A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “What’s this for?”—D.D. was doubtful about taking pills recalling how pills had affected Edna Mae.

  These were smaller pills, but also white.

  Ernie told her it was to “prevent problems”—“like, once a month”—since she was a “female athlete, who has to take precautions.”

  He seemed embarrassed, irritated. As if D.D. should have known what he was talking about.

  For a long slow moment D.D. did not comprehend, then a kind of comprehension came over her, like murky water rising.

  Near-inaudibly, shamefaced she murmured OK.

  The first fight was scheduled that very day.

  NOW THERE WAS A DATE, a goal. Now she could measure the days on the calendar until February 11, 2009.

  Not wishing to recall the previous times she’d marked calendar dates.

  Now she was officially in training, now everyone knew. There was respect for her. In the eyes of the others, except maybe the young women who came to the gym only to “exercise”—there was a new interest, maybe a kind of awe.

  That her?—Dunphy?

  Christ! That’s a female Tyson.

  One day sparring with Eduardo, a lapsed welterweight, formerly one of Ernie’s promising young boxers, D.D. was stunned by a blow to the right temple that seemed to fly out from Eduardo’s right glove. She was dazed, and slipped to one knee; she felt how the ring floor pulled at her, like a magnet; but there came Ernie’s terse command—Get up. Get on him—and she managed to get her balance, and to rush at her opponent with a flurry of blows to his midriff and lower belly, groin—in her desperation, and with a murderous intent, driving him back into the ropes.

  “Hey! Fucking Christ! What’re you doing!—” Eduardo was gasping for breath, bent double. Tears shone on his cheeks.

  Adrenaline rushed through her veins. So fierce she felt that flames might be oozing through her pores.

  Ernie halted the match. Dunphy had hit low, with a vicious intent. He had not seen that in the girl, until this hour. There was something about her pebble-colored eyes and small mean mouth that was frightening to him, but exhilarating.

  So then I knew. Dunphy could do it.

  You got to be hungry, and to want to kill the opponent.

  That’s all. That’s everything.

  “MY FIRST FIGHT.”

  Spoken aloud these words had almost the resonance of an echo.

  “Six weeks from now, my first fight.”

  She was beginning to tell people. Co-workers at Target. The supervisor Evelyn who seemed to like her. (But was very surprised to hear her good news.) A neighbor in the apartment building in which she rented a single, ground-floor room overlooking a front yard of mostly concrete.

  Shyly, yet boastfully—My first fight. Cleveland. I have a trainer and a manager—yes.

  It was a wonder to her, to say so matter-of-factly—I have a trainer. Ernie Beecher is my trainer.

  Stranger to say—I have a manager. Mr. Cassidy . . .

  Cass Cassidy was a partner in the Dayton gym. It wasn’t clear (to D.D.) if he was a business partner of Ernie Beecher or if he was Ernie’s employer. He was very friendly with Ernie often laying his hand on Ernie’s shoulder and calling him old buddy. He was a middle-aged (white) man who “managed” boxers and who appeared at the gym from time to time. If you heard a loud voice, laughter—it was likely to be Cass Cassidy trading wisecracks with the young (brown-skinned) boxers.

  Cassidy had been Hector Rodriguez’s manager at some previous time. But Rodriguez no longer won fights and so he had another manager. (D.D. had been crushed to learn that Rodriguez had lost his fight in Cincinnati by a “split” decision. This was his third straight loss. It was said of Rodriguez that “his luck had turned against him” which was alarming to D.D. Dunphy to hear for it suggested something like a tidal wave, a shudder of the earth and a flooding that could not be prevented—an Act of God.)

  Hector Rodriguez had not reappeared in the gym in weeks and D.D. was so immersed in her own training, she had given up looking for him.

  “H’lo, ‘D.D.’ How’s it going.”

  The voice was flat yet coercive. D.D. heard herself murmur, “OK.”

  Often, D.D.’s voice sounded sullen, grudging when she was asked any question. She did not mean this. She had a fear of stammering, or saying the wrong thing and being laughed-at.

  They were in Ernie’s office. D.D. had been summoned here. She had had a vigorous workout that afternoon and had showered and her hair was wet and lank, brushed back from her forehead. Every part of her body ached and yet—she was very happy! Ernie had told her she was “making progress.” A dozen times a day she whispered Thank you, Jesus.

