Fists

by Pietro Grossi

  I suddenly felt a slap on the face. Gustavo was looking hard at me.

  “This is it, son,” he said, taking the towel from my shoulders. “Do what you know and don’t think about it.”

  I turned, and there in the centre of the ring were the Goat and the referee, waiting for me. I walked into the centre, skipping and loosening up my arms, until I was in front of him and caught a glimpse of his eyes under the wall he had instead of a forehead. I had never seen him so close. There were already two expressive lines on his cheeks, the muscles were moulded to his body like tight-fitting rubber, his neck fell thick under his ears, and his back and chest were like two marble slabs. He already looked like a man. You didn’t get the feeling he was deaf, you got the feeling he was a fighting animal in miniature. You only had to set eyes on him to know he was a boxer, and one of the best. While the referee was speaking, he never took his eyes off a point somewhere at the height of my breastbone, and when, at the referee’s request, I touched gloves with him, all he did was turn and go back to his corner, where he started skipping and hitting his own chin just as I had seen him do against the Roman at the Teatro Tenda.

  Oh, God, who was I trying to kid? This guy was a real boxer, the kind that actually fights. Not like me, hiding myself away in a gym, persuading myself and other people that I was a sensation, when there’s someone outside who’s really sweating for that title, with fists and blood. Who did I think I was?

  Then the bell went and I found myself in the centre of the ring. The Goat and I touched gloves, and for the first time we looked each other in the eyes. Everything fell into place; my left arm was in front of my eyes and my right arm against my cheek; my legs started to dance around and I started to shower him with straight punches, one after the other, the way you were meant to. It just happened, automatically. We touched gloves, my heartbeat slowed and the sounds of the voices and the cries all around me started fading; there was only me and this half-man in front of me with his head down and his guard up, just like a goat. I showered him with straight punches and he parried them one after the other, or brushed them away with his hand. Every now and again he would bend to one side and attempt a hook or an uppercut, but not very convincingly, as if measuring the distance.

  My legs bounced on that green canvas as if they were springs. I skipped, turned and fired off some rather unconvincing straight lefts and rights. I saw the Goat dodge me and launch a few punches without ever taking his eyes off me; those two little black holes that seemed to be joined to my pupils with fishing line.

  It occurred to me that it was the same for both of us up there: he’d never heard anything in his life and I’d suddenly become deaf. I actually wondered if, by some magic, he started to hear something when the bell went—if not the voice and the cries, then a few muffled sounds like his own heartbeat, the way I did. I realised suddenly that we were the same breed: both outcasts, both uncool, two boys who were fighting for their lives, for that dirty, square fragment of reality where things happened the way they were supposed to and everything fell into place. And suddenly part of me understood that neither of us could win, that both of us could only lose.

  The match continued like that, nice, quiet and clean, for nearly three rounds. I kept my distance and fired off straight punches and as soon as I saw a chink I got in a few warning shots. A couple of times I immediately launched another right, just to show I wasn’t playing the fool, to make sure the Goat didn’t forget it. I skipped and danced around with my guard held high, keeping to the centre of the ring, trying from time to time to get the Goat into the corner with two punches and get out again before I got stuck there. Everything was too loose, and I had the unpleasant feeling the little deaf bastard was laughing beneath that marble forehead which hung heavily over his eyes; waiting and waiting with the patience of a Tibetan monk for me to make a mistake or get tired. But he never did anything, he just watched me dance, move round the ring and skip in front of him without ever taking his eyes off me, like a machine, just springing lightly on his toes, dodging my straight jabs by a millimetre, and every now and again firing off an uppercut or a couple of small punches. Just once, maybe twice, he did a bit more: I felt two gloves land on me more strongly and determinedly, pinning my elbow to my ribs, followed by a fairly strong hook to make me drop my guard. They were punches just like the others, but stronger, and they seemed to be there simply to say, “Watch out, girl, you can dance round this fucking ring as much as you like, but sooner or later you’re going to falter one way or another and then we’ll come visiting. That was just a taster.”

  And at the end of the third round it happened. There I was, skipping and firing off lefts, when suddenly, just as a right set off from my cheek like an elastic band, I saw the little man dodge to the side and felt three punches as hard as stone hit me first in the stomach then on the chin, three punches as solid as bricks that had come from God knows where, landed on my body and slammed me hard against the ropes. I didn’t see anything more until suddenly the referee was there in front of me with his Dali moustache, raising the finger in front of my face and moving his mouth like a cartoon character; my hands were clutching the ropes and trying to keep me on my feet, Gustavo was somewhere to the side trying to tell me something, the Goat was in his corner skipping about with his guard up, looking at me from under his forehead like a hit man, and the audience were clapping and yelling. I saw one of the referee’s hands fill with fingers, then, slowly, the other one. I hauled myself back on my feet and nodded several times. There are those who claim they heard me say, “Here I am,” but I don’t remember that. The referee stopped counting, put his hands down, took my gloves, cleaned them on his shirtfront and said something. I kept nodding and trying to say yes, hoping it was enough. After barely a moment, the referee walked away and called the Goat back into the centre of the ring. He looked twenty centimetres taller and ten kilos heavier, his muscles were bulging and he seemed to be coming towards me like an avalanche. I would have liked to be in a cartoon film, rolling my eyes and running away in a puff of smoke, but I couldn’t, I wasn’t even sure I could move. All I could do was close myself up behind my gloves, lean on the ropes, wait for the avalanche to arrive, and hope it wouldn’t be too violent and that it wasn’t long till the end of the round. The avalanche arrived in a shower of uppercuts to the body, first a series of six or seven as fast as a machine gun, then some slower but stronger ones, one after the other, like tree trunks falling on me from a height of twenty metres. They landed like anvils, many of them on my elbows, and their purpose didn’t seem to be to bring me down, but to make something clear: they didn’t have the speed, precision and unpredictability of a knockout blow, but the rhythm and power of a lesson. “So far we’ve been playing,” they said. “It’s time for the big boys now.” And, yes, luckily the round was soon over.

