The Real Thing (24 page)

But I feel stronger, I feel healthier, I'm more fiscally responsible, and I am damn sexy.

Sigh.

Maybe I'm ready for a real relationship for the first time in my life.

I've noticed other men noticing me more and more. At first, it was subtle. You know, the casual stare, the shifting eyes as I walked through Rockefeller Center. Now that I'm a
scultura
in perpetual motion, I see men racing to share an elevator with me, often riding to the wrong floor. They make pains to sit near me on the bus. They hover near me on the subway. They pause when I pause in front of windows on Broadway. Most are decent looking, but none of them has Dante's eyes. None of them has that penetrating stare of his.

None of them is Dante.

After you've been with a god, you can't simply settle for mere mortals, right?

For the longest time, nothing, and I mean nothing, excited me except my workouts. Okay, it's exciting for men to ogle me, too, but now that I'm in physical shape, I like myself again. My mind occasionally crashes, but twenty minutes on the heavy bag brings me back to life.

I actually go places now. I take pictures just to take pictures: of the waterfront, of children playing, of folks on the subway, and of people picking through fruit and vegetables in front of Fairway Market. I even use the self-timer to take a picture of me fishing on the Valentino Pier, sending it to Dante at the P.O. box in Virginia, “Catch any big ones lately?” written on the back. I don't know if he opened it or not. I hope he did.

And I hope he didn't start a fire with it afterward.

I do my best not to limit myself to Red Hook. I attend Knicks games, hearing my own voice's echo most nights. I even go to the Jimmy V Classic at the Garden to watch unpaid premier basketball players throwing down dunks and hitting three-pointers. The Knicks should watch
them
play. I frequent the Lyceum Theater again, seeing old classics like
A Streetcar Named Desire
and
On the Waterfront.

I am alive again.

Oh sure, I still want Dante Lattanza with a passion I've never had before. My solution isn't the greatest, but it helps. I bought the
Heavy Leather
DVD. I've watched Chapter 9 more than once a night for the last three weeks. Sometimes three times if I'm really horny. I slow the sparring scenes down and zoom in on Dante. Sometimes I shadowbox with him. At one point, though, Dante looks directly at the camera, at
me
, with those eyes of his, and I . . .

Whoo.

It's quite a boxing workout.

Speaking of boxing, I've watched HBO's
Countdown to Washington-Lattanza II
twice. I was, um, hmm. I, uh, I turned down the sound the first time and kind of, well, got intimate with the TV screen whenever Dante was on and then...

You get the picture. Luckily, I have a widescreen TV and heavy-duty shades on my window. The lip marks come off the screen easily with a little Windex.

I turn the sound all the way up for a live ESPN feed of today's press conference. Tomorrow night, they'll weigh in, and both of them will probably gain ten to fifteen pounds by fight time, turning them into light heavyweights.

Dante is clean shaven (sigh . . . I kind of liked the beard) and wears a nice dark blue suit. He could be a
GQ
model without even trying to pose. He just has such a presence, an aura of power around him.

Meanwhile, Tank sports a black suit with gold chains, a large lion medallion where a tie should be, his fingers and his mouth filled with gold. He has no presence. All he has is bling, a shiny bald head, and a blond goatee.

Oh, and the championship belt. Almost forgot. He's had that for ten years.

I turn up the volume just in time to hear a question that makes me cringe:

“Champ, what do you think of your opponent fighting for love?”

Tank smirks. At least I think it's a smirk. He has so much bling in his mouth it could be a grimace of pain. I'll bet his gums bleed all day.

“Only a dumb

fights for love,” Tank says, adding a “heh-heh” for bad measure. ESPN must have the feed on a five-second delay. Tank said MF. Shame on him. That's such a nasty word.

“It is the
best
fight there can be,” Dante says, Red sitting beside him. “It is the
only
fight worth having.”

“Attaboy, Dante,” I whisper. “Shut the MF up.” What? I didn't say the whole word.
Pericolosa
women can say “MF.”

