by Jack Tunney
ROUND 16
Summer died and the kids went back to class. It had rained hard earlier and now the weather had turned to an irritating drizzle that didn’t seem to want to stop. Rosie sat in her car watching the school and her watch at the same time. Occasionally she would look up and down the street for a sign of Chris or Diane in their cars, but there was nothing. Jess said they sent a sitter to pick her up most days. Rosie did not know the sitter by sight.
Buses lined up at the curb to carry the kids away. The sound of the final school bell carried to her and a few minutes later the first children began to file out. Some went to the buses and others to waiting cars. A couple of day care vans had pulled up to collect their charges. Rosie searched for Jess.
She caught sight of her daughter a minute later, stepping out into the fine rain in her yellow raincoat. The hood was up and she was almost unrecognizable, but Rosie knew she would always know her daughter anywhere. She got out of the car.
Jess spotted her when they were ten yards apart, and she dashed to her mother to hug her. Rosie hugged her back and crouched so they could be level and exchange kisses. “Why are you here, Mommy?” Jess asked.
“I wanted to see you.”
“But it’s not your day.”
“I know, baby, but I thought it was important.”
“You should have called. If Daddy finds out, you’ll be in trouble. He says you’re in trouble already.”
Rosie’s mouth creased into a frown. “Just a little bit of trouble. We’ll get it all worked out.”
“It’s because of Mr. Felix’s hat and shirt, isn’t it? When Diane found them, she took them to Daddy and he was really upset. He yelled at me. I had to tell him everything. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Rosie said, and she hugged Jess again. “You were only telling the truth. Never be afraid to tell the truth.”
“Now he says we’ll only see each other once in a while. Are you going away?”
“Never,” Rosie said. “Never ever. Not as long as I live.”
“Then why won’t I be able to see you?”
Children milled around them, some meeting with parents and caregivers and others simply frolicking despite the mist and the late autumn cold. Rosie took Jess by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t care what your father says, you will see me. And you’re going to come to live with me all the time, too. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make that happen. But you don’t worry about it. Be happy. Be my little girl. We’ll make it.”
Jess opened her mouth to speak, but a shadow fell over them. “Hello, Rosie,” Chris said.
Rosie shot to her feet and put herself between Chris and Jess. She felt Jess put her hand in hers, warm and soft. “Chris,” Rosie said. “I came to see Jess.”
He looked at her steadily with eyes she once found beautiful. “You aren’t supposed to be here. No visits outside of established visitation.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And I’m the one with custody. So say good-bye and walk away.”
“Mommy?” Jess asked.
“One second, baby,” Rosie said. She faced Chris without shrinking. “I’m going to beat you, Chris. You can’t win.”
“Is that what they’re telling you down at the ‘dojo’?” Chris said, and his tone on the last word was mocking. “Give it up, Rosie. I’ve already won. The minute you decided to start brawling in a cage for money, you killed your chances. Maybe they’d overlook the fact you barely have your drinking under control, but not this. It’s just a matter of time before the judge calls it in my favor.”
“My lawyer’s getting experts,” Rosie said. “We’ll have testimony. People will see what it’s really all about.”
Chris shook his head tiredly. “This is sad. You don’t have the money for all of that.”
“I’m getting money.”
“From where?”
“It doesn’t matter where. What matters is I’m getting it.”
“Don’t tell me it’s from fighting.”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
He laughed, and his laughter made her want to beat him to the ground. “You are a sad case, Rosie. The best thing you ever did was give birth to that little girl right there. The rest of it – a mess.”
Rosie turned her back on Chris and spoke to Jess. “I have to go now, but I’ll see you on the weekend. We’ll go see Mr. Felix and Ms. Tina and you can have a new shirt and hat if you want it.”
Jess nodded silently. Rosie kissed her.
When Rosie turned back to Chris, she felt no fear. She poked her finger in his chest. “For your information, I’m four year sober last month. So go run and tell that to your lawyer.”
She walked away and Chris called after her. “You lose, Rosie! There’s no way you come out of this a winner!”
Rosie ignored his words. She got in her car and drove away.
•••
Felix and Tina and Rosie crowded into the office at Ground Control. Felix sat on the edge of the desk, nervously casting looks over his shoulder toward the front door. The gym was busy in the late afternoon, with fighters coming in from their day jobs to sweat out the evening in pain. “He’s late,” Felix said.
“He’ll come,” Tina said.
“What did he say when you called him?” Rosie asked.
Felix spread his hands. “He was curious, but he wasn’t sold. I told him before he said no, he should come and see you personally. He liked you when he was here last, and I know he’ll like you again.”
Tina looked past Felix’s shoulder. “He’s here.”
They filed out of the office to meet Andre Walton halfway. He was dressed for the cold in a jacket with a fake fur lining. When he unzipped, Rosie saw he was wearing a suit jacket underneath, but no tie. “Hello, everyone,” Walton said. “I see the gang’s all here. Where’s the little one?”
“With her father,” Rosie said.
“That’s too bad.”
“Thanks for coming, Andre,” Felix said.