  Ernie introduced her to Cass Cassidy who was to be her “manager.”

  Cassidy’s hand snaked out, and D.D. was shaking the hand. The fingers felt somewhat cold. For a scant moment she feared the fingers would not release her hand.

  Cassidy addressed her in a drawling voice that seemed too expansive for Ernie Beecher’s small office. He told her he’d been hearing “damn good things” about her from Ernie Beecher and all that he’d seen with his own eyes had confirmed this.

  D.D. wasn’t sure if she was meant to reply to this. She was finding it hard to smile but she managed to say—“Thank you.”

  The man was eyeing her with a look of wary good cheer. His face was a youngish-old face of creases and dents and yet on his upper lip was a mustache of the bright hue of fox fur. He was not a tall man though he wore tooled-leather cowboy boots with a heel, a shirt of some shiny material, deep purple. His hair, a duller hue than his mustache, was slicked back thinly from his forehead. His eyes were bemused, somewhat cold. Cold dead eyes like a reptile. D.D. swallowed hard, and forced herself to smile, for Ernie was watching, and Ernie wished this. Her trainer was looking at her with that particular crease between his eyes she saw in his face sometimes when she was working out. There came Edna Mae’s hissing voice in her ear—He is Satan. They are all Satan. You are surrounded by Satan.

  Some decision had been made in the trainer’s office. D.D. smiled for she did not want to appear ignorant. She understood that the men had been discussing her before she’d entered the office and she felt a small thrill of pride, that two men, two adults, should confer about her.

  She thought that her father might be proud of her, if he knew. Luke would be jealous but proud, too.

  The decision seemed to be, D.D. would go on half-time at Target. A schedule had been worked out leading to the fight which was February 11, 2009, in the Cleveland Armory. Cassidy—“Cass”—would provide money for D.D. as needed. A kind of allowance.

  “Did you ever have an allowance, D.D.? When you were a kid?”

  D.D. was overwhelmed by this news. She did not know how to reply. She did not even comprehend the question.

  “Yah. I guess so.”

  “Well, this will be a lot more. I guarantee.”

  There was a sheet of stiff white paper—a “contract”—for her to sign. In a haze of excitement, gratitude, wonderment she signed it—Dawn D. Dunphy. Her schoolgirl signature beside a large slanted scrawl she could not decipher but had to suppose that it was Mr. Cassidy’s signature above the words which were new to her—Dayton Fights, Inc.

  To her astonishment she was given eight crisp new-smelling one-hundred-dollar bills. These were counted out in her hand by Cass Cassidy—“Vy-la, D.D.!—as they say in France. The rest is boxing history.”

  Clumsily then, with no warning, Cass Cassidy brought his hand down on D.D.’s head, rubbing her damp hair, in a gesture of rough affection, as one might pat the head of a favored dog. He then dared to hug her, not hard, but in the way some of the Dunphy women would hug Dawn, loose-armed, somewhat wary of the stocky girl’s stiff spine and uplifted elbows, no sooner embracing her than releasing her.

  So startled by this sudden gesture from a man she feared, as by the contract and the money, the wonderful-smelling crisp new bills, Dawn Dunphy stood staring, flat-foot
ed and speechless, arms at her sides and her hands feeling bare, without gloves.

  IN AN ENVELOPE carefully printed EDNA MAE DUNPHY c/o MARY KAY MACK on Depot Street, Mad River Junction, she mailed five of these crisp new-smelling one-hundred-dollar bills to her mother whose work (as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home) paid her something like seven dollars an hour.

  Dear Momma, this is for you. Sorry I am out of touch for a wile. Hope you & Anita & Noah are doing OK.

  I am doing well. I am in Dayton now.

  Look for me on TV in February 2009!

  Love

  Your Daughter Dawn

  “D.D. Dunphy”—“Hammer of Jesus”

  “JESUS IS LORD”

  The first fight would pass in a blur.

  Abruptly terminated at two minutes forty-two seconds of the first round.

  There was but a small crowd scattered through the Cleveland Armory. Of five hundred seats in the shabby old arena less than one hundred were occupied. Lorina “The Cougar” Starr vs. D.D. Dunphy—“The Hammer of Jesus.”

