Million Dollar Baby (17 page)

“How you feel?” said Con.

“Sick.”

“Shall I stop it?” asked Odell.

“Naw!” said Mookie, almost shouting.

“Tell him, Odell,” said Con, ripping loose the sound unit from Odell’s belt and tossing it outside the ring. Soundmen in the booth grabbed their ears and started cussing.

Odell was serious as a heart attack as he spoke to Mookie. “Hit the nigga in the nuts so hard his dick’ll die.”

They sponged Mookie down and watered him, and he appeared to have regained some of his strength. The ref came back at the ten-second warning, telling Odell to leave the ring and to pick up the ice that had fallen from Mookie’s cup. Odell kicked the ice from the corner. As the bell rang, the ref turned to Mookie.

“You need more time?”

Mookie saw himself as a warrior and shook his head, surprising Con, who thought either Mookie or Odell would have called for more time at that point. The business with the mike and the ice had distracted Odell, and now it was too late. The ref looked away, and Con tossed more ice onto the canvas. As the ref looked back to wave Mookie on, he spotted the ice, called a time-out, and ordered Con to clear it. The ref was pissed, but Con didn’t give a rat’s ass. He took his time, and what it got was his boy another twelve seconds’ rest.

“The ref be mad,” said Odell.

“He ain’t my daddy.”

The sixth round began, and the African clipped Mookie low again, but Mookie saw it coming and took the shot on his hip. It was better there than to the family jewels, but had it landed on the soft side of his ass, it could have damaged the sciatic nerve and Mookie would be staggering. The ref gestured to the African to keep his punches up, but he gave no warning. Mookie aimed his next punch below the African’s belt, but it was a glancing blow and didn’t faze him.

“No retaliation,” said the ref. “This is your first warning.”

The African jabbed and then faked another low blow. When Mookie lowered his gloves to protect himself, he got popped over the top hard enough to make him blink. The African could crack, all right.

“Do what you gotta do!” Odell shouted from the corner.

Once again, Mookie angled in low to bang the African below the belt, but the African grabbed Mookie behind the neck and pulled him forward. Leaning his weight across Mookie’s back, he banged Mookie to the kidney as he used his weight to force him to one knee. The sixth round had been even, but because Mookie was still sick, and because he was now forced to protect himself above the belt and below, the African had caught him several times with power shots to the face. The swelling had begun.

Between rounds, Con dropped the mouthpiece into the ice bucket to chill it down. “Breathe, Mookie. Deep and through your nose. Make a sigh and let it just fall out.” After three breaths, Con gave him water and had him spit. Then he gave him more water and told him to keep breathing. Odell greased Mookie’s nose, face, and lips.

“You okay?” Odell asked.

“I’m okay,” said Mookie.

“You not,” said Odell. “I know you.”

“Still sick a little bit,” muttered Mookie.

“A lot or a little bit?” Con asked, giving him a little more water to swallow.

Mookie shrugged, but they could see he wasn’t the same. It went that way in the seventh, the African occasionally popping Mookie just low enough to keep his guard down, and beginning to land regularly with his big right. No warnings from the ref. Mookie’s legs weren’t the same. He was gulping air as he punched, and though he scored well, the African’s mouth was closed tightly and he was coming on. He hit Mookie low again, and Mookie banged him right back.

“Second warning,” said the ref, pointing at Mookie.

“Warn that muhfuh,” answered Mookie.

“I’ll do the reffing.”

The whites booed the warning, but the Ugandans applauded and began to chant and hoot. Mookie’s mouth was ripped and bleeding inside because he was getting hit while his mouth was open to breathe. Between rounds, Con would stop the flow, but the African was raining punches on Mookie that reopened the lacerations, and he swallowed blood for the remaining four hellacious rounds. The African began fighting upright again in the eighth round, marching at Mookie and firing salvos of jabs, rights, hooks, and uppercuts. At midround he broke Mookie’s nose, blood catching in Mookie’s thin mustache, dripping from his chin. Though Mookie’s legs were fading, he continued to move and to make the African miss. But he was too weak to fire back with evil intentions, and the African was able to keep pulling Mookie’s head forward and to pound him with shots to the kidneys. Con knew Mookie’s piss would be the color of port wine as he went to work on the broken nose between rounds, pressing on pressure points and swabbing up inside with liquid adrenaline and then swabbing it again with the adrenaline salve he had prepared. There was no time to ice it.

“I can’t keep him back, can’t keep him off,” Mookie gasped. “He strong.”

