Gravity

by Sarah Deming

  Growing up is weird because you never notice it happening. One day you just wake up and you can’t make featherweight anymore, no matter how much Albolene you use. When she saw that photo in the newspaper later, Gravity felt, for the first time in her life, like a woman.

  She tried to follow D-Minus out of the ring, but Coach rolled to the bottom of the stairs and blocked her path.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he said.

  “I thought I could hit the bag a little.”

  Something was different between her and Coach. Every limb of his big, old body bristled with rage. It scared her.

  “Give me that mouthpiece,” he snapped.

  She handed it over. He rinsed it out and shoved it back in her mouth.

  “Get back in that ring,” he said. “You’re done when I say you’re done.”

  Gravity turned and trudged back up the ring stairs. Her quadriceps felt like Jell-O, but she knew better than to argue.

  “You looked like shit in Canada,” Coach snapped. “We’re picking it up from here on out. No days off. No bullshitting.” He waved Boo Boo over and told him to get into the ring and give Gravity six rounds.

  “Six rounds!” She looked at him in disbelief.

  “Oh, that’s not enough for you?” Coach said sarcastically. “Give her eight, Boo Boo. We go at the next bell.”

  Gravity stared across the ring in misery. D was right. She should not have had sex with Lefty that morning. Her roadwork had been shitty enough; she had nothing left for the gym. Now she knew for sure that the old maxim “Women weaken legs” applied just as well to men. Lefty had drained her like a sex vampire.

  Somehow she got through the rounds. Not with dignity. Not with grace. But with that native stubbornness that made it impossible for her to call it quits, short of total loss of consciousness. It helped that Boo Boo did not have a mean bone in his body. He batted her around like a big dog playing with a puppy.

  Coach remained silent throughout the ordeal, allowing Boca to give them water and advice. Whenever she dared to look down at him, he stared fiercely back from underneath his furrowed eyebrows.

  “Had enough?” he said finally, after the eighth awful round.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Boo Boo held the ropes apart and gave her his arm as they went down the stairs.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t good work today, Boo,” she said.

  “Don’t sweat it, G,” he said. “I was tired too.”

  “Some of us were more tired than others,” Coach said.

  He grabbed Gravity’s right glove and peeled off the tape. His face looked like he had been sucking a lemon, but some of the anger had gone out of him, and everything might have worked out very differently had Lefty not chosen that precise moment to saunter into the gym. Chocolate-brown Cleto Reyes gloves swung from his neck like a mink stole, and he rapped along to his own track as it blared from the inset speakers in his futuristic Bluetooth hoodie. As he passed her, he planted a kiss on her cheek, saying, “Mmm, baby! You look good enough to eat.”

  If Gravity thought Coach had been mad before, she hadn’t seen anything yet. He backhanded Lefty with such force that his hoodie quit playing music.

  Lefty stumbled backward, eyeing Coach reproachfully.

  “I want none of that bullshit in my gym!” thundered the old man. “Do you hear?”

  He yelled so loud that everybody paused their workouts and glanced nervously in their direction. D-Minus sat down nearby and started eating popcorn.

  Lefty mumbled, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  His voice cracked a little and he looked down at the floor. It made Gravity think of something sad he had told her, while they were holding each other after sex, about how his father used to get drunk and hit him.

  Gravity looked at Coach’s face, all wrinkled up in frown lines like a prune.

  “You’re so mean,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows dangerously. “Excuse me?”

  D-Minus laughed.

  “We have nothing to apologize for,” she said, her heart pounding.

  Coach remained silent, studying her. The bell rang. She felt suspended, like those cartoon characters who run off a cliff without knowing it and stay there awhile, legs windmilling, before they make the mistake of looking down.

  “It’s okay, G,” Lefty said, touching her softly on the shoulder.

  “It’s not okay,” she said. “We have every right to date who we want to.”

  “Not if you’re my fighter, you don’t,” Coach said. “I will not have you acting like a little whore in my gym.”

