The Gringo Champion

by Aura Xilonen

  “In the . . . the ballroom . . . at the Ford.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty-eight . . . Yes, forty-eight.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “On . . . on Avalon . . . 21 Avalon Street.”

  “O.K.,” says the flat cap. “He’s not disoriented, and his reactions are good. Let’s lift him up!”

  I grab Coach Truddy firmly under the armpit and we start towing him out of the hallway through an open door. Ms. Webber is up ahead of us and behind us, circling anxiously as we haul her husband along. She opens the door to the outside. We move among the planters and fountains. Coach Truddy’s a heavy guy, leaves a dent in your bones. My legs are shaking in the middle. We round the corner toward the terrace.

  “Oof!” the flat cap exhales with sweaty relief. Some distance away, there’s a parked ambulance shining its red and white lights everywhere, its rear doors ajar, waiting for the paramedics to bring the felled boxer.

  “Absalón!” yells the flat cap as we approach. “Absalón!”

  The ambulance driver sees us through the window. He immediately gets out and speed-walks toward us.

  “More trouble, cabrón?” he says.

  “We need you to take him to the hospital—possible heart attack.”

  The driver climbs into the ambulance through the back door and unhooks a secondary stretcher. He hooks it to the supports.

  “Lift him in,” he says.

  With an extra heave, we lift Coach Truddy’s bulk into the ambulance. The driver sits him down on the stretcher and has him lie back. He deftly attaches some straps across his chest. Then he pulls out a neck brace and places it on the coach.

  “My keys . . .” says Coach Truddy.

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “To the Fairmont . . . In my pocket, son.”

  The flat cap sees I’ve still got my gloves on, so he climbs into the ambulance and reaches out while the driver finishes immobilizing the coach. He fishes the keys out of the coach’s pants pocket.

  Just then we hear a shout behind us. “Clear the way!”

  The paramedics are wheeling the stretcher with the unconscious boxer toward us. The flat cap hops down to the ground as Ms. Webber and I move aside to let them through. The driver gets out to help the paramedics.

  “One, two, three.” They lift the stretcher up into the left side of the ambulance and engage the wheel locks. The driver closes the two doors and turns to face us.

  “Who’s coming along?” he asks.

  “She is,” the flat cap replies.

  “Go on and get in front. There’s no more room in the back.”

  Ms. Webber obeys immediately without objecting.

  A knot of curious onlookers is already approaching the ambulance. The driver clambers into his seat. He turns on the siren and launches his unit at light speed down the road toward the gate till it turns into a meteorite and disappears past the guardhouse.

  “You’re oh for three,” says the flat cap, grabbing my arm and placing Coach Truddy’s keys in the middle of my glove. He turns around and heads inside the Ford Center.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” I yell through the bustle of people who are now also returning to the main hall.

  “What’s it to you?” he answers, turning his surly face toward me only slightly.

  “Lend me some blue shorts, then,” I shout at him, but he’s already disappeared amid the planters and people.

  * * *

  [“Never, you myopic moron. What gives? Are you going around spying on me or something?”]

  Mr. Abacuc is looking after the kids, circling around them as they shriek exaphorically, galloping, howling at the two boxers beating each other up in the ring and moving back and forth—they weave, tangle, rise, float, land imaginary punches. It’s the third round. The bell rings and the two fighters retreat to their corners, dripping foam.

  The fourth round is coming up, says the announcer.

  I keep going, shooting like a rifle toward the dressing room.

  Everyone goes quiet as I enter.

  The scruffs stop whispering. I don’t see the guy with the earring, but the other boxers are there, looking away from me as I walk past them toward the corner where I left my crap. I don’t see the man with the flat cap either. I toss the keys to Coach Truddy’s Fairmont into the bottom of the crate.

  The dapper comes in:

  “Jerry Knox and Will Servin, get ready.”

  “I don’t have any blue clothes,” I yell from the back.

  The dapper looks at me and then at the others.

  “Does anyone have some extra blues?” he asks the scruffs.

  Nobody says anything.