“You got me wondering,” Walton said, and he turned his gaze on Rosie. Rosie tried not to color under his stare. “When you said Rosie the Ripper was interested in a big fight, I was interested. When you told me she wanted to go up against Janiya… well, that’s a little crazy. How are you feeling, Tina? Your head still ringing?”
Tina scowled. “I’m fine.”
“That’s good. I can’t wait until your fight-ready again. I have some up-and-comers who’d love to take a shot at you. I think they’re more your speed.”
Rosie saw Tina’s face darken further, but Tina kept her mouth closed.
“Come on back to the office,” Felix said.
“Actually, I’d like to stay out here,” Walton said. “I want to have a look at your lady. Still having trouble on the ground?”
“We’re working on that,” Felix said.
“Uh-huh. Let me see those heavy hands, Ripper.”
“What do you want me to hit?” Rosie asked.
Walton pointed out a punch-dummy shaped like the torso of a man. It was dinged and battered, but it could still take the worst punishment any fighter in the gym could dish out. “How about that?”
“Let me get gloved up,” Rosie said.
She wrapped her hands and put on her punch gloves and came to where Walton waited with assessing eyes. Her stomach fluttered and questions about what she was doing floated to the top of her mind where it took all her concentration to push them down again.
“Let him have it, Rosie,” Felix said.
Rosie took a stance and let her hands go. The punch-dummy was on a heavy base, but it rocked when it took her hardest blows. Rosie painted Chris’ visage across the bland everyman’s face the dummy wore and hammered it nonstop for three minutes. She sweated with the effort, and when she stepped back, Walton clapped for her. “Great,” he said. “You really can slug it out. But you showed that in the cage already.”
“She wants this fight, Andre,”
Felix said.
Walton acknowledged this with a tiny nod. “You know, Ripper, the first time we met you said you weren’t a fighter. But somehow you ended up in my cage on my fight card doing damage like you were born to bang. How did that happen?”
Rosie went blank. She had put the same question to herself again and again, but the answer was never satisfactory. In the beginning she hadn’t wanted a fight, and then she had one. Everything seemed to flow from there. Now it was only a matter of when the next would come. Maybe that was how it happened for everyone. “I don’t know,” she said.
“You better know if you want to fight Janiya. Felix, I ain’t convinced. People want a fight, they don’t want a human sacrifice. Tina is the best you got and Janiya tore her apart like tissue paper. What chance does this girl have?”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Rosie said hotly.
“Am I saying something that’s not the truth?”
“I can do this. I won’t come apart.”
Walton’s eyes were on her again, taking her measure again. Judging her again. “What kind of stakes are you looking for?”
“Well, I think—” Felix started.
“Five thousand to the winner,” Rosie blurted out.
“What? Five thousand bucks? Do I look like I’m made out of money? I only offered your girl Tina three.”
“I’ll give you a five thousand dollar fight,” Rosie said.
“Is that so?”
“The woman said it,” Felix added. “Her word is good.”
Walton threw up his hands. “Okay, I’ll sell the fight to Janiya’s people. But if Ripper takes a nap in the first round, it’s gonna be a long time before I listen to your promises.”
Felix offered to shake and they did. “It’s gonna be a good fight.”
“It will,” Rosie promised.
Now Walton’s expression was grave. “You best be at the top of your game, Ripper, ‘cause if you’re not, Janiya’s gonna kill you.”
ROUND 17
Felix gave her a weight vest that weighed fifty pounds and asked her to wear it while she ran. He insisted she double her distances, and the ten miles plus the extra poundage turned her legs into noodles and her lungs into red-hot bellows. Her drills on the stairs of her building were agony, but she did them until she could barely crawl the final steps to the top.
There was more weight in the gym. Bench presses, military presses, dead lifts and any other torture Felix could devise. She did jump squats and burpees and sit ups to a point beyond pain. When she was not doing those, she was in the cage or on the mats drilling, stand up and ground, stand up and ground, against whoever in the place was willing to tumble with her. Some of the men outweighed her by thirty pounds or more. Felix simply told her this was preparation for the time when Janiya would come at her and Rosie would need every advantage she had.
Tina sparred with her in the cage, mimicking Janiya’s patterns. She swarmed Rosie with punches and Rosie learned to balance protection with offense. Trying to punch her way blindly out of a clinch or off the fence was punishable by a string of blows that put her on the defensive all over again. Felix never stopped shouting commands from outside.
She went to bed exhausted and rose before her body was ready. In the ten days leading up to the fight she’d be allowed full nights’ rest, but for now there was no time for luxuries like sleep. Her muscles were sore all the time. At work Rosie moved like an arthritic old woman. Nicole barely spoke to her. That bridge seemed to have been burned forever.
When Jess came with her to the gym, Rosie put on as brave a face as she could manage, though her daughter had to know her pain. Felix had her on a strict diet of lean proteins, with only a single slice of wheat toast in the morning to break up the monotony. She found herself wanting to steal food from her daughter’s plate.
After a short while Rosie was in the gym in the morning and at night, doubling up on her training time. She took to wearing the weight vest constantly, so when she took it off, it was like stepping onto the surface of the moon.
