The Black Stiletto

by Raymond Benson

  I killed time walking around the neighborhood. Two blocks south on Second Avenue was a gymnasium. It was called the Second Avenue Gym. Curious, I opened the door and looked inside. It was a pretty large space. There was a boxing ring in the middle of the room, and around the sides were all kinds of workout equipment like punching bags of all types and sizes, wall pulleys, rowing machines, and other stuff. A bunch of men were in there—a couple in the ring sparring and several others just exercising. White men, Negroes, Hispanics. I’d never seen colored men and white men working out in the same room before. That was surprising. For a few minutes I stood there and watched, fascinated by their sweaty, muscular bodies as they punched and jabbed at each other.

  Anyway, I went back to the diner at two o’clock, and the place was much calmer. There were only a few customers in some of the booths. Lucy stood by the counter studying a stack of order tickets, trying to figure out something. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, Judy. You came back, huh? The lunch rush didn’t scare you away?”

  “Nope.”

  She patted one of the swivel stools at the counter. “Have a seat.”

  “Are you the boss?” I asked.

  “No, no. I’m the head waitress. The boss comes in at night, his name is Manny. He’s a pretty nice guy, but he’s strict and doesn’t tolerate laziness or mistakes. That won’t be a problem, will it, Judy?”

  “No!”

  “Good.”

  We spent the next half hour talking about the diner, my background, and how I’d run away from home. I was perfectly honest. At one point she frowned and whispered, “How old are you, honey?”

  I looked down and told her the truth. Lucy took a deep breath and pursed her lips. “I think we’ll just pretend you’re sixteen, okay?”

  “All right.”

  She handed me an application and a pencil and told me to subtract two years from my birth date when I filled it in. Lucy left me alone to fill in the pertinent information. For a residence, I put the YWCA.

  Well, I was hired. I became a waitress at the East Side Diner and learned the ropes. I figured out when it was okay to flirt with customers so you could get a bigger tip, and I learned when to give them sass if they were getting out of line. I got to where I knew the menu by heart. Pretty soon, I was as good as any of the other ladies working there. And Lucy—Lucy Dempsey was her full name—became my best friend. She took me under her wing, so to speak. She lived alone in an apartment on St. Marks Place and had a boyfriend named Sam, who came in the diner every now and then. I didn’t like Sam. He gave me the same kind of bad feelings that Douglas had. Sam was cocky and full of himself. He bossed Lucy around and acted like she was his property. I could tell she was embarrassed by his attitude but I also saw that she really liked him, although I don’t know why. One day, I think it was in the summer, she confided in me. I had been in New York six months and was still living at the Y, but the city was starting to feel more like home than Odessa ever did. Anyway, Lucy and I were off one Sunday and we went walking around the Village. She told me that Sam could be very mean and hit her sometimes. I told her she shouldn’t put up with that at all. Lucy just shrugged and said, “He’s my man. I love him.”

  “He has no right to hit you,” I said. “Don’t you let him. If he does, you tell me, I’ll kick his butt.”

  She laughed. “You? Judy, how could you kick his butt?”

  “I’m tougher than I look.” And that gave me an idea. “Hey, you know where I can go to learn to box?”

  “What?”

  “You know, box.” I held up my fists and mimed punching.

  “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Self-defense. Wouldn’t you want to be able to defend yourself against Sam next time he hit you?”

  “You mean like fight him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hell, no. He’d beat the crap out of me.”

  “But that’s the point! You could maybe beat the crap out of him!” I wasn’t used to saying words like “crap”—but Lucy said stuff like that all the time.

  “Judy, you’re nuts. Women don’t learn how to box.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. They just don’t.”

  “Do you know anything about that gym that’s a couple of blocks south of the diner?”

  “The Second Avenue Gym?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Not really. I know the guy who runs it. He comes in the diner sometimes. You’ve seen him. His name is Freddie. Freddie Barnes. Middle-aged guy, late forties, I guess. Used to be a boxer himself. Has dark curly hair with spots of gray? Bushy eyebrows?”

  “Oh, yeah!” I did remember the guy. He was always one of the nice customers who said hello every time he came in, and he left decent tips. “Do they let girls in there?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. A gym is where men go.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see about that,” I said.

  It took me a couple of months to get up the nerve to go into the Second Avenue Gym. In the meantime, I worked at the diner, continued to live at the YWCA, and explored the city. New York was a fascinating place. Growing up in Odessa was like being in a vacuum. The whole world was at my feet in Manhattan. It was exciting and vibrant. I felt alive for the first time in my life.

  They made me move out of the Y once they figured out I had a full-time job. I found a studio apartment on 8th Street near Sixth Avenue, but the rent was higher than I could afford. Noisy neighbors lived next to me, too, and I could hear them having sex at night. That drove me crazy. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I moved again, but I tried to make it work for the time being.

