01/02/2015
“Ma! Mike-Mike keep on hittin’ me!” Jody yelled from the backyard. Jody was a ten-year-old white kid growing up in a black ghetto where fightin’ was a part of life and the weak had no shot at survival. Growing up in Norfolk’s Tidewater Park wouldn’t be easy on him. Being the only white kid in his neighborhood, it appeared that Jody was picked on regularly.“You better hit him back, or I’m telling your daddy that you’re letting people run over you!” his mother yelled out of the back window. His mother’s name was Margie, a thirty-year-old woman who left Jody’s biological father because he was abusive. Shortly after leaving Jody’s father, Robert, she started dating a black man named Darryl, who adored Jody instantly. For the first six months after leaving Robert, Margie and Jody stayed in a rooming house because she didn’t have much money. Soon after dating Darryl, she moved in with him, and a year later they were married, and they’ve been together since. Darryl raised Jody not as a stepson but as his son because he loved him, and Jody loved him back. Darryl wa the only father that Jody knew since his biological never tried to see him.Jody never wanted to let his father down, so he turned around and punched Mike-Mike in the face.Mike-Mike slammed him on the ground and punched him a few times, and then they stopped fighting on their own because they were friends. After helping Jody up, Mike-Mike said, “I just wanted you to fight back, ’cause if you don’t, dudes gone keep on pickin’ on you!”“Why you slam me and punch me in the face then?” Jody asked as he used his T-shirt to stop his bleeding lip.“’Cause you punched me in the face, and it hurt!” Mike-Mike said, and they both laughed.Jody put his T-shirt back on, and they went back to playing.Margie watched the whole thing from her kitchen window. When the bigger and stronger Mike-Mike slammed her baby, she wanted to run out there and help him, but Darryl said that he had to fight his own battles in order to be respected.When Jody saw his father’s car pull up, he stopped playing with Mike-Mike and ran into the house to meet him.“Daddy! Daddy!” he said as he ran to his father.“Hey, big man! Whatcha been up to? You been takin’ care of your mama!” his father said. “Yeah, but me and Mike-Mike was fightin’!”“Well, who won?”“He did,” Jody said with his head down, because he thought thathe’d let his father down.“The main thing is that you fought back, and I’m proud of you! Youknow something? I think that you’re ready to go into training.”“Yeah! Teach me how to fight, Daddy!”Darryl was a street-fighting legend and former Golden Glovechampion who had a chance to fight in the Olympics, but he caught a robbery charge and went to prison. When he got out, he didn’t have the desire to fight anymore.“We’re going to start training tomorrow.”“And Mike-Mike too?”“Yeah, Mike-Mike too,” Darryl said as he put Jody in a headlock,making him laugh.The next day Darryl took Jody and Mike-Mike to the gym. The old cats were surprised but glad to see him.“Look what the wind blew in!” one old dude said as he gave Darryl some dap.His name was Pee-Wee and he was also a good fighter back in the day, but his career never took off, so he became a trainer for the up- and-coming fighters. “What’s happening, Pee-Wee? It’s been some years since I’ve been in here!” Darryl said. He hadn’t been inside the gym in eleven years since he first came home. Not even to greet the fellas.The other old guys came over to greet Darryl and to talk about the old days. After about an hour, they all went back to whatever they were doing.“Yo, bro! So what brings you in here?” Pee-Wee asked.“I want my son and his friend to get some training, so I thought I’d bring them in here to teach them a little something, if y’all don’t mind me using the equipment.”“Darryl, you know you’re always welcome here. What’s your son’s and his friend’s name?” Pee-Wee asked, thinking that Mike-Mike was his son.“The other one’s my son. His name is Jody, and his friend is Mike-Mike.”Pee-Wee looked at Darryl like he was crazy.“I married his mother and raised him. I love this little boy, you dig?” “I dig it, Darryl, you know that I’m not a racist. I was just surprised,that’s all. Let’s get busy!”They pulled out the gloves, head gear, and protection cups, and theyall got into the ring. Pee-Wee trained Mike-Mike, and Darryl trained Jody. What was surprising was that Jody was a natural. He threw crisp jabs, stayed on his toes, and kept his shoulders square. Mike-Mike was a brawler. He didn’t have good technique, but he was strong enough to be a knockout artist.They stayed in the gym most of the day, and Jody loved it! Mike- Mike lost interest and said that he wouldn’t be coming back. Jody stuck with it, and a year later, he’d made some real progress. What made him special was that he was a southpaw, but he’d learned to use his right hand more.One day Jody, Mike-Mike, and Joyce, a girl who lived beside Jody, were washing their bikes in front of Joyce’s house, when the block bully walked up and kicked Joyce’s bike into the dirt.