The Boxer
by Dawn Allison
The mat was slick with sweat and blood, residual fear, residual fight from those wheeled-out wounded or walking victorious. And now it was Len’s turn. He sat in his corner, his arms on the ropes, the ropes alive against his skin--a conduit for the bloodlust from the stands. In the other corner, his opponent flashed a toothless grin, smack talk without words. Denali the Dancer, light on his feet for a heavyweight, quick as a bolt. And ugly. The man the meat grinder spat back out, too graceful to match his square jaw, his crooked nose. But you didn’t get by in this business by being pretty. You did it by wanting, by needing. By being confident that if you fight hard enough, long enough, that you will win her back. That each punch will bring you closer to the one you lost.
The ring is where delusions come to die, and Denali looked hungry. Len was tired. He could feel the soles of his feet sweating already. No gription (one of April’s words, that one). It was over before it’d begun, but Len was resigned to it. When the bell rang, he would stand, and every punch would bring him closer to her. Len ignored the quick-talk advice of his manager, a man who only knew how to hit people when the odds were stacked in his favor. He ignored the thrum of anticipation, ignored those rooting for him, against. He toweled the bottoms of his feet and waited for the bell.
A second too soon, Denali rose and he was coming all speed and need. Len couldn’t help but wonder who he was fighting for, or what. But the bell had rung, and Denali was there. Len saw destiny in his opponent’s eyes, in the sweat beading on his forehead, and he knew that today was the day, boy-howdy. Denali faked with his left and swung with his right while Len was looking for destiny. What he found was darkness, cottony silence thick in his ears. History lives in the darkness that follows a one-two punch.
*
She said she’d come to see the fight because she had to see
others hurt, to know that she wasn’t alone. She was tiny
and insubstantial, her face all liquid eyes, tight puckered
mouth. He wanted to see what she would look like when she
smiled, and it started as simple as that. She waited after
the match, sat in the stands long after everyone else had
filed out. They were alone under the dimmed lights. She
startled him when she called his name, he smiled
sheepishly. She asked if she could tend his wounds. It was
just like her, he learned, she wanted everything and
everyone to be all right. All the time. Even when she had
to see them hurt so she knew she wasn’t alone. Especially
then.
She held ice to his face, gently fingered his split lip,
kept asking him if it hurt, and winced when he told her
that it did. After that, he never told her. She had no
agenda, which was new to him, no goal but to drift through
the world with some shred of innocence clenched tight in
her fist. A precious shred, a tiny shred. All that she had
left. All that she wanted. And him. After that night, she
wanted him. And her wanting him became all that he wanted,
that he needed.
*
He
took her to the Spillway because she’d asked to see it. He
brought her home to meet his ma, promised her a trip to the
park to see the fireworks, except it was closed that year,
had finally gone bankrupt after all. So they milled around
and he wished for something to show her, something
wonderful. Not the Spillway, not where the ducks walked on
the backs of the fish. But she asked when she saw the sign.
They bought a loaf of bread from a little shack painted
violent red so the tourists couldn’t miss it. Expired bread
that cost nearly as much as the fresh stuff. It was moldy,
but the fish didn’t complain. They might have, though, if
they’d had the capacity. Might have had something to say
about the pus white gaps where eyes had been before they
were plucked by careless beaks grappling for crumbs, or
punctured by whip slick fins reacting to pain, or hunger,
or the constant state of almost suffocation in the water
that was more fish than good old h-two-oh.
He watched her toss out whole slices, then squeeze her eyes
shut to miss the gape-mouthed whirl. The truth was that she
really didn’t like to see things hurt, no matter what she
said. She swallowed the world’s pain and it ate her up
inside. He watched her, and by then he knew her well enough
to know that she didn’t want to be there. He grabbed the
bag from her fingers, dumped the whole loaf at once, then
put his arm around her shoulder (so slight, almost nothing)
and led her to the car.
