On the Ropes Read online

  On the Ropes

  Copyright © 2014 Christa Cervone

  Interior Design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats

  https://www.facebook.com/FictionalFormats

  Cover Image by — David Blazze

  Cover Design — Todd M. LeMieux

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without the permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are fictitious and; therefore, coincidental. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, establishments, events or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  ROUND 1

  ROUND 2

  ROUND 3

  ROUND 4

  ROUND 5

  ROUND 6

  ROUND 7

  ROUND 8

  ROUND 9

  ROUND 10

  ROUND 11

  ROUND 12

  ROUND 13

  ROUND 14

  ROUND 15

  ROUND 16

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book couldn’t have been written without the help of Josue Lopez. Not only is he a Golden Gloves champion, but he’s also my son’s boxing coach.

  Much like Saint, Josue grew up on the streets of an inner city, and chose a path of boxing instead of gangs or drugs. He put himself through community college with scholarships and grants, then went on to study at UMass Amherst. During that time, he became Western Massachusetts’ Golden Gloves Champion. He is now teaching English as a Second Language to elementary school children, in the inner city near where he was raised.

  This story wouldn’t be what it is without you, Josh. Thank you, so much, for taking the time to sit down with me and teach me about the boxing world. You truly helped me bring Saint alive.

  “On the Ropes” describes when fighters are in a dangerous situation; they’re trapped with their backs against the ropes in a boxing ring. This is how I’ve felt since the first day I met Salem Harris. I’m the fighter with my back against the ropes, defenseless.

  —Gabriel ‘The Saint’ Vega

  “In the case of the Commonwealth vs. Josue Vega, how do you plead?”

  “Not guilty,” I hear our father say in his thick Spanish accent.

  The cameras begin to flash, and I hear reporters talking into their microphones, although I can’t understand what they’re saying.

  “Order in the court!” the judge speaks loudly as his gavel hits the desk, making my little brother, Jason, jump.

  “It’s ok, Jase, we’re safe now,” I say, trying to comfort him. The two of us sit quietly in the second row of the hot, crowded courtroom as we watch our father plead “not guilty” to the murder of our mother. I’m just as scared as he is, but I don’t want him to know that. I’m his older brother and he looks up to me, so I’m trying to be brave.

  “Your Honor, my client asks to be released on bail. He has two little boys he needs to care for while the trial is ongoing,” says the tall man who’s standing next to our father.

  I eyeball our father and notice how disheveled he looks. His hair is a mess and his clothes are the same ones he’d been wearing two nights ago. Jase and I were awoken this morning by a loud banging on our door. It was the police, and they were looking for our father, but we hadn’t seen him in almost two days.

  The last time I’d seen our father was the night he and our mother had gotten into an argument. They were yelling so loudly that they actually woke me from a sound sleep. I could hear our mother screaming, “How could you? He’s just a little boy…” and that was the last time I heard our mother’s voice.

  “Your Honor, the defendant is being charged with murder. I insist he be remanded to the county jail for the duration of his trial,” a voice says loudly from the other side of the courtroom.

  The judge looks over at us and I can see the pity in his eyes.

  “Mr. Vega, I have to agree with the District Attorney,” the judge’s voice is stern, “you’re standing trial for the murder of your wife. Bail is denied, and you’re to return to the county jail for the remainder of your trial. Bailiff, please remove the defendant and have him taken into custody.”

  I hear chatter erupt from the back of the courtroom. I turn around and see the reporters talking and the cameras flashing again. Spinning back around, I see a man in what looks like a police uniform handcuffing my father, then leading him out of the courtroom. Jase covers his face with his hands and begins to cry, “Why are they taking Papi?”

  “It’s okay, Jase,” I whisper. “We have each other, remember? We’re ‘blood brothers.’” Jase wipes his tears away with his hand and forces a smile.

