and former Light Heavyweight champion, Terry Shaw, when he sustained an injury that left him unable to fight.
David Taggert, after a stunning upset in April against Bruno Santos, was called in to take his place. Fight fans definitely got their money’s worth when Taggert and Shaw went a full four rounds before Taggert knocked Shaw out cold. However, that’s not where the story ends. The controversy is over an apparent seizure Taggert had after the fight ended. Shaw was out cold. The fight was over. The referee raised Taggert’s hand, Tag Taggert turned toward the crowd, raised his hands, took a few steps, and collapsed.
He was taken to an area hospital in critical condition, and we are now hearing reports that shortly following the April fight where Tag Taggert defeated Bruno Santos, he had a run-in at his Salt Lake City bar with a former employee. Taggert was struck across the forehead in the altercation and sustained a fairly serious head wound. Word is that he was treated and released that night, but has kept a very low profile in the weeks following the altercation. Speculation is now running rampant. We will keep you posted about his condition and any developments that may shed more light on this stunning series of events.
Tag went into surgery about an hour after arriving in the emergency room. He actually regained consciousness briefly in the ambulance, or so we were told. He asked about the fight, was told he had a seizure, and he went under again. He had the gall to make sure he really won before losing consciousness again. It almost made me laugh. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so angry.
According to the doctor who came and talked to us about three hours after we arrived in the hospital waiting room, Tag’s brain had started to bleed and swell, most likely during the fight. I thought of the blow he took to the forehead at the end of the first round, when his legs had wobbled and we all thought he was going down. He’d fought for three more rounds before he took another blow to the same spot right before the fight ended. The swelling created pressure which had then caused the seizure, which in turn helped them discover the bleed. Apparently, people who undergo a craniotomy and have tumors removed from their brains shouldn’t enter the octagon less than three weeks post-surgery.
I wasn’t able to ride in the ambulance with Tag. I’d had to stay with Millie and Henry. We’d fought our way through the crowd as quickly as we could, which hadn’t been easy, and then sped to the hospital, arriving a good twenty minutes after Tag had been rushed through the emergency room doors. I’d told the nurse at the desk everything I knew, everything Tag had confessed in his tapes, and asked her to please relay it to those caring for my friend. She’d given me a look like she thought I was high and dangerous, peering at me over the tops of her little glasses and pressing her fat chin into her chest in bafflement. She listened and then stood, exiting through swishing doors where Millie and Henry and I weren’t allowed to follow.
I could just imagine the stunned reactions of the nurses and doctors when they got Tag in there and started pulling up his medical history and running him through the MRI. He’d pulled his shaggy hair into a tail at the back of his head for the fight, completely covering up the shaved lines crisscrossing his skull, evidence of the craniotomy, but those things don’t stay hidden. His hair was coming loose from the band and falling around his face when I held him in my arms in the octagon. I’d seen the evidence, and so would they.
When the fat desk clerk had finally come back to her post, she was shaking her head, and she kept looking at us like we’d escaped from a freak show. I’d been looked at that way a time or two, so I just stared back with all the insolence I felt, and Millie was obviously unaware that she was the focus of such suspicious attention. Henry was a jittery, trivia-spouting mess, but Millie just held his hand, stroked his hair, and commented on his inane trivia as if he was the smartest kid in the universe. Before long, he was eating peanut M&Ms and guzzling Sprite fr
om the vending machines with relative calm, whispering a stat to himself every once in a while.
“He’s out of surgery. We were able to stop the bleed,” the doctor said solemnly. He looked from me to Millie. His eyes widened and he looked back at me again, obviously realizing that he could only make eye contact with one of us. To his credit, he went right on talking, hardly pausing.
“He’s unconscious, and we’d like to keep him that way at this point, but we think when the swelling eases in the next twelve hours or so, he’ll come around. We need to watch him over the next few days, but he should be fine. Brain activity looks good, vitals are good. I have consulted with Dr. Stein and Dr. Shumway at LDS hospital. Dr. Shumway performed the craniotomy on your friend, and I can’t tell you much more, but Mr. Taggert’s got some big decisions to make. I think having you here, having people call him on what he did, and on what he needs to do, is important. What he did tonight was incredibly foolish. He’s lucky to be alive.”