  “Come on, somebody’s got to have extras!”

  “We don’t have anything for that Indian bastard,” Will Servin finally says.

  “Come on, warriors! It was a clean fight. That’s the way it goes,” the dapper argues.

  “He can kiss my ass!” yells a scruff with a square beard.

  “We’ll give you a hundred bucks, Will, if you break that prick in half. We’ll take up a collection right now,” says a caramel-colored guy who’s wrapping his knuckles. “Right, guys?”

  Affirmative echoes sweep through the room.

  “All right,” says the bronzed dude. “But you’d better get the money together!”

  “Hey, there’s no betting here,” the dapper objects.

  “Yeah?” says the guy with the beard. “Are you going to beat us up or something?”

  “If I tell Mrs. Marshall . . .” the suit defends himself.

  “There’s no need to tell Mrs. Marshall,” bewilders a guy who’s sitting down tying the laces of his shoes. “She just came in asking about the idiot wearing the ‘Bill for Prez’ shirt. She was pissed, so we’d be doing her a favor. You’re done for, you piece of shit!”

  The dapper starts soaking the neck of his shirt. You can see his hair follicles writhing from across the room.

  “Take that shirt off now!” he tells me. He yanks off his jacket and tie, unbuttons his shirt, takes it off, and then pulls his white undershirt over his head. He tosses it onto the bench for me and starts getting dressed again.

  Then he helps me take off the shirt and put on his. It feels wet. It’s huge on me because the dapper’s three or four sizes larger than I am.

  “What pants did you bring?” he asks once he’s finished buttoning the shirt.

  “These ones,” I say, pointing to the sweatpants Double-U lent me.

  The dapper comes over and picks them up. He takes them over to a corner of the washing machine platform and yanks hard. I hear the fabric give and then rip in two. He does the same with the other leg. He pulls at it and tears it off. Then he helps me put on my new shorts.

  “I’ll give you ten bucks if that guy doesn’t make it past the first round!” he says loud enough for everyone to hear him.

  * * *

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

  “A rare bird, you sybaritic nunce. What kind of questions are these? Have you been manhandling the self-help books again, putito? I’m going to charge you for them, you stridentine pernacular.”]

  “They’ll be fiiiiighting seven roooounds. In the blue corner, Jeeerry Knox, representing Hope Center Nooooorth.”

  I head out through the curtain again. I’m alone once more. My improvised shorts have got one leg longer than the other, so one comes down to my knee and the other halfway down my thigh. I walk quickly this time and climb the little stairs into the ring. I pass through the ropes and the referee starts fondling me immediately, while the man with the microphone announces Will Servin, who’s representing Heaven, Earth, and Humanity in the third fight of the night.

  The referee checks my gloves, makes sure I’m wearing a c
up, and when he looks up at my face I see he’s startled to recognize me, but he pulls himself together and says, unruffled, “Mouthguard.”

  I turn around and around until I spot Mr. Abacuc. I leap out of the ring and head toward him while the audience laughs at my nimble-footed exploit.

  “I need the mouthguard.”

  “What happened to Coach Truddy? And Ms. Webber?” he replies.

  “They went to the hospital,” I shout above the deafening uproar. “But they left me the keys to his car.”

  His face goes grainy.

  Tramplish.

  He takes the mouthguard out of the front pocket of his coat and plugs it into my mouth. I feel little bits of lint between my teeth like the skin of woolly caterpillars.

  “Ang,” I say.

  I go back to the ring and hop over the ropes. The audience whoops. They’re seething. Unleashing their most basic instincts. In the din I hear Naomi’s unmistakable voice: “Give me an O . . . What does that spell? Liborioooo!”

  The man with the microphone finishes talking and leaves the ring.

  “Come here!” the referee commands me, and I go up to him. I show him the mouthguard, pushing my lips back with my glove. “O.K.” He gives me a nod of approval. Then he stultifyingly repeats his spiel, calling to the dude in the red corner. “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.”

