“Ladies and gentlemen, eight rounds of women’s welterweight boxing courtesy of Midwestern Boxing League . . .”
There came isolated cries, catcalls and whistles as a bell rang loudly signaling the beginning of the fight. The women boxers rushed at each other meeting in the center of the ring with red-gloved fists pummeling.
Naomi shrank in her seat. She felt a stab of panic—that one of the women boxers would be hurt, and she would be a witness.
In a trance of apprehension she sat very still in the hard wooden seat. Wanting to shut her eyes, press her hands against her ears. Blurred and nightmarish the boxers’ flying gloves, swift-thrown punches, grim-set faces. She could hear the women grunting—she could hear their shoes making dry skidding sounds on the canvas.
God help me why am I here. Why did I think I should come here to discover—what?
Apart from isolated cries, shouts of encouragement, mocking boos the fight was silent—no broadcasters’ voices, no TV. Naomi was not a sports fan but she recognized the absence of sports commentary. Without the continuous chatter of broadcasters boxing is mute and the observer is disoriented with no idea what is happening.
A crude sound of blows against flesh. She saw that D.D. Dunphy was hitting, and had been hit. She’d been knocked back onto her heels for a moment stunned. Naomi felt a thrill of something like satisfaction—that Dunphy was being hit.
Relief then, when the fighting abruptly ceased. The boxers were clutching at each other—clinching.
Or possibly, one of them was trying to throw the other off balance and knock her onto the canvas. Several times the (white, male) referee commanded curtly: “Break!”
How long the first round was!—by the time the bell rang signaling its end Naomi could scarcely breathe. Immediately both boxers dropped their gloved hands like puppets whose strings have been cut and turned away, to hurry to their corners.
Naomi was feeling hyper-alert, vigilant. She wondered—which of the boxers had won the round? Had one of the women outfought the other? She saw that a fine line of red gleamed at Dunphy’s hairline even as it was swiftly wiped away by one of the corner men.
It seemed to Naomi that the elder boxer had been just discernibly more agile on her feet than the younger, backing away from her, moving from side to side to elude blows, while Dunphy had pushed forward aggressively, flatfooted, head lowered like a cobra poised to strike.
Strange that inside the bright-lit ring there was such concentration, tension! But outside the ring, in the partially filled rows of the Armory, in the aisles where vendors loitered with soft drinks, hot dogs, snacks, the spectators were talking and laughing as if the fight so hard-fought between the two women was of little significance to them, if not something to sneer at. Through the action of the first round a steady stream of spectators entered the Armory, loud-talking and jocular.
“Man, who’s this? Females? Jesus!”
The second round began like the first: bell ringing, boxers rushing at each other. But this time (it seemed to Naomi) the younger boxer, the “white” boxer with streaks of color in her spiky hair, was driving her Native American opponent back, skidding-back, cringing-back, toward the ropes where (so suddenly this happened) she appeared to be trapped, and could not protect herself against the other’s wild swinging blows.
Yet—(and this too, suddenly)—there was an ugly red gash on Dunphy’s forehead, just above her right eye. How had that happened?
Bleeding badly, wiping blood from her eye with her glove, Dunphy stumbled and staggered. At once Elka was on her with a barrage of blows, some of them wild, some striking their target as spectators began to shout and call out encouragement—Hit her! Hit her! Elka! El-KA!
Naomi was seized with a sensation of dread. What was happening? A kind of wildness whipped through the Armory. She had an impulse to leap to her feet to join the cry—Hit her! El-KA!
On her knees the camera was forgotten. The braying of voices close about her was frightening and exciting to her.
She felt a low, mean thrill of satisfaction, that Luther Dunphy’s daughter had been hit, and hurt. Blood streaking her face and giving her a ghastly blind look. Now you know. You know what it is to be hurt. You are hateful, you deserve to be punished.
Was the referee about to stop the fight? Naomi didn’t know if she wanted this to happen, for then Dunphy’s punishment would end.
Fortunately then, the bell rang signaling the end of round two.
Her heartbeat was quickened. Her breath was quickened. From comments in the seats behind her Naomi gathered that D.D. Dunphy had been “head-butted.” The wily Shawnee warrior had lowered her head and struck Dunphy hard against the ridge of bone above her right eye, seemingly by accident; yet, the referee was deducting points from her for a foul.
There was a scattering of boos from the audience. Against the referee’s ruling? Against Pryde Elka? Or—D.D. Dunphy?
“Who is ahead?”—Naomi was anxious to know.