by Sarah Deming
Gravity smiled.
“Good fight,” she said. She held up a fist and shook it.
Li did not speak English, but she must have heard that one before, because she smiled too.
“Thank you for helping me get to Rio,” Gravity said slowly.
Gravity kept her eyes on Li. She refused to even look at Rick Ross, but she could feel him lurking there, like a podcast on pause. The Chinese coach translated what Gravity had said, and Li nodded and smiled again.
Carmen was right; she did seem like a beautiful person, once Gravity’s ego was out of the way. Most boxers were beautiful people when you got to know them. Gravity spread her arms and, seeing the permission in the other woman’s eyes, gave her the embrace she should have given her before.
Li was damp with sweat, but Gravity did not mind. The sweat from a fight was different than other kinds of sweat: cleaner somehow. Even pretty girls in evening gowns hug a sweat-drenched fighter. That’s boxing.
Rick Ross laughed and put a hand on Gravity’s shoulder.
He said, “See? I always hook it up for my girls.”
Gravity stared at the hand there, its skin mottled, spilling from the thick cuff of his Rolex. She remembered a judo throw that started that way. She would just have to trap the wrist, then turn and break at the waist. She imagined him flying over her hip and hitting the concrete floor. But he took the hand away.
“You don’t even know,” she told him.
“What don’t I know?”
She finally looked up into his beady little eyes. If he had really wanted to hook Li up, he should have let Tasha win. Then Puerto Rico would have qualified, instead of Gravity. He had just invited the new gold medalist to Rio.
She laughed and said, “You’ll find out.”
Then she went back into the stands to study “Irish” Jean Sullivan.
BOXINGFORGIRLS.COM
THE BODACIOUS BARD OF BRUISING
Carmen Cruz, Independent Journalist
May 27, 2016
World Amateur Championships Finals: US Team Heads Home with Three Medals, Two Quota Places, More Wisdom
QINHUANGDAO, CHINA—The US team celebrated Sacred Jones’s gold medal with one last round of pies at Pizza Hut. Jones’s unanimous decision over Sweden’s classy Josefine Johansson improved her record to 74–1. This summer, the Detroit native is poised to become the only modern US boxer, male or female, to win two Olympic golds.
US head coach Ruben “Shorty” Feliciano said, “Sacred is an angel to coach but a devil to fight. That’s what boxing is all about.”
Heavyweight Bettina Rosario, silver medal bouncing against her chest, reminisced happily about her brawl with China’s Shijin Wang, which she lost by a split decision. When the server approached, Rosario said, “F**k it! Bring me another large with sausage and meatballs.”
All the boxers cheered. They had been cautioned off Chinese meat and—with the exception of the strict vegan Aaliyah Williams—are as eager for a return to American hamburgers as your humble blogger is for a proper glass of champagne.
Paloma Gonzales, who won featherweight bronze, chose to stay back in her dorm room.
Gravity Delgado leaned back in the booth, nursing a Diet Coke and her own distant thoughts. Soon Delgado will celebrate her 17th birthday. Although she goes home medal-less, she won something more important in China.
“I want to thank God and Coach Jefferson Thomas,” she said. “And everyone who helped me get here, including you, Carmen.”
She squeezed a rubber chicken that she’d purchased from the Great Wall of China gift shop. It let out a mournful wail.
Boxing for Girls watched Delgado grow up on this trip, weathering her first loss, confronting her demons, and qualifying for Rio by the grace of God. Keep an eye out for this dark horse of a lightweight. Something tells us Gravity is gold.
When Gravity touched down at JFK, her phone exploded with alerts and notifications. She glanced at the screen: Melsy, Ty, Mr. Rizzo, Boo Boo’s mother, Ms. Laventhol, and a couple numbers that weren’t in her contacts. She texted Melsy back, I landed. I’m just going to pass through the gym for a sec and then I’ll come home. She turned the ringer off and put the phone away.
She couldn’t deal with anybody’s drama right now. She still hadn’t posted anything to Instagram or Facebook, not about her loss, not about qualifying. Getting to Rio the way she had was not something to brag about. Everyone would know soon enough. Boxing gossip traveled faster than an Ali jab.
She was hoping Coach would have read Boxing for Girls. She smiled, thinking of the look of surprise that would come over his cranky old face when she strolled through the gym door unannounced and laid the rubber chicken in his lap. She could barely contain her impatience through the long wait for her baggage. It was only about an hour via the AirTrain to Cops ’n Kids.
Coach would not hold a grudge. He would see—even if he had not read Carmen’s blog—that Gravity’s loss had humbled her. He would laugh at the rubber chicken and smile at the Boxing Canada hoodie and kiss her on the cheek. They could start over fresh, training for Du Li and Jean Sullivan. It was better to ask forgiveness than permission, in life in general but in boxing most of all.
She had worn her nicest leggings on the plane ride home and blown out her hair before smoothing it back, but by the time she trudged through the late-spring rain to Cops ’n Kids, dragging her roller bag behind her, she felt like a wet dog. She turned the corner onto the little alley with a mixture of longing and dread. Everything looked the same. She spotted the tabby cat underneath one of the parked cars, mewling pathetically. A few cars down, the little tuxedo kitten emerged, also meowing, and shadowed her as she walked down the block.