His love couldn’t make her happy but he could make her feel
safe. He could protect her. Because she had been through
enough. She made him promise that he wouldn’t go after her
father for what he’d done, but he might have, anyway, if
the old bastard hadn’t died of his own accord. He froze to
death on his front porch that winter, had pneumonia but
wouldn’t stay put in the hospital because it didn’t have a
bar. A neighbor found him the next morning, frozen beer
clenched in a frozen fist.
She hurt for the loss of him, even though he didn’t deserve
to be mourned. And this was somehow different than being
hurt by him, not as lasting. By that summer, she seemed to
have come around. She was lovely when she smiled. Her whole
face smoothed, and you almost could believe she’d never
lost any innocence at all.
He got into the car beside her, cupped her chin in his
hand. “I love you,” he whispered. He hadn’t said it before
and didn’t know why he mentioned it just then, unless it
was that he just couldn’t not.
She pulled back and stared blankly at the fish, watching
them fight in all their ugliness, and he wondered if she
saw him like that, a writhing, violent thing, a fish in a
sea drowning with them. She turned back to face him. The
smile she wore was weary.
“How many have you loved before me?” she asked. And he
could see it. He’d said it too soon, the words sat wrong on
her like a stained second-hand garment. He told himself it
was just too new. Love, to her, had been just a word. A
dirty word that spoke of misery in the night, that meant a
slow grinding away of the soul, a forever trip to the
dentist, drilling, penetrating, leaving a lasting ache that
grew sharp when the wind blew wrong. Her father had been a
dentist, until he’d lost his license.
Len was sorry he’d said it, but meant it no less and
couldn’t call the words back.
“How many?”
“A few,” he answered, and wanted to add none like this, but
he couldn’t. She had to know it for herself.
“And how many will you love after?”
“None,” he said too quickly. There was a question in her
eyes. How could
he know that? “Marry me,” he
said.
He could never tell the happy tears from the sad, saw no
difference in color or shape. But then she smiled, and he
knew. Because it was that sad smile that he both loved and
never wanted to see again.
“I don’t know, I guess so, I…” and the words faltered on
her tongue, but that was okay. He didn’t need to hear it
just yet. He only needed assent and the rest would follow.
*
“Three-four-five--” He opened his eyes to the sight of his
manager, hopping outside the ropes, screaming “GET UP! GET
UP!” He could barely make out his voice over the ringing in
his ears, over the count. By eight, he’d struggled to his
feet, the world spinning, the lights blinding and sharp.
Denali danced from foot to foot, wearing a mouth guard
smile as though there was anything left there to protect.
Cheering, jeering faces in a sea of humanity. The referee
looked to him and Len nodded. Denali waited impatiently for
the whistle.
Len barely noticed it when it came. His inner eye was fixed
on April. The way she looked before the habit, the last
time he’d ever seen her hair turn to spun gold in the
sunshine. He had promised he would never love another, and
he hadn’t. She had.
A blow to his chest shook Len from his reverie, but it
didn’t sting like it should have. Denali was wearing
himself out, or at least wanted Len to believe that he was.
Hope, that’s what the silly bastard was doing, holding out
hope like a carrot on a stick. A man who’s riding on hope
is a man who makes mistakes. Len kicked and failed to
connect, but it put a little distance between them. The
world grew clearer, more stable with each second.
“It’s over,” Denali said thickly, a mouth guard slur. “You
might as well fall, man, spare yourself some.”
Len liked to believe he wasn’t the sort of man who would
spare himself anything. He stood firm, waiting for his shot
to open up and missing it when it did. He was tired. But so
was Denali. He danced around Len, needlessly burning up his
energy in distraction. Sleight of fist. He didn’t need to
bother, Len’s mind was so distant it was gone.
He
couldn’t recall
why he was there. How it would bring her back to him, or
bring him closer to her.
Denali struck with an iron fist and Len went down wondering
if Denali somehow
weighted his gloves. The mat smelled tinny, blood and
sweat, but this smell was replaced by another.