  But it didn’t really matter. That little man in miniature knew perfectly well when exactly to send me off, he had waited for that moment just so that he could send me back to my corner with the impact of those punches still on my ribs; with my head spinning and the knowledge that the games as I’d known them were over and now we were starting to fight.

  I was an idiot: for three rounds, just like that Roman kid, I had played his game; I had tired myself out thinking he would never find a way in, throwing punches that were as clean and accurate as you could wish, just not very effective. And even though I hadn’t panicked like the Roman, I’d been an idiot and taken things too casually, and the Goat had punished me for it.

  But to be honest, that wasn’t the tragedy, nor was it the fact that I’d suddenly realised what a boxing match was, what a real boxer was and what it meant to really fight. It wasn’t the certainty that my life had suddenly changed. And it wasn’t the feeling that things were slipping through my fingers and I was losing. No, the real tragedy was that in an instant the spell had been broken. In an instant, after that series of punches which had pinned me to the ropes, the noise of the shouting and all the rest h
ad come rushing back like a goods train, and I didn’t see the punches coming in slow motion any more: I’d lost the almost magical feeling that allowed me to play with my opponents, that kind of slowed-down vision that let me see the punches, not before they were launched but while they were still in motion, and act accordingly. Suddenly, reality had put itself back together in front of my eyes just as it was, at its own speed, and that terrified me.

  Gustavo slapped me a few times and asked if I was all right. He told me later that I kept saying, “Everything’s normal, everything’s normal.” He wasn’t sure everything was normal, and the fact that I kept repeating it certainly didn’t convince him, but he decided that if everything was normal for me then, when you got down to it, it had to be normal for him, too.

  If I had to choose the worst time of my life, if I had to isolate one time in my existence and give it the stupid label of the worst time of all, I’d give it to those six or seven minutes up there in that ring, those fourth and fifth rounds. The Goat was no longer that deaf boy with the forehead like a wall and the dark eyes who liked to box, the Goat was suddenly Life itself, which had taken me outside that world of playthings where I was a sensation who could see punches coming in slow motion, and in the form of that boy had started hitting me so often I wanted to beg for mercy. I skipped round the ring, risked a few straight punches, and that knot of muscle followed me like a mad dog, bending and hitting me with punches as heavy as wood, in the liver, in the ribs, on the chin, or on the gloves or the shoulders when he missed. He would be there in front of me, panting, then he would take half-a-step to the side and fire off an explosive series of three punches that would have knocked down a door—luckily not all that accurate most times, and luckily that part of me that was still playing the role of a boxer managed not to lay itself open to that surge of anger.

  Two rounds, and a lesson to last a lifetime. But he got things wrong, too, and by the sixth round he was tired. His fists had rained down on me, and yet I was still there somehow, skipping in front of him—I hadn’t gone down, and I had demonstrated, whether I had the body for it or not, whether I had a neck like a chicken or not, that I was capable of staying on my feet.

  There are some who claim it was the best fight they ever saw in their lives. I don’t know about that, I somehow doubt it, but if ever I suspect it might be true, it’s because of those last two rounds. I had strutted like a rooster for three rounds, he had punished me for another two, and now he was tired and I had come back to reality, and suddenly we looked at each other from the centre of the ring like two boxers, sweaty, stinking, scared, tired, angry, ready to lose and to give our all to win. We both realised it, because we touched gloves again. We found ourselves in the centre of the ring, me skipping and him looking straight at me after another of his three-punch combinations: we looked each other in the eyes for a moment, and I’m sure that even though our lips didn’t move, we both smiled, put out our hands and slammed our gloves together. The voices and shouts around us vanished again, but the punches didn’t start coming in slow motion again, they came just as they were launched, strongly and accurately. I started doing again what I knew best, but like anyone else now, working hard: one straight punch after the other. Left, left, parry, turn, turn, left right left. He would be in front of me, moving his head from side to side, waiting for me to launch another wave of punches; he would come in from underneath and fire off two punches as hard as wood; as he moved away I would land two more straight punches, without even breathing, hoping to recover my strength from somewhere, hoping that those two lead poles attached to my shoulders continued to do their job and didn’t leave me standing there like a burst tyre. Punch, parry, punch, straight, straight, left-right, take it, take it, take it, parry, step back, straight punch.