  My opponent doesn’t touch gloves with me—he just turns around and goes to his corner. It’s like being in the streets, where rage demolishes everything in its path, the way red ants demolish calendulas.

  The audience roars.

  It feeds off itself.

  It idolizes its own essence.

  The fucking bell rings.

  “Box!” yells the referee.

  The bronzed guy starts punching wildly right and left, trying to knock me out with one blow. His fists whiz past me, ephemeral, scabbing the air.

  Just like with the jump rope, I start chanting, “Pretty little fish, come out and play. Come to the garden and we’ll romp all day.”

  I dish out a right jab that shatters on one of his tentacles. I can tell it hurts because his pupils dilate. Immediately he shrinks back, on guard, like crabs when you touch their eyestalks.

  “I live in the water and here I must stay; if I leave, I’ll surely pass away.”

  Just then I release my left cross straight at his block, pushing every molecule of my being into a single atom. The collision is cataclysmic. Flushed. A nuclear chain. My proton hits his glove, his glove hits his face, and his face snaps backward, taking his body with it. Then his block stance opens up like a stupid flower waiting for the insolent rays of the chloroform. And right there, just like that, without giving him room to shield himself for a moment, I drive my right fist between his neck and his clavicle, between his carotid and his nape. People set off lightning bolts and trills in the room when I hit him.

  The bronzed dude collapses to his knees as if he were supplicating before God.

  And he stays there, as if he’s been cut in half and has to repent in his soul to cleanse all the sins from his body.

  The audience is aflame.

  The bronzed dude, on his knees, has his head bowed. His arms fallen at his sides.

  Then time returns and reunites with me and everything starts moving again. The bronzed dude’s mouthguard falls out and he tumbles facedown on the floor. The referee shoves me hard, so I stop pounding the vato like an incubus strengthening his own bones with those of other people.

  “Neutral corner,” the referee orders me.

  I head over to the white corner. I watch the referee turn the bronzed dude’s body over.

  “He’s not breathing!” he yells, squatting down and prying the dude’s mouth open with his gloved fingers. The medic rushes up with a can opener for throats, and they stick a long clear plastic tube in his mouth. Another knot forms around the prometheus chained to the floor.

  The flat cap climbs up to my corner.

  “Come on, kid, I’ll get those gloves off you.”

  Without waiting for other instructions, I go over to him and he pulls some scissors out of his trench coat. The audience is still screaming, and some people are trying to scramble into the ring. A dapper climbs up, a cell phone glued to his ear, and two others try to block access to the little red staircase. I see the earring there, busy removing the wounded hercules’s boxing boots.

  “I swear,” says the flat cap as he cuts the laces of my left glove, “either you’re the luckiest dude in the world or”—now he’s cutting the laces on my right glove—“you’re a goddamn uberlucky bastard from hell.” He takes off my gloves and tucks them under his arm. He pulls out one of the bottles he’s got hidden in his trench coat and expertly removes my mouthguard. “Swallow!” I open my mouth and he pours some into my mouth.

  I feel relief as the water spills down my throat and cools my innards.

  “Thank you, sir,” I say.

  “Everybody calls me Bald.”

  “Thanks, Vald.”

  “Bald, not Vald.”

  “All right, Mr. Bald.”

  The man with the microphone ducks under the ropes and starts reading the card he’s holding in his hand.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, at sixteen seconds in the first round, the winner by knockout is Jeeeerry Knooox!”

  The applause and cheers swell like waves that crash over our breakfronts, on the reefs of our ears. Naomi is clapping like a madwoman. The kids are going berserk.

  The referee lifts my arm again and leads me back and forth through the knot of people that’s already swarmed into the ring. When he lets go, I rush out of the ring and walk over to Naomi.

  “Captain!” I say to Naomi, unable to contain my excitement. “We just won ten dollars for the library!”

  * * *

  [Sometime in the summer, another fat envelope arrived. When it came, I handed it over to Jefe. He looked at the sender and told me, “Throw it away, you deducified prick. Or burn it, or shove it up your ass, whatever, but I don’t want to see it around anywhere. Got it?”