*
Church incense and lit candles. Wooden Christ on the cross,
muscular, beautiful, carved into an ideal. The real Jesus
probably had unkempt fingernails and calloused heels. So,
he died for our sins. But what about the rest, what about
the ones who die for nothing? Is it less of a sacrifice?
The girl he loved was dead, the woman across the table
someone else. Someone who twisted rosary beads between her
fingers and anxiously watched the clock, willing visiting
hour to end and muttering prayers under her breath to fill
the awkward silence, faith and God intrusions that kept
expanding between them.
She’d taken back her unspoken love and given it to Him, all
of it. She even had them baptize her, remold her into a
sinless virgin, just in case God paid a visit to separate
the clean from the unclean.
She promised to pray for him. That was the worst of it. He
grabbed her shoulders and shook her, like he meant to wake
her from this dream. He begged her to love him.
“I love all God’s children,” she said, empty voice, empty
words. Fear. Tears in her eyes when she said it, and he
hadn’t wanted it to be like this.
He was just one of God’s children to her, nothing more.
“Don’t waste your time praying for me,” he’d said. “If you
want to give your love to a figment, a fucking figment,
then…” that was where he ran out of words. How can you
argue? What can you say?
“God’s love is what makes me happy.” Tears in her eyes when
she said it. The same ones? Or had those fallen, given way
to others with new reasons, new denials, lost promises or
found ones? Cottony silence between them like a one-two
punch.
She turned away, to study the resident rectory goldfish
swimming lonely in a tank, nothing to do, nowhere to go. He
let his voice drop, deflated, and he whispered that he
loved her again. If he left here and never saw her after,
he didn’t want her to forget. He reached out for her hands,
but she drew away.
“My love has been called to a higher purpose. I mustn’t
squander it.”
Squander, such a fucking word. As though that’s what it had
been. A waste, an extravagance, a fling. Squander.
“I’m sure that was the divine fucking plan, to give up love
and life for let’s pretend.” Hands white knuckled grasping
at the table just for something to hold on to. She said
nothing. The clock stole their last chance.
The world dissolved, but the words rang in his ears. Let’s
pretend.
*
“Six-seven-”
Len staggered to his feet, holding the ropes for
support. Let’s
pretend. The world
swam and he was drowning in it. Two concerned referees, two
screaming managers. Two Denalis hungry for victory. And
what was he hungry for? Every punch brought him closer to
what? To what?
To her.
He nodded and they rang the bell. A church bell, a death
knell. They would have gotten married at Saint Gabriel’s.
He closed his eyes and waited for the knock-out blow. When
it didn’t come, he opened them, just in time to see
Denali’s glove fill his vision, to see a tidal wave of red.
Let’s pretend, but the words had lost their power. The ring
was where delusions came to die. Where History swam through
the darkness, where insidious truth snaked its way under
his skin.
A sea of red. He’d never seen so much.
*
Hers.
No.
She’d said it was a travesty. The fish living the way they
did, never knowing it was unnatural to suffocate themselves
in so many. In so much. To have an itch like hunger that
can only be scratched by the kindness of strangers, the
sweat-buttered bread of tourists. What did they eat in the
winter? What did they eat when it rained? What did God say
to them as they flailed against each other? Go forth and
multiply?
Let’s
Pretend.
All their
moments together pressed in on him at once. Warm and
comfortable, but too heavy to bear.
The first time he’d seen her smile, because he had ice
cream on his nose. And on his cheek. On his forehead. He
painted himself banana split for her amusement. And it
worked. She smiled. But it wasn’t enough, he had to hear
her laugh.
That came when he asked her to stay the night for the first
time. She agreed, reluctantly, and she brought a teddy bear
with her, a threadbare thing with one eye. She’d named it
Mr. Wrinkles and when he teased her for it she dared him to
do better. He named it Mortise. Very upscale and dignified.
