Tooth and Nail

by Linda D. Dahl

  “Well, there are a few commissioners, but I’m the chairman. Have a seat,” he said, pointing at the chair nearest him. “Meet everyone else: Johnny, Ralphie, Mikey, Jerry, and you know Tom and Fred Gonzalez.” He gestured around the table, introducing each man with a wave of his hand. I felt like I was with the Godfather and he was introducing me to his Dons.

  I smiled at the table and took my seat next to the Chairman, saying nothing. I knew I wouldn’t remember their names so I didn’t bother trying.

  “We already ordered. Whaddya you want?” the Chairman asked, leaning in to me.

  “Anything is fine,” I said. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and hoped someone had ordered appetizers. There was no bread at the table, and I was starving.

  “What?” he asked, squinting and moving in closer. “Do you want steak?” he asked, in an even louder voice.

  “Yes, thanks,” I said, with as much volume as I could stand to hear in my own voice. He stared intently at my mouth, straining to hear.

  “I haven’t seen you around, Dr. Dahl. Are you a big fight fan?” asked one of the men, Johnny or Mikey, studying me through suspicious eyes. His shirt, stained with grease near the collar, was unbuttoned to the top of his sternum. Strands of thick, black hair peeked out, hinting at the forest that grew beneath.

  “Yes, actually. I used to watch it a lot when I was in residency in the Bronx.”

  “So, you’ve never actually been to a fight? That’s funny. Usually the docs watch a lot of fights. Gonzalez here started when he was a student.”

  “I was a resident, not a student,” Dr. Gonzalez said, peevishly. “I’ve been doing this for four years, man. How have I put up with you guys for so long?” He forced a laugh and shook his head, trying to be one of the guys, but failing to be one of these guys.

  “What kind of doctor are you, Linda? Can I call you Linda?” The eldest, most distinguished-looking man, spoke next. He sat across from me, wearing glasses and sporting a gray, neatly cut beard. His interlaced fingers rested on the table in front of him, like he was about to start an inquisition. I was so nervous I couldn’t remember which name was his, but he clearly knew mine.

  “I’m an ENT. Actually, with all the cuts and nosebleeds, I should come in handy,” I said, trying to direct his questions toward my useful skill set and away from my ignorance.

  “I guess. Never thought of it that way.” He took a sip of ocher liquid from his glass and continued the interrogation. “Where do you practice?”

  “I’m part of a group on the Upper East Side,” I said, for the first time feeling a sense of pride about that, too. He seemed surprised, but not nearly as surprised as Dr. Gonzalez, whose jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “My doctor practices up there, too. He’s with Presbyterian—Dr. Goldstein. Do you know him?” He was testing to see if I really was who I said I was. But there was more to it. He was also trying to figure out why a doctor like me, who worked in such a prestigious part of town, would want to work at the fights. I knew there was no way he would understand.

  “I’ve heard of him, but we’ve never met,” I said. It was a lie, but not really. I didn’t know his exact doctor, but in my zip code of 5,000 of us, at least three were called Dr. Goldstein. “How are you involved in the fights? Are you a judge?” I asked, trying to cross-examine my prosecutor.

  “Ha ha, no. I have no interest in that. I’m a commissioner for the state,” he said.

  Before I could clarify what that meant, Johnny/Mikey interrupted. “So, I still don’t get it. Didn’t anyone interview you? How do you even know what you’re doing?”

  I wanted to cry. He’d exposed my fraudulence in front of everyone, and I had no defense. But he also confirmed what I had suspected: that my immaculate conception into the world of boxing was just that. I was a true virgin.

  Then, like a miracle, the Chairman rescued me. “Well, we’re glad to have you. You’re the only woman on the panel, and I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”

  I audibly exhaled, suppressing tears of relief. “Hopefully, I can learn a lot and do a good job,” I said, thankful.

  The servers came with the food, setting a small plate in front of each of us that held a single cut of steak. There were no plates of fries or creamed spinach, no baskets of bread. Just meat. I looked around the table at what we were: a tribe of urban warriors about to devour our kill before the next battle.