  It was September 1952 when I finally went into the Second Avenue Gym. I saw Freddie Barnes in the ring with a couple of young guys. Freddie was training them, playing referee for a practice fight or something. I took a position against the wall, stood there, and watched, trying to be inconspicuous. Nevertheless, all the men in the place stared at me. Now, in those days I wore just regular old boys’ trousers, the blouses I’d wear at the diner, maybe a jacket or sweater if it was cold outside, and a baseball cap. Because of my height and build, I might have passed for a boy if it hadn’t been for my long hair.

  I was obviously a girl.

  No one said anything to me, though. Maybe they figured I was someone’s girlfriend. The men on the sidelines continued to jump rope, or work on the rowing machines, stand in front of the wall pulleys and use them to strengthen their arm muscles, slam into the heavy bags hanging from the ceiling, or punch the speed balls. The place was noisy and smelled like sweat. I liked it.

  Finally the sparring was over. Freddie saw me and made a funny expression, as if to say, “What are you doing here?” After giving the two athletes some instructions, he climbed through the ropes and jumped to the floor.

  “Hi,” he said. “Judy, right?”

  “Yeah. Hi, Freddie.”

  “Not workin’ at the diner today?” Freddie had a thick Brooklyn accent.

  “I’m working the dinner shift later.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to learn how to box.”

  “You what?”

  I repeated what I said. Freddie shook his head and replied, “Why?”

  “So I can beat the devil out of anyone who bothers me.”

  Freddie didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then he laughed. I didn’t appreciate that, and he must have sensed it. “I’m sorry, Judy, but girls don’t learn how to box. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Seventeen,” I lied.

  “No, you’re not. I asked Lucy about you once. She told me you’re really not old enough to work at the diner, but she didn’t tell Manny how old you really are. You’re what, fifteen?”

  I told him the truth. “I’ll be fifteen in November. Look, Freddie. I think you could use my help around here.” I made a sweeping gesture, taking in the entire gym. “This place could use some cleaning. And I know how to work a cash register. I coul
d work behind the counter and sell all that soap and rent towels and stuff. And why can’t girls learn how to box? Who says so? I’m a good athlete. I was on the gymnastics team at school for a while.”

  He still shook his head. “Judy, I can’t let you work here. This is a place for men. Why, it’s unheard of. Probably against the law, too.”

  “I don’t think so, Freddie. I think it’s just what people are used to believing about girls. We’re not all the get married, stay-at-home, raise kids types.”

  “That may be true, Judy, but I can’t. Sorry.”

  I was disappointed but I tried not to let it show. “Okay, Freddie. But I’ll be back. You’ll change your mind,” I said confidently.

  So I left. But I returned the very next day. Freddie was coaching a couple of different guys in the ring. He saw me but didn’t smile or wave. I stayed and watched anyway. On my third visit to the gym, I stood watching a match and then spotted a mop and bucket over in a corner. I went over to it, grabbed the mop, and started on the area of the floor that wasn’t being used. Freddie saw me but said nothing. I couldn’t move to the section where all the men were working out, so I didn’t try. Instead, I found a towel and started wiping down all the counters and a glass case that contained some trophies.

  One of the young boxers, a teenager maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, said to me, “Hey, baby, I’ve got something you can clean.” I ignored him and kept going. I’d seen the kid before at the gym; in fact, he was one of the trainees in the ring the first day I’d come in. He continued to harass me. “What’s your name, sweetheart? Why are you doing that? You sure are pretty. Wanna go out with me? Let’s go back and take a shower, what do you say?”

  When he reached out, daring to touch me, I swung around and let him have it. I punched him right in the nose and he fell on the floor. Freddie stopped coaching the two fighters in the ring and looked up. The teenager I’d clobbered was mad as heck, and his nose was bleeding. But he sat there, his pride wounded. Suddenly, all the other men in the gym started laughing at him. Teasing him, you know, “Gee, Mack, you let a girl bust you one?” “What happened, Mack, you meet your match?”

  Freddie came down and helped the kid named Mack onto his feet. His face was swelling up and there was a lot of blood. Freddie gave him some towels and ordered him to go wash up. Mack gave me the scariest glare as he walked past me—but it’s funny, I didn’t get that tingling sensation when I sensed someone meant to do me harm. You know, my animal intuition thing. I realized Mack wasn’t dangerous. In fact, he was all bravado.

  Freddie sidled up to me. “Judy, you broke his nose.”

  “I did? Gee, I’m sorry, Freddie.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “He was picking on me. Being fresh.”

  Freddie looked over at the mop and towels I’d been using. “What are you doing, Judy?”

  “I told you. You could use some help. And I want to learn to box.”

  This time he chuckled. “I think you already know how.”

  And that’s all it took. Freddie let me come in a couple of times a week to help clean the gymnasium. He showed me everything I was supposed to do and I did it better than he expected. Most of the cleaning was done at night, after hours. After a month of that, he let me start working the cash register and supervising the linens. He showed me how to maintain all the equipment, especially the punching bags. Freddie taught me the difference between the various kinds, like speed bags that are small and are the kinds you usually see boxers hitting in a constant rhythm; heavy bags, the large cylindrical kind suspended from the ceiling that you practice body punches on; and the double-end bag, which is round like a basketball and attached to the floor and ceiling.

