Finishing

Skills

Sarah K. Inman

Livingston Press The University of West Alabama

CHAPTER ONE

BACKSTAGE, WATSON SMEARED my face with petroleum jelly that we’d borrowed from another fighter. Our jar of Vaseline and our corner’s bucket were missing. Where the fuck were they? It was karma for what Jenna, the other pro female from the Academy, did last week; sly, she walked out of Boomtown Casino with a pair of eight-ounce gloves used in one of the bouts. They weren’t even good for sparring, so Jenna gave them to one of the newcomers to work the heavy bags. Jenna’s habit of stealing useless crap filled our gym with odd-sized gloves, cracked mirrors, and a scale that was off by two pounds. Watson had sent Darnel, one of the gym rats, to find our stuff or to borrow what we were missing, Vaseline, gauze, tape, ice; I’d packed my own mouthpiece. “How did Jenna make out?” I didn’t want to ask because I sensed that she’d lost, but I needed to break the silence. Jenna had fought early on the card, and I had been too nervous to poke my head into the crowd at the Pontchartrain Center to watch her. I was making my pro debut at a memorial event fund-raiser, held for two New Orleans police officers who had died in a freak New Year’s Eve explosion. “She had a good fight,” Watson said. His thick moustache perched above his upper lip, like a small animal. I had the sense the thing could sprout little legs and run off on its own. Watson spoke evenly, the essence of calm. “What’s that mean?” I asked. “She lost a split decision.” “She got robbed,” Darnel put in. “A split decision to Sue Eckelston? Sue’s oh and fourteen,” I said. “You mean one and fourteen,” Darnel corrected. He laughed a little and said, “They confused; Sue been fighting men all her life.” A real raging bull dyke, Sue sported fading tattoos and kept her graying hair styled in a crew cut. “Next time we put you in the ring with her,” Watson said to Darnel, breaking his flat tone and smiling. “That is one ugly woman,” Darnel added. To me Watson said, “Sue’s got more experience. She’s been in the ring with Christy Martin. You can learn more from one good opponent than from a lot of easy wins.” “For sure,” Darnel agreed. A man about my age, he often wore sleeveless shirts that exposed his dark, sinewy arms. At the Academy, Darnel went shirtless, showing off the six- pack of muscle he’d developed from consistent training. Darnel loved the fights, and even though he didn’t compete because of a medical condition he rarely discussed, he embraced the boxer’s workout — morning runs and afternoons at the gym. “But fourteen good opponents?” I questioned. Watson resumed his pre fight expression, lips pursed, eyes wide. I had to pee again. The urge to urinate must have overcome me about a dozen times in the last three hours. When I got back from the toilet, Watson helped me into a pair of eight ounce Reyes—the same kind Jenna had stolen from Boomtown Casino. They were small gloves that I knew would hurt more on impact than the twelve ounce ones we used for sparring. Watson held up the mitts and called out punches. “One. One, one, one.” My jab already felt tired, but I knew the feeling of weakness was all in my head. We’d begun tapering my workouts this week so that I’d be fresh for tonight. Still, I worried about other factors like the timing of my menstrual cycle. I was coming off my last period, and I felt that it was better to fight with PMS or while on the rag because, according to a former softball coach, it made me stronger. “One, two. One, two. One, two, three.” Jab, straight-hand right, left hook. Cookie, an obese fight official who had signed off on my hand wraps, came by again, this time to sign the tape around my gloves. I held out my hands while he used a stinky marker to scribble his initials on the tape Watson had used to secure the gloves’ ties. “Good luck,” he said in a gruff voice. His breath was a rotten mixture of hard liquor and cigar smoke. I had