Lay the Favorite (17 page)

No one told me that fighting at the Police Athletic League gym meant that I’d be fighting an actual cop. “Fuck,” I said, winded, even though I hadn’t left my place against the wall. Wrapping my hands, Señor Morales extended his neck and puffed out his bottom lip—
don’t be a baby
. “Oh, this is stupid,” I muttered, and that was the last thing I said until my fight was over.

In the center of the ring two heavyweights in bloodstained shorts staggered like drunks. Neither had the energy to keep their
hands up. I spotted Rodrigo, ringside, studying the fight with a murderous expression. I was wearing his boxing trunks. Inside the waistband, scribbled in permanent marker, his last name pressed against my queasy stomach.

An official motioned me toward the ring and my insides froze up. I turned my attention to the cement floor and followed Señor Morales to the red corner.

The sight of two women in the ring hit the crowd like a shot of tequila. Their whoops and whistles embarrassed me. In the opposite corner, the cop, Giobanna, loosened her shoulders. Close up, she appeared less intimidating. She was shorter than me, no more than five feet tall, and so chunky that everything was dimpled—cheeks, knees, and elbows. When Giobanna’s name was announced over the loudspeaker, she pumped her gloves in the air. The referee looked at me in my corner, Giobanna in hers, and shouted, “Box!”

Giobanna came at me so aggressively that my instinct was to call for a time-out. In amateur boxing, cornermen aren’t allowed to speak to fighters during rounds. Luckily, English-speaking boxers from my gym yelled instructions from their seats. One-two, Beth! Straight down the middle. Use your jab. Stick! I stuck once and did little else.

By round two, Giobanna’s mouth hung open, showing the black of her mouthpiece, the first sign of fatigue. She moved around, all whomperjawed, as though her entire left side had seized up. Dominating the center of the ring, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I jabbed. When the crowd screamed for real punches, I jabbed. When Giobanna swayed back, far out of my reach, I jabbed. Even after the bell—jab! My one attempt at throwing a straight right ended up as more of a bitch slap across Giobanna’s face, a move the crowd mistook for showboating and which prompted the referee to give me a warning. Psychologically, though, it broke what little determination Giobanna had left, and for the remainder of the fight she stumbled toward me, her distended nose smashing into my glove like bug to windshield. God, I thought, I loved punching her face. I felt free, strong, and in control. The only thing that caught me off guard was the final bell.

The referee raised my glove in victory. Someone pushed a trophy into my arms. Its engraved marble base declared me
CHAMPION
.

The adrenaline stayed in my blood for weeks. I couldn’t sleep; I had no appetite. It felt a lot like falling in love. Every morning at five, as the silvery stars faded, Rodrigo and I did our roadwork at Red Rock Canyon. As we kept pace with one another, our sneakers crunched into the desert sand. Sometimes we came upon wild donkeys, gray ones with white noses, roaming the wide, empty spaces of the Mojave. Seven miles later when we reached the picnic tables, we caught our breath and lay on our backs, looking up at the planes drawing racing stripes across the sky-blue sky.

My brain stalled in confusion. I fell backward onto the bed and reread my film-school acceptance letter. As my eyes retraced the word “Congratulations!” I felt neither excited nor proud. Three months had passed since I’d applied, long enough for me to completely lose interest. Film school had been nothing but a passing fancy and it was hard for me to pretend otherwise. Still, it was in my nature to take advantage of absolutely every opportunity to celebrate anything—even the most unmerited achievement of my life. I grabbed some cash from the coffee canister and returned with a bottle of champagne.

Days passed before I finally told Dink.

“I’m not going,” I said, handing him the letter. “I only applied ’cause you fired me and I was in a bad mood.”

“Beth, go. Do something with your life. You don’t wanna be making bets at Arizona Charlie’s when you’re forty years old.”

“Yes I do,” I said, sincerely. Despite how much Dink and I had been arguing and how short-tempered I’d become with his self-pity, I was not ready to say good-bye.

Dink raised his eyes from the letter and looked straight at me.