  6

  The New York Hilton is a four-star hotel located up the street from Rockefeller Center, in the geographical center of Manhattan. Sandwiched between Times Square to the west and Midtown to the east, it is a crossroads of chaos and restraint. Huddles of overdressed tourists in unreasonable shoes obstruct the flow of businessmen marching into an angry void. Arabic music plays from halal trucks, where immigrants cook sweaty meat across the street from five-star restaurants. It was a strange place in its own right, but an even stranger place to hold a boxing match.

  Riding the escalator to the basement of the Hilton with my group, I realized I had to devise a game plan for the night. Thanks to Johnny/Mikey, everyone knew I was a complete rookie as a fight doctor. But what I didn’t want them to discover was how little I knew about boxing in general. As luck would have it, Johnny/Mikey split off from the group early. With him gone, I decided to use a tactic I learned early in med school: feigned understanding.

  I was first exposed to this effective tool during my general surgery rotation. My friend Amy and I were students on the team, and only one of us could scrub in for surgery at a time. This particular case was of the open bowel variety, one that would involve hands-on experience—a rare and precious opportunity for a student.

  The attending turned to me first, asking me to recite branches of the abdominal aorta. I was caught off guard, having wrongly prepared to discuss the specifics of colon cancer, the reason for surgery in the first place. Unseasoned in the art of pimping, I muttered the three most cursed words in surgery: I don’t know. In light of my incompetence, Amy was chosen for the case.

  I stood back and watched as she brilliantly navigated through her parallel ignorance. When the attending screamed, “Suck in the hole, suck in the hole!” she didn’t ask which hole or when, she just stuck the suction in the most recent one and nodded. When he asked her to list the causes of colon cancer, instead of admitting she had no idea, she commented on the brilliance of his tumor excision. Jealously watching her cut sutures as he reattached the bowel, I promised myself that, when it came to anything medical, I would never again admit to what I didn’t know.

  If I wanted to learn anything tonight without humiliating myself, I, too, would have to be brave in my stupidity. I would have to sponge up every sensory clue around me to present some semblance of understanding.

  “Let’s start in the back. Some of the fighters are here, so we can check them in,” Dr. Gonzalez said when we got downstairs. He led me into an enormous conference room, identical to those used for medical seminars. The ring had been set up in the center, surrounded by folding chairs and banquet tables. It was smaller than I had imagined, dwarfed by the size of the room. A few people dressed in black milled around, assembling camera equipment and sound cables. It looked more like a movie set than what I was used to seeing on television.

  I followed Dr. Gonzalez to a curtained area, where small groups of men were seated. He found an open space and set down his bag, emptying its contents onto an adjacent table. Picking up a stethoscope, he hung it around his neck like jewelry. I made a mental note to keep track of his other tools as the night went on so I could gather my own stash before the next time. If there was a next time.

  “We have to do a quick check of the boxers on the day of the fight,” he said, beginning his preview of the night. “Then, they have to go with Charlie over there—he’s one of the inspectors—so he can watch them pee in a cup.” I looked over at a heavyset man, standing with his arms held rigidly
against his sides.

  “The urine check is to make sure there are no drugs in their system,” I said, stating what I assumed was true instead of asking the question.

  My comment had the magical effect of making Dr. Gonzalez feel like he had to show me up, feeding me more details to fill in the gaps of what I didn’t know. “Yes, right. The pee cup also has a plastic thermometer on the side so you can tell the temperature. That way the fighter can’t pour water in there or use someone else’s urine.”

  The thought of someone carrying around a vial of stolen urine made me laugh. I wondered if there was a black market for untainted pee.

  “Look, there’s Tyrone,” he said. A young man who was too hale to have been the same fighter as the night before sat on a folding chair, sharing a joke with the man next to him. He looked almost healthy, face plump and eyes bright. If Dr. Gonzalez hadn’t pointed him out, I wouldn’t have recognized him.

  “Looks like you got something to eat, dude,” Dr. Gonzalez said, echoing my sentiment.

  “Yeah, Madonna’s, man. Lotsa meat!” He said the word meat with a guttural sound, loud and throaty, as if he had killed it himself.

