Gravity
Page 13
“They made me,” Tyler insisted, turning on the PlayStation. “But I made them take all your trophies so Mom wouldn’t steal anything else.”
Gravity laughed. “Good boy.”
“Come on, Gra Gra, play with me,” Tyler said, passing her a controller.
She slid onto the couch next to him and they began a game of Hell Slayer 3.
“Remember about the asps,” she warned him.
“Duh,” he said.
He always played the Paladin, and she played the Barbarian; they made a good team. The undead asps slithered across their path, and Tyler took them out with his flying knives. The same thing happened with the wave of wraiths and then the killer bats.
Gravity didn’t see the swamp ghoul until it had taken a huge bite out of her thigh.
“Goddamn, cuz!” said Melsy.
Blood spattered across the screen as her stamina dropped to eight percent, but Tyler stormed over, killed the ghoul, and cast a healing spell. The PlayStation chimed with a happy little tune.
“Wow,” Gravity said. “You got so good, Ty Ty!”
“I practiced.”
“It’s, like, all he ever does,” said Melsy. “That and polish your trophies.”
They were almost at the main boss, Sabado. When he was little, Tyler used to wake Gravity up in the middle of the night and want to cuddle because he had nightmares that Sabado had come to life. Now he didn’t seem scared at all. It was like he’d grown up overnight. He leapt over the drawbridge with a showy front flip and marched across the moldering carpet that led to the throne of bones. Gravity didn’t even have time to go into a battle rage. At the perfect moment, Tyler threw a dagger at Sabado’s midsection, right where a boxer would throw a left hook to the liver.
One of the best features of Hell Slayer 3 was the death throes. First Sabado’s brain exploded. Then his body rotted away into maggots and flies. At the end, all that was left was his bone ax and a pile of rings from the fingers in his hair.
Tyler let out a whoop of triumph as he and Gravity materialized in Level Two, the Citadel of Chaos.
There was a stirring by the bedroom, and Gravity looked up to see Auntie Rosa in the hallway, smiling and watching them. She was wearing a silk kimono. Her hair was up in rollers and her sleepy eyes were full of kindness. Rosa had the same kind of beauty as her daughter, but softer and more world-weary. She had to get up very early for her job as a Starbucks barista and was always sleepy.
“Welcome home, Gra Gra,” she said.
Gravity said, “Thanks for all the food, Auntie Rosa! Thanks for making coconut rice. I know how much work that is.”
Gravity went over to her aunt and hugged her gently. Rosa always felt so soft, like there were no bones at all in her body.
“We watched every fight,” she said, pulling back to cup Gravity’s face in her hands. She traced a finger along Gravity’s cheek, lightly touching the tiny bruise that remained on one cheekbone. “It’s hard sometimes, mi vida. To see you get hit. Does it hurt?”
“Nah,” Gravity lied.
Considering how tough the tournament had been, she had come through without much damage. The headache after her bout against Paloma had only lasted an hour, and her neck was almost back to normal now.
“Gravity’s tough,” Tyler announced.
Auntie Rosa smiled. She picked up a pupusa and looked at it. “You get that from your father.”
“Was our dad tough too?” Tyler asked.
Gravity blushed, hearing the hunger in his voice. She and Tyler had given up on trying to get Mom to talk about Dad. The only thing she would do was insult him. Auntie Rosa was also generally closemouthed on the subject of her brother, but she would give them useful information sometimes: sweet little tidbits like the fact that he had played semipro baseball in Santo Domingo, was a great cook, and could fix almost anything.
“Oh yes,” Rosa said. “Your father…he stuck to his guns. Your mother is stubborn, too. So…” She spread her arms and a sad look came over her face.
Gravity always got the sense that Auntie Rosa thought the breakup had been Mom’s fault. Certainly their aunt had a better way with men than their mother. Melsy’s dad was still in the picture, and Rosa had various boyfriends who came over with little gifts and sat around drinking coffee and fixing things in the apartment. These men always filled Gravity with a vague longing. It would have been so good for Tyler to have a male role model. But Mom was so volatile that nobody stayed around for very long.
Tyler was sitting up very straight on the couch, the controller forgotten in his lap, hoping for more information, but Rosa glided across the living room to pull a cardboard carton from underneath the coffee table. She extracted a T-shirt from the box and shook it out.
Gravity felt her heart melt. Auntie Rosa was really creative. There was hardly any kind of art she didn’t do: she made stained-glass boxes, and pottery, and she had a silkscreen machine for making personalized T-shirts. This one was black with “Gravity ‘Doomsday’ Delgado” in white lettering on the front in a cool retro font. Underneath it was a picture of Gravity’s face, drawn like she was a comic-book character. There was a little Star of David on one sleeve and the Dominican flag on the other and a big American flag on the back with a rainbow arcing over it and the words “Olympic Trials Champion.” Instead of a pot of gold, the rainbow ended in the Olympic rings.
