The Gringo Champion

by Aura Xilonen

  “Is Mrs. Marshall going to call off the fight?” asks one of the other scruffs.

  “Which fight was he supposed to be in?” the suit breaks in for the first time.

  “The first one,” says the older guy with the flat cap.

  “Uh-oh. Troy’s gonna burn,” the dapper replies.

  “They sent a sub for Knox. He can fight Pantos in the first match,” the earringed guy says.

  The suit stands there thinking for a moment while the doctor immobilizes the basted guy’s neck.

  “I don’t know,” says the necktie. “What about the Knox-Servin fight?”

  “We can do repeats,” argues the earring. “The point is to save the event, right? I don’t want to even think about what Mrs. Marshall would do if her charity event got screwed up.”

  “But two fights in one day?” the dapper asks.

  “We can do the first fight with just controlled shots, right, Pantos?”

  “The show must go on,” says John Pantos.

  “And the second one too,” says the earring. “Right, Will?”

  “Sure,” says another close-cropped muscular scruff with labyrinths in his hair.

  “Hmmm,” the dapper growls. He looks at the scruff all laid out on the floor, looks at the doctor, looks at all of us, looks at Coach Truddy, and looks back at the knockout. He breathes in and exhales sharply. “Oof! O.K., but pull those punches, got it? I don’t want any more accidents. This event has got to come off without a hitch. Doctor, send for another ambulance and go to Central Hospital. Keep me updated as things develop. And you guys start warming up now—we’re about to get started. Let’s keep things moving!” The dapper strides out of the room just as the paramedics enter. They set up on one side of the room and start getting the vato ready to take him to the hospital.

  Coach Truddy comes up to me and whispers, “Careful, son, they’re really going to want to clean your clock now. I’m going to go right now and withdraw you from the event immediately.”

  “No, coach,” I say, breathing onto his neck and urgently grabbing his arm. “If they want revenge, let them have it.”

  I don’t want to be there. The air in the bathroom is like fucking concrete myrtling my spirit.

  “I’m going to warm up out there, coach.” I walk through the scruffs in my red shorts and antediluvian T-shirt. They don’t react at all—it’s as if I’m a ghost. The guy with the earring doesn’t even turn to look at me when I open the door and leave, but I still feel his murderous gaze in the back of my eyes.

  I take a deep breath and head toward a small hallway. The voices from the ballroom sound far away. I uncoil the jump rope and start hopping:

  “One-e-le-phant-was-swing-ing-on-a-spi-der-web-see-ing-that-it-held-they-called-a-no-ther-el-e-phant-two-e-le-phants-were-swing-ing . . .”

  I’m starting to feel hot by the time I get to the twenty-second elephant. Sweat starts to flow. I jump the rope faster and faster, my feet hardly leaving the floor, in a perfect union of gravity, time, and space.

  “Nice song.”

  I stop short. The jump rope smacks me in the shins.

  A stout man wearing a cardigan and carrying a felt hat in his hand is leaning with his back against a wall behind me, one shoe propped up against the wall. When he lowers it to the floor, he leaves a mark. He comes up to me.

  “I haven’t heard that in years. You’re Mexican, right?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean because of your skin color. Don’t call me a racist now that it’s all the rage to go around tossing around accusations at everybody.”

  “What?”

  “I was saying you must be Mexican because the verb ‘columpiar’ is used only in Mexico. In other countries they’re more, shall we say, academic, if you’ll permit me to use that term, and they say ‘balancear’ instead, which in my view ruins the rhythm if you sing it with the latter wording.”

  “My coach taught it to me,” I say at last, having gotten over my initial surprise.

  “Your coach? A unique coach! I never would have guessed. Again, though, you must be from Mexico—I can tell by your accent, it’s unmistakable. Though I think Mexicans do tend to take on every accent—as long as it’s with Spanish, of course, and not other languages, such as English, for example . . . And do you always sing when you jump rope?”

