3.27.05
Wendy is screaming in my ear. Indistinct at first, but louder with each passing moment. I swat blindly from my blanket, hoping that a quick slap might keep her quiet for a few minutes, but I can't reach a thing. Wendy's getting more and more adament. Some mess about rain this afternoon. That means it has to be six thirty. Wendy's weather segment is always on when my alarm goes off.
Pitching myself over and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I find the elusive switch on the alarm and quiet Wendy's forecast. Doesn't really matter if it rains today or not; just tells me whether or not I have to put on a poncho for my run today. Kicking my feet over the edge of the bed my back reminds me how much it hates five miles of concrete banging against my heels through the slim leather excuses for shoes I have. The aspirin usually lasts through the morning when my bedtime handful is big enough. But I ran out last night, and today I'll be paying for it.
The super still hasn't fixed my drafty window, but I've only been bugging him about it for the past three months. I'll need to bug him all summer if I expect to be warm for this winter. His wife comes back in a few weeks. Maybe something will get done if I can talk to her.
Slowly fighting my back muscles into locomotion, I manage to get to my feet. I could steal a shower now, but it's kind of moot when I've got an hours worth of running ahead of me. It would be nice to have a warm shower for once, before Mr. Gavern next door takes his thirty minute shower before work. The entire building has spoken with both Gavern and the super about his water consumption. But Gavern pays his rent on time and never has to beg for a few more days, so the super always takes his side.
My wrist feels a little better today, but it's still sore whenever I try to rotate it. I begin to wrap my right hand in tape in the hopes that the joints and muscles will be warm before I force wrist into my gloves at training this afternoon. The adhesive burns a little against the scab where my middle knuckle used to be. That ugly wound probably won't ever heal right. Never gets taken care of, used to punch every day, rarely cleaned, and only with soap and water when it is. I wish I had a computer so I could check on the symptoms of gangrine.
Melanie called last night again. Checking up on her little brother, asking if my purses are getting big enough to warrant a trip down south to visit her. I'm still waiting for the day when I see my little brother Deke announced for a big pay-per-view!. Fake optimism, fake enthusiasm She's really waiting for the day when I show up at my parents' door again, head hung low, failure looming over my head like so many thunderclouds.
Never again. I swore up and down; I'd rather be on the streets, peddling for random change than back at that place again. And where else would I go with no high school education? McDonalds? No thanks, I can't ordering from, much less working with, foreigners who don't speak English.
It's not like I couldn't walk into any office building and start working after a few days learning the ropes. Well okay, maybe not any office building; taken a few too many hard right hands to the head, losing some of my capacity. But I'm not sucking the bottom of the intelligence barrel either.
The rain's cold even through the poncho. Up and down my forearms as I jab and weave against imaginary opponents. The rhythm of the wind in my ears, my shoes slapping the wet pavement in cadence. Every block is a round, every stoplight is my break. Emotions battling against one another, the cutman coming in every intersection and rebuilding my mental body from the hamburger mess of the previous block.
Twenty-seven blocks from home, I pass by Carlito's stand. A dollar for a bottle of water and today's paper, free for a loyal customer. I catch a break with the weather and sit on a nearby bench, looking straight across at Lenny's Iron Foundry, the gym where I got my first fight. More my home than any other place in this slum. The first three sections are useless to me, so I gladly hand them off to some blue collar stiff at the bus stop next to me. The sports section is my grail. My future resume for all to read. D3, left hand column. Local records. Donald Deke Collins: 12 2 1 w/ 9 KOs.
I smile and think of Friday. First as an abstract date on a calendar. Then with a nice 13 2 below it in big, red marker. That is what makes my day. That is what brings me out of bed every morning.
I pull the hood up over my head and jog across to Lenny's, eager to start my workout.
The canvas burns my back like so many lemons against numerous cuts. I can't feel my jaw but that's probably a good thing. My head is slacked to my left shoulder and I can see one of my teeth on the gray mat. A molar. No, incisor. Maybe it's one of those other teeth, what do you call it. Fairy teeth. Or something, can't think straight, but oh well, the tooth is only worth a quarter. The lights against my head are clicking on sequentially. One. Two. Three. My arms are like spaghetti; or silly putty. Yeah, silly putty like when you pull the ends too far apart and it droops in the middle. Four. Five. Six. My face feels like ground beef. My right eye is swelled shut and I think I bit a hole in my cheek. I finally know how the kid I sent to the hospital felt. Seven. Eight. Nine. Whoop, nine lights. I should really get around to getting up. Oh Christ! My legs feel like I've never walked in my life. Something between my brain and my legs is misfiring. That can't be good. Ten. Thank God. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to be knocked out.
Five days in the hospital is a new record for me. New record for the state although no one really tracks these things. My trainer Dave says nobody outside of those Ultimate Fight and MMA guys spends that long in the hospital for fighting. "A true testament to just how much you left in that ring," he says. "Your heart, your soul, your honor." My teeth. Dave's the only person who has visited me in the hospital. No family, no friends. My opponent sent flowers. My father sent a check to cover the hospital bill that neither I nor the league could have afforded. Four ounces of blood drained from around my eye so I can see again. Slight repair work done to my jaw line. Lots and lots of painkillers. It all adds up to way too much money. I guess that's the definition of love; hospital bills for your son who has to box because he's too fucking dumb to get a real job.
Five days in the hospital, a week home recuperating and now I'm back at the gym, four days away from a fight. Dave offered to put another fighter onto the card, but I know he really doesn't want to. I'm the best boxer he has. Replacing me with someone else would cost him too much in revenue. And if he were to give that show to another gym, he's lose out entirely. No, he needs me in that ring, almost as much as I need to be in that ring. I don't belong anywhere else. My "rest" time at home was much more stressful than this; pacing the floor, counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Dave would let me back in the gym. Watching trashy basic cable is more punishing than a punch to the ear. No, this is where I need to be. Burning energy, jumping rope, working the speed bag, shadowboxing, sparring; working away the pain, the frustration, the loneliness, the anger.
Dave finishes my first day back by showing me a video of my bout. It's almost too brutal to watch myself getting pummeled for twenty-four long minutes; too far removed from the pain and adrenaline. There's the missed left guard in round two. The whiffed right hook that let him counter with a five (five!) punch combo right before the round three bell. The cuts over to footage of the judges grimacing as they score punch after punch for my opponent. Another missed guard, still on my left side, in round four. By the opening bell of the fifth round, I can start to see my eye swelling shut. In round six, "The Greek" lands the massive right hook that caused my mouth guard to explode out of my mouth. That 's probably the point when I bit my cheek and the doctor temporarily stopped the match. And right there is the moment when my out-of-control hubris tells me to wave 'okay' to Dave to keep him from throwing in the towel.
The rest of round six and all of round seven are almost enjoyable to watch. I've caught my second wind by then and started landing some punches. But by round eight, I'm right back to sloppiness. The knockout punch comes less than twenty seconds into the round and is a awful left hook that I should have seen from a mile away. He didn't lead with any other punch so he had to turn his torso without punching just so that he could be in position to throw the left hook. It's not like I even flinched to his "fake". I just stood there and waited for him to deck me.