A Naked Singularity: A Novel

by Sergio De La Pava

  In the November rematch with Duran, Leonard did fight far more slickly and consequently he was winning. So much so that he even took to clowning in the ring, embarrassing Duran by doing things like winding up exaggeratedly or sticking his face out in invitation then slipping the punch. Then incredibly, in the eighth round, Duran turned away from Leonard and uttered the two most famous words in boxing history. Duran’s no mas meant he had quit in the ring, a huge no-no and an incalculable shock given the type of fighter Duran had been to that point, and Leonard was again the champ. No one knew exactly what had happened and that probably remains true today.

  Elsewhere, the new Middleweight Champion of the World was Marvelous Marvin Hagler who two months earlier had gone to England to knock out their Alan Minter in the third round and become champ. With Leonard, Duran, Hearns, and to a lesser extent Hagler all over the boxing news, Benitez was in danger of becoming a decided afterthought.

  Although not in the class of those fighters, Maurice Hope was the Junior Middleweight Champion. Hope agreed to defend his title against Benitez on May 23, 1981 in Las Vegas. Benitez would be attempting to secure his third world title in as many weight classes; an achievement that had been substantially devalued by the proliferation of weight classes and world titles but one that would nonetheless represent a significant fistic claim that none of his contemporaries could make. (Perhaps not for long, however, as Alexis Arguello would be attempting the same thing a mere month later when he would challenge Jim Watt for the Lightweight Championship.) Hope was a nice fighter with a stiff jab that was one of Boxing’s best and an awkward southpaw style but this was still Wilfred Benitez. Benitez dominated Hope from the start putting on a truly beautiful performance. Maurice Hope, it turns out, had none because he possessed nowhere near the quickness or speed of Leonard and so, with Wilfred’s defense as tight as ever, was unable to land even isolated clean punches let alone put multiple punches together. This was Benitez as the brilliant boxer who looked like he had been born and would die in a ring. He won every round, occasionally fighting as a southpaw and often backing Hope up with vicious combinations and dropping him in the tenth with a straight right. Then in the twelfth, as Hope retreated into a corner, Benitez feinted with his left, shifted his weight perfectly, then threw probably the best punch he would ever throw, an overhand right that landed flush and completely eviscerated Hope. Hope lay perfectly flat on the canvas and if they didn’t have to close the arena that night he might still be there. Benitez was the new Junior Middleweight Champion and he joined Henry Armstrong and Bob Fitzsimmons as one of only three triple crown champions in boxing history. Benitez left the ring to celebrate, the hangers-on literally doing just that. Maurice Hope went to the hospital. He was released the next day and less than four hours later got married in Vegas’s We’ve Only Just Begun wedding chapel. In the wedding pictures Hope doesn’t smile because Benitez has knocked two of his teeth out.

  The Hope fight placed Benitez back at the forefront of Boxing. A devastating one-punch kayo of a respected fighter, by a man whose boxing skills were beyond dispute and one who had just shown he could also fight effectively from a southpaw stance, (Benitez was in fact a converted southpaw and in previous fights like the one with Bruce Curry had shown a tendency to involuntarily regress to that earliest incarnation when in deep trouble; however, in the Hope fight Benitez quite intentionally used the stance solely to better deal with Hope’s own lefty stance), spoke to a maturity and completeness as a fighter aspired to by only the very greatest. The twenty-two-year-old Benitez was on top again. When he returned to Puerto Rico he was greeted by hundreds of fans at the airport and the island’s newscasts led with his victory. His prominence was restored to pre-Leonard levels and, from a general Boxing standpoint, the slew of other truly great fighters between Welterweight (147 lb. limit) and Middleweight (160 lbs.) guaranteed that an unprecedented number of so-called Superfights would take place between them with enormous money and a higher order of immortality at stake.

  Boxing’s public sat around devising and imagining more matchups between these five physical geniuses and by and large they would ultimately have their wishes granted. Benitez longed for a rematch against Leonard while, as the first of the welters to move up to junior-middle, many wanted to see him move up once more to challenge Hagler and attempt to win an unprecedented fourth world title. Instead Benitez signed to make the second defense of his title against Roberto Duran who was hoping to begin the removal of that inexplicable black mark on his resume by winning a third title and beating a fellow great. The fight, which was scheduled for January 30, 1982 in Caesars Palace, carried an even greater significance, and thus greater pressure for the fighters, in the rabid Latin American boxing community because it featured two of its all-time premier boxers.

  At a New York City prefight press conference held to hype the upcoming bout, Duran began the intimidations that had unnerved Leonard before their first fight. As the two men approached each other for that corny publicity staredown, Duran fired a right hand at Benitez’s face. Benitez, who in those days could probably avoid a punch while sleeping and dreaming he was dead, slipped the blow and responded with his own right that landed and raised a welt above Duran’s eye. The exchange showed, at a minimum, that Benitez would be more comfortable than Leonard in the unique Duran milieu and also that, as was usual with Duran, the upcoming fight would be personal.

