The Real Thing (2 page)

Chapter 2

D
ante Lattanza is a throwback to another era, my granddaddy had told me, a real “Rocky” in the mold of the Bronx Bull Jake LaMotta and Carmen Basilio. Dante is the same height as LaMotta (5' 8”) was, and has a better winning (50–2) and knockout percentage (96%) than either LaMotta or Basilio ever had, but these Italian boxers each had their African-American nemeses that kept them from immortality. LaMotta's nemesis was Joe Louis, Basilio's nemesis was Sugar Ray Robinson, and Lattanza's nemesis was and will soon again be Tank Washington.

Lattanza just hasn't kept up with the times. For forty-seven fights, he put all his hopes into a thundering left hook. By the time he fought Washington, Lattanza and his left hook hardly ruffled hair. After his divorce and a ten-year layoff, Lattanza was making a comeback and blood-and-gutting his way to miraculous victories over younger, faster, better skilled and stronger fighters, often knocking them out in the last few rounds while far behind on points.

Thus, I was here in Canada to catch up
Personality
readers on the last ten years of his life.

Such fun.

At least he's nice to look at.

Shelley doesn't assign me any truly juicy stories. She won't allow me to trail pop singers who can't follow judges' orders and lose their children as a result. She forbids me from stalking starlets who use drugs and kleptomania to handle their fame. She wouldn't dream of letting me interview fashion designers who end up in West Virginia prisons, the “it” couple and what flavor of the human rainbow they are going to adopt this week, and heiresses sent to jail, not sent to jail, sent to jail, an appearance with Letterman—oh, the freaking horror! Other more seasoned and cynical writers get those scandalous stories. I get the human-interest puff pieces, the feel-good, gosh-ain't-this-a-nice-person stories, the ones that should give our readers hyperglycemia because of all the sugar dripping off the page.

Celebrities. We actually quote them, as if any of them have something interesting and original to say. Most of them read their lines and have to go through several takes to get those lines right in front of the camera, right? Yet, we splash their drivel weekly (which they often tell us
weakly
) as nuggets of wisdom. “It's so miserable to be rich and famous,” they seem to say. “You should see the little ten
bazillion
square feet bungalow I live in with
only
an unimpeded view of the Pacific Ocean.” They tell us how awful the paparazzi are—“I hope they at least get my good side, but what are you gonna do?”—and how simply devastating it is to have their personal lives put out in public for us to . . . envy? Shoot, give me $1.5 million a picture or $250,000 an episode and let me see how I handle the paparazzi for a day. I bet I'd . . . stay home and read or surf the Internet or bid on eBay for Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia and old Johnny Mathis and Smokey Robinson recordings.

What? A modern girl can't go old school? Okay, okay, Mathis and Robinson are more “ancient school” than old school, but when you're lonely and pining for a man, whose voice would you rather hear caressing your ears—Keith Sweat and his nasal tones or smooth Smokey kissing your soul with “Cruisin',” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “Being with You,” and “Ooo Baby Baby”? You don't turn on some R. Kelly and all of his nasty baggage when Johnny's voice can snuggle up to your heart with “Chances Are,” “A Certain Smile,” “Misty,” and “I'm Coming Home.” Icons. I listen to icons. They never go out of style. They're immortal.

Johnny and Smokey are not famous for being famous like so many celebrities these days. What a vicious cycle. Fifteen minutes of fame (or infamy) translates into ten talk shows a year, maybe a guest appearance on a sitcom, and a bit (and often bitter) part in a movie. I don't hate the famous, but c'mon, now—they're
people
. They're not heroes. They're not role models. They're not saving the world. They're not going to end up in the
Encyclopedia Britannica
. They're only as famous (or infamous) as their last movie, album, show, or run-in with the law.

I once had an interview with a disco queen (who shall remain nameless) who had a few hits in the seventies and was making a comeback thanks to so many rappers sampling her beats. She was old news, yet Shelley told me to go “get the skinny.” After waiting two hours for
not
-skinny Disco Diva's makeup artist to transform her fifty-something face into maybe forty-nine, she had absolutely nothing to say.
Nothing
. Yet I wrote it well, three paragraphs that said absolutely nothing. “Nice piece,” Shelley said. “Of what?” I countered. “Toilet paper?”