  The audience were on their feet, and when the bell rang for the end of the sixth round and we went back to our corners for the last time, they applauded in a composed way, as if they were at the theatre. I like to think my mother was there, too, somewhere at the back of the hall, and that she started crying.

  Gustavo kept saying, “You’re a sensation, you’re a sensation. Come on, it’s the last round. You’re a sensation, son, just one more round.” I wasn’t listening, I was looking at those people clapping and when Gustavo’s back moved out of the way, I peered at him in the other corner, Mugnaini the Goat, and wondered if I would ever again in my life share something as big as this with another person.

  The referee ordered the seconds out, the bell rang one last time, and we went back into the centre of the ring to touch gloves again. And we started again, going for broke, doing what we were there to do, me firing off my straight punches and dancing and him coming towards me head down and pounding away. I took a couple of nasty lefts to the stomach and he caught a few worrying lefts and a strong straight right to the chin, which for a moment almost made him stagger. We didn’t give each other time to breathe, it was one punch after another, parry, right, left, right, left, left, parry, parry, bull’s eye, step back, left right. Our arms were as heavy as anchors and our legs were like logs newly planted in the earth. I had stopped dancing, I was walking round the ring firing off straight punches as best I could and trying to keep my guard up and parry whenever he came towards me.

  Giano taped the fight. I must have watched it five hundred times, and every time I wonder if that thin boy up there who looks as if he’s fighting for his life is really me. I wonder if I still have that courage, or if I fritter it away every day minute by minute, or if I’ve lost it, scattered it somewhere among the bricks of my house or in the fat around my waist or in my mother’s grave.

  But Gustavo was right, the Goat fell into the trap of wanting too much. It had been a great fight, and we were in the hands of the judges now. I had understood that, but he hadn’t, he wanted the killer punch, he wanted to guarantee the result for himself and make it clear once and for all which of us really was the stronger of the two: he tried to get me where I least expected it, with a long, fast straight right to the chin. And I have to be honest: a few rounds earlier I might have been rattled, I might not even have expected that straight thunderbolt to the chin, as fast as a train. But not at that point, not a few seconds from the end; not now when it really didn’t matter if I was expecting something or not, because I was protecting myself from everything; not now when he was slower than he thought, and predictable. I almost saw him launch that right, and I’d like to be able to say I was quick-witted enough to pivot on my foot and land the decisive combination, but, although that was exactly what I did, it happened purely by automatic reflex, as if someone else was giving the orders. I don’t know, maybe that’s what talent is: something that’s out of our hands, something we’re slaves of, whether we like it or not.

  The Goat waited for two of my lefts, parried to the side, delivered a left uppercut to my liver, took a small step back and fired off that textbook straight right with the full force of his arm. I moved my right leg, pivoted on my left foot and sent a sharp left uppercut straight to the Goat’s chin, under his arm, followed immediately by a right hook that sent the Goat flying back against the ropes. I wish I hadn’t then launched that final straight punch, I really wish I hadn’t, but it came just like that, by itself. If I could turn the clock back, I would stop myself firing off that final thunderbolt, I really would stop myself, I wouldn’t let one stupid punch determine the future of two people forever. I would let that right hook run its course and watch the boy bounce against the ropes, would make it clear it was a mistake, then take two steps back and let the last few seconds run on in all their glory. But when you’re there you don’t have much choice, and anyway there are moments when you can’t really control what happens to you. So I landed that right hook and then, just as the Goat slammed into the ropes, a missile was launched from somewhere near my face and hit my opponent’s chin like a thunderbolt, flinging him from the ropes and laying him out on the canvas a metre from me.

  The referee pushed me away and sent
me to my corner, then started counting. He had just counted six when the bell went. Gustavo had decided with Buio that if the bell went when a fighter was down, he’d be saved by it. I don’t know why, maybe that’s the kind of decision no one ever knows how to make, and in the end you decide by tossing a coin. Heads you’re saved by the bell, tails you aren’t. That time, if that was really what had happened, heads had won. That’s life, we say, and we think we’re in control of everything.

  But in the end it didn’t really matter what the rules said. We both knew how the fight had gone. The Goat knew it and I knew it and Gustavo knew it and Buio and anyone in that packed gym who knew anything about boxing. The bell rang and after a few seconds Mugnaini was picked up and carried to his corner; his gloves were slowly taken off, he was given smelling salts and presumably Buio told him that he had been saved by the bell, but that that was fine, because it had been a great fight, one of the best he had ever seen.

  In my corner, Gustavo massaged my shoulders, hugged me, congratulated me and told me again that I was a sensation, and that I had won all the fights I wanted to that night. I didn’t understand. Suddenly, it was over. I had done it; I had finished the fight and had stayed on my feet and if it hadn’t been for the bell I might even have won. And now I felt empty and alone; I had the rest of my life in front of me and all of a sudden I had to figure out what to do with it.