Million Dollar Baby (8 page)

Bell ring, and once he in the corner I see Reggie be breathing hard.

I say, “What wrong.”

Reggie say, “I throw a gang of punches. Second wind ain’t kicked in.” Reggie look like something on his mind.

I say, “Tell him, Pats.”

Pats say, “Breathe for me, baby, take it all the way in and let it all fall out. Don’t push it out, just let it
fall.
That’s it, fill up like a opera singer, fill up from the belly first, and now just let it fall out. Make a sound for me, baby, that’s it. Make another.”

See, most trainers never talk about breathing and punching at the same time, only say take a deep breath in the corner. Pats, now, he teach breathing like it be a holy thing. He right. Breathing right save you ass. Reggie make a sound like Pats say, and right away he be looking ten years younger.

Fifth round and Dashiki make his run. He come out throwing bombs. Couple times he clip Reggie good and Reggie got to cover up.

Pats say, “Reggie’s waiting, Jeet. Dashiki’s trying to come on, but he’s got zip in his tank. Reggie’s got to come back on the boy.”

Pats see it good. I yell it up to Reggie. I say, “Don’t wait! Double up that right han’! He tired, Reggie, he tired!”

Reggie quick step to his left and he throw a right-hand upper-cut, a right hand over the top, and come back with a hook. One of Dashiki legs buckle, and he get old right there on TV. Harvey on the far side. His face so dark you think he got a rope around his neck. Bell ring and the card girl jump into the ring, all prancing and shaking her booty.

Sixth round and Dashiki all swole up and he be moving in slow motion. Reggie jump him, knock his ass all across the ring. Reggie see a knockout and step it up. He hit the boy with a six-punch combination so pretty it make you dick hard. Boy’s legs wobbly and he ready to go. Reggie hit him with five more … jab, another left hand, hook to the body, double hook to the head. The boy dead on his feet and stumble back into the corner. But instead of going after him, Reggie back off. When he don’t press, I think he hurt his hand.

Pats say, “No good. He held his fookin breath throwin those combinations and got tired. See his mouth open?”

Pats right again. I yell up, “Relax, baby. Breathe good like you suppose, take you time and then come back on him. Make that sound.”

Reggie nod and do it, and now he only be jabbing pitty-pat jabs, but he moving good and got good color. When he move off, Dashiki try to come on. Reggie got to be careful. A lucky shot from Dashiki could end his career, Reggie no kid, and when Dashiki catch him a couple of times, he hurt Reggie. But he come back the end of the round, and ain’t no doubt about who be boss.

In the corner, I work the grease and tell Reggie what to do out there, but I forget to talk about breathing.

Pats don’t. He say, “See what happened? You had him ready to go. You were punching good, but you forgot to breathe. That’s what made you tired.”

Reggie sit up straight. He say, “You right! Yeah, dass right!”

Reggie smile big, because now he know that he not be tired because he old.

Pats say, “You got to breathe all the time, son. Now breathe for me and let it fall out, you know how, make that sound for me.”

Reggie do it, he sigh big and he revive quick. But he was cut in the lower lip and spitting blood. He got hit while he breathing with his mouth open, when he locked up after putting that beating on Dashiki. We didn’t see it until he came into the corner, so Pats worked on it from outside the ropes. Got most of it.

Little blond bitch come prancing by with card number seven in the air and that stringy thing up her behind. Be smiling at Reggie like he the king. Bell ring for the seventh. Reggie breathing right again and he all fresh and he moving like a pup. Stone kicked Dashiki’s ass for three minutes. Cut his eye so bad that when Dashiki wipe at the blood he can’t believe so much be on his glove. Reggie stay in that eye like he working on a pussy, bust it up some more every time he hit it, and he keep
on
hitting it. I call up to Reggie, say that Dashiki eyeball be showing through the cut lid, say that Dashiki ready to go blind. It ain’t true, and Reggie know it, but Dashiki don’t know that, understand what I’m saying? Dashiki cover his face, and now Reggie go the liver, go to the solar plex, go that short rib, cheat around to the kidney. Reggie fighting like he champion of the world.

I shout, “Git down, Reggie, have fun! Be pretty for me, baby!”

Reggie be tearing him up. Dashiki try, but he outclass and he know it. I keep yelling up to Reggie that Dashiki can’t fight backing up. Dashiki hear that again and he want his mama. Bell ring and Pats go into the ring to work on that lip. But first he got to wipe all that Dashiki blood off Reggie. I be catching Reggie’s bloody spit when Reggie jump straight into the air, run around the ring and whoop like a wild Indian. Pats look up, I look up.

