But no TV. (Not yet.)
Showered her body running her hands briskly up and down her sides. Water as hot as she could bear. The pleasure of hot water against her aching muscles, the torn-feeling ligament in her neck, throb of her lower back where (impossible to avoid!) her kidneys had been pounded. Lifting her face to the spray. Shut her eyes, opened her mouth, with the soap poking shyly about her body, between legs, between breasts. That sensation of hot water streaming over her, a sensation like caressing.
Rough embraces of the other boxer, after the fight. Grabbing at each other. Dazed and exhilarated, stunned, drunk with adrenaline, like carbonation in the blood—feeling no pain, or anyway not yet.
Sharp pains in her neck, dull throb at the base of her skull. Dr. Danks prescribed pills, Ernie gave her. And the other, smaller white pills Ernie gave her, one each morning, never forget for it was essential that she not bleed.
Still she was working at Target. Part-time, not half-time. There were no workers’ benefits for either half-or part-time but if (for instance) D.D. Dunphy needed prescription meds, needing to make an appointment with Dr. Danks, needed X-rays—all covered by Dayton Fights, Inc.
Plus dentistry. Plus new boots, new gloves, new fleece-lined nylon jacket of a higher quality than the Target merchandise she could get with her worker’s discount.
Plus, each Sunday at the Zion Missionary Church she left a (folded, inconspicuous) ten-dollar bill in the collection basket.
She was proud—That girl can take a punch.
Not so fast on her feet as certain of her rivals. But harder-hitting, with the (alleged) punch of a man. She was trained to defend herself but boxing is not about defense but offense. Two defensive boxers, you stink up the arena. Fans will boo, catcall. Female boxers too often fell into clinches. Dunphy did not like clinches—you could count on her to shove the other female away. Often she was not fast enough to slip a punch and so it was drilled into her, how to take a punch.
That was how the (aging, slower) Ali won his famous fight against (very young, very hard-hitting) George Foreman. Rope-a-dope. Foreman punched himself out on Ali, lost all his strength and could no more punch than a girl or a child by the end of the fight. Fantastic!
Her eyes were becoming more sensitive. She wore dark glasses outdoors. Her eyes swelled easily. Hematomas developed more quickly than in the past. She could “see”—all she needed to see, to fight.
Rainbows, shimmering blurs. The strongest fighting is by instinct not by craft or calculation.
She did not tell her trainer, corner men, Mr. Cassidy or even her friend Mickey Burd how blurred her vision was sometimes. During the fight if she told them, the fight would be stopped. If the referee knew, or the ringside physician, the fight would be stopped.
Or, Ernie would not stop the fight and she would understand that they didn’t give a damn for D.D. Dunphy only for the crowd applauding her. For the Hammer of Jesus had fans, followers. These were men. Bringing the crowd to its feet, or almost. Some of the crowd. The kind of fans willing to pay money for serious boxing.
In the car where they’d told her to wait D.D. Dunphy sat eating a hero sandwich with shaky fingers. They’d taken her to Dr. Danks for vitamin shots. She was so hungry: sausage, tomato, onion, drenched in mustard, running down her hands.
She wasn’t sending Edna Mae much money lately. Seemed like, Edna Mae could have written to her, to thank her. But her great-aunt Mary Kay wrote. Mary Kay was promising to see her fight “real soon” if it wasn’t too far away like Cleveland, Cincinnati.
Saying she was a “good brave girl.” Saying that Edna Mae loved her but “found it hard to say what is in her heart.”
After the sixth fight when D.D. Dunphy was raised to number three MWBA welterweight contender and number seven WBA contender a televised fight was almost certain sometime in the New Year (2010).
In an envelope carefully printed EDNA MAE DUNPHY she mailed five hundred-dollar bills as she’d mailed in the past. Of this Jesus approved for it was turning the other cheek, returning love where there was not love, or did not seem to be love.
Momma, this is for you. Hope everybody there is OK.
If you want to call me my number is ——.
I am a “ranked” fighter now. I am a “contender.”
I am doing pretty well. Look for me on TV in (maybe) January next year.
Love
Your Daughter Dawn
“D.D. Dunphy”—“Hammer of Jesus”
ANOTHER TIME she’d been pounded in the lower back. In the kidneys.
In the lavatory before she flushed the toilet she saw, and looked quickly away. Oh, why had she looked!
That languid curl of red in her urine.
HAVE TO SAY, I was surprised Dunphy turned out so terrific.