When I Saw Jimmy Coulston by Joseph Scott Celizic

   Before Anne and I broke up, before we took a thirty day break to pray about our future, and before I dreaded her phone calls that flowed like rain runoff into a gutter, her father got us tickets to a boxing match.  It was our first, and neither of us knew what to expect.  I had pictured a mob of Indianapolis’s upper class in a big arena, something similar to the Philadelphia ring in Rocky, but when we pulled up to the one-story Farm Bureau Building at the State Fairgrounds, I knew it would be something completely different.

            The parking lot was packed and it took awhile to find a spot.  When we did, I lifted Anne’s wheelchair from the trunk and put it next to the passenger side door so that she could transfer.  She flipped and patted her wavy chestnut hair and pulled her blouse tight around her waist.  I bent down and kissed her on the lips and we made our way between cars to the front of the building.  Her father, Mr. Garcia, stood in front of the ramp in black athletic pants, the lights above glinting off his bald head.  He was Cuban, but with his pale complexion and perfect English, he passed for a Native-born American.

            “Hey, hey!” he said.  He smiled, his bottom jaw jutting out as he hugged his daughter, brushing her face with his goatee.  Her nose and eyes bunched up and she swatted at her cheeks the way a cat swats at a fly it can’t quite see.  He turned to me and we hugged and patted each other on the back the way men do, then he told me it was good to see his future son-in-law again.  I was only twenty, yet he was positive that I was going to marry his daughter.  He had been since we first met.

            In the Farm Bureau Building, faint cheering echoed off the high ceiling.  The off-white tile floors reminded me of the high school Anne and I had attended.  Mr. Garcia handed me two tickets and said, “I have to take care of things with Jimmy.”

            “Where is he?” Anne asked.  “I wanted to see him before and wish him luck.”

            Mr. Garcia pointed to the bathroom doors and headed off.  Anne and I yelled, thanking him for the tickets, but he said nothing. I said that he seemed stressed.

            “Wouldn’t you be?  It’s their first fight, Renard.”  Anne said, as though I had been trying to insult him.  I don’t think she ever liked my name, because she only used it when she was annoyed with me.

            Mr. Garcia worked in the restaurant business, construction and home repair.  Back when he was still married to Anne’s mother, he had worked in retail and, as Anne says, was very good at what he did.  However, this was his first gig as a trainer.  Jimmy was British and had moved to the States six months ago.  He had done some amateur fighting in England, but this was his debut as a professional in America.

            “I don’t think he’s worried or anything,” Anne continued.  “He’s been working with Jimmy a long time and he knows what he’s doing.”

            “We’ll see,” I said.  I picked up a program and I pushed her to the main arena.

            It was much smaller than I had expected.  There were booths selling carnival food and beer just left of the entrance.  The plain gray ring, which was probably a temp set up for the night, was only a few feet off the ground.  Instead of bleacher seating, the ring was surrounded by round tables with folding chairs, like a school cafeteria.  It smelled creamy and sweet, like cotton candy, yet the bitterness of beer and body odor lingered.  Noise came from drunken twenty-five year olds in the back section, a mix of incoherent chants and banging on tables.  I asked Anne if she wanted to find our seats.

            “Can we get something to eat? Maybe just some chips or a hotdog or something?”

            I said that I’d rather find the seats first, but she went on about how she hadn’t eaten.  Rather than fight, I bent down and kissed her, this time on the cheek.  I remember that just before we took a break, I had decided that we shouldn’t kiss anymore.  I had told her that I didn’t want to kiss anyone I couldn’t see myself marrying.

            With her lap full of hotdogs, chips, bottles of water and popcorn, we made our way to the tables.  My white court shoes squeaked on the flattened popcorn as I pushed her through the tight crowd, afraid that I was going to run into the back of people’s ankles.  Anne’s wheels picked up sticky residue from the ground and I supposed it was good that she wasn’t pushing herself, getting her hands dirty.  By this time in our relationship, I wasn’t pushing her so that she didn’t get her hands dirty, but so that I didn’t feel guilty for not pushing her.  We found seats next to a middle-aged man in a sport suit.  He was wearing a blue tie that gleamed like the surface of Lake Michigan.

