Cold Fury

by T. M. Goeglein

  Willy also taught me the difference between a boxing match and a beating.

  He explained that intent was everything, and that when an older, larger, and more experienced fighter invited a younger, smaller one into the ring for a “little sparring,” the other boxer usually intended to treat the newbie like a heavy bag with legs—or, as Willy called it, “fresh meat.” The younger fighter was in there to serve as a moving target for the older one to work out whatever issues he was having with his left jab or right cross, or whatever. When the bell finally rang, if the kid was still standing, he generally looked like his face had lost a violent disagreement with a ketchup bottle. Willy ordered me to never, ever spar with anyone more experienced than me, or without him present.

  Now, at age sixteen, I still wonder what the hell eight-year-old me was thinking.

  Actually, that’s the problem—I wasn’t.

  Instead, I was buzzing with adrenaline after working thirty minutes of whirlwind combinations with Willy. I stood before a sweat- and spit-flecked wall mirror as he showed me how to throw the punches in a smooth, mellifluous way that was like being taught dance moves with arms and hands instead of legs and feet. He slowed me for corrections, and then sped me up as my body caught a groove, eyes found reflective-me in the mirror as an opponent, and then it was like pulling the rope on an outboard motor—jab, jab, punch, hook—Again!—jab, jab, punch, hook—Again!—until my arms shook, hips ached, and I was convinced that a bony eight-year-old with her nose projecting from headgear like a caged toucan could go one-on-one with the world heavyweight champion.

  Or, at the very least, a Chicago Silver Gloves winner.

  Willy removed his glasses, thumbed sweat from his eyebrows, and told me to jump rope for three rounds while he made phone calls, which was code for his daily afternoon catnap. It was after his office door closed that I heard my name. A kid smiled down from the ring, hanging casually on the ropes with his hands in fat padded gloves, and I said, “Uh-Oh.”

  “Hey, Rispol-ita.” He grinned. “You wanna do a little sparring?”

  Hector “Uh-Oh” Puño was so nicknamed because when competitors in the twelve-year-old Silver Gloves division saw his fearsome right fist coming, they thought—well, you get the picture. Despite his reputation, he was always friendly and soft-spoken with me, basically a chubby, huggable teddy bear in satin boxing shorts. At that point, after training for two years, I’d been in the ring with only a handful of opponents whom Willy had deemed safe. I was pumped after my lightning combinations, through with being “safe,” and scared of nothing. Willy would be angry if he caught me, but I knew that his drowsy “phone calls” never lasted less than six rounds and I’d be done with Uh-Oh by then. I said, “We’re just moving, right, Uh-Oh? Pitty-pat punches at most? You’ve got me by height and weight like crazy.”

  “Come si este loco. Yeah, of course. I just wanna work out a few things with my right.”

  I tugged on sparring gloves, Uh-Oh parted the ropes as I climbed into the ring, and the buzzer sounded. For the first several seconds we faced each other, hands high, sidling in a circle like ice-skating on canvas. And then Uh-Oh’s left arm darted like an eel, nipping at my gloves. I turned but he was already there, bouncing before me. Boxing is like ballroom dancing in one respect—who’s going to lead? Even with his back against the rope, a leader moves in a way that forces his opponent to follow, controlling the ebb and flow of a fight. Uh-Oh was in front of me now, and I went after him with a left of my own, which he ducked, smiling. I took a step, jabbed and missed, and trailed him toward the rope. That was when he spun, I pivoted, and now my back was in the corner, and it was only at the last second, hearing the whoosh of an incoming missile, eyes flicking through the headgear, that I saw his right barreling for my face.

  It was no pitty-pat punch tossed by a teddy bear.

  It was a sledgehammer thrown by a circus strongman.

