--Excerpt from LOOKING FOR A FIGHT
(page 6) I arrived at Gleason's boxing gym because I was looking for a fight -- though I didn't know it at the time. Stunned by the recent dissolution of my marriage problems of my marriage, and angry with my ex-husband, I was infuriated to find myself suddenly alone. Worse than that was the knowledge that I was now being perceived by my family and friends as vulnerable, helpless and victimized, someone to be pitied and worried over. My mother, whom I adore, is nonetheless a chronic worrier. She would call me every day and I would be compelled to calm her fears about the future and ignore my own. And though my father said all the right things, I could tell he was thinking he'd have to now step in and take care of me. The fact that I'd supported myself since college seemed to be irrelevant. Single friends would grab my hand and ask if I was OK -- as if I'd contracted a terminal illness. Married friends asked for details to reassure themselves they weren't headed down the same path. "Maybe if you'd had kids " ventured my friend Susan, as if that would have provided a distraction from the far deeper problems of my marriage.
Sparring with Dominick
(page 153) I never saw the punch coming, but if a target were painted on my face, it landed in the bull's-eye, squarely, flatly, into my nose. If his other punches felt like knives, this one felt as wide and broad as a two-by-four. All I can remember is his over-the-top grin right before it happened.
"Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh." This is the sound I hear after the punch lands, and I notice, somehow, as if from a great distance, that the voice sounds exactly like my own. Somehow I've moved quickly away, my feet on autopilot, as if backpedaling on a unicycle. There's a warm, numbing, yet tingling sensation in my nose and upper lip; it's spreading out through my sinuses, radiating through the center of my face. Wet liquid dripping, now pouring, onto my face. Snot? Or blood? I have a mild cold, so it's possible that this is nothing more than a runny nose; that punch might have dislodged something in my sinuses.
I slowly stagger toward my corner to see that Gilbert (my absent trainer's assistant) is climbing into the ring. I raise a glove to my throbbing nose and feel the leather slide against my dace, which is weirdly slick. I pull it away and stare at my glove, shocked.
Even against the dull black, it looks too bright and too red; it looks so terribly wrong, my blood. My eyes look down the front of my white T-shirt, which is splattered in blood. And blood is still falling out of my face in heavy, pregnant drops like summer rain. One splashes against the canvas, another on my bare thigh, leaving a red trail as it rolls toward my knee; now I'm moving forward, craning my neck forward, trying to bleed on the canvas, rather than on myself. Gilbert has arrived and is pulling my headgear off. As he does this, I have nothing to do but stare at these big droplets falling down and hitting the floor, and I'm starting to lose it. There's a big clog of crying working against my chest wall, fighting to bust out in a series of panicked, wracking sobs, I'm upset and scared, but I'm more afraid of everyone else knowing how scared I am, afraid of the sight of my own blood!
"No hard feelings," I say to Gilbert as we get down out of the ring.
"He hurt your feelings?"
"No!" I'm unaware that everyone in the whole place has clustered around us, "I said, 'No hard feelings!'" Getting this sporting, casual, terribly calculated sentence out without sobbing was a Herculean task. That it might be misquoted into the girly observation that someone had hurt my feelings was, under the circumstances, intolerable. I'd rather bleed to death right here on the spot.
Gigo steps forward and starts unlacing my gloves. "What are you doing?" I ask him, suddenly embarrassed by everyone's concern. "It's just a nosebleed. I still have three rounds with the heavy bag."
"No, no," he says, yanking off the gloves. "You do the speed bag first. Better for you."
I glance around and am surprised by the expressions on everyone's faces: shock, concern, horror, dismay. There's something oddly funny about it. Next time I want everyone to know I'm hurt by a punch in the ring, I should bite down on a vial of fake blood, and presto! Instant sympathy! Oh, the tragedy reflected in these usually impassive faces, as they behold me with a bloody nose. Such outrage!
Just sitting here with a stained shirt, holding a soggy towel, I'm breaking everyone's hearts. People are taking turns pulling Dominick aside, talking go him sternly, shaking his shoulders when he shrugs them by way of responding. Arturo dodges in past Gigo and Gilbert and leans toward me, touching my arm. "Lynn! From now on, you spar with me, ok?" I smile and nod, amused that everyone thinks I'm about to quit, that I'll get up and stomp on out of here. At least three boxers have leaned in to tell me not to blow my nose, to just let it alone.
Dominick steps forward and stands in front of me. He's smiling. "Hey !" His arms are outstretched, as if I'm invited to stand up and embrace him.
"Look, I'm fine. You got a lucky punch, that's all." My voice sounds like I have a bad cold. The blood's probably clotting.
"Nothing lucky about it," Gilbert says quietly, some anger in his tone, his hand protectively on my shoulder. "It was a punch."
"You hit me," Dominick says, his voice halting. "I hit you -- you hit me, you hit hard! You know? I hit -- I don't " His voice trails off again. He's obviously been prodded into apologizing, but what he's doing is trying to tell me the bloody nose was my own fault. Well, it was. I am, after all, a boxer, in Gleason's. I did drag my completely non-threatening boyfriend who told all assembled, including Dominick, that I could take care of myself. I wanted to learn how to be a killer, and now there's a cluster of men here who want Dominick to apologize to me for taking undue advantage. I came in here to be treated equally, and to kick ass, and suddenly I feel a little too much like his poor victim sitting here covered in blood.
