by J. J. Murray
I sleep almost twenty hours, my cell phone on and charging a few inches from my pillow.
No one calls.
I finish the bottle and toast Lady Liberty with an awful, made-it-up-without-thinking, I’m-sorry-Emma-Lazarus poem:
“I am so tired to the core
My still sore ass is yearning for Dant-ee
There’s wretched refuse oozing from the Jersey shore
Send him; I’m homey-less, cross, and horny
I lift my glass…hey…I’m on the floor.”
And I pass out again.
Sorry, Emma. Your poem is still the bomb. I am just a lightweight when it comes to drinking.
Late Sunday, the day before Labor Day, I call Dante one last time, telling myself that if he doesn’t answer, it will be a sign. I hold my cross to my lips, and…
I let it ring fifty times.
Maybe I misdialed…
The second time, I let it ring only ten times.
Shit.
I call Red’s cell phone again. “Red, Christiana. Maybe you didn’t get my message before, and maybe you did. Whatever. It is vital I speak to Dante. I, um, promised that I’d check over the story with him, you know, check the facts.” That was weak. “If I don’t hear from him by…” I check the neon clock. Hmm. “If I don’t hear from him by midnight tonight, I will have to run the story without his, um, approval. Bye.”
I never ask anyone to approve one of my stories. Not even Shelley. She just cuts them.
I drift off to sleep….
At 11:43, my cell phone rings. I grab it and say, “You’re cutting it close, Mr. Lattanza.”
“It’s me, Red.”
Shit.
“I had to drive almost to Barry’s Bay until I got a signal,” he says. “How are you?”
This isn’t about me. “Where’s Dante?”
“He won’t be…It’s just me, Christiana.”
My heart sinks.
“I gave him both of your messages,” Red says, “but he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
I sigh. “Did he say anything?”
“Not much. He’s not talking much to anyone these days. I told him you needed to check your facts, and he said he trusted you.”
Wonderful. “That’s all he said?”
“That’s all.”
I have to know. “Are he and Evelyn…?”
“He wouldn’t talk about that either.”
So there’s hope? “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Christiana. I just don’t know. I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing. I want to get my facts straight, too.”
I don’t blame him. “How long did Evelyn stay?”
“I didn’t ask. She wasn’t here when we got here last night.”
That was unhelpful. “Why won’t he answer the phone? I’ve been calling and calling.” When I’ve been conscious.
“I don’t know, okay? As I said, he’s not talking to anyone. He’s training like a maniac. I know he’s underweight by at least six pounds.”
“You had better overfeed him, then, right?”
“I’m trying.”
I don’t want to say this. “They’re going to get back together, aren’t they, Red?”
He sighs. “It seems that way, but like I said, I just don’t know.”
Shit.
“But you can’t give up on him just yet, Christiana,” Red says. “As I said, he’s not speaking to anyone. He’s brooding more than usual. He’s definitely not himself, and Evelyn isn’t around. Just…give him some time, okay? You affected him in a good way.”
“Sure.” Why don’t I believe him?
“Really. I saw it. Lelani saw it. He is, as they used to say, so in to you.”
Right. “He hurt me, Red. He’s hurting me now. He chose her.”
“You don’t know that, Christiana. Just don’t give up—”
“Too late,” I interrupt. “Too late.”
I click off the cell phone, then turn it off entirely, booting up my laptop. I pull up the longer piece, the one without a title or a first paragraph. I type “Fighting for Love” as the title. Yeah. Fighting for the love of a shrew of an ex-wife. Then, I write the first paragraph:
Dante Lattanza is “fighting for love,” trying to recapture the middleweight title and the love of his life, his ex-wife Evelyn.
Then my fingers fly as I detail his loss to Washington, the argument he had with Evelyn, the “deal” he has struck with her—everything. I include his lack of a father, his generosity to Red and Lelani, and a more detailed look at his training habits, including the outdoor gym and that stupid tennis ball.