  And then, sometimes after closing, Freddie would give me a few lessons. They started gradually at first, but by the time I turned fifteen in November, we were making a regular thing out of it. He didn’t pay me much to work there—we decided that the bulk of my salary would be in lessons.

  I continued to work at the diner until Christmas. By then, Freddie and I had become good friends. He liked me—not in a sexual way, but more like a father-daughter thing, I’m sure of that. Freddie once told me he wished he’d gotten married, but hadn’t. Maybe I was the substitute for the son he didn’t have, ha ha. Anyway, he gave me a raise and I quit the job at the diner. Lucy and I remained good friends and I still went in there all the time to have meals and stuff.

  Then, shortly after the New Year in 1953, I was complaining to Freddie about the apartment I was in and how the neighbors were nasty and noisy. He just said, “Come with me,” so I followed him to the steel door that led to his quarters. I knew Freddie lived in an apartment above the gym, but I’d never been up there. Behind the door was a stairwell leading up two flights to compensate for the gym’s high ceiling, and then to what would have been the building’s third floor. Freddie led me to a door and opened it. It was a large, spacious room with a twin bed, a desk, a chest of drawers, and an adjoining bathroom.

  “Want to live here?” he asked. “It’s a spare bedroom I have no use for.”

  I squealed with delight and clapped my hands like a schoolgirl. Then I gave him a big hug.

  And that’s how, dear diary, I came to live above the Second Avenue Gym and become the assistant manager of the place.

  The year 1953 was a blur. I was fifteen and I’d been gone from Texas for more than a year. Dear diary, I want to say something here. Seeing that I’m writing this in 1958, I’ve actually been away from home for five years. You might think I was awful to run away without telling anyone. I do think about my mom and brothers, and I often have dreams about them. Every now and then I feel a pang of guilt for leaving without telling my mom where I was going. She probably worried about me like the dickens. I’ll bet she had the police looking for me. They’ve probably written me off for dead. Well, I can’t give it too much thought. I hope my mom is okay and that maybe she’s gotten away from Douglas. That creep is never far from my mind. The vow I made when I left Odessa still has meaning for me. I know I’ll return someday and give him his comeuppance.

  Sorry, I had to cry for a few seconds, dear diary.

  Okay, back to 1953. I trained as a boxer. Freddie was great. He worked me hard after I told him not to treat me like a girl. He soon realized I was pretty tough and could take a lot of punishment as well as dish it out. He taught me about stances, different kinds of punches, defenses, and how to guard. My long legs were an asset for the “dance” in the ring. I eventually developed my own style of boxing, and Freddie said I was a classic “out-fighter.”

  That meant I could maintain a decent distance from my opponent and fight with faster, longer-range punches. Freddie told me that Gene Tunney, Billy Conn, and Willie Pep were out-fighters. Willie Pep was a popular professional boxer at that time. Anyway, when I say “my opponent”—ha ha—it was usually Freddie! There wasn’t anyone else I could really spar with. He wouldn’t let me spar with the boxers in the gym; in fact, he didn’t let anyone know he was training me. Figured he wouldn’t hear the end of it.

  I did exercise during daytime hours when I wasn’t working. I’d use the speed bag and got to where I was damned good. Sometimes I attracted an audience of guys who’d stand there and watch me keep it going for a half hour. They’d whistle and catcall at me; usually I ignored them but there was also a part of me that enjoyed the attention. I’d get on the rowing machine or use the wall pulleys, but most of the time I jumped rope. I was good at that, even with my long legs.

  The men teased me and were sometimes downright abusive just because I was a female encroaching on their territory. But once they saw how good I was, they left me alone. Every now and then, one of the guys would spot me when I worked the heavy bag. When I exercised in front of the men, I’d wear men’s long shorts, a polo shirt, and tennis shoes. I’d tie my hair back in a ponytail. When I was alone in the gym after hours, I wore a dance leotard and tights because they were easier to work out in. I co
uldn’t parade around like that in front of the men, though; that’d been too much for them to handle, ha ha!

  Every now and then some of the guys would make passes at me. They didn’t know how old I really was. Several asked me out on dates, but I always said no. And then there was Mack, the teenager whose nose I’d broken. Ever since that day, he was as nice as he could be to me. He’d try to talk to me and on several occasions asked me to get coffee or something with him. Mack had improved as a boxer and was actually one of Freddie’s promising trainees. I’d seen him win a few bouts in the ring.

  On November 4, 1953, the day I turned sixteen, I finally accepted his offer to go out. We went to the East Side Diner for coffee. He even played a song on the jukebox for me, “I’m Walking Behind You” by Eddie Fisher. That was before the rock and roll stuff started, so I wasn’t much of a music fan yet. Lucy was working that day and she winked at me, as if I’d made a conquest of some sort. I guess it was pretty obvious Mack was sweet on me. Funny that it had to take me breaking his nose for him to like me.