A Book of American Martyrs(167)
Feeling impatient with the stolid plain-faced girl but protective too thinking Keep your money. I don’t want your money. Just turn around and get out of here if you know what’s good for you.
“So—is it OK?”
“‘OK’—what?”
“You can give me lessons? Like to be a b-boxer?”
Her voice was so pleading, and the way she was breathing through her mouth like her life depended upon the next words a stranger might utter quick and glib like dealing out cards in a game in which he had nothing at stake and she had everything, how in hell could he say anything except—“Tell you what: come back tomorrow. There’s nobody got time for you tonight.”
Relief in her face, and a sudden smile that made her appear even younger, childlike with hope.
Muttering Thanks! and turning quick to leave before the stranger changed his mind.
“Wait. What’s your name?”
Mumbled what sounded like D.D. Dun-fie.
“‘D.D.’—? That’s a name?”
She laughed, blushing but pleased. “Yah. It is.”
HAMMER OF JESUS. That was her.
With Jesus’s help, that would be her.
She knew she was crude, clumsy. She knew she had much to learn. Her legs didn’t move her fast enough (yet) and her arms were short for a boxer so she’d be at a disadvantage with a longer-armed opponent. She would have to learn to take punches if she wanted to throw punches. (Which she was willing to do.) There are fights won when the stronger boxer has punched himself out on the body of his opponent like young George Foreman on the body of not-young Muhammad Ali (she’d seen on ESPN TV) and if that is a way of winning, D.D. Dunphy was eager for it.
Though she was strong she became winded quickly in the gym which was surprising to her—at work, at the Target unloading dock, D.D. Dunphy had the most stamina of anyone including the young guys.
D.D. was the one who didn’t bellyache. Didn’t complain even on freezing-cold days. Did her job and kept her mouth shut. Thinking her private thoughts while her co-workers kept up a steady stream of stupid chatter and nasty jokes of which some (she knew) were addressed to her—Just means I have to work hard at the gym. I will work hard.
She would make the name proud: Dunphy.
She would not call attention to herself for that reason, that she wished to honor her father Luther Amos Dunphy.
But, if she was questioned, if she was interviewed, on TV for instance, then she would say quietly—I am dedicating my boxing to my father Luther Amos Dunphy and to Jesus who is my Savior.
Many of the boxers she and Luke had seen on TV thanked Jesus for their victories. Many knelt in the ring to bow their heads in a quick prayer or to cross themselves if they were Catholic. The great heavyweight Evander Holyfield (who’d beat Mike Tyson in two fights for the heavyweight title) wore a baseball cap with the stitching JESUS IS LORD. George Foreman became a Christian minister. The female boxer D.D. admired most was the junior lightweight WBA champion Tanya Koznick (“The Wildcat”) who could not have been taller than five feet two inches and who fought like a wildcat in fact in defiance of safety and caution, overwhelming and intimidating her opponents with fierce flurries of blows. On the biceps of both arms Tanya Koznick brandished tattoos of the cross and she wore a small gold cross on a thin gold chain around her neck even in the boxing ring. She began TV interviews saying in a throaty broken voice she owed everything to Jesus and most of all she owed her life—Before Jesus my life was trash. Jesus lifted me up out of that trash.
Hearing these words D.D. Dunphy shuddered and felt faint as if Jesus had touched her on the forehead—lightly, with just His fingertips.
It was strange then, in the gym with D.D. Dunphy Jesus kept His distance. He did not (yet) approve. There were strong feelings against female boxers. She dreaded the day her Target co-workers found out how she was training at the downtown gym (which was mostly a black and Hispanic gym) and what her hopes were. She confided in no one of course. Not even the female supervisor who’d seemed to perceive (how?—D.D. had not told her) that here was a girl whose mother did not wish to lay eyes on her.
Edna Mae had evinced disgust saying it had to be the influence of Satan that young women would wish to box like men displaying their bodies to the most ignorant crowds and hitting one another in the face like savages for money. D.D. had not known how to refute her mother or any others at her mother’s church for some part of her did not disagree with these harsh words. But it was not true, as Edna Mae accused—she was not Satan’s daughter. She was hurt but she was angry also. She was often hurt, and she was often angry. She felt a kind of disgust and rage herself seeing on TV female boxers heavily made-up and in sexy tight clothes more like swimsuits than proper ring attire like the male boxers wore. For her fights D.D. Dunphy would wear black (like Mike Tyson had done)—black T-shirt over a sturdy sports bra, black shorts to just above the knee which was the length for men.
Soon it would be her time. The time of D.D. Dunphy –“The Hammer of Jesus.”
At work, at Target she was mesmerized by such thoughts. At the heavy bag, at the speed bag, doing her squats, lifting weights and doing push-ups, sit-ups, jumping rope she was mesmerized. Her lips parted, her breath came quickly. The voices of others were remote to her. The voices of others were like radio stations fading. Derisive and jeering male eyes she did not see. Crude remarks she did not hear. Ugly bitch, homely cunt somebody put a bag over her head willya?—she did not hear. What fascinated was The Hammer of Jesus in the ring in TV lights. The female boxer who was not herself but “D.D. Dunphy” in black T-shirt, black trunks. Tight-laced black shoes. Muscled shoulders and arms, muscled thighs, legs. Vaseline rubbed into her face. Mingling with the sweat-glisten. Her hair trimmed short and neatly shaved at the nape of her neck. Her hands tight-bound inside the handsome eight-ounce red gloves. Climbing into the ring and the TV lights blinding in a delirium of anticipation. Cheers and whistles of the crowd and there was the referee lifting her gloved hand in triumph declaring Winner by a knockout and new WBA Women’s Welterweight Champion of the World—D.D. Dunphy the Hammer of Jesus.