While the police laughed over a newspaper behind the tall booking desk, a sergeant came in with a beggar whose face was a black drowned lady-mask in a ruffled collar of dead grass, and she carried a skinny child of indeterminate morbidity which did not brush away the flies from its mouth and the mother was wailing in grief and terror so extreme that it was a wonder they did not begin crying instead of laughing at the booking desk; of course at the booking desk they never noticed. The sergeant kept his hand on the beggar's shoulders so professionally that it almost seemed he was comforting her. Really, of course, he incarnated the foul-smelling sandy sprawl of a lion snarling over the meat between his paws.
They catch her without a home, his love said in a whisper. That's why she is crying. Now they put her in the cell for three months or six months.
The sergeant took the beggar through a door, and almost immediately they heard the rhythmic screams. He could not keep himself from looking at the booking desk where they smiled back at him behind all their riches of contemptuous knowledge. He could see that they knew him. They knew him just as well as the beggar-boys who if they weren't given money started shouting: White man, why you take our African lady? — They knew his love, too. She didn't want to visit her sister in prison because if she did they'd stare her down in exactly the same way, saying nothing, and then if they ever caught her they'd shout: It's your turn now! Where's your husband now?
* Hello.
But every day she took the bus into town, searched the prisons, paid out bribes, until at last they let her sister go.
She put on a faded yellow dress, picked up the clothes her sister had thrown about in drunkenness, took off her shoes and scrubbed the concrete floor. The room smelled like the sister's unwashed body. There was a single bed where the two of them slept with the baby, a roof of corrugated metal held in place by two crossed two-by-fours from which a bare bulb hung. Every wall was in touching distance of the bed. The view outside was a concrete wall. She opened the door, and knelt outside on the sunny concrete, leaning in to scrub the floor. So strong she was, so able in this world of pain. The police had shot her father; her two mothers could not help her; she rented her body to live, and she lived. She nourished her baby and her sister. Nothing could crush her until death. She was pure and her name was Rose.
There she was, tall and brown, sweeping.
There were two boxers on that square platform covered with red, white and blue, and one of them was going to lose. The hometown boy got all the cheers. The other boy was from Mexico. They'd brought him in to lose. The crowd booed when he was announced.
The hometown boy's manager had a fresh towel on his shoulder. He took it and rubbed down the hometown boy. He patted his back and shook his hand. To look at him, the hometown boy could have been the Mexican boy's brother. He gazed at the Mexican as brothers gaze at each other, the look of people who've known each other a long time.
The Mexican boy's manager was already gone.
They pranced like horses waiting, each boy in his corner staring at the other.
As soon as the first round started, they began to look even more like each other. They were both skinny and quick. Their puffy pouting lips and wooden faces stylized them like the eyebrows they raised to stare at each other through their sweat.
Carlos, Carlos! Knock 'im out! called the hometown boy's manager. Kill! Do it! Use your right!
Use your jab! shouted the Mexican's manager.
They danced lightly like art mannequins.
The first punch landed on the Mexican's face with a sharp and puffy slapping sound.
I could already see in the Mexican's face that he was beaten. I don't know if he knew it yet, but I did. He was not trying to win anymore. He was only trying to survive. It was heartrending to see him backing away, never landing a punch, retreating behind his own sweat, no longer seeing the hometown boy's gloves coming. Later on the hometown boy, soaked and panting, would say to the press: Yeah, I feel good. I was hitting him where I wanted. I just kept going 'till he didn't want to throw no more. — The way he said it, anyone could see that it was nothing personal. He just had to win, that was all.
The hometown boy's manager felt the same way. — A right, Carlos! he shouted. In the face! Hit 'im in the face! Yes!
At the end of the first round, each of the two boxers sat limp on his stool. Their managers poured cool water on them, took their mouthguards out, poured bottles down their throats, put their mouth-guards back in.
The bell sounded. The fighters came together, embracing in a tender stranglehold.
The Mexican's manager was in agony. — Don't wait, baby, don't wait! he called out. Go for it! Come on, Ernesto, move it!
