by J. J. Murray
And coming from the mean ol’ wench who said Dante was washed up all those years ago—and written by the itch who revealed he was fighting for love in the first place—the Times will have to publish it. They’d have to. And maybe Dante would read it.
Sì.
The Times would run it Saturday, the day of the fight.
Sì.
But if I’m going to fight all this palla, I’m going to need some munizione. And where in New York can anyone find plenty of ammunition?
Brooklyn.
Andiamo!
Chapter 28
I have a merda-load of work to do today.
After calling in sick (“I feel so”—cough—“lousy, Shelley”), I go to Carroll Gardens and find Dante’s old house. It’s easy to find. The neighborhood has decked it out with Italian flags and signs proclaiming, “Dante will take it all!” and “Dante Fights for Amore!” His old house is red brick with a single black steel door, black bars on the windows, and no graffiti on its walls. Carroll Gardens is taking care of its own. Freshly planted zinnias flank the stoop. This is where Dante began. This is where Connie Lattanza hung out and shot the Italian breeze. This is where skinny Dante took off from every morning to escape Franco the bravaccio.
I’ll bet this brownstone would cost a million or more now. What a world we live in.
I foot it down to Monte’s Venetian Room, where Connie once worked. I don’t know what I’ll find, but I’m hoping to find some of Dante’s oldest fans. Monte’s is on the “shores” of the Gowanus Canal, which supposedly contains bodies from decades of mob hits. No one “swims with the fishes” in the Gowanus Canal, though. There are few fish evolved enough to survive the three hundred million gallons of raw filth that runs off into it every year. I try to envision the average hit man eating, say, some antipasto, looking out at the spot where he dumped Mickey “the Mouse” Ratatouille, plastic bottles and condoms floating above the very spot.
I can’t envision it. Not eating antipasto. Scungilli, maybe.
The great John Huston directed scenes from Prizzi’s Honor a few feet from where I sit in a curved, shiny red booth, a mural of Venice surrounding me. I order a plate of cold antipasto and an espresso from Vincent, a short, dark-featured man with a high forehead and a shoulder-length gray ponytail.
“First time?” he asks with a slight Italian accent.
I guess not many black women come in here, especially alone and before the lunchtime rush. “No. Yours?”
He smiles. “Just making conversation.” He stands there, nodding slightly to the plate of antipasto.
I sample some cheese and an olive. “Nice.”
“You know,” Vincent says, “Capone used to eat here, as did Frank Sinatra.”
I had noticed a LeRoy Neiman print of Sinatra as I came in. I had also noticed an indoor, working phone booth. You don’t see them much anymore.
“And Sammy Davis once entertained from midnight to eight AM here,” Vincent says. “Let me know when you want the cheesecake.” He points to a sign. “It’s heavenly to the taste.”
“Really?” I ask. Just making conversation.
“It is made with ricotta cheese, not cream cheese like those other fessi make it,” he says. “It has to be ricotta. After I sprinkle it with confectioner’s sugar, you will just die.”
“That’s why it’s so heavenly, huh?” I say. “People die from eating it.”
He laughs. “If one has to go,” he says, shrugging, “then dying from cheesecake is not such a bad way to go.”
I look at the antipasto plate, and it’s a meal in itself. “Perhaps another time,” I say.
Vincent looks around. “Are you looking for someone?”
I blink. “No one in particular. Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. You look like a lady who is looking for someone.”
“Well,” I say, pulling out my press credentials, a plastic ID card with a pre-sexy woman picture of me on it. “I’m a reporter for Personality magazine.”
“You don’t say.”
I do say. “I’m actually looking for anyone who knew Dante Lattanza from the old days.”
Vincent grins broadly and sits across from me. “I know Dante from when he was just a little boy.” He drums the table with his fingers.
Yes! I pull out my notepad. “Mind if I take some notes?”
“Not at all. What is it you want to know?”
