by Sarah Deming
Gravity’s heart sang.
The referee started to count.
Back when she had first gotten her USA Boxing passbook, Coach had taught Gravity two things about competition: to bow to all the judges when she entered the ring and to get up slowly if she ever got knocked down. They had practiced the knockdown part. D-Minus spun her around until she was so dizzy she fell over. Then he counted in a loud voice while Gravity got her feet underneath her and rose on six, making eye contact with D-Minus to convince him she could continue.
“In the amateurs they take any excuse to call off a fight,” Coach had warned her.
Despite all her international experience, Paloma had no idea what to do when she found herself on the canvas. She tried to pop up immediately and lost her balance, staggering sideways.
Gravity smiled when she saw that.
The referee shook his head and waved his hands in the air. It took a moment before Paloma understood she had lost. When she did, she ripped off her headgear and threw it to the canvas.
True knockdowns were rare in women’s amateur boxing—it was Gravity’s first—and although Paloma Gonzales was popular with the sponsors and press, she was not loved among her fellow boxers. Gravity got a huge cheer when they raised her hand.
That night, they had dinner at Denny’s with a few of the New Jersey kids and coaches. Jersey fielded a big team with male fighters in every weight class. Gravity and Svetlana sat at one end with Nakima, who had fought bravely that night but was sent to the losers’ bracket by Sacred Jones.
“It’s not fair,” said Nakima, pointing at Monster with her fork.
All three of the women boxers were eating avocado and chicken Caesar salads (dressing on the side). Monster was plowing through a country-fried steak, a salad, onion rings, fried mozzarella, and an Oreo milk shake. That was life as a superheavyweight.
The night had been a great one for Cops ’n Kids. In addition to wins by D-Minus, Svetlana, and Gravity, Genya had avenged his loss to Jack Riebel. Monster had gotten a bye, which was what they called it when you advanced automatically without fighting. Superheavyweights were increasingly rare. Coach said it was because football and basketball lured the big men away to easier money. There were only five other men in Monster’s class, so if he won his next fight, he would qualify for Trials.
Nakima sighed and poked at her lettuce. “I wish I was a superheavyweight.”
Gravity eyed Monster’s enormous arms. She wasn’t so sure she’d like to be a superheavyweight and get hit by arms like that. Besides, what was the point in coming all this way for just two fights?
“Can I get some dessert?” Monster bellowed, trying to flag down their server. “Why’d they sit us way back here?”
Nakima ran a finger over the dark skin of her arm and gave him a significant look.
It was true that Gravity’s party looked very different from the rest of the Denny’s patrons, who were all white, and who periodically shot nervous glances in their direction. The hostess had seated them in a dark corner in the rear of the restaurant, which they were rapidly destroying. Lefty had spilled raspberry lemonade all over the table as soon as they arrived. D-Minus was throwing sugar packets across the room, and the light heavyweight from Camden kept trying to get the waitress’s number.
Fatso, Boca, and the Jersey coaches were at an adjoining table, generally ignoring the chaos, although whenever D-Minus used the n-word, Fatso made him drop and do fifty push-ups. Some of the boxers said please and thank you, but most of them acted like the server was some kind of slave and Denny’s was their personal trash can.
Gravity hadn’t really experienced racism until she left New York. When she was by herself or with her mom and brother, people usually assumed she was white. Sometimes they might look at her frizzy hair and naturally tan skin and ask where she was from in that weird, searching way, and she would answer, “Coney Island,” even though she knew that wasn’t what they meant. But most people in New York had better manners than that. There were lots of people like her who didn’t fit neatly into any one box.
It was only when she had started traveling for boxing that she felt it. When they walked into stores in small towns in upstate New York, Gravity and her friends would be shadowed by security. In restaurants, they set off ripples of anxiety. People moved their handbags closer. Servers asked if they were sure they could afford the food. Sometimes Gravity wished her boxing friends would act more calm and quiet and like they belonged in nice places. Then again, how could you act like you belonged if people treated you like you didn’t?
