The boxer is too old to be here. The boy is too young to know why he must.
            A radio vibrates on the table beneath the small white window letting in midday light. When it buzzes, the boy looks over and then back to the boxer's hands, embalming themselves in steady rhythms of tape. Then, he looks down at his own hands at the cut on his thumb from the other week while unpacking glasses from the sink. He can hear plate clatter now, his father's voice laughing with other voices he does not know, not any of the regulars. Someone is in the cellar, moving a keg.
            Again, the radio vibrates. While the boxer pays it no heed, the boy has little else to contribute, so he folds up a bar towel and slides it beneath, stopping the buzz.
            There is laughter from the bar area, a woman's voice, then a man's and another man's. The radio reads midday news, but the boy is listening through the thin wood panelling to the woman's voice. She is describing who she spent the previous night with.
            A series of loud thuds lands from outside the other side of the room as a truck pulls up and lets its motor idle. The boy doesn't want to get up again and prove that he can't sit still as the boxer does, at ease, like a surgeon wrapping a wound, passing a figure eight of tape between thumb loop and palm, seemingly without any interest in the world outside his fists. But then the boy does get up, against his best intentions, and peeks through the window.
            The fight organisers unload and arrange tyres in a circle on the gravel carpark beside the pub. A guy who can't be more than eighteen - the boy reckons this must be the champion the boxer here will be going up against - talks into a phone being held on a gimbal by someone wearing a jacket advertising the YouTube channel broadcasting the match, live streaming hype.
            When the woman's voice returns through the wall, the boy sits down. She says something like I'm telling you, it's him, he's in the fight today. No, the one in his forties, he stayed here last night, he's from over the mountain near the expressway. I tell you, we spent the night together, but not like that. There's something wrong with him.
            Music is turned on in the car park, low bass and rap treble. The boy pretends to be listening to the music, or the radio, but he waits for what the woman says next as he hears male voices egging her on, laughing and saying and, and, and.
            And the woman says Well, he just sort of sat there and looked at me. All night. You know me, I never have trouble with this sort of thing, but my god. It was like he did everything he wanted to do just by looking at me, and then went to sleep. I swear to god.
            Everyone is laughing now. The boy hears his own father's voice, and in his embarrassment, he lifts his eyes to look at the boxer, who has seemingly, thankfully, not registered any of it.
            On the radio, a voice discusses troop movements, airstrikes and the possibility of a ceasefire. There is a description of drones that spool fibre optic cables across a distant landscape.
            There is talk of satellite photos showing what is understood to be the scarred desert remains left by a tornado that travelled across a remote part of the outback some months ago, without anybody knowing at the time. The scar in the dirt is eleven kilometres long.
            Weather reports follow stock updates and racing odds.
            The boxer straps one knuckle pad down, flexes his hand, tapes back around the wrist, clenches the fist, and then turns to the other hand. He produces no sound, just a shifting of light.
            There is little for the boy to contribute here. It isn't his role to give a pep talk or distract the boxer. This man has already methodically arranged all the necessary resources in front of him - the resin, the gauze, the glass of untouched water. The boy can't help but wonder how the boxer will do out there. He wants to go and look out the window again at the others setting up, but his father's instructions were clear. Just be with the boxer.
            When he cut his thumb the other week, one of the regulars saw him tending to the wound afterwards and tried to make a joke. He asked if the boy got injured by scrapping with someone. The boy shook his head, and the regular looked him in the eyes and said I know it's fucked up to say it, but hurting people feels fucking awesome. Later that night, the boy saw a ute in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that read Unmedicated Veteran and wondered if it belonged to the regular, and then he felt bad for making such a connection.
            The boxer finishes strapping the other hand and reaches for his gloves as the boy asks what he thinks his chances are out there. Immediately, he regrets asking such a dumb question. He wonders why he can't sit still like the boxer and stop saying and doing dumb things.
            On the radio, a voice talks about a summit of world leaders.
            While the boy wonders if he should apologise for speaking or whether he should just pretend like he never said anything, the boxer, tightening the twin cords of his gloves, doesn't take his eyes from his task as he tells the boy, flatly, The only thing that matters is learning how to be the loser.
            Someone knocks on the door and asks if the boxer is ready.
            Following the boxer out through the pub and into the parking lot, the boy takes up his position with a towel and a bottle of water behind a pile of tyres marked with chalk. Almost a hundred people must be gathered around, half of them locals, while the others look to be part of a crew that follows these fights up from Sydney to the pasturelands. The champion takes off his shirt and does a backflip. He wears red and black striped gym shorts. The boxer's shorts are green satin with a star sewn on. Someone cuts the music, and a voice asks if it's time.
            The boy's father bangs the side of a keg with a spanner. Within seconds, the boxer has replaced the champion's body with his own. Any presence of blood and mind now only exists in relation to the apocalypse of gloves being pushed into the younger man's limp body. There is only bruise and collapse.
            It takes five men to hold the boxer back.