Tank stands and points at Dante. “Old man, you are full of

.”

Dante doesn't stand, and instead of facing Tank, he smiles at the reporters. “I am not full of
merda.
I am full of love.”

The reporters laugh, and so do I. Dante cursed in Italian, and ESPN didn't catch it. I've been learning Italian from a site on the Internet. I'll never be fluent, but I know all the curse words. I say
palla
(bullshit) and
idiota
(asshole) often, especially when I'm watching the refs make
palla
calls against the Giants or some
idiota
takes the last seat on the F Train.

Tank points into the audience at . . . Evelyn. “That her?”

Evelyn looks like a twig. Some of my lamps have more meat on their bones than she does.

Dante doesn't respond.

“Don't go there, Tank,” I whisper. “You're already an MF. Don't become a
merda
.”

“How you doin', mama?” Tank says.

He went there.
Idiota.

“Baby,” Tank says, showing all of his bling, “after I put this fossil back in the ground where he came from, you can love me long time.”

There is no laughter this time.

I expect Dante to leap to his feet, but he only rolls his eyes. “At least I fight for something important.”

Tank smirks for real this time. “C'mon, Danny Boy. In the end, you fight for money, just like me. You ain't no better than me.”

Dante is nodding to himself. He whispers something to Red, and Red's eyes pop.

Uh-oh. Something's about to happen.

“We will make it winner takes all then,” Dante says, and all hell breaks loose. A million camera flashes go off. Red closes his eyes, and so do I.

“What?” Tank says the same time I finally find my voice to yell
“Che?”

Dante stands and waits for the pandemonium to die down. “Winner takes all. Put it on paper, and I will sign it.”

Nobody moves a muscle until Dante whispers something to Red, who pulls out a crumpled . . . That
has
to be a receipt for something. Not the receipt, Red. Get a real piece of paper. I'm sure it will fetch a bundle on eBay, but . . .

Oh. It's just a pen.

Dante takes the pen and pulls the fight poster off the podium. I have half of one hanging near my mirror. Dante's half. It has smooch marks on it. Dante writes rapidly and hands the poster to Tank, who reads it and shakes his head, Tank's entourage of seven or eight Tank clones surrounding him and shaking their heads, too. What a bunch of bobble-heads!

“You're crazy as a

, Danny Boy, but I'd be crazier than a

not to take this deal.” Tank signs the poster with a flourish.

Dante offers his hand across the podium.

“Nah, Gramps,” Tank says. “You gonna need that hand to wipe up your own

after I wipe up the ring with your

.”

The press conference ends with Tank and company leaving in a pack.

Oh . . . my . . . God!

Winner takes all. We're talking at least seven figures here, probably
eight
if enough folks watch replays of this press conference and order pay-per-view.

“Fighting for love
and
winner takes all,” an announcer says from his perch at the ESPN studio. “What's your take on this, Harry?”

Oh,
merda.
It's the dreaded Harry, halting and constipated deliverer of clichés other clichés get tired of hearing. “It could be (pause) the fight of the century (
pregnant
pause), if it gets past (pregnant and
way
overdue, the-baby-is-
crowning
pause) the first round.”

“So you think it's going to be a quick fight.”

“To paraphrase Tennyson,” Harry says, reaching
deep
into nineteenth-century Victorian freaking England for a cliché tonight, “ 'Tis better to have loved and lost (they've already cut the umbilical cord, Harry, and the child is teething) than never to have
boxed
(the kid has a driving license, Harry) at all.”

What . . . the . . . crap?

Harry has never boxed a
single
millisecond in his life, yet there he is, giving so-called “expert” analysis on boxing. What a bunch of
palla!
If I ever need surgery, I'm not going to go to a doctor who has merely
watched
one thousand operations. I'm going to the doctor who has actually
done
some successfully. More boxers need to go into broadcasting to squeeze out these Tennyson-quoting, constipated, hairless men with spewing pimples for mouths who call themselves experts. Maybe Dante could be a boxing analyst after he finally retires. I know I'd tune in to hear what he had to say.