She heard laughter behind her and saw that D-Minus had removed himself from their table and sat down with one of the elderly white couples he had hit with his sugar packets. He was autographing their napkins and inviting them to the tournament. Gravity watched as the old man took off his baseball cap, which was beaded with a Native American design, and set it on D-Minus’s head.
Gravity flinched, because D-Minus hated to have his hair messed with—he went to the barbershop before every tournament to get his name carved in the back of his head—but D just smiled and shook the old man’s hand, and then he did the most surprising thing of all. He trotted back to their table to get the teddy bear he had won from the claw machine at the casino, which he had been bragging about giving to some flyweight who had a tongue ring, and set it in the old lady’s lap. She blushed like a teenager and promised to come watch him box.
Gravity met Svetlana’s eyes and they both smiled and shook their heads. D-Minus was always a surprise.
Gravity sank back into the booth and let her eyes close. The adrenaline had worn off and now she just wanted to go back to the hotel and fall asleep under the crisp white sheets. She got tomorrow off. What a wonderful feeling. That was the reward for being in the winners’ bracket. She was trying not to act too happy around Sveta and Nakima, who had one loss apiece.
Svetlana would have to fight Paloma tomorrow. Gravity snuck a peek at her friend and noted the slight bruising still visible on her nose and the shadow beneath one eye. Paloma would murder her. Gravity wished Svetlana would get sick or something, so they would not have to fight. There was something subdued about Svetlana’s manner, as though she had already accepted, somewhere deep down, that she would lose again.
Gravity recalled Coach’s words to her: “Paloma boxes to please her father. You box to please yourself.”
Maybe Sveta was a little like that too; maybe Kostya wanted it more than she did.
Gravity closed her eyes again and returned to the warm glow of her victory, replaying the knockdown in her head. Her teammates’ voices washed over her until the uncomfortable moment came to pay the check.
The server dropped it on the coaches’ table, where the adults eyed it like a pile of sweaty handwraps. Finally Fatso sighed and dragged it toward himself with one fingernail, at which point a lengthy discussion began among the coaches. They passed it along, without comment, down the kids’ table, where the boxers produced various excuses, wrinkled piles of singles, and stacks of change. Gravity’s salad cost $7.95, so she put in a ten-dollar bill.
Her mother was very strict about restaurants. She never let them order anything but water because sodas cost too much, but she always made sure they put in a tip. Mom had waited tables back when she was studying to be a nurse. She said waitresses made shit money and that if you could not afford to tip, you should not eat out.
When the check made its way back to the adults, Sergeant Slaughter stood up and bellowed, “All right, you little assholes. We’re still sixty-four dollars short. Pay up!”
The check made its way around again, and Gravity put in two more dollars and Nakima put in seventy-five cents. The light heavyweight from Camden threw in a napkin with his cell phone number scrawled on it. D-Minus, who hadn’t paid anything the first time around, told Genya to lend him twenty bucks. Genya told him to stop smoki
ng crack. D-Minus called Genya the ugliest white boy he’d ever seen, and the two began slap boxing viciously, overturning another glass of raspberry lemonade.
“Enough!” roared Sergeant Slaughter. He counted up the change and announced that they were now fifty-one dollars short. The coaches, after a brief huddle, laid some more bills on the table and hurried everyone out of the restaurant.
“Well, there’s another Denny’s we can never go back to,” said Fatso.
“Plenty more where that came from,” said D-Minus. He took a selfie in his new baseball cap.
BOXINGFORGIRLS.COM
THE SUPERLATIVE SITE FOR THE SWEET SCIENCE
Carmen Cruz, Independent Journalist
February 13, 2016
Women’s Olympic Trials Results, Day Three
SPOKANE, WASH.—The six undefeated boxers got a day off today to roam the Vision Quest, while the challengers’ brackets battled on. After three thrilling days of competition, half of the competitors have now been eliminated. Tomorrow’s action moves from the Spokane Sports Center to the Vision Quest’s ballroom.
