a dark and rainy night
by jerome pryzbylski
It's a cool night. Raindrops splatter
across my windshield. I check my rear
and side view mirrors.
A pedestrain approaches from behind.
It's a woman. Her eyes project a dry
electricity. She looks tired, scared and driven. Obviously, there's
someplace she's gotta be.
Maybe, she's in search of a fix.
She passes a building whose windows
and doorways have been bricked-up. Two
gangs have marked their territory like hounds. They've sprayed
"Squareboys"
and "GFL". The latter means "Gangster for Life".
There is other graffitti
that I can't decifer. The author can't write or spell. He should've
stayed
in school.
A second woman approaches on the
sidewalk ahead. She's holding something to
her breast. What? It's hard to figure-out in the drizzle and dark.
She and
the first woman pass without a word. I think to myself, aint this
just like
Vernor Highway: A junky going one way, a mother and her baby going
the other.
More locals pass. Some carry themselves
with steely daring. Some are shifty.
Some paw and beg.
What does it mean,"to walk
right"? Boxers know. They live with dread.
Putting butterflies into attack formation is a part of their art.
They hone
themselves step-by-step.
There's the nausea that comes
before a you take a test; there's the nausea
that comes after you've avoided a test. The former helps shape
a man while
the latter aggravates his shapelessness. I linger on this. In
my imagination
I see chiselled fighters in the dressing room. Through my windshield
I see
ragged winos outside a party store. It seems that each human is
born pay the
price. Your only choice is how.
Vernor Highway is a great place
to linger before a boxing match. It teaches
you not to feel sorry for the fresh meat stepping into the ring.
Boxing is
one kind of attritition. The street is another. Either way, you
get
processed.
A cop car passes. It disappears in the mist.
This neighborhood is in a civil
war. The dopers are fighting against them-
selves and the abolitionists. "The end" is on everyone's
mind. I lock my
doors and roll up my windows. Alone, I shadowbox. Will I expire
while
asleep? Or catch a bullet while crossing the street? These aren't
sorry
thoughts for a man of my age. But when a child ripens to death?
What sport
will test his truth?
The rain splatters against my windshield. A person wouldn't go
outside and
catch pneumonia just to prove that he could. Why fight?
I recently met a ex-Detroit cop
who also served in the Marine Corps in
Vietnam. He was sitting in front of his paintings at an art fair.
He lis-
tenned to my war stories about being a teacher in this neighborhood.
Then,
he softly said, "I'm a househusband now. I shop for my wife
and daughters
and cook. Sometimes I paint." He's the eye that left the
hur- ricane. His
ego retired.
The rain won't stop. This is good
weather for sitting ducks. Carjackers
lurk.
My hands tap the steering wheel. I see "love" and "hate"
tattooed across my
right and left knuckles. It's a hallucination. I think of Sugar
Ray Leon-
ard. He was a two handed fighter. He fought to be equal to the
best and the
worst in man. It's the ol' one-two and open to interpretation.
I remem- ber a
contest between Golden Glovers in Florida. The black kid floored
the white
kid first. Then the white kid floored the black kid twice. After-
wards, I
met the winner and his girlfriend at the consession stand. Later,
I read
about him in the paper as an Olympic hopeful. Later still, I read
about him
as a fugative. He stabbed his lady. She died. The cops nabbed
him. He
escaped from the Ft. Lauderdale jail. The police recaptured him
in the
Everglades. He was boarding a small plane with his dad who'd also
been a
Golden Gloves champ. They were a team. The father had trained
and managed
his son. He was gonna be in junior's corner even if their plane
went to hell.
Tonight's fights will be held
at El Rey hall. It used to be a derelict
property. Now, it's been rehabilitated. Nothing's remade by virtue
of a cash
infusion. Love gives life. Someone's put his heart into the revival
of this
building.
Next to El Rey is a boarded-up pizzaria. Uncle Sam got beat by
the Viet-
namese jungle and Little Ceasar got beat by the barrio. Maybe
their muscle
interfered with their grasp of the local psychology. The heavy-
weights lost.
I heard that the pizzaria was firebombed. That heeds the local
line: So and-so
got a scholarship to UofM...So-and-so got a full-ride to Jackson
Prison...So-
and-so had twins...So-and-so's momma is on crack... So-and-so
snitched on the
snitch who fell in a ditch. The rain cleans the street but doesn't
make it
less haunted. There are vacant buildings and vacant eyes. There
are men with
too much fight in them and men with all the fight taken out of
them. Boxing
attempts to mediate the latter extremes.
Hamlet is about huevos. So is boxing.
To be or not to be? A male asks
this when he begins to produce seed. Men see
their genitals as a philospher stone. "Am I a dick?"
"Do I have balls."
"Can I rise to life's challenges?"
Southwest Detroit is about immigrants
stepping into the ring. It's about
keeping form while against the ropes. This is the neighborhood
in which to
experience a boxing match. People are fighting to survive; people
are looking
to take a dive. Everyone is on the brink. There are missions and
crackhouses. Being here is a crucible. It might cure you; it might
kill you.
It'll teach you to walk right or die.