  The match between two (unranked) female welterweights scheduled for five rounds was number four on the undercard, and was scheduled to begin early—7:00 P.M. The main bout of the evening was a twelve-round match between heavyweight contenders (Deontay Wilder, Tony Thompson) ranked by the World Boxing Association at numbers four and six respectively, and would begin at approximately 9:00 P.M.

  The undercard consisted of matches of ascending interest. Only the last two matches were to be televised on a cable channel.

  “Lorina Starr”—(D.D. would never forget this name)—was the opponent they’d found for her, for the first fight. A woman of some age beyond thirty who lived and trained in Gary, Indiana. Lorina Starr had once been ranked at number seven (WBA women’s welterweight) but after several losses had dropped off the charts. She was said to be of Chickasaw Indian extraction.

  (D.D. had learned: there were no Indian reservations in either Ohio or Illinois only just the scattered descendants of the original Indians who’d been removed to a desolate area of Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of the U.S. government in some long-ago time. Lorina Starr was one of these—the descendant of Chickasaws who’d managed to escape the mass evacuation to Oklahoma.)

  In her publicity photos Lorina “The Cougar” Starr appeared to be a sexy-glamorous young woman despite a scarred face. It was a surprise to D.D. to see her in person (at the weigh-in) for she was considerably older than her photos. Her features were Caucasian except for very dark eyes and very black straight hair which had been cut short and streaked with platinum-blond highlights. Her skin was coarsely made up with a red-tinted beige powder. She wore sexy boxing attire—a sequin-spangled red sports bra, Spandex-tight blue trunks that fitted her shapely buttocks tightly. Above her left breast was a tattoo of a red boxing glove and on her right shoulder, a snarling cougar with a curving tail. It was boasted that the Cougar “never gave up a fight” and “never disappointed a crowd.”

  At the weigh-in D.D.’s opponent was giddy and edgy with a grating laugh like a cough. She could not seem to bring herself to look at her much-younger opponent still less shake hands with her. “Hey shit, I’m not your friend, girl”—Lorina Starr recoiled from D.D.’s approach when the boxers were urged to shake hands.

  D.D. had to restrain herself from saying Sorry! This was a word that came too readily to her.

  It was revealed that D.D. Dunphy was heavier than Lorina Starr by six pounds and shorter by two inches. Her reach was fifty-nine inches, Lorina Starr’s reach was sixty-one inches.

  (D.D. did not want to think that these two inches might be crucial. Ernie said with a shrug, You got to get inside.)

  Lorina Starr’s ring record was three wins, seven losses, one draw.

  D.D. Dunphy’s ring record was zero wins, zero losses.

  There came scattered applause in the arena as the female boxers, the first bout of the evening, were introduced by the big-voiced male announcer. A few wan whistles stimulated by Lorina’s spangled red sports bra and Spandex trunks and a few spirited handclaps when D.D. Dunphy’s ring record was announced and it was revealed that this was Dunphy’s first fight.

  In the front rows only a few spectators were sitting, all male. These were loud-voiced, very possibly drunk. Some were eating hot dogs and drinking from paper cups. (Beer? Officially, not allowed in the Armory.)

  In a trance of exhilaration and dread D.D. had entered the Armory. Her ears were ringing. Her mouth was so dry she could not have swallowed except a plastic water bottle was lifted to her mouth by one of her handlers.

  She’d been exercising vigorously, somewhat desperately, in the locker room. She was covered in sweat which was consoling to her as a fine-mesh blanket.

  Here was a disappointment—just slightly. Her manager Cass Cassidy had not allowed her to wear black in imitation of Mike Tyson. He had not allowed her to wear a cap with the words JESUS IS LORD stitched on it.

  Maybe later, he’d said ambiguously. When the Hammer of Jesus had some followers.

  D.D. Dunphy had been issued dark-red trunks, dark-red T-shirt trimmed in white. Her shoes were not black shoes but a girl’s shoes, dark red with tassels. There had been some reason for this, she’d had to accept.

  She was a soldier now. She was a robot-soldier. Her trainer had instructed her: fix your gaze on your opponent and never look away. “Rivet” your opponent with your gaze “like a viper” and never, never look away.