            Anne opened the chips and started eating, but I looked over the makeshift ring and soaked in the chills of disappointment.  The salty smell of popcorn and hotdogs reminded me of a carnival, which reminded me of cheap gimmicks and games that ripped people off.  I sighed and thought of my friends who were downtown seeing Drifting Polar, a band I’d been listening to for years.  I loved boxing, but I suddenly wished I were with them instead.  The man in the tie reached over to the woman next to him and took her hand.  She had on a modest green dress and was wearing her hair up.  I felt Anne’s hand underneath the table and tried to take it, but realized she was poking me with a bottle of water.  As I opened it for her, the man behind me asked if I knew Phil.  I turned around and he was already holding out his hand.  Anne chimed in and said that Phil Garcia was her father.  Both of their faces ignited and they stood to properly introduce themselves.

            “I am Hugh Jansen and this is my wife, Mrs. Hugh Jansen,” he said with a grin.

            “Excuse him, please,” she said.  “I’m Janet, but you may call me Jane.”

            I understood why she went by Jane rather than Janet, as Janet Jansen was intolerably close to Janet Jackson.  Anne introduced us and we put our arms around each other and they cooed.  Hugh said, “You don’t touch me like that anymore.”

            Jane slapped him on the shoulder, but smiled.  “You are terrible.”

            “You’re right, I’m awful.  Absolutely awful.  Despicable.”  He then said that he knew Mr. Garcia through work.  “I’m in construction and all that house-building nonsense.  I make lots of money from others’ hard work.”  I appreciated his honesty.

            A rumbling voice shot out of the big black speakers.  “Ladies and Gentleman, we’d like to thank you all for coming.  We will now commerce tonight’s event.”

            I laughed at the mix-up and made a joke about the fighters importing and exporting, but Anne didn’t laugh.  I wasn’t hungry, so I gave my popcorn to a boy that passed by.  Anne said that it was a weird thing to do, but I didn’t understand why.  “I just don’t think I’d want our kids taking popcorn from strangers, that’s all,” she said.  She didn’t used to be like that.  When I first met her in high school she had been terribly friendly, had introduced herself to me as soon as I sat down behind her in first year Biology.  She was the girl in the wheelchair who won everyone over by being zany and overly kind.  She was freer then, I think.

My last name, Gardner, came right after Garcia, and that put us together even before we were dating.  Back then we got along because we both wanted nothing more than to love and be loved and to fill what the other lacked.  She wanted to be appreciated and I wanted purpose.

            A shirtless man in yellow athletic pants and black boxing gloves entered the room.  He was beating the gloves together and looked as if he were daydreaming.  He had ratty brown hair and a face the shape of a top.  He couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and sixty pounds.  I said that I hoped Jimmy was fighting this guy, that then we would have time to go to the concert.

            Anne huffed.  “You’re such a jerk.”

            “You’re right, I’m terrible,” I said, like Hugh.  Anne didn’t respond.  “What?  I’m joking.”

            “You said you would come.  It’s important to my dad and it’s important to me.  This is Jimmy’s first fight.”

            “I love boxing, come on.  But look at this place.  I bet they bring out two roosters for the next bout.”

            “Well what did you expect?  Some big arena with a guy yelling ‘Let’s get ready to rumble?’”  I was too embarrassed to say that I had.  She rolled her eyes.  “You’ve already mentioned the concert twice tonight.”

            The concert wasn’t that important, but it was an alternative to being around her and her father, feeling forced into her family.  The first date we went on, her father had sat me down and told me how happy he was for us, as if we had gotten engaged or had our first child.  “Love is a great opportunity,” he had told me, as if our relationship were one of his many career paths, like he was a car salesman advising me on my options.

            “You know, I go to everything you want to go to,” Anne said.  “I went to that football game in Detroit and didn’t say anything.  I don’t even know how to play football or what the rules are, but I still went with you.”

            I explained to her that I was sorry and that I liked boxing.  “I’m glad we’re here,” I said, “I’ve never even been to a professional fight—”

            She had already looked away and waved me off.  The other fighter—a chubby Hispanic guy with the word “Cristo” on the belt of his blue shorts—was bouncing up and down in his corner.  I let go of Anne.  The referee came to the center of the ring.

            “In tonight’s first match, weighing in at one hundred and seventy-three pounds…”

            “One seventy-three? You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

            “Danny ‘The Bat’ Bateman!”

            The white guy with the ratty hair lifted his arms and there were a few faint cheers from the crowd.  I noticed he was all alone in his corner, no manager or loved ones to cheer him on.  Right away, I knew he was a goner.  The Hispanic had two guys with him, both with matching white sweat suits.  One was rubbing the fighter’s shoulders while the other was eyeing the crowd, a blue towel hanging around his neck.  When the announcer called his name, there was more cheering, and most everyone clapped, including Anne and myself.  I liked that he was unashamed to have “Cristo” stitched onto his shorts.