I sketch Vincent on the notepad—in words. I can’t draw for merda. I write, “Vincent is an old-school, fuggedaboutit kind of guy, receding gray hairline, ponytail, crooked nose, dark eyes.” I smile. “First, I’ll need your name.”
“Vincent Baldini.”
I write it down. “Did you know Dante’s mother?”
“Sure, I knew Con,” Vincent says. “That’s short for Connie. Nice lady. Great in the kitchen. Not good. Great. The bread she made—squisito. She was so hard to replace. Lung cancer. A terrible thing.”
“What is your earliest memory of Dante?” I ask.
Vincent rubs his hands on the table. “Con brought him in, set him on this very table.” He taps it for effect. “We all looked after him while she worked. A skinny boy, not tough looking at all, but now he will be the champion again, I assure you. Tomorrow night he will reign again. What’s your name again?”
“Christiana Artis.”
Vincent looks past me to the mural of Venice. “Artis, Artis. I’ve heard that name before.” He focuses on me. “Did you used to work for the Times?”
His smile has left Monte’s.
“Um, yeah. But now I work for Personality.”
His eyes become little slits. “You used to cover boxing some for the Times, right?”
Once again, someone is interviewing me. “Yes.”
He snaps his fingers. “You’re the one who wrote those articles about Dante being washed up.”
“That was a long time ago, Vincent,” I say quickly. “I don’t believe that now.”
Vincent sits back, his lips tight. “But you also wrote the fighting-for-love article in September, right?”
I nod. Vincent is very well informed. “But like I said, I’ve changed my mind about Dante completely. I’m working on an op-ed piece to run tomorrow—”
Vincent pushes back his chair. “Shame on you. Shame!” He shakes a fist in my face. “You do not have to leave a tip. But I will give you one.” He puts his bushy eyebrows inches from mine. “When you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t speak.” He walks away.
I look at my antipasto, a sardine eyeing me. “Che?” I say to the sardine.
The sardine doesn’t blink.
I drop a twenty on the table and leave, my espresso un-sipped, my lips zipped, the sardine still staring.
Oh, that went well. I find someone who knows Dante from when he was just a little boy, and what happens? My past, not Dante’s, ruins the interview. Lovely, just lovely.
I then hike over to Gleason’s Gym to see Johnny Sears, Dante’s old trainer. He would have to have something nice to say. Dante was his meal ticket for close to fourteen years.
Every fighter training inside Gleason’s stops throwing, skipping, or lifting for a deliciously long beat as I stride up to the main ring, where Sears is barking instructions to two skinny kids no older than twelve. I glance around at all these sweaty men and a few women, and they go back to work.
Nothing much has changed about Gleason’s since Granddaddy first brought me here twenty-five years ago. The Everlast banner still hangs, red paint is still peeling, the floor is still scarred and scuffed, the mirrors still need cleaning, the duct-taped heavy bags still sway and groan, and everything is still dark, damp, and sweaty.
“Where you from, Sports Illustrated?” Sears asks, his face haloed under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights. “Chin down, chin down!” he yells at the kids.
“Um, Personality, actually,” I say. “Just doing a follow-up on Lattanza.”
Sears rolls his eyes. “Time!” he yells
. He turns to me. “You takin’ pictures, it’ll cost you.”
“No pictures today.” Gleason’s charges photographers by the hour just to take some pictures.
“All right,” Sears says. “You got a minute.” He crosses his arms.
“What do you think of your old prodigy?” I ask.
“I hope to Christ Dante wins,” Sears says, “but I swear to Christ that he hasn’t got a prayer.”
That quote won’t run, even in the Times. “Lattanza’s body is solid granite.”
Sears waves a towel at me. “And so is his head. I read about his new training. He thinks he’s gone old school. A tennis ball? Swimming? Eating fish? This is old school. This is where he should be, not running around the woods in Canada.”
It’s what I used to think, too, but…“He says he’s in the best shape of his life.”
He rests both hands on the top rope. “Shape is only one thing. He should be sparring real boxers, not his own skinny kid or an over-the-hill cook. Who’s he kidding?”
