by J. J. Murray
Some days, depression gets the best of me, and I take the F Train out to Coney Island, walking the barren boardwalk, taking pictures of unmoving rides, floating through the New York Aquarium, and walking the beach. The desolation consoles me somehow and says, “Hey, your life isn’t half bad.” Isn’t that what Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been trying to tell us? That life is only “a Coney Island of the mind”?
I also get hot dogs from Nathan’s when I’m there. I may be depressed, but I’m not crazy. You can’t go all the way out to Coney Island and not get a Nathan’s hot dog at Surf and Stillwell. It’s un-American. If I didn’t get a cheese dog smothered in chili, Krinkle Cut fries, and a large fresh-squeezed lemonade, I’d feel like a traitor to my country.
All this doing nothing is making me fat. I don’t quite fit in the skinny little mirror near my dresser, my pants whine, and my tops pop off—buttons, usually. After thinking about joining Gleason’s for eighty dollars a month and quickly discounting that idea—I’d be too embarrassed to work out in front of all those hard bodies—I get on the Internet and create a gym right here in my space.
It doesn’t cost as much as I thought it would. Shoes—forty-two dollars. Adidas. Not my brand, but they were on sale. A pipe-metal speed bag and heavy bag platform—two hundred dollars. I don’t want to scar my exposed ceiling in any way. An Italy Country Pride Everlast heavy bag—a hundred. It’s solid white with red and green accents. Italy Country Pride Evergel and regular boxing gloves—seventy-five dollars. With the Evergel gloves, I won’t need to wrap my hands at all, and they fit inside my regular gloves like, well, gloves. A six-piece Everlast speed bag set and a jump rope—seventy dollars. For five hundred, the cost of six-plus months at Gleason’s and maybe only a few months at fancier gyms, I have my own boxing gym.
Having a place where I can lose some of my pity-party blubber in secret—priceless.
I don’t know why more women don’t do this kind of workout. I use every muscle in my body, don’t have to use a big inflated ball, don’t have to listen to anorexic women tell me to “feel the burn, ladies,” and I don’t have to buy expensive shorts, sweats, or tops to “be seen.” I estimate that I burn over five hundred calories an hour. I’d have to do over ninety minutes of low-impact aerobics to get the same results.
On the wall next to the metal platform, I posted the Virgil quote that assaults you at Gleason’s Gym—with some minor changes:
NOW, WHOEVER HAS COURAGE AND A STRONG,
COLLECTED SPIRIT IN HER BREAST, LET HER COME FORWARD, LACE UP HER GLOVES, AND PUT UP HER HANDS.
I have put up my hands a lot.
I rise at four-thirty every morning now, put on some sweatpants, and get right sweaty to the glorious sounds of Andrea Bocelli, a blind Italian tenor who has the most sensuous voice. I still listen to Smokey Robinson (and all of his Miracles) and Johnny Mathis, and I occasionally throw in some Sinatra. Besides the obvious benefits of working out, getting up at four-thirty allows me to take a longer shower and rush less afterward. I don’t feel guilty all day about not working out or grouse at work about having to work out after work. I have no extra clothes in a gym bag to schlep around, I have no chance to go home sweaty or tired, and I get to bed at a reasonable time. At four-thirty, even in Red Hook, the world is asleep, peaceful, and serene. I don’t need a psychologist, psychiatrist, maharishi, spiritual guide, therapist, counselor, guru, or personal trainer to make me feel better about myself, and cleaning up sweat on hardwood is a breeze. Some days I work out so hard I fog up my window.
I have an intense workout.
After all, I had a good teacher.
I work out for fifteen four-minute rounds. I jump rope for six rounds, resting in between each round. I ain’t crazy. I hit the heavy bag for four rounds, not resting at all between rounds. There’s just something cathartic and therapeutic about slamming your fists against a big heavy target and hearing the pop and the pow. Besides, I have to get back at my neighbors somehow for all their nocturnal hammering, cutting, and sanding. And, it releases a lot of the sexual tension that has built up in my body since…
I can’t get that man out of my head. I’ve divided my life into two parts: BD (before Dante) and AD (after Dante). I miss him.