Flyweights
Chantal Thompson of Cincinnati stopped Chicago’s Eve Stotland at 1:18 of the third round. Austin’s Marisol Bonilla edged Sharmila Rao of Providence, Rhode Island, in a close tactical battle. Bonilla and Thompson square off tomorrow in what should be a classic matchup of boxer versus puncher.
In tomorrow’s winners’ bracket final, we’ll get another look at the entertaining southpaw Kaylee Miller of Venice Beach, California, who has a tough assignment in defending champion Aisha Johnson of Washington, D.C. Johnson, who went from homeless to representing her country in the London Olympics, has won all five of the pair’s prior meetings.
Lightweights
Defending champion Paloma Gonzales scored a unanimous decision over game Brooklyn southpaw Svetlana Mamay, whose nose bled throughout their brutal war. The skillful Luz Ortega of Albuquerque won unanimously over the army’s strong-punching newcomer, Jay Allen. Gonzales and Ortega clash tomorrow.
But the match we’re licking our chops for is the winners’ bracket final, in which the unstoppable force of Brooklyn’s young Gravity Delgado takes on the immovable object of Seattle’s Aaliyah Williams, four-time national welterweight champion and longtime Boxing for Girls favorite. See our extended interview with Williams for an account of her harrowing childhood sexual abuse and activism with fellow LGBTQ assault survivors.
Williams will have the crowd behind her, fighting so close to her hometown. Can the undefeated young phenom out of Cops ’n Kids pull off her second big upset of Trials? Watch the USA Boxing livestream here or check our Twitter feed for live updates from ringside.
Middleweights
Two words: Sacred Jones. Everyone else in this weight class should just pack up and go home.
Gravity woke up refreshed after her day off and eager for her showdown with Aaliyah. She made weight easily. The weigh-ins got quicker as the tournament progressed and more girls were eliminated.
Three of her teammates were still alive in the men’s competition: D, Genya, and Monster. Monster’s win last night over the army kid—if you could call it that—had secured his place in the Men’s Trials. Genya and D needed to win one more fight to qualify. D had been fighting great so far, but tonight he would run into Tiger Biggs.
The only ones she saw at breakfast were Monster and Lefty. Avoiding Monster’s table, she went to say hello to Lefty, who was hanging with his cousins from the New England team, all of whom had already been eliminated. They had bloodshot eyes, smelled like weed, and appeared to be testing the upper bounds of the all-you-can-eat buffet.
Lefty had actually gone the distance last night against the world youth champion. He had lost every round but never quit, not even when a cut opened under his left eye. When Gravity approached his table, all the boys stood up. One of them gave her a long-stemmed rose, which confused her for a moment until she remembered that today was Valentine’s Day. Another slid a foil-wrapped chocolate heart across the table to her and said, “I can see why my cousin is always talking about you.” Lefty told him to chill.
Gravity was surprised. She had never realized Lefty thought much about her one way or another. She headed to the buffet to get oatmeal, but as she was bringing it back, Monster yelled, “Hey, Gravity!”
She went reluctantly to where he sat, slouched in a booth, wearing a T-shirt that said “This is what a feminist looks like” and poking glumly at a mountain of eggs. There was swelling over his right cheekbone from all the army kid’s jabs last night. Across from him sat Andre Vázquez, his laptop open on the table. He had worn his Vision Quest robe to breakfast, and the neck flapped open, revealing a thatch of dark chest hair.
The minute she slid into the booth, Andre got up and went to schmooze with more important people. Andre had never paid any attention to her. He focused exclusively on the men and mostly on the heavier weight classes, who earned more money as professionals. When Gravity had complained to Coach about it, he had laughed and said that was like a gazelle complaining that the jackal never noticed it.
Gravity chewed her oatmeal slowly, trying to avoid eye contact with Monster. She knew what he was going to ask her, and she wished he wouldn’t.
“G? What did you think of my performance last night?”
