by J. J. Murray
I can’t believe this.
“That night I let you take fish from my plate, and later, I let you take my heart.”
“You…let me?”
He winks. “I have better defense than you think.” He hugs me. “Andiamo,” he says. “I must say thank you to New York one last time.”
We move to the center of the ring and wave, yelling, “Tante grazie!”
After one final bow, it takes a phalanx of New York’s finest to get us through the throng into the dressing room, paparazzi taking shot after shot of me.
Little old me from Red Hook, the little girl with no parents, the little girl who learned how to box and ended up with a boxer.
I am a story waiting to happen.
I’ll never write it. I mean, who would believe it?
I get a scary thought. I’m a celebrity now. I wonder if they’ll ask me to say anything wise.
Nah.
They know I’ll make sense. They won’t quote me. Wisdom doesn’t sell magazines.
I lean on Dante’s legs as he sits on an examination table in the dressing room unraveling the tape on his hands. We’re waiting for the ringside physician to check him out, and it’s taking forever.
“Where is Red?” Dante asks.
This might be hard for him. “You don’t need Red anymore.”
“He is my friend,” he says. “I will always need him. I love his cooking.”
I tell Dante about Red’s restaurant.
“Brooklyn Heights.” He smiles. “No wonder he was on the phone so much the last two weeks. He even sneaked off with Lelani. He said they needed some time together. Bene. It is about time the world tastes his cooking. We will go there often.”
I pout. “I can cook.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders. “We will cook together, remember?”
“Yes.” I crawl up on to his lap and kiss his puffy cheeks. “You dropped your left, Mr. Lattanza.”
He shrugs. “Bad habit. But I had to bleed a little to make the lesson I taught real.”
“He’ll want a rematch.”
He captures me with those eyes. “I no longer do rematches, Christiana. No more rematches. Never again.”
That’s when I, um, suck the life out of him. I know his lungs are empty after that kiss.
“Where is that doctor?” I complain.
“Tank is hurt.” He looks toward the mop closet. “We do not have to wait out here, do we?”
In the closet, the only light floats up from the sliver of a crack at the bottom of the door. While a mop handle gets fresh with my booty, I wander my hands all over him.
“This has been so…so…myth-magical,” I say.
His hands are wandering, too. “It is not a word.”
“It is now,” I say. “I may have it trademarked.”
He puts his hot hands under my sweater. “What does it mean?”
“It’s what love is,” I say, almost out of breath. “Love is full of myth and magic. Myth-magical.”
He massages my back. “It is a good word. I will use it in my book.”
I lean back. “Your book?”
“My autobiography.”
I smile, not that he can see my smile. “And who taught you how to write?”
“No one,” he says, massaging lower and lower. “I can talk. I can type. Therefore, I can write.”
I tap his cup with a knuckle. “It’s not as easy as all that, Mr. Lattanza.”
He slides his hands between my underwear and slacks. Ah. My booty is happy again. “What?” he says. “You jab at the keys using your left more than your right.”
“Che?” Oh, that feels so good.
“The keyboard,” he says. “The left hand does most of the work. I have made a study of this. I have a good left hand. Therefore, I will be a good writer.”
I take that left hand and move it around my slacks to a very special, very needy, seriously wet place. “You have a good left hand, Mr. Lattanza. And now, if you’ll be so good as to drop it a bit lower…”
“You tell me to keep my left up, and now you tell me to put it down. You have a hard time making up your mind, Christiana. We will have to work on this.”
I put his finger under my underwear. “Drop it, okay?”
His finger starts to stroke me. “But now that I have dropped my left, you will hit me.”
Oh yes. “As hard and as fast as I can.”
For the rest of my life.
Chapter 35
We didn’t get married in the Garden, though Dante actually looked into the possibility. “It will only cost two arms and one leg,” he told me.
That wasn’t going to happen. I need all his appendages, especially his arms.
