Cold Fury (2 page)

What I remember is Uncle Buddy’s blank face.

He stared hard at my dad and said, “Another male Rispoli,” as if it were bad news. And then he shook it off like coming out of a trance, smiled his big Uncle Buddy smile, and said, “Hey, since you told us here, you should name the kid Lou!” My parents must have liked the sound of that because several months later my little brother, Lou Mitchell Rispoli, was born at Northwestern Hospital.

Having a new baby around was weird. Until then I had been the center of everyone’s attention, from my parents to my grandparents to Uncle Buddy. Now they all cooed at the baby, held and kissed the baby, and sang him soft Italian lullabies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my share of hugs and cuddles with Lou, too. I loved how he smelled and especially his long eyelashes and chubby fingers. But after a while, enough was enough. In those first two (incredibly long) years of Lou’s life, with everyone treating him like a little prince, my mother teaching school, and my dad working late at the bakery, I began to feel forgotten. Even at that young age, I was aware that a Rispoli never made a scene, so whenever I felt sorry for myself, rather than complain or cry, I’d open my favorite book (
Laura Lane, Spygirl
) and stare at the pages. I’d only recently learned to read, but it didn’t matter since I wasn’t interested in the words. It was just a place to put my eyes while I waited for someone to pay attention to me.

That’s when Uncle Buddy introduced me to boxing.

I took to it right away, and gave up ballet to learn how to fight.

To be honest, I’m really proud of my left hook.

Boxing was unusual for a six-year-old girl, I admit, almost as much as it is now for a sixteen-year-old girl. But it’s just as graceful as ballet, and when you’re taught to do it well, you realize that it’s less about hitting than not getting hit. Anyway, even though I was taught to stand up for myself if I was being mistreated, it’s not like I’m some kind of brawling maniac. My weapons were the self-confidence I copied from my dad and the power of cool logic instilled in me by my mom.

And then there are parts of me that are just, well . . . me.

I’m not shy, I’m quiet. And I’m not a wallflower, I’m an observer.

Also, in the most tense of situations, I grow calm.

Anyway, Uncle Buddy must have noticed that I felt forgotten, and one afternoon he picked me up in his old red convertible and drove us to the southwest side, to a place called Windy City Gym. It was on the third floor of a soot-covered warehouse. When we entered, the building seemed deserted. We climbed a dark flight of stairs, Uncle Buddy telling me to watch my step, and then he opened a set of double doors and we were flooded with sudden sunshine streaming through glass skylights. The room was deep and tall, with high ceilings crisscrossed by thick wooden beams. From those beams hung heavy bags, several of which were being rhythmically pummeled by guys whose hands were wrapped in tape. There were mirrors and speed bags and jump ropes hanging from the brick walls, along with dozens of old photos and peeling posters of boxers who had trained at Windy City. In the middle of it all, beneath a haze of dusty sunlight, sat a boxing ring—not a ring at all, in fact, but a canvas-covered square. It was taller than me and lined with rope on all four sides. Two guys were inside, circling and dancing, dipping their shoulders and popping their boxing gloves off each other. I smelled chalk and heard the squeak of sneakers, the buzz of a jump rope, and a squealing bell. I was aware of my small size, the thinness of my shoulders and legs, but at that moment it was exactly where I wanted to be.

Uncle Buddy laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Sara Jane, meet Willy Williams.” I turned to a small African American man, almost as small as my grandpa Enzo and a little older. He wore steel-rimmed glasses on his face, a newsboy cap on his head, and a gray fuzzy mustache beneath his nose. He offered a hand for me to shake. When I did, he smiled, and his smile made me feel warm and welcome.

“So this is Anthony and Teresa’s little girl. You look just like your mama, you know that? Except your eyes. You got your daddy’s eyes.”

People said that all the time, so I nodded and smiled back.

“How old are you, Sara Jane?”

“I’m six.”

“My, my, big six.” He nodded at the boxers in the ring beating up on each other and said, “Don’t let those guys scare you, my girl.”

“They don’t scare me,” I said, mesmerized by the fight. “It looks fun.”

“Fun?” he said, raising his eyebrows over his glasses and grinning. “Say, did you know that your daddy won a very important championship boxing match once?”

I didn’t, and it surprised me. “Really?” I said. “He did?”