  Being hit squarely like that felt like all of the injustice that has ever existed throughout the history of mankind, in my nose. Red pain spread into my jaws and teeth, clawing my eyes, gnawing my ears, creating a sensation that the entire world was against me. Somehow I stayed on my feet and was about to quit when I saw the animal pinpoints in Uh-Oh’s eyes telling me he’d done it on purpose. I was fresh meat, and something deep in my gut popped and flashed as a tiny, internal flame began to burn cold and blue. Fear, self-pity, outrage—all of those debilitating things faded away, replaced by anger and ice.

  Now I realize that moment marked the very first time I experienced the powerful internal phenomenon. At the time, though, all that I felt was a pure sense of invincibility.

  A shadow of it must’ve crossed my eyes because Uh-Oh quit grinning and blinked heavily, and in that second of stasis, my outboard motor kicked in—jab, jab, punch, hook!—as he grunted, too late to protect his own nose. My hands were high and I was set to unleash another combination when the blue flame puffed out like a weak birthday candle, the frozen rage going with it. Its sudden appearance and departure was confusing and unnerving, leaving me off balance, and Uh-Oh must’ve seen that, too. He popped his gloves and advanced, and although I felt like plain Sara Jane, there was no way I would run, no way I’d quit, and stood my ground as he unleashed a barrage of punches that felt like a building collapsing on top of me, one cement block at a time.

  “Knock it off, right now! Right now, goddamn it!”

  We separated and turned to Willy, Uh-Oh bouncing guiltily, me swaying woozily. Willy had sharp words for my opponent but we both knew whose fault it really was. When Uh-Oh was doing his penance of a hundred push-ups, Willy pulled off my headgear, looked at my rapidly swelling nose, and made a tsk noise with his tongue. “Everything I’ve taught you,” he said, handing me an ice pack, “and you still got into the ring with a bigger, better fighter?”

  “He’s not that much better,” I pouted.

  “Yeah he is. Much.”

  “I got my shots in. It was weird, Willy. For a second, something inside calmed me down but made me really mad at the same time,” I said, trying to recapture the feeling of a phenomenon that I’m only now beginning to comprehend.

  “Adrenaline or something.” He shrugged. “That’s not the point. The point is, as a fighter, you failed.”

  I moved the ice pack from my nose. “I failed because I stuck it out? Because I was brave and didn’t give up and run away? That’s crazy.”

  “No, what’s crazy is catching a beating like the one I just saw, and standing there and taking it.”

  I shrugged defensively, saying, “I bet my dad wouldn’t have quit when he was boxing.”

  Willy huffed out a derisive little laugh. “I’ll tell you one thing about your daddy. Anthony Rispoli was a smart fighter. He ever found himself in a tight corner, he got himself the hell out of there, fast.” He leveled an unblinking gaze at me and said, “Ever happens again, girl, you better run, too.”

  “But Willy . . .”

  “But nothing. Know what they said about Muhammad Ali, the greatest heavyweight of all time? That he could sting like a bee, but first they said something else . . . ‘floats like a butterfly.’ Think about it. A butterfly doesn’t punch, doesn’t stand there like a statue getting its brains beat out. That wise little bug flaps its wings and hurries out of trouble. And that’s what a good boxer does, too . . . learns to get far away without getting hit. That’s what those brains are for, girl.”

  As the years passed and I continued under Willy’s tutelage, he stressed it to me over and over again, along with the other important points of pugilism—that it’s a thinking person’s game rather than a punching person’s, its tried and true rules must be followed at all times, and that respect for one’s opponent lies at the heart of the sport. His opinion was that fighting belonged only in the ring, while using violence to settle a real-life dispute was wrong except in rare circumstances like self-defense. In those cases, where an opponent follows no rules and therefore deserves no respect, it’s every man
—or girl—for himself.

  It became my opinion too, and he and I became friends. Actually, more than friends—Willy became family. It’s ironic, then, that he taught me what would become the most important skill I possess in trying to find my actual family.

  Not just how to fight, but to run for my life, so that I could live to fight another day.

