by Jinx, Hondo
Johnny nodded.
“And don’t cheat, kid. You cheat, who are you cheating?”
“Myself.”
“That’s right. You cheat on steps, you’ll never be champ.”
Next, Marvella called Freddie over and suited them up in sparring gear, mouthpieces and all, and led them into the ring.
Oh shit, Johnny thought. Does she want me to spar Freddie?
He couldn’t hit her. Not hard. And not just because she was a girl. She was also sixty pounds lighter than him, and besides, he liked her. A lot.
Reasons upon reasons upon reasons.
“All right,” Marvella said, putting Johnny in the corner and telling Freddie to stand in front of him. “Counter drills.”
Freddie nodded and raised her gloves, eyes serious.
Johnny followed suit. Pinned against the turnbuckle as he was, he couldn’t help but remember his match with Jobbo.
Marvella told them what to do.
First, Freddie threw a jab, and Johnny caught it with his rear hand.
As they continued the exercise and Marvella told Freddie to speed it up, the jabs came faster and harder, and Johnny’s own glove started knocking him in the face. Every now and then, one of Freddie’s jabs would slip off his glove and graze his face.
“That’s all right,” Marvella said. “Punches don’t have to miss you. Just don’t let them catch you clean. Your opponent is close enough to hit you, he’s close enough for you to hit him back, you feel me? Better he misses by an inch than a foot.”
Johnny and Freddie switched positions, and Marvella hollered at Johnny for targeting Freddie’s glove instead of her face.
He did as he was told, and Freddie blocked his shots.
Marvella had Freddie twist, catching the jab on her shoulder, then counter back with a right hand.
The first counter-right walloped Johnny in the nose.
Freddie laughed, saying she was sorry.
“Don’t apologize to him,” Marvella said. “The first rule of boxing, the only real rule, is protect yourself at all times. Keep your hands up, kid. Don’t wait for me to tell you to block a shot. You’re a fighter, not a robot. Get your hands up.”
Next, Marvella showed Johnny how to dip under the hand then counter with a left hook to the body.
“Nice and easy,” she told him. “She has a fight coming up. You hurt her ribs, I’ll beat you with my cane.”
Johnny didn’t know how old Marvella was—maybe thirty or thirty-five?—but she was going to make a fantastic crotchety grandmother someday.
For half an hour, Marvella ran them through counter drills, each fighter trying the sequence dozens of times from either side.
Then it was time for calisthenics. Jumping jacks, mountain climbers, push-ups, pull-ups, neck work, and a cruel assortment of ab work.
Through it all, he and Freddie worked side by side.
On the incline crunch board, his body finally jerked when his abdominals cramped sharply. He winced with surprise and pain and paused at the top for an instant.
“Keep working, kid,” Marvella said with a sadistic grin. “That’s what I was waiting for. You can’t fake a cramp. Now the real work begins.”
Every time he raised up again, he focused on the big banner across the room.
HONOR. GLORY. NEIGHBORHOOD.
After this, Marvella told them to fetch a medicine ball.
First, they moved laterally, facing each other and passing the medicine ball back and forth.
After this, they stood back-to-back, twisting, handing off the ball, then twisting in the other direction to receive again and again and again.
Then they stood face-to-face, hurling the medicine ball at each other’s aching midsections. The idea was to let the ball hit you in the gut, catch it, and throw it back.
A similar idea drove their final exercise with Marvella.
Standing on the ring apron, she told Johnny to lie on his back on the gym floor and raise his legs to six inches. Then she lifted the medicine ball overhead and dropped it on his stomach.
It was like getting punched.
The ball bounced off his abs. He caught it instantly and threw it back to her, no easy task while lying on his back, at least not after a full round of this torture.
After this, Marvella released them to the steps, which they ran together, ten minutes plus an additional eleven times up and down thanks to Johnny dropping his right while shadowboxing.
