Caesar Marquez was trained by his brother at the family gym in downtown Los Angeles, which is where I found myself now.
His brother's name was Romero and he and I were walking through the gym together. The gym was not unlike Jacky's gym in Fullerton. The difference, though, was that Jacky catered to teaching women to defend themselves. The Marquez Gym catered to extremely muscular young men who seemed to take delight in punching the crap out of each other.
"We've produced eleven number-one fighters," said Romero. Sounding remarkably like Jacky, he paused to tell a young Hispanic kid, who was working a heavy bag, to keep his gloves up. I thought trainers everywhere were entirely too concerned about gloves being up. Then again, what did I know?
I said, "Must be good for business."
He nodded and we continued on, weaving slowly through the gym. I was, I noted, the only female here. Once or twice I spotted a set of eyes watching me, but mostly, the young fighters kept their heads down and their gloves up.
As we circled a ring where a black guy and a white guy, both wearing head gear, were trading jabs, Romero said, "Caesar would have been the twelfth."
I said, "I'm sorry to hear about Caesar."
Romero nodded again and we watched the two fighters above us. Both fighters were slugging it out. Fists flew, sweat slung. Some of the sweat landed on my forearm. Eew.
"My family," began Romero, as I discreetly wiped the sweat off on my jeans, "are all fighters. I was good, but it turns out, I'm a better trainer than a fighter. Caesar, well, he was something else. He was on his way up. Moving fast, too. He was already ranked in the top ten in his weight class. Top ten and moving up."
"How many brothers do you have?"
"Three living, now one dead."
I blinked, astonished. "There were five of you?"
"Yes. Four now. All boxers. Caesar was the youngest and probably the best. Our father started things off by boxing in a few amateur fights back in the day. He was okay but didn't love it enough to pursue it. My oldest brother, Eduard, loved it. Passionately. He was good. That's him over there." He pointed to a stockier version of himself, a guy who was maybe in his mid-forties and was working closely with a young black guy. They were practicing bobbing and weaving drills. I'd done a few of those with Jacky. "Anyway, his passion drove all of us. Especially Caesar."
Romero's voice was steady, his eyes dry. That he was discussing a brother who had passed not even three weeks ago, one would never guess. Then again, his voice was too steady, and he blinked too much. He was doing what he could to control himself. I suspected this was a very macho culture, and brothers who ran a world-class boxing gym were perhaps the most macho of all.