The Best I Could (22 page)

“GiGi!” Dad bellowed.

“He’ll pass out soon,” Jet assured.

Dad slammed against the door, jarring
us.

“Make him stop,” Deena begged, her hands
covering her ears.

“GiGi!”

For the first time, I feared what grief made
my father capable of.

We held the door closed for a long time. Dad
yelled until he was hoarse, his pounding growing weaker and
weaker.

I was late for work, a job I had at a small,
secondhand clothing store.

That night, I returned home with hair dye
and a pair of scissors. Hiding myself in the bathroom, I looked up
into the mirror, whispered, “I can’t be you, Mom,” and started
cutting off my long, thick tresses, leaving them short and jagged.
After that, I bleached chunks of my hair, and then dyed the
lightened pieces blue. Heavy makeup followed. Anything to make me
look less like GiGi, and more like someone I was never meant to
be.

My grandmother’s house.

A quiet room full of too loud memories.

Click-clacking knitting needles.

A whimpering dog whose drool left wet stains
on the bedspread.

Blood. Another mark on my skin. Because, in
the end, I guess I hoped I could bleed the pain and confusion out
of my body.

Eli

The next day, I walked into Rebels Boxing
Club excited for the first time in months.

Until Ray met me at the door, class list in
hand.

“I put the Griffin girl in the afternoon
slot,” he informed me.

My eyes scanned the paper. “With the boys I
worked with last week? Are you kidding me?”

“It’s a good crew. All of them, and they’re a
beginner class. Do them up good, capo.” He saluted me with his
fedora.

“What does that even mean?” I followed him
into the club.

Mouse skipped rope not far from the door.
“Want to warm up with me?” he called.

My eyes remained on Ray. “What made you put
Deena with them?”

“Because she’s got the same look to her that
some of those boys have. Roger, especially.”

“Okay.” I sighed. “I just hope you know what
you’re doing.”

“Never question the Boss. I started a crumb,
at the bottom, capo.”

“English is obviously his second language,” I
mumbled, glancing at Mouse. “I’m going to warm up on my own,” I
told him.

He kept skipping rope, sweat dripping down
the side of his face.

The day passed quietly. Men, women, girls,
and boys coming in and out of the club. Some of them for classes,
others to workout.

I trained two of the groups, stopped for
lunch, and then spent an hour with one of the other trainers
getting myself ready for the ring again. I’d been out of the
circuit too long.

“They’re coming in quick,” Ray informed me
later that afternoon.

Throwing a towel around my neck, I stiffened
when the door opened, admitting the quarreling teens I’d worked
with the week before. Roger and the redhead, who they all called
Carrot, were at it again.

“You’re such a fucking dick,” Roger told
him.

Carrot scowled. “At least I’ve got a dick,
ass wipe.”

They tensed, ready to throw punches, and I
met them at the door. “Another time, boys. Leave it outside.”

Roger glared. “Oh, look, the delinquent is
still here.”

“Start stretching,” I ordered, not taking the
bait.

The door re-opened, and Deena marched in, her
face tight and uncertain. Her eyes found me, and she sneered,
throwing me her middle finger.

No one followed her in. “Tansy with you?” I
asked.

Deena shrugged. “She’s working at the orchard
again. Nana had Vanessa from the clinic drop me off. She’ll be
picking me up, too. What? You don’t want me if my sister doesn’t
come with the bargain?”

My eyes narrowed in on her face, and I
realized just how young Deena looked. She was in that awkward
stage, her lips puckered over her braces. Acne, mostly small spots,
dotted her nose and chin. Her curly hair was frizzy from the summer
heat, the mass wrestled into a messy ponytail. She was thin, having
hit a growth spurt before her body could catch up, leaving her
gangly. She was going to look back at fourteen and hate it.

“I’m here for you, Deena. Not your
sister.”

“Whatever.” She looked at the room. “Is this
a private lesson?”

“Nope.” I pointed at the group of boys
grumbling on the mats. “That’s your crew.”

“Crew?”

Shit! Ray’s rubbing off on me.

“Your group,” I corrected. Walking her over
to the boys, I nodded at them. “Welcome to a hardheaded bunch of
wannabes.”