When they had finished, Freddie punched him in the arm and grinned, her pretty face glittering with perspiration. “Don’t drop your right next time, tough guy.”
They gathered their stuff and said goodbye to Marvella by the steps, where the sign overhead offered a final reminder to everyone leaving the gym.
REMEMBER: YOU REP THE WARD. ACT LIKE IT!
Freddie thanked the trainer and shook her hand, passing her a coin or two.
This time, Johnny was ready. “Thanks, Marvella,” he said, and shaking her hand, slipped her a folded-up dollar bill.
Without looking down, Marvella nodded. “All right. See you two tomorrow. Johnny, hold up a second. I want a word with you. Freddie, you’re done. Get out of here.”
“I’ll just wait for Johnny.”
“Did I stutter, girl? I said get out of here.”
Freddie’s eyes swelled. She gave a dip of her head. “Yes, Marvella. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, Johnny.”
“See you, Freddie.”
Freddie grinned at him from the shadows of her hood, shrugged her bag higher on her shoulder, and started down the long stairs.
“Now you,” Marvella said, sounding angry, “come with me.”
Chapter 28
Johnny followed Marvella to the back of the gym, wondering what was up. Why was Marvella pissed?
Well, in all fairness, she was always angry. But if Johnny didn’t know better, he’d think she was separating him from witnesses to murder him.
Leaning on her cane, she opened a door marked BOILER ROOM and ushered him inside.
A neatly made cot stood against one wall. Several photographs were taped to the crumbling plaster above it.
“You gotta stay hungry if you want to fight,” Marvella said. “Otherwise, sooner or later, you end up doing the math. You get thinking, why come in here six, seven days a week and train your ass off? Why get up early and run in the rain and cold when you could be sleeping? Why give up partying with your friends? Getting drunk, getting laid? Boxing’s the hardest, loneliest sport in the world.”
Johnny nodded, but Marvella was staring past him, again making him think her eye was locked on ghosts of the past only she could see.
“But it’s the greatest sport, too,” she said. “Because everything’s on the line. You get a fight lined up, what do you do? You tell everybody, invite them to come watch. People you like, maybe even people you don’t like, just to show them what you can do. Point is, you tell everybody you care about, hey, I got a fight coming up, why don’t you come and watch?
“And they do. They put it on their calendar and come out and pay their money even if they’ve never been to a fight before, because they care about you, and because they know what you know, what everybody knows about a fight: you are putting it all on the line, saying to the world, I’m better than this man. Look at him and look at me. I’m better. I got more juice than him and bigger balls, and I’m going to prove it. I’m going to whip his ass for all the world to see.”
Marvella blinked back to the boiler room and grinned at him. She had never looked so wolfish.
“Meanwhile, he’s telling his people the same thing. Come out, watch me beat this guy from the Ward who thinks he’s hot shit. And he’s serious. You gotta remember that. He doesn’t give a shit about you or your people. You’re not even real to him, not until you punch him in the face. All that matters to him is winning. His mother will sit there at ringside, calling down all manner of gypsy curses and voodoo hoodoo on you, you feel me? I mean, this shit is real to the
m.”
Johnny nodded again.
“But at the end of the fight, unless it’s a draw—and thankfully, there are very few draws in amateur boxing—the ref only raises one fighter’s hand. That’s it. The two of you fight on an elevated ring under bright lights, one on one. No team, no substitutions, nobody in there but the two of you and the ref. That’s it. You are naked to the world, the both of you.
“Suddenly, all your talk doesn’t mean shit. It never did, of course. Only in your mind. Once the bell rings, it’s just you and your opponent. Everything you do, every punch you land or take, everybody out there can see it. And the folks in attendance, they’re your world, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Trust me. They are. Meanwhile, you walk into that ring, they think what they think about you. Most of them, they’re hoping and praying you’ll win big. Some, all they can do is sit there and fret, worrying you’re gonna get hurt. A few, maybe, are secretly rooting against you. Coworkers, boyfriends of girls you invite. You always have a few assholes. They’ll smile and shake your hand and wish you luck, and the whole time you’re in there fighting for your life, they’re crossing their fingers, praying to God this man’ll knock your head off.”