            A buzzer, not a bell, started the match and the two fighters came to the middle.  The Bat came out swinging and landed some shots because of his longer reach, but the Hispanic did a decent job blocking and taking the punches in stride.  They danced around each other a few times and got wrapped up so that the ref had to separate them.  I took the program from Anne’s lap and started looking through it, scanning the names and bios.

            “The guy in blue is six and one,” I said to no one in particular.  “That’s good.”

            The Bat kept swinging long clumsy jabs and the Hispanic ducked and skipped side-to-side until he was close enough.  Then, just as the buzzer went off, he gave two hard shots to The Bat’s nose, hitting him square.  The Bat spun around, but kept his footing.  They both went to their corners and as he got closer to us, I saw that The Bat was now bleeding.  His nose was a blossoming red poppy.

            “Oh!” Anne let out, covering her mouth.

            “He got hit hard,” I said.  I hadn’t expected to see anyone bleed.

            “Oh my gosh, that is terrible.”

            “I doubt his nose is broken. He probably just got banged up.”

            “He doesn’t have anyone to help him!”

            “I wonder if they’ll let him keep fighting.”

            Hugh and Janet were silent, no longer smiling their white showy smiles.  Anne went on about how he couldn’t fight.  I said that he’d be ok, that he was a fighter.  The ref came over to check Danny ‘The Bat’ Bateman’s face and in a few minutes, declared that the match had been conceded.  The Hispanic team shouted and threw their hands up.

            Two white kids were up next, each about my age and fighting for the first time.  In the ring, neither of them looked like they knew what they were doing, throwing wild swings and nearly tripping over their own feet.  They quit, laughing, after two rounds.  The next fighter we saw was a thick black man.  He was about six and half feet tall and had all black trainers.  His muscles looked like rock formations in the Badlands, drastic and large.  He held his head high and the crowd cheered him.

            “About time we got to see some heavy weights!” Hugh said, rubbing his hands together.  His wife rolled her eyes and giggled.

            The man in the opposite corner, however, wasn’t very large at all.  He was of average build, about six foot and two hundred pounds.  He was a little older, maybe in his thirties.  He didn’t look all that excited, but more like a golfer telling himself not to hit his next shot in the water.  He reminded me of my father.  They had the same messy brown comb-over from right to left.

            The ref introduced the two fighters and the buzzer went off.  The big man was known simply as “Hit Man,” like a professional wrestler.  The two exchanged punches and I don’t think Anne had been paying attention, because when Hit Man landed his first punch, she exclaimed, “This isn’t fair!”

            The older guy took a pounding.  Though he got knocked down four times, he still went all five rounds against Hit Man and I was proud of him.  Hugh stood and clapped as they announced the winner.  The older man left like a fisherman with an empty net, but he didn’t look surprised.  He had expected to lose.  I thought of that and I thought of Anne and our first date and I thought that maybe we were destined to lose, too.  I got a little depressed and told her I needed to use the bathroom.  I made my way out and found the rooms I had seen Mr. Garcia go to earlier that night.

            In the empty bathroom, I washed my hands and sprinkled cool water over my face.  As the water touched my lips, I realized I was thirsty.  I cupped my hands and slurped handfuls into my mouth, drops falling onto my button-up shirt.  I ran wet hands through my hair and messed it up.  Then, I heard snorting.  I hadn’t realized, but the bathroom made a ninety-degree turn, and I walked around to where I saw Jimmy standing over a sink.  He was snorting something from a bottle, something to help him breathe.  His hands were taped up and he had on shorts with the Union Jack red, white, and blue “X”.  I had only met Jimmy Coulston once before, at Mr. Garcia’s house, the time he roasted a pig in his garage for dinner.  Jimmy had been in his street clothes and looked like the sort of person you’d find in the frozen food aisle at Wal-Mart, common and with no desire to impress anyone.  He looked different now, with his short wet hair and the tiger tattoo on his chest exposed.  He had a firm jaw, deep lines in his muscles and the hard, collected face of a soldier.  Looking into his eyes was like staring at an avalanche.

            “Renard,” he said.  He had a strong British accent and it didn’t register at first that he had called me by name.  I didn’t have the type of name people liked to use and so I didn’t hear it very often.  It was fine; I didn’t used to like it either.  It was a stupid Polish name passed down through my family.  But I think Jimmy liked it.

            “What’s it going to be like, Jimmy?”

