The Gringo Champion

by Aura Xilonen

  Mr. Abacuc shouts, “Punch that dummy with all your might, boy! You’ll see, you’ll feel better afterward.”

  Naomi squeezes my hand as if that might give me courage, and then lets go.

  “Go on!” the girl says. “That’s what we all do here when we’re mad about something.”

  The truth is, I’m pissed at the whole world. I ache all over, as if every bit of me had been sent through a garbage disposal unit. I spin, spewing sulphur, and slowly move a couple of yards closer to the coach and his whistle. Then I turn into light, give a hypersonic leap, and unleash a furious punch, focusing all of my rage toward the center of the fucking vinyl cushion, like that, profaning the air with all my dark cells.

  Fuuuuuuck!, whistles the wind around me, all of its molecules vibrating in the explosion.

  Craaaaaack!, booms the dummy amid the total silence of the gym. And it doesn’t just boom—it releases a huge cloud of dust as the vinyl splits under my blow and I send Coach Truddy flying on his ass like a felled tree in the middle of the floor.

  The whole gym bursts into shouts.

  “The boy’s killed him!” screams the woman at the desk.

  Mr. Abacuc rushes toward the sprawling hulk.

  “Coach Truddy! Are you all right, Coach Truddy?”

  The giant can’t move. He’s had the wind knocked out of him. All you can see is his chest struggling to inflate his lungs. His eyes are bugging out like a lemur’s. His face goes from purple to red and then to blue. Immediately I go up to him and grab him by the legs, making him bend his knees so his diaphragm goes back to its normal position and he can get some air, just as I’ve done with so many guys during street fights so they could have the chance to leave the melee on their own two feet.

  “You’re right,” I tell Mr. Abacuc as I dock Coach Truddy’s legs to inflate him. “I do feel a little bit better.”

  * * *

  [“Jefe, the fucking distributor came by yesterday. He says you need to give him a check that won’t bounce on him—otherwise he’s going to take the new books somewhere else.”]

  Mr. Abacuc’s office is on the other side of the foyer to the right, almost directly across from the dining room. We take Coach Truddy there. We settle him on a futon to recover in private and not under the watchful eyes of all the kids, who started crowding around him to find out whether he was dead or alive. The desk lady is clucking around the room in Spanish and English:

  “Madre mía, oh God. Sweetheart, cariño, baby.”

  Naomi tugs on my arm. “That’s his wife.”

  Slowly, the giant is regaining his shrimpish hue. The lady places another cottonball soaked in rubbing alcohol under his nostrils, and the hulk blanches backward.

  The stout woman from the kitchen comes in carrying a plate and a spoon.

  “Some nice chicken soup can revive even the dead,” she says, placing it on a little table next to the paunchy coach.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Merche,” Mr. Abacuc says.

  The cook leaves, skipping toward the dining room across the hall.

  “How do you feel, coach?” Mr. Abacuc asks for the gazillionth time.

  The tub nods weakly. His wife is interlacing her fingers with his.

  She turns to look at me.

  Her eyes are foaming.

  “That boy is a menace.”

  “Ms. Webber, I am entirely and absolutely to blame here,” Mr. Abacuc breaks in. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t foresee it.”

  “Let’s hope he didn’t turn my dear Truddy’s guts inside out and dislocate his stomach.”

  “We’ll take your husband to the doctor at once, Ms. Webber.”

  “I’m fine,” Coach Truddy says at last.

  “How can you be fine, darling? You can’t even breathe! You turned all sorts of colors, oh God! You looked like you were dead. I almost died myself, of a heart attack!”

  “He just knocked the wind out of me. It’s nothing, woman.”

  “If you get the runs later, don’t come crying to me!”

  Naomi puts her hand to her mouth to cover a smile spreading across her face at Ms. Webber’s commentary.

  I smile too.

  “And he’s cynical too. Look, Mr. Shine, he’s laughing.”