  The word “whore” struck Gravity in some weak spot she hadn’t known she owned. She swayed on her feet for a moment, heat flooding her whole body. Then she ripped off the sparring gloves and threw them in Coach’s lap, hating him, hating herself, hating the words as they came out of her mouth:

  “Then I guess I’ll find another coach.”

  “I’m gonna kick so much ass in China,” she told Lefty. “I don’t need Coach. It’s all about conditioning at this point. I just need to stay on weight and find good sparring.”

  “I feel you,” he said.

  It was the day after her fight with Coach, and she had come straight to Lefty’s after school for some therapeutic sex. They had fucked twice, and now he was doing hits out of a bong shaped like a cheeseburger while they watched the third fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Durán.

  Gravity reached for another chicken wing. His brothers had left them money for dinner, and they had gotten takeout from the Chinese place across the street. She had thought about asking Lefty if there were healthier options, but once they had sex, she forgot.

  It would be okay. She would just up her mileage on the roadwork and wear plastics for a while. Next week she would go to Smiley’s and find a new trainer. She had thirty-five days left before China. Gravity fixed her eyes on the laptop screen, calming the anxiety that threatened to rise at the thought of the ticking clock.

  She loved a great boxing trilogy, but Leonard-Durán sort of let you down at the end. The two boxers were postprime and much heavier and slower compared to their first two fights.

  “Ooh, look at that right hand!” Lefty said. “Manos de Piedra!”

  “Ray blocked that punch,” she said.

  “Hell no.”

  She hit the space bar and scrolled back. “See?”

  “You’re crazy! Durán knocked him back!”

  She tried to scroll back again, but Lefty wouldn’t let her. She sighed in frustration, replaying the last exchange in her mind’s eye. Sugar Ray’s gloves were totally in front of his face. He had stepped backward because his feet were square, but it wasn’t a scoring blow.

  Gravity tried to watch fights objectively, seeing what she could learn from each boxer. Lefty watched like they were superhero movies. His heroes were always the Latino fighters. If it was two Latinos, he would always root for the Puerto Ricans, then the Dominicans, then the Cubans, and so on down to the Mexicans, who were his last choice, because there was a bitter historical rivalry between Puerto Rican and Mexican boxers. At any given time, in some boxing gym somewhere, a Mexican and a Puerto Rican were beefing.

  “Durán just seems like such an asshole,” she said. It was good to punch with bad intentions, but he radiated them like a toxic cloud. “He only won the first fight because he insulted Sugar Ray’s wife and got him off his game.”

  “So? It worked, didn’t it?”

  “And what about the second fight? How can you root for Durán after he said, ‘No más’?”

  Lefty got a blasé look on his face. He was in denial about the fact that his hero had given up in the middle of the rematch, and he refused to even watch that fight with her. Gravity liked to watch trilogies in order, and skipping Leonard-Durán 2 was like going right f
rom Star Wars to Return of the Jedi without giving the Empire the chance to strike back.

  Lefty took a big hit from the cheeseburger, and the bong water bubbled so loudly that for a moment neither of them heard the knocking on his front door.

  “Who is it?” Lefty called, in a cloud of smoke, out the window.

  They both giggled until Mr. Rizzo’s voice came back: “Is that you, Lefty? Gravity’s aunt told me she might be over here.”

  “Oh shit,” Lefty whispered, opening the window wider to fan out the smoke.

  He mouthed, “Spray!” to Gravity, pointing to his dresser, atop which sat every fragrance of Axe known to man. Gravity picked up Apollo and Dark Temptation and sprayed them around the room, then began sneezing furiously.

  “Gravity, is that you?” said Mr. Rizzo.

  Lefty made a throat-cutting signal, but Gravity couldn’t lie to Mr. Rizzo. Especially not if he had come all the way to the Bronx.

  “I’ll be right there!” she yelled.

  Lefty gave her a fierce look. He used a box of condoms to sweep up the loose weed from his nightstand.