to pee again, but with the gloves on there was no turning back. Watson held up the mitts, and I resumed my warm-up. “One, four, three, two.” Jab, uppercut, hook, straight-hand right. “One, four, three, two,” Watson called out again. “Two, two, two. Two, three. Two, three. Two, three. Two, three, four, five, two. Two, three, four, five, two. Okay,” Watson said lowering his hands. He used his teeth to rip the Velcro clasp of the mitt open, then wiped away a bit of sweat from his forehead. “Stay loose.” I began jumping jacks as I did every day in the gym as part of my warm-up. “Shadow box,” Watson said in a serious voice. “When you finish with that, jog in place.” I threw a few jabs, slipped an imaginary punch. Then jab, jab, jab, right hand. Around me were seasoned fighters, doing the same. I jabbed some more then threw combinations. One- four-three-two. I jogged in place, shuffled from one foot to the other, rolled my shoulders up and down. I swiveled from my waist first counterclockwise, then clockwise, slipping fictional punches. Watson grabbed me from behind and clasping my shoulders, he whispered, “Sit down on your two.” Pushing my right shoulder forward and down, he took me through the movement. Then without Watson’s guidance, I repeated the punch several times, making sure to put my weight behind it. “You’re going to go in there,” Watson said. “Relax, throw some jabs, move, then land that right hand. She ain’t nothing special.” All week Watson had been pumping me up with words like that. Occasionally he’d add, “You gonna knock somebody out.” That was what I wanted to hear from him now. Watson stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t tall for a man — he had about two inches on me — and compared with the active pugilists, his build wasn’t noticeably impressive. Still, he held court over the backstage area. Watson alternated between watching me and watching the others warm up. Maybe he was scanning the room for my opponent, Kerri Glenn, but this was something he did every day. In the gym, after a sparring session, he’d peel off his equipment and watch people working out, occasionally stopping to correct someone’s form. Watson was always environmentally aware, a practice I supposed he picked up from Orleans Parish Prison. “Stay loose,” Watson said. I jogged in place, and suddenly my mouth went dry. “Can I have some water?” “No.” “My mouth’s dry.” “I know.” He kept his arms crossed over his chest and gave me a look I’d seen him give whiny newcomers who complained of being tired after a couple rounds on the heavy bag. “Just a sip?” I asked. “Just a sip. Then you spit it out. I don’t want you to cramp up.” Guzzling too much water or chowing down between weigh-in and fight time sometimes caused a boxer to do just that. Sure, he could gain up to twenty extra pounds, twenty pounds of punching power, but it wasn’t worth it if he couldn’t function in the ring, if he got a stomach cramp and had to stop moving. I knew I wouldn’t cramp up; if anything, I’d faint from exhaustion. I’d either shit out or thrown up everything I’d eaten in the last forty-eight hours, dropping from 136 to 128 in two days. Darnel squirted some water into my mouth; I swished it around a bit, then spit it into the borrowed bucket. I was hopping and jogging in place, throwing combinations in the hallway when I heard a good beat; it was familiar. It wasn’t coming from the arena where rock anthems boomed between bouts; it was rap, the music sounding from someone’s portable CD player. It wasn’t New Orleans bounce or radio-friendly hip-hop, but it wasn’t twenty-year-old bugaloo either. It had a thumping bass line and slow, enunciated couplets that I eventually recognized as Too Short. “Good song,” I said to Watson. “Who this?” Darnel asked. “Too Short,” I said. “You know, Todd Shaw.” “Mmm huh,” Darnel nodded in agreement, and then said, “Girl, that some nasty things he’s sayin’.” He shook his head in more disbelief than