We were married a month later at Christ Church in Cobble Hill, where a Sopranos wedding scene was filmed a few years ago. We didn’t have all of HBO’s cameras, and it snowed, reducing our guests to, oh, about eight hundred, most of whom we didn’t invite. Several even waved Italian flags in the back pew. Personality sent a photographer, and we ended up with a nice spread a few pages after an exclusive picture of megacouple’s latest adoption.
Oh well.
We prepared to honeymoon in Jamaica, but a nor’easter cancelled our flight. Neither of us felt like leaving the Crowne Plaza near JFK—in Jamaica, New York—and I couldn’t have lasted the flight without messing with him or him with me anyway, so…
I can’t tell you much about the Crowne Plaza except to say that room service was nice, punctual, and very discreet. We, um, we tore it up, and we didn’t even use the bed all that much. We shooed away housekeeping for days—except when we needed more towels. We did this sauna thing with steam in the bathroom…. Oh, and the carpeting was exquisitely plush. Not a single rug burn.
It was, um, really beautiful in Jamaica that time of year.
Mr. and Mrs. Red and Lelani Gregory (I was her maid of honor!) have opened an intimate little restaurant in Brooklyn Heights called Red’s Lelani. It’s not a boxer bar or sports bar, either, though a poster of Dante and me hugging in the ring is the first picture you see in the waiting area. Red’s Lelani serves Italian-Polynesian food.
“Occidental Continental,” Red calls it.
Lelani calls it “Poly-talian” and “Ital-esian.”
The critics call it “ridiculously superb…rambunctiously appealing…and the perfect blend of the boot and the islands.”
Food critics. Always ridiculously and rambunctiously ransacking the thesaurus.
Red’s Lelani, which has a decent view of Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty from its upper outdoor seating area, is doing well.
“You would not believe how many amazing things Red can do with pineapple juice,” Lelani told me on our first visit. “We’re even going to bottle and sell his barbecue sauce.”
The atmosphere at Red’s Lelani is not Poly-talian. “No tiki torches, hula girls, mug shots, or Italian flags here,” Lelani says. “This is our joint.”
Instead, a miscellaneous mix of their lives provides the décor, including several round cards, plenty of handmade furniture from Barry’s Bay, Hawaiian Tropic calendars, and wonderful photo and poster collages of the old Brooklyn Dodgers.
Yeah. I donated my shrine to them as a wedding gift. Red cried. I know he and Granddaddy would have been the best of friends.
Lelani turned the actual stool Dante used during his last fight upside down and uses it to hold the menus.
There’s some poetic justice in that.
Dante told me much later about the secret deal he’d made with Evelyn a full month before the fight. “We both knew we could not start over. There was no magic, no fire. So, we made a deal. We agreed that when I won, I would retire and train DJ at Gleason’s every summer.”
He and Evelyn (I can now say it without stumbling) made a compromise that day, something Dante said they had never made in their marriage. So far, she’s kept her part of the bargain, allowing DJ to stay with us without her popping in unannounced for a visit. Si
nce my Red Hook “space,” as Dante called it, was too small for the three of us, Dante bought me a house.
A real house.
I do not live in some moronic realtor’s idea that a four-family quadra-plex is a house.
After selling his property in Virginia, Dante used the money from that sale and money he already had to buy us a house in South Slope near Prospect Park. It has sea blue clapboard with shiny hardwood floors. A fireplace to snuggle in front of is just off a huge kitchen where we battle for counter space nightly. The house had already been totally renovated, so all we had to do was move in. Three large bedrooms and two full baths fill the top floor. I have my own real bathroom for the first time in my life! Red took one look at the kitchen and pronounced it “gourmet.” The master bedroom has a deck, which overlooks our private garden, not that we ever, um, look down at the garden when we’re, um, “working out.” Dante is converting the English basement into a recreation and workout room using my old “gym,” and I sometimes let him work.
There’s just something so extremely sexy about a man hammering a nail. I just can’t explain it. I mean, he’s good with his hammer, and I love him to nail me.