Moses
TAG WOKE UP just as the doctor predicted, but they didn’t let us see him until they moved him out of the ICU, which didn’t happen for a full twenty-four hours after he regained consciousness. We’d gone back and forth from the hospital to a nearby hotel, running on terror and little sleep, until, two days after we’d begun our vigil, we went back to the hotel to shower and change, and Henry climbed into bed and refused to get out again. Millie didn’t dare leave Henry alone at the hotel for hours on end, so she stayed behind and I went back to the hospital.
I was surprised to find Tag sitting up in his bed, his eyes heavily circled, his jaw rough with several days’ worth of beard, his shaggy hair hanging lank around his face. The bald patches and staple marks were extremely visible now, and he scratched at his skull as if the bare skin were driving him crazy.
“It’s been almost three weeks. It’s mostly healed, and it itches,” he complained with a smile, as if it were just road rash—nothing serious.
“I think I’ve convinced one of the nurses to help me shave it all off. We’ll be twins, Mo,” he said, referring to the fact that my hair had never been much longer than stubble.
I couldn’t respond. I didn’t do small talk and bullshit as well as Tag did. In fact, I didn’t really do it at all. I just stared at my friend and shoved my hands in my pockets to repress my urge to paint . . . or kill him.
“I think Millie will dig a smooth head—” He stopped abruptly and rubbed at his jaw, clearly agitated. “Is she here, Mo? With you?”
“She’s at the hotel with Henry. He was exhausted, and she didn’t dare leave him alone.”
Tag nodded and closed his eyes, as if he too were exhausted. “Good. That’s good.”
A nurse bustled in, saw me, and hesitated slightly. I almost laughed. She probably wanted Tag all to herself while she fussed over him. Typical female. He probably had the entire nursing staff at his beck and call. He’d be the most well-cared for patient in the history of the hospital.
I watched as she carefully covered him with a sheet and gently started removing his hair with an electric razor, one long clump at a time, until he sat before me, smooth-headed and scarred, looking so different and defeated, so changed, that I unclenched my hands, releasing some of my rage.
The nurse exclaimed that he “must feel so much better now,” and whisked away the shorn hair and the sheet that covered him. Then she helped him maneuver out of his hospital gown—avoiding his IV and the various monitors—and assisted him in donning a new one. I caught Tag’s eye as she carefully tied the strings at his back. I raised an eyebrow, and he gave me a smirk that let me know that he hadn’t changed all that much.
Still, when she left the room, he closed his eyes briefly, resting momentarily, and I felt the fear swell in my chest once more.
“You look like shit, Tag,” I said.
“So do you, Mo,” he shot back, not even opening his eyes.
“It’s your fault,” I said.
He sighed and then murmured, “I know.”
I didn’t comment, thinking he needed to sleep. But after several long breaths he opened his eyes again and met my gaze.
“I’m sorry, Moses.”
“You shouldn’t have left like that. You’ve put us all through hell.” I guess we were going to go there, after all.
“I didn’t see a better solution.”
“I can think of one,” I snapped, and when he didn’t respond immediately, I exhaled heavily and pressed my palms into my tired eyes.
“Sometimes I feel like death is the only thing I haven’t done,” he said eventually. “Hell, and I’ve even attempted that a couple of times. The problem with death is that it’s exclusive, like sex and child-birth. Once you’ve done it, there is no going back.”
His thoughts were clearly rhetorical, and I waited him out again.
“The thing is, Mo. I’m okay with it. If I’ve learned anything from being your best friend, from watching you commune with the dead, it’s that death isn’t anything I need to be afraid of. I’m not a perfect man. But I think I’m a good man. I’ve lived a hell of a life, even with all the heartache. Millie told me once that the ability to devastate is what makes a song beautiful. Maybe that’s what makes life beautiful too. The ability to devastate. Maybe that’s how we know we’ve lived. How we know we’ve truly loved.”
