THE BOXER'S LAMENT
The Final Round...
I made my way to 132nd Street, looking for the name of the gym Lahey gave me. I found it on my second trip around the block. I was afraid I'd gotten lost and that I'd never find it—or maybe I was thinking I'd never find my way out again. But the name was faded, and the paint had almost flaked off, so that the sign was the same colour as the building—a dark red that looked almost brown. The door was painted tan, and covered with old placards and posters advertising sales and social events—even "The Cotton Club" and "The Apollo" had something posted there—and the door was covered with graffiti.
The wind picked up, and the paper on the sidewalk swirled around me like dead leaves in the park. I opened the door and was plunged into instant darkness. There were stairs leading down to a basement, and a single, naked bulb that lighted the way. The stairs were wooden, worn out from years of use, creaking with every step I took. I could hear people working out, and when I pushed the door open at the bottom of the stairs, everyone stopped to look at me, as if I was invading the inner sanctuary of a secret temple.
There was the stench of sweat hanging in the air—a musty smell that reminded me of wet clothes and dampness—and I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were no more than a half dozen boys there, and I guessed their ages were anything from twelve to eighteen.
A boxing ring stood in the centre of the gym, and two boys were standing toe to toe, fighting guardedly—almost cautiously I thought, their slim bodies slick with sweat under the weak glow of the lights. A man was in the ring with them, telling the one boy when to throw punches at the other—a left, or a right, a jab or a hook—but the other boy wasn't fighting back; he was letting the first boy hit him. There was someone else working out at the heavy bag, with someone holding it for him, telling him to hit it harder, while another boy was hitting the speed bag. I could hear someone skipping somewhere off to my right, and there was the sound of weights, the unmistakable clang of barbells.
Across the room stood a kiosk. An old man was standing behind the counter reading a newspaper, trying not to look at me. He held a pencil in his mouth, his lips glistening in the light of the single bulb above his head. His glasses rested on top of his almost bald head, and he snapped them down on his nose with a quick nod. He was standing in front of a wall of old, worn out gloves, helmets and shoes, as well as a hamper full of damp towels and old clothes.
I made my way over to the man, and looking up, he smiled briefly, asking me if he could help me. His voice was deep and raspy, and I thought maybe he'd had one too many punches to the throat. I told him I was looking for Sam Langdon, and felt him staring at me longer than I thought necessary. I told him I had the address from Lahey, hoping he'd know the name. He smiled, pulling the pencil out of his mouth and laying it on the newspaper. He lifted the counter up, stepping out from behind the kiosk, asking me if I was from a newspaper, or a magazine. I told him I was Sam's niece, and he stopped, looking at me closely, saying he didn't realize Sam had any family left. I told him the war got in the way, and he laughed lightly, called me sister, and said, wasn't that the truth?
He opened a door off to the left, and there was a flight of wooden stairs. He told me to watch my step, because it was dark. He mumbled something about getting the light fixed overhead, but I told him I'd manage. He limped up the stairs with an effort, pulling himself up each step with a struggle, using the banister on our right hand side.
We climbed up the three flights of stairs before he unbolted a door opening onto a thinly carpeted floor. He asked me if I was from around here, or if I still lived in Boston. He asked me if I knew the old lady. I told him I lived in the Village now, all the while wondering who the old lady might be.
He led me down the hall, knocking on a door at the end. I heard Uncle Sam's unmistakable voice. The old man opened the door for me, and smiled as I stepped inside; he closed it behind me quietly.
It was a small room, crowded with old, worn out furniture. It was dark inside. I immediately reached for the light switch I assumed would be near the door. It didn't work. Uncle Sam turned on the lamp that stood on the small table beside the chair he was in. The chair was covered with an old towel; he was listening to the radio beside him, his arms crossed and resting on his lap. He was wearing green tinted glasses—the kind a woman might wear—and the same terry cloth bathrobe I remembered from Vermont Falls. He had the same felt lining insoles for slippers, and I could see he still wore pajama pants underneath. The room smelled of old sweat, and dampness, along with the unmistakable odour of stale piss and alcohol. When he asked me who I was, I realized I hadn't said anything yet.
When I said hello, the creases of his face stretched into a limping smile, and his eyebrows went up in surprise. He forced himself up slowly—and with an effort too, I noticed—and I stepped toward him, wrapping my arms around him. He buried his face into my shoulder, closed his arms around me, and held me tight. I could feel tears coming to my eyes, stinging them, and I knew he was crying too, because I could feel the sobs shaking his huge body. When he finally let me go, he felt for his chair and sat down again, reaching over to turn the radio off. He called me his Angel, just like he always did, telling me to pull a chair up close so he could see me. When I did, he reached his hands out and ran them along my face, feeling my eyes, my mouth, my nose, and even my ears—like he did all those times when I was a young girl. He ran his fingers over my hair, and along my jawline, caressing my chin, and telling me that I'd grown up to be a beautiful young woman.
He'd aged horribly since the last time I'd seen him; his body was bloated, and stuffed like a Christmas turkey. I looked at the permanent cauliflower ear he had—a grotesque thing that looked almost black and was twisted all inside itself—and then there was his flat, beaten nose, which looked like a small child's shoe sitting in the middle of his face. I thought how the rest of his face seemed to sag around itself. The corners of his limping smile slipped downward, giving him a seriousness I'd never seen before. He reminded me of a wax sculpture that had melted all over itself because it was left out in the sun for too long. Those fine wrinkles he once had were deep creases now, and his furrowed brow seemed to shine in the soft light coming from the lamp beside him. There were scars on his face I hadn't noticed before, thin lines that tracked around his eyes, and along his cheekbones. His hair was almost all grey now, his hair line receding like a muddy tide.