  “Madonna’s? Where’s that?” I asked, thinking it was some insider place near the commission that was sponsored by the pop singer.

  “You don’ know Madonna’s, man? Big Mac?” McDonald’s. He was saying McDonald’s.

  “Hey, Linda, can you take this down for me?” Dr. Gonzalez interrupted, grabbing Tyrone’s arm and applying a blood pressure cuff. “His pressure is ninety-nine over fifty-eight, and his pulse is—” he paused for several seconds, counting under his breath while reading his watch “—forty-eight. Lookin’ good, dude.”

  “We just check pressure and pulses. Got it,” I said, using the strategy of repeating what he had just said, as if I, too, had memorized the nonexistent guidebook.

  “Yep, that’s it. The inspectors do the rest. They weigh their gloves and check their wraps, too.” I loved how easily he fed me information, desperate to show off what he knew. I was careful though, remembering not to ask why they weighed and checked. I figured I could corner an inspector before the end of the night to get those details.

  We spent the next hour like that, Dr. Gonzalez checking in fighters and me filling out paperwork, checking pressures and pulses, and looking over last minute details. Through the curtains, I could hear the conference room filling up and was eager to see who was in the crowd.

  As we were leaving, another man walked over. He was around five-foot-seven and stout, with tousled brown hair and large eyes. When our eyes met, he smiled, a smile so dangerously sincere, I almost let my guard down.

  “Hey, Dr. Aziz! Thanks for showing up,” Dr. Gonzalez said playfully, punching him in the shoulder.

  “There’re only four fights tonight, so I didn’t think I needed to come in early. I had a ton of post-ops today, and my partner’s out of town,” Dr. Aziz said. His demeanor was confident but relaxed and, since he was talking about post-ops, he was obviously a surgeon. My guess was orthopedics. I couldn’t imagine a neurosurgeon working the fights, but the irony of that would have been fantastic.

  “You’re the new recruit, right? Come with me, and we’ll get set up by the ring.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was addressing me. When I looked up and wordlessly pointed at myself, he smiled even more broadly, like he knew my secret.

  In the conference room, the blue-carpeted floor was barely visible under the crowd of people. Men with long, buttoned overcoats spoke with exaggerated movements of their thick-ringed hands. Red-faced workmen laughed too hard and posed for pictures, fists holding plastic cups of alcohol. Along one wall stood a row of once-famous men and their overly perfumed girlfriends. To my surprise, of the few women I spotted, none were wearing ball gowns. When we reached the ring, we were stopped by a large man in a black suit, who held up his hand like a bridge troll, preventing our passing.

  “Commission,” Dr. Aziz said, holding up a gold badge with blue lettering. The security guard nodded and let us through. It looked like something a policeman would have, but he put it away too quickly for me to study it. I made a mental note that I needed to figure out how to get one of those things, whatever it was.

  I followed Dr. Aziz to a long table on one side of the ring, where an older man was already seated, looking through some papers. He was wearing a light gray suit with very thin pinstripes and a pink tie. So close to the ring, he would be in for a surprise when the blood started flying. Apparently, he hadn’t got the memo.

  “Dr. Dahl, this is Dr. Williams, the chief medical examiner,” Dr. Aziz said.

  Dr. Williams glanced up and smirked. “Dr. Dahl. You trained at Manhattan Hospital, right?” His voice was deep and slow, like Barry White’s younger brother. Dimples tugged at the insides of his cheeks under his mostly white beard. “That’s where I trained. Great institution. Manhattan Hospital only trains the best. That’s why I approved your application right away.”

  Finally, the mystery of how I had got there was solved. As desperate as I was to correct his mistake, I didn’t dare, instead settling on, “I work there now.” It wasn’t a lie. I was just staying out of my own way. He didn’t seem to care, continuing to smile and purse his lips.

  * * *

  The crowd’s noise around us grew louder when the announcer entered the ring. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Gerry Cooney Charity Fight for FIST. Cooney’s fighting record of 28-3, including 24 knockouts, makes him one of the greatest fighters of all time! As you all know, he founded FIST, the Fighters’ Initiative for Support and Training, to help retired boxers find jobs and transition into the next chapter of their lives. The organization also provides alcohol and drug counseling, job training, and educational and financial programs.”