End of whiny, pining interlude.
And now, back to boxing.
I do the speed bag until I can’t hold my arms up any longer (about two rounds), shadowbox in front of the mirror for two more rounds, and do as many crunches and push-ups as I can, ending it all with more jumping rope.
My sweats fell off me the other day while I was shadowboxing.
It was cool.
On my legs. Since the window fogged up, I kicked the sweats away and finished my workout in my underwear.
That was kind of hot, you know?
I’m not the kind of girl to measure myself or even weigh myself—I’m too old to care much about that kind of thing anymore. I take me as I am, and I think I’ve dropped at least fifteen pounds. I stare down at three inches of space between the top of my pants and my hips, and I have to wear a belt. My breasts bounce around in every bra I own except my sports bras. My booty is tight, muscular, and, well, it’s still out there. No amount of sweat and bounce is going to diminish what heredity has given me. What I like most is my stamina. I can take stairs, run for the train and the bus, and even jog through Red Hook without losing my breath.
I am alive, and I feel good.
I stand naked in front of the mirror after every shower and pose. I have cuts. I have abs. I have perky breasts. They don’t go boing, but they are definitely at attention. I have calves. I have biceps and triceps. I even have tighter skin around my jaw line. I will never become anorexic Evelyn, but let me tell you something—I am one fiercely sexy corpo provocante now.
I’m also into saving money like a bandit for some reason. I know, I spent money on my little gym, but when I think of how much I will save in the end by not going to a gym, I feel right thrifty. Instead of getting a fancy coffee from the Coffee Den, I make myself a commuter cup of Red Rose tea every morning. I was amazed to find these wonderful tea bags at Fairway Market one morning, and I bought up every box and bag I could. I have yet to find authentic Chelsea buns like the ones Red fried up that morning, but I will. I even cook fish filets on occasion, using Red’s “secret” recipe. I checked out Fulton Fish Market but found no smallmouth bass. What a letdown.
But I feel stronger, I feel healthier, I’m more fiscally responsible, and I am damn sexy.
Sigh.
Maybe I’m ready for a real relationship for the first time in my life.
I’ve noticed other men noticing me more and more. At first, it was subtle. You know, the casual stare, the shifting eyes as I walked through Rockefeller Center. Now that I’m a scultura in perpetual motion, I see men racing to share an elevator with me, often riding to the wrong floor. They make pains to sit near me on the bus. They hover near me on the subway. They pause when I pause in front of windows on Broadway. Most are decent looking, but none of them has Dante’s eyes. None of them has that penetrating stare of his.
None of them is Dante.
After you’ve been with a god, you can’t simply settle for mere mortals, right?
For the longest time, nothing, and I mean nothing, excited me except my workouts. Okay, it’s exciting for men to ogle me, too, but now that I’m in physical shape, I like myself again. My mind occasionally crashes, but twenty minutes on the heavy bag brings me back to life.
I actually go places now. I take pictures just to take pictures: of the waterfront, of children playing, of folks on the subway, and of people picking through fruit and vegetables in front of Fairway Market. I even use the self-timer to take a picture of me fishing on the Valentino Pier, sending it to Dante at the P.O. box in Virginia, “Catch any big ones lately?” written on the back. I don’t know if he opened it or not. I hope he did.
And I hope he didn’t start a fire with it afterward.
I do my best not to lim
it myself to Red Hook. I attend Knicks games, hearing my own voice’s echo most nights. I even go to the Jimmy V Classic at the Garden to watch unpaid premier basketball players throwing down dunks and hitting three-pointers. The Knicks should watch them play. I frequent the Lyceum Theater again, seeing old classics like A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront.
I am alive again.