disgust. “Me I like R & B, some hip- hop, nothing too agressive, you know. The way they talk about women, that ain’t right,” he went on. “You old, is all,” Watson said to Darnel. “Old? Who you calling old?” Watson had both of us beat in that department, and it made me wonder if Darnel was younger than I. The rap came from another fighter and his crew, and looking down the cement corridor, I could see the heavyweight who called himself the Black Rhino warming up. His hands were wrapped in gauze and he was shadowing to stay loose. His face was shiny, and crescents of sweat appeared under the arms of his gray t-shirt. His corner man and his trainer stood close by their fighter, much like Watson, with arms folded across chests. The Black Rhino brought a small entourage of young men — brothers, friends, neighbors, children — who stood around grooving to the beat and peering out through the backstage doors. “You gonna hurt somebody,” I heard one of them say. I continued to shadow and hop in place, but now I felt odd, like people were watching me. If I tried to move with the song would anyone care? Would they see me as a silly, rhythmless white girl? It was one thing to identify Too Short and another to groove to his music. Would I offend? Amuse? “Good song,” Watson said. Too Short rapped: “You want flowers, I’ll buy your ass a rose.” The Black Rhino mouthed the lyrics as he warmed up. The next song on the album played and its motivational line spoke to me: “Bitch, bitch, bitch, make me rich.” I listened to the music, felt its beat, and tried to stay loose. My fight was next, after Kendra the Lionheart’s six-round bout. The line about the bitch making me rich was going through my mind even after the song ended and another came on. I could hear the crowd now and the announcer’s muffled voice through the double doors that separated the backstage from the arena. I had just heard him. He spoke too soon after the beginning of the bout, too soon like when there’s no time between a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning. A frazzled redhead wearing a short wrap around skirt, sports bra, and boxing gloves appeared — Kendra the Lionheart. I wanted to ask how it went, but looking at her face, I knew I shouldn’t. Kendra’s opponent was not only new to the sport but also overweight. I’d seen the two of them at the weigh-in last night. Kendra was pale and tall, standing over six feet. She was packed with muscle too, weighing in at one-sixty-five, but her opponent was a shorter woman, five-five, five-six, and carried the same weight. Kendra’s opponent had kinky, big hair, and she was chubby as if her diet consisted of nothing but daiquiris and hot dogs. I remembered thinking about the bloodbath that would ensue. Cedric, my manager who had been scoping out the fights, patted Kendra’s shoulder in consolation. “I know,” he said. “It’s happened to me before.” Cedric reported to us. “Homegirl didn’t even see it coming. She was throwing wild punches, you know, just swinging, and one of them caught Kendra on the temple. Tough break.” “She lose her balance?” Watson asked “Uh-huh. Lost her legs.” Cedric looked behind him to make sure Kendra had returned to her dressing room before mimicking the sudden loss of equilibrium that she’d experienced. Cedric was all long limbs and drama, and he looked especially odd re-enacting Kendra’s stagger not only because of his height, but also because of the cartoonish way he popped his eyes open and held his mouth in an O shape. I’d seen fighters lose their balance; it was as if they were sailors struggling to stay upright on a ship during rough seas. Unlike a fighter, though, a sailor’s struggle with balance started from the bottom and worked its way up. “Was it like the time you was fighting out in Houston and Toke landed one to your temple?” Watson asked. Cedric nodded. “I was like, ‘I’m okay. I’m fine. What happened?’ I didn’t know he’d knocked me down. I thought I was good to go.”

