Tommy (Riordan) Conlon

It's not like his mom didn't try her best for the both of them. Tommy knows she works as hard as she has to, and he won't ever ask for anything if it means making her life any harder than it's already been. But lately he's been hearing things about money. About having no money. When his mom cries, he gets angry. He promised both of them, after they left Pop and Brendan, that he wouldn't let that happen again.

He's not the smartest kid around, and while he's got a decent physique thanks to years of wrestling and training hard to be a junior champion, nobody wants to give him a job on a construction site. They keep telling him he's too young and to go back to school.

Fuck school. It's a waste of his time. It's not helping him out, and it's not helping his mom either. It's a day he's skipping completely that he's approached at the gym he's working out at, asked about his age, whether he's any good in a fight. The answer is yes and from there it's a slippery slope into the world of under-age fighting in abandoned warehouses and derelict parking lots. People bet good money on this shit and as a prize fighter Tommy gets a cut. For his mother, Tommy will get beaten to a pulp if he has to. He's lucky he hasn't been hurt too bad yet, his skills and talent seeing him through, mostly.

This evening he's up against a kid he hasn't seen before, his trainers laughing at him because their difference in physique is almost alarming. Tommy has to work hard at this one, has to put any shred of humanity behind him because beating this kid to the floor seems like the wrong thing to do. He focuses on thinking about his mom, about her not crying...