Tooth and Nail

by Linda D. Dahl

  To my surprise, she agreed to the invitation.

  As promised, the pasta was served with normal-tasting meat sauce, my mother mercifully having replaced the cinnamon my father usually demanded with oregano. To my shock, Wendy enjoyed the oversize portion of food and the mound of grated parmesan. She even asked for more Kool-Aid.

  Feeling relieved and a little cocky, I asked to be excused, thinking I could boost my social status even higher by showing her my room. It was spacious, with a canopy bed and a closet I had converted to a dollhouse for my Barbie collection.

  “Sure, just put your dishes in the sink,” my father said, moving over to the oven. “But before you go, show your friend what your mother made for me. It’s a delicacy where we come from!” He opened the oven and pulled out a fully intact lamb skull, steam rising through the vacant eyeholes. Before I could stop him, he had grabbed a chisel and hammer and started pounding away at the cranium. We watched in horror as he lifted the skull, exposing the shrunken, cooked brains. With a fork, he gingerly teased out a piece of the white matter and took a bite.

  The look of horror on Wendy’s face remained with me until graduation. Needless to say, the experience remained with Wendy as well. It served a purpose, though, giving her something to talk about with classmates who otherwise would have teased her for being the weirdo. And I was wrong about recess.

  “Fifty dollars is a lot, Adam. But let me think about it,” I said, making my way to the bathroom. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, barely recognizing myself. My hair was matted into a curly nest. Dark circles rimmed my eyes. Fat bulged over the edges of my underwear, extra padding from the late night carbohydrate binges that would keep me awake when the caffeine stopped working. Looking down at my expanded belly, I remembered a trick a friend from medical school had once shown me: that if I squeezed the belly fat around my navel I could make it look like a bagel. When I squeezed it now, it looked more like a loaf of bread.

  Maybe Adam was right about the fight. He was breaking me, but he was breaking me softly. What was another fifty dollars if it helped me learn how to fit in here? It was so complicated in the Bronx, maybe I just I needed to do more research. There were so many different types of people—in what area should I conform? In the Midwest there were only two ethnic groups: white and other. And since I didn’t have blue eyes, blond hair and lanky limbs, my category was obvious. I was even nicknamed darkie, a sort of verbal confirmation of my place. And like my fellow darkies—the children of the Pakistani and Indian doctors, lulled into the freezing middle of nowhere by outrageous salaries, or the rare African-American daughter of a captain from the air force base—I learned that I needed to mimic the white people as closely as I could.

  Maybe I had been going about it all wrong. In the Bronx, the diversity made fitting in less about ethnicity and more about common interests. Since I had nothing in common with the locals, I would have to find something to help me connect. Watching the fight could be my starting point, a shared experience. It seemed to be working for Adam. Maybe I could follow his lead.

  * * *

  As the day turned to evening, the neighborhood streets emptied. The Bronx felt almost ghostly, as invisible crowds gathered in cramped apartments and tiny restaurants. Everyone was glued to their televisions for the fight.

  Adam celebrated his victory by ordering a pizza, Diet Coke and black-and-white cookies—my personal favorite. This meal was as close as he ever came to preparing dinner, so I accepted it as a gesture of his appreciation. Biting into the densely sweet chocolate icing, I felt the intoxicating rush of sugar enter my bloodstream. I was ready for the show.

  I settled into the couch, kicking away half-read magazines with titles that belied Adam’s breadth of interests: Art Forum, the Economist, Utne Reader, Computer User, Wired, Macworld. Our nineteen-inch television sat on metal scaffolding on the opposite side of the room. Above it, disheveled rows of CDs and DVDs were layered with torn paperbacks. To the right was a metallic tower of black, humming boxes, indicator lights flashing. Next to them stood three electric guitars in parallel, their cords woven together like a neuronal network, synapsing into the huge outlet strip that also received the television cord. The outlet strip reminded me of myself, exchanging so much energy simultaneously that one day it might spontaneously explode.