  I was both impressed and saddened. It was great that this guy, Cooney, made it out of the fight game on top, but the need for a charity to help broken-brained boxers was telling. Drug and alcohol counseling? It sounded more like a halfway house than a transitional program for former athletes. Retired basketball greats ended up with restaurant chains and sneaker endorsements. Worst-case scenario, they had enough neurons to work a desk job. These guys needed handouts to survive.

  I looked around the crowd and vaguely recognized only one boxer. He was posing for photographs with fans, one hand in a fist, the other clutching a bottle of beer. Between shots, his aggressively cheery face relaxed into a blank stare, like he had an invisible on/off switch for the camera. Then it occurred to me—he was Roberto Duran. During the rematch with Sugar Ray Leonard, when he couldn’t take the beating anymore, he was believed to have uttered those most infamous words that marred his legacy: No más. He seemed to be saying no more now, too.

  The announcer continued. “In attendance tonight are boxing greats, Angelo Dundee, Jake LaMotta, and Ken Norton.” When each name was announced, an old man with a cane stood up and waved to the audience. They looked frail and weathered. I couldn’t imagine these guys crossing the street without assistance, let alone having gone at each other in the ring. No wonder they needed a charity.

  “You know those guys, right?” Dr. Aziz asked, pulling the edge of his mouth into a half-smile. He knew I had no idea who they were, but he wasn’t about to reveal my lie. He seemed to enjoy watching me squirm.

  “Yes, of course, I mean, Jake LaMotta...” I said, pausing to let the silence speak for me. Then I remembered the announcer saying that Cooney had fought Ken Norton, so I continued. “And that fight with Cooney and Norton. I mean, c’mon!” I held out my hands, bouncing them up and down slowly in time with my head. He wasn’t buying any of it.

  The first fight of the night was the heavyweights. The announcers rambled statistics and titles, none of which meant anything to me. The fighters entered the ring with their entourages, who wore satin jackets and carried buckets, towels and bags. I barely recogn
ized them from the night before, their faces made menacing by their mouthguards. After a few minutes, they gravitated to their respective corners and sat on stools. It felt like the best part of the night was about to begin.

  I heard hooting and whistling from the audience and looked across the ring to the source of the attention: a woman dressed only in a bikini and fishnets. She was climbing the stairs, stabilized by the arm of a dreadlocked man. When she got to the platform, she lifted a card into the air and smiled. She walked around the ring, pausing at each corner to shift her weight from one hip to the other.

  “What do you think of the ring girl?” Dr. Aziz asked, watching my expression change.

  I thought a moment before answering. My initial reaction was that I thought she was beautiful, all tight abs, perfect breasts and smooth skin. I had never in my life looked like that. And since I was conditioned, like every other young girl, to want to look that way, I was also jealous—too jealous to admit. I used to say that I was lucky I was born ugly. When I was younger, my crooked teeth and fat face forced me to find other parts of myself to use as assets. It was why I’d worked so hard in school and used self-awareness as a front for self-deprecation. But I couldn’t admit any of that. I was supposed to look down on her for using her body instead of her brain. How else could I justify my life choices?

  Before I could answer, the bell clanged, and the fighters were up. Their movements were measured and lazy, like they didn’t want to waste energy until they got to the hitting part. I finally recognized one of the fighters as Juan. He looked terrifying, brows scrunched and eyes filled with something primal that made my heart beat faster. Sitting this close to the ring made everything more apparent. And transparent.

  Juan moved in, ducking and swaying at his opponent’s fetid punches. Even when he wasn’t swinging, the other guy was on the defense. It was as if Juan’s mere intention to hit was enough. After thirty seconds, the other fighter paused, breathless, and dropped his gloves for a fraction of a second. Then Juan went in for the kill, hitting the other boxer in the face, jaw and chest. Every blow landed hard, like a wet slap, sending an emulsion of bloody sweat into the air.