What’s a girl to do?
I love seeing the love and respect our neighbors give him. Dante is just a regular guy, a typical homeowner, chatting up the Donatello family next door. “I’ve been away from Brooklyn too long,” Dante says. “I am no longer homesick.”
South Slope isn’t exactly Red Hook, but at least I have my own dirt, my own flowers, and my own tomatoes to tend in my own yard.
Our summer houseguest DJ is undefeated (12–0) as an amateur, and miracle of miracles, he actually boxes. I’ve, um, been whispering for him to use his jab more when Dante isn’t paying attention. It’s working.
“He is a boxer!” Dante shouts at Gleason’s Gym. “He does the opposite of everything I teach him! Teenagers! Whatyagonnado?”
DJ wins easily because he has mad skills, and we’re hoping he’ll be invited to the next Olympic trials.
“When you make the team,” Dante tells DJ, “you will represent Brooklyn, not Syracuse.”
“I can be from both places, Dad,” DJ says.
“No. Only Brooklyn. Brooklyn gave me heart. Brooklyn will never disappoint you.”
It has been difficult dealing with the fanfare surrounding DJ’s famous name. He prefers “Dante Lattanza Junior” now, which totally solidifies his bond with his legendary father/trainer. So many reporters want to talk to Dante instead of DJ, but Dante sets them straight. “It is DJ’s time, not mine,” Dante tells them, avoiding their cameras. “Talk to him. It is his turn to be a legend.”
Dante is still a little vain, but he has every right to be. I have had many legendary nights with that man. Oh, and mornings. And occasionally, when we work out through the night and the morning, during the daylight hours, too. Hmm. Just about any time, really. We like to “work out” together.
Evelyn has given her mouth a workout, too. She has been a guest on all the talk shows, and I mean all the talk shows. She swapped pet stories with Ellen (after agreeing with Ellen that I was a “gold-digging opportunist”), traded recipes with Oprah (as if Evelyn ever cooked!), and gave health tips to Matt Lauer (as if he really needed any). We heard she’s filming some cable show where a woman whittles ten men down to one over the course of several weeks. It’s going to be titled Left in the Ring, and the promos are already running: “She expected a ring but was left in the ring. She’s the one the champ didn’t choose….”
Nauseating.
Even though I’m nothing but a gold-digging opportunist to Evelyn, I hope she does find a nice man. For all her queenly ways, she is a lady who deserves a gentleman.
Dante has been doing some color commentary for HBO, and he’s a whole lot more insightful than any of the other nonboxer analysts are. Here’s an exchange from the other night:
Jim: Thornton threw some wicked lefts to Jackson’s ribcage that round.
Dante: They took my breath away, too. Those hurt. Those let you know you are alive.
Harry: Pain is gain, eh?
Dante: Pain is pain, Harry. Pain hurts. Body shots do damage.
Harry: But those kinds of punches don’t often score points on the judges’ scorecards.
Dante: Land enough of them, and you can send everyone home early. The judges’ scorecards won’t matter.
Harry: Well, I think Thornton is spending too much time chopping wood.
Dante: Chopping wood? He is shattering cartilage. He is breaking bones. He is lacerating liver. He is bruising lungs. Jackson will be peeing blood for days.
As I said, Dante is colorful.
And more popular than ever. We can’t go anywhere without someone asking for his autograph. And Little Italy? Fuggedaboutit. He’ll never have to pay for another meal there as long as he lives. He gets at least two pairs of underwear in the mail every week, and I love wearing (and not wearing) all those pairs of underwear for my sex god, my dio del sesso. The ones that fit. I won’t wear thongs, bloomers, or ones with another woman’s name stitched onto the crotch.