            He rolled his shoulders around and set the small bottle down.  He looked in the mirror and seemed to think about the question as his sweat dripped off his brow and onto the outer edge of the sink, like drops of blood falling onto dirt.  The green cat eyes of his tiger tattoo gazed into me.  The tiger looked serene, as if it were in deep meditation or had just finished praying.  The bathroom smelled strongly of ferns and fresh fruit from the Mediterranean.  Suddenly, I was in Gethsemane.  “I’m ready,” is all he said.

            “I’ll be rooting for you.  I’m excited to see what you can do and what it’s like.  I almost wish I were fighting,” I let out.  I hadn’t meant to say it, but it was true.  I boxed with my roommate back at Indiana University all the time and if I hadn’t had skinny arms and narrow shoulders, I would’ve been tempted to fight some exhibition matches myself.  Still, I felt silly saying it and was relieved when Jimmy laughed.

            “This,” he said, “is my fight.”

            I nodded along and took a few steps toward the exit because I knew Jimmy probably had a lot on his mind, or maybe was trying to clear it.  But then he said, “You’ll have your own fight,” as if it hadn’t come yet, or as though he knew something I didn’t.  The thought of an unknown battle made me feel like every squabble with Anne, every bicker-match about marriage and each effort made to reconcile was for nothing.  It was the first time I had considered that maybe through all of the careful planning of our future, after all of the late night arguments about when I would be ready and how long she could wait for me, that I hadn’t solved anything.

            “You’ll do great, Jimmy,” I said.

            “I appreciate it, mate.”

I went back in the main arena.  The lights were dimmed and a people crowded the aisles.  I asked Anne what was going on, and she said that Jimmy’s opponent had already come out.  She was pointed to a lanky black man in the ring.  He had dark eyes, a six-inch Afro, and a bony frame that reminded me of death.  Half a dozen trainers rubbed his long stringy muscles.  In the program, it said his name was Sammy “The Snake” Wallace.

            Then there was a cheer like a window crash and the sea of people in the aisle split in half.  The lights flashed on and a pair attractive red heads strutted in, their matching red and blue glitter outfits showing off their long legs.  Jimmy was behind them with his head down.  Mr. Garcia was last, grinning ear to ear, holding his arms up, his hands open.

            “You’re dad sure knows how to promote things,” I said, my tone like expired milk.  The girls weren’t Jimmy’s style, nor were the big rows of rowdy tipsy fans.  But Anne was proud, smiling when she said, “He’s always good at what he does.”

            Jimmy got into the ring and everyone yelled.  He accepted the praise humbly by putting his gloves together, kissing them, and pointing them at his supporters.  The ref in the center of the ring announced, “Now, the event you have been waiting for…”

Jimmy Coulston and Sammy “The Snake” met in the middle and smacked gloves.  Jimmy was shorter but he had big round shoulders and a heavy chest.  In their corners, the fighters waited and looked out into the crowd until the buzzer went off.

            As soon as it did, Jimmy had The Snake in a corner.  He had a great stance, solid and low with good extension on his punches.  He drove with his legs.  He jabbed at The Snake with his left fist to keep him off balance.  He fought like he was listening to music, with rhythm and beat.  I wasn’t at the concert with my friends, but I heard Drifting Polar in my head, singing, die just one more time, just one more time.  After a few one-two shots, a hook caught The Snake square in the jaw.  He hit the mat like lightning and the crowd cheered and clapped like thunder.

“That’s amazing,” I said.  “He’s really aggressive.  He knows what he’s doing.”

            “Dad said he wanted to take him out early.  He said that this guy was scrappy and unpredictable, so he didn’t want to take any chances, since it’s his first fight.”

Back on his feet, The Snake came out throwing wide, desperate punches, but Jimmy ducked and jived around the ropes.  He was quick and patient, moving with the rhythm of the music.  The Snake stumbled and Jimmy punched him in the right eye.  He threw an uppercut with his right, then a quick left.  The Snake hit the floor with the sound of an axe getting stuck in a tree.

            The place erupted.  People stood on chairs, holding up their drinks or shaking their fists.  Suddenly, I didn’t find the mob so unpleasant.  It was a festival, a celebration of a victory that we were able to witness firsthand.  We were all united under the one man we came to support.  He was upright and good at what he came here to do.  Every other celebration in my life had been for an event that had already passed, but this was for a victory in the making.  The closeness of the present lit the bottom of my feet.  I stood up, pumping my fist, yelling for Jimmy.  I felt like I was in the fight with him, and that what he was doing was worthwhile, like he was fighting the forces of darkness.  I found it ironic that Mr. Garcia, who was so excited he was nearly in the ring himself, was involved in this fight.  Maybe he and I were more alike than I thought.  He had been trying to sell me the idea of a life with Anne.  I had been trying to sell it to me, too. 