She shook her head and chuckled bitterly.
“It is what it is. You’re fighting for them just as much as you’re fighting for everybody else. Because you want to show them all. It isn’t like other sports. At the end of the match, it isn’t about are you the fastest or the prettiest or the best swimmer. Fighting, man, that’s about you. Your fists and chin come into it, sure, your footwork, all this training we’ve been doing, your endurance, everything. I mean, sure, it’s all that, it’s a fight, right?”
“Right.”
“But it’s more than a fight, kid. It’s about who wants it more. Who’s got the juice. Who’s got more heart. Who’s the better man. That’s it. That’s what it’s really all about. Who’s the better man?
“So at the end, when the ref raises one hand or the other, it’s either the best feeling in the whole world or the absolute worst. That’s why boxing is the most dangerous sport. Not because you can die in there. Shit, you know that. Everybody who pulls on a pair of gloves knows he can die, he’s gotta be willing to die to do what he’s gotta do in there. Besides, you can get killed crossing the damn street on your way to tiddlywinks lessons, you feel me?”
Johnny laughed.
“No, what makes boxing the most dangerous sport is that moment the ref raises the other man’s hand, and your whole world comes crashing down. Because then you are a loser, and the whole world knows it. Everybody you give a shit about just watched you prove that you’re a loser. And let me tell you, kid, it’s a hard road back from that. A hard, hard road.”
“I guess I’d better not lose, then.”
“Everybody loses sooner or later.”
“You were undefeated, though. You never lost.”
She fixed him with her good eye. “Oh, I lost plenty. I lost everything, kid, everything.”
For a few seconds, the boiler room was silent save for the constant sound of bag work and shouting trainers out in the gym.
Marvella touched his arm. “But look. What I’m trying to say is don’t fuck up, all right?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not talking about you. Look, I’m glad you came in here. I’m glad I took you under my wing. You stick with it, you might even do something. We’ll see. But Freddie, she’s my baby, you feel me? I been training her for two years. Two hours a night, sometimes three, six or seven days a week, all year long. There ain’t no such thing as boxing season. So that’s a long damn time her and me have spent together, you feel me?”
She glared at him now.
“Yeah. It’s a long time.”
“Freddie’s got a real shot. And she’s got a reason to fight. A real reason. You, you’re just getting into it, feeling your juice, wondering what the future might hold. But what else is there for you, huh? You live over in the motel, wash dishes. What do you got to lose? What do you got you can’t replace with something else? You’re a loose cannon right now. Sure, you can punch. Maybe even you have a future. I don’t know. But you’re dangerous.”
“To Freddie, you mean.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean, kid. I see you two together, the way you been acting. Looking at other, grinning. I might only have one eye, but I ain’t blind.”
“We like each other.”
Marvella shook her head. “You like each other.”
“I’m serious.”
“Are you, though? Are you serious, kid?”
“Yes,” Johnny said, his temper rising. Who was Marvella to question his feelings for Freddie? “Let’s get something straight. If I say I’m serious, I’m serious. And I am serious.”
“Well, that’s good. Because she’s serious. There’s no half-stepping in Freddie. She does something, she goes all the way, you feel me?”
He nodded.
“Don’t fuck her over, kid. And don’t fuck her up. Don’t fuck her at all if you can keep from it, though I think that might be too late now. Might even do more harm than good, leaving her kitty alone forever, seeing how she looks at you. But you gotta play this smart, Johnny. You go rushing in, turn this into a nail and bail, I will track you down, break your back, and leave you in the street for the drunks to piss on, you feel me?”
“I won’t do anything like that.”
