Day of the Gun

When I was seven years old, my father decided that he no longer wanted children. On a cloudy Seattle afternoon, he grabbed my two younger brothers and me by the collars of our shirts and hauled us into the living room. After lining us up in a little row by the fireplace, he stumbled into the kitchen to fetch his shotgun.

Dustin, Abel, and I knew what our father was planning to do, even though he hadn't spoken a word. Hearing him clatter through the broom closet in search of his misplaced weapon, I felt energy dancing in my fingertips and groin. This was the end of my life, the end of this pathetic excuse for a family. In just a few moments, there would be no more pain.

Never again would I have to listen to the man who called himself my father grunt and groan as he beat on my mother with his fists and feet in the middle of the night. Never again would I piss my pants when I came home from school and saw his car parked in the driveway. I wouldn't have to listen to his drunken speeches anymore, or feel his knuckles tear into me, creating wounds so deep they pulled me screaming from my dreams. The fear that inhabited every chamber of my mind was finally going to be silenced by its creator.

When my father stormed back into the living room, his eyes burned with a fury that I have not seen since, not in all the battles I've waged against opponents who tried to beat me within an inch of my life. He uttered not a single apology or explanation for the sin he was about to commit. He simply said, "I'm going to execute you all," with a coldness that can only come from a man too afraid to venture inside his own tortured soul.

Because I was the eldest, the one who always ran to defend our mother, he crammed the barrel into my mouth first. As urine soaked my jeans, I stared down the length of steel into my father's haggard face. What I would remember more clearly than my brothers' soft weeping or my mother's hysterical pleas was the reek of my father's breath. It stank of liquor and anger and failed dreams.

The father-son showdown seemed to last for hours. Although my eyes were as wide as the barrel pressing against the back of my throat, I tried not to focus on his callused finger slowly tightening on the trigger. I looked straight ahead, into his squinty eyes, and as I watched his fear of life contort his face and raise the veins in his neck, I knew he was attempting to summon one final ounce of drunken courage to get rid of his last responsibilities. I could feel the conflict that raged inside him radiating from his pores. He craved freedom from being a man—freedom from all things that could cause him to fail. All he really wanted to do was crawl into a hole in the ground and die, a bottle in his hand.

But my father proved to be a failure even at taking the lives of his boys. Perhaps he found a shred of love that hadn't been crushed out of him by his own violent father or destroyed through years of pissing away his talent as a jockey. Perhaps he saw a little bit of himself in me and remembered how free he'd felt as a child. But, looking back on that afternoon, I think that my father was just too afraid to finish something he'd started. When I close my eyes and recall the loathing on his face, I have no doubt that he simply wanted us gone, lying on the carpet with the color draining from our bodies. He just couldn't finish what he'd started, and back then it made me hate him even more.

"You aren't worth the bullets," he eventually said. Then he slowly pulled the barrel from my mouth. Out of that whole chaotic afternoon, those words were the one thing I never forget, even in my happiest moments. I, Jens Pulver, just wasn't worth the bullets.

A rusty taste lingering on my tongue, I watched my father turn away from us and head for the backyard, mumbling that he was going to kill himself. My mother, who died a million deaths that day, pulled us to the floor, and there we huddled, listening for the blast that would end the terror. But although I wanted him gone, I did not wish him dead. He was still my father—the man who built up kingdoms then smashed them down with a swipe of his hand. In my small world, I still thought he had the right.

Waiting for the gunshot that would end the unbearable silence and my father's reign of terror was somehow more horrifying than waiting for him to put a bullet in my own skull. Even though I so young, I sensed that once he was out of our lives for good the true horror of what I'd been living though would set in. All the energy I'd harnessed for survival would be redirected into healing. I would have to look inside myself for the first time, and, scarred by years of abuse, I was afraid of what I might see.

When the shot finally rang out, it sounded like two trains colliding. It sounded like thunder. My mother's arms tightened around Dustin, Abel, and me, and she pulled our heads together until they were touching. At that moment, I was too exhausted to think about what this meant. I was too numb to contemplate our next move. For years I had been floundering in a stormy sea, and now the sea was suddenly calm. And although there were even darker clouds brewing on the horizon, I didn't attempt to swim to shore. If it had been up to me, I would have stayed on the living room floor for an eternity, curled up in my mother's arms.

But my father ruined that plan, just as he ruined everything else. Ten minutes after that liberating shot echoed through the house, I heard his boots scuffing across the kitchen floor. For a moment I thought it was just my mind refusing to accept that he was dead, but then I felt my mother trembling, and I knew that she'd heard him too.

When his swaying silhouette appeared before us, my eyes ran up and down his body, searching for a hole, a trail of blood. But he was as intact as ever, the same drunk father I had always known. And now he was even more furious than he'd been when he lined me and my brothers up in front of the fireplace. He was pissed because we hadn't gone out and checked on him, and he vented his anger on my mother the only way he knew how.

That's just how things were. My brothers and I grew up in a home where every day was a battle. We tasted fear every morning, afternoon, and night. We became so used to it that it became an addiction, and its influence was stronger than any drug sold on the streets.

Fear taught me how to fight with my fists. Fear taught me how to take charge and get what I wanted by whatever means necessary. Fear put me on the path to becoming a world-champion athlete, to proving wrong all those people who said I wouldn't amount to anything. And this path—which led me to become one of the most feared pound-for-pound cage fighters in the world—eventually enabled me to put childhood demons to rest and find inner peace.

But, as you will see, it was a long path to travel.

The Backside

Let me go...