I signed on to
Personality
to be a news reporter, not a gushing, exclamation-point-filled writer of the fantasy lives of unreal celebrities.
Personality
magazine is supposed to have an even mix of celebrity and human-interest stories, but I swear that celebrities fill more than half our pages. Our covers are also starting to mirror the
Enquirer
and
Star.

I have never had a subscription to
Personality,
and I don't ever intend to get one.

I don't care much for the stories in the magazine. I don't care if that pop singer is watching herself do a pole dance on her latest music video. I don't care if that same pop singer thinks the world is “cruel.” As John Wayne once said, “Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid.” You're stupid, Miss Pole Dancer. Get over yourself, honey. I don't care if a megastar bought a multimillion-dollar island for his children to grow up on so they can “live ordinary lives.” What is ordinary about that? I don't care which celebrity is cheating on a celebrity spouse with another celebrity who's cheating on his high school sweetheart. I don't care who has rehab center frequent-flyer miles. I don't care what singers-turned-actresses (and there is a glut of those these days) wear under their dresses at the Golden Globes. I don't care if a magpie caused a singer/actor to pee himself on an Australian golf course. I don't care if the daughter of a well-known boozer and druggie can read Noam Chomsky.

So the freak what.

I knew the Dante Lattanza “sexy man” story would be at best a puff piece filling one-fourth of a page or less. I hate puff pieces so much that I don't even set out to write them when Shelley assigns them to me. I write in-depth, hard-hitting stories that often reveal the seedy underbelly of fame or even the insipid and lackluster nature of celebrated lives. Yet my stories, which you actually have to chew on before swallowing, get reduced to a few glossy pictures and a paragraph or two, lasting just long enough for the average person to read on the subway, in the bathroom, on the bus, or at a stoplight.

I hate that. I didn't go to Columbia and spend ten years chasing down stories for
The New York Times
to write puff pieces for a living. The pay is significantly better now, but the prestige isn't there. Puff pieces, which I define as “stories that the magazine's in-house lawyer
won't
need to read,” are lifeless, flavorless, and controversy-less.

In other words, happy happy joy joy not.

All I need is thirty minutes to get Lattanza to answer a few soft questions, take a few pictures, and maybe get to know him (and his washboard abs) better. I want him to explain the town of Barry's Bay to me. Who is Barry, and where is the bay? I didn't see any water around that little town. I want to ask him why the boat rental person at a place called “the Landing” had charged me so much. Does he have a thing against black people or Americans in general? Why are there so many burly women on Canadian road crews? What's up with those logging trucks creeping uphill at 5 kilometers per hour and screaming downhill at 150 kilometers per hour? Do you have to wear flannel to be a Canadian citizen? Why do I understand the French words on the road signs better than I understand the English words? Why is the road to this lake unpaved? If I wanted to drive on a washboard, I'd get an ATV. Moreover, what's up with the Monopoly money these Canadians use? Who decided red was a good color for money?

I want to ask Lattanza why he chose this remote wilderness setting to train for a fight against a man he could never beat, and I especially want to know why Lattanza is even taking this fight in the first place. “Do you have a death wish?” I want to ask. Tank Washington is ten years younger than Lattanza is. What is the point? A payday? What payday, rumored to be in the seven digits, is worth your face or your ability to think and breathe in the future?

My research into Lattanza's life revealed a few interesting points. First, he had a normal, ordinary childhood in the Carroll Gardens section of South Brooklyn, where someone filmed
Moonstruck
a while ago. That, in itself, is interesting. He had a normal childhood in a neighborhood stereotypically rumored to have Mafia ties. He was never in any trouble with the law, and he was a good student at St. Saviour, even attending Kingsborough Community College after high school. An early article revealed that every weekday he jogged to and from St. Saviour, a distance of about two miles, wearing his school uniform. Second, he
still
has a following, an army of devout, devoted fans. “Rabid, rude, and raucous,” one boxing analyst had said of them. In today's “fifteen minutes of fame” society, to have anything last so many years is amazing. When Lattanza lost his first match to Tank on points, Lattanza's fans had rioted, throwing chairs and even a few non-Lattanza fans into the ring in Las Vegas. Lattanza hadn't won a single round on any of the judges' scorecards, yet they rioted.

