A Naked Singularity: A Novel (67 page)

Benitez himself made no such prediction. He was confident going in. He always was when inside ropes. So inside the ropes of that Caesars Palace ring on November 30, 1979, he knew he would be better than his opponent because he always, every single time, had been. Except this time the other guy felt the same way.

Three separate times, while waiting in the ring for the announcer to attend to various details (
exempli gratia
: Benitez 36-0-1 [23 KOs]; Leonard 25-0 [16KOs]), Benitez and Leonard engaged in staredowns—those ritualistic exercises peculiar to Boxing where the two opponents will stare at each other from a negligible distance with neither man willing to optically cede an inch. (On those occasions, although both men were listed at five-foot-ten and about one hundred and forty-six pounds, Benitez appeared to be the bigger man). The sight of these staredowns must have seemed an odd one to an audience fully aware that neither man was known for his punching power or aggressiveness in the ring. What it was was more like a staredown of abilities. And the whole thing the height of silliness in a sport where you could legally punch your opponent in the face if he bugged you so much.

But all that was beside the point; the unmistakable one being that when two truly great fighters get in the ring then the fight can’t help but be great on at least some level. On these occasions, and on that night, several elements hang in the air. There’s nowhere to look, that’s the first thing you notice. Any fight is lucky if it contains one great fighter. If it does, you watch that fighter. You watch him because it’s hard to watch both and the great fighter’s ability pulls your eyes. You watch his superior ability allow him to do as he pleases. But what happens when both fighters draw your eyes equally? What happens when all you’ve ever seen each do is dominate? When you can’t picture either fighter being overtaken but you know one of them will be? Well you get what they had there in that ring on that night. You get those charged moments just before the bell rings and the fighters’ world begins to decide which of the universe’s infinite possibilities will be actualized.

I think Benitez was lonely in those moments before the opening bell. The kind of loneliness that can normally only be attained through extreme solitude. There can be no more alone.

Boxing gets called an individual sport and that, I think, gets it wrong. It’s individual, true enough, but unlike say tennis where you are promised, regardless of your comparative skill, a minimum period of survival, that is, some success, Boxing offers no such quarter; the whole thing can be over at any second, embarrassment always peering around the corner. It’s that potential for embarrassment that makes Boxing less a sport and more like concentrated life; a life where you accept that you’re going to have to be hit on the head, and it’s going to hurt and harm you, in order to accomplish what you wish.

Often the greatest art is inaccessible to all but a few. After the bell rang to start the fight, Benitez and Leonard met in the middle of the ring and did little that was obvious. Warily they circled each other, each channeling from above their half-share of the pulsating energy in the surrounding atmosphere. Both missing, nothing landing, neither willing to open up, wary of the other’s counterpunching ability. Leonard in particular seemed cautiously mindful of what had consistently happened to previous Benitez opponents who had rushed forward to attack only to miss everything while providing ready targets for vicious Benitez counters. So he stayed back. Nor did Benitez go against his nature and rush forward. Instead the audience was given an ebb and flow dance in the middle where true knowledge would be needed to discern any slight advantage that might emerge.

Those looking saw that while he wasn’t coming close to landing it, Leonard’s left jab was extremely quick and sharp, certainly the best Benitez had ever faced. Midway through the first round Leonard shot out a right that Benitez easily made miss; but as Benitez raised his head back into position, Leonard landed a left hook to the head, the first effective punch of the fight. Leonard sought to press his momentary advantage. He fired multiple punches in perfect combination and each with steam. They all missed. Benitez effortlessly slid his upper body side to side, to and from, here to there. Leonard didn’t land again that round. At the end of the round they stared each other down again but it was Leonard who had to be a little unnerved at the realization that sometimes hype matches reality and is more like unadorned truth and maybe the person across from him did have radar and was impossible to hit other than incidentally and intermittently.