LONG BEFORE MY pro debut and long before I moved to New Orleans, I started wishing the people around me were dead. In a way I thought boxing would purge my heart of that ill will, but instead it sparked a flicker of malice and kept that feeling stoked. And with boxing there was the added possibility of making a name for myself. However, it wasn’t clear to me until just before I entered the ring that I might become famous for having my head bashed in during my debut fight. The tragedy of getting brain damage during my premier fight was that I wouldn’t be the first. In 1996, Sumya Anani pummeled some poor drug-counselor- turned boxer named Katie Dallam into a coma on the night of Dallam’s debut. She came out of the coma, but now she can’t even read because her head’s so messed up. Although Kerri was more experienced than I was, she was no Sumya Anani. “Nothing special,” according to Watson. “She ain’t nothing special.” He whispered these words in my ear as we entered the auditorium. I followed Cedric, a towel hung around my neck. I always wondered why boxers wore robes or draped towels over themselves. I supposed the cover- up was meant to unveil the bulging, sculpted masterpieces that were their bodies. In the six months that I’d been doing this, I had undergone many physical changes and although I was in the best shape of my 27-year-old life, my body was still no masterpiece. Watson walked behind me, his veiny, beautiful hands on my shoulders. Darnel followed Watson, carrying my water bottle and our corner’s borrowed bucket. A friend or two were out there, somewhere in the crowd. “Good luck,” someone said. As I approached the ring I could see Cookie, his massive frame filling more than his share of space in the front row of seats, and there was the medical examiner, who last night had asked me about my menstrual cycle and had listened to my heart. He now looked like Jim Carrey. I envisioned him bending over and pretending to speak through his butt cheeks. I kept my real name, Heidi, as my boxing name and decided that instead of forcing a ring name, I would somehow earn or inherit one. But when I stepped into the ring, the announcer managed to fuck it up. He called me “Heady.” I thought, stupid, fucking Southerner who doesn’t know how to pronounce my name, doesn’t have the foresight to find out ahead of time how to say a fighter’s name. Who has ever heard of the name Heady? What the fuck was Heady? No one knew who I was; no one cared about my name. I tried not to look Kerri in the eye when we met in the center of the ring. I kept my chin up and looked above her as I’d seen other fighters do when they met with the ref to go over the rules, but she looked straight at me, straight into me, and I had no choice but to meet her gaze. Kerri had a funny shaped face, a long, slim nose and sunken in cheeks, a narrow face like someone had squeezed her head in a vice grip. She looked clownish in a way. And the bitch was wearing my colors— blue and silver. I tried to scowl, but it felt more like I was grinning. This wasn’t funny, I told myself. This wasn’t supposed to be funny. I needed to think bad thoughts, angry thoughts. I needed to think about my old boyfriend James, his drinking, and his staying-out-all-night behavior. What was it that made me throw a pint glass at him? It wasn’t something he said or did; it was something he didn’t say or do. His indifference to just about everything, especially me and what I was doing, pissed me off. Then there was that bitch in the seventh grade, Barbara Coen, whose locker was next to mine. They say that men get territorial, but so do thirteen-year-old girls. I summoned that adolescent anger. Barbara taking up too much room near my locker or accusing me of doing the same, and then the two of us exchanging insults, each nastier than the last. Once I slammed the locker door on her face, nicking the top of her long nose in the process and causing her to cry. I must have hit the sweet spot. It felt so good to do that — to inflict pain. So I stood face to face with this funny looking bitch named Kerri, and I tried to project all my anger onto her. The referee said something. He too looked funny; he had a long, broad nose and a big head that supported his oversized nosek, as my granddad would call it. The ref’s classic bowl haircut made him look like one of the Three Stooges. I imagined him tripping over himself, maybe even falling between the ropes. “Come out boxing,” he said and I returned to my corner. Watson repeated what he had been saying all along, “Keep your jab out there; stay loose and let your two go. She ain’t nothing special.” “One more sip?” I asked, and Darnel squirted some water into my mouth. Even with that extra sip and all the water I’d drunk that day and the day before, my mouth was still dry from nerves. The bell rang, and Kerri and I danced a counterclockwise