  “Blood brothers” was something I’d come up with when we were out playing on the playground. It was one of the few times our father had actually offered to take us somewhere. We’d been cooped up in our small, dingy apartment all winter long, and it was finally a pleasant spring day. Jase and I were running around playing tag. Our father had told us several times to stop running; but lo and behold, right after his final warning, Jase fell and skinned both of his knees. Our father glared at us, just waiting to hear Jase cry. I knew what was coming next, he’d “give him something to cry about.” That had been one of our father’s favorite lines; especially to Jase, who was extremely sensitive and cried over almost everything.

  “Come on Jase, don’t cry,” I whispered to him as I looked anxiously over my shoulder at our father. Jase’s body began to shake as he tried to hold his tears back, and the blood from both his knees began to run down his shins. I glanced back at our father, who was now standing up, and I knew I had to act fast.

  I reached into my back pocket and pulled out an old pocket knife that I’d found lying on the sidewalk one day after school. I’d been keeping it a secret from Jase because I knew he’d want to play with it and would end up hurting himself.

  “Hey Jase, look what I found a few days ago,” I said, showing him the knife.

  His eyes grew wide, and he said in awe, “Whoa, where did you get that?”

  “What are you two doing over there?” our father said loudly, making Jase jump.

  “Nothing, Papi. I’m just tying Jase’s shoes,” I answered back.

  “Hurry up! I’m ready to leave!” he snapped in response.

  Opening up the blade as fast as I could, I took the tip and pressed it down onto the pad of my thumb.

  “Gabe,” Jase gasped, “what are you doing?!”

  “I wanna show you that you don’t have to cry every time you bleed,” I explained as blood began to pool up on my thumb. “See, I’m bleeding and I’m not crying.”

  “It’s like we’re ‘blood brothers’!” Jase smiled at me as he blinked back his tears.

  “Yes. Exactly, Jase, we’re ‘blood brothers,’” I smiled back at him.

  I look over at Jase now and notice that he’s trying his hardest to hold back his tears. The two of us sit quietly as we watch our father being taken away. I finally feel safe. He and our mother are out of our lives forever; they can’t hurt us anymore. I’ve actually dreamed of this day; Jase and me, living with parents who actually love us. I saw it in a movie once; a little girl who didn’t have any parents was living in an orphanage and some rich guy adopted her. They lived happily ever after, and I’m hoping that’s what’s going to happen to us.

  “Gabriel? Jason?” I hear a kind voice say. “I’m Debbie, and this is Dave, we’re going to take you to where you’re going to be staying.”

  They’re dressed up in fancy suits and I wonder if they’re going to be our new parents. I can’t help but smile at the thought. They look so nice; they can give us a happy life. I know they can.


  “Jase, shhhhh… stop crying,” I nudge him. “Look, I think this is our new Mom and Dad,” I whisper.

  The last thing I want is for them to think Jase is a crybaby. He is, but I don’t want them to change their minds about us.

  “Come on boys, we’re going to get you situated in your new homes,” Dave says.

  I look up at him, confused. “Homes?”

  “Yes, you and Jason are being placed in foster homes,” Debbie replies.

  “You’re not our new Mom and Dad?” Jase asks sadly, through his tears.

  “Oh no, Jason,” Debbie says sincerely as she crouches down in front of Jase, “we work for the Department of Social Services, and we’ve been sent to bring you to your new homes.”

  Debbie’s words make Jase cry even harder, and I feel so sorry for him. In his five years of life, he’s never known a parent’s love. Sometimes at night, when we can’t fall asleep, I tell him about movies I’ve seen on television, about how the families are so happy. The mom makes the family dinner, and the dad comes home from work and plays baseball with the kids. Jase always gets excited as I tell him about the movies. I promised him that someday, it’ll be like that for us, that one day Mami’s medicine will eventually make her better. I didn’t mean it to be a lie.