“The ability to devastate,” I repeated. And my voice broke. If that wasn’t a perfect description of the agony of love, I didn’t know what was. I had felt that devastation. I had survived it, but I didn’t want to survive it again.
“I love her so much, Mo. I love her so damn much. That’s the thing that sucks the most. I can deal with the cancer. I can deal with death. But I’m going to miss Millie. I miss her already.” He swallowed, his throat working overtime against the emotion that choked us both. “I would miss you too, Mo, but you can see dead people, so I can haunt you.”
I laughed, but it came out a groan, and I stood, needing to escape, hating the sorrow, raging against the futility of grief, yet feeling it anyway. Tag watched me pace and when I finally sat back down, indicating I was ready, he spoke again.
“I’m okay with death, Mo. I’m good with it,” Tag said quietly. “But dying . . . dying is different. I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid of not being strong for the people who love me. I’m afraid of the suffering I will cause. I’m afraid of the helplessness I’ll feel when I can’t make it all better. I don’t want to sit in a hospital bed, day after day, dying. I don’t want Millie trying to take care of me. I don’t want Henry watching me fade from giant to shadow. Can you understand that, Mo?”
I nodded slowly, though doing so made me feel sick, like I was condoning what he’d done, leaving like he had.
“I laid in bed all night after they told me what I was facing. They gave me all the risks, the time frames, best case scenarios, worst case scenarios. By morning, I knew it wasn’t for me. I told my doctor, thank you very much, but I’m gonna go now.”
“And you weren’t going to tell anyone?”
“No.” Tag shook his head, his eyes on mine. “No.”
“But . . .” I didn’t understand. I wasn’t following.
“I got my affairs in order. I met with my attorney, got things figured out. Drew up the will, liquidated a bunch of stuff. The only thing that was bothering me was the money I still owed my dad. I could sell it all—the bar, the gym, the clothing line. If I did, I’d have more than enough, but I don’t want to sell. I want to leave the gym to the guys. I want to leave the bar to Millie and Henry so Millie can dance around that damn pole until she’s eighty-two and no one can tell her no, and so that Henry can have a place where he can talk sports and someone will listen. He loves the bar. I wanted to leave you something too, but I knew you would hate that.”
He got that right. He was messed up about everything else. But he got that right.
“But even with the sale of the apartments, the liquidation of everything but my truck, I still owe my dad fifty grand,
” Tag continued.
“Wasn’t that an inheritance?”
“I didn’t want an inheritance. I wanted to build my own road,” Tag argued. “I told him I would pay it all back by the time I was thirty. Thirty ain’t gonna happen, Mo. So I needed to find a way to pay it back sooner.”
“The fight.”
“Yeah.” Tag nodded. “The fight. It just so happens I got offered a title fight that would pay me fifty Gs if I won. And I had absolutely nothing to lose.”
“And after the fight?”
“I was going to take a trip to Dallas, see my mom and my sisters and pay my dad back. I haven’t seen them in a while. Then . . . take a hike up into the hills above that overpass in Nephi.”
“The one where Molly was buried?”
“The one where Molly was buried,” he confirmed. “Hike up into the hills. Take a pill. Watch the sun-set as I went to sleep.”
“That’s it?” I asked, reining in my temper.
“That’s it,” he answered, with no temper at all.
I felt the rage surge in my chest and pop in my ears, but I kept my voice level. Apparently, he hadn’t thought he needed to say goodbye to me.
“So you left the tapes. Why?”
“It was my way of saying goodbye. I wanted Millie to know how I felt. Every step of the way. Falling in love with her. I never wanted her to have a reason to doubt me. I wanted her to know it was real, that is was perfect, that it was the best gift I’ve ever received.”
“And you repay her by taking that gift and tossing it?”