  2

  WHEN IT COMES TO A THRILLER, whether it’s a book, movie, or TV show, it always starts with a big, wild action scene—think of a frenetic car chase with blinding sunlight flashing from a pair of Lamborghinis as they soar high in the air and then hurtle down the type of street that exists only in San Francisco or the Alps, the incline as steep as driving off the face of a mountain—and then segues into a familiar tale of uncovering clues. The hero, dogged by a shady past or personal demons, turns out to be an intrepid latter-day Sherlock Holmes, as the gun he discovers in a drawer leads to a footprint in the garden which leads to a safety deposit box in Zurich, where the villain is discovered counting cash or cuddling diamonds or something.

  What that type of fiction never shows is a hero with a really sedate, boring past who knows absolutely nothing about anything that’s happened.

  Also, that some of the most important clues are wedged inside of her own head.

  Now that I’ve began to sift the past for any signal or sign of what happened to my family, I’ve begun to remember things not only about them but me, too—especially about a cold blue flame that now seems ubiquitous, as though it has always been with me. I remembered its first, brief appearance in the beat-down with Uh-Oh, which walked me forward to an equally odd situation that occurred only a couple years later, when I was ten.

  My best friend (actually, my only friend; more on that pathetic situation soon) was Gina Pettagola. One afternoon following school, as we strolled home together, a trio of older girls who lived in the neighborhood cornered us; Gina called them the “Three Muskaterribles” because they were always together and, well, because they were terrifying bullies. They were lumpy, smelled like cigarettes, two of them had red hair, and the last one, the leader, sported a single black eyebrow; it joined in the middle like an angry, fat caterpillar. She particularly disliked Gina, because even then Gina was the most gossipy person I (or perhaps all of Chicago) knew. She was also the most perfectly put-together ten-year-old—clothes, hair, shoes, and so on—which I think annoyed Caterpillar Girl even more, who tended toward black concert T-shirts and jeans with safety pins in weird places. As the Three Muskaterribles surrounded us, Caterpillar Girl popped a fist against an open hand and said, “You got a big mouth, you know that, hairdo?”

  “Who, me? Why, what . . . what did I say?” Gina stammered.

  “She knows,” the first redhead said.

  “Yeah, look at her. She’s full of shit,” the other redhead said.

  Caterpillar Girl moved closer. “You want to act like you don’t know, fine with me. All that matters is I’m gonna shut that yap of yours once and for all.”

  I could see Gina was being honest, that in her constant stream of gossip she had no idea what Caterpillar Girl was referring to. That’s when I realized it didn’t matter, and that she probably hadn’t said anything at all—the Three Muskaterribles just wanted to pick on a pair of little girls, and who better than a petite, perfectly coiffed chatterbox and her skinny shadow friend. And then Gina did what she does best—started talking. It was a friendly, nervous chatter that I think was designed to lighten the moment, except it came off as, well, gossip, and before she could finish her sentence—“Besides, we wouldn’t want this to get around”—Caterpillar Girl punched her in the mouth. Gina grunted and lost her balance, stumbling toward one of the redheads, who grabbed her and spun her to the other one, who pushed her at Caterpillar Girl. She yanked Gina into a headlock, and I saw tears mixing with a line of blood at her lip.

  I knew that from a purely visible standpoint, I posed no threat.

  I was in a stage of growth where things were a little out of whack—arms long and skinny, hair thick and bushy, and the first hints that my nose would soon begin to bloom like a weed in a flower garden. Plus, I’d begun to perfect the art of fading into the background, chameleon style. But now Caterpillar Girl turned to me, leering with waxy teeth, jerking Gina around while saying, “What about you, toothpick? For having such a loudmouth friend, you don’t seem to say much.” She was so close that I could see pinpoints in her eyes, dark and feral, brimming with the joy of imminent violence.

  “Uh-Oh,” I muttered, thinking of a past sparring match gone wrong. Willy’s rule about fleeing an impending beat-down was precisely what I wanted to do, realizing with a shudder just how large, mean, and broken these girls were. They intended to do real harm to Gina and me. I didn’t want to desert her, but I was growing more and more jittery with a need to run for it.