  “Get ready to watch these two great fighters come into the ring. And they’re fighting for De La Hoya’s welterweight crown, and it is Mosley who will enter the ring first.” The announcer spoke like we were already part of the team just by tuning in.

  De La Hoya’s opponent was “Sugar” Shane Mosley, the lesser known fighter. Shorter than his opponent, he had a longer reach, and weighed a few pounds more. They had comparable records, including things like average numbers of punches thrown and hits taken. The announcers listed so many statistics it felt like we were about to watch a dog show, not a boxing match. There was nothing about Mosley that stood out.

  The cameras moved to him making his way toward the ring. He was smiling softly, led by his son and two young nephews. His face was shy, with long dimples and bright gray-blue eyes. He bounced to the blurry rap music in the background, casually high-fiving the people around him.

  The announcer spoke. “Everyone has commented about how calmly and how well Mosley has taken this big occasion this week. As he put it, ‘Why be afraid of what I want?’”

  Why be afraid of what I want? That was a new perspective. Then again, what did I want anymore? Everything I wanted turned into disappointment once I got it. I had wanted to be a surgeon. I had wanted to be a wife. I had even thought I had wanted to be a New Yorker. I got all those wants, and look where it got me. In my case, maybe I needed to start being afraid of what I wanted or just stop wanting anything altogether.

  “I’ve been watching him train. There is a small chance he could kick Oscar’s ass,” Adam said. That was hard to believe from the way he had described De La Hoya, but the possibility of the underdog taking the belt filled me with an almost aching delight. Mosley’s confidence was so understated he didn’t fit the persona of a prizefighter at all. Instead of trying to play up to what was expected, he followed the beat of his own drum. We had yet to see how that would translate in the ring.

  The cameras cut to De La Hoya’s dressing room, where he boxed the shadow that would be his opponent. His body reminded me of my college art-class figure model, all sculpted abs and powerful shoulders. Oscar’s perfect nose looked like it hadn’t sustained a single blow. He was surrounded by a posse of men in red satin jackets, carrying buckets and towels.

  The announcer spoke again. “And now, as Oscar prepares to enter the ring, the crowd will be entertained with a recording of his recently released CD. It’s a song called ‘With These Hands.’ Little does the crowd know they are listening to him singing a ballad about his boxing career. Of course, the lyrics are drowned out by the cacophonous crowd noise in the arena...” An indistinct flavor of dancy pop poured from the loudspeaker, while a montage of De La Hoya knocking out other boxers to hordes of screaming female fans projected across the overhead screen.

  “Is this for real?” I asked Adam, nearly bursting out in laughter. The song, so romantic and out of place, swept along like the soundtrack of a nostalgic Hallmark movie.

  “I told you. He’s a rock star. Even if you don’t like boxing, he can be another one of your pop-singer fetishes.”

  Adam had attempted to introduce me to real music like acid jazz and experimental rock, but I maintained an almost teenage girl–like addiction to the bad stuff.

  When both boxers were in the ring, the cheering amplified to a roar. A man in a black tuxedo stood at the center and spoke into the microphone that hung from the ceiling.

  “Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner, wearing black with silver trim, and weighing in at 147 pounds, he brings a perfect professional record to the ring tonight...of 34 victories... Ladies a
nd gentlemen, from Pomona, California...Suuuuuugar Shaaaaaaaane Mosleeeeeeeeey.” The crowd’s cheering was healthy but overshadowed by loud booing. Their discord made me want to root for him even more.

  “And across the ring, fighting out of the red corner, wearing red-trimmed shorts with white letters and weighing 146 ½ pounds. His professional record stands at 32 wins with 1 loss... Ladies and gentlemen, from East Los Angeles...the Golden Boy, Oscarrrrrrr De La Hooooooyaaaaaa.” The announcer listed all five championship belts and more titles and awards. The crowd went wild.

  The bell clanged, and the fighters flew at each other, erupting in a series of punches, although I recognized no strategy. I had no idea how this boxing thing worked. Mosley smacked De La Hoya in the eye, immediately ruining his pretty face and speckling his forehead with blood. De La Hoya caught Mosley’s gloves with his chest, abdomen and hips. Their bodies were quickly enveloped in sweat, which, when mixed with the Vaseline someone had slathered on them before the fight, made their gloves slippery and less effective.