At that moment Benitez must have felt that this fight would not differ in any meaningful way from his previous ones. To lose he would have to get hit and he didn’t get hit ergo et cetera; he would win. Except that in the next two rounds he did get hit. The quickness and speed of Leonard’s left jab was a problem that wasn’t going to go away. In the second, before another intermissionary staredown, a jab by Leonard landed clean and visibly knocked Benitez off balance. That was slightly embarrassing. More embarrassing was the jab near the end of the third that actually dropped Wilfred to the canvas. He jumped right up then smiled and shook his head. He wasn’t hurt and dodged everything the rest of the round but the point was made. Getting dropped by a jab is never a good sign for what it says about either a fighter’s balance or his ability to absorb his opponent’s power.

Wilfred had given away some early rounds and even been down. Leonard had growing confidence and early momentum. Benitez needed to wake up soon. In the fourth he did, never getting hit significantly and landing some good left hooks. Nothing happened in the fifth save for Leonard employing the lame Angelo Dundee strategy of trying to steal a close round by impressing the judges with a meaningless feather fisted flurry in the last ten seconds. In the sixth, both fighters, neither of whom ever took their eyes off their opponent, leaned forward, eyes up, at the precise same moment, causing their foreheads to clash angrily. Benitez was cut, Leonard wasn’t. A bad situation had just gotten worse. Benitez seemed to realize this and it spurred him to his best moments of the fight to that point as he doubled and tripled up on his left hook showing his inhuman hand speed. At the end of the round he smiled with blood streaming down his face.

The next few rounds were close with neither man establishing a clear advantage. For Wilfred it wasn’t going badly but it wasn’t going overly well either. Leonard just seemed slightly stronger, like he had to be less careful. In the ninth, Wilfred’s mouthpiece became visible. His mouth was open, he was tired. Leonard wasn’t. In the tenth, Wilfred’s tired hands were down when he wasn’t throwing wild, amateurish punches that further betrayed his fatigue. In the eleventh, he stuck his tongue out at Leonard in seeming recognition of what was happening. In belated response Wilfred caught a hard left hook that hurt him and sent him to the ropes where he stayed waiting for Leonard. A wary Leonard, perhaps remembering Palomino’s futility in a similar situation, hesitated repeatedly and failed to follow up with anything significant. Nevertheless, Benitez was now clearly losing a fight that was more than two/thirds over. He was tired but if he had trained properly he wouldn’t have been since the action to that point didn’t justify a twenty-one-year-old being that tired after eleven rounds. Fortunately for Benitez, the terms
second wind
refer to a true physiological phenomenon and in the twelfth he got his. He fought better, landed more punches with greater accuracy and showed more energy. The fight was closer.

Going into the fifteenth, Wilfred and his corner knew he needed at least a big final round to remain champion. There had to be a palpable urgency. The man across from him was trying to steal a piece of him and make him less of a person. With the end of the fight quickly approaching, stamina and pacing would no longer be a concern for either fighter. They could leave it all in the ring as they say. In that last round, Wilfred approached his true ability level and had his best moments of the fight. He landed serious punches in combination that snapped Leonard’s head back and he did this without opening himself up too much. A determined Leonard responded in kind and the alight crowd bubbled over as the two men traded sizzling punches in the middle of the ring.

With about twenty-five seconds remaining, Benitez got caught flush with a compact left hook to the top of his head. His upper body jerked back and then forward and he dropped to one knee. He got up, shook his head, and went to a corner. The cut on his forehead sent blood down his face slicing it into perfect halves. He smiled beneath it. He bled. To the referee he nodded yes meaning more. When the action resumed he stayed in the corner. Leonard rushed in and threw punches almost wildly, most missing. Wilfred moved his head as he had a thousand times before.

More punches but not many. Suddenly, the ref steps between them and stops the fight. Leonard jumps up on the ropes. He is the New Champion. The old champion walks around the ring smiling. He is walking towards the jubilant Leonard who has been lifted up by his corner.

He extends his arms as if to hug but is ignored.

This space intentionally left blank
.

“You realize of course that once we get this money none of what you just said will matter right?”

“I know.”

“No you sure? Because you maybe don’t sound like you mean it.”

“No I understand.”