“It’s beautiful, Auntie!” Gravity exclaimed, kissing her soft cheek.
“I made a lot,” said Auntie Rosa, yawning. She tossed Tyler a size small and Gravity a medium. “You can sell them to raise money for Rio.”
“I need to qualify first,” Gravity said, feeling a tiny ripple of anxiety.
“Oh, you’ll qualify,” said Melsy. “And I’ll wear my shirt in Brazil when I watch you win gold.”
Auntie Rosa sank into the purple armchair and fell back asleep, the pupusa still in her hand.
Tyler whined, “I want to know about Dad.”
Gravity rubbed his back and said, “We’ll ask her later, okay? Now why don’t you go brush your teeth and get ready for bed? Paladins need sleep so they can kill more zombies tomorrow.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but Gravity gave him her sternest stare and said, “Don’t make me go into my battle rage,” and he stomped off to the bathroom.
After he had gone, Melsy launched into a state of the union address about her love life. Gravity made herself focus so she could stay up to date.
“My current fave is Colin. He’s so generous. He took me to the opera the other night, and there was an elephant onstage! Although maybe that’s cruelty to animals.”
Gravity smiled politely. She thought Colin was bougie, and he talked too much about his mother.
“Then there’s always Corey. He’s my break-in-case-of-emergency guy. He’s so sweet.”
Gravity blushed. Her cousin had told her some extremely intimate details about Corey. He was a vegan personal trainer, and Melsy said he was proof that animal protein was not necessary for superior performance.
“Jerome and Earl are always in the running, of course, but they’re both so flaky. If you want to get with me, you have to return my texts within the hour. I don’t know what’s with these young boys and their nonchalance. That’s why college men are better.”
Gravity didn’t remember Jerome or Earl. “I can’t keep track of all your boys,” she said.
Melsy sighed theatrically. “Sometimes I can’t either. That’s why I never yell out a man’s name during sex. I might get it wrong, and that’s embarrassing. You can’t go wrong with papi.”
They both giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Tyler demanded.
Gravity and Melsy stopped laughing, guiltily, and looked at him. He was just about the cutest thing in the world, with his square little-man face and pudgy belly. He was
wearing his Cars pajamas, and his short, dark hair, still crispy with styling gel, was all mussed up. His eyes were red at the corners.
“I wanna know,” he said.
“You are!” Gravity said. She tackled him in a hug and lifted him up in the air, staggering a little under his weight. He was almost too big now to lift. “You’re the funniest kid ever.”
He squirmed. “Am not!”
“Are too.” She set him back down and went in for the tickle, right where it always got him. Melsy joined in, and soon he was wriggling with delight on the couch, yelling, “Stop! Help! Auntie Rosa! Make them stop!”
Auntie Rosa opened her eyes and told them to turn out the light. Tyler yawned and laid his head down in Gravity’s lap. Melsy flitted about, gathering cups and putting the leftover shrimp cocktail in the fridge.
When she was very sure that Tyler had fallen asleep, Gravity told her cousin about Lefty.
Melsy quit straightening up and came and sat next to her. She took Gravity’s hand.
“Wow. Congratulations, cuz,” she said. “I’m surprised, though. I always thought you and D…”
“No!” Gravity said, blushing furiously. She thought of how mean D had been to her in Spokane, how he had glared at her when he saw her with Lefty.
“So?! Ya dime, G. How was it?”
Gravity closed her eyes. “It was great. He was…great.” She opened them again and looked at Melsy shyly. “I feel like it’s all I want to do.”
Melsy nodded. “Join the club. They say boys think about sex more than girls, but I don’t see how that’s possible.”
They both laughed.
Tyler’s eyes popped open. “What’s so funny?”
“Go back to sleep,” Gravity said, stroking his cheek.
His eyes stayed stubbornly open. “Show me the pictures,” he demanded.
“Oh, I left them at home, Ty Ty. Here, I’ll pull them up on my phone.”
“Mom will steal them!” he said with alarm, sitting upright.
“Shh, shh.” She pulled him back to her and showed him the first one, of their father cradling her in his arms. “Why would she steal them? They’re not worth anything to anybody except me and you.”
He sniffed. “And Dad. They’re worth something to Dad.”
“Yeah. And Dad.”
“ ’Cause he loved us so much. That’s why he’s smiling at me like that. But I’m crying ’cause I pooped.”
She chuckled. “And here you are at the zoo.”
Melsy looked confused and bent over the phone. “But that’s not—”
Gravity silenced her with a reduced-strength boxing glare.
“Dad and I loved to go to the zoo together,” Tyler told Melsy. “Our favorite animal is the lion because the lady lions do all the work and all he has to do is make cubs and roar.”
“Sounds like feminism needs to come to the lion kingdom,” Melsy said. She gave Gravity a long, disapproving look.
Gravity looked down at Tyler and back up at her, shrugging, as if to say, “What can I do? You see how happy it makes him.”
Melsy shook her head.
“And here you are playing video games. That must be why you’re so good at them. You started young.”