But mainly, I splatter Evelyn all over that story, and it isn’t a pretty picture.
Dante wants to do the impossible, and it’s interesting and futile at the same time. People like reading about futility. It’s the Don Quixote in all of us, I guess. We all cheer for the underdog, the flawed person who fights to the finish despite impossible odds. “Fighting for Love” is a great title for that kind of story. Shelley might even move it forward in the issue. It could be a cover story. It has human interest, drama, a celebrity—and it’s a bona fide exclusive.
Dante says that if he loses, he’ll lose twice, and everyone will know it. But he hurt me. He threw his best punch, but I’m still standing. He’s a big boy. He can handle it. He’s a public figure. He knew I was interviewing him. He knew this could happen.
But win or lose, I lose.
And damn if I don’t miss the living hell out of him.
Chapter 24
I show Shelley the new and improved longer piece at the end of September, and she loves it so much that she sneaks it into the first October issue, six weeks before the sexy-man puff piece and almost three months before the fight.
“Shelley, it should have run closer to the fight,” I argue in her meticulously organized office at Rockefeller Center. It’s so orderly that even those who practice feng shui leave her office out of harmony, out of synch, and out of touch with reality.
Most of the folks leaving her office are writers, so they essentially leave the same way they come in.
“It’s a scoop, Christiana,” she says, looking at the magazine I had thrown onto her desk. “It’s romantic.”
I remove a paper clip from a little red box and place it an inch from her Rolodex on the opposite side of her desk. Shelley puts the paper clip back.
“It’s already in the top ten all-time, Tiana,” she says.
I take the magazine and close it, exposing the cover. “Mainly because of these exclusive pictures of megacouple’s bambino. What’d we pay for these? Three million? Four?”
“Only two million,” she says. “This is their second child, not their first.”
I work for the criminally insane.
“We’ll have to change Lattanza’s sexy bio, too,” she says. “How about this: ‘Why he’s sexy: He’s fighting for love.’ Isn’t that romantic?”
Fighting for love blah blah blah. “Shelley, this could ruin him.”
“We’ve moved him up to number nine. That should make you feel better.”
It doesn’t.
She sits back. “Well, you wrote it.”
“I wrote it to run closer to the fight,” I say. “There would have been less time to ruin him then.”
“It doesn’t really matter, Tiana. As long as he wins, he isn’t ruined, right?” She snatches the magazine from me and opens it to my story. “By the way, his picture looks great. How did you ever get that shot?”
It’s of Dante standing in a T-shirt on the outcropping in front of a purple and red sunset. “We were talking, and there it was.”
“It’s so strong, so masculine.” She smiles. “And I especially like the caption George wrote for it: ‘Dante Lattanza fights for a dream in the sunset of his life.’ Sheer poetry.”
I skulk to my office, close the door, and try to hide. ESPN has been calling me nonstop for an interview. Several Sports Illustrated and Times writers
want to talk to me. Every sports talk show on TV and radio is boosting it up. Interviews with other boxers and Dante’s old trainer, Johnny Sears, appear daily in newspapers in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. They’re all painting Dante as a fool. This morning, Tank Washington was on ESPN saying, “Well, at least I’m fighting for the championship.”
I call Dante again. No answer. I call Red to leave another message, this one simply for Red to call me, but Red miraculously answers.
“How’s he taking it, Red?” I ask.
“Why, hello, George. How’s my big brother?”
He can only get a signal in town, so…“Are you in Barry’s Bay?”
“Yes, George.”
This kind of thing happened once to me before. I was checking my facts with an informant when the man he was ratting on walked into the room. “He’s standing right there, isn’t he, Red?”
“That’s right…you’re so right, George.”
Damn. “Um, how’d he take the story?”
A pause. “Yeah. We’ll be going down to Virginia soon. Yep. Way down south.”
Shit. “So he’s taking it badly.”
