Fezzik had never been more miserable. He was scared and frightened and terrified, all rolled into one. No matter how they reassured him, he refused to enter the arena. Because he knew something: even though outside he looked twenty, and his mustache was already coming along nicely, inside he was still this nine-year-old who liked rhyming things.
“No,” he said. “I won’t, I won’t, and you can’t make me.”
“After all we’ve slaved for these three years,” his father said. (His jaw was almost as good as new now.)
“He’ll hurt me!” Fezzik said.
“Life is pain,” his mother said. “Anybody that says different is selling something.”
“Please. I’m not ready. I forget the holds. I’m not graceful and I fall down a lot. It’s true.”
It was. Their only real fear was, were they rushing him? “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” Fezzik’s mother said.
“Get going, Fezzik,” his father said.
Fezzik stood his ground.
“Listen, we’re not going to threaten you,” Fezzik’s parents said, more or less together. “We all care for each other too much to pull any of that stuff. If you don’t want to fight, nobody’s going to force you. We’ll just leave you alone forever.” (Fezzik’s picture of hell was being alone forever. He had told them that when he was five.)
They marched into the arena then to face the champion of Sandiki.
Who had been champion for eleven years, since he was twenty-four. He was very graceful and wide and stood six feet in height, only half a foot less than Fezzik.
Fezzik didn’t stand a chance.
He was too clumsy; he kept falling down or getting his holds on backward so they weren’t holds at all. The champion of Sandiki toyed with him. Fezzik kept getting thrown down or falling down or tumbling down or stumbling down. He always got up and tried again, but the champion of Sandiki was much too fast for him, and too clever, and much, much too experienced. The crowd laughed and ate baklava and enjoyed the whole spectacle.
Until Fezzik got his arms around the champion of Sandiki.
The crowd grew very quiet then.
Fezzik lifted him up.
No noise.
Fezzik squeezed.
And squeezed.
“That’s enough now,” Fezzik’s father said.
Fezzik laid the other man down. “Thank you,” he said. “You are a wonderful fighter and I was lucky.”
The ex-champion of Sandiki kind of grunted.
“Raise your hands, you’re the winner,” his mother reminded.
Fezzik stood there in the middle of the ring with his hands raised.
“Booooo,” said the crowd.
“Animal.”
“Ape!”
“Go-rilla”
“BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
They did not linger long in Sandiki. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t very safe from then on to linger long anywhere. They fought the champion of Ispir. “BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” The champion of Simal. “BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” They fought in Bolu. They fought in Zile.
“BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“I don’t care what anybody says,” Fezzik’s mother told him one winter afternoon. “You’re my son and you’re wonderful.” It was gray and dark and they were hotfooting it out of Constantinople just as fast as they could because Fezzik had just demolished their champion before most of the crowd was even seated.
“I’m not wonderful,” Fezzik said. “They’re right to insult me. I’m too big. Whenever I fight, it looks like I’m picking on somebody.”
“Maybe,” Fezzik’s father began a little hesitantly; “maybe, Fezzik, if you’d just possibly kind of sort of lose a few fights, they might not yell at us so much.”