  When Mami was sick, she either slept all day or she was throwing up in the bathroom. Every morning, I heard her making a phone call for more medicine. About twenty minutes after she got off the phone there was a knock at the door. It was usually a man dressed in dark, baggy clothes that brought her medicine. After that, she disappeared into her bedroom. Sometimes, she came right out; while other times, she stayed in there for close to an hour.

  Most mornings it was me who got us ready for school. Some days, if we were lucky, there was actually food in the house, but only if Mami had felt well enough to go grocery shopping. Other days, we went to school hungry. Mrs. Gibbons, my teacher, occasionally brought in fruit for us. She slipped it to us in the hallway and always reminded us not to tell anyone.

  Mrs. Gibbons was the nicest teacher in the school. She always asked about Jase and I, and she made sure we ate lunch every day. Sometimes during class, I’d daydream that Mrs. Gibbons was our mom, but then the dismissal bell would ring and snap me back into reality. I always hated the end of the day; that meant that school was over, and it was time for us to go home.

  Jase and I would take our time walking home from school because we never knew what we were walking into when we got there. Was our father going to be there? If he was home, what kind of mood would he be in? Would he and Mami be fighting? More often than not, they’d be fighting. Papi would be yelling at Mami because the house was a mess and dinner was not made; it was always for the same reasons. “I work all fuckin’ day; the least you can do is clean this fuckin’ pigsty and make dinner,” he’d yell, raising his hand to her.

  Depending on his mood after hitting our mother, sometimes he’d take his anger out on us next. The two of us would huddle in our room, trying to keep quiet, but he’d burst through the door yelling, “And you two! All you ever do around here is make messes and eat! It’s about time you start helping out.”

  Some nights, we were lucky, and he’d just leave after he yelled at us. Other nights, he’d physically pick us up, drag us into the living room, and make us start cleaning. “And get me a fuckin’ beer too, you little piece of shit!” he’d yell at me. “I don’t know why your mother even wanted you in the first place. You’re nothing but a waste of space and money.”

  I’d encourage Jase to clean as quickly as he could so that we could go back into our room and wait for our father to pass out on the couch. This had become an almost daily occurrence for us.

  “Gabriel and Jason, it’s time to go,” a voice says, snapping me out of my memory. “Gabriel, you’ll be coming with me and Jason will be going with Dave.”

  “What do you mean, I’m going with you and Jase is going with Dave?” my voice begins to tremble. Once I realize what’s happening, I begin to scream at the top of my lungs, “You’re not taking my brother from me. I’m all he has!”

  Debbie tries to soothe and calm me down, but this only makes matters worse. I begin kicking and punching her as I yell in Spanish, “No me puedes quitar a mi hermano, puta estúpida!”

  Before I know it, I’m taken away kicking and screaming. Dave grabs ahold of my feet while another man has my torso. Jase is crying hysterically; sobbing my name over and over, and there’s nothing I can do. I watch Debbie escort him out of the courtroom and realize that everything that I’ve ever known is gone.

  “Everybody wants to be somebody. The thing you have to do is give them confidence they can. You have to give a kid a dream.”

  —George Foreman

  “Gabriel, let’s go! Didn’t I tell you not to go out last night? Get your head out of your ass! You wanna win your next fight, you better step it up!” Frankie yells from across the ring. “You need to make a choice: Do you wanna go out and party or do you wanna fight?” he sneers and pounds his fist down on the ring. “You can’t have it both ways, kid. Your opponents aren’t drinking and partying like you, they’re in the gym training!”

  “Ciera tu maldita boca viejo pendejo,” I mutter in Spanish. My mother had taught my brother and me Spanish. I only use it on occasion now, but when I was a child, I was fluent.

  I know what I have to do to win this next fight, and I don’t need Frankie yelling in my fucking ear, distracting me. My fight against Gavin ‘The Gladiator’ Sullivan is in two weeks, and he is, absolutely, the toughest opponent I’ve faced to date. The two of us have sparred before but have never actually fought each other. Our experience puts us on an equal fighting ground with each knowing the other’s strengths and weaknesses. I’m planning on using this knowledge to my full advantage.