She wiped her nose against her jacket and pulled her cap down lower. Maybe Coach would not want to train her again, but at the very least she would give him the gifts, shake his hand like a true champion, and thank him for everything he had taught her.
Gravity didn’t notice that the electric gate was closed until she was right up in front of it. She stopped in surprise at the unwelcome sight of the corrugated metal. A paper was taped to the front of it, flapping in the wind. Without thinking, she reached out to straighten it.
The shock traveled up her right arm to her shoulder, sending her flying backward. The tuxedo kitten shot out of the way as her butt hit the sidewalk. He meowed at her reproachfully from under the dumpster. She winced and rotated her arm in its socket.
“You okay?” said a deep voice.
It was Monster. He must not have known the gym was closed either, because he was carrying a gym bag and wearing a pair of sparring gloves around his neck. He gave her his enormous hand and helped her to her feet, and she brushed off the seat of her pants.
She started to say she was fine, but then she saw what the sign said: “Closed for Funneral.”
Monster followed her eyes.
“Damn,” he said. “Who passed? I just got back in town.”
“Me too,” Gravity said, staring at the paper and thinking of all those unread texts on her phone. The rain kept falling and the cats kept meowing.
Monster looked at the tuxedo kitten and said, “He’s hungry.”
Monster must have gone somewhere with a lot of sun, because his dark skin glowed a shade deeper. Maybe he had been at a training camp. Gravity could just make out a fresh nick over his left cheekbone. His nose had changed in the years she had known him, flattening and spreading from all the blows.
Her vision had begun to crystallize the way it did in the ring at crucial moments, and strange things were happening to her sense of time. She remembered how intimidated she had been by Monster the first time she had seen him, back when he was still training with Coach.
She put a hand to her heart. Coach had taught Monster the best things he knew—that stiff jab and hard right hand—an
d every fight Monster had won was because of those fundamentals. But when Monster left him for Boca, Coach had given him his blessing. He had let him go and still cheered from the sidelines.
Coach was so generous. And she was so selfish. All she thought about was herself.
The kitten kept crying, and Gravity was grateful for the rain because she was crying now too. She could not remember the last time she had cried, but the tears felt like they came from deep inside her, from something huge and frozen melting. Monster put his hand on her shoulder.
“The cat…is…hungry,” she told him, sobbing so hard she could barely speak.
Coach always fed the street cats. It was the first thing he did when he got off the bus. He always left open cans of cat food lined up along the curb, but today the curb was empty.
And suddenly she remembered the last time she had cried. She had been eight years and seven weeks old. It was the morning that her father had not shown up to brush her hair for school. Her mother had told her that he had gone home to Santo Domingo and was never coming back. And Gravity had cried and cried and refused to go to school.
“He’s never coming back,” she said to Monster.
“Come on,” he said gently.
He led her to the apartment building across the street, the one they used for GPS purposes, and they stood together under the awning and pulled out their phones. Gravity looked at her lock screen. Two more texts had come in: one from Svetlana and one from Fatso. Gravity dried her hand against the inside of her jacket.
Her finger hovered over her phone and her heart pounded. She looked over into Monster’s solemn face, lit up by his screen.
Coach had told her that Monster’s family had lost everything in a fire. He said that was why Monster trained so hard: because he had nothing more to lose.
But there was always more to lose.
Until she checked her messages, it was possible to believe anything. That the funeral was for some kid like Tray who had gotten shot in the streets. Or for one of Mr. Rizzo’s cop friends. Or somebody’s sick grandma.
It was wrong to hope that someone else had died instead of Coach, but she hoped it. She did. If she had been brave enough, she would have prayed for it, but the fear of God was in her, bone-deep. She slid her finger along the screen and read the awful words.
By the time they got to the funeral home, the service was almost over. Groups of men were clustered beneath the awning, smoking and drinking out of paper bags. As she followed Monster up the ramp, they reached out to touch her shoulder, calling her a champ and saying they were sorry for her loss.
She hung her head, feeling undeserving of their sympathy.
She and Monster signed the guest book that sat below an old television broadcasting a photomontage. Gravity paused for a moment to watch—Coach at the Olympic Training Center with “Too Fine” Hines, Coach hugging an eight-year-old D-Minus—but it made the tears come faster, so she motioned to Monster to follow. They left her suitcase by the coatrack and squeezed through the door.
It was hot inside the gathering room. All the chairs were full, and people were standing in the aisle. Gravity spotted Boca and Andre, Svetlana and her family, Mr. Rizzo with the NYPD boxing team, Fatso and Too Fine, dressed in all white. She could not find D-Minus.
A man in a purple suit stood on the dais, leading them all in a hymn. Half the room was singing, and a few women were weeping.
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Gravity knew it was supposed to be about God, but it could just as well have been about Coach. About those strong arms of his that had knocked men out cold and laced her into her first pair of gloves and turned the wheels that took him everywhere. Arms so strong they had fooled Gravity into thinking they were everlasting.