  “Keep him in the living room,” he whispered. “And get rid of him before my brothers come home. If they know I let a cop up in here, they’ll kick me the fuck out.”

  Gravity nodded, an unpleasant revelation sinking in about why Lefty and his brothers always had money for food and new clothes and why there was always so much weed around. She left him there, squeezing Visine in his eyes, and went to open the five locks on the apartment door.

  Mr. Rizzo wore a rumpled polo shirt and khakis and held a plastic bag. She couldn’t remember having seen him in glasses before. Beneath the thick frames, his eyes looked tired. Gravity switched on a lamp, feeling awkward. Nobody ever hung out in Lefty’s living room. She gestured to the plastic-covered couch.

  “Would you like to sit down? Can I get you, uh…” She didn’t know what they had besides leftover fried rice and maybe some Tropical Fantasy. Lately the tap water at Lefty’s had been coming out brown.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Here, bring these home to your brother.” He set a box of Girl Scout cookies down on the coffee table.

  “Wow, Samoas! Thanks! That’s his favorite kind.”

  He smiled. “I know. My granddaughter is selling them. She’s gonna bankrupt me.”

  The bedroom door squeaked open and Lefty emerged, exuding Axe from every pore. Mr. Rizzo was no dope; Gravity saw him roll his eyes.

  “How are you, Lefty?” he said, handing him a box of cookies.

  “Chillin’,” Lefty said. “Hey, Thin Mints. That’s my favorite kind.”

  “I know.” Mr. Rizzo put a hand on Lefty’s shoulder. “We miss you at the gym.”

  “I’m just taking a break. My brothers needed some help around the house.” Lefty shrugged off Mr. Rizzo’s hand, tore into the box of cookies, and ate three Thin Mints at once.

  “And how are your brothers?” said Mr. Rizzo, a slight edge in his voice.

  Lefty shrugged. “Working.”

  Mr. Rizzo took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It looked like he was debating whether or not to say something, then decided to say it: “We went by the cemetery last week for Tray’s date. They did a real nice job with the stone. You should go see.”

  “Sure,” Lefty said.

  Gravity could tell he had no interest in going. Mr. Rizzo must have known too, because he pulled out his phone and showed Lefty a picture of a polished gray tombstone surrounded by yellow flowers. A pair of boxing gloves was carved on one side of it and a crucifix on the other. The inscription read:

  Trendon Saint-Amand

  Sunrise 2/11/1993

  Sunset 4/7/2012

  Oh, what a wonderful world!

  “He always liked that corny song,” Lefty said, handing back the phone. His eyes brimmed with what might have been tears, but maybe it was just Visine.

  “The retrial is next month,” Mr. Rizzo said. “There’s still time to change your mind, you know. Your testimony would—”

  “I’m not changing my mind,” Lefty said.

  Mr. Rizzo’s pale face reddened. “So you’re just gonna let that sonofabitch walk? Really, Lefty?” As he spoke, he grew angrier than Gravity had ever seen him before. “You’re gonna sit there on your hands while the bastard who shot your best friend in front of your face goes free?”

  Gravity flinched.

  Lefty was there at the dice game?

  Nobody had ever told her that part of the story. The puzzle pieces clicked into place in her mind. He was there at the dice game and watched Tray die. Now she understood what D-Minus had against him. Why D was always talking shit about him and beating him up in sparring. Lefty could have put D’s brother’s murderer away, but he refused to take the stand!

  “I ain’t no snitch,” Lefty said. He tucked the cookies under his arm and stomped off, slamming the bedroom door.

  Mr. Rizzo sighed. He turned his tired eyes on Gravity.

  She glanced away, embarrassed by Lefty’s behavior and suddenly conscious of how she must appear to Mr. Rizzo, there alone, at this hour.

  “What’s this I hear about you leaving Coach Thomas?” he said.

  She looked back at him. He did not look angry, just sad.

  “I can’t train with him anymore,” she said, feeling sad too.

  “Why not?”