Okay, okay. I'd tune in just to hear his voice.

And to kiss my TV.

I get online and go to a Las Vegas Web site that promises live, up-to-the-minute odds updates. I'm just curious. It isn't as if these odds have anything to do with the ultimate outcome. Last night, Dante's numbers looked grim. With only a $100 bet, I could have won $1,400 if Dante won on Saturday. I would have had to bet $750 on Tank just to win $100. The numbers for the fight to go the distance were off the charts, most predicting a Washington knockout before the
fourth
round.

But not now.

Dante's $1,400 drops to $250 before my eyes, Tank's $750 tanking to $210. I know this is a simplification, but Dante went from a 14–1 underdog to a 5–2
challenger
in a matter of minutes. Now, the odds are almost even for the fight to go into the tenth round.

A half an hour later, Dante's $250 falls to $125, and Tank's $210 drops to $105, the fight all but guaranteed to go the distance.

The fight, then, is almost dead even according to the odds makers.

Dante says, “I fight for love,” and Las Vegas doesn't blink. Dante says, “Winner takes all,” and Las Vegas gets nervous, dropping Dante from a 14–1 underdog to a 5–4
contender
in thirty minutes.

I wish I had bet $1,000 yesterday. When Dante wins—and he
will
—I would have won $14,000, enough for almost seven
years
of riding the New York Water Taxi. But now that I'm in shape, I won't need to be “carried” to work. I can do that all by myself now, whether on a bike or on my own two legs. It's only ten miles.

Hmm. I may need a bike. Twenty miles a day? One
hundred
miles a week? Over five
thousand
miles a year?

I'll get a bike.

Fighting for love and winner takes all. Amazing. It's all so elemental. Why do you fight? For love. And if you win, you take it all. Simple. All sports should be this simple.

But...

There's just something fundamentally wrong about this.

What is so wrong with fighting for love? I know, I know. I used to think it was cheesy. But now I don't. The odds should have been much lower
before
Dante said, “Winner takes all.” Maybe I can write an article that makes light of all this
palla.

Sì
.

Maybe I can write an article that will repair some of the damage I've done to Dante.

I smile.

Sì
.

An op-ed piece. I'm good at those.

And coming from the mean ol' wench who said Dante was washed up all those years ago—and written by the
itch
who revealed he was fighting for love in the first place—the
Times
will have to publish it. They'd have to. And maybe Dante would read it.

Sì
.

The
Times
would run it Saturday, the day of the fight.

Sì
.

But if I'm going to fight all this
palla,
I'm going to need some
munizione.
And where in New York can anyone find plenty of ammunition?

Brooklyn.

Chapter 28

I
have a
merda
-load of work to do today.

After calling in sick (“I feel so”—
cough—
“lousy, Shelley”), I go to Carroll Gardens and find Dante's old house. It's easy to find. The neighborhood has decked it out with Italian flags and signs proclaiming, “Dante will take it all!” and “Dante Fights for Amore!” His old house is red brick with a single black steel door, black bars on the windows, and
no
graffiti on its walls. Carroll Gardens is taking care of its own. Freshly planted zinnias flank the stoop. This is where Dante began. This is where Connie Lattanza hung out and shot the Italian breeze. This is where skinny Dante took off from every morning to escape Franco the
bravaccio.

I'll bet this brownstone would cost a million or more now. What a world we live in.

I foot it down to Monte's Venetian Room, where Connie once worked. I don't know what I'll find, but I'm hoping to find some of Dante's oldest fans. Monte's is on the “shores” of the Gowanus Canal, which supposedly contains bodies from decades of mob hits. No one “swims with the fishes” in the Gowanus Canal, though. There are few fish evolved enough to survive the three hundred
million
gallons of raw filth that runs off into it every year. I try to envision the average hit man eating, say, some antipasto, looking out at the spot where he dumped Mickey “the Mouse” Ratatouille, plastic bottles and condoms floating above the very spot.

I can't envision it. Not eating antipasto. Scungilli, maybe.