What it is that me and Pats don’t see is the referee have came across the ring. He waving his hands to signal the fight over, that Dashiki quit in the corner and Reggie the winner. Me and Pats jump up like Reggie, all of us be shouting like kids at the day care. Harvey be lookin up at the lights like he the one with the concussion. Dashiki face all busted up, but they got the blood from the eye to stop. Dashiki a man and come over to say good fight to Reggie and me and Pats.

Pats say, “You’re a good fighter, Dashiki, don’t let this stop you.”

Dashiki say, “I be back. Got some shit to learn.”

With Reggie, we go to Dashiki corner to shake the trainers’ hands. Back in the dressing room, Pats wash Reggie down with alcohol and we pack our gear and we ready to go. Harvey payday man come in with Reggie’s check. He a little old Jewish dude, got that round thing on his head, nice little dude. He got laughing eyes and a voice like candy. He explain the deductions and have Reggie sign a paper say he understand. He say Reggie some kind of warrior, say he fight like he be from the ancient time. He give us roast chestnuts from a little brown bag. Reggie want to take him home. Little dude tell us Jewish jokes and leave us laughing.

Reporters next, and then Harvey come in smiling like he on top of the world. He go on about how pretty Reggie fight, how he slick and smooth, how he can box and how he can punch.

“Listen, you guys,” he say. “I know you think this payday is chump change, and that you’re pissed about the deductions.”

Reggie cut him off. He say, “You owe me fifteen dollars and ninety cent, plus tax.”

Harvey say, “For what?”

Reggie say, “For two times at the buffet.”

Harvey say, “Oh, hell, no big thing.” He smile big, pull a twenty-dollar bill from a roll in his pocket and give it Reggie. “Keep it.”

Reggie take the twenty, pull four ones and ten pennies from his pocket, and he give them to Harvey. Reggie say, “I pay the tax. Here you change.”

Harvey say, “No hard feelings about the chow, okay? Just don’t forget that I’m the guy who gave you the opportunity to show the world you’re not washed-up, right? Because of my faith in you, you’re going to take on Babaloo. I got him signed for you already.”

Now
Harvey Silvershade love Reggie Love because he thinking to promote the Babaloo USBA fight. It funny Harvey have sign Babaloo for Dashiki, and now he trying to make it look like he do it for Reggie. Reggie eyes be getting cold again.

Harvey say, “So this payday wasn’t that much, okay?, but I figure after tonight you’ll kayo Babaloo. Once we get the USBA, I say we defend it twice in Vegas for fifty thousand a fight. Then we go for the IBF title and a real chunk of change. I say you got another six big fights in you, Reggie. With the right opponents I get you, we’re talking maybe a couple of million or more per fight. How does that sound?”

Reggie say, “It depend what my manager say.”

Harvey say, “You’re right, I’m not supposed to talk money if he’s not here. So why don’t we drop it for now?, and you and your guys come up to the penthouse. I’ve got some friends I think you’d like to meet, you know, like the card girls’ll be there, and I’ve got some steaks ordered and some champagne on ice.”

Reggie know the party was suppose to be for Dashiki. Reggie say, “Don’t like no steak, don’t drink no liquor, and don’t slip around.”

Harvey say, “Not a problem. I’ll order up some ribs.”

Reggie say, “Don’t eat no swine.”

Harvey say, “Yeah, well, whaddaya like?”

Reggie say, “Chicken and fish.”

Harvey say, “I’ll order both. How long’ll it take you to get up there?”

Reggie say, “Firs’, we got to get our stuff back to the other place up the street through the snow.”

Harvey say, “Yeah, too bad about the snow. Hey! I can have my guys schlepp your gear over there for you. You can come upstairs right now. View of the boardwalk’s pretty as a bitch at night.”

Pats say, “We got the shit over here, we’ll get it back, Jackie. We do our job.” He still thinking about his lost teeth and want to put Harvey on his ass.

I see Harvey not happy. He say, “Fine, that’s what you want. But I’ll go ahead and order up the chicken and fish. When can I expect you?”

Reggie say, “Can’t expec’. We goin celebrate wit our friends up the cafeteria.”

Harvey go all pink in the face like he been caught playing with his dick. He say, “Okay, whatever. Maybe next time, whaddaya say?”

Reggie say, “Who know?”