  Before Benitez/Duran took place, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns squared off. The fight, which was an immense event featuring two extremely popular fighters, took place on September 16, 1981. The fight was billed as boxer (Leonard) versus puncher (Hearns) but actually ended up featuring an intriguing flip-flop in styles by the two fighters. Early on Leonard warily avoided Hearns’s already legendary power and as a result did little. Then suddenly, in the sixth, Leonard connected with a left and badly hurt Hearns almost taking him out. Hearns reacted by getting on his bicycle and outboxing Leonard from a distance using his substantial reach advantage to pile up a significant lead on the cards and badly swell Leonard’s eye. Finally in the last stage of the fight a desperate Leonard, who’d been exhorted by his trainer Angelo Dundee with his famous you’re blowin it now son, rallied to hurt and finally stop Hearns in the fourteenth round of a close fight. The victory put Leonard on an even higher stratosphere and all interested eyes turned towards a potential megafight with Hagler.

  When Benitez and Duran finally did meet in the ring Duran found that it was not much easier to hit Benitez than it had been at the press conference. Benitez was even better than he had been against Hope considering that Duran for all his insanity had never been handled like this. (Duran’s only two losses at the time were the close nontitle loss to DeJesus and the bizarre quit against Leonard.) The fight started a lot like Benitez/Leonard with a great deal of feints and respect and little action, but by the middle rounds Benitez had taken over, cutting Duran and pasting him with impunity. Duran never solved Benitez’s defense and actually looked outclassed, which was almost inconceivable. In the end, to no one’s surprise, Duran wasn’t even slightly chastened but, his insolence aside, Benitez had won convincingly in another legendary performance.

  Regardless of what his future would hold, after the Duran fight Wilfred Benitez had assured himself an extremely lofty place in boxing history. He felt invincible, suprahuman. He had just out-toughed the original tough guy and obviously no one was slicker. He was what any human should ultimately aspire to. He was beautiful and ugly simultaneously. The beauty was evident from the beginning and the ugliness was supplied by the very nature of his profession. Now the Leonard fight must have seemed like a hiccup, one that would be avenged at that. Then he would move up to middleweight and fight Hagler. And once Hagler had been befuddled, if he could retire without another loss, Benitez would get more than a few votes as the greatest boxer ever, period.

  Everything was that good. In Puerto Rico he was almost deified. He was healthy, good-looking, and charming with a smile and c
hildlike nature anyone he met loved. His bank account was swollen and awaiting more. Everyone wanted to be around him, happy just to be near him. He was as good at what he did as anyone in the world and he was twenty-three years old.

  I was like that Benitez. I had maybe not always put the appropriate work in and had therefore messed up. I too had lost. But likewise I would rise again. Everyone I saw around me looked like they were in my way and I was sick of walking around these people and would start to go through them if need be to get what I wanted, needed.

  I thought all this as I sat on my suitcase waiting. Then I noticed a woman walking right at me. I averted my eyes but when I looked back at her she was still staring. She was getting closer and I was wondering what the hell she was looking at. She walked right up to me, never for a second taking her eyes off me, then stared. I stared back and she smiled. Then I jumped back out of genuine fear.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “I didn’t recognize you until this very moment.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve been looking right at my face for like a minute.”

  “Yeah I was like who is this chick and why is she staring at me?”

  “You are so weird, your own beloved sister.”

  “I was looking but not looking.”

  “Either way it doesn’t explain you getting scared, what’s that about?”

  “It’s kind of scary when you suddenly realize someone you’ve been looking at is someone else you know? I mean not the person you thought you were looking at even though you had no idea who you were looking at or why they were looking at you, it scares you is what I’m saying.”

  “Apparently. Anyway, here I am.”

  “I see that. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself rushing over here to arrive a full hour and a half late. Hope you didn’t pull a hamstring or anything.”

  “You said 2:30.”

  “Never.”

  “Someone said 2:30.”

  “No one.”

  “You should see the traffic.”

  “Then I guess we’ll see it on the way home.”

  “Not so much the traffic as your car.”

  “What about it?”

  “Just the car.”

  “Yes but what about the car? What specifically is wrong with it?”

  “Fine the car’s fine, a tremendous automotive machine destined to give you years of faithful service.”

  “So?”

  “I forgot.”

  “Ah.”

  “But it’s not my fault. Who doesn’t call the night before to remind? Especially knowing how I am.”

  “I tried.”

  “What happened?”

  “Never mind, let’s split. I love you, thanks for getting me.”

  “Seriously, it’s quite an imposition. They have cabs you know.”