  “I’m sorry, I . . .” I say, and bow my head. Naomi looks at me and smiles at me from behind her hand.

  “Ms. Webber. You’re upset right now because of what just happened, but please remember you’re a good person and we’re here to help those who need it most, those who have the least. It’s not the boy’s fault.”

  Ms. Webber blushes. She takes her eyes off me and deposits them on her husband, who’s already pulling himself together. He’s sweating less, and he’s now a healthy shade of pink.

  “Jesus, kid,” the coach says to me, his eyes wide and his breathing slow. “I was a mechanic on a battleship during my military service. We used to organize fights between the sailors and we’d bet dollar bills and cigarettes on the winner. In all my life, I swear, I’ve never seen anyone with a left like the one you just gave me.”

  “Neither have I, Coach Truddy,” adds Mr. Abacuc, perching on the edge of his desk. Hanging on the wall behind him are more certificates with his name on them and some photos with a bunch of people I don’t recognize. Everyone’s smiling into the camera.

  “You like boxing, son?” the giant asks me.

  “Coach Truddy, are you thinking . . .?” interrupts Mr. Abacuc.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. What do you think, Mr. Shine?”

  * * *

  [“Boss, the people from the bank called like five times. What should I tell them?”

  “That I’m dead. Tell them that: I died yesterday and they buried me at ten this morning, so those fucking queer-ass mercenary monkeys can lay the fuck off.”]

  “Look, son,” Coach Truddy tells me in the middle of the gym floor. The other boys and girls already went off to the dining room to eat. I’m hungry, but the coach has to go to the doctor at his wife’s insistence and he wants to get started immediately. “We have to do this yesterday, Mr. Shine”—that’s what he told Mr. Abacuc, wanting to have me debut at the exhibition championship for charity. “We need to raise money for the kids in the shelter, and quickly.” “Look, son,” he repeats, “these are called muscles, and we have to get them in shape. This is your sternocleidomastoid, these are your deltoids, then the triceps and biceps. Your latissimi dorsi run down your back. Here where your ribs are poking out should be some muscles called your obliques. And in front of them, your abdominals. Then come the glutes, and your thighs have your quadriceps, which are made up of four muscles: abductors, adductors, rectus femoris, and sartorius. There’s also your biceps femoris and, down below, your calf muscles and your tibialis muscles. We have to transform them all into steel using crunches, push-ups, squats, and lots of other exercises. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? So what did I say?”

  “We have to fix me up from neck to shin, including guns, cheeks, and gut.”

  “Well, you’ve got the general idea, which is the most important thing. Tomorrow I want you to start off running for ten minutes, and every day you’re going to add two more minutes. Jog first and then do ten- or twenty-meter sprints to work out your cardiovascular system.” He looks at me meditatively. “Are you sure you’ve never trained in boxing or anything? You’ve got quite a fist.”

  “Never, Coach Truddy.”

  “All right, we’ll see how things go. Tomorrow before five. And make sure to drink lots of water.”

  “And what’s all this for?”

  “Well, it’s one thing to dish blows out, and something else altogether to take them.”

  “What?”

  “Flex your stomach muscles. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Without warning
, he strikes out at me, and I instinctively move backward and to the right. He misses, his fist grazing my belly, and almost falls over from his own forward momentum.

  “Let me punch you, son.”

  “What for?”

  “To show you what I was just talking about.”

  “Can’t you just show me with words?”

  “No.”

  I remain still and tighten my abdomen.

  His blow in the pit of my stomach makes me gag up my roll in the middle of the floor.

  “And I didn’t even hit you hard, boy,” he says while I’m doubled over, out of breath, just lying there. “There are some monsters that are going to want to rip off your head with a single twist.”