“You said it, George.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly, George.”
This sucks! “When are you leaving for Virginia?”
A long pause. “Lelani and I are heading out this afternoon, Christiana,” he whispers.
“Where’s Dante?”
“Getting his mail for the last time. Giving them a forwarding address. You want it? It’s only a P. O. box number.”
“Sure.” I write down the address of a P.O. box in Radford, Virginia. “When is Dante leaving?”
“He’ll be pulling out late tonight.”
Geez. I have to hurry. “How did he get a hold of the article, Red? I mean, it just came out two days ago down here.”
“It’s on the Internet, too.”
Oh shit. I had forgotten about that.
“Pictures and captions and all,” Red adds.
I have broken so many promises to this man. Shit. And to DJ. I all but promised I wouldn’t make his papino look like a fool. “I have to come see him, Red.”
The longest pause. “That would be a good idea, George, but I’m not sure if Uncle Don would like it very much. You know Uncle Don. Pretty stuck in his ways. Hard to change his mind once he gets a thought in his head.”
“I don’t care if Dante likes it or not. I’m coming,” I say. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, George. Bye.”
I march into Shelley’s office. “I am going to see Lattanza for a follow-up. I’ll need to get on the next available plane to Ottawa.”
“What’s to follow up?” she asks.
Oh yeah. That. A real reason. Hmm. Aha! “I never really did get a chance to talk to Evelyn about how she felt about all this.” I sort of did, but…“For all I know, she might not want to be with him whether he wins or loses.” This is my greatest hope. “The story is only through Lattanza’s eyes. I want to get her take on it. Wouldn’t that make a great story?”
Shelley nods. “She’d be one cruel woman to hurt him again, so I doubt she’ll tell you the truth.”
Ain’t that the truth.
“But on the other hand, if she only confirms what he said…” Shelley frowns. “You can just call her, can’t you?”
Damn. “You know I prefer face to face, and I’ll need pictures of her, right?” I’ll shoot her with a wide-angle lens, superimpose a shrew over her face, and—
“But why go to Canada, Tiana? Lattanza’s ex doesn’t live there, does she?”
Damn damn damn, Shelley. Stop thinking. Be your usual self. “I have a source who has told me that Evelyn read the story and has gone to visit him.”
“So call his house.”
“It’s a cottage,” I say quickly. “And don’t you think I have been calling? I’ve been calling night and day, and no one answers the phone.”
“Because the whole world wants to interview him.” She smiles. “Either that or he’s not even there.”
Shit! “Look, Shelley, I’ll level with you. The source is his friend and trainer, Red Gregory. He’s the one who told me where to find Dante in the first place.” Forgive me, Red. “I just got off the phone with him, and he told me Evelyn is up there with him as we speak, and they’re not answering the phone.”
Shelley bites the end of a pencil. “Why aren’t they answering the phone?”
Think it through, Shelley. It’ll come to you.
“Oh.” She blinks. “You think they’re…”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m sure they’re conjugating.”
“My. Those kinds of shots would make a nice spread.”
She has an amazing way with words.
Shelley swivels to her computer. “I’ll have your itinerary ready in a jiffy. You have a telephoto lens, right?”
I nod, but I know I won’t need it. Evelyn is in Syracuse with her son, Red and Lelani are leaving soon, and only Dante will be at his cottage tonight.
I hope I can get there in time.
Five hours later, I arrive angry, tired, and worried. Freezing rain over Ottawa delays the flight. Customs is especially invasive, asking me why I don’t have a single bag with any clothes in it. Enterprise refuses to give me anything bigger than a Chevy Trailblazer even though the roads are going to be treacherous. I slip and slide on the wet, icy roads while ice-laden pine trees bend their heads toward me.
And now, I’m standing at the Landing waiting on Joe, the only one on earth working here, to mount a motor on a boat.