The next fight with Cordoza was even more lopsided—and bloody. Lattanza's eyes were almost swollen shut, cuts above and below both eyes. Finally, Lattanza simply disappeared until
Heavy Leather,
dropping completely off the map. Even Google had no record of his whereabouts for the last ten years. Now, ten years later, he's back, 3–0 with three knockouts during his comeback, ranked in the top ten by
Ring
magazine, and chosen by Tank Washington to take his last beating and bloodletting.

I could sense there was more to Dante Lattanza than I could see. He was a story waiting to happen. My normal philosophy of “There's nothing new under the sun” is in jeopardy. Lattanza is something so old school he's actually new. In addition, it wouldn't be as easy as detailing a man's simple desire to be a champion again. I could sense a tight, hard-hitting piece that could end up in newspapers across the country, a real scoop, a real human-interest story that could put my name up there with Red Miller or Jim Murray.

I could also sense a simple need deep within me to . . .

Okay, I'm busted.

I just want to see a real man up close before they start stitching up his face.

Is that such a crime?

Chapter 3

I
pull-start the motor and cruise over to a dock to the right of the outcropping, seeing Lattanza's cottage sitting some sixty feet back from the precipice in a clearing surrounded by pine and birch trees. It's really a beautiful cottage, with two stories, a stone chimney, lots of picture windows, and plentiful decking. I shift the motor to neutral and float into an open area of the long dock, a fancy ski boat and a fishing boat tied on the left side, an old wooden boat beached on the shore, stone stairs climbing the hill to the cottage.

A seriously dark tan teenaged boy comes down those stairs to tend to my boat. This should be Dante Jr., and his features are more like mine. Full lips, short curly hair, a wider nose than his daddy has. I had never seen Lattanza's ex-wife, but she must have been an exceptionally beautiful black woman.

“Hi,” I say.

He only nods and ties the front rope of my boat to a cleat on the dock while I do the same at my end.

“My name is Christiana Artis,” I say, smiling. “I'm from
Personality
magazine, and I—”

He interrupts me with a burst of Italian that he shouts behind him. I hear my name and the word “personality” clearly, though the way Dante Jr. says it has some serious attitude. Another burst of Italian from a deeper and, I must say, sexier voice drifts down to us.

“My dad doesn't give interviews,” he says.

“You're Dante Junior, right?”

“DJ.”

“Um, DJ,” I say carefully, “I know he hasn't given an interview in many years, but I thought if I made the effort, you know, came out to the middle of nowhere, that I'd—”

“You came out for nothing,” DJ interrupts with a shrug.

I look up the stairs and see Lattanza toweling himself off behind some sturdy pine trees. You can't come down and tell me yourself, huh? You have to send the kid, right? “I, uh, I watched part of his workout, and I was—”

“And took some pictures without Dad's permission.”

I nod. I look up the stairs. Lattanza has put on a plain white T-shirt.

“I can always say I was taking pictures of that beautiful island,” I say, “and he just happened to be in them, lucky me.”

DJ frowns. “It would be a lie.”

This isn't going well. I sigh. “Well, tell him he's been named one of
Personality
magazine's sexiest people alive.” I hear a rustling up above. “Tell him I'll put the entire interview in his own words so there will be no chance for any lies.”

DJ looks up the stairs. “
My
dad?”

Hmm. Why not? “He's only number thirteen.”

“Tredici!”
a voice thunders down from the rocks and echoes all around me.
“Impossibile!”

I have struck a chord. I had heard that Lattanza was vain. Not being number one in anything for so long must be hard for him to swallow.

DJ laughs. “
My
dad?” he repeats.

“He's a handsome man,” I say, and I mean it, though it is hard to see Lattanza through all those tree branches.

“You all are crazy,” DJ says.

I nod. “I'd put him much higher, but I'm just a writer and a photographer.”

DJ shakes his head. “Higher? I can't believe he even made the top thousand.”

Another explosion of Italian echoes around us.

“Just kidding, Dad,” DJ says, crouching in front of me. “Look, Dad doesn't like the attention, okay?” he whispers. “Especially from you. Reporters like you turned on him after he lost to Cordoza, and he has vowed not to speak to any more reporters.”

