Eight rounds! The strain was near-unbearable.
At last the fight was ending. Both boxers appeared exhausted. In the closing seconds Dunphy continued to hammer at Elka who tried to clutch and clinch and (another time) head-butt—but Dunphy was shrewd enough now to avoid being struck in the face by the other’s head.
Through the fight Elka had moved about the ring far more agilely than Dunphy who’d remained flatfooted, relentless as a landslide. Of the two boxers it was Dunphy whose face was the more battered; her nose was bloody, her right eye swollen shut. How grotesque the quasi-glamorous swaths of color in her hair, the lurid gleaming tattoos on her upper arms! (Naomi had only just noticed a tattoo on Dunphy’s back, just below the nape of her neck—looking like Jesus Is Lord.) She was feeling a hostility for D.D. Dunphy that was near-overwhelming, visceral as nausea.
Bell rang! Naomi could breathe. The terrible ordeal was over, she would never subject herself to anything like this again.
Lifting her camera, taking pictures. No one objected, no one noticed. She would record “The Squaw” Pryde Elka barely able to lift her gloved hands in a simulation of boastful victory—“Hammer of Jesus” D.D. Dunphy stunned-seeming (not comprehending that the fight was over?) wiping blood out of her eyes as her handlers hurried to her.
From the audience came isolated calls, cries, bursts of applause. Pryde Elka had her supporters and so did (evidently) D.D. Dunphy. But many patrons had entered the arena during the final round without any interest in the frenzied action between the women boxers in the ring. There was a collective impatience for this fight to end, and the next fight to begin.
Naomi believed that Elka had won. Enthusiasm for Elka had been more evident in the Armory. She’d been the more skilled boxer, if the more devious with her attempts at head-butting and kidney punches. As a Native American, Elka was more sympathetic. All you could say of Dunphy was that she was tough, resilient. She was clumsy.
Naomi would return to New York City happily, if Pryde Elka had won. She would take a few photographs in the Armory and return to New York City and to the care of her grandmother and (how this had happened, she couldn’t quite comprehend) her “half-uncle” Kinch. They were her family now. They needed her, and she was happy to be needed. She was accumulating photo-portraits, and portraits of “The Squaw” and “The Hammer of Jesus” would be appropriate. She would not ever think of Luther Dunphy’s daughter again.
But to her surprise all three judges gave the fight to Dunphy. Naomi had not been aware of the “judges” until now—two middle-aged white men and a middle-aged black man, seated at ringside. The first judge had “awarded” seven rounds to Dunphy, one round to Elka; the second, six rounds to Dunphy and two rounds to Elka; the third, all eight rounds to Dunphy.
How was this possible? Naomi was astonished.
The ring announcer’s amplified voice exuded an air of zest, exhilaration: “‘D.D. Dunphy’—‘The Hammer of Jesus’—unanimous win increasing this young fighter’s record to eight wins, one draw, zero losses!”
Now came a final outburst of applause. Spectators who’d just trailed into the Armory, who’d seen nothing of the fight, clapped loudly, catcalled and whistled. The mood in the arena was festive, elevated. The mood was impatient. Get the bitches out of the ring!—there came braying cries laced with laughter.
In the ring, in the blinding light, without her gleaming red boxing gloves uplifted to protect her, D.D. Dunphy was very ill at ease. She smiled inanely as a nervous child might smile. She’d been invited by the ring announcer to “say a few words to our audience”—but before she could speak there was a change of plans, and Dunphy’s handlers were instructed to escort her from the ring. Equipment had to be set up for the next fight, which was to be televised within a few minutes.
Naomi asked of the young boxing fans beside her how Dunphy could have won the fight when she was so clumsy it seemed like she couldn’t “box” at all; and they retorted, “She win, man. That white girl can hit.”
This was a rebuke. Naomi felt her face burn as if she’d betrayed someone to whom she was expected to have been loyal.
With her camera Naomi hurried after D.D. Dunphy and her several handlers up the aisle, taking flash pictures. She saw now what she hadn’t seen before the fight: Dunphy’s black robe, that fell to just her knees, bore gilt letters on the back—D.D. DUNPHY HAMMER OF JESUS. And on Dunphy’s head was a black cap with the inscription, also in gilt letters, JESUS IS LORD.