A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  She liked to hear him giving boxing instructions. There was a comfort in the familiar words spoken in a familiar voice, in familiar rhythms. She did not feel jealousy—much.

  Put your weight into it. Lean in.

  OK. Again.

  Not bad. But not great.

  Again.

  ON THE SQUAT OLD TV in his office she saw videos.

  She would sit on a sagging, stained sofa. She would watch the videos entranced. By the end of a fight she was sitting far forward, her back strained and her eyes dry and unblinking.

  Great Fights of the Century. Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson. Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale. Carmen Basilio, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar de la Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather . . . Not a woman among these and never would be.

  And she saw too how over the decades from the early 1900s boxing had largely shifted from white-skinned to dark-skinned, Hispanic.

  She wondered if it was too late for her. The best women boxers were black, Hispanic, Native American.

  What had Ernie said—Depends if you’re that hungry. That desperate.

  HE HAD NOT TOLD HER no. Not yet.

  Eight hours at Target, three hours at the gym.

  Day following day, week following week, month following month.

  She was losing weight—“soft” weight. Her muscles were hardening, her body was an astonishment to her, a promise.

  Her breasts she flattened to her chest as well as she could. She wore a sturdy sports bra and over this a T-shirt that did not fit too loosely or too tightly. She did not like to glance at herself in any mirror and especially if she stood naked after a shower. Even the word naked was shameful—Edna Mae could not ever have uttered such a word.

  But if there was steam on a mirror she might lean to the mirror to see a ghost-reflection combing wet hair quickly, impatiently, and then brushing it back from her forehead, flat against her scalp. The bristles of the blue plastic brush Miss Schine had given her were no longer possible to get clean and the handle was cracked but she did not want to replace it with another.

  She did not tell her trainer that she had relapses when she ate ravenously those foods she should not eat—French fries, doughnuts, pizzas swimming with pepperoni grease. Still, her weight dropped slowly, steadily. It would stabilize between one-forty-two and one-forty-five which Ernie said was ideal.

  “OK. Next step. See what you can do.”

  She was allowed to begin sparring. Very cautiously at first, with one of the gym instructors. Then, with whoever Ernie could talk into climbing into the ring with D.D. Dunphy.

  Neighborhood kids looking to be boxers. Young guys in their twenties. Older guys who’d begun careers as boxers but had lost their first fights or suffered injuries and dropped out and were hoping to try again. It was not uncommon at the gym that a male boxer might spar with a female—there were only three instructors, and all were male.

  These males were reluctant to spar with D.D. Dunphy. They meant to pull their punches—at first. But there came Dunphy in a crouch, graceless, grim-determined, with furrowed forehead and lashless eyes, so hard-hitting, when her wildly flung punches hit, the sparring partners were stunned.

  “Hey! Shit, man.”

  They backed away, laughing. They kept her off with flurries of blows.

  Ernie followed outside the ring. Ernie commanded: “Move in, Dun-phy. Press in. Don’t hold back. Go.”

  She obeyed. She tried. Very soon she was panting through her mouth.

  “Move in. Use your right. Go.”

  Blindly she pressed forward. On her short legs she threw herself forward. Blows struck her exposed face but she did not shrink away.

  These early sessions passed in a blur. Adrenaline flooded her, an exhilarating rush. She had no clear idea what she was doing except she must push forward, and she must fight.

  For her life, she would fight. She could not turn back.

  Of the historic boxers, she identified with Jack Dempsey who could only push forward and who was thwarted by Gene Tunney capable of moving backward even as he fought.

  Word in the gym came to be—That girl boxer Beecher is training? She a pitbull.

  That Dun-phy some kind of killing machine.

  Ernie was amused, she’d wrung from her sparring partners a grudging acknowledgment. He listened to them claiming Had to hold back, could’ve broke her face and sent her into the ropes and onto her ass—you saw it. But that girl one hell of a puncher.

  THEN, SHE SPARRED with her first female. The experience was devastating to her.

  Never had she struck any female face before. Never the face of a girl. Only just boy-faces leering at her, deserving to be hit.

  Can’t do it. Just can’t.

  It was a shock to her. She would not have anticipated such a surprise. The new sparring partner was a young neighborhood woman hoping also to be a boxer, five or six years older than D.D. Dunphy, taller by at least two inches, somewhat lean, flat-bodied, with a wan-pretty face like something smudged and straw-colored hair showing dark at the roots. Flaming-heart tattoos were displayed on her bare biceps and on her wrists were bracelet-tattoos. She was lighter than D.D. Dunphy by at least fifteen pounds, just fast enough on her feet to keep out of Dunphy’s flailing punches.

  D.D. sank into her crouch, hiding behind upraised gloves. Hairs stirred on the nape of her neck. To see a female face confronting her beneath the safety headgear! It did not seem right. In her fantasies of winning fights, winning titles, she had not envisioned her opponent except as a blur. It would be like hitting Miss Schine! It would be like hitting her sister . . . The males she had no difficulty wishing to hurt for she hated them but she did not hate this young woman and did not want to hurt her.

  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 cram
ped 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.

  She’d said to Ernie, she wanted to box like Rodriguez. She wanted to be that good.

  And another time she said, she wanted to spar with Rodriguez. Just once.

  Ernie frowned at such a notion. Ernie shook his head no. Not a good idea.

  Why not? She could learn from Rodriguez better than anyone else in the gym.

  “Why not? He’s a light-heavy. He’ll hurt you.”

