Cass Cassidy was a partner in the Dayton gym. It wasn’t clear (to D.D.) if he was a business partner of Ernie Beecher or if he was Ernie’s employer. He was very friendly with Ernie often laying his hand on Ernie’s shoulder and calling him old buddy. He was a middle-aged (white) man who “managed” boxers and who appeared at the gym from time to time. If you heard a loud voice, laughter—it was likely to be Cass Cassidy trading wisecracks with the young (brown-skinned) boxers.
Cassidy had been Hector Rodriguez’s manager at some previous time. But Rodriguez no longer won fights and so he had another manager. (D.D. had been crushed to learn that Rodriguez had lost his fight in Cincinnati by a “split” decision. This was his third straight loss. It was said of Rodriguez that “his luck had turned against him” which was alarming to D.D. Dunphy to hear for it suggested something like a tidal wave, a shudder of the earth and a flooding that could not be prevented—an Act of God.)
Hector Rodriguez had not reappeared in the gym in weeks and D.D. was so immersed in her own training, she had given up looking for him.
“H’lo, ‘D.D.’ How’s it going.”
The voice was flat yet coercive. D.D. heard herself murmur, “OK.”
Often, D.D.’s voice sounded sullen, grudging when she was asked any question. She did not mean this. She had a fear of stammering, or saying the wrong thing and being laughed-at.
They were in Ernie’s office. D.D. had been summoned here. She had had a vigorous workout that afternoon and had showered and her hair was wet and lank, brushed back from her forehead. Every part of her body ached and yet—she was very happy! Ernie had told her she was “making progress.” A dozen times a day she whispered Thank you, Jesus.
Ernie introduced her to Cass Cassidy who was to be her “manager.”
Cassidy’s hand snaked out, and D.D. was shaking the hand. The fingers felt somewhat cold. For a scant moment she feared the fingers would not release her hand.
Cassidy addressed her in a drawling voice that seemed too expansive for Ernie Beecher’s small office. He told her he’d been hearing “damn good things” about her from Ernie Beecher and all that he’d seen with his own eyes had confirmed this.
D.D. wasn’t sure if she was meant to reply to this. She was finding it hard to smile but she managed to say—“Thank you.”
The man was eyeing her with a look of wary good cheer. His face was a youngish-old face of creases and dents and yet on his upper lip was a mustache of the bright hue of fox fur. He was not a tall man though he wore tooled-leather cowboy boots with a heel, a shirt of some shiny material, deep purple. His hair, a duller hue than his mustache, was slicked back thinly from his forehead. His eyes were bemused, somewhat cold. Cold dead eyes like a reptile. D.D. swallowed hard, and forced herself to smile, for Ernie was watching, and Ernie wished this. Her trainer was looking at her with that particular crease between his eyes she saw in his face sometimes when she was working out. There came Edna Mae’s hissing voice in her ear—He is Satan. They are all Satan. You are surrounded by Satan.
Some decision had been made in the trainer’s office. D.D. smiled for she did not want to appear ignorant. She understood that the men had been discussing her before she’d entered the office and she felt a small thrill of pride, that two men, two adults, should confer about her.
She thought that her father might be proud of her, if he knew. Luke would be jealous but proud, too.
The decision seemed to be, D.D. would go on half-time at Target. A schedule had been worked out leading to the fight which was February 11, 2009, in the Cleveland Armory. Cassidy—“Cass”—would provide money for D.D. as needed. A kind of allowance.
“Did you ever have an allowance, D.D.? When you were a kid?”
D.D. was overwhelmed by this news. She did not know how to reply. She did not even comprehend the question.
“Yah. I guess so.”
“Well, this will be a lot more. I guarantee.”
There was a sheet of stiff white paper—a “contract”—for her to sign. In a haze of excitement, gratitude, wonderment she signed it—Dawn D. Dunphy. Her schoolgirl signature beside a large slanted scrawl she could not decipher but had to suppose that it was Mr. Cassidy’s signature above the words which were new to her—Dayton Fights, Inc.
To her astonishment she was given eight crisp new-smelling one-hundred-dollar bills. These were counted out in her hand by Cass Cassidy—“Vy-la, D.D.!—as they say in France. The rest is boxing history.”
Clumsily then, with no warning, Cass Cassidy brought his hand down on D.D.’s head, rubbing her damp hair, in a gesture of rough affection, as one might pat the head of a favored dog. He then dared to hug her, not hard, but in the way some of the Dunphy women would hug Dawn, loose-armed, somewhat wary of the stocky girl’s stiff spine and uplifted elbows, no sooner embracing her than releasing her.
So startled by this sudden gesture from a man she feared, as by the contract and the money, the wonderful-smelling crisp new bills, Dawn Dunphy stood staring, flat-footed and speechless, arms at her sides and her hands feeling bare, without gloves.