The Title Fight

All the back pages covered the news of Darius Deaddog Dunn's humiliation at the hands of his mother. He had been ten rounds into the biggest fight of his life when his mother had thrown the towel in for him. Not any towel either, the woman had thrown a white tea towel onto the canvas. This effectively stopped the title fight.

Darius and his team had a plan. Having watched Rowe's past fights, the man could only last ten rounds. He was so tired after the tenth round that he was dead on the canvas—a couple of punches after that, and he would be down. The challenging part was withstanding the first ten rounds at his hands. Darius and his team had a plan for that. The plan went well until his mother threw her tea towel onto the canvas.

Despite appealing, the match was declared a loss for Darius. Darius would never forgive his mother for this. She had cost him everything.

Marion Dunn sat at the dinner table surrounded by all the day's newspapers. There were pictures of her beautiful boy and stories of how she had humiliated him. She stifled another sob that threatened to escape from her. Her poor, sweet boy would never talk to her again.

It started by accident the carrying of the lucky tea towel. When Darius was 15, he had entered an amateur fight in Blackpool. While he was training, she went for a walk to buy some family souvenirs. That was when she purchased the tea towel. Darius had won that fight so quickly, not a scratch on him. She knew it was silly, but the tea towel had become a lucky omen. It had accompanied her to every fight. The lucky omen had stood until last night.

The fight was horrendous; right from the start, the other man had started on her beautiful son. Laying punch after punch onto his face, arms and chest. She was sure her little boy could take no more. She had waited for his team to do something, but they didn't. She had no choice; she knew she had to look after her boy. Thinking of nothing else, she threw the white tea towel onto the canvas and hoped the fight would stop.

Now Darius was mad with her and had refused to even look at her as he was taken away from the fight.

As the bulbs flashed around him, Darius stepped out of his new Range Rover. He was almost blind with the flashes. Many reporters shouted questions at him. Few he could understand with the voices all shouting together.

Bloody vultures, how dare they follow him about. How dare they station themselves outside his mother's right as he had come to confront her.

He was going to tell his mother that he could never forgive her. He would not be seeing her anymore. She had humiliated him and ruined his career. She would not be welcome at any of his fights. 

Let these vultures witness that he had nothing left to lose. Darius fought through the flashing bulbs up the path to the front door.

Knocking on the door, he took the damn tea towel out of his pocket. Looking down, Darius remembered when his mum had bought it during his first fight. He didn't know she had still kept the useless thing. He hated seeing it, the token that had ruined his title fight.

Bashing with his fist once again on the door, he felt the surge of energy from the vultures behind. They had seen the door start to open and reacted. Darius pushed his way into the house past his mother without speaking. He was fucked if the vultures were going to see him confront his mother. Pushing through to the kitchen, he turned to face his mother for the last time. 

The press was left outside, wondering what was going on. More than one wished they could see through walls at this point. What would they give to see what was going on in that house?

Had they been able to see, they would have seen Darius Deaddog Dunn melt at the sight of his mother's tear-streaked face. They would also have seen him take his mother in his arms and tell her it didn't matter.

His mum and that bloody tea towel had undone him twice in two days.