I asked him to tell me what happened to Mamma. He grew silent, his tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. I watched him as he pulled his glasses off slowly, carefully, wiping his eyes deliberately. I felt awkward, and tried not to let my emotions get the better of me, but I knew it was no use; I wanted to tell him that it was just as difficult for me, but I think he already knew that. He shook his head slowly, and for a fleeting moment I thought he was saying, no, he didn't want to talk about it. I thought my heart would burst. He was the only one who could tell me what happened. He put his glasses back on at last, and said he was sorry, but it was better to hear it from him.
He told me he'd been playing the same words over and over again in his mind—maybe a thousand different times, and a thousand different ways—wondering how he was going to tell me. When I didn't come back after the war though, he thought I really was dead, and told me a part of him died with my memory after he finally accepted it. I tried to explain what happened during the years I was away—grousing over the facts as best I could—telling him that after he left Vermont Falls, I had no way of knowing where he'd gone. He waved it off like it was unimportant—as if anything about him was unimportant.
He laughed lightly and told me Mamma used to sit outside watching the sun go down every night, praying for my safety. He'd taken to the bottle heavily after I left, he said, and was more of a burden than a comfort to her; he said he regretted that more than anything else. I think he was regretting a lot of things. He said he was sorry for all the hardship he'd put me through when I was a kid, but he said it as an afterthought, then reached a hand out to me and touched my knee.
He remembered how Mamma was depressed after Black Johnny and the kids died, and said she seemed to come to life again when I was born. She was more like the woman he knew in Boston after I was born. I was born late in life for her, you see—she was well past forty when I was born—and she considered me something of a second chance: a miracle baby, he grinned. I was someone she could be proud of. I could read and write; I was the first one in the family to have a real education. From slave to college graduate in three generations, he smiled. It was something to be proud of, he added. I told him I never graduated, but I was thinking of going back to college on the G.I. Bill.
She used to get her mail sent to the Cannery, he went on. She read my letters to him, and he could hear the pride in her voice as she read them out loud. She was afraid for me, and she used to follow the war in the south Pacific through old newspapers she found, and by listening to the radio at the Cannery. When the letter came saying I was reported missing, they told him that her heart burst: just like that, he added with a snap. She collapsed on the ground right there, they told him, almost as soon as she'd read it. She was laying on the floor covered in fish guts and scales, he said, and when they picked her up and put her on a table, she was already dead. They told him she was still clutching the letter in her fist, and that they had to pry her fingers apart to see what she was reading. If she died of anything, he said, she died of a broken heart.
The saddest part of all, he said after sitting quiet for more than a minute—and it was a minute in which I felt my heart filling with tears that stained my eyes like an ink blot as little pieces of my mind drifted off like I was sending fragments of myself to her so that she'd have something to remember me by—was that four days after she died, a letter came to the Cannery from me.
Mr. Hilton from the Cannery brought the letter out and Uncle Sam told him to open it and read it to him. It was the last letter I'd sent. It was a letter I'd remembered. I was alive and doing as well as could be expected, he said with that smile he had, and he said that it broke his heart to hear that. I couldn't stop thinking of Mamma laying on the table covered with fish guts and scales.
She used to write letters to me. Every night he said she'd sit at the small table with an oil lamp burning, writing page after page of things she thought I'd like to hear. I remembered how she sat at the table rewriting the letter to Mrs. Evanston every night. I felt tears coming to my eyes and opened my purse to take a tissue out.
He still had the letters, he said, and promised he'd find them for me. He was certain they were in the cigar box with his old pictures and press clippings. It was all he had left of Vermont Falls; all that he had left of her. It was the only thing he could think to take with him when he left.
* * *
I still have them all: the cigar box with the pictures, Mamma's letters, the picture of the young woman I convinced myself was Mrs. Evanston. I went back to visit Uncle Sam as often as I could, but he moved to Boston some months later—I remember how he laughed and said Lahey's trust fund was more successful than either of them could have imagined it would be.
He died broke all the same though. I never felt so alone as when I answered the phone that morning at three a.m. It was a woman's voice, soft and faint—as gentle as a sea breeze on my cheeks—and I could hear the pain of her tears in it. I felt my heart letting go, like another part of me was slipping away and I'd never get it back. I'd given away so many pieces of myself by then, I thought I had nothing left to give. She called me Dear, told me that he loved me, and that I was always in his thoughts. I thanked her, and hung up the phone.
I went to the funeral with Lahey. He said he was putting his pen and pad away for the day. He was going out of respect for a man who was the greatest fighter pound for pound that ever lived. I thought it was a bold statement for anyone to make—considering all the stories I'd heard from Uncle Sam and his cronies when I was a kid, I mean. But I hadn't really believed in Uncle Sam back then, did I? Not like Lahey, and everyone else who never even had the chance to know him. I wonder why we never think of things like that until after, when it's too late? It took a man like Lahey to convince me that Uncle Sam really was as good as he said he was. He believed in himself, he believed in Mamma, and he believed in me—long before I even knew about believing in myself. It's just one more thing I try to sleep with.
Before they buried him though, before that first shovelful of dirt was tossed onto his grave, I took out the small picture I had in my purse—the picture I'd stolen from him all those years ago—and looked at it one last time. It was worn out, bent, and torn, and it was a woman I never knew but always thought of as his one true love. I carried the picture with me through all the days of my youth, through the Hell of war, and back again, looking after it like it was a sacred talisman. I placed it inside the coffin, thinking if he'd want to take anything with him, it would be her. When Lahey asked me later who she was, I said it was just one more memory for Uncle Sam to take with him.
Beautiful story.