There was no bite to my words, but even if
there had been, the horror on the boys’ faces completely
overshadowed any sarcasm.

“What the hell?” Roger
ranted, throwing his hands up at me. “It’s not bad enough we have a
loser trainer.” He glanced at Deena. “Now, we have
that
, too? What kind of
joint is this?”

“An equal opportunity one,” I quipped,
unfazed.

“You got a problem with me? Or my gender?”
Deena asked, hands on hip.

Angry, that kid was something else.

Roger eyed her. “Darlin’, fighting you would
be like fighting a broom.”

She glared, her cheeks flushing. “You know
what they say about boys with big mouths?” She held two fingers up,
pinching them close together. “Small dicks. Itty bitty ones.”

I choked. “Holy hell! Let’s leave genitalia
out of this, all right?” My gaze slid to Deena. “I’m going to
pretend I didn’t hear you say dick like you know more about it than
I think a fourteen year old should know.” I gestured at the mats.
“We stretch first. After that, we’ll do some low key stuff. Talk
about the kind of exercises that work best with this kind of
program. Basic stuff first. I’ll show you how to wrap your hands
and use the bags. Then we’ll work on stance and so forth. For now,
follow my lead. This isn’t meant to be a one-day process. It’s a
commitment.”

I showed her how to stretch, and then stepped
back, letting her join the boys. They threw her surreptitious
glances, snickering amongst themselves. I knew from their looks
that they wondered how she got here, what she’d done to get thrown
in with the special cases.

“Can you tell us what makes you qualified to
teach us anything, Mr. Lockston?” Roger asked once we’d moved past
the stretching and into bag work.

I was going over exercises with Deena, and
she glanced at me, a smirk on her face.

“Eli,” I corrected, my hard eyes finding
Roger’s face. “Not because I mind respect, but because I prefer not
to be called Mr. Lockston.” Handing Deena the notebook I’d been
outlining the exercises on, I faced the boys. “Let me set the
record straight. I’m not here to talk about me. Who I am and where
I came from because it doesn’t matter. Not here.” I gestured at all
of them. “Same goes for you. I’m positive most of you have terrible
backgrounds. Much worse than mine. I don’t care.”

Taking a step forward, I stared them down.
“Understand that. I. Don’t. Care. I’m not here to counsel you, to
figure out what kind of issues you’ve got going on in your head.
I’m here to show you how to fight them out. I don’t have to know
what they are to do that. I’m not here to heal you or get you back
on the straight and narrow. That’s what the boxing is for, and it
will work. If you let it.”

“It’s a bunch of shit,” Deena groused. “All
of it.”

“You’ve got a big mouth on you, sweetheart,”
Carrot called, winking.

The look I gave him was cold enough to freeze
hell. “Do you have a problem with me or each other?”

“It just seems stupid, is all,” Deena huffed.
“What’s punching a few bags supposed to achieve?”

My gaze roamed the group. “Do you all agree
with her?”

No one replied. Even if they
did agree with her, they weren’t going to admit it because
she’d
been the one to say
it. I was beginning to doubt Ray’s intuition putting her in this
class.

“If you come in here, and you look at boxing
the way you see it now, then that’s all it will ever be,” I said.
“Punching a few bags.”

“What’s it about then?” Roger asked, his
stance defensive. “It’s fighting, man. There ain’t nothing
philosophical about it. It’s just beating up shit and people.”

“Eli,” I said firmly. “I’m
not ‘man’ or ‘dude’, remember?” Moving next to him, I pointed at
the ring. “You see that? That ring isn’t just a ring. That’s your
house. When you step into it, you’re bringing everything about you,
what defines you, into that house, too. The good and the bad. Most
of all, you’re bringing a shit load of respect. For yourself and
for the person you’re fighting. Because that ring is his house,
too, and he’s bringing everything that makes him
him
into your space with
your issues. So, you’ve got a decision to make. When you step into
that ring for the first time against your first opponent, do you
want him to be fighting a man,” I glanced at Deena, “or woman, or
do you want him fighting the kid you’re trying to
escape?”

