Dawn. The name came naturally. Dunphy did not react.
“How many hours? I don’t know . . . At Target if you’re not full-time they call you when they need you. It could be different every week. Especially if you work in the stockroom or unloading. Mr. Cassidy worked out a schedule for me at Target where he knows the store manager. There’s a special arrangement for when I need to train before a fight and when I’m away for a fight.”
“That’s ‘Cass Cassidy’—your manager?”
Dunphy nodded yes. Clearly it gave her a measure of pride, that it could be said of her that she had a manager.
“And Ernie Beecher is your trainer? Mr. Beecher has an excellent reputation, I’ve learned.”
Dunphy smiled, hesitantly. Clearly she was proud of Ernie Beecher her trainer.
“Is it strange to work with a man? To be so close, physically close, to a man like Ernie Beecher?”
Dunphy considered this. She did not feel comfortable with the words physically close, Naomi could see.
“And also, Mr. Beecher is a black man. That must be—just a little—given your background—strange . . .”
Dunphy shrugged as if embarrassed. It was clear that she had not given the strangeness much thought until now.
“What does your family think?”
“What does my family think?”
“About your boxing career. Working so closely with Ernie Beecher, for instance.”
Dunphy rubbed her swollen eyelids. Her skin was sallow and doughy. Naomi could see small white scars at her hairline, like miniature gems. It was a revelation that a winning boxer, a young woman who had never lost a fight, could yet wear the signs of rough usage on her face. Half-consciously too, as she labored to answer Naomi’s questions, Dunphy was rubbing the nape of her neck and upper spine as if she were in pain.
Naomi said, sympathetically: “But of course there are no women trainers. Especially no white women trainers. If you want to train to box you have to train with someone like Ernie Beecher. In fact you are very lucky to be working with Ernie Beecher.”
“Yah. I am lucky.”
“I guess—from what I’ve read—boxing has become a mostly black sport? Black and Hispanic? ‘Persons of color’ dominate—like Angel Hernandez, who’s in your weight class? Will you fight her—Angel Hernandez?”
Dunphy shivered, shuddered. A look in her doughy face of sudden excitement, yet dread.
“Yah. Guess so.”
“The only boxer you haven’t beaten conclusively has been a black girl—‘Jamala’. . .”
Naomi had researched D.D. Dunphy on the Internet. She’d made a list of the boxers Dunphy had fought. She saw how the name “Jamala” was startling to Dunphy who stared at her now with an inscrutable expression..
“‘Jamala’ . . .yah. She the best.”
Strange, Dunphy had lapsed into black vernacular. Her voice had become throaty, musical. She’d murmured these words with a look of pained adoration.
“‘Jamala Prentis’—‘The Princess’? No, she lost her last fight. She’s lost three or four fights and she’s ranked below ‘D.D. Dunphy.’ I’ve done my homework. Midwestern Boxing League, World Boxing Association. On both lists you’re ahead of Jamala. You’re the best.”
Naomi spoke with a wild sort of extravagance as if daring Dunphy to believe her.
But Dunphy stared at Naomi uncomprehending. Possibly, she had not known that Jamala Prentis had lost recent fights.
“Nah, Jamala is the best. ‘The Princess’—she got style.”
Though the banquet room was chilly Dunphy seemed to be overwarm. With a little grunt she removed her sweatshirt, tugging it roughly over her head; Naomi had an impulse to help her, but did not. Below the sweatshirt Dunphy wore a T-shirt of some thin synthetic material, tight across her hard, heavy breasts, and cut high on the shoulder, so that the bright lurid tattoos on both her arms were revealed.
On one muscled bicep a cross of what appeared to be crimson flames, and on the other bicep a cross of white lilies. On Dunphy’s left forearm, a purple hammer—Hammer of Jesus.
What a sight! Doesn’t she know what she looks like . . .
She is so naive! So pathetic.
Wanting to believe that she is important.
Wanting to believe that anyone would want to interview her. That anything in her pitiful life matters.
“What striking tattoos!”—Naomi spoke with convincing admiration.
“Yah. I guess.” Dunphy smiled shyly. Tucking in her chin to look at the tattoos in a way that suggested she often looked at them. Naomi thought—She looks at the tattoos instead of looking into a mirror. The tattoos are her mirror.
Badly Naomi wanted to end the interview. She believed that her parents would disapprove of what she was doing, if they could know. Yet she was transfixed, and could not seem to stop.
“Please tell me a little more about your background, Dawn. Your hometown is said to be Dayton but—that isn’t where you were born, is it?”
Dunphy shrugged ambiguously as if to say Guess not. Maybe.
“I read on the Internet that you’re from Muskegee Falls, a small city in central Ohio.”