  “I need that. I need to know.”

  But Ernie was resolute. Not a good idea. No.

  For weeks she was fixated on Rodriguez who was training for a fight in Cincinnati. The idea of Rodriguez filled her head like a balloon inflating. She began to neglect some of her own routines, observing his. And he’d begun to notice her. In the gym, D.D. Dunphy was beginning to be known as a female boxer Ernie was training, and Rodriguez knew of her, and (she could tell) did not approve of her. He did not approve of female boxers, and he did not approve of her.

  She saw him glancing at her. Not-friendly, but cold. Disdainful. Hispanic male, in disdain of a serious female athlete. He was hawk-faced, with small scars in his eyebrows, sleek black hair tied tight in a little pigtail at the back of his head. Despite blemished skin on his face and neck he was good-looking, vain. His light-heavyweight body was muscled and fit and the flesh at his waist had not yet become flaccid. On his back, biceps and forearms were cobwebs of tattoos like florid wounds.

  Rodriguez sparred with a succession of partners. D.D. Dunphy yearned to be one of these.

  She pleaded with Ernie. “I c’n learn.”

  “Learn what? Getting your jaw broke?”

  He was indignant. His praise of her, precious as water to a creature avid with thirst, had become sparing, grudging.

  (Was Ernie jealous of Hector Rodriguez? She smiled to think so.)

  At Target, those long hours. Dreaming of the gym, its pungent smells, male-sweat, windows opaque with grime. As at her exercises when Rodriguez was not in the gym she dreamt of him. Her eyelids were so heavy! Suddenly they were sparring together as equals. Or almost.

  They were sparring together as equals until suddenly Rodriguez released a fury of blows aimed at D.D.’s head, body, head—for the first time, D.D. Dunphy was knocked down.

  He relented, and crouched over her. He spoke her name—“D.D.”

  It was Graziano and LaMotta. On their feet, embracing. At the conclusion of a long fight in which one man was the winner and the other the loser yet the face of each was battered, bloody.

  She dared to greet Hector Rodriguez when he arrived at the gym one evening with two friends. He was wearing a dove-gray suede jacket, not new, slightly soiled. On his feet, tooled leather boots. His manner with Ernie Beecher’s new-girl-in-training was curt, indifferent. There was some tension between Rodriguez and Beecher, as between a son and a father who have disappointed each other and will not forget. But D.D. had timed the encounter with such care, she was in motion, moving past the men, not a moment of indecision, not a backward glance it was so casual to her.

  She was observed shadowboxing, in the style of Rodriguez. The inclination of the head, the flurries of sharp quick precise blows to head, body, head of the (imagined) opponent. That short left hook, in an arc of six inches.

  In a hoodie drawn over her head, in a chilly corner of the gym. So that, from a little distance, you could not see who it was—female, male.

  “‘PHYSICAL.’ ”

  The sound of the word was fascinating to her: “phys-i-cal.”

  She had never said this word aloud. But now Ernie Beecher had made an appointment with a Dayton doctor for her physical.

  The doctor-visit was not a pleasant experience. It had been explained to her that in order to box she had to be “licensed”—in order to be licensed she had to pass a physical examination. She had never had such an examination in her life, she was sure.

  Dr. Danks was a heavyset (white) man in his sixties with thin white-feathery hair, blood-veined eyes and nose, a mild tremor in his hands. His stomach was round and prominent, he could not easily move from the chair in which he sat beside his girl patient. His eyes behind bifocal glasses moved along her body to her prim-tucked feet and up again to her stiffened wax-face.

  “No problems, eh? Though you are training hard for your first fight?”

  Training hard. First fight.

  She had not heard it so phrased, th
at she was training hard for her first fight.

  Had Ernie Beecher told the doctor this? She felt a flood of great happiness, and could not speak.

  “Your trainer has requested a prescription for you. When a female is boxing there’s concern for—well, the ‘menstral cycle’ it is called. A female athlete should take precautions so she is always at her peak. I’d hoped to examine you a little more thoroughly but, well—you are obviously in excellent condition. Ernie Beecher has a reputation for working with only the best athletes he can find. So now, miss, if you can cooperate just a little—we can complete these formalities and you can be on your merry way.”

  She hadn’t heard much of this. She had not quite heard the shameful words menstral cycle. And merry way—what did that mean?

  She could think only first fight. Training hard.

  Wheezing Dr. Danks was not going to touch her further, that was all that mattered.

  He conferred with the nurse-receptionist, and shuffled out of the room. In a bright cajoling voice of the kind one might employ with a recalcitrant child the woman told D.D. that she could “provide a swab” from between her legs herself, with a cotton Q-stick—“That should be enough, then. Like a ‘Pap smear.’” D.D. was very much embarrassed, but took the little stick from her, and cautiously touched herself with it, between the legs where (she supposed) there was some sticky dampness. Blushing deeply she handed the befouled stick to the nurse-receptionist who took it with gloved fingers. “Thank you!”

  Alone in the examination room she lay on the table for a moment unable to move. She had been spared the outrage of a pelvic exam.

  Edna Mae would be relieved, and not so disgusted with her.

  Never would she forget those words—Training hard. For your first fight. Waves of relief, gratitude, hope swept over her.

  “Thank you, Jesus!”

  He had not abandoned her after all. But she knew that.

  IN THE WAKE of the doctor-visit she was given by her trainer a small plastic container of white pills. One-a-day, each morning.