Oh, how sweet to walk
In this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh, how bright the path
Grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
But the path did not feel bright. Everything felt dark to her, even the road to Rio. She thought of the last time she and Coach had spoken, the terrible words they had exchanged. Then she thought, with greater agony, of how it had occurred to her in China, after her loss, to call him. But she hadn’t. She had thought…
Oh, God. She had thought Coach would always be around. She had thought there would be so many other chances. What a fool she had been. Mr. Rizzo had tried to tell her. Everyone had. If only she could go back in time. She would have given it all—everything in her trophy case, everything she had—just to see him one more time.
She averted her eyes from the huge coffin lined with lavender frills. It sat beneath a half dozen enormous flower arrangements: one shaped like a PLASMAFuel bottle, one an NYPD badge with a boxing glove, one a US Marine Corps medallion.
All those flowers, cut and wasted. People competing for who could buy the biggest thing. They did no good now, just like her dumb Boxing Canada hoodie and her stupid rubber chicken. They should have given them to Coach when he was around.
She balled her hands into fists and dug the nails into her flesh.
“Gravity!”
It was Boo Boo’s mom, standing with the family against the back wall. She wore a gray chinchilla coat, and Clarence senior and the boys wore dark, gleaming suits and Gucci shades. Something inside Gravity softened at the sight of them, all decked out for Coach, especially little Nigel, squirming in his formalwear, a WWE figurine gripped in one fat fist. He looked like he couldn’t wait to destroy the suit by jumping into puddles; Gravity put the over-under at about five minutes.
Shelly enveloped her in a furry hug, and Nigel attached himself to her leg.
“We were texting and texting!” he said accusingly.
Gravity petted his head, suddenly wishing Tyler were there to cuddle. But then she would have to tell him Coach had died. The thought of that conversation filled her with despair.
“My phone was off,” she told them. “I didn’t…I didn’t even know he was sick.”
“Mr. Rizzo says he passed in his sleep,” Shelly said. “Very peaceful. All the family was there.”
Not me, Gravity thought bitterly. I wasn’t there.
Clarence kissed her cheek and said, “He was a good man and a hell of a coach.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
Boo Boo embraced her. He had always given great hugs, the best in the gym. She tried to pull away after what seemed like the right amount of time, but he put his hand on the back of her head and murmured, “Your coach had mad love for you, G. You made him proud.”
That made her start to cry again, and she couldn’t stop, but Boo Boo just held her in his strong arms as the sobs shook her body. After a moment, she felt Shelly’s soft hand stroking the sleeve of her jacket. Then she felt something pressed into her hand. She pulled back and saw that Nigel had given her his action figure: a brawny, mean-looking white man in a black jumpsuit.
The sight of the little plastic wrestler made her laugh and cry at the same time.
“That’s the Undertaker,” Nigel said. “He rises from the dead all the time.”
“Hush!” Shelly said, cuffing him.
Nigel started to cry.
Gravity wanted to comfort him, but it was rude to interfere in someone else’s parenting. When she was a mom, she would never hit her kids.
“What did we talk about?” Shelly demanded.
Nigel said resentfully, “Nobody rises from the dead except Jesus.”
Shelly rolled her eyes at Gravity. “He goes on and on about that wrestler.”
“He’s the Deadman,” Nigel insisted. “Coach is lonely, so they co
uld be friends.” He tugged on Gravity’s sleeve, and when she bent down to him, he whispered, “I know it’s just pretend.”
Up onstage, the man in the purple suit told everyone the order in which they should say their final goodbyes. Row by row, the mourners rose and trooped past the coffin. Gravity felt her heart pounding as her turn came.
She had only been to one funeral before, in Cleveland, for her mother’s father. She was ten years old and Tyler was a toddler. Gravity had been confused by the way her rich suburban cousins acted toward her, as though she had a disease that might be contagious. Her grandmother had called her and Tyler urchins, and Gravity had memorized the word, because she was sure it must mean something nice, but when she looked “urchin” up later, it said “a mischievous and often poorly and raggedly clothed youngster.”
That had made her very angry, because Tyler had made zero mischief at the funeral, and Gravity had not broken anything. And they had worn their best outfits—her mother had already started drinking heavily, so Auntie Rosa picked them out—a brown corduroy dress for her, a little sailor suit for Ty. Right after that, her mother’s family had cut them off completely. Ever since, Gravity had associated funerals with feelings of judgment and shame.
As they made their slow circuit toward Coach’s body, other mourners kept meeting her eyes respectfully or softly touching her arm, and even in the heaviness of her grief, Gravity was grateful. She, Mr. Rizzo, and Svetlana’s family were the only light-skinned people in the room, but she felt more sense of family here than she had among her blood.
One thing Jews did better, though: no viewings. This was the first time Gravity would see a dead body, and she did not want to.
She watched to see what you were supposed to do. A few paces ahead of them was a woman from Coach’s family in a white linen dress. She stopped beside the corpse for a long time, wailing and petting its cheeks, until two other women put their arms around her and led her off.