“No you don’t. Go to school. If you don’t pick a profession, it’ll pick you.”

It was impossible for me to ignore Dink’s words. He was right: it was time for me to start planning a future, a real one. I called the school and accepted my offer of admission. Once I allowed myself to commit, my frame of mind shifted and I was able to see things more clearly. There was no sense in considering a long-distance relationship with Rodrigo. Our thing had been going on for two months now, which was quite a stint for me. Suddenly, he seemed less like an ideal husband and more like a dazzling hazard sign blocking my new stretch of highway. On the afternoon of his fight in Bakersfield, I walked him to the bus station. The closer we got to the hisses and groans of bus brakes, the more eager I was to not have him in my life anymore. This is how I was with men. As easily as I fell in love, I fell out of it. And most of the time I didn’t even bother to break up or say good-bye. I simply disappeared and hoped they wouldn’t hate me. My lips touched Rodrigo’s for the last time and I retreated. Standing arm’s length away, I wished him luck, and promised I’d see him as soon as he returned.

My going-away party, sponsored by Dink Inc., took place at an Irish pub. Boxing friends brought their good humor. Gambling friends brought presents—purses, clothes, jewelry, and cash tucked into cards—which I ripped open the moment they were handed to me. Salt-rimmed tequila shots circled the waiter’s tray like numbers on a clock and by the time the main course arrived most everyone was smashed. The increasing sincerity of each slurred toast made me feel like a fraud.

“You guys,” I said. “I’m not going to be a success. My application was a complete lie.”

“Totally normal,” a gambler’s wife replied, and the party carried on. One card read: “Your loser ass friends will miss you.” Everyone was so kind. I laid my head on the table and cried, “I don’t want to go.”

Someone said: You’re drunk.

Someone said: Where are you going, again?

Someone said: Don’t go. Move to New York. Fight in the Golden Gloves.

I lifted my head.

“She’s going,” Dink countered. He and Tulip were the only sober ones in the room.

Tulip raised her glass of sparkling water. “I’ll miss you, Beth.” Her voice was small. “You were the best buffer against a husband a wife could have.” Blushing and giggling, she glanced lovingly at Dink for his reaction. His face was buried in his ticker.

“To buffers,” I said, and clinked Tulip’s glass.

Toward the end of the night, Dink presented me with a gift wrapped in notepaper scribbled with old wagers: SF 1st Half ↓22–130 50. In drunkenness, I saw skillful origami.

“Wow,” I said, breathlessly.

“It’s not wow. Open it.”

I unfolded the sides, revealing a dozen poker chips. Five thousand dollars’ worth. Trimmed in gold, they looked good enough to eat.

“I know you didn’t save any money,” he said.

I hadn’t felt this taken care of since I was a child. I slumped my face into his soft Buddha belly.

Along the Strip, a paradise of twinkling lights poured through the streets and raised my spirits. The chips slid around my palm, which had turned sweaty from holding them so tight. At the New York–New York casino, I strolled over the Brooklyn Bridge replica and followed the cobblestone streets lined with fire hydrants and one-hour parking signs. Past Helen Yee dry cleaners, I found the casino cage and cashed in my chips. The cage girl counted the money into my hand and something in the way the bills fell into my palm made me seriously regret my decision to go to film school. To me, money meant gambling, not security. Adventure, not school. Studying film was the last thing I wanted to do with my life. I had known this from the moment I opened the letter. What kind of sad trick was I playing on myself? Who in their right mind gets five grand and moves to
Georgia?
At twenty-six, I understood I’d never have this much spending money ever again. What I wanted now,
most of all, was to box. Feeling light-headed and courageous, I decided to move to New York and fight in the Golden Gloves. I’d read a book about it. It was the country’s premier boxing tournament. Champions Cassius Clay, Sugar Ray Robinson, Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, had all competed in the Gloves during their amateur careers. If I made it to the finals, I got to fight in the legendary Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden.