Silence followed, each of them staring at the
ring. I knew what they were thinking. I’d been there before in
their shoes. I was a thirteen-year-old boy full of piss and vinegar
the first time I put on a pair of boxing gloves.

My old trainer’s words rang
through my head, and I said them aloud because these kids needed to
hear them. “You can’t just bring one emotion into the ring. You’ve
got to bring what you
want
into the ring, too. Not just what you want to
destroy, but also what you want to save. You’ve got to bring your
past, your present, and your future into that ring, and then decide
what you need to let go of, what you want to keep, and what you
want to strive for.”

I left them with those words, letting them
return to the bags while I spent the rest of class catching Deena
up with the other beginners.

“I think,” Deena said suddenly, interrupting
a lesson I was giving her about safety, her voice low, “we might
have been different if my father hadn’t given up on us, you know? I
don’t know how much you know about my family, but my mom … she got
taken away. Dad, the way he became afterward and the things he did,
turned us all into monsters, you know?”

Her words had nothing to do with boxing, but
they fell out of her, raw and unchecked.

Glancing up at a clock on the wall, I
realized class was technically over, but I wasn’t ready to let them
leave yet. “Those are some heavy words for someone so young.”

“Words ain’t shit compared to what that
experience made us. Especially Jet and Tansy. They had to become
adults.” She shrugged. “They didn’t do it so well, either.”

“You hate them.”

She glanced at me, eyes cold. “I don’t know
how I feel about them. They changed too much. I don’t know them.
Jet used to be this really awesome athlete. He played basketball,
and he was so good at it. He had colleges watching him, but when
Mom passed, he just gave it up. And Tansy … she was really popular.
I mean, I had friends just because I was her sister. She was
beautiful.”

My gaze fell to my hands, to the memory of
Tansy’s wounded palm. “She’s still beautiful,” I murmured.

Deena snorted. “You should have seen her
before. Before she changed the way she looked, the clothes she
wore, her hair … all of it. She gave it all up. She turned me into
a fucking laughingstock at school.”

“Deena—”

“I know,” she stopped me, backing away,
“you’re going to tell me I’m being selfish, right? That I need to
look at the bigger picture. What kind of shit is that?”

My gaze rose to the boys behind her. “Class
is over, guys. See you later this week, okay?”

They looked up, their conversation stilling,
and then resuming again. Gloves came off, mumbles chasing them as
they filed toward the door. Only Roger lagged behind, his gaze
flicking to the boxing ring before he grabbed his duffel bag and
loped after his friends.

Deena watched him.

“I wasn’t going to tell you you’re selfish,”
I told Deena, drawing her attention back to me. “We’re all selfish.
Every single damn one of us, and I wasn’t in that house. I didn’t
see what you, your brother, and your sister went through after your
mom passed. But I like your sister. A lot. I like what she is now.
I don’t think the changes in her make her ugly. I think they make
her layered. I think they make all of you layered, and I think your
layers are going to make you one hell of a fighter. Stick with
this, okay?” I gestured at the gym.

She stared at me. “Why are
you being nice to us? You like Tansy
that
much?”

I laughed. “Hell if I know, kid. I’m just
trying to work off some court shit. Am I attracted to your sister?
Yeah. I don’t really know if it goes further than that yet. I’m not
even sure if I’m capable of going further than that with anyone,
but I kind of understand your pain, and I think that helps.”

She frowned. “I think I hate you.”

“I think I’d feel left out if you didn’t hate
me.”

She smiled. “That’s good then.” Her gaze
flicked to the clock. “Gotta go.”

“Bring a duffel bag next time. You’ll need
it,” I called after her.

Across the gym, Ray walked toward me. “That
class seemed to go well.”

My gaze found the boxing ring. “Can you do me
a favor?” I asked. “Can you place an order for me? Six white
punching bags, six red permanent markers, and six black permanent
markers. I’ll cover all of the costs. Better yet, my grandfather
will.” I threw him an impish grin.

“Can I ask why?”

“Am I required to answer?”

Ray studied me. “No,” he said finally. “Cover
all of the costs, and I’ll place the order.”