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I boxed with those men, mostly Greg, for almost a year. I turned all sorts of colors in my tutelage, found new and different places for pain to hide: the eardrum, the roots of your teeth, the edges of your elbow. I got very acquainted with ice packs and the speed bag in the school workout room. I started giving Greg some competition. Greg was a bleeder, his one failing, and I made his nose bleed once. I made him comment in his quiet, calm way, "I felt that one." Then he'd laugh and lift his gloves for a second round.
When the Toughman drew near, I was all nerves and confidence. Prepared yet unsettled, I knew if I could take a 250-pound man, I could take these women. In my mind, the prize was already mine, I just had to show up to claim it. I threw up for two days before I left for West Virginia. The week before I left to fight, I met the woman I would fall in love with. I also found out that if I did fall in love with her, I was going to be a mom in six months. All this was in my head and I was heading to a dairy farm in West Virginia where I would stay a night before I fought the first fight in my life where someone actually wanted to kill me.The day of the fight, Greg and I were served glasses of fresh milk, right out of the cow. It felt like a fighter thing to do, drink something right from the meaty source. I felt ancient, strong, barbaric. I felt ready.
Arriving at the armory in Beckley where we planned to duke it out, I found I wasn't fighting. There weren't enough girls. I could rest the night. Greg, however, had a nice round with a guy who fell easy, swept up and then down, with the strong uppercut Greg used so well and so many times on me. After that hit, the man wobbled through the final rounds, jelly legs just taking him to the end. We celebrated at the Waffle Hut, Greg wolfing down plates of food since he'd fasted to stay in the light-heavyweight class.
The next night was the big one. They wrap your hands in tape, then cloth wraps. It protects your knuckles, because it hurts to hit someone straight-on, no protection. It also hurts to take someone's bare knuckles on your skin, so hands must be wrapped. Hand-wrapping is like a holy act to me. Swirling the thin lengths of fabric about your wrist for support, your knuckles for safety, it takes on the solemn air that comes with crossing yourself, or lighting candles at Shabbat. It is a holy moment where the boxer is quiet, concerned with getting it tight, not too tight, just right. A second of peace.
Next comes the walk of fame. This is classic cheese: "Eye of the Tiger" blasts through the armory speakers as all of us line up and circle the ring, raising fists as if this is some form of mortal combat and all of us are the greatest fighters on earth. We're skinny, fat, misshapen and short on muscle. We don't fit well in the boxing shorts, looking ridiculous parading to an 80s song screaming about "The thrill of the fight!"
Happily, the fights take over, one after another, in vicious rounds of single elimination. I am paired with a woman of at least 35 who is half a foot shorter than me. I am 20 and spirited, quick with a punch and not so bad on my feet. I know I hit like a man, solid and strong, because I have put my fist through an inch and a half of wood. She is past her fighting prime and, man, am I gonna cream her.
We're looking at each other, ready to kill, when the bell sounds and she starts in. I duck around her first few punches, take a couple of soft ones to the sides, nothing to wince about, and then come in hard, surrounding her with my fists, working up then down the torso like I'm playing xylophone with her ribcage. I step back as she tries to fight back, and I hit the soft, padded ground.
I get up again, confused, not sure why I fell. I never fell in other bouts, maybe because the floor was hard and less forgiving than Greg's gloves. But I swing in, step out, and fall again. You hit the ground three times in a round, you're out. I'm pissed because this time I felt her foot behind mine. The bitch was tripping me.
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