His eyelids fluttered as he gazed at the picture. “Was Dad cheap like Mom?”
Gravity cocked her head. That was another new one. Mom said Dad owed her a hundred thousand dollars in child support, but Gravity remembered the pockets of his leather jacket being deep, filled with colored rubber bands for her hair, silver dollars, and butterscotch candy. He had shown up at Gravity’s eighth-birthday party with so many toys he could barely knock on the door. She felt that old familiar ache inside her, like a wound that would never heal.
“Oh no,” she told Tyler. “He was very generous.”
But he was already asleep.
Coach bellowed, “There she is! My champ!”
Gravity felt her heart pound with love as she scooted behind the timekeeper and the bell and the judges to the end of the first row ringside at the Barclays Center, where Coach always parked his chair. Nobody ever challenged his right to sit there, even if his actual ticket was for way up in the stands. He was a rolling VIP section.
When she bent to kiss his cheek, her gold medal banged against his chest and he laughed and grabbed it, holding her there for a moment and thumping her back with his jabbing hand.
When he let her go, he said, “What did I tell you, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, glowing.
“Light work!” he proclaimed.
“Light work,” she said, laughing, because it had not been light work at all. It had been the hardest work of her life.
She knelt down next to his chair, glancing up at the bleachers, where Auntie Rosa and Tyler were sitting in the free seats Mr. Rizzo had given them. Lefty, Sveta, and their families were a few rows over. Sveta was especially dressed up tonight, since Boo Boo was fighting.
A passing usher scolded, “Miss, we can’t have you blocking the aisle like that.”
She stood up, apologizing, but Coach cleared his throat.
“Coach!” The usher knelt down on the stadium floor. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there.”
“How are you, Herbert?” Coach asked.
“Another day, another dollar. Got anyone tonight?”
“Boo Boo trains with us. Red corner in the co-main.”
The usher gazed up at the illumined ring and said dreamily, “That coulda been me.”
Something about his voice made Gravity sad, but Coach just shook his finger at the man. “None of that, Herbert. Regrets are like roaches. Exterminate them before they multiply.”
The usher nodded. “You oughta see my son shadowbox. How old they gotta be to train?”
“Old enough to listen,” said Coach softly. Gravity thought maybe he was a little sad too.
The usher rose slowly to his feet and patted Gravity on the shoulder. “You stay there as long as you want, miss.” As he walked off to help more patrons, he turned back and said, “Oh, and Coach? I leave D-Minus be because I know he’s one of yours, but can you please tell him not to keep hitting on the ring card girls?”
Coach shook his head and murmured, “Such a waste of talent.” At first Gravity thought he was talking about D, but then he said, “Herbert could have beaten any heavyweight in the top ten right now.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“He got married.”
“Oh.”
Gravity didn’t see what that had to do with anything. If she married Lefty, it would be good for their boxing. He could work her corner and travel with her to tournaments. Not that she wanted to get married, but still. Thinking about it gave her a warm feeling.
“Would you like bout sheets, Mr. Thomas? Campeona?” said a musical voice.
The emerald ring glinted on her finger as the proprietress of Boxing for Girls handed Gravity and Coach pieces of paper listing all the fighters’ vital details, down to the color of their trunks.
“Oh, there’s women fighting!” Gravity exclaimed.
“Claro!” said Carmen. “That’s why I flew in. And to cheer on José David. I know him from back home in Bogotá.”
BOUT SHEET
February 19, 2016
Bout 1: 4 Rounds, Middleweights
KENDER SAINT-SAVEUR
STEVE ZEHNTNER
156 lb/6'/20 yrs
155 lb/5'6"/28 yrs
Brooklyn, NY
Des Moines, Iowa
Red/White
Silver
Pro Debut
0-2
Bout 2: 4 Round
s, Heavyweights
LONNIE SIAKI
SAM VENTURA
246 lb/6'5"/21 yrs
272 lb/5'11"/33 yrs
Brooklyn, NY
Des Moines, Iowa
White/Blue
Leopard
Pro Debut
1-5, 1 KO
Bout 3: 6 2-Min Rounds, Female Bantamweights
SHERIKA HILL
ERIN SROKA
118 lb/5'5"/26 yrs
118.5 lb/5'3"/33 yrs
New York, NY
Durham, North Carolina
Gold/Black
Pink/White
5-1
2-6, 1 KO
Bout 4: 8 Rounds, Bantamweights
JORDAN CRUZ
PEDRO SOSA
119 lb/5'5"/19 yrs
118 lb/5'2"/22 yrs
Bronx, NY
Mexico City, Mexico
Red/White/Blue
Purple/Gold
9-0-2, 6 KOs
10-12-3, 7 KOs
Bout 5: 8 Rounds, Jr. Welterweights
JULIAN DE LA ROSA
TRUCK JACKSON
140 lb/5'8"/24 yrs
140 lb/5'9"/28 yrs
Newark, NJ