  “It helps make the saltation less monochrome.”

  “Saltation? Monochrome? Well! You certainly do have an odd way of talking. No, I take that back. To put it more accurately: you have a different way of using words. What grade did you go up to in school, young man?”

  “See here, I’m trying to warm up and you’re distracting me.”

  “I do apologize. I was just walking through here and got lost. I saw them taking somebody out on a stretcher. Do you happen to know what that was about?”

  “No.”

  “All right, well, I’m just . . . how would they say it in your country? Sesame for every mole sauce? That’s how you say it, right?”

  I start jumping again, ignoring him.

  “One-fly-lan-ded-on-the-wall-one-fly-lan-ded-on-the-wall . . .”

  “One last question, and then I’ll leave you alone with your fly on the wall. Why are you wearing those shorts on inside out, when you could read ‘Sexy’ more easily if you put them on right side in?” He shuffles off toward the ballroom at a turtle’s pace. Then he turns back to me while putting on the felt hat. “Oh, and I also voted for Bill a million years ago.”

  “It’s time,” Coach Truddy tells me.

  The bandages on my knuckles are squeezing me inside the gloves. I feel amputated, like a pig with just two hooves. My fists are compressed and I feel my pulse running through me from my wrists to my forehead. The crotch protector is uncomfortable too. It’s squashing my balls and willy. “Are you sure it’s necessary, coach?” “I’m sure.” Then he puts the protective mask on me and tightens it so hard I can’t breathe. “I can’t see anything on either side of me, coach.” Probably so he won’t have to listen to me complain anymore, he tells me, “Open your mouth,” and plugs it with the mouthguard. “Ow, dees ah by eeth,” I say, but the coach can’t understand a word.

  “We don’t use face masks anymore,” the flat cap says behind us.

  “What?” says Coach Truddy.

  “They changed the rules for amateur fighters years ago.”

  “What?”

  “They banned face masks because there were more injuries with them than without them, they said.”

  “That can’t be right. This guy’s pulling our leg. Those masks protect your head.”

  “All right, have at it then.” He walks away.

  “I’m telling you, they’re trying to take you down, son. There’s still time to pull out.”

  “Nnn, coeh,” I say, shaking my head to make sure he understands me.

  Another dapper in a red tie comes in. He’s got a little metal name tag and an open folder.

  “John Pantos?”

  “Here.”

  “Dulls Jara?”

  The earring jumps in. “In the hospital.”

  “I know,” says dapper number two, “but we’re keeping his name in the general announcement. Who’s going to be subbing for him?”

  “That guy over there.” The yup points at me.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “By dabe Ibodio,” I say, the goddamn contraption blocking my tongue.

  “I can barely understand you—you Cuban or something?”

  “Uck.”

  “All right, Ibodio Uck, you’re subbing in for Dulls Jara. You’ll be fighting first.”

  He takes a few steps back.

  “Dwight Amir?”

  “Here.”

  “Alanis Stanton?”

  “Here.”

 
“You two are going second. O.K.”

  “Jerry Knox?”

  “Right there.” The earring points at me again.

  “You again?”

  “That’s what Mr. Perl said,” the earring says.

  The dapper picks up his walkie-talkie.

  “Yes, yes… yes… O.K.” He hangs up. “All right, cowboy,” he says to me. “You get changed into blue and go . . . Will Servin?”

  “Here,” says a bronzed macaguamo.

  “You two are going third. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  He keeps going with the other scruffs until everything’s all arranged on the paper he’s carrying in that folder.

  “All right, that’s everything, warriors. Let the show begin.”

  We walk behind John Pantos and the earring. The coach is trailing a little behind me and seems more nervous than I am. I can’t see much from behind my mask. They’re really going to tenderize me, I think, but as we walk toward the ballroom, it seems like the blind man—that is, me—is leading the guide dog. A dapper stops us before we pass through the yellow lace curtains. A deep black voice is finishing the US national anthem. It goes high and then low at will. It stops singing, and the room explodes into cheers. I hear applause, whistles, noisemakers, rattles, jingle shakers, and little paper flags.