  “Oscar’s gonna have to take the spin off the left jab and sorta point it at Shane Mosley, cuz if you spin it, you’re gonna miss,” George Foreman, one of the announcers, said. I recognized his name from a sandwich press Adam’s grandmother had given us for Christmas one year. I loved the kitchen gadget, but I was surprised George also knew so much about boxing.

  “Shane standing right in front of De La Hoya. Daring Oscar to try to stiffen him with his power. Now Mosley backs up and then comes straight forward again. Rips Oscar with a left hook. That’s the speed of foot and hand. Embodied in one move.” The announcers spoke in their own language, a kind of exaggerated, colorful word salad.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds: the crowd bustling, the corner men coaching, the announcers navigating. Even without looking at the screen, I could feel the energy of what was happening. The chaos held a rhythm, an order. I could see why this intricate brutality was popular in the Bronx. It gave meaning to pain and suffering.

  When the bell rang again, the fighters retreated to their respective corners. An older man with a white goatee rubbed De La Hoya’s face with a curved metal object and sprayed him with water. His trainer, according to the Spanish interpreter, was telling him not to go so hard and to use his jab. He stared straight ahead, emotionless.

  In Mosley’s corner, a man in a captain’s hat rubbed his face with yet more Vaseline before moving to his shoulders. Mosley looked into his trainer’s eyes, listening as he told him to continue with the right body shots and hit with the jabs. Then there was a replay of a particularly powerful hit to De La Hoya’s ear, his head falling to the side like a Slinky. I cringed. The bell clanged for round two.

  Each round continued like that: three minutes of fists flying, body shots and screaming fans, followed by thirty seconds of Vaseline rubdowns, cold metal and fervent instructions. I couldn’t imagine the damage these men were incurring at the cellular level, but they kept coming back for more. By the fifth round, Mosley was behind and appeared to be struggling.

  As a child I was never interested in sports. While my classmates enthusiastically attended basketball and hockey games, I begrudgingly dragged my flute to the bleachers to play with the band. I was only vaguely aware that teams were involved. Sunday nights were meant for Charlie’s Angels, not perspiring men in tights and fancy halftime shows. In my family, the only acceptable team sport was eating, which we did with an almost competitive fervor. This was the first time a sporting event had meant anything to me. Maybe it was the simplicity of two men in a ring, or the fact that the rules differentiated it from the gang fights I cleaned up after in the hospital. But I suspected it was more than that. It was about the fighters themselves—who they were and what they stood for. It made me feel like I was part of something larger and more whole than myself.

  Hours later and it was the twelfth and final round. Only crusts of pizza and the edge of a single black-and-white cookie remained. The fighters were tired, hanging onto each other between punches, resting in opposition. I couldn’t tell who was winning or how they were winning. There was no knockout punch or dramatic fits of jabbing. But neither let up, both determined to bring everything they had to the ring. I envied them, their physicality, their bodies that allowed them that kind of physical expression.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of the fight. There was a pause while everyone on screen milled around.

  “What’s happening?” I asked Adam, confused by the ending. I had expected something more dramatic.

  “They’re tallying up the points from the judges to see who won. It’s gonna be close!” Adam was beside himself with excitement, pacing around the room and covering his lips with his fingers.

  Tallying up the points? How could they give points for something so subjective? I tried to picture each judge keeping a mental scorecard, but it still made no sense.

  The announcer was on the screen again. “And the winner, by split decision, is...Mosley!”

  The crowd went crazy, cheering and booing and screaming at the same time. The sounds from the television echoed off the walls and spilled through the windows of our twelfth-floor apartment down to meet the fans, who were pouring out into the streets.

  Mosley had won. But how? He didn’t display any bravado or pound his opponent into the ground. He won slowly and steadily, using who he was as his strength instead of fighting it.