The great John Huston directed scenes from
Prizzi's Honor
a few feet from where I sit in a curved, shiny red booth, a mural of Venice surrounding me. I order a plate of cold antipasto and an espresso from Vincent, a short, dark-featured man with a high forehead and a shoulder-length gray ponytail.

“First time?” he asks with a slight Italian accent.

I guess not many black women come in here, especially alone and before the lunchtime rush. “No. Yours?”

He smiles. “Just making conversation.” He stands there, nodding slightly to the plate of antipasto.

I sample some cheese and an olive. “Nice.”

“You know,” Vincent says, “Capone used to eat here, as did Frank Sinatra.”

I had noticed a LeRoy Neiman print of Sinatra as I came in. I had also noticed an indoor, working phone booth. You don't see them much anymore.

“And Sammy Davis once entertained from midnight to eight
AM
here,” Vincent says. “Let me know when you want the cheesecake.” He points to a sign. “It's heavenly to the taste.”

“Really?” I ask. Just making conversation.

“It is made with ricotta cheese, not cream cheese like those other
fessi
make it,” he says. “It has to be ricotta. After I sprinkle it with confectioner's sugar, you will just die.”

“That's why it's so heavenly, huh?” I say. “People die from eating it.”

He laughs. “If one has to go,” he says, shrugging, “then dying from cheesecake is not such a bad way to go.”

I look at the antipasto plate, and it's a meal in itself. “Perhaps another time,” I say.

Vincent looks around. “Are you looking for someone?”

I blink. “No one in particular. Why?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. You look like a lady who is looking for someone.”

“Well,” I say, pulling out my press credentials, a plastic ID card with a pre-sexy woman picture of me on it. “I'm a reporter for
Personality
magazine.”

“You don't say.”

I do say. “I'm actually looking for anyone who knew Dante Lattanza from the old days.”

Vincent grins broadly and sits across from me. “I know Dante from when he was just a little boy.” He drums the table with his fingers.

Yes! I pull out my notepad. “Mind if I take some notes?”

“Not at all. What is it you want to know?”

I sketch Vincent on the notepad—in words. I can't draw for
merda.
I write, “Vincent is an old-school, fuggedaboutit kind of guy, receding gray hairline, ponytail, crooked nose, dark eyes.” I smile. “First, I'll need your name.”

“Vincent Baldini.”

I write it down. “Did you know Dante's mother?”

“Sure, I knew Con,” Vincent says. “That's short for Connie. Nice lady. Great in the kitchen. Not good.
Great
. The bread she made—
squisito.
She was so hard to replace. Lung cancer. A terrible thing.”

“What is your earliest memory of Dante?” I ask.

Vincent rubs his hands on the table. “Con brought him in, set him on this very table.” He taps it for effect. “We all looked after him while she worked. A skinny boy, not tough looking at all, but now he will be the champion again, I assure you. Tomorrow night he will reign again. What's your name again?”

“Christiana Artis.”

Vincent looks past me to the mural of Venice. “Artis, Artis. I've heard that name before.” He focuses on me. “Did you used to work for the
Times
?”

His smile has left Monte's.

“Um, yeah. But now I work for
Personality.
”

His eyes become little slits. “You used to cover boxing some for the
Times
, right?”

Once again, someone is interviewing me. “Yes.”

He snaps his fingers. “You're the one who wrote those articles about Dante being washed up.”

“That was a long time ago, Vincent,” I say quickly. “I don't believe that now.”

Vincent sits back, his lips tight. “But you also wrote the fighting-for-love article in September, right?”

I nod. Vincent is very well informed. “But like I said, I've changed my mind about Dante completely. I'm working on an op-ed piece to run tomorrow—”

Vincent pushes back his chair. “Shame on you. Shame!” He shakes a fist in my face. “You do not have to leave a tip. But I will give you one.” He puts his bushy eyebrows inches from mine. “When you don't know what you're talking about, don't speak.” He walks away.

I look at my antipasto, a sardine eyeing me.
“Che?”
I say to the sardine.