  I wake up before dawn. The fluorescent blue clock says it’s 4:45. I dress quickly and go down to the kitchen storeroom. I pull out a sack of feed, pick up a bowl, and fill it to the brim. I walk over to the spiral staircase that leads to the roof and climb up. There are several hens in a coop made of wood and wire. They’re still sleeping on a crosswise pole. I pick up the tray and empty out the feed. Then I fill the waterer with the hose. I also water the wooden boxes that the shelter uses as a garden: basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley, mint, epazote, chamomile, rue, oregano, Mexican pepperleaf, greens, arnica, some cabbage, radishes, carrots, squash, cherry tomatoes, red chile, serrano, habanero, piquín, manzano, poblano, and jalapeño peppers. In some areas of soil, they’ve planted aloe and two little clusters of blue agave. A small avocado tree and a dwarf lime tree are planted separately. At a distance is a hydroponic tube for watercress, romaine lettuce, and some strange plants called “stars of the day” that look like grass for pasturing cows.

  “Why aren’t you growing any roses, carnations, or violets, Mrs. Merche?”

  “You can’t eat those.”

  “But it’s food for the eyes, isn’t it, at least that’s what the poets say.”

  “Oh, kid, that’s because poets are not of this world and they don’t need to eat.”

  I finish stingily watering all the wooden garden planters up on the rooftop, just the way Mrs. Merche taught me, so I can earn my breakfast.

  “Don’t use a lot of water, or they’ll rot.”

  I carry the container downstairs and leave it in the storeroom. I head toward the main entrance, open the door slowly so as not to disturb anyone, and go out to the street. The streetlights are still awake. I turn to the left and start walking. Nothing’s open yet. Two or three people walk by, probably on their way to work at one of the factories on the edge of town. It’s cold, so I start jogging slowly to warm up my muscles, as Coach Truddy instructed me.

  When I get to Wells Park, I see there are a few other suckers who have also gotten up early to exercise. One is wearing a scarf, glasses, and headphones. Others are doing genuflections at the edge of the gravel path. The rest jog past me. I spot the black woman’s battered shopping cart and a few people sleeping toward the center of the park. The air is cold. All I’m wearing is my sweatpants from Double-U, a sweatshirt Mr. Abacuc gave me, and the flying tennis shoes from Aireen.

  What did he tell me to do first?

  Oh, right.

  I bend in half and feel my bones crunch at my waist, in the middle of my body. One, two, three. Then I straighten up and try to stretch my legs. I open my legs to either side and feel the pull in my groin.

  It hurts.

  I do a couple of squats, my knees creaking.

  It’s like I need oil or something.

  I stretch my arms out in front of me and then try to stretch them behind me.

  I move my head in various directions to warm up my neck.

  I start walking down the running path. Then I pick up my pace and suddenly I’m running. It’s a strange sensation to know that nobody’s chasing me and I’m doing this of my own accord, not because someone’s after me wanting to beat me up.

  I take a couple of laps around Wells Park. My throat feels dry, and sometimes I get out of breath. I imagine the beginning must be like that. Nothing but pain.

  Pure pain.

  “And remember, son: no pain, no gain,” Coach Truddy told me before leaving arm in arm with his old lady.

  The sky starts to turn blue. Before I tire myself out completely, I lope out of the park and go straight to the chickadee’s building. I look at its red bricks and feel as if a part of my life were slipping away from me there.

  I used to be happy just watching her walk down the street, on the bus, in the park, so why do I feel this way now?

  I stop and look up. At her window. Aireen must be sleeping right now. The sky is getting lighter by the second, and before it lightens completely, I start running as fast I can, hoping the physical pain will make me forget the enormous pain of knowing that she will never want to be with someone like me.

  The sky is blue by the time I get back, though the sun is still nowhere to be seen. The shelter is wide open. Outside, a truck is unloading boxes and bags. Mr. Abacuc is carrying them inside along with Mrs. Merche. The oldest kids are lined up, passing the bags from hand to hand toward the interior of the building, where the middle kids are putting everything away. They’re like ants passing twigs to one another in their jaws.

  “What’s all this?” I ask Mr. Abacuc as I help him carry a few boxes inside.