I was afraid of this. I had written many boxing stories while at the
Times
since I told them—in a stretch of the truth—that I
trained
at Gleason's Gym with my granddaddy. It was just an excuse for Granddaddy and me to get in to free boxing matches at Madison Square Garden. I wrote the hell out of those stories, however, so no one ever questioned my knowledge of the sport.

“You said your name was Artis?” DJ asks.

“Yes.”

“Weren't you the one who wrote that my dad never had any talent?”

I had written plenty of other painful things, but not that . . . exactly. “I didn't write that, DJ. I never wrote—”

DJ unties the front rope and tosses it into the boat. “Leave him alone, okay? And when you publish those pictures, and I know you will, don't disrespect him or make him look like a clown.” He pushes off the front of the boat with his foot.

Since my end is still secure, I have to turn around to speak to him as the boat slides away from the dock. “Look, I came a long way, and I only need thirty minutes.”

“To ruin my
papino
some more?”

This boy
really
loves his
papino,
er, daddy. How do I get through to him? “I'm not here to ruin your, um,
papino.
I'm here to set the record straight, okay? I'm here—”

I stop because I have to catch my breath.

Lattanza, sans blood and guts, is bouncing down the stairs with all his cuts and bulges and . . . oh yeah, he's pissed. Those eyes are not twinkling at me at all. Those are the eyes that other boxers look into when he fights them.

I take a deep breath. “Mr. Lattanza, I—”

Lattanza stomps to the end of the dock and sits, his bare feet dangling over the water, my boat swiveling farther away. “Call me Dante.”

“Okay, Dante, I—”

“Why only thirteen?” he asks.

“I, uh, I don't—”

“There are twelve sexier than me?”

His voice is so damn hot. I can't explain it. It has passion in it, fire. It curls around my heart and pokes at it with hot fingers. “My, um, my editor—”

He shakes his head. “What do you think?” He raises his arms and flexes like a bodybuilder.

“Dad, c'mon,” DJ says.

“Hmm?” Dante flexes even harder. “Is this the body of a thirteen?”

I notice gray hairs around his ears and some gray in his stubble, but he doesn't look a day over thirty. Fine white scar lines and some thicker scar lines crease his eyelids and eyebrows, the thickest scar below his right eye. “I'd put you in the top ten,” I say softly, not looking into his eyes. “Maybe even the top three.”

“Ha!” Dante says, springing to his feet. He directs a torrent of Italian at DJ, and DJ comes to the end of the dock, pulling the back rope until my boat returns to the dock.

“I know you,” Dante says as DJ ties the rope to the cleat.

“I don't think we've ever met. I'm—”

“You are Christiana Artis,” Dante interrupts.

How does he know me? “You can call me Tiana.”

Dante shakes his head. “Christiana is a better name, a good name for
scrittore cattivo
.”

I blink, expecting a translation. He doesn't give one. Bad scribbler? Wait. It probably means “bad writer.” Yes, he probably knows me.

“You say you came all this way,” Dante says. “You say you have made an effort. How much effort are you willing to make?”

I'm supposed to be the one asking questions, not him. “Look, I only need thirty minutes, maybe a few more pictures.” I look up at the outcropping of rocks. “I can get a really good shot of you up there with the sunset in the background.”

“Ha!” He crouches down, his calves bulging, a crucifix swaying from a gold chain around his neck. “So your caption can read, ‘Dante Lattanza, washed-up boxer in the sunset of his life'?”

I wouldn't put it past some of my editors to do that, but . . . “No, of course not. It will, um, be sexy.” I can't believe I just said that. “You know, sexiest men alive, sexy pose. You were, um, sexy in
Heavy Leather.
”

Dante shakes his head. “No. No pictures. You are writing what you
giornalisti
call a puff piece, yes?”

He knows me, and he knows about our puff pieces. Hmm. “Yes, but I want the whole story for another article I hope to publish just before you fight Washington.” Which I've just now decided to do. “Probably for
Sports Illustrated.
” Or not.
Personality
might even run with it. Hell, we all work for Time-Life.