“For example, you’re going to quit right?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Hell so, what am I the janitor who goes back to work the day after the Lotto press conference where they hand you the oversized novelty check? Of course I’m going to quit. I’m going to move too. I’m not going to see anything that reminds me of anything else ever again.”

“Interesting.”

“Whatever.”

We were sitting in my livingroom and it was noisy. The unpainted radiator in the corner that constituted the sole barrier in my life between clammy continued existence and rigorous mortis hissed furiously, its metal top hat on the side undulating wildly. The two front windows swelled inward barely barring the whistling wind. Spread out on a table between us was a lot of wrestling paper along with photographs and blueprints. Dane surveyed the scene then looked up at me.

“That’s a lot of stuff isn’t it?” he said.

“More than you would think could be generated in less than a week.”

“And now we’re another less-than-a-week away. After tonight just six full days remain before we go in and, if I understand you correctly, you will be in Alabama for at least a part of four of those days.”

“Yes.”

“So how do you feel about it?”

“Still concerned about DeLeon.”

“I don’t think you need to be.”

“Well, where is he then?”

“We know where he is, he’s in Santo Domingo enjoying his big fifty.”

“We don’t
know
that. You assume it.”

“Fine, but it’s a strong assumption.”

“I’m not sure it really rises to that level.”

“Oh stop.”

“I’m serious, I must not be as willing as you are to make assumptions when my life is on the line.”

Dane exhaled a smile. “Listen, let’s review what we do know beyond doubt and why I feel it justifies me in making my assumption. First, we know DeLeon got out right? We know he’s not in jail anymore?”

“Yes we know that.”

“You’ve read the packet right, so we also know the drugs have arrived in this country, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And we know from DeLeon that he was to make $100,000 total, fifty when the stuff got in the country and another fifty after the deal was done.”

“That’s what he said.”

“We also know that his plan was to take that first fifty and split before the deal came to fruition, agreed?”

“Yes.”

“So isn’t it highly reasonable to assume that after he got out he played his role in getting the stuff in the country, got his fifty, then split as he said he would?”

“So how come we haven’t been able to confirm his presence there?”

“Well that’s not all that surprising is it? We have limited time right now and one would certainly expect DeLeon to be laying low over there for many reasons, not the least of which is the necessity of staying clear of Flaco until at least next Wednesday.”

“That’s part of the problem, part of what holds me up. You’ve only set forth that part of DeLeon’s plan that supports your theory. For example, you assume a correlation between DeLeon’s release from jail and the arrival of the drugs about thirty-six hours later.”

“Of course.”

“However, as you know, DeLeon told me he lied when he told the cops the deal would not go off without his liberty when the truth was it would in fact go off with or without him.”

“True and I believe that was the case. If he had stayed in jail, the deal would nevertheless have gone through without him. That’s why, as he also told us, he was in such a hurry to get out so he wouldn’t lose his fifty. That said, once he did get out I think Escalera astutely knew that here was the one guy who could call an untimely halt to the proceedings. I think at that point, at Escalera’s urging, DeLeon reached out to Flaco, helped seal the deal, and got his fifty in return. After that it was all according to plan and he split.”

“Well there was more to the plan though, right? As he explained it to me, and I know what your response is going to be, he was then going to give the police the real information thereby ensuring that Escalera would be arrested and therefore unable to retaliate. This is not a minor issue. If he in fact did give the police the right information then we’re going to be in for a nasty surprise next Wednesday.”

“I know what he told you but remember what he told me. Through my help, DeLeon came to realize the moral illegitimacy of vengeance. He realized that the best way to be free from the fear of retaliation was to avoid creating the need for it in the first place by allowing the deal to go through. Obviously to do that he couldn’t give the police the real information. Nor could he stick around here, not with the police looking for him. The best solution was for him to get his money and disappear immediately. Now he didn’t come to this conclusion accidentally. I, of course, led him to it by the nose every step of the way, but in a manner which allowed him to ardently believe he had come to it all by his lonesome. That’s how come I know he took his money and split without ever talking to the police again. Because when I left that day that’s what he was going to do.”