shuffle around the ring. I thought of the time I was a kid and entered a sand castle building contest; my strategy to win was this: if I kept working on the castle, kept building it, kept tacking on beautiful dribble attachments, when the time was up, I’d have built something large and beautiful, something award-winning and worthy of attention. I ended up losing to someone who’d made a sand sculpture of a shark. But while I worked, I came up with a motivational chant, “I’m not stopping until the time is up,” and I toiled furiously, my hands plunging into the wet sand. In the ring I worried that if I were knocked out, I’d wake up saying embarrassing things like “I’m not stopping until the time is up” and “I’ll buy your ass a rose.” I thought of everything but boxing. Defensively, I did okay probably because I moved, but I was on cruise control and I didn’t throw anything; it was like my hands just froze. Then I ate a few headshots, shots that snapped my head backward — whiplash — but I didn’t feel anything. I threw some jabs and attempted to land my right. I got my head snapped back again; the crowd moaned. Cedric and Watson yelled at me, reminding me that I knew more than two punches, so why wasn’t I throwing them? “Let your hands go!” Cedric got riled. We discussed in the gym that Watson would be my trainer for this fight, and that although Cedric would be there as my manager, training and coaching were Watson’s jobs. “Use your hook!” Watson yelled. We’d practiced this in the gym — using my hook to counter her hook. “Settle down and throw something.” The bell rang and I took a seat in my corner. I got lectured between rounds one and two. I didn’t throw anything; I knew that. “Let your hands go,” Watson said in that scolding voice. “Settle down and start throwing punches,” Cedric said. I listened, but I only wanted to knock her out. I didn’t know how I expected to do it — I could chase her around the ring looking for the right moment but I wasn’t that skilled yet and I risked tiring myself out. A few seconds into the second round Kerri hit me with a straight two to the solar plexus. It didn’t hurt as much as it stunned me. I laughed a little and said, “Ow.” Why she didn’t follow with a headshot I don’t know. Maybe she did and I didn’t remember. Then I heard someone in the crowd yell, “Finish her.” Finish her? Who? Was she shouting to me or to my opponent? Fuck you, I thought and it made me mad, mad enough to start throwing some punches and landing a few. By doubling and tripling my jab I worked my way in and got off a few right hands. I hit the side of Kerri’s face with my right and she responded with a two of her own. I still wasn’t throwing enough and wasn’t connecting with the spots that mattered. She kept herself covered well, fists at cheek and chin. I’d punch and she’d slip or roll with it. A couple of times I felt myself start to throw something, then stop. Between rounds two and three I got yelled at again, yelled at by everyone around me — I tried to focus on what Cedric and Watson were saying. They were starting to piss me off, both of them talking at the same time, both of them telling me what to do. I hadn’t seen Watson this mad since he’d threatened to cut my legs off during a sparring session. I had been in the habit of lifting one leg when I got cornered or held in a clinch, a bad practice I picked up from a self-defense class. On the street, kicking and running were viable options, but in the ring, I needed to keep my fucking leg down. “If you don’t start throwing some punches, I’m goin’ cut your hands off.” Watson’s solution to everything — cut it off. A man behind me yelled, “Come up with a hook. Throw a hook. Three-two.” “When you get inside,” Cedric said, “let your upper cuts go, then work your way out.” “Don’t back out straight,” Watson warned. Again the man shouted, “Throw a hook.” “You listen to me,” Watson said and I did the best I could. “You can counter her three with your own hook. But keep yourself covered, roll with it, then land your three.” Watson knelt before me; his mustache shined under the lights. “You have faith in me?” he asked. I nodded. “Now go out there and hurt that girl.” I got another big gulp of water, swished it around in my mouth, and spat it out. At the sound of the bell I heard a group of women shrieking unintelligibly. For me? Against me? The strange voice still yelled at me to throw a hook; fortunately the tip didn’t contradict what Watson had told me between rounds. Now Watson yelled again. I wanted to tell them both to shut the fuck up. All the voices be quiet! I focused on the idea of landing a hook and let everything else evaporate into the clamor of the auditorium. Round three went better than round two in the sense that I got busy and stayed busy. Each time I got in range, I threw something. Sometimes the punches landed and sometimes they