“Then no,” he says with authority. “No interview. No puff piece. Use the pictures you already took. Use the lies you have been writing about me for years. Put me at thirteen,
non importa.
” He flies into more Italian, and DJ unties the front of my boat again.

That rope is getting a workout.

“Mr. Lattanza, Dante, please,” I plead. “I took a plane out of LaGuardia this morning to Ottawa and drove all the way on some very iffy roads just to see you. I have covered a dozen of your fights. I grew up in Red Hook, right next to Carroll Gardens where you—”

“I did not ask you to come here and interrupt things,” Dante says, interrupting me. He looks in my boat. “You have no
bagaglio,
no bags?”

I watch the prow of the boat spinning away from the dock again and have to swivel in my seat to keep eye contact with him. “Like I said, I didn't plan to be here for more than half an hour. I didn't bring a change of clothes because I planned to get on another plane—”

Dante laughs, and despite his anger, it is an unrestrained laugh, a genuine laugh. “You thought you could show up, ask your questions, and go.”

I relax a little when I see his eyes twinkle. “Yes.”

He stands taller. “You think you can capture me in thirty minutes?”

I nod.

So vain! At least his eyes aren't angry with me anymore.

“Look,” I say, “I'll ask you maybe five questions, you answer, I go away. End.” What's Italian for
end
?
Fine?

He arrests me with those eyes. “Five questions.”

“Right.”

“
Non importa
then.
Ciao.
” He turns to leave the dock.

So temperamental! “Dante!”

He turns.

“How do I capture you then?”

Dante stares me down, freezing me in my seat. I stare back as long as I can but have to turn away. I hear more Italian, whispered this time, the phrase “
corpo provocante
” said twice, and reach blindly to untie the back rope. When I look up, Dante is gone and DJ is once again pulling my boat toward the dock.

“Am I staying or leaving?” I ask. “That rope is getting tired.”

“It's up to you,” DJ says. “If you want an interview, a
real
interview, not a few questions and a picture, you must do five things.”

That's . . . weird. “Why five?”

He, too, freezes me with a stare. “He says you ask five questions, you must do five things.”

Mission
impossibile!
But I can't leave without this story. “Okay. It's fair. What do I have to do?”

He reaches a hand down to me, and I take it. I step out of the boat while he gathers my laptop case and camera bag. At least DJ has manners. I wonder who taught him. It couldn't have been his
papino
.

“You must go fishing with him in the morning,” he says.

I narrow my eyes. “You're kidding. I haven't been fishing in years.”

“And Dad takes it seriously, too. He'll want to leave at four-thirty, an hour before the sun rises.” He nods toward the stairs.

“Why so early?” I ask.

“Tradition,” he says, trying to sound like his daddy.

“Oh.” I walk to the bottom step. “Um, where am I staying?”

“Dad says you can use the guesthouse.”

How generous. “Does it have . . . ?”

DJ rolls his eyes. “It has a full, modern bathroom if you're worried, with running water and everything.”

I wasn't worried. I'm used to roughing it. Some of the hotels I've stayed in, you wouldn't believe.

Okay, okay, I was worried. I like the great outdoors, I really do. I just do not want to do my business in an outhouse surrounded by those great outdoors and creatures that do not understand American.

I start up the steps. “What else do I have to do?”

He trails behind. “After fishing you have to climb Mount Baldy with us and help us prepare breakfast.”

“That's two things,” I say.

“Not to him. The catching, climbing, cleaning, cooking, and eating are all one thing to him.”

Italians can't count.

I reach the top of the stairs and see two paths, one to the main cottage all lit up and glowing like Christmas by the sunset, another, narrower path to what looks like an overgrown shack with a small window facing me. “Back there?” I ask.

DJ nods. “After that, you must complete a full workout with him.”

I get a vision of my body jumping off that outcropping and sinking straight to the bottom. “I know he's kidding now.”

“My
papino
does not kid.”

I get another vision of what the sky must look like from the bottom of a lake, fish swimming around my head—and talking bad about my hair. “I'll have to swim across and everything like that?”

“You look like you're in pretty good shape,” DJ says.

“Did your dad say that?”

DJ looks down. “He said a lot of things about you, um, some of which I'm too embarrassed to repeat.”