Oh sure, I still want Dante Lattanza with a passion I’ve never had before. My solution isn’t the greatest, but it helps. I bought the Heavy Leather DVD. I’ve watched Chapter 9 more than once a night for the last three weeks. Sometimes three times if I’m really horny. I slow the sparring scenes down and zoom in on Dante. Sometimes I shadowbox with him. At one point, though, Dante looks directly at the camera, at me, with those eyes of his, and I…
Whoo.
It’s quite a boxing workout.
Speaking of boxing, I’ve watched HBO’s Countdown to Washington-Lattanza II twice. I was, um, hmm. I, uh, I turned down the sound the first time and kind of, well, got intimate with the TV screen whenever Dante was on and then…
You get the picture. Luckily, I have a widescreen TV and heavy-duty shades on my window. The lip marks come off the screen easily with a little Windex.
I turn the sound all the way up for a live ESPN feed of today’s press conference. Tomorrow night, they’ll weigh in, and both of them will probably gain ten to fifteen pounds by fight time, turning them into light heavyweights.
Dante is clean shaven (sigh…I kind of liked the beard) and wears a nice dark blue suit. He could be a GQ model without even trying to pose. He just has such a presence, an aura of power around him.
Meanwhile, Tank sports a black suit with gold chains, a large lion medallion where a tie should be, his fingers and his mouth filled with gold. He has no presence. All he has is bling, a shiny bald head, and a blond goatee.
Oh, and the championship belt. Almost forgot. He’s had that for ten years.
I turn up the volume just in time to hear a question that makes me cringe:
“Champ, what do you think of your opponent fighting for love?”
Tank smirks. At least I think it’s a smirk. He has so much bling in his mouth it could be a grimace of pain. I’ll bet his gums bleed all day.
“Only a dumb
“It is the best fight there can be,” Dante says, Red sitting beside him. “It is the only fight worth having.”
“Attaboy, Dante,” I whisper. “Shut the MF up.” What? I didn’t say the whole word. Pericolosa women can say “MF.”
Tank stands and points at Dante. “Old man, you are full of
Dante doesn’t stand, and instead of facing Tank, he smiles at the reporters. “I am not full of merda. I am full of love.”
The reporters laugh, and so do I. Dante cursed in Italian, and ESPN didn’t catch it. I’ve been learning Italian from a site on the Internet. I’ll never be fluent, but I know all the curse words. I say palla (bullshit) and idiota (asshole) often, especially when I’m watching the refs make palla calls against the Giants or some idiota takes the last seat on the F Train.
Tank points into the audience at…Evelyn. “That her?”
Evelyn looks like a twig. Some of my lamps have more meat on their bones than she does.
Dante doesn’t respond.
“Don’t go there, Tank,” I whisper. “You’re already an MF. Don’t become a merda.”
“How you doin’, mama?” Tank says.
He went there. Idiota.
“Baby,” Tank says, showing all of his bling, “after I put this fossil back in the ground where he came from, you can love me long time.”
There is no laughter this time.
I expect Dante to leap to his feet, but he only rolls his eyes. “At least I fight for something important.”
Tank smirks for real this time. “C’mon, Danny Boy. In the end, you fight for money, just like me. You ain’t no better than me.”
Dante is nodding to himself. He whispers something to Red, and Red’s eyes pop.
Uh-oh. Something’s about to happen.
“We will make it winner takes all then,” Dante says, and all hell breaks loose. A million camera flashes go off. Red closes his eyes, and so do I.
“What?” Tank says the same time I finally find my voice to yell “Che?”
Dante stands and waits for the pandemonium to die down. “Winner takes all. Put it on paper, and I will sign it.”
Nobody moves a muscle until Dante whispers something to Red, who pulls out a crumpled…That has to be a receipt for something. Not the receipt, Red. Get a real piece of paper. I’m sure it will fetch a bundle on eBay, but…
Oh. It’s just a pen.
