28 Knockout
TWENTY-EIGHT
Knockout
I was worried about Jansen. In fact, I had been for a few months.
He was almost seventeen years old, about to start his senior year at a fancy private school in LA.
While he’d always been a happy kid, sometimes a darkness overcame him.
At first, I chalked it up to teenage angst and the pressure of Mom and Dad’s endless divorce, which was now in its fourth year of legal wrangling and showed no signs of slowing down.
Or it could have been his school, which was not the best fit for a creative soul like Jansen.
But when I asked him if he was okay, Jansen insisted he wasn’t depressed. He was just upset with me.
“You’re not doing enough to help me succeed in Hollywood,” he said. “You’ve got this great career, and I’m just some high school kid.”
I was shocked. Jansen was constantly auditioning and landing great parts, from Nickelodeon films to voice work to a role in the ensemble cast of a Lionsgate film called The Perfect Game.
The movie centered on a Mexican boys’ baseball team that became the first non-American team to win the Little League World Series in 1957, and Jansen nailed everything about his part, especially the accent.
Trust me, accents aren’t easy, but Jansen made it look like it was.
“Jansen, that makes no sense,” I protested. “You’re so talented.”
“If only that were enough,” he said. “I should be more famous. You should be making me more famous.”
I shook my head. Jansen’s mind was so rich and fascinating it was almost otherworldly, and when he put that big brain of his toward something, he made it happen. Yet he believed that I was the person who held the keys to his success?
“Here’s what I think,” I said to Jansen.
“Doesn’t it feel good to get roles because of your talent rather than because your sister is famous?
Because that’s what you’ve done. You are where you are because you crushed every audition and every part.
I want you to succeed on your own merits rather than to take the easy way out.
And the easy way involves me pulling favors for you, which I’m not even sure I can do. ”
Jansen wasn’t having it. “So, you’re saying other actors don’t help their siblings out?”
I shook my head again. I was friends with several actors who were siblings, and I can promise you most of them were equally talented as each other.
“I have no idea,” I answered. “But I don’t care how many names you throw at me.
If you don’t nail an audition, or if you don’t have what it takes, there is nothing in the world you can do to become famous.
It’s not going to happen.” Then I paused.
“And you, Jansen, have what it takes—if that’s what you want. ”
Jansen looked down, and I could see the darkness returning.
Then I realized something. This conversation wasn’t about acting or how I could help Jansen advance in Hollywood.
It was about being famous. Jansen wanted to be a celebrity, like I was, because that’s how I got attention.
Jansen associated fame with love, and if he got adoration from strangers, he believed he could be happy and successful in life.
In fact, I was pretty sure he thought it was the only way to achieve true, lasting peace of mind.
“Do you just want to be famous?” I asked him, half afraid of what his answer would be. “Are you jealous of me because I am?”
Jansen shrugged, and I knew what his answer was. I looked down and felt my stomach turn, finally knowing the truth. My baby brother was trying to be an actor for all the wrong reasons. That was a surefire recipe for unhappiness.
I called Dad and told him my concerns right away.
“I don’t think Jansen’s heading down a good path,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Dad asked. Dad had such a huge soft spot for Jansen that I was sometimes convinced he was his favorite child. In fact, Dad had once mentioned to a friend that he’d gladly take one me and ten Jansens. I didn’t take it personally. Jansen was a sweetheart, and I was tough.
“I just don’t know what’s going to happen to him after high school. He needs focus and discipline. Part of me thinks you and Mom need to put him in military school now, when you still have say over him. He needs it.”
Dad laughed, but I could tell he took me seriously deep down. Jansen was a sensitive, gentle soul, and that made all of us protective of him.
I decided to change the subject. “Just think about it. But in the meantime, do you want to go to Frankfurt to watch Wlad fight? Jansen can come, too.” Wlad had been training all summer for a fight against a Nigerian boxer named Samuel Peter, and it was set to take place on September 11, 2010.
If he won, he’d hold on to his heavyweight title.