  “Let’s go, son. Go for it. You’ve got this, you can do it! Chin up! Put your heart into it! You’ve got this!” says Coach Truddy, his face bleached, slapping me on the back.

  The microphone goes on and I hear a measured masculine voice, like a supermarket announcement amid the clamoring of the audience.

  “Damas y caballeros, and now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The first fight in this extraordinary evening of charity and compassion. Fighting threeeeee rounds with youuuuu: Jooohn Pantooos from Chaaarityyy without Boooorders . . .” There’s a racketous, caloritic, commotional din. John Pantos pushes through the curtain, leaping and punching the air, followed by the earring. “. . . against Duuulls Jaaara from Unity and Diiignity . . .”

  Coach Truddy shoves me, and I pass through the curtain.

  An explosion of lights beats down on me as I move forward. The roar echoes off the columns, sandwiching me between the dome and the floor. I’m agog and have to take mincing little steps on tiptoe so I don’t fall flat on my face. People are whistling and applauding, making a ruckus and a half. The uproar trampolines from one seat to another.

  I reach the little stairs to the ring and climb up.

  I turn my whole body around to look back; I don’t see Coach Truddy anywhere, but I do see a lot of men and women decked out in crisp, elegant clothing. Some of them are in tuxes and stoles. Lots of them are taking photos with and without flash, with their cell phones or tablets.

  I duck under the ropes and enter the ring.

  I’ve never stepped in one before. It feels watery under my feet, like walking in the sticky mud of my unpaved village.

  An exuberant woman in short shorts, a bra, high heels, and a sash sweeping from her shoulder to her hip is in the ring holding a sign above her head that says in large, neat letters, “For me, for you, for them. Henry Ford.”

  The referee, a pudgy gringo with a light-blue short-sleeved shirt, a man-bun, and latex gloves, is weighing Pantos on the other side, in the blue corner.

  The singer, a cadet in black with gold buttons, a sword in her belt, gleaming shoes, and a white military basin on her dome who’s carrying a furled US flag, heads out of the ring.

  Leaving by the other staircase are two older gray-haired men in tuxedos and a gussied-up lady with a little gold chain around her ankle that jingles when she raises her leg to get over the ropes and is helped by two younger men in red ties. There’s also an old man in a gray blazer and white pants who helps the short-shorts lady down.

  The man on the microphone keeps talking:

  “Because the best causes are those that lead to victory . . .”

  “No mask,” the referee yells, coming up and yanking it off me. I take a deep breath as the man-bun tosses the protective mask out of the ring. “Gloves”—he tugs on my arms. He checks the laces, plucking at them. “Cup”—he fondles my crotch. “Mouthguard”—he pulls my lips open the way you do a horse.

  He moves off toward the middle of the ring. The man with the microphone finishes yammering: “. . . and tonight is light. Thank you very much.” He leaves the ring, waving his arm at the crowd.

  “Get over here!” yells the referee, beckoning to us with his hands. I walk toward the middle. The scruff across from me moves forward too, not taking his eyes off me. I look past his shoulder at the guy with the earring, who flips me the bird and then leaves the ring. “All right. I already told you the rules in the dressing room. I want a clean fight at all times. No low blows. Fair play. Touch gloves.”

  The scruff pounds his gloves together and then punches mine, saying self-assuredly, seethingly, “Consider yourself dead, you fucking Indian. This one’s for Jara.”

  The referee pushes us toward our corners.

  The bell rings.

  “Box!” yells the referee, putting his hands together like he’s clapping.

  The scruff leaps at me in a rage—I can smell his tense, jumbled musculature, scented with incendiary, maladous, murderous perspirations—but before he can tear me to shreds, I see him coming at me and just like that, palindromed, I leap to one side and bring my fist down on his right temple.