“I half wish you would. Because if this goes the other way, the way I’m expecting, you treat her right, Freddie might get too happy and forget for a minute why she’s fighting. And that’s all it takes in this sport. One minute, one moment of bliss, one thing to fall back on, and bam—you lose your edge. Don’t take that girl’s edge, Johnny. She’s got a lot more going on than you, a lot more to fight for and hope for and live for, you feel me? Meanwhile, what you got is the here and now. Freddie’s not like you, all footloose and fancy free. She’s playing for keeps, and she’s not just playing for herself. She’s got folks counting on her. Folks with very little else to count on, you feel me?”
Thinking of what Freddie said about her father, Johnny nodded yet again. “I told you. I’m serious about Freddie. I’m not gonna fuck her over.”
“I hope so, kid,” Marvella said, her gaze sliding out of focus again, staring once more into that haunted place beyond this world. “I really fucking hope so.”
Chapter 29
The next morning, as the rest of the world slumbered on, Johnny and Freddie grunted their obligatory greeting and put in the miles.
Running was getting easier for Johnny. The beginning of each session, he felt sluggish like a car struggling to turn over on a cold morning.
But once he’d run several blocks, he found his stride, and his blood and breath came evenly.
This morning, Freddie started putting on a burst of speed every third block. Johnny kept up with her.
They didn’t discuss it and didn’t need to. They just hung with each other, and at the end of the run, gasping for air, Johnny said, “Good work.”
Freddie lifted her arms overhead, but she wasn’t even winded. “Gotta keep pushing, right?”
He nodded. “All the way to the top. We’re in it together.”
She held out her fist, and they pounded it and started for Coffee & Chess.
They drank cult coffee and played chess but only managed two games instead of three, since Johnny’s improved play forced Freddie to slow down and study the board.
They drew the first game, pushing their bet to the next day. Johnny won the second, feinting with his queenside pawns before launching an all-out kingside assault and smothering her castled king.
“Well, that sucked,” she said, looking up from the smoldering ruins of her losing position. “But not as much as drinking my coffee black is going to suck tomorrow.”
“Deal with it,” Johnny said. “I’ve been following your lead ever since we
met. You know boxing, Fight Town, meditation… but on the chess board, you have awakened a dragon. When my brothers and I needed to decide something, we’d usually play chess to see who had to do what.”
“My sister and I would just fight for it.”
Johnny chuckled, cleaning up the board. “You two really don’t get along, huh?”
Freddie held out her hand and titled it side to side. “So so. I mean, I love her, you know?”
“Family first.”
“Always. But Lennie’s a pain in the ass, too. We’ve always been very competitive.”
“Does she box?”
Freddie shook her head. “She should. She’d be great. But no. I started boxing, so she had to do something different. She’s a kickboxer.”
They returned the chess board, thanked the cowgirl behind the counter, and headed out into the street, where darkness yet reigned.
“Is kickboxing popular here?” he asked.
“Not really. Lennie’s stupid. She has talent. Real talent. She could make way more as a boxer than a kickboxer. But she swears that kickboxing is the sport of the future.”
“Is she pro?”
“Not yet. But she’s racking up the wins. She’s 3-0.”
“She’s catching up to you.”
Freddie grinned. “Which is why my next fight can’t come soon enough. I can’t let her catch up to me. It drives Lennie nuts, not being able to get the fights, but kickboxing shows are rare. There are boxing matches basically every night of the week. Two of her three fights weren’t even in Fight Town. If you’re going to kickbox, you have to travel to fight. She’s already talking about turning pro since it’s so hard to find fights. Patience is not my sister’s forte.”
Reaching her apartment building, they went up to the roof, settled onto the grass, and synced their breathing.
Johnny was glad for the cult coffee coursing through his veins. Otherwise, he would likely fall asleep. Not because he was tired—he felt highly energized these days—but because the process was so relaxing, especially with Freddie’s soft voice counting out the stages of respiration.