In the ninth the African hit Mookie with a dozen of his best shots, but Mookie wouldn’t go. He sagged twice, and his face ballooned, but his legs held and Con’s heart began to break. His ice bags hadn’t contained the lumps on Mookie’s face, and his brows now protruded like a Neanderthal’s. The African swooped in again and doubled Mookie over with another low blow. The crowd was yelling at the referee. At the end of the round, Odell met Mookie midring and helped him to the corner, where he slumped forward. Con doused Mookie with ice water. Mookie had been gagging, but when the ice water hit him he stood straight up.

“I’ll kill the nigga,” said Mookie. “I’ll kill everyone he love.”

Con yelled at the ref. “Hey, come on! He keeps hitting us low!”

“I didn’t see it.”

“You didn’t see it?” yelled Odell. “Ray Charles could see it!”

The ref made a show of going to the African’s corner, but he’d only given one warning, so he wasn’t obliged to take away a point.

Con temporarily stopped the nosebleed and the blood from Mookie’s mouth, but after a few jabs from the African in the tenth, blood started to flow again. The African flung Mookie into his corner, where he held him and hit him and nearly closed his left eye. That’s when Mookie hit the African with two left uppercuts right in his nuts. The African’s legs went in different directions, and he went down like a horse shot in a slaughterhouse. The referee marched to Mookie and held up a finger. He turned to each of the three judges, in the signal to penalize Mookie one point. The African’s trainer hauled him up onto his stool and began to yell for disqualification. The referee was tempted, but a chair sailed into the ring, and then another. The commissioner looked the other way. When the African was offered up to five minutes, he took all five of them. Mookie stood with his arms on the top ropes of a neutral corner and nodded to Odell and Con.

“Mookie tough,” said Odell. “Africa get to res’, we res’.”

Mookie kicked the shit out of the African for the rest of the tenth, making him wonder what he was doing in Philly that night.

“We winnin?” Mookie said after the bell.

While Con worked on blood, he talked. “We got the first five, no question about it. The sixth was even. We won the tenth, too, but they took away a point, so that makes the tenth an even round, but it still gives us five, with two even the way I see it. The African won the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth, and maybe one of the push rounds. With the point from us, that makes it even.”

“So we need bof these rounds, eleven and twelve, bof to win,” said Odell. “Look at ’im over there, Africa, he tired.”

“I ain’t tired,” said Mookie, his roadwork paying off.

“Box ’im, Mookie, jus’ like the gym. He droppin his left hand, so let you left hand go!, let it go and then you git, hyuh? An’ then you jab, baby, bip, bip, bip, and then bang, come back wif the hook!”

Mookie boxed the African silly in the eleventh, sticking, moving. Acting like he was going to throw low blows, he scared the shit out of the African. Then he nailed him with big left hands and combinations to his head, which began to swell and made him look like a zombie. There was pandemonium in the arena. Over it all came the Ugandan chant.

At the bell, the ref strutted over to Mookie’s corner. “That’s enough of this movin-movin,” he said. “Work, hear me?, or I’ll stop it.”

“We workin,” said Odell.

“He’s movin too much.”

“Who say?” said Odell, challenging him.

“I say,” said the ref.

“You say th-th-they a r-r-rule h-he g-g-got to stand an’ get h-h-hit?”

Con saw that Odell was ready to deck the ref. If he did, they’d lose the fight and Odell could be banned from boxing in most states, so Con jumped in the ref’s face. Besides, Mookie needed Odell right then more than he needed Cornelius Flutey. “We can fight any fuckin way we want to fight!”

“You watch your mouth, old man. I have the power to throw you outta here!”

“Yeah?, well, this old man will shoot you in the face eighteen times!, so you figure what kind of nine-millimeter I’m packin, you cocksucker, and we’ll see who’s got the fuckin power here!”

The ref turned away, wishing to God he hadn’t taken the money. His mouth was still slack as the bell for the twelfth rang. Con was glad the ref hadn’t called him on the gun, because he’d been selling wolf tickets on the nine-millimeter from the git. He grinned at Odell, who grinned back and shook his head.

“You a baaad man, Flute.”

Con shrugged. “I could always hit him with the water bucket.”