The sardine doesn't blink.

I drop a twenty on the table and leave, my espresso un-sipped, my lips zipped, the sardine still staring.

Oh, that went well. I find someone who knows Dante from when he was just a little boy, and what happens?
My
past, not Dante's, ruins the interview. Lovely, just lovely.

I then hike over to Gleason's Gym to see Johnny Sears, Dante's old trainer. He would have to have something nice to say. Dante was his meal ticket for close to fourteen years.

Every fighter training inside Gleason's stops throwing, skipping, or lifting for a deliciously long beat as I stride up to the main ring, where Sears is barking instructions to two skinny kids no older than twelve. I glance around at all these sweaty men and a few women, and they go back to work.

Nothing much has changed about Gleason's since Granddaddy first brought me here twenty-five years ago. The Everlast banner still hangs, red paint is still peeling, the floor is still scarred and scuffed, the mirrors still need cleaning, the duct-taped heavy bags still sway and groan, and everything is still dark, damp, and sweaty.

“Where you from,
Sports Illustrated
?” Sears asks, his face haloed under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights. “Chin down, chin down!” he yells at the kids.

“Um,
Personality,
actually,” I say. “Just doing a follow-up on Lattanza.”

Sears rolls his eyes. “Time!” he yells. He turns to me. “You takin' pictures, it'll cost you.”

“No pictures today.” Gleason's charges photographers by the hour just to take some pictures.

“All right,” Sears says. “You got a minute.” He crosses his arms.

“What do you think of your old prodigy?” I ask.

“I hope to Christ Dante wins,” Sears says, “but I swear to Christ that he hasn't got a prayer.”

That quote won't run, even in the
Times.
“Lattanza's body is solid granite.”

Sears waves a towel at me. “And so is his head. I read about his new training. He thinks he's gone old school. A tennis ball? Swimming? Eating fish?
This
is old school.
This
is where he should be, not running around the woods in Canada.”

It's what I used to think, too, but . . . “He says he's in the best shape of his life.”

He rests both hands on the top rope. “Shape is only one thing. He should be sparring real boxers, not his own skinny kid or an over-the-hill cook. Who's he kidding?”

Should I tell him about the third sparring partner he had . . . ? Nah. She's not even in Dante's weight class anymore. “I've talked to Red, and he says Lattanza spars less to protect his hands, knees, and head.”

“Lady,” Sears says, softer this time, “Dante is in over his head. There'll be nothing to protect him from Tank Washington tomorrow night. Nothing. It will be a bloodbath, and I'll have to wear a raincoat.”

A decent quote, but I'd never run with it. Sears is another dead end. I close my notebook. “Will you be at the fight?”

He nods. “Got an up-and-comer on the undercard. I'll be there.”

One last try. “Do you think Lattanza can go the distance?”

Sears shakes his head. “I got reservations at Il Campan-ello for nine-thirty. What you think?”

I go home, defeated and almost humiliated. Isn't there
one
person who believes in Dante the way I do? I'm sure DJ does, but even Red didn't look or act too convinced up in Canada. If I had actually found a couple Dante-crazed fans, maybe ones who had sent him their bloomers, no one would take anything they have to say seriously.

I sit in front of my laptop and begin typing, hoping that by the end of this piece, I'll have some peace.

After several starts and stops, I realize I can only write this one way.

I can only write it from the heart.

I sit back from the laptop and breathe deeply. It says what I want it to say. I wipe a tear. There's my heart right there on that screen. There's my heart, Dante. Damn if you don't still have it.

I cut and paste the piece into an e-mail addressed to Mel Butler, my old editor at the
Times.
I quickly dial him, and knowing he is a busy man who likes to multitask at multitasking, I don't let him get a word in edgewise when he answers.

“Mel, Christiana Artis. I have an op-ed piece on Saturday's Lattanza-Washington fight, runs about four hundred words, has to run Saturday or else. Think you could run it by Phil posthaste ASAP for me? I'm e-mailing it to you now.” I send the e-mail.