First sight of her (in the gym) was not impressive. Looked to me like some homely girl stumbling over her own feet, that clumsy. And her legs short, and her arms—you could see her reach was shit. But Ernie Beecher kept saying, Dunphy has promise. Give her a chance.
Turned out Ernie was correct. Just took a little time.
A girl boxer is not much different from a male in training. They can be just as serious. But they can get discouraged faster. Dunphy was not like that—Dunphy did not get discouraged.
Right away you could see how strong she could punch. It’s said—you are born with a punch, or you are not. If you are born with a punch you can be trained to use it. If not, not.
Dunphy was real promising with that left hook and a cross-over right and a left uppercut she could sometimes land exactly on the tip of the chin like you are supposed to—despite her short reach. She was a terrific counter-puncher once she got excited—nothing could stop her.
Everyone commented how Dunphy had heart. She would not be stopped. You’d have to kill her to stop her. That is the warrior-type—you would have to kill them to stop them. People were saying, Cass you got a girl-Tyson there.
But there’s no comparison, see. Girls don’t hit hard—not like Tyson. Any injury that happens it’s a weakness in the opponent, or she falls sideways and hits her head on the ring post. Or in sparring, they clinch and hit each other’s kidneys. The actual punch, even Dunphy’s—is not that great no matter how it looks. A man could take it.
Well—they can get concussed in a fight. That is true. There’s female boxers pretty punch-drunk, I guess. That is so.
It’s a weakness in the female skull. You can’t hit it without the brain kind of swishing inside like something in water—like if there’s a sac or something, and you shake it. But Dunphy had a hard punch, male or female notwithstanding, and could protect herself.
Problem was, the public don’t like to look at females who look like athletes or like men. That’s what the promoters say, and the TV producers, and advertisers. What they say is correct because they say it. They are buying goods and nobody blames them.
We got this neighborhood girl Mickey Burd who’d been one of Ernie’s girl-boxers to help us out. She sweet-talked Dunphy into having her hair streaked, getting showy tattoos, ear studs. Even thinned Dunphy’s eyebrows a little so she didn’t look like some kind of female orangutan.
Dunphy had a high threshold for pain. The fans can mistake that for courage. If she was hit, she’d laugh. If she’d lost a tooth she’d have spat it out on the canvas and just laughed, and kept on with the fight. Like Arturo Gatti or what’s-his-name—“Boom Boom” Mancini—she’d give all she had for the crowd, wouldn’t hold nothing back. A boxer like that will risk everything trying for a knockout, make the fans cheer.
If she was lonely, that had to feel good to her. Hearing people she didn’t know cheering for her.
Her breasts were kind of heavy for a female boxer but we taped them as close to flat as we could without injury. Or maybe there was injury. Dunphy would never let on. The pills she took we arranged for her, she never had a period. She didn’t bleed like a normal girl or woman will bleed. You’d think the black blood would be backed up inside them like sewage, wouldn’t you?
Maybe that is so. You hear all kinds of things.
THE CONSOLATION OF GRIEF
SEPTEMBER 2011–FEBRUARY 2012
“TRUE SUBJECT”
When you encounter your true subject, you will know it.
She had faith. She had not ceased waiting.
MUSKEGEE FALLS, OHIO:
SEPTEMBER 2011
Sun-splotched Muskegee River, dazzling the eye.
The hue of the river was tarnished pewter. Patches of reflected sun like fire in the choppy waves.
A strange beauty in the sound: “Mus-kee-gee.”
She’d been driving through Ohio farmland for hours. Rolling hills like those sculpted hills in the paintings of Thomas Hart Benton. Acres of cornfields dun-colored, and the cornstalks dried and broken, fields of harvested wheat, stubble.
Early autumn. Beauty of slanted light, desiccated things.
Beside the highway the river’s current was quickened, there had been a heavy rain the previous day.
Slow-circling hawks high overhead. She’d been noticing, glancing skyward. Did hawks hunt together? There were several wide-winged birds soaring, dipping, gliding on wings that scarcely moved. Like those drifting thoughts of which you are not altogether aware.
He’d have driven this route, she thought. When he’d driven south and east from Michigan.