  “Check it, the mute can talk,” Caterpillar Girl said, squeezing Gina’s neck tighter as she produced a cigarette and tucked it between flabby lips. “Uh-oh is right, princess,” she spat, smacking Gina hard, and then, “Uh-oh!”—smack!—“Uh-oh!”—smack!—until my friend’s face was sweaty-pink and tears jumped quietly. Her eyes found mine as she clawed feebly at Caterpillar Girl’s headlock grip, and it was that look—choking terror at being trapped—that caused the cold blue flame to flicker in my gut.

  It was stronger than it had been two years earlier, more encompassing of my body and brain, as if it had grown along with me. It didn’t leap so high as to infiltrate my eyes as it does now, but it leaped high enough, calming me down while pissing me off.

  Before I could stop, I cleared my throat and said, “Let her go or I’m going to kick your ass. I mean it.”

  Caterpillar Girl looked up with the kind of grin that creases a face when a person is happily surprised. She shoved Gina to the ground, hitched up her jeans, and lit the cigarette. Coming close, she blew foul smoke into my face, and then held the tip of the cigarette inches from me. I felt the heat of it on my cheek as she hissed, “What are you gonna do, hard-ass? Spit it out before I burn my initials into your—” And it was her turn not to finish a sentence since my left fist cracked her nose twice, and my right once more. She staggered and fell on her butt, and when the bigger of the redheads made a move, I pivoted so quickly, fists raised, that she stopped in her tracks.

  “Sara Jane . . . ,” Gina said quietly, her voice tight with alarm.

  I turned to Caterpillar Girl, her nose gushing red, her right hand holding a small knife as sharp as a steel icicle.

  She touched her face, looked at her sticky hand, and said, “You little bitch. I’m bleeding.”

  I heard the truth in my voice and felt it in my gaze when I said, “That’s just the beginning. Take a step with that knife and I’ll hit you so fast and so hard that one eyebrow will become two. I don’t want to, but I will.” My fists were curling and my body was relaxed because I was a good boxer—maybe better than good, a natural like Willy predicted. If she made a move, I was ready. It became sort of a weird staring contest until Caterpillar Girl swallowed thickly, averting her eyes, and put away the knife.

  “Aw, screw these two. They’re not worth it,” she said, her voice shaking, and marched away with the redheads in tow.

  Gina and I were quiet, watching them go, until she said, “What just happened?”

  “I guess they changed their minds,” I said, checking myself for the chilly flame, which had blown out without my notice.

  She looked at me with her particular Gina-smirk. “You mean you changed their minds. You’re a weird kid, Sara Jane. You know that? In an okay way.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “God, I can’t wait to tell people about this!” she exclaimed, spitting blood.

  “No, Gina,” I said, my other natural inclination kicking in—never, ever being the center of attention. “It . . . it could get back to my parents. They’d be really mad if they knew I was fighting on the street. Please? Just keep it between us?”

&nb
sp; She sighed, touching her purple lip. “Okay. I guess I owe you one for saving me like some kind of supergirl.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said, shaking my head, thinking of the lesson I’d learned the hard way (thanks, Uh-Oh) that there was a time to run and a time to fight. “I just . . . happen to know how to box.”

  It was true, and I had Uncle Buddy to thank for it, since he was the one who introduced me to the sport. In fact, at one time, I had a lot to thank Uncle Buddy for. He was always there for me and always listened closely.

  Sometimes he paid even more attention than my parents.

  My mom is a schoolteacher and her philosophy is that knowledge, in all its forms, whether academic or life lessons, is power. Uncle Buddy adopted that philosophy and perverted it, trying to draw information from me. He listened sneakily, between the lines, hoping to learn things about my mom and dad that I didn’t know I was telling him; sometimes I wonder if I ever unknowingly gave something away that contributed to their disappearance. I have—correction, had—much to thank Uncle Buddy for, but now gratitude has been blotted out by deceit.

  God, I really do hate him.

  Actually, hate is not a big enough word.