Until he made Mortise go cruising across the coffee table,
looking for foxy lady-bears and a fix. She grabbed it out
of his hands, clutched it to her chest.
“Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff,” he’d said in a decidedly
Mortise voice. She held the bear out at arm’s length.
Defiled.
“You’ve ruined him.”
“I didn’t do anything. It was the bear. Probably been like
that all along, and you just didn’t know.” He hadn’t known
about her father, then, or he wouldn’t have said it. And if
he hadn’t said it, she wouldn’t have laughed. It had a
musical sound, light and airy. She dropped Mortise on the
floor and kicked him halfway across his living room. Then
she asked him who was supposed to keep the nightmares at
bay now. He didn’t say what he wanted to, but knew that she
saw him thinking it, because she asked if he minded if she
slept on the couch. He didn’t. And when he came out that
morning, Mortise was back in her arms, nuzzled into that
enviable place.
One day she’d tried to teach him how to dance. Failed, of
course, even though she swore it would help him in the
ring. He couldn’t concentrate, and the lesson ended in the
bedroom, where she showed her unsaid love.
She showed it other ways, too. Notes slipped into his
jacket pockets to remind him of her at odd moments, like
when his hands got cold or he needed change. Always they
ended with a smiley face, even on the days when sadness
hollowed her out. And Love,
April. Never
I love
you. She showed
it, though, in the way she curled into his chest at night.
The way she was a perfect fit. How she let him wrap around
her and keep her safe from the world. But he
couldn’t keep her safe.
She’d read
Shakespeare to him. They’d sat on the floor, her between
his legs, his arms around her waist. She was smarter than
he was but she was patient, too. She didn’t mind stopping
to explain the archaic language, and she did different
voices for each character. He remembered
Hamlet,
father-induced madness and “Get thee to a nunnery.” That
line stuck, circled in the back of his mind. The way she
explained its meaning, Hamlet playfully accusing Ophelia of
soiled virtue, it reminded him of the first time he’d told
her that he loved her.
She sang about flowers, as Ophelia, madness beyond the page
in the lilt of the words. Ophelia should have had a happy
ending, should not have slept with the fishes. Hungry, ugly
things. No dress to drag her down. No gun in her cold hand
at The End of the Road.
Insidious.
He should have seen it coming. The way she’d been
preoccupied with God, with His whereabouts. She couldn’t
pin Him down, couldn’t find Him. Had to go on a pilgrimage
to search. She was gone a long, miserable time before he
found her at Saint Gabe’s. Where she married God instead of
him.
*
“Jesus,
somebody call an ambulance! Get the
paramedics!” The voice was
distant, white noise. His eyelids flickered. He saw red.
*
Splashed against a windshield. Apologetic when they called.
She had no kin, kin you believe it? So they called the only
number in her cell phone. Fragile body folded on the car
floor, wasted face. Splashed face. Red. No, he couldn’t.
*
“Clear!”
A useless jolt. Ghosts hiding under his eyelids. A face in
a habit, or did they call it a wimple? It wasn’t hers, it
never had been.
The tear-stained note tucked into his jacket pocket that
finally said that she loved him, yes, that had been hers.
It even ended with a smiley face. She loved him, it said,
dear God, she loved him. Didn’t love herself. Couldn’t, nor
this world.
No.
He hadn’t affirmed that it was her to a police officer
after he finished vomiting on the verge. At The End of the
Road. That was what it was called, because it went nowhere.
Stupid name, stupid fucking name. But she’d never been
there. She’d gone to God by a different road, a higher
road. A road that wouldn’t ensure that no God would want
her. Got thee to a nunnery. And where was hope now? Where
was the carrot on the stick? Where was her face, put back
together and whole, waiting for him here at the end like
he’d known, ever since and in the back of his mind, he’d
known it would be. Because every punch would bring him
closer.
White noise faded to black, and Len lay belly up, waiting
for April in the long engulfing darkness.
Copyright
2010 by Dawn Allison