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he won and that his opponent, now that he was down, wasn't going to come back up.
    After a minute, however, and after the two men had been separated by the frantic tugs of the referee, Lamar managed to do just that. He struggled back up to his feet, but he was definitely unsteady, and was bleeding from a cut on his lip. He looked as if all of the fight had gone out of him, as if he wanted nothing more than to find a soft couch or cushion somewhere and curl up to go to sleep.
    Rhodes hadn't escaped all of the hits either, I saw. The man's eye looked suspiciously puffy, and I suspected that it would soon swell up into a lovely purple shiner by the time he got back to his dressing room. But despite the blows he had taken, the big, muscular man looked exultant. He wore a wide grin as the referee stepped in once again to hoist his arm up in the air in victory.
    I blinked. Was the man grinning at me? As hard as it was to believe, his eyes were definitely focused down on me! And as I returned his gaze, he closed his undamaged eye slowly, and then reopened it.
    Okay, there was no way for me to mistake that as anything else. It was definitely a wink. Rhodes had just winked at me.
    All around Alexis and me, the crowd was still clapping - at least most of them were, I noticed. Several men wore fixed rictuses of smiles stretched across their faces while their eyes screamed, and I noticed that small ticket stubs were scattered across the floor. What was that about?
    Alexis caught my confused expression. "They're the losers, silly!" she giggled to me in between claps and whoops of support for the fighters in the ring in front of us.
    This didn't help much. "Losers?" I repeated in confusion.
    "Well, yes, of course! All of the folks here bet on these fights, you know. Sometimes quite a lot of money. They get very excited about winning, or really upset about losing."
    I just stared at her. People had been betting on this fight? I had thought it was just for entertainment!
    I commented as such, and Alexis let out another giggle. "Of course it's for entertainment!" she said, as if I was stating the obvious. "But these people bet on everything! And it is really fun to be with the winners after a match like this - they're willing to just throw away money on anything, now that they've won! I kind of do my own betting, trying to pick the people who pick the winners!"
    My face probably still looked utterly confused, but I didn't press Alexis for any further explanation. I knew that it would probably just leave me further in the dark. My best friend definitely understood the deep social waters in which she swam, but I was hopelessly lost at sea. The best I could do was just let her take the helm, try and hold on, and do my best to not get marooned behind or to fall overboard.

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    Instead of trying to talk to Alexis any longer, I turned my attention back to the boxing ring in front of me. It was now filled with people, crowds from both supporter's sides having rushed forward into the ring. Some of them bore towels, others bottles of water, clearly intended for the weary fighters. Others were holding ticket stubs aloft and were shouting. I saw several of them standing in a circle around the referee, all of them red-faced and yelling. Perhaps these were the losers who were convinced that the man had made a bad call on the fight.
    Despite their yelling, however, the referee clearly wasn't backing down. From the way he stood, it was obvious that this wasn't the first time he had been angrily confronted after a match. Instead of looking down or refusing to meet the eye of the yelling men, he stood toe to toe with them, shouting right back into their faces and gesticulating just as wildly. It almost looked as though he was conducting an orchestra of some sort, and it made me smile briefly at the thought of him in a tux and tails.
    Even with the boxing ring now crowded with people, however, it was easy to spot Rhodes. He still towered