“Winners!” a sign read, and beneath it were photographs of people holding enormous cardboard checks written out for millions of dollars. “They got their piece of the Big Apple, are you next?”

It took me twenty-five minutes to stuff my life belongings into brown paper grocery bags and pack up my truck. Otis jumped up into the passenger seat and put his paws on the dashboard. I checked the road atlas, tucked it in the console, and turned the ignition. It was senseless. But a windfall of cash and the chance of even greater thrills could make me that way.

Mud-splattered taxis bullied each other down Broadway. Hordes of gray-coated pedestrians rushed past me, squinting against the blowing sleet. Gusts of wind rang through my ears and my numb fingers could barely push the numbers on the keypad.

“A collect call from
BETH
. Will you accept the charges?”

Through the static Dink mumbled and then put me on speakerphone. “You know better than to call the office on a Saturday,” he said. “There’s five hundred sixty-five games about to go off. I’m having a hard time maximizing my gains and there’s a rash under my left armpit. Make it quick.”

“I want my job back,” I said. “I wanna come home.” In the winter chill, my sobs came out as thick as cigar smoke.

“Beth, no. Stop with the dead-end jobs and do something with your life. You’re gonna fall behind and you’re not gonna be able to catch up.”

Dink’s warning came too late. I felt like I
had
fallen. Compared to Johnny Tocco’s, my new boxing gym in the West Village was a disappointment. My truck had either been towed or I had forgotten on which of a thousand streets I’d parked it. Out of curiosity, I
got in touch with a cute Israeli guy I’d met on an airplane a few months earlier. At some point over dinner we came to the realization that while on that plane we had, in fact, experienced love at first sight and for reasons I still can’t fathom, I moved into his Upper West Side apartment. It was a stupid move and now I was paying for it. He did strange things before bed.

Worse than any of this, though, was my homesickness. New York’s confinement and biting cold were inescapable and I longed for Vegas’s wide-open spaces and merciless heat. Each morning, awaking to the noises of the city, I felt oddly embarrassed. As though by leaving Las Vegas, I had skirted some kind of obligation. It had never occurred to me that one could feel guilty toward a place, but that’s exactly how I felt.

I stomped feeling back into my feet. “Make me junior partner,” I said, shivering. “I’ll catch up later.”

In the background Grant taunted:
Beth-y can’t make it in New York. Beth-y can’t make it in New York
.

Hearing his voice made me even sadder. “I miss you guys so much,” I said. “Are you eating breakfast? Who gets the bagels now that I’m gone?”

Dink raised his voice: “Beth! You had the opportunity to go to a good school and do something long-term and then you got drunk and took off to New York. Do yourself a favor. Pick something reasonable and focus. Not a boxer, not an in-home stripper …”

“Hey!” I said, offended. That was supposed to be a secret.

“ … I mean, tomorrow you could learn how to run a Roll-n-Roaster franchise and within two years if you work hard I imagine you could probably have one of your own. That’ll do well! All you have to do is find the guy who’s successful at running his Roll-n-Roaster franchise and emulate his success.”

Wordless, I slid the toe of my shoe across a patch of dirty snow. Beside me, Otis whimpered and chewed at the lumps of rock salt stuck in his paws.

“Anyway,” Dink continued, “your position’s been filled. I hired Angelo.”

“Hi!” said Angelo.

Dink may have no longer been my boss, but he was still my mentor. And it was his advice that sent me worn and weary into a Sixth Avenue Kinko’s where, for the first time in my life, I attempted to write a real résumé.

“Significant Work History,” I typed. And there I stayed, slumped in the chair, long past sundown, staring at those words. I’d been out of college for five years and I had not one job to put on my résumé. I’d always wondered what gamblers would do, what jobs they would have, if they didn’t have gambling. Now I was wondering that about myself. At first, I tried being honest. I thought maybe if I used my imagination I could create something impressive out of my past jobs. But no matter how much I cut and pasted, I couldn’t spin what looked more like a rap sheet into a résumé. I felt like a juvenile delinquent trying to figure out what the judge wants to hear.