It was eleven days to fight night when Janiya came to see her.
Rosie let herself out the back of the gym after everyone else left, and locked the door with the key Felix gave her. She turned toward her car. Janiya’s voice carried to her from the darkened end of the small lot. “Hey, Rosie,” Janiya said. “Over here.”
Janiya drove a new-looking Hyundai and wore a tracksuit of blood red that blended into the shadows. She stepped out into the illumination of the lot’s single light and stopped there, waiting for Rosie to come the rest of the way.
Rosie’s heartbeat quickened. “I’m not looking for trouble,” she said.
“There’s no trouble here.”
Rosie came closer until they were ten feet apart, and then she stopped. She did not want to be in Janiya’s danger zone, which started with her fists, but carried out all the way to the end of her leg. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I wanted to see Rosie the Ripper,” Janiya said.
With her hair not tightly braided, Janiya looked less like an engine of destruction and more like a woman who might work in an office or a bank. Her face was not a hard mask of a fighter before battle, though she did not smile.
“I never paid much attention to you before,” Janiya said. “I don’t watch anybody until they get four or five fights.”
“I’ve watched you,” Rosie said.
Now Janiya did smile, and it was not an unpleasant thing to see. “I’ll bet. That’s why I wondered why you’d ask for a fight with me. Most people with two fights would be too scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Rosie said, though it was a lie.
“I don’t believe you are. But I’ll tell you – if it wasn’t for the purse, there’s no way I’d ever take you up on the challenge. I mean, if Andre wants to throw a lot of money my way, I’ll go for it. I have bills to pay.”
“Me, too,” Rosie said.
“You think you have a shot?”
“I do.”
Janiya cocked her head and squinted at Rosie. “You’re not a crazy woman, are you? Because I don’t want to fight anybody who’s not right in the head.”
“I need that money,” Rosie said. “It’s important.”
“I see. Well, we’ll see if you can get it. I’m not going to lie, I don’t think you have what it takes. Nothing personal.”
“I know,” Rosie said. She could not feel her legs.
“Okay, then,” Janiya said. “It was nice talking to you. There won’t be any time to shoot the breeze when we get together again.”
“Okay,” Rosie said, and her voice was almost a whisper.
“Good luck with your training,” Janiya said, and then she walked away.
Rosie watched her go until she started her car and left the lot. Only when Janiya was gone did Rosie feel as though she could truly breathe again.
Her weight vest seemed to weigh a thousand pounds when she went to the Corolla, but Rosie realized it was not the vest at all, but the knowledge everything was coming to an end in the cage. Soon.
•••
Rosie wasn’t wearing the weight vest when she went to pick up Jess. It was the first time in weeks she’d gone anywhere without it and the extra spring in her step was no imagination. She advanced up the walk to Chris’ door feeling hard and strong. When she knocked on the door, she knew it would take only a little bit of effort to kick the thing right off its hinges.
Diane answered. She balanced a baby in her arms. Over the past year the child had grown quickly. Like Jess, the little boy had Chris’ hair and Chris’ eyes. He squirmed in Diane’s arms as though anxious to throw his mother off. He was a fighter. “You’re early,” Diane said.
Rosie did not shrink. “I have somewhere to be later and I have to pick up Jess now. Where’s Chris?”
“He’s not here. He’s working late.”
Rosie did not want to tell Diane this was how it had begun between him and her �
� working late one night a week and then three nights a week and then every night when he wasn’t out with his friends. On those empty evenings, Rosie would sit and drink and be lonely, until she looked forward to the company of the bottle more than her husband. “You can call him if you want,” Rosie said instead. “Tell him I’m here early and I’m taking Jess with me.”
“I don’t need to call him,” Diane said.
“Okay. Where is she?”
“I’ll get her. Wait here.”
Diane shut the door in her face and Rosie heard the woman call to Jess. The door was set with frosted glass panels so Rosie could see Diane moving in the foyer, joined quickly by the smaller form of Jess. Finally the door opened again. “Mommy!” Jess exclaimed.
“Hey, baby, got your things?”
“Right here!”
“Then let’s go. We have a busy night.”
“What are we doing?”
Rosie glanced at Diane. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Bring your bag, okay?”
“Bye, Diane.”
“Yeah, bye, Diane,” Rosie said. She smiled sweetly and turned away.
They walked together to the Corolla. Rosie looked back to see if Diane was watching. The front door was closed.
“Where are going?” Jess asked.
“Somewhere special,” Rosie said. “You’re going to see Uncle Felix and Aunt Tina there.”
“The gym?”
“No, better than that,” Rosie said. “Remember where you saw the circus?”
“There? What’s there?”
Behind the wheel, Rosie started the car. She released the emergency brake and eased away from the curb, gently circling in the street to go back the way she came in. Now the excitement was too much to contain and she drummed one hand against the wheel. “I’m going to fight,” she said.
“Wow! And I get to see?”
“Yes, but you have to promise to be a good girl. There are going to be a lot of adults there and a lot of noise and I don’t want you getting into trouble.”
“Am I allowed in there?” Jess asked.