didn’t. She hit back too, but I couldn’t feel the blows; mostly she knocked my forehead with her jab. Adrenaline pumped through my body; I felt the tingle first in my loins, then it passed my middle and filled my head. All over, my body quivered, a signal that I was ready to fight. I kept the left side of my face covered with my fist when I wasn’t using it, and when Kerri came around with that left hook, I slipped left and returned the favor with a hook of my own. I didn’t remember using it more than two or three times, but later Watson would swear that I landed several hooks in round three. Watson had more to say between rounds three and four, and I tried to pay attention. “You listen to me — you’re trying to knock her head off, and she ain’t gonna let that happen. You need to counter punch. Be patient and look low, look to her ribs. You can’t just chase after her.” He kept talking, and soon all I heard was the rumble of the crowd. Out there were some of my friends, people who’d said they’d come tonight. I wished I knew in where they sat because I would salute them at the start of the final round. For the last round I needed more anger. I thought of how mad I’d be at myself if I lost this fight; I had to search for a different source of hatred. I thought of James, then of Annie Potts, not the real actress, although the image of her chestnut-colored curls would do. I was certain that before James and I had broken up officially, he slept with that bartender who looked a little like Potts. I would fucking kill her. Those high cheekbones would bruise easily. Lucia Rijker had high cheekbones and when she fought, her cheeks blew up like balloons. Still, Rijker won her fights. So I imagined the way Potts’ face would swell; her wide set eyes wouldn’t look too great after a little boom boom. Bitch, I thought. Too Short ran through my head: “Bitch, bitch, bitch, make me rich.” Kerri’s face, again that funny fucking face, long and thin, and clown-like, no Annie Potts. Her hair was stringy and black, a tiny bit of it squeezed into a ponytail on the top of her head. I noticed a few gray hairs. How old was she? Old woman, I started to think. Old bitch. Old bitch, bitch, bitch, make me rich. Was I talking aloud? I threw the first punch. During the final round, the crowd shouted at me, telling me what to do, and I listened, I think, but I couldn’t remember exactly. “Eddy,” I heard. Or was it “Heady”? Were they shouting for me? I remembered taking another shot to the solar plexus and having my head snapped back, total whiplash. But I also nailed her a few times with a straight two; I used my lead hand to create an opening, and boom, landed a combination, a two, a four, a three, a two. Her stomach, her chin, her face, her stomach. She threw a three, I slipped and countered with a three. She was a little surprised but by no means hurt, and I knew that I’d done too little too late. It ended in an unanimous decision — her fight all the way. I got off to too late a start; I froze in the first round. I stepped down from the ring and passed a row of decorated women who took turns prancing between rounds. As I walked back to the dressing room, I heard murmurs of “good fight,” “nice fight,” and “you got heart.” Heart? How did they know what was in my heart? “Thirty-nine, thirty-seven,” Watson exclaimed. “You won a round, baby. You won the last round. Next time you fight like you fought in the last round, and you gonna win.” Watson led me through the crowd with words of encouragement. An hour after my first fight, I was mad but excited from actually having done it. It was like my first kiss, first fuck, first speeding ticket. I was lightheaded and wanted a drink.

CHAPTER TWO

I WALKED THROUGH the stands, undetected in my warm-ups and baseball hat. Kit greeted me with a hug and a big “you were fantastic,” as if I’d just come from playing the lead in a high school musical. A twenty-dollar admission asked a lot of my friends, considering that most of them drove beater cars and fed on free red beans and rice offered by bars during happy hour. The people I hung out with were noble, non-profit workers, attracted to New Orleans because of its poor educational system and all night drinking establishments. Kit, who was not only responsible for my moving to New Orleans, but also for getting me into this sport by suggesting we take a boxing class, was back to smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day. Adelle and Avery, another pair of Northeastern transplants, rounded out the tiny fan club who attended my debut. Kit, my roommate at Connecticut College, had been living in New Orleans since graduation. She had called me last summer when I was having one of those black days when I felt like driving my car through the plate glass window of the local Blockbuster. I almost did it, too, and when I returned to my dreary apartment in