  I hadn’t considered that a strategy. Not once had I tried to be successful on my own terms. I just reacted to everything around me. As foreboding as it seemed, maybe it was time to let a little bit of myself out. Twisting and turning myself into what I thought I was supposed to be was no longer working. It was risky, but I had to find out who I really was. I was my last hope.

  * * *

  The next morning was Sunday, which meant hospital rounds started three hours later. On the way in, I passed my favorite orderly, who was seated on the steps in front of the hospital eating a meat pie. As he bit into the crust, oily red liquid dripped down the side of his face and landed on his name tag. Rene. With all the expletives I had made up for him in my head, I hadn’t considered his real name—and an ambiguously gendered one at that. Heart pounding, I decided it was now or never.

  “Hey, Rene, did you see the fight last night?” I asked, adding an extra lilt to my query.

  He paused, opening his mouth just enough to display his half eaten bolus before he chewed and swallowed it down. “You watch da fight?” he asked, licking the oil off his lips, while his brain adjusted his opinion of me. “Dat Mosley has a mean right hook. I can’t believe he won, mon.”

  Somehow, last night’s words flowed out of me more easily than reciting the cranial nerves exiting the skull base. “De La Hoya tried to bring it, but losing to Felix Trinidad hit his confidence. And, as George Foreman says, ‘You take that ghost into the ring with you, you may come out a ghost yourself.’”

  “Ah, that’s right. That’s deep,” Rene said, chuckling to himself. “You okay from the other day? I saw you run out front. Dat maggot guy really freak you out, huh?” The crooked edge of his mouth crept up the side of his face into a smile.

  “Um, yeah. I almost puked,” I said, admitting my weakness. But instead of shame, I felt relief. Whether I felt more feminine or more human, I couldn’t decide, and it didn’t matter. At that moment, I needed his kindness more than I needed my own contrived version of perfection. I was obviously onto something.

  “Well, if you ever feel like you gonna puke again, you tell me. I help you clean it up,” he said. He pursed his lips, furrowed his brow and nodded: the Bronx sign for I’ve got your back.

  “Thanks, Rene.” I beamed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  4

  I had long forgotten about boxing when it resurfaced.

  By the end of residency, I had fully acclimated to the Bronx, handling gunshot victims and exsanguinating drug ad
dicts like it was my actual job. Along the way I even picked up a few friends—like Ruby, the round ball of a desk clerk who traded sweet potato pies for my homemade cheesecakes, and Doug, the radiology supervisor who called me Dahlicious and made sure I never waited for a CT scan. When I walked away from my Wayne Avenue apartment, I was a fibrous mix of street smarts and sarcasm, with a soft underbelly reserved for my people. No longer the confused, frustrated intern of five years prior, I believed I was prepared for anything and everything that lay ahead. Little did I know that the Bronx was only round one.

  As fate would have it, I was hired by one of the most elite practices on the Upper East Side. It happened, as many things do in this city, by timing and circumstance—a chance meeting with a private practitioner intrigued by hiring a female associate. Because women only accounted for 8 percent of practicing Ear, Nose and Throat doctors, I was just the unicorn they were looking for. Still, the probability of my procuring this job was as low as winning the lottery.

  My tenuously held-together marriage was the first casualty, closely followed by loss of friends and familiar surroundings. Although I had made it out of the hood, the paltry income I earned as a new associate barely covered my Manhattan rent, let alone the expectations of that particular part of town. I was functionally no better off than I was at the beginning of residency. And that wasn’t the worst part.

  Of all the neighborhoods in New York, none have the affluence of the Upper East Side. Bounded by Ninety-Sixth Street to the north and Fifty-Ninth Street to the south, between Fifth Avenue and the East River, the Upper East Side contains the greatest concentration of individual wealth in the richest borough of the city and the most expensive real estate in the United States. It also had the highest concentration of physicians in the country. Of the seven hundred practicing Ear, Nose and Throat doctors in the entire state, two hundred of them were in my zip code. Although I had made it through the roughest time of my life, the fruits of my diligence were not yet ripe for the plucking. Surrounded by an ocean of social and medical elite, I was a plankton. And I barely knew how to swim.