Free Iceman by Chuck Liddell Page B

with a mutual acquaintance sharing a ride to the fair. But after a few weeks, I became interested. I wasn’t thinking, oh, man, she’s seventeen and I’m twenty-five and this is a bad idea. I definitely did not think about the ribbing I would take from my mom, sister, brothers, and friends if I started dating a teenager. One night, I was supposed to go back to SLO after the fair because I had a date. Next thing I knew I had blown the date off and was spending two hours sitting in a car talking to Casey.

    All dolled up for the prom.
    Honestly, she thought I was a little nuts. I told her about growing up with my grandfather, about my mom, about getting in fights as a kid, about high school football and college wrestling and about training and kickboxing. I wasn’t thinking, why am I opening up to this kid? But she was definitely wondering, why is this twenty-five-year-old talking to me so much and telling me all this? Of course, the one thing I didn’t do that night was ask her for her number. I still don’t know why. Instead I asked my buddy’s girlfriend.
    Soon after that, we were dating. Or at least trying to. Her parents weren’t high on the idea. She was a nice girl living a conservative life in San Luis Obispo, and I was some Mohawk-wearing thug whom they saw as corrupting their daughter. One night her dad sat me down and said, “I don’t like you dating my daughter, but I’m not about to threaten you. So just be nice.” And I was. Half the time we got together we wound up watching movies with her parents in their house. Other times I’d drive my blue Ford Ranger—on the days it was actually working—to the school, pick her up when she got out for lunch, and we’d cruise around together or find a place to eat. Once I even surprised her with a romantic picnic. Because, really, you’re never too tough to show the ladies your sensitive side.
    We started dating in August of 1995 and were still together as she neared the end of her senior year. Her prom was approaching fast. Now, I had been getting made fun of because I was robbing the cradle for most of the year. And I had been able to handle it. But when Casey asked me to go to her prom, and I said yes, it took on a whole new dimension. My mom was particularly brutal, telling me, “Well, Charlie, I hope this is the last senior prom you’re planning on going to.”
    If I was going to go, I was going to embrace it. I even decided to grow out my hair on the sides and fill out my Mohawk. Then Casey saw what was happening and made me shave it down again. That night we took a horse-drawn carriage down the main drag in town that went past all the bars. I worked at a place called the Library with my brother Dan. And when the horse pulled Casey and me past it, we saw a sign that read CHUCK’S NOT WORKING TONIGHT, HE’S GOING TO THE PROM . Standing beneath it were my friends, the people I worked with, and Dan, who were waving at us. It was hysterical.
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    HOW TO IMPRESS YOUR GIRLFRIEND WITH YOUR SENSITIVE SIDE:
    Be nice, be a good person, remember things like birthdays and anniversaries, little things that she is talking about that make it look as if you are paying attention—or I should say show that you are paying attention. Bottom line is, as my daughter says, I’m not always very sensitive.
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    I thought I could marry Casey. I even told her so. But at that moment in my life I wanted to commit to fighting even more. I didn’t have the time or the energy to focus on a serious relationship. So we broke up that August, after a year of dating, as she was getting ready to go to junior college. But we stayed friends, and every so often I’d see her around town. One night I had a kickboxing match in Arroyo Grande, a town just a few miles from San Luis Obispo. For most of that fall we were on and off, dating each other, getting together as friends, never as serious as we were before,