“I tore down the boat the day after you brought it back,” Joe says. “I don’t normally have people renting boats this time of year, not with ice in the water.”
Oh joy.
“How much ice are we talking?” I ask.
“Nothing like what sunk the Titanic,” he says.
And that’s all he says.
I have a new definition for “cold comfort.”
It is a slow, cold, bumpy (what was that?!) boat ride to Dante’s cottage, snow flurries gliding into my hair and sticking to pine trees all over the lake. Dante’s bass boat rests nose-up on shore, the dock already torn down. Otherwise, I would think I was too late. No true fisherman leaves his fishing boat behind. Someone has boarded up all the cottage’s windows, no smoke rises from the chimney, and there isn’t a single light on.
Dante’s cottage is in lockdown mode.
I knock on the door and enter, my breath preceding me, stamping my feet for good measure. The sound echoes throughout the cottage. I hear noise upstairs. Climbing up, I find Dante packing a huge duffel bag in DJ’s room, a coarse black beard on his face.
He has to know I’m standing here, but I watch my breath for a few moments to be polite. “Hi,” I say eventually.
Dante glances at me, then returns to his task.
That was a virtual cold shoulder. “I know I’m probably the last person on earth you want to see right now.”
“You have come a long way for nothing,” he says. “I am leaving soon.”
“For Virginia?”
“No. First I stop in Syracuse to see DJ and Evelyn for several days.” He glares at me. “Then I join Red and Lelani in Virginia.”
That certainly makes where I stand much clearer. “Well, I came to tell you something in person. I’ve been calling you, but—”
“I boarded up the guesthouse and turned off the ringer to the phone the day Evelyn left.”
Boom.
He sighs. “She only stayed one night and took DJ with her the next day.”
Shit. I could have stayed. But if I had, I just know she would have stayed longer. “But when I called that morning, you were asleep in her bed.”
“I did no such thing,” he says with a wave of his left hand. “I have never slept in that bed. I sleep only in my room before a fight. On the floor. You should know this.”
I sit on the edge of DJ’s bed. “She said you two got bus
y.” Okay, she said Dante was very busy. So what?
“We did not. We argued all night about you. I did not sleep at all. When did you call?”
They argued about…me?
“When did you call, Christiana?”
I look at my hands. “Around ten.”
“I was still out fishing. A five pounder. Not as big as yours, but it was a nice meal. Just DJ and I went out one last time. A tradition. It is a promise I make to him. I keep my promises.”
I deserved that. “Did you…What was the argument about exactly?”
“As I said, you.”
I take a deep breath. “Did you tell her we slept together?”
“Yes.”
I blink. “You did?”
“She asked, and I told her. But what does it matter now?”
I don’t like this new tone in his voice. It sounds ominous and foreboding. I shouldn’t have believed her lies. “I’m, well, I’m just sorry.” I stand and move closer to him. “You certainly look rough and ready for anything.”
“I am ready.”
I move even closer. “I’m planning to be at the fight. I can’t wait till you—”
He whirls on me, his eyes fierce. “Why did you tell the world that I fight for love? Christiana, why did you do this?”
I take a large step back. “Yeah, about that, I’m really sorry. I wrote it, um, twice. The first time I kept my promise. But after talking to Evelyn, I was angry with you. You have to understand. I thought you had used me or something. I thought I was just a fling. You understand, don’t you?”
“No. I do not.”
Everything is so “yes or no” with this man. “But the article wasn’t supposed to come out until the second week in December.”
“And that makes it better?” he growls. “You broke your promise. I told you what not to write, what I preferred to keep away from the public, and you wrote it anyway. The world did not need to know about my father. The world did not need to know about why I am really fighting this time, but now it knows. If I lose, I lose twice. The world will laugh at me forever.”
I want to explain how short most people’s attention spans are, but now is probably not the time. I need to humble myself before him. “Like I said, I was…angry, you know? I thought you…I thought you slept with her.”