Should I tell him about the third sparring partner he had…? Nah. She’s not even in Dante’s weight class anymore. “I’ve talked to Red, and he says Lattanza spars less to protect his hands, knees, and head.”
“Lady,” Sears says, softer this time, “Dante is in over his head. There’ll be nothing to protect him from Tank Washington tomorrow night. Nothing. It will be a bloodbath, and I’ll have to wear a raincoat.”
A decent quote, but I’d never run with it. Sears is another dead end. I close my notebook. “Will you be at the fight?”
He nods. “Got an up-and-comer on the undercard. I’ll be there.”
One last try. “Do you think Lattanza can go the distance?”
Sears shakes his head. “I got reservations at Il Campanello for nine-thirty. What you think?”
I go home, defeated and almost humiliated. Isn’t there one person who believes in Dante the way I do? I’m sure DJ does, but even Red didn’t look or act too convinced up in Canada. If I had actually found a couple Dante-crazed fans, maybe ones who had sent him their bloomers, no one would take anything they have to say seriously.
I sit in front of my laptop and begin typing, hoping that by the end of this piece, I’ll have some peace.
After several starts and stops, I realize I can only write this one way.
I can only write it from the heart.
Dante Lattanza, a man from Brooklyn, is fighting for the middleweight championship tonight against what some say are impossible odds.
And for whatever cynical reasons, people have a problem with Dante Lattanza’s claim that he is “fighting for love.”
I was the writer who broke this story two months ago, and I have a problem with this.
In sports today, there are athletes who are problems. They use steroids, HGH, and other performance-enhancing drugs. They have to return Olympic medals. They lose their titles. They serve long suspensions. Some are even banned for life or go to jail. They hold out for more money than they’re worth. They get into bar fights. They beat their wives. They demand to be traded. They use injuries as excuses for failure. They whine, moan, and groan if they don’t get the ball, the “rock,” or more playing time.
These are problems.
“Fighting for love” is not a problem.
Dante Lattanza is not a problem.
Lattanza gives back to the community, contributing money to Give a Kid a Dream at Gleason’s Gym. “There is a new generation of tough Brooklyn kids out there that could be champions,” Lattanza says. “They are already running the streets. I’d like to make sure that running counts for something.”
Lattanza has his priorities in order. “I fight to put food on the table, for a place to live,” Lattanza says. He fights so his son will consider him a hero. So what if he also fights for love? Dante Lattanza is a pure athlete who is self-motivated to train in the way his body and mind know best. If love is his motivation, who is anyone to judge?
What motivated Branch Rickey to bring Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers? Was it love? Was it financially motivated? Was it a cynical move to get more blacks into Ebbets Field?
No. It was the right thing to do.
What motivated Ted Williams and many, many others to fight for their country instead of a pennant during World War II? Was it love of country? It wasn’t the money.
It was the right thing to do.
Every four years this nation gathers athletes from sea to shining sea to compete on the world stage. Is it love? It can’t be the money.
It’s the right thing to do.
In the wise words of Vincent, a waiter at Monte’s Venetian Room who has known Lattanza since he was a little boy: “When you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t speak.”
To those who believe Dante Lattanza’s fight for love is a good thing, I say, “When you do know what you’re talking about, speak.”
I’m speaking today for Dante Lattanza. I’m listening to what he has to say:
“I fight for love,” Lattanza tells us. “It is the only fight worth having.”
I sit back from the laptop and breathe deeply. It says what I want it to say. I wipe a tear. There’s my heart right there on that screen. There’s my heart, Dante. Damn if you don’t still have it.
I cut and paste the piece into an e-mail addressed to Mel Butler, my old editor at the Times. I quickly dial him, and knowing he is a busy man who likes to multitask at multi-tasking, I don’t let him get a word in edgewise when he answers.
“Mel, Christiana Artis. I have an op-ed piece on Saturday’s Lattanza-Washington fight, runs about four hundred words, has to run Saturday or else. Think you could run it by Phil posthaste ASAP for me? I’m e-mailing it to you now.” I send the e-mail.