“Indeed. I trained him myself. I trained your uncle here, too. ’Course, Anthony had a left hook that Buddy never saw coming,” Willy said, with a wink at Uncle Buddy.

Uncle Buddy smiled but didn’t look happy as Willy went on to say how my dad’s build made him the ideal size for a light middleweight. Uncle Buddy’s short thickness made him a little too heavy and a little too slow to be a boxer. Then Willy patted Uncle Buddy’s shoulder and said, “But no one ever tried as hard as Buddy. And no one was tougher. You sure could take a punch, kid. You sure had a chin.”

Uncle Buddy rubbed his jaw and grinned at me, saying, “I sure took enough of them in the ring from your dad, Sara Jane. I sparred with him day and night. If it wasn’t for me, he never would’ve won that championship.”

“That’s right,” Willy said. “He couldn’t have done it without Buddy’s help.”

This time when Uncle Buddy smiled, he actually looked pleased. He put his hand on my head and said, “Well, Willy. What do you think?”

I would learn later that Willy Williams had one of the sharpest eyes in boxing. He could inspect someone from head to toe, even a skinny six-year-old girl, and instantly decide if she had what it took to be a fighter. Once Willy formed an opinion, whether it was about a person’s viability in the ring or politics or baseball or any other issue, he would deliver his judgment in a little rhyme. Willy stared at me while rubbing his chin. Finally, he pointed a finger in my direction and said—

“Sara Jane,

to me, it’s plain.

Looking at
you,

I see a boxer through and through.”

I began to train with Willy that very day and never looked back. I started slowly, moving around the ring, getting used to the rhythm and movement, while he taught me how to use my hands and what to do with my feet—how to pivot and move, and how to get around and below a punch. Soon, my brain and body began to work together, the first half strategically directing mechanics, the other executing orders on command, until the partnership became one homogenous fighter, me. There’s an odd, empowering phenomenon that boxers experience when their physical and mental selves begin to merge into a single being, and I could feel it happening. It was as if I was gaining control of something inside myself that I didn’t even know existed, and it felt like an upgrade, like new features being added to the original Sara Jane. Sometimes before bed, I’d throw a dozen combination punches at my reflection in the mirror. Faster, faster, faster! I’d think, watching my hands and arms pumping like pistons, obeying my command.

Willy also taught me the difference between a boxing match and a beating.

He explained that intent was everything, and that when an older, larger, and more experienced fighter invited a younger, smaller one into the ring for a “little sparring,” the other boxer usually intended to treat the newbie like a heavy bag with legs—or, as Willy called it, “fresh meat.” The younger fighter was in there to serve as a moving target for the older one to work out whatever issues he was having with his left jab or right cross, or whatever. When the bell finally rang, if the kid was still standing, he generally looked like his face had lost a violent disagreement with a ketchup bottle. Willy ordered me to never, ever spar with anyone more experienced than me, or without him present.

Now, at age sixteen, I still wonder what the hell eight-year-old me was thinking.

Actually, that’s the problem—I wasn’t.

Instead, I was buzzing with adrenaline after working thirty minutes of whirlwind combinations with Willy. I stood before a sweat- and spit-flecked wall mirror as he showed me how to throw the punches in a smooth, mellifluous way that was like being taught dance moves with arms and hands instead of legs and feet. He slowed me for corrections, and then sped me up as my body caught a groove, eyes found reflective-me in the mirror as an opponent, and then it was like pulling the rope on an outboard motor—
jab, jab, punch, hook—
Again!
—jab, jab, punch, hook
—Again!—until my arms shook, hips ached, and I was convinced that a bony eight-year-old with her nose projecting from headgear like a caged toucan could go one-on-one with the world heavyweight champion.

Or, at the very least, a Chicago Silver Gloves winner.

Willy removed his glasses, thumbed sweat from his eyebrows, and told me to jump rope for three rounds while he made phone calls, which was code for his daily afternoon catnap. It was after his office door closed that I heard my name. A kid smiled down from the ring, hanging casually on the ropes with his hands in fat padded gloves, and I said, “Uh-Oh.”

“Hey, Rispol-ita.” He grinned. “You wanna do a little sparring?”