  On the way home, in the car, Alana and I spoke. I told her briefly about Alabama, leaving out any mention of The Orchard. She asked about Armando. I told her it was a damn near hopeless situation, a situation that lacked hope. She said there must be something that could be done and I said no there mustn’t. Then she told me some bad things. She said Marcela had kind of reached then passed her breaking point with respect to little Mary’s silence. She described a bit of imploring screaming that was met by more silence and that was then believed, principally by those who had no medical basis for holding such beliefs, to have resulted in Marcela not feeling so great, which in turn resulted in her being taken to a hospital where she stayed overnight out of precaution and concern for her due-any-day child. And I was further informed that during that brief hospital stay Marcela’s mother, the mother Alana and I shared with her, took the opportunity to disclose that she had some rather mysterious lumps in some rather troublesome areas and that she had not disclosed this fact earlier out of a fear that she would be forced to have them inspected by those making their living in the medical profession, a profession said mother held in decidedly low esteem and from which she never again expected to hear anything resembling good news. The result being that certain tests were in fact done and all that was left to do now was await the results, which waiting it was understood could be done simultaneously with the wait for Mary to talk and Marcela to give birth to another human whose presence would no doubt some day give rise to feelings similar to the ones we were currently enjoying. And I was not to mention the whole lumps thing to anyone because Alana had been sworn to secrecy, a secrecy she placed the highest importance on.

  “Yet you’re telling me.”

  “Telling you what?”

  “You’re telling me about the lumps.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that despite being sworn to secrecy and despite claiming to take that responsibility very seriously you have nonetheless just given me the information thereby violating your pledge.”

  “Yes but only because I am in turn swearing you to secrecy not only with respect to the lumps but also with respect to my telling you about the lumps, comprende?”

  “I think so, you’re saying that being sworn to secrecy doesn’t really mean that in a literal sense it just means that if you do disclose the information you must in turn swear the new illicit hearer to secrecy. So I can tell anyone I want to about the lumps as long as I swear them to secrecy.”

  “God no, swear you won’t tell anyone.”

  “I swear.”

  And unlike her I didn’t, although I later thought about it a lot and every time I did it halted my breath a bit. There was more too, none of it secret but all of it unsettling, with terms you hear in campaign speeches made from behind podiums or late at night from gesticulating men eager to tell you they dropped out of college: terms like job security and health care coverage. Terms I can barely stand in those contexts and positively despise when the subject is my family, people for whom I should have long ago made those terms irrelevant. And as Alana said these things she began to fade from view and hearing until she disappeared entirely and I sat alone in the moving car. It was one of those times when you sense that something critical but indefinable that relates to your life and how it’s lived has ended irrevocably and so you feel an anxious loss. Out of this solemn desinence I felt various incunabula threaten to emerge none of which promised anything of even slight appeal.

  Then Alana returned and spoke more of the same and though we were in the car and thus could have gone to the people she spoke of relatively easily instead I just nodded and dropped her off at her apartment. After that I drove around a bit, not really knowing where to go or how. Until finally I went home, threw my bags on the couch, erased all my messages without listening to them and went right back out the door. On my way down I heard a loud, vaguely-familiar voice in Angus’s apartment. The noise from in there swelled at an accelerating rate until I knocked on the door and heard in response a flurry of activity followed by a cricket-exposing-type-silence. Then Angus opened the door looking artificially animated and wary. I saw that there was no one but him. But before I could investigate he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me in screwball-comedy-style. It felt odd in there.

  “Remember what I said yesterday?” he said.

  “We didn’t talk yesterday.”

  “You sure?”

  “I just got back a few hours ago.”

  “That’s right you were in Arkansas.”

  “Alabama.”

  “Two states? How long were you gone? I saw you the other day didn’t I? The day before the day before yesterday no?”

  “No, never mind.”

  “Well you’ve nevertheless heard this I’m sure,” he leaned over and dropped something on my lap. It was that day’s New York Post and it was so proud of itself. The Post was exercising its exclusive right to announce the exact time and place where the Tula video, the Video Vigilantes footage of the baby-killing seven-year-olds, would be premiered. That very Monday at 6:08 p.m. was what it said using large numbers. In The City Hall Press Room it added with the haughtiness that com
es from exclusivity. “And look at that,” Angus added pointing to the triangular mirror clock on the wall that digitally reported 6:06 p.m. I looked at Angus who had dropped onto his sofa, elbows on knees, chin on hands.

  “I’m going to go,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t want to see it.”

  “Have you lost control of your faculties?”

  “Why? I’m not interested.”

  “I don’t see where you have a choice. Look this is my favorite part, see the solemn look on the mayor as if his mere presence at such a distasteful event requires an almost superhuman effort on his part? See the face?”

  “You look pretty run down yourself Angus.”

  “I’m excited.”

  “You don’t look excited. You look almost saggy really.”

  “Well now’s not really the time to discuss it but it has been a strange couple days to say the least.”

  “Where are Alyona and Louie?”

  “Shhh here it is.”

  Television seemed bigger than I remembered and might even have been new and improved as Angus routinely replaced perfectly functional sets if he believed he could detect any diminution whatsoever in their representational performance. At any rate, the result was that the people inside it didn’t seem much smaller than the two of us watching. The Casio Carousel on top announced in yellow its IDLE status.