  “Jimmy! Get in there and kick his ass,” Frankie barks, pointing at the ring.

  “You got it, Frankie,” Jimmy hops up onto the side of the ring and slips under the ropes. “You ready for me, Saint?” he asks, hitting his gloves together.

  “You couldn’t beat me on your best fucking day, Jimmy,” I egg him on. I can’t help but laugh as I stare back at him. He’s trying so hard to act tough, but I can’t take him seriously, he’s just Jimmy to me. We’ve known each other since middle school, although we didn’t start out as friends.

  Back in the seventh grade, we liked the same girl. Her name was Tina Stetson. She was a pretty blonde and was the first girl in our class to “develop”; Jimmy and I took notice. Tina flirted with both of us, using each of us to make the other jealous. It went on for weeks until finally, we came to blows one day after school.

  I acted tough about it, but to be truthful, I’d been scared shitless because it was my first actual fight. The rumors had been circling all day and by the end of seventh period, the majority of our classmates knew about the fight. The two of us met in the back parking lot of school, and when I arrived, there were about twenty-five to thirty kids waiting; even Tina was there. Jimmy and I exchanged some words before either one of us actually threw a punch.

  Everything after that was a complete blur. I don’t even remember who swung first. I just know that I was on top of Jimmy, pummeling him, by the time the fight was broken up, and it took two male teachers to pry me off. I had beaten Jimmy pretty badly; both his top and bottom lips were split, his left eye was swollen closed, and blood was running down his face from his nose.

  Both of us were hauled into Vice Principal, Mr. Dufresne’s office. Mr. Dufresne insisted that we tell him who had arranged the fight. Neither one of us would rat the other out, so we both kept our mouths shut. Ultimately, we ended up serving in-house suspension. Mr. Dufresne assumed that being two young boys, we would’ve enjoyed a few days off from school. So he figured that sticking us in an enclosed room together was a more severe punishment. Little did he know, that was the best possible outcome for me; considering the last place I wanted to spend any time, was at home with my foster pare
nts.

  Now, as I look at Jimmy, I realize that he’s not that lanky thirteen-year-old kid anymore, he’s a man. I size him up as we stand directly in front of one another. He stands just shy of five feet ten; with dark brown, almost black, hair that’s cut very closely to his scalp. His shoulders and chest are broad, and his build is stocky. He easily outweighs me by a good eight to ten pounds.

  I, on the other hand, have looked and weighed about the same since I was seventeen, and there’s no doubt that I’m the spitting image of my father; which drives me insane. I hate even bearing his name, let alone looking like him, but I’m reminded every time I look in the mirror that the apple didn’t fall far from that tree. I remember him having jet black hair, dark eyes, olive complexion, and a slender build. I stand only about five feet eight, like him, and though my weight has been consistent, I’m actually much leaner and more muscular.

  Snapping back to the here and now, I stare Jimmy down and my eyes narrow on him.

  “You’re ‘bout to get schooled, son,” Jimmy laughs, mocking me.

  “Wait, wait!” Both Jimmy and I turn around, and we see Tyler running toward the ring. “Can I announce the fight?” he begs us as he hops up under the ropes.

  “Tyler, this isn’t a real fight,” Jimmy looks down at him.

  “I know, but Saint promised that the next time he spars, I can announce,” he sounds so disappointed. With his head hanging low, he slowly turns around and starts walking towards the ropes to exit the ring. As he climbs through the ropes, he turns his head, and our eyes meet. His giant green eyes have nothing but sadness in them. Tyler is one of Frankie’s “at risk” kids. He reminds me so much of myself at his age, it’s as if I’m looking into a mirror at myself from twelve years ago.

  I turn to Jimmy and say, “I did promise him,” as I give him an over-exaggerated sad look.