A Book of American Martyrs(171)

What she knew of the female sparring partner was that her name was Mickey Burd and she’d been in training with Ernie Beecher intermittently over the past several years. She had a job in the Dayton General Hospital cafeteria. She’d had to take time off from training to support her family—(her mother had died a few months ago). Maybe she was married, or separated. Maybe she had children. Her only evident skill in the ring was a rapid nervous jab. Her punches were weak, tentative. Her hardest punch was a left hook to the upper chest D.D. Dunphy scarcely felt. But she had a devious way of backing up, laterally, unpredictably, like one skidding on ice, so that D.D. could not catch her.

And when she did, her punches flew wild, or struck glancingly as Burd jerked away.

They fell into clinches, panting. Burd’s arms grasped at D.D.’s broad shoulders like the arms of a drowning woman. She knew, if D.D. broke loose to hit her, she could not protect herself.

“Break. Move.”

Ernie was losing patience. “Break. I said.”

Yet D.D. could not bring herself to shove Burd away. She was much stronger, she was much the superior boxer—that was clear. Yet she was overwhelmed, helpless. She had had no experience with clinching. The closeness of the other girl was annihilating to her. The embrace of the other, the hot slick wetness of the other’s skin, the smell of the straw-hair, the breath in her face—she stood paralyzed.

“C’mon, girl! Use that right.”

She tried but she could not. Her right arm was so heavy. She could not bear to see the other’s face, smudged-white skin like her own.

In disgust Ernie halted the session after three rounds—nine arduous minutes. D.D. Dunphy was swaying on her feet. Her black T-shirt and shorts clung to her body soaked with sweat. Her very scalp tingled with sweat. Her breath came in gasps. Her face stung from the other boxer’s quick nervous jabs, mottled red, a trickle of red leaking from her nostrils. Her brain was dazed as Ernie spoke sharply to her.

Had to escape. Climbing out of the ring stumbling. Dripping blood. Trail of blood from the ring to the rear of the gym, to the women’s cramped dank locker room, lavatory and single shower with concrete walls, narrow grimy horizontal window like a cellar window at a height of six feet. The other hurried after her—“Hey. D.D.”—sweat-faced and out of breath too but splashing cold water into the sink, to soak paper towels to wipe D.D.’s smarting face.

“Hey. Don’t feel bad. You did OK. It’s like I always do, or try to—can’t hit worth shit so I stay away or clinch. Ernie pushes too hard sometimes. OK?”

Stayed away from the gym for two days. Three days.

(Would he call her? No.)

(She knew he would not, and he did not.)

When she returned he made no comment. It was as if she had not been away or if she’d been away, if she had crawled away to die, it had not mattered to anyone.

And so she was resolved to please him, even if she hated him. She would throw herself harder into the training routine that had come to be a comfort to her even as it was an agony to her. Fast bag, heavy bag, squats, weight-lift, mat exercises, fifteen minutes jump rope. Practicing punches: jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Left jab, right cross, left hook, right uppercut. She would impress him though he would give no sign. The harsh words he’d spoken to her were fraught between them like a faint, sickening odor that would fade but slowly.

She was less shy now. Months had passed, she was beginning to be known in the gym. She wished to think—They are beginning to see how I belong here, too.

She avoided the other females who came into the gym after work for an hour or less at the machines openly eyeing themselves in the wall mirror preening in Spandex tops and tights, run-walking on the treadmill in expensive pink ladies’ running shoes, bright made-up faces and glossy fingernails like claws. She saw how their mascara eyes cut at her, cold and bemused, or pitying—dismissing her in a glance.

Go to hell. Fuck you. Fuck you I’d want to be you.

It was not D.D. Dunphy who uttered such harsh words, but another. Hoping that Jesus did not hear.

She was waiting for Mickey Burd to return. The straw-color hair with brunette roots, the quick tease of a smile—“Hey. You OK?”—but Mickey did not return. She would not inquire after Mickey.

She might have gone to the young woman’s house to knock at the door. She knew that Mickey Burd lived close by on a street called Barrister. But she would not inquire after Mickey, her pride would not allow this.

Nor did Ernie speak of Mickey Burd to her. The humiliating session in the ring, both were determined to forget.

Lingered in the gym to watch boxers sparring in the ring. Remarkable young black boxers in their twenties, lightweights. She despaired, she could never be so fast on her feet, or so skillful. Their punches were not hard enough to inflict serious damage though hard enough to open cuts on an unprotected face.

She became fascinated by a light heavyweight named Rodriguez, the gym’s star boxer. He had once been Ernie Beecher’s boxer but now he worked with another, younger trainer who was a protégé of Ernie’s, under his guidance.

If he was in the prime of his career, or just past his prime, it did not matter to her. In the gym, sparring with other, younger boxers Hector Rodriguez was capable of flurries of powerful boxing. He reminded her of certain of the old-style boxers she’d been seeing on Ernie’s videos—Graziano, LaMotta. His ring style was a minimum of wariness and caution alternating with sheer aggression. He had a strong short left hook that was impressive. He seemed angry when unleashing his most powerful blows as if the sparring partner were an opponent who stood between him and a sizable purse. And the hurt and fury in his eyes, D.D. Dunphy perceived with a thrill of excitement.