Mookie fought like a tommy gun, his shots coming from all angles. The ref flat kept out of it. Mookie busted up the African’s lips and cut both eyes. The African fought back with all his might, connecting several times big-time, and once nearly knocked Mookie through the ropes. The Ugandans exploded. But by far Mookie landed the most clean punches in eleven and twelve, and Con was positive Mookie had won. The Ugandan’s chant was swallowed up in the rest of the crowd’s
“USA! USA! USA!”
The bell rang, and both Mookie and the African raised their hands in victory. Usually fighters embrace after the bell, smile like kids playing in water. But not this time.

The rest was a formality, both corners removing gloves and cutting off the wraps. Both wiped their boys down. Both crossed to the opposite corner or met in the middle of the ring and shook hands.

“You’re a good trainer,” Con said to the African’s chief second, a former light-heavyweight contender. “And that boy of yours can bang.”

“I appreciate that. And that Bodeen, he somethin else.”

The African shook Con’s hand, smiled down at him. “Very elusive, your fightah.”

“I didn’t like you much during the fight,” Con said. “But I like you fine now.”

“Thank you, suh.”

The announcer read the results from the scorecards. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a unanimous decision. I’ll read the totals. All three judges had it the same, 118 to 110, all for the
still
—”

The Ugandans went manic, howling and waving their flags and prancing like they’d just driven another tribe into Lake Victoria. Con, Mookie’s managers, Odell, and Mookie stared at one other in disbelief, as did members of the crowd, black, Puerto Rican, and white.

“Judges be smokin hunna-dolla’ bills,” said Odell.

Con hung his head. The TV announcers climbed into the ring as Mookie and Odell tried to climb out. The crowd was yelling and shouting. “Fix! Fix!”

The commissioner and the promoter jumped into the ring. Both rushed to Odell. “Bodeen can fight in Philly anytime, anytime!”

“Bodeen don’t want to fight in Philly,” said Odell, turning away and leaving the ring with Mookie.

“What’s wrong with Philly?” the commissioner asked Con.

“What’s wrong is that 118 to 110 means with the round they took that we only won two rounds,” said Con. “And you know what that means?”

“What?”

“It means that for judges you brought in the Three fuckin Stooges.”

Con slipped through the ropes and grabbed his bucket and gear bag, but he was unable to follow behind Odell and Mookie because the Ugandans were dancing and chanting up the aisle. Several looked at Con and grinned smugly, and the leader in his African outfit danced up into Con’s face.

“Uganda was victorious!”

They looked into each other’s eyes, the Ugandan’s black, Con’s green. Neither blinked. One face was the face of the slaves that were captured from East Africa and taken to the Muslim market. The other face was the face of the Irish warriors of the British Empire that once ruled the world, including Uganda. The Ugandans crowded in close, twenty to one, daring Con to push them aside. Con set his stuff on the floor. It was time to teach.

“Understand that I admire your fighter and I admire you.” He extended his hand to the leader. “Your Joshua is a great warrior, a lion.”

The Ugandans went silent; their grins faded and their eyes slid to each other. From the back came a voice that chided the others.

“He is a sportsmahn.”

The leader shook Con’s hand. “Suh,” he said.

Then all of them offered their hands in the soft, African manner, and Con shook each one. As he picked up his stuff and walked alone toward the dressing room, he heard the same voice he heard before.

“He is a sportsmahn.”

Racket from the departing fight fans was banging off the walls of the dressing room. The TV crew was hauling cables and packing its gear in silence. Members of Mookie’s faction were quiet, but down deep inside they were loud. A guard at the door kept the crowd out, but some got through and stood silently in disgust. Some yelled through the door that Mookie got jobbed, that what happened wasn’t supposed to happen in Philly. Others hollered for a formal hearing before the Commission, but the faction knew if they filed a complaint, that nothing would come of it.

Outside, the Ugandans were chanting. One had wrapped himself in the multistriped black, yellow, and red of their homeland, a flag that had some kind of bird against a white circle in the middle of it. The smell of reefer edged itself into the dressing room. Mookie’s managers stood looking at nothing. Odell sat next to Mookie, who slumped in his chair holding an ice bag to his lumping face, and adjusting the ice cubes Con had stuffed down his cup. Sweat continued to pour from Mookie, and Con kept after him with a towel that was stained with dark red blotches. Con mixed equal parts of water with a small can of pineapple-orange-banana juice and gave it to Mookie to replenish the potassium he’d lost sweating. Blood no longer flowed. The ring doctor came in to check Mookie: his ribs, kidneys, his liver, his nuts, his eyes, his mouth. He shrugged when he looked up Mookie’s nose and told him to see a doctor once he got back to L.A.