  “He…” She didn’t want to talk to Mr. Rizzo about her relationship with Lefty. “He disrespected me.”

  Mr. Rizzo sighed again. “He’s old, Gravity. And he’s not well. He has old-fashioned ideas about things.”

  That made her mad. Just because Coach was in a wheelchair, that didn’t give him a free pass to call her a…she didn’t even like to think about what he had called her.

  She had overheard guys at the gym saying a lot of misogynistic things. But this was different. This wasn’t some teenage hoodlum or sleazy PLASMAFuel rep. This was her coach. Sometimes she had even pretended he was her father. She had trusted him.

  “That old man loves you, Gravity,” Mr. Rizzo said. “It kills him that he hurt you. I swear, I’ve never seen him like this before. Go back to him. Please. You need each other.”

  “If he’s so sorry, how come you’re here and not him?”

  Mr. Rizzo remained silent.

  Coach knew how to send texts now too; D-Minus had taught him. He could have checked in or said he was sorry if he had wanted to, but he hadn’t. She felt sorry that Mr. Rizzo had come all that way and brought cookies and everything, but it was impossible for her to go back. That would be like saying that the way Coach had treated her was okay, and it wasn’t.

  “What will you do?” Mr. Rizzo said. “Want me to talk to Boca for you? He’s a great coach too. I know he’d love to have you.”

  Gravity shook her head. As mad as she was at Coach, she would never disrespect him by staying at the same gym and training with his rival.

  “I’ll probably go to Smiley’s.”

  Mr. Rizzo grunted. “Well, there’s lots of action there.” He rose slowly and picked up his plastic bag. “Any coach would be lucky to have you. Take care of yourself. If you wanna know if someone’s a scumbag, you can always call me and I’ll give you the police report.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Rizzo.”

  “You can come back to us anytime you want. And if you have trouble paying for tournament travel, let me know. I might be able to do something.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Rizzo.”

  She thought of all the things he had done for her over the years, all the things he did for everybody at the gym. She wanted very badly to hug him, but suddenly that felt too awkward. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.

  As soon as he had gone, Lefty opened the bedroom door. Gravity walked in to face him, dizzied by her new knowledge. How could h
e have watched Tray die and do nothing?

  Lefty did a bong hit, said the words “Manos de Piedra” in a cloud of smoke, then paused to cough and drink some Tropical Fantasy. She watched as if through a pane of glass. He was an entirely different person than she had thought. She had thought he was brave, that he told the truth in his music.

  He went on, “Manos de Piedra did not quit. He chose not to go on, because Ray made a mockery of the sport. Ray shoulda manned up and fought Roberto instead of dancing around the ring like a big pussy.”

  Gravity’s anger at Lefty about Tray shifted instantly into irritation at his use of the word “pussy.” How could Lefty use the word in such a sweet voice to talk about her body and then turn around and use it as an insult? And how come everyone always said “man up” when they meant “be brave”? Women were braver than men. If she had watched Tray die, you would have had to kill her to keep her from taking the stand.

  “Leonard was way braver than Durán,” she said.

  Lefty laughed.

  “He was. The proof is that he stood there and slugged in that first fight when slugging wasn’t his game. It’s brave to take a stand, even when it’s not in your best interest. Even if you might get hurt or lose.”

  She gave Lefty a significant look, hoping he would understand that she was not talking about boxing anymore, but it went over his head so fast she almost felt the wind. So she came out and said it.

  “You ought to say what you saw. Tray was your best friend. He was D’s brother.”

  Lefty’s face hardened. “I ain’t no snitch.”

  She thought of Coach. He must have known Lefty was there at the murder too. Now his disapproval of their relationship seemed more understandable, and she felt a sharper pain in her heart, thinking of all Coach’s wisdom, now inaccessible to her.

  The girls she would fight in China were inside their gyms right now, around the world, training. She was sitting on her ass, eating fast food and breathing secondhand smoke. She hadn’t gotten on a scale since Cornwall. She was probably light welterweight by now.