Vampire Games

 

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.

We continued through the gym and, without thinking, I threw a punch at an empty heavy bag. It was still daylight and so, I couldn't put much into the punch, but I think Jacky would have been proud. It had been a straight shot and I had gotten most of my weight behind my punch.

Romero, who had been leading me into his office, just about stumbled over himself. He looked at the bag moving violently back and forth, creaking along its chains. Then he looked at me.

"Do that again," he said.

"Lucky punch," I said, realizing my mistake. I really, really hated drawing attention to myself. What possessed me to punch the bag, I don't know.

Or, maybe a part of me envisioned it being Kingsley.

Or Ishmael.

"Humor me," he said in his thick Spanish accent. "Please."

I gave the punch a half-assed jab.

"No, chica. Hit it again. Like you did before. Please."

Screw it, I thought. The cat was already out of the bag, so to speak, and Jacky himself had been secretly spreading the word that he had on his hands a woman who could beat most men. Perhaps even Romero had heard about me through the boxing grapevine.

So, I took a breath, focused on the bag in front of me, bounced on my feet a little, positioned my shoulders the way Jacky had taught me, and punched the bag with all my strength, which, of course, was diminished, due to the time of day. And this time I really did think of Kingsley's face...and this time, the heavy bag did much more than swing and creak on the chain.

It flew forward and up - so hard and fast that it dislodged itself from the hook it was hanging on. Now it was tumbling end over end, to finally come to a rest halfway across the gym. A few boxers had jumped out of the way.

"?Ay Dios mio!" said Romero and he made the sign of the cross.

Many others had turned to watch me. All looked startled. Or, in the very least, confused. Then they all went back to working out and keeping their hands up.

Romero continued to stare at me.

"Oops," I said.