I cannot nor will I ever complain about all the money we have because he “took it all,” and Dante makes sure we use it wisely and for good causes. We still only have the Land Cruiser, and it just exceeded two hundred thousand miles. We auctioned off Dante’s gloves, trunks, boxing shoes, mouthpiece, and even his protective cup (!) to raise money for lung cancer research (his charity) and the fight against domestic violence (my charity). It is so amazing what people will bid for used, sweaty boxing equipment.
The cup received the highest bid.
It, um, sits in a box Dante doesn’t know about. It’s in the attic. Shh. Don’t tell.
That’s the beauty of a silent auction.
I quit working for Personality, but I didn’t quit writing. Mel is letting me freelance for the Times, and I love it.
I…love…it.
I get to talk to real people all day.
I’m also writing Dante’s biography. Okay, okay, we are writing it. Dante can actually turn a nice phrase in English every now and then, and the editing sessions are hotter than hot. I have to dry out my keyboard some days. We already have a publisher (Little, Brown) and a contract with lots of zeroes.
Now if I can only find the time.
You see, we have our hands full in a big way.
Dantiana “Red” Lattanza arrived last month, all nine pounds, nine ounces of her.
“She will be a heavyweight for sure,” Dante says.
Dante thinks we conceived her in the mop closet at the Garden. I think we made her in Jamaica, New York. No matter who is right, Dantiana will have an interesting story to tell her friends when she grows up.
Not that we’d actually ever tell her these details. I was made in a mop closet? I was made in Queens?
I don’t want to scar my child for life.
Dante has already started training her to be a southpaw. “Keep your right high, higher…bene,” he says as he boxes her with his pinkies. “You will move like seta, like your silky mama. Protect yourself at all times, don’t stop jabbing, tenere provare. When the time is right, you come out swinging like your mama.”
He’s also giving her advice on boys: “If you love a bad boy, he will make you cry. A good boy will never make you cry. You must find a good boy. Your mama will help you. She can tell.”
And I can. I have a good boy. His name is Dante.
I didn’t tell Dante about Vincent, but one cold snowy night, Vincent came through. On a visit to Monte’s, Dante kissed Vincent on both cheeks before sitting, and it brought tears to Vincent’s eyes. Mine, too. I handed Dantiana to Vincent so he could hold his granddaughter for the first time. It was myth-magical, and Vincent wept. Dante saw Vincent’s tears, my tears, and my eyes moving from him to Vincent.
“No,” Dante said.
I could only nod and say, “Yes.”
Dante, my Dante, my gentle, gentle man, didn’t weep or even t
ear up. He stood, took Dantiana from Vincent and handed her to me, then hugged his father as his son for the first time in his life, right there during happy hour at Monte’s Venetian Room, looking out over the suddenly beautiful Gowanus Canal.
Another myth-magical moment.
I didn’t mind the bursts of Italian those two shared for the rest of the evening, their voices so much alike that they blended into one sexy Italian voice. Dantiana’s eyes went back and forth between them. She’s going to be at least bilingual, maybe more. She has her father’s eyes.
Once Dantiana is asleep, Dante and I talk, argue, and make up every night. I used to think that relationships were interviews that never ended. Now I know different.
Marriage is the interview that never ends.
I’m so glad I decided to interview him….
“Do not lie to these good people who are reading this book,” Dante says, trying to delete the previous sentence. “I was the one interviewing you from the very beginning. Type that.”
“No,” I say.
He lifts me from this chair and slides into it, turning me to face him. He looks over my shoulder while he attempts to type. “I will fix this,” he says.
I start to grind on him, unbuttoning my red, white, and green flannel shirt. I look behind me to see what he’s typed so far, and I laugh because I only see a question:
“May I interview your corpo provocante now?”
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank the following folks for their help in the creation of this novel:
*Stephanie and Giuseppe Spalino for checking and correcting all the Italian words and phrases in this novel. Italian is a tricky, regional language. Any mistakes in this text are my own, not theirs;
*Mike Riddle for knowing how to spell a certain actress’s name, listening to me rant about the current state of boxing, and helping me to live “in the balcony”