She swallowed, then took a sip of water.
“You hit him with a really good right hand in the second.”
“Be honest.”
She stole a glance at him. His big brown eyes were wide as a puppy’s.
“Well…you could’ve let that right hand go more, not load up so much. He was initiating most of the exchanges. And when you got close, you were letting him tie you up.”
He was silent. Relieved, she went back to her oatmeal, but then she heard a strange sound.
“You think I lost,” he said, his big head hanging to his chest. A tear rolled down his bruised cheek and landed in his eggs.
“Stop it!” she hissed, looking around the breakfast buffet, but nobody was watching.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know I lost. I told Seamus that last night.”
Seamus was the army fighter’s name. That was really nice of Monster to tell him that. Gravity liked to think she would do the same thing if she ever got gifted a decision. Seamus had boxed the shit out of Monster, but Andre Vázquez had strolled in right before the bout, handing out PLASMAFuel swag and palling around with the creepy old president of USA Boxing, and maybe that had nothing to do with the split decision going to the wrong man, but maybe it did. Like Rick Ross said, there was more to boxing than what went on in the ring.
“I didn’t want to win that way, G.”
“I know, Kimani.”
She put her hand on his forearm, marveling at the thickness and strength of it, and at how a man could be 250 pounds and so humble, while D-Minus, who was only 123, had an ego the size of a skyscraper.
“Wanna go for a walk after we digest?” she asked him. “I think we’re all going a little crazy just being in the casino all the time.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I have to do a photo shoot for the USA Boxing website.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to ignore her pang of jealousy. This was the first she was hearing about any photo shoot.
Andre came back to the table, clapping Monster on the shoulder and saying, “All right, son, let’s get you that massage so you can be nice and rested for the cameras.”
Just hearing the word “massage” made Gravity’s entire body cry out. She had never had a real massage before but always wanted one. She headed back upstairs to her room, where she put the long-stemmed rose in a water bottle and looked at the chocolate longingly before throwing it out.
“Who gave you those?” asked Chantal.
“A couple of Lefty’s cousins,” Gravity said. “I think
they bought them in bulk.”
Chantal giggled. “Lefty cute, though.”
“Yeah, he is. His rhymes are good too.”
“He raps?”
“Yeah!” Gravity went on his SoundCloud and found that boxing song to play for Chantal. “This track’s called ‘The Battle of the Little Giants.’ Lefty’s rapping like he’s Wilfredo Gómez, and this guest Mexican rapper is Salvador Sánchez.”
“Who’s Wilfredo Gómez and Salvador Sánchez?”
Gravity hid her disapproval. Wilfredo Gómez was one of the greatest Puerto Rican boxers ever, and Salvador Sánchez was one of the greatest Mexicans. She could not imagine getting this far in boxing without knowing your history, but Melsy always told her not to be so judgmental of people who weren’t as intense as she was.
“They’re old fighters,” she said, hitting Play.
The way the song started, you were rooting for Gómez, and it was sad when he got TKO’d. The next verse was even sadder, because you thought Salvador Sánchez was going to be this great champion, but he got hit by a truck and killed when he was only twenty-three. The last verse was about how we should all live in the moment, because we never know when our time will come. In the end, Salvador Sánchez looked down from heaven at Wilfredo Gómez, who was getting high in the bathroom of the Boxing Hall of Fame. That gave Gravity a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach; she would have to ask Lefty about it later.
She looked at Chantal, who said, “It’s aight. Kinda boring, though.”
Gravity sighed and opened Instagram. The picture of her beating Paloma had 153 likes. Melsy had commented with a string of hearts and muscles, then commented again, “You Beat Her Up! You Can Do It, I Love You Big Sis, This Is Tyler Delgado.” Auntie Rosa wrote, “Goddamn, niecey, you fierce! <3<3 We are all here rooting for you! <3<3” Even her science teacher had commented: “You are so strong and we are so proud of you! Remember, gravity is one of the four fundamental forces in the universe! :)”