A Book of American Martyrs(179)

“Here. Look here”—Mickey was pointing at tattoo designs displayed on the wall.

On D.D. Dunphy’s right bicep there came to be tattooed a cross made of crimson roses, four inches in length. On her left bicep, a matching cross of white lilies.

On her back, close beneath her neck, in an ornamental black font, were tattooed the words JESUS IS LORD.

It was an enormous undertaking! Hours were required.

Mickey had gone away, and returned with Cokes and cheeseburgers. D.D. was determined not to wince with pain as the needle pricked, poked, jabbed into her skin, like something alive that was eating her.

“Oh God, D.D. Those are fucking beautiful.”

In the mirror D.D. stared at herself. On each of her bare upper arms, a cross. On her back, below her neck, JESUS IS LORD. She’d expected to feel a rush of shame but it was another kind of rush she was feeling.


CRUDE AND CLUMSY but she had heart. That, D.D. Dunphy had.

In a boxer the heart is the last thing to go. Just before his life.

First, they lose heart. Then, they lose their lives.


“THANK YOU, JESUS.”

Within the year she was rising within the women’s welterweight division. D.D. Dunphy ranked at number thirteen, then number ten, then number eight . . . The second match was with a Canadian girl, a former super lightweight boxer from Nova Scotia, moving up now to welterweight, beautifully precise, poised, very fast on her feet, yet like Lorina Starr confounded by Dunphy’s aggressive ring style—Push forward. Get inside. Use your strength. Keep in focus. Hurt her.

The Canadian girl was named Cameron Krist. She had an American trainer now, an American manager and promoter. She’d had six professional bouts in the States and had won each by a decision. She wore white satin trunks with red trim, a white top with a red maple leaf embossed on front and back. Her pale hair was tight-braided. Her skin was unlined, smooth. She had the poise of an athlete who is confident that she cannot be hit, she is too fast on her feet, and too smart.

A tall graceful bird confronted by a short graceless shrike-bird on the attack.

The Hammer was not cautious. The Hammer rushed forward as if blindly.

The Hammer wore silky black trunks, black T-shirt. Black shoes. On the Hammer’s biceps, vivid tattoos: a cross festooned with white lilies, and a cross festooned with red roses. On her back just beneath her neck the words JESUS IS LORD.

It had been obvious as soon as the girl-boxers climbed into the ring: the one in the white trunks trimmed with red was the sexually attractive female, the one in the black trunks was the unattractive female. Yet, the excited interest of the (mostly male) spectators leapt to the boxer in the black trunks as she began to batter her opponent and render her hapless, helpless as a girl.

Because you become a man, battering the other. That is what “man” is—battering the other into submission.

Krist’s unblemished unlined face was bloodied. Both her eyes would be blackened. A flash of slick red appeared in her nostrils. An inch-long cut in her eyebrow leaked blood. The referee peered at her frowning but did not stop the fight. When Krist tried again to clinch he roughly separated the boxers.

“Break! Step back.”

There came isolated cries as the Hammer rushed in for the kill with powerful blows like the sweep of a scythe.

Remembering Mike Tyson—I like to hit the nose, shove the nose-bone back into the brain.

Krist was down, tangled in her own feet. Krist lay facedown, and would not get up for some minutes.

This time, D.D. Dunphy was not so confused. On her steady strong unhurried legs she went to a neutral corner and awaited the count.

Suffused with adrenaline, her heart pumped in joy, exhilaration. The fight was stopped. Her trainer was in the ring stepping toward her rapidly.

His embrace, and a jubilant murmur in her ear—Great work. Even better than the first.

The referee was congratulating her. She had not fully looked at him until now—a middle-aged black man, sharp-eyed. The way this man was looking at her.

Her mouthpiece soaked with saliva was removed. Her arm that had not yet begun to ache was being lifted aloft. The boxing glove smeared with her opponent’s blood was lifted aloft. Though D.D. Dunphy understood that she had won the fight the enormity of the victory had not yet fully sunk into her consciousness like cotton batting absorbing moisture and so she glanced about the arena blinking and moist-eyed as if seeking amid the faces contorted with cheering a face that was familiar to her.

Winner by knockout—one minute fifty-five seconds of the first round—D.D. Dunphy—“Hammer of Jesus.”


“SHE’S A KILLER. Christ, she scares me!”

But it was a delicious sort of scare. The Hammer felt it like a cat shivering as it is being stroked.


SHE WAS IN THE GYM every day. She loved the gym. On the front wall by the counter was a clipping from the Dayton News with a photograph of “D.D. Dunphy—‘Hammer of Jesus””—above a single-paragraph article with the headline Ohio Woman Welterweight, 21, Scores Upset Win Over Canadian Star.

Had it been an “upset win”?—D.D. had not realized.

She was reasonably certain that Cameron Krist had not been a “star.”

She still worked part-time at Target. She had received $1,200 for her second fight but there were considerable expenses now and so she had not been able to send more than five hundred dollars to Edna Mae.