  Did she understand? Yes. She did.

  For weeks she’d been told that the fight was hers to win. She could not lose. She believed this.

  In the seconds before the bell rang for the first round Ernie spoke matter-of-factly in her ear giving instructions. She was a killing machine. She was a deadly viper. She was a pitbull. She had only to fight as she’d been taught and as she’d been practicing. So many times her trainer had led her through the sequence of punches which she executed flawlessly, tirelessly. She must get inside, for her arms were short. She must move forward, never back. Executing her practice-routines in the gym D.D. Dunphy was near-flawless but with a sparring partner she was less predictable and in this unfamiliar setting, in a vast arena of hundreds of seats, very bright lights, isolated shouts and cries and whistles, and facing an opponent with whom she’d never sparred, she was feeling like one who has opened a door and is about to step inside, trusting that there is a floor on the other side and not—nothing.

  The bell rang at last. The boxers emerged from their corners staring at each other like sleepwalkers who have been rudely awakened.

  As a cougar might approach a viper Lorina Starr approached her younger opponent with caution. Lorina Starr paid no heed to catcalls from the audience. She was skilled in prevarication, evasion. She had no wish to be hit for she had (many times) been hit and knew what being hit could mean. She was poking at Dunphy with her left jab, looking for an opening to hit the big-shouldered chunky white girl square in the face with her poised right hand and send the girl staggering back into the ropes but this did not happen for Dunphy crouched low, shielding her face with her raised gloves, and managed to slip Lorina Starr’s blows. This was the peek-a-boo style Ernie Beecher had drilled into her, which had been Mike Tyson’s defensive strategy drilled into him by his great trainer Cus d’Amato.

  You’re short, short-armed. You need to go shorter.

  The welterweights circled each other as isolated calls and whistles came from the arena. D.D. was surprised that the rapid left jab of her opponent scarcely registered against her arms and shoulders, awkwardly thrown, with no evident force behind it.

  Strange, unnerving, to see the other’s face and eyes so close to her! The small white scars in the eyebrows that had been darkened with eyebrow pencil, glittering piercings in the ears that were not a good idea (D.D. was sure) to wear into the ring. The skin was damply flushed like her own, somewhat pale, coarse, without the red-tinged beige powder that was meant (D.D. supposed) to suggest “red skin.”


  Sensing herself the stronger of the two D.D. pressed forward, hitting with her jab, harder than the opponent could hit, forcing the opponent backward, off balance. Always she was pressing forward, trying to get inside the reach of the taller boxer. As she positioned herself to throw a right cross the opponent jerked away like a frightened rabbit. Yet D.D. managed to hit her, a rapid right, a rapid and hard left hook, striking the opponent on the right temple, and sending her down onto one knee.

  Immediately, a flurry of excitement in the arena.

  The referee began his count. Five, six, seven . . . Dazed and blinking Lorina Starr rose to her feet at seven. She might have taken a count of nine to give herself a little more recovery time but she seemed defiant, brash. She was bleeding from a cut lip. Already she was badly out of breath. The referee peered frowningly at her but allowed the fight to continue as Lorina Starr backed away raising her gloves to prepare for an assault which she knew was coming, and which she could not prevent.

  The younger and stronger boxer pushed forward aggressively, swarming over her, striking with both fists, a powerful volley of blows as cries lifted from the arena in approval.

  The sight of blood on the opponent’s face was exciting to D.D. like the sight of something forbidden. She had not expected to wound the opponent so quickly. She had expected a more experienced opponent, and a more dangerous opponent.

  Go forward! Get inside! Hit her!—there came her trainer’s urgent voice, or the memory of his voice.

  A kind of madness came over her. A red mist. She was exultant, pushing forward. It was as if she and the opponent were drowning together in some terrible bright-lit place and D.D. had to fight the other woman off, defeat her utterly, to save herself.

  Cries of the crowd like the shrieks of rapacious birds.

  In this first fight D.D. understands: that is how a boxer knows that she is doing well. She is not just scoring points—she is arousing the crowd. She is intimidating her opponent who hears these cries and understands them utterly. She has no need to wait for a trainer’s terse praise.