  “Donations for winter,” he replies, huffing a little.

  I tote more large boxes until we’ve finished unloading everything from the truck.

  “Let’s see,” says Mr. Abacuc. “Food goes in the kitchen pantry. Clothing and blankets, in the storeroom in the back. Medicine, in my office.”

  “Is Coach Truddy here yet?” I ask when we’ve put away all the donations.

  “He always arrives after breakfast, son.”

  “So what should I do in the meantime?”

  “Come with me!”

  We go into a room crammed with junk. There are filing cabinets, stacks of chairs. Lots of dust. Plastic containers in burlap sacks. Some beat-up lockers. Piled-up boxes. Musical instruments on shelves. A few dusty, forgotten books. Mr. Abacuc rummages around in some boxes and finally pulls out a bag that’s covered with dust.

  “Here they are. I hope they’re still wearable and not completely moth-eaten.” He passes it to me. “It’s a boxing bag. It should contain some gloves, focus mitts, a mask, a speed bag, and I think even some mouthguards.”

  He unties the laces and yes, there inside is everything he said plus a jump rope, a jockstrap, and a cup to protect your balls.

  “Tell Mrs. Merche to give you a little powdered detergent; wash these items in the laundry sink upstairs and hang them up to dry on the clothesline. Then come back down.”

  “What was this place used for?” I ask Mr. Abacuc.

  He turns to look at the chaos around him.

  “The only thing this room ever does is fill up with dust and useless junk.”

  Mrs. Merche gives me the soap and a nylon-bristled brush. I go up to the roof to wash the equipment. I dump everything out in the sink and start with the smallest items. I grab the mouthguard and wash it meticulously, as if I were cleaning the treasures in an Egyptian tomb. I rinse it and then look around. “This must go in your mouth.” I put it in and confirm that, yes, it does go in your mouth, but the previous owner must have had crooked teeth, because mine don’t fit into its grooves. I spit it out and wash it again. I move on to the gloves and see they’re stained with dark blood. I scrub at them with the brush until all that’s left is just a few scuffs that I can’t get out. Then the focus mitts, mask, jockstrap, and cup. The cup is too small for my fucking package. I also wash the jump rope and finally the bag. It’s coming unstitched along one seam, and a hole is forming. I wash it carefully until it’s white instead of gray. The red and black trim gleams. I hang it up to dry on the clothesline. I can’t see much of the city from there. Just some tall bu
ildings, nearby trees, and somewhere out there, lost amid the ghostly zone and Wells Park, must be the chickadee’s building.

  * * *

  [“Jefe, why do you use so many bad words when you’re by yourself and none at all when you’re with customers?”

  “What goddamn motherfucking bad words do I use, you fucking pinche interfering bastard?”

  “Those ones.”

  “Those aren’t fucking goddamn bad words; bad words are the ones you hear in soap operas coming from those pinches motherfucking respectable people with clean consciences and filthy asses, or from fucking Republican sons-of-bitches, goddamn limp-dicked pachyderms. Now those are bad words. Vote for me, I’ll make things better, apply for a fucking mortgage, you’re the king of your castle. Assholes. The way I talk is a way of expressing ideas without fucking dressing them up in pretty bullshit, you little prick.”]

  I finish hanging up the jump rope and go down to breakfast. The little runts move aside for me; it’s like I’m in a glass bubble and it’s pushing them out of the way with a gravitational force field. Only Naomi comes up to me in her wheelchair and sets her plate down next to mine.

  “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”

  I stick my spoon back in my oatmeal.

  “Why are you so weird, kid?”

  “You think I’m weird?”

  “Really weird.”

  “And is that good or bad?”

  I think for a moment.

  “It’s weird.”

  Naomi dips her spoon to her plate and scoops up some oatmeal.

  “Did you really tell Mr. Shine you want to clean out that room and set up a library?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Oh, Liborio, everyone always finds out about everything around here.”

  “Damn busybodies.”

  “Well? Did you?”