Dante takes the pen and pulls the fight poster off the podium. I have half of one hanging near my mirror. Dante’s half. It has smooch marks on it. Dante writes rapidly and hands the poster to Tank, who reads it and shakes his head, Tank’s entourage of seven or eight Tank clones surrounding him and shaking their heads, too. What a bunch of bobble-heads!
“You’re crazy as a
Dante offers his hand across the podium.
“Nah, Gramps,” Tank says. “You gonna need that hand to wipe up your own
The press conference ends with Tank and company leaving in a pack.
Oh…my…God!
Winner takes all. We’re talking at least seven figures here, probably eight if enough folks watch replays of this press conference and order pay-per-view.
“Fighting for love and winner takes all,” an announcer says from his perch at the ESPN studio. “What’s your take on this, Harry?”
Oh, merda. It’s the dreaded Harry, halting and constipated deliverer of clichés other clichés get tired of hearing. “It could be (pause) the fight of the century (pregnant pause), if it gets past (pregnant and way overdue, the-baby-is-crowning pause) the first round.”
“So you think it’s going to be a quick fight.”
“To paraphrase Tennyson,” Harry says, reaching deep into nineteenth-century Victorian freaking England for a cliché tonight, “’Tis better to have loved and lost (they’ve already cut the umbilical cord, Harry, and the child is teething) than never to have boxed (the kid has a driving license, Harry) at all.”
What…the…crap?
Harry has never boxed a single millisecond in his life, yet there he is, giving so-called “expert” analysis on boxing. What a bunch of palla! If I ever need surgery, I’m not going to go to a doctor who has merely watched one thousand operations. I’m going to the doctor who has actually done some successfully. More boxers need to go into broadcasting to squeeze out these Tennyson-quoting, constipated, hairless men with spewing pimples for mouths who call themselves experts. Maybe Dante could be a boxing analyst after he finally retires. I know I’d tune in to hear what he had to say.
Okay, okay. I’d tune in just to hear his voice.
And to kiss my TV.
I get online and go to a Las Vegas Web site that promises live, up-to-the-minute odds updates. I’m just curious. It isn’t as if these odds have anything to do with the ultimate outcome. Last night, Dante’s numbers looked grim. With only a $100 bet, I could have won $1,400 if Dante won on Saturday. I would have had to bet $750 on Tank just to win $100. The numbers for the fight to go the distance were off the charts, most predicting a Washington knockout before the fourth round.
But not now.
Dante’s $1,400 drops to $250 before my eyes, Tank’s $750 tanking to $210. I know this is a simplification, but Dante went from a 14–1 underdog to a 5–2 challenger in a matter of minutes. Now, the odds are almost even for the fight to go into the tenth round.
A hal
f an hour later, Dante’s $250 falls to $125, and Tank’s $210 drops to $105, the fight all but guaranteed to go the distance.
The fight, then, is almost dead even according to the odds makers.
Dante says, “I fight for love,” and Las Vegas doesn’t blink. Dante says, “Winner takes all,” and Las Vegas gets nervous, dropping Dante from a 14–1 underdog to a 5–4 contender in thirty minutes.
I wish I had bet $1,000 yesterday. When Dante wins—and he will—I would have won $14,000, enough for almost seven years of riding the New York Water Taxi. But now that I’m in shape, I won’t need to be “carried” to work. I can do that all by myself now, whether on a bike or on my own two legs. It’s only ten miles.
Hmm. I may need a bike. Twenty miles a day? One hundred miles a week? Over five thousand miles a year?
I’ll get a bike.
Fighting for love and winner takes all. Amazing. It’s all so elemental. Why do you fight? For love. And if you win, you take it all. Simple. All sports should be this simple.
But…
There’s just something fundamentally wrong about this.
What is so wrong with fighting for love? I know, I know. I used to think it was cheesy. But now I don’t. The odds should have been much lower before Dante said, “Winner takes all.” Maybe I can write an article that makes light of all this palla.
Sì.
Maybe I can write an article that will repair some of the damage I’ve done to Dante.
I smile.
Sì.
An op-ed piece. I’m good at those.