Promoter back out the door smiling, but his eyes be sick. Now what go down here between Reggie and Harvey don’t mean that Valentine Reggie Love won’t work with Harvey Silvershade Promotions if the money be right. Reggie just want the white Jew to know he be dealing with a black Jew.

“B
OXING IS AN UNNATURAL
act,” whispered the voice. “Understand me on this, kid. Everything in boxing is backwards to life. You want to move to the left, you don’t step left, you push on the right toe, like this. To move right, you use the left toe, see?” The old white man didn’t look into your eyes, he looked clear through your eyes, and straight to the inside of the back of your head. “Instead of runnin from pain, which is the natural thing in life, in boxing you step to it, get me? So now, once you’ve made the decision to
be
a fighter, now you gotta know
how
to fight, because no matter how tough you are, my friend, these dudes with the big dicks will knock you out.”

The voice of Frankie Dunn pierced. In the same sentence it could climb high and harsh or loop sweet as a peach, like Benny Goodman playing “Body and Soul,” or go on down deep as a grizzly’s grunt. It could move sideways on you and then curl back on itself, but always the voice pierced the mind with images that stuck, because the sound out of the old man painted pictures that became part of you, made you hear his voice when he wasn’t even there. When Frankie Dunn told a fighter how to move and why, the fighter could see it through Frankie’s eyes, and feel it slip on into his own flesh and down into his bones, and he’d flush with the magic of understanding and the feeling of power. Some called the old man Doc, some called him Uncle Frank. Old-time black fighters and trainers called him Frankie Dunn Frankie Dunn, repeating his name with a nod or a smile. Frankie loved warriors.

It was close to one hundred degrees in the Hit Pit, a gym located down a flight of twenty crumbly brick steps on Fifth near Maple—smack in the middle of the Nickel, Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It was summertime and steamy, packed with fighters of every color, some of them eight and ten years old, some of them thirty and more, vets who’d fought anyone anywhere.

Two of the fighters sparring, one black and one Chicano, had title fights coming up in different weight divisions. It was nothing for fighters to sweat off six pounds in a workout, often more. Nearly all of the fighters were men, but there were three who were women as well.

Trainers, swaying like cobras, worked with their fighters, isolated in the noise and the heat and the steam. Some hunched close to whisper, others yelled out loud. Sweat poured off of everyone, even the dozen or so onlookers who sat in the short stretch of low bleachers facing the two rings. Boom boxes blared different music from four corners and along the walls, making the place sound like a cell block.

Frankie toweled off a promising 130-pounder, a sixteen-year-old Chicano kid from Boyle Heights. The way he was going, the boy looked like he had a shot on the Olympic team. The next boy scheduled to work with Frankie was a black professional, a ten-round heavyweight with a record of 19, 1 and 1, with 17 kayos. Despite Frankie’s age, he hung with his fighters on the punch mitts, regardless of their size. Frankie had slopey shoulders, and the veins in his forearms stuck out purple and dark against his fair skin. His brows were thick with waxy scar tissue. He was blind in his left eye, and the eyelid drooped. When he slept, it stayed open. He’d been a freckle-face as a kid, had curly black hair. Now his nose was a lump and his face was weathered, a pink map against his full head of wavy white hair. Except for the white girl sitting in the stands, he was the only Caucasian in the gym. But race had never mattered to Frankie, and since he wasn’t afraid of color, never had been, he was respected by everyone in the gym, including the Muslim trainers and fighters. Africans especially delighted in him.

Moving pictures play in the heads of old people that young people don’t know about. Sometimes a whole day from fifty years ago will play between two winks. For no reason, Frankie remembered when retired fighter Houston “Stone” Stokes came through the gym one day. He had his two youngest children—a six- and a seven-year-old, a boy and a girl. Frankie had trained Houston, and they’d made money together, traveled all over. But Houston couldn’t get the kids to stay out of the rings, so he hollered out to scare them.

“Any y’all wanta buy these two? Sell ’em bof cheap!”

That got the kids’ attention, especially when Frankie said, “I might buy ’em, Stone. Will they work?”

“Hell, yeah, dey’ll work!”

“But will they pick cotton?”

At the checkers table, old Earl McClure, tubercular and looking like a mummy, slapped his thigh and liked to fell out of his chair laughing. Earl was gone to God now, and was in Frankie’s prayers. But in a lick, the kids crawled up their daddy’s leg and Stone winked at Frankie and whispered, “Man, you still da bes’ in da game.”