  I went out of the bookstore and ducked into the back alley.

  I set all the papers on fire.]

  Mr. Abacuc comes up to us.

  “You two are going to have to help me with the kids.”

  Behind us, the kids are leaping and cheering my name.

  I flip them the bird and they laugh even harder.

  They’re irrepressible.

  “Li-bu-rio, Li-bu-rio, Li-bu-rio!” they chant to their own beat, unleashed, blooming. Naomi’s eyes are gleaming and you can almost see brown tears of joy. The little flags are tattered from being waved so energetically; they’re hanging on by a thread.

  “Well, well, dear Abacuc, who’d have guessed it! I didn’t realize you’d brought in a professional for these amateur fights. You’re making up for lost time, aren’t you, you old fox?”

  We all turn to see who’s speaking.

  I recognize the gussied-up lady with the little gold chain around her ankle. I look down at her legs and yes, the jingler is there above her shoe. She turns to me and holds out her hand, putting it in front of my face to make me look up from her legs. I don’t know how to react, so I snap my teeth at her long, fragrant fingernails. Instead of drawing her hand back, she pushes it even closer and then turns it over and strokes my cheek with her slim fingers.

  “My, my, and not a drop of perspiration on you, my dear. You’re going to have to show me how you do it.”

  “Do what?” I yell amid the uproar as I feel her smooth skin on my cheeks.

  “Turn the whole world upside down and not sweat an ounce of guilt.”

  “We just opened a library, Mrs. Marshall,” says Naomi’s voice, exultive, from her wheelchair. “W
ell, it was Liborio’s idea, and we already have six books. But we’re going to buy more, right, Liborio? Could you give us some books, Mrs. Marshall?”

  Mrs. Marshall slowly pulls her hand back from my face, leans forward, and puts it on top of Naomi’s hand.

  “Of course, sweetheart. What a marvelous idea! Did you have fun tonight?”

  “Lots,” says Naomi, and waves the depilated flags.

  “I’m glad to hear it, Naomi. Children’s happiness is the most wonderful happiness in the world.”

  The dapper who gave me his T-shirt to fight in comes over, adjusts his red tie, and stations himself behind us.

  Mrs. Marshall straightens up and looks back toward me. Her eyes are blue, outlined with shadows of iridium. She has a snub nose and is wearing igneous-looking earrings.

  “You have a marvelous way of standing out, young man. Was it your idea or what?”

  “What?”

  “‘Bill for Prez’ . . . ‘Sexy’ . . . Goodness, I’m tempted to buy it off you myself.” She smiles slightly.

  “Mrs. Marshall,” the dapper breaks in. “Congressman Warthon is looking for you.”

  “Well, he can keep looking,” she tells him sweetly without turning to look at him. She winks at Naomi. “That way he can find out what it’s like to play hide-and-seek outside of Congress, right, Naomi?”

  Naomi smiles.

  The dapper goes back to his place behind Mrs. Marshall and doesn’t move a muscle.

  “I was thinking we can do something with this young man, my dear Abacuc. What do you think?”

  “Like what, my dear?” Mr. Abacuc asks.

  “I don’t know, darling, I’m still recovering from the astonishment. And when something astonishes you, my father used to say, you should always do something, because if you don’t, the moment ends and never comes back.”

  “When it rains, a lot of water comes in through the holes in the gym roof at the shelter,” I say just like that, without thinking, as the words enter my head.

  Mrs. Marshall smiles at me. Her teeth are white and neatly aligned. Her lips gleam pink.

  “You see, my dear Abacuc? Isn’t he wonderful? And he has a voice of his own too. We should all learn something from that—especially you, Naomi, since you have big dreams of being a prominent lawyer.” She turns to the dapper behind her. “Dermont, make a mental note to send our contractor, Barnes, to meet with Mr. Abacuc on Monday and take a look at the leaks in the gym roof.” Then she comes back to us. “Liborio, right?” She takes my face in her delicate hand again and strokes my chin. “I’m delighted to meet you, young man. You were the best part of the night.”