“Hello, Tiana, how are you?” Mel asks.
“It’s Christiana now,” I say, “and that has to be my byline for this one. You get it yet?”
A moment later, he says, “Got it. Give me a moment to read it, Christiana.”
I count to ten. He should be done now. “Have you shot it to Phil yet?”
“Just did,” Mel says. “Give him time to read it, okay?”
I growl. “Phil reads slowly and you know it.”
“So he’s thorough, okay?” Mel says. “Op-eds are his babies.”
I have to know. “Did you like it, Mel?”
“I wouldn’t have sent it to Phil, Christiana.”
Shoot. Twelve years I worked for the man, and I never got a single compliment. This is as close as I’ve ever gotten.
“Has he replied yet?” I ask.
“Christiana, you know—”
Silence. “Mel?”
“Phil likes it,” Mel says.
Yes! “No cuts?”
“Straight through,” Mel says. “That has to be a first.”
Double yes! “Mel, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Yes, you do,” he says. “Come back to work for me.”
I owe him this much. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Hmm. Right.”
“I will, Mel.”
“For how long?” he asks. Mel is no dummy.
“I’ll call you.”
“After the fight, right?” he says. “I know you’re going.”
Mel is still giving me deadlines. “Next week, Mel, I promise.”
“You better, and you know why?”
I have no idea why. “Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” he says.
He got me. “Thanks a million, Mel.”
“Call me,” he says, and he hangs up first.
I do a little shadowboxing after that, bouncing around my space throwing uppercuts.
I feel good.
I just hope it’s not too late.
Chapter 29
The next morning I run down Van Brunt to the Fairway Market to pick up a copy of the Times, squealing when I see my story (“What’s Wrong with Fighting for Love?”) and my byline (by Christiana Artis). A
s soon as my key hits my door, I hear the phone ringing.
Maybe it’s Dante. “Buon giorno.”
“You were certainly busy on your sick day,” Shelley says.
I sigh. “Sure was.” While I probably should have run the whole op-ed thing by Shelley before I did it, it’s really none of her concern. What’s she going to do, fire me for writing a piece for no pay?
“You know,” she says, “if you had written it for Newsday, I wouldn’t be so nervous. You aren’t thinking of leaving us, are you?”
The idea has been bouncing around in my head a lot, ever since I took the job at Personality in the first place. My work at the Times had burned me out, I needed a break, and Personality wanted me. I thought it would simplify my life, and it has. However, I am learning that I thrive on complications. If I’m not struggling, I’m not really living. The sheer grind of walking through Carroll Gardens to Monte’s and then to Gleason’s and back to Red Hook was a rush. I talked to real people about real issues, issues that interested me. I wasn’t on assignment and talking to fake people. Although I didn’t get but one decent quote in five hours of interviewing (and had a rude sardine staring at me), I felt alive as a writer, as a person.
“Say something, Tiana, you’re making me nervous,” Shelley says.
I check my caller ID. She’s not calling from the office. Hmm. I can’t sit around here all day waiting and watching the neon clock. I have to go-go-go somewhere so I don’t go-go-go crazy before tonight’s fight. I could go to the office and…Hmm. What can I do? I could do some research on Dante’s father. That could take a while. And after that, I can simply change and walk to the Garden. I open my wardrobe and select a tasteful white blouse and black slacks, laying them on the bed and plugging in my iron.
“Tiana? You there?”
“I’m here.” Let’s see, these will go in a garment bag, and I can pack my curling iron and makeup in my laptop case. “Shelley, I’ve been thinking. You have to give me more hard news, more investigative assignments. It’s what I’m built to do.”
“How in-depth can you go with celebrities?” she asks.
“Indeed,” I say, and I let that hang in the air. I’ll need walking shoes and dress shoes. Hose? It’s supposed to be cold. Knee socks and dress shoes? Who’ll know?