This also marked the first time Wlad had asked me to sit in the front row in what was dubbed the Golden Circle.
He had a superstition that if I was too close to the ring, he’d be so distracted he’d lose, so he’d first seated me in a box, then later the second row.
Sitting in the front row was the boxing equivalent of a sorority girl getting to wear her man’s fraternity pin.
“A trip to Germany with my kids?” Dad said. “I’m in.”
In my mind, a little time away would do both Dad and Jansen a world of good.
Dad had decided to stop being a golf pro because golf pros are a dime a dozen in LA, so he didn’t have enough to keep him busy.
With Mom still living in my condo, he was living alone in an apartment close to Jansen’s school, and all his best friends were back in New York.
As for Jansen, I wasn’t sure what was in the cards for him after high school.
His grades were fine, but I didn’t get the sense that four more years of studying and tests was what he wanted.
And after our conversation, I knew acting was fraught with peril.
What I hadn’t admitted to Dad was that this trip to Germany was as much for me as it was for Dad and Jansen.
While Wlad was training in Germany all summer, I’d been in Michigan filming Scream 4.
Wlad was like a horse with blinders on when he trained for a big fight, and—except for my party—there hadn’t been much space for me.
Even though I’d flown to Germany as often as I could, our time together hadn’t been what I hoped.
There were too many people around Wlad speaking a language I didn’t understand and too many dinners where I felt invisible.
At those dinners, wine became my best friend.
And, as Vitali had said, there’s nothing Ukrainian men dislike more than a drunk woman.
Boxing is warfare on a micro scale, and every time I attended one of Wlad’s matches I was reminded that, sometimes, humans don’t act like they’ve evolved past the days of the gladiators.
When you’re sitting ringside, the lights are blinding and the room echoes with the squeak of shoes, the collision of flesh and muscle, and unrelenting screams from all sides.
The spectacle entranced me, but it also sent my nervous system into overdrive.
Even in the best seat in the house, I was surrounded by people screaming obscenities about the man I loved, cheering for more blood and willing the other fighter to hit him so hard his brains would come out of his ears.
I loved that Wlad enjoyed what he did, but the energy in the arena was worse than a room full of paparazzi.
“Are you prepared to stop me from fighting with that rowdy asshole behind me?” I asked Jansen.
“You mean the one who just screamed ‘Kill Wlad’?” he joked. “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”
Wlad took a hard hit to his head in the first round, then fought back with a massive right-hand blow late in that same round.
Wlad was typically a defensive fighter, but he started to go on offense, with hard hits that left Peter reeling.
Almost every time his opponent got close, Wlad was able to stop him.
Dad and Jansen were in heaven. When people weren’t talking shit about Wlad, I was too. After all we’d been through as a family, letting them into this new world of mine was a gift.
In the tenth round Wlad landed an uppercut, then a left hook. Samuel Peter went down, and the referee called the match. It was lights out for Peter and a huge win for Wlad. He would remain the heavyweight champion of the world.
“He did it!” I screamed as I jumped up and down, then turned to Dad and hugged him. Jansen had a look on his face like he’d just watched a spaceship full of aliens land in front of him, so after I let go of Dad I punched Jansen on the arm.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Don’t do that.”
“Just wanted to make sure you were still conscious,” I answered. Then I looked right at him. “Thank you for being here. It means everything to me.”
Jansen smiled. To me, there was nothing better than seeing my little brother happy.
After Wlad cleaned up, formally accepted his belt, and spoke to the press, he walked down the steps and out of the ring, and I greeted him.
As I looked up at him, beaming, to give him a kiss, I noticed there was still a reporter standing near him, anxious to get a few questions in.
I stepped back to let him make his move, but Wlad pulled me close.
“Just wait, please. I only take orders from one person,” he answered. “She is my tiny terror.”
Then he leaned down to kiss me, and I felt—for the first time in months—like we might just make it as a couple. I was officially part of Wlad’s inner circle, and now Dad and Jansen were, too.