Portland, Maine, the phone was ringing. At the time it all made sense. Kit had worked for Americorps, and now she wrote grants for a nonprofit housing project. Her roommate was on her way out of town, and Kit thought I’d like the city. “Congratulations,” Adelle said. She smiled an evenly featured, perfect grin. Adelle hailed from New Jersey, a pretty part of the Garbage State. She and Avery knew Kit from Americorps. “I lost,” I reminded her. “I know.” “Nice fight,” Avery said. Comfortable with his masculinity, he wore a tight-fitting t-shirt that sported a pink Playboy bunny. “How do they score these things?” Kit wanted to know. At the Academy she’d been a low- key fighter, only sparring once or twice, on the rare occasion that Watson had coaxed her into the ring. Apparently she hadn’t learned much about scoring either. Kit had started at the Academy, like some people, simply to burn calories and to blow off steam. She’d quit training some time before Mardi Gras and was back to her skinny, old self. The four of us sat high up in the sparsely-seated nose bleed section. “Different things,” I said. “The number of punches for one.” “What if you make her bleed?” Adelle asked, widening her big, blue eyes as she spoke. “Movement matters, too, and defense, keeping yourself covered up. I guess a little show of blood is good for the judges.” It was dark up here, and the fighters in the ring below were fast-moving action figures, tiny and erratic. Kit lit a cigarette; she just didn’t care, and I admired her for that. “Is smoking allowed?” Adelle asked “You looked great,” Avery said. “I really thought you won.” He was a skinny Jew from Long Island, a lovechild’s child, not a fighting bone in his body. “I didn’t throw enough punches,” I said. “Smoke rises,” Kit said, and I looked up at the ceiling, which did indeed appear veiled in a thin layer of smoke. Kit wore only silver jewelry and a mask of freckles covered her small face. To me she added, “The girl you fought seemed much bigger than you. Aren’t you at least supposed to weigh the same?” “We’re lightweights,” I said. “All we had to do was come in under 138, and that was last night.” “No way you’re that heavy.” Kit’s remark resonated with intended compliment. “I had some trouble holding down food,” I explained. “Once you get used to it, though, you can eat well between weigh-in and fight time and enter the ring on the heavy side.” They didn’t understand that I’d lost. I’d fuckin’ lost because I’d gotten lazy and because I was scared and nervous. From above, I watched Kathy Rivers lose a split decision to Suzy Taylor. Both women were heavyweights, tall and blonde, and endured ten good rounds of boxing. From my vantage point, they looked like mutant cheerleaders. Rivers in particular had good form; she kept her chin down and hands up at all times. Still, she lost. Taylor was busier, throwing punches in bunches. The Black Rhino was scheduled for a ten round bout, but he finished his opponent in four. The guy just couldn’t take it anymore — the Rhino’s flurry of punches — so the ref stepped between them thirty seconds into the fourth round. The Rhino was a real banger as Teddy Atlas from Friday Night Fights would say. On my way to the ladies’ room, a small boy grabbed the leg of my warm up pants and said, “You fought my mom.” I looked ahead and there was Kerri Glenn and her other son, younger than this thing at my side. A toddler with the same squished in, ugly-ass face as its mother sat in Kerri’s lap. I gave them a little nod of recognition and moved on, embarrassed and mad that I’d lost to a mother. When I returned to the nose bleed section, Kit let me borrow her cell phone to call my sister, to let her know that I lost, to let her know that I was alive. Hilary was six years my senior and lived on a farm near the Canadian border in northern Maine with her partner, Jane, and their two adopted children. It was an hour later in Maine, and I risked waking Simon and Alyssa, and quite possibly Hilary and Jane. They embraced the Protestant ethic of getting up early, putting in a long day’s work, and going to bed before midnight. But Hilary had insisted that I call; she said she wouldn’t sleep not knowing how I’d made out. The phone rang twice and Jane answered. “How did it go?” she asked. “I lost.” “Are you hurt?” “No,” I said even though I noticed a sharp pain in my left side every time I took a deep breath. Hilary picked up. “Are you alive?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “Are you hurt?” “I already asked her that,” Jane said. “What happened?” Hilary asked. “I lost a decision.” “It’s barbaric, you know,” Hilary started. “Consistent blows to the head cause the spine to dislodge itself from the brain stem. That’s how Parkinson’s is caused.” “Could be hereditary.” “All the more reason not to do it. Remember Dziadziu,” our grandfather who used to box.