Hector “Uh-Oh” Puño was so nicknamed because when competitors in the twelve-year-old Silver Gloves division saw his fearsome right fist coming, they thought—well, you get the picture. Despite his reputation, he was always friendly and soft-spoken with me, basically a chubby, huggable teddy bear in satin boxing shorts. At that point, after training for two years, I’d been in the ring with only a handful of opponents whom Willy had deemed safe. I was pumped after my lightning combinations, through with being “safe,” and scared of nothing. Willy would be angry if he caught me, but I knew that his drowsy “phone calls” never lasted less than six rounds and I’d be done with Uh-Oh by then. I said, “We’re just moving, right, Uh-Oh? Pitty-pat punches at most? You’ve got me by height and weight like crazy.”

“
Come si este loco
. Yeah, of course. I just wanna work out a few things with my right.”

I tugged on sparring gloves, Uh-Oh parted the ropes as I climbed into the ring, and the buzzer sounded. For the first several seconds we faced each other, hands high, sidling in a circle like ice-skating on canvas. And then Uh-Oh’s left arm darted like an eel, nipping at my gloves. I turned but he was already there, bouncing before me. Boxing is like ballroom dancing in one respect—who’s going to lead? Even with his back against the rope, a leader moves in a way that forces his opponent to follow, controlling the ebb and flow of a fight. Uh-Oh was in front of me now, and I went after him with a left of my own, which he ducked, smiling. I took a step, jabbed and missed, and trailed him toward the rope. That was when he spun, I pivoted, and now my back was in the corner, and it was only at the last second, hearing the whoosh of an incoming missile, eyes flicking through the headgear, that I saw his right barreling for my face.

It was no pitty-pat punch tossed by a teddy bear.

It was a sledgehammer thrown by a circus strongman.

Being hit squarely like that felt like all of the injustice that has ever existed throughout the history of mankind, in my nose. Red pain spread into my jaws and teeth, clawing my eyes, gnawing my ears, creating a sensation that the entire world was against me. Somehow I stayed on my feet and was about to quit when I saw the animal pinpoints in Uh-Oh’s eyes telling me he’d done it on purpose. I was fresh meat, and something deep in my gut popped and flashed as a tiny, internal flame began to burn cold and blue. Fear, self-pity, outrage—all of those debilitating things faded away, replaced by anger and ice.

Now I realize that moment marked the very first time I experienced the powerful internal phenomenon. At the time, though, all that I felt was a pure sense of invincibility.

A shadow of it must’ve crossed my eyes because Uh-Oh quit grinning and blinked heavily, and in that second of stasis, my outboard motor kicked in—
jab, jab, punch, hook!—
as he grunted, too late to protect his own nose. My hands were high and I was set to unleash another combination when the blue flame puffed out like a weak birthday candle, the frozen rage going with it. Its sudden appearance and departure was confusing and unnerving, leaving me off balance, and Uh-Oh must’ve seen that, too. He popped his gloves and advanced, and although I felt like plain Sara Jane, there was no way I would run, no way I’d quit, and stood my ground as he unleashed a barrage of punches that felt like a building collapsing on top of me, one cement block at a time.

“Knock it off, right now! Right now, goddamn it!”

We separated and turned to Willy, Uh-Oh bouncing guiltily, me swaying woozily. Willy had sharp words for my opponent but we both knew whose fault it really was. When Uh-Oh was doing his penance of a hundred push-ups, Willy pulled off my headgear, looked at my rapidly swelling nose, and made a
tsk
noise with his tongue. “Everything I’ve taught you,” he said, handing me an ice pack, “and you still got into the ring with a bigger, better fighter?”

“He’s not that much better,” I pouted.

“Yeah he is. Much.”

“I got my shots in. It was weird, Willy. For a second, something inside calmed me down but made me really mad at the same time,” I said, trying to recapture the feeling of a phenomenon that I’m only now beginning to comprehend.

“Adrenaline or something.” He shrugged. “That’s not the point. The point is, as a fighter, you failed.”

I moved the ice pack from my nose. “I failed because I stuck it out? Because I was brave and didn’t give up and run away? That’s crazy.”

“No, what’s crazy is catching a beating like the one I just saw, and standing there and taking it.”

I shrugged defensively, saying, “I bet my dad wouldn’t have quit when he was boxing.”