  Immediately, the guy’s legs twist and he delapiflates, unable to even catch a breath.

  The referee grabs me by the arm and pushes me toward a neutral corner.

  I hear all the people hollering. Their hoopla, their deep-throated raucousing.

  The referee crouches over the slab, no longer attempting to do the countdown. He snatches the mouthguard out of the guy’s mouth and puts his hand under his neck so he can breathe and his tongue doesn’t knot up in his throat.

  The doctor and the man in the white pants go up and start checking him over.

  I spin around. Mr. Abacuc is down below, pale, his eyes bulging. I look toward the other side of the ring, where the kids are sitting, and I see them shrieking and hopping and wriggling in their seats. I don’t see Ms. Webber looking after them. The handicapped kids are in front of them. Naomi’s there, still waving the little flags, glowing with excitement, and shouting and shouting. I see she’s given flags to some kids in wheelchairs whose heads are lolling; they don’t seem to be aware of anything that’s happening around them. I try to smile at Naomi, but I can’t move my lips because of the mouthguard.

  The man with the microphone comes up into the ring:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, three seconds into the first round, the winner by knockout is Duuulls Jaraaaa.”

  They clap for me again. They cheer. The referee comes up and lifts my arm; he turns me toward the four sides of the ring while they keep packing up the swoony scruff.

  The referee lets go of my arm.

  “Now get out of here,” he says stonily.

  I exit from the white corner as the man with the microphone announces, “The next fight, which will be five rounds, will begin shortly,” and then approaches the knot of people around the fallen boxer. I circle the ring and pass by the paramedics, who are just rushing in with the stretcher.

  I go up to Mr. Abacuc.

  “Wheb Coe Tuddy?”

  He looks at me with silver eyes as he uncorks the mouthguard with his fingers and starts removing my gloves.

  “He passed out back in the hallway.”

  Ms. Webber is stroking his hair. Her eyes are so red, they could go blurry behind her pointy glasses. Coach Truddy is sitting on a bench in the hall we walked through earlier. He’s still pale and has beads of sweat on his forehead. Next to him is the older guy with the flat cap.

  “Are you O.K., coach?” I ask him
there in the middle of everyone.

  “He was about to have a heart attack,” the flat cap replies. “Left arm fell asleep. His capillaries weren’t filling up and he said he couldn’t breathe . . .”

  “It was that boy’s fault,” Ms. Webber cries out, unable to restrain herself. “He probably knocked his heart into another part of his body.”

  I sneak a look at her and have the distinct impression she’d like to whack my head off with a machete.

  “Oh, son,” says Coach Truddy with his eyes closed and his lips parted, white stuff gathered in the corners of his mouth. “I’d have liked to have been there with you, but when your body says no, it means no.” He leans his head back and rests it against the wall. Then he asks, “How’d we do?”

  “It’s all over, but don’t worry about that, coach, that’s over now,” I tell him as if I were talking to a kid with a stuffed animal.

  “I knew it.” He opens his eyes and looks at me. His dilated pupils are sweating.

  “Your husband needs to go to the doctor right now before anything else happens to him. It might have been just an arrhythmia or a fainting spell, but you should go now and not wait for an ambulance, which are swamped at the moment,” the older guy tells Ms. Webber. “Do you have a car?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Do you know how to drive, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” Ms. Webber answers plaintively, her voice thin.

  “Go to the emergency room at the Central Hospital. Hey you, kid,” he says to me, “you help him on that side and I’ll get him on this side. How are you feeling?”

  The coach opens his eyes again and blinks.

  “I can walk on my own . . . I’m feeling better now . . .”

  “All right,” says the flat cap. “But we’re going to help get you to the hospital. Understand?”

  Coach Truddy nods his head.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions just to make sure we can take you in your car without making your condition worse. You go ahead and answer them, O.K.? What’s your name?”

  “Truddy, Benjamin Truddy,” he says in a doughy voice.

  “Where are you right now?”