“Don’t kick my bike no more, boy!” Joyce yelled at the bully named Ron.“Whatcha gone do? Get your little white boyfriend to beat me up?” Ron joked. He was always picking on Jody, but they hadn’t seen each other since Jody’s training because Jody stayed in the gym all the time.“I’ll fight you, Ron!” Mike-Mike said, but Jody stopped him.“I’ll beat both of y’all up!” Ron said, and he pushed Jody on the ground.When Jody got up, he saw his father watching, and his father said, “Square up and handle your business!”Ron was twelve years old and much taller than Jody, and he had long arms, so Jody knew that he had to fight inside out to keep the bully from using his long arms. Jody squared up then caught Ron with a right jab and stepped back.“Stick and move, Jody! Get in and slide!” Darryl coached.Ron tried to rush Jody, but Jody stayed calm and sidestepped him, then he caught him on the chin with a right hook that dazed him.“Finish him now,” Darryl said.Jody caught him with a combination of left hook and left uppercut, and it was over. Ron was laid out in the dirt.Joyce was cheering and hugging Jody like they were lovers, and Mike-Mike high-fived him.“You fu**ed that nigga—” Mike-Mike stopped as he saw Jody’s father staring at him.“Sorry, Mr. Darryl! I mean, you messed him up!”Darryl dapped his son up and told him he’d see him when he got home.Ron finally got up and staggered down the street.“Damn, Jody, them boxing lessons really paid off!” Mike-Mike said. “Jody, since you defended me, you know you’re my husband now!”Joyce said.Jody didn’t mind because Joyce was cute and he already had a crushon her, but he was scared to tell her. “Baby, you should’ve seen him! He squared up and took the fight right to that boy, and the boy was bigger too!” Darryl said excitedly.“Darryl, I don’t like him doing all of that fighting ’cause he might get hurt,” Margie said just as Jody walked into the house.“Speak of the devil! There go the champ! Come here, son. Boy, I’m proud of you! I really didn’t realize how good you are now. You really can fight, and trust me, I know. Gone on and clean up for dinner so I can talk to your mama. Okay, champ!” Darryl said as he threw fake jabs at his son. “Margie, that boy is a natural fighter. His problem was he was scared to fight because he didn’t know how good he was. You know I love Jody and I’ll die for him, so there’s no way I would put him in any situation that he couldn’t handle . . . I want to schedule a couple of fights for him to see how he does,” Darryl said.“Darryl, I don’t know about that. Those boys been fightin’ a lot longer than Jody, and he could get hurt.”“Margie, I got him. I know what I’m doing!”Margie thought for a moment, watching her husband, whom she loved.“Darryl, if he gets hurt bad, I’m killing you!” she said.Darryl signed Jody up for amateur bouts and trained him hard up into his first match. He had to fight another little white kid who had about the same amount of experience that Jody had. His mother and friends from the hood were there cheering him on. As soon as the bell rang, Jody went to work throwing hooks and jabs at his opponent. By the end of the first round, Jody knew that the kid he was fighting was no match. He could hear his mother and friends including his “wife,” Joyce, cheering him on before the second round started.Each fight was scheduled for three rounds. As the bell sounded for the second round, Jody started sizing the other kid up with a series of right jabs while following the instructions of his father and Pee-Wee.“You’re stronger and more powerful, Jody! Cut the ring off and go to work!” Pee-Wee shouted.Jody did as he was told, and once he got the kid in the corner of the ring, he started pounding his body then his head; and when the ref saw that the other kid was just covering up, he stopped the fight, declaring Jody the winner by TKO. His family and friends were screaming as his father picked him up and carried him around the ring.After everybody left, Darryl stayed back to talk to Pee-Wee.“Bro, that kid is really something! He got all of the tools to be great!” Pee-Wee said.“I see it too, Pee-Wee. We just got to keep teaching him and keep him focused.”