In the ring, Jimmy Coulston gave The Snake another one-two.

            The Snake conceded by the second round.  After the fight, the place cleared out and Anne and I stuck around to talk to her dad and Jimmy.  Mr. Garcia had Jimmy signing autographs and taking pictures, even selling t-shirts out of a cardboard box.  There was a bit of a line to see him, so Anne and I waited together quietly.  The vendors shut down the food and beer booths, hauling pieces out of the arena.  The redheads in the matching outfits walked by and blew kisses at Jimmy.  Some of the drunk guys hollered and made faces.  Anne looked up to see if I was looking, but I just shook my head.

            In front of us, a young father with spiked hair and big traps between his neck and shoulders was playing with his son.  The kid had matching spiked hair and was punching at his father’s hands.  His skinny arms flailed out from his sleeveless shirt and the father stopped him.  I thought that he might scold him right there in public, but instead he grabbed his son’s hands and showed him how to hold them in front of his face, one in front of the other.  He showed him how to keep the right hand under his chin as he threw the left out in successive jabs.  The father got down on his knees and let the kid hit his hands.  It was fun to watch.  Anne tapped me on the hand.

            “Hugh bought that little boy and girl each a shirt.  Isn’t that sweet?”

            To my left stood a boy and a girl, neither older than five and each with hair as black as old dried blood.  They each held a white T-shirt with a picture of Jimmy flexing in his gloves.  The shirts were too big and the kids were a little frightened, but they still put the shirts on.  Their parents smiled and nodded like bobble-head dolls.

            “Come on, that’s so sweet, isn’t it?” Anne said again, tapping at my forearm.  I nodded but didn’t say anything, then took my hand away so she couldn’t hit touch it anymore.  I didn’t see how it was any different from when I gave away my popcorn, but I guess, in all honesty, it didn’t really matter.

            “Hugh and Jane are so great,” she said.  “I really like them, especially Hugh.”

            The fact was I liked him too.  He was intelligent and he had what he wanted.  He was who he wanted to be and his wife loved him and liked to be with him, and it made me a little jealous because I didn’t have that.  Mr. Garcia came from behind Hugh and they shook hands.  Mr. Garcia told me he was glad we got to meet them.  Anne and I could learn from the Jansens, he said.  They were a role model marriage.  As much as I liked him, I knew I wasn’t going to be like him.  “They are great,” I said, “and I think we are very different.”

            Mr. Garcia laughed, high and nervous.  Anne shrugged and tried to cover, saying she could see us being a lot like them in the future, that we still had some growing to do.

            The Jansens left soon after.  Anne and I stayed until the maintenance crew came in to disassemble the ring.  Jimmy was still doing pictures for little kids and inebriated young men when I told Anne I still had to drive back to campus.  We said a quick good-bye to Mr. Garcia, without a hug or even a smile.  It was the last time I saw him.

            The parking lot was almost empty and the center of the sky was pitch black, revealing the white shine of the stars.  The horizon glowed amber with lights from the city.  When we got close enough, I unlocked the doors and Anne started to wheel to the passenger side, but I stopped her with my foot and said, “Mind if I lift you?”

            She tilted her head sideways, the way a dog does when it hears an interesting sound.  “The fight get you all excited tonight?”

            “Something like that.”

            I undid her seatbelt, then put my right arm under her legs and my left around her back.  She wrapped her arms around me like a shoulder harness and brought her face against my neck.  She felt close and intimate like a gift, and when I remember the times when she felt like that, I wish we were still together.  I swung her around, carrying her like she had legs that worked, like we were dancing.  I swayed across the empty parking lot to the music in my head.  Don’t see it as a failure.  You’ll heal, see the sutures?  I transitioned to a walk and set her down.  She said, “It’s too bad there isn’t tag team boxing.”

            She surprised me.  “Yeah?  Why’s that?”

            “Well, it’s hard.  It would make it a lot easier if you had someone to help you.  Besides, I think it’d get lonely up there, fighting all by yourself.”

            I pretended not to, but I knew what she meant, because, by this point, no matter how I tried, I felt like I had been fighting alone for awhile now, and I think she did too.  Anne’s eyelids drooped and her lips were full.  I kissed her, both of ours lips soft, like two inner thighs coming together.  It was one of the last times we kissed like that; one of the last times she made me feel like how Jimmy must have felt knocking down The Snake.  I wasn’t a champ, though.  Back then, I was a man fighting the wrong fight.