Heart of Scorpio Page 6

  I go to Haeckermann’s desk.

  Everything’s ready for the delegations now, I say.

  OK, leave it there, says my boss without turning around.

  Johnny Pitalúa

  Then I heard someone come in the gym yelling, “Good afternoon, everybody, the champ has arrived!”

  It was Milton, with a busted lip and blood on his shirt.

  And then he pointed at Óscar “Kid Hands of yams” Manzur and hollered, “Let that right hand go . . . not like that, harder, harder, thaaaat’s it, listen to me brotha, if ya wanna become a champion.”

  And then he turned toward Efraim and hollered, “And this guy? This guy’s new, right, Bighead? Let’s go, kid.”

  And then he turned to the kid Miguel and yelled, “Bighead, how’s my student? He’s ready to fight for the title, I’m tellin’ you. Hey Migue’ I gotta talk to you later so we can fix a time where I can give you back that china. What happened was that I got up early and I liked those dishes and wanted to have some like them made for Ángela and since I didn’t have anybody to ask I thought I’d borrow them to use as a model and bring them back to you the same day, you know, but I got distracted with something else and I forgot to bring them back.”

  And the kid Miguel, “No problemo, Ol’ Milton, it’s all good.”

  And then Milton turned towards Blackie Espinosa and hollered, “Blackie Espinosa! The second most important black man in the country, because I’m the first.”

  And he went to laughing.

  Then he went and told Blackie Espinosa, “A round of cold drinks for everybody on my tab.”

  And then Milton looked at me and started walking to where I was.

  Then I said, “Milton, cuz, I must be seein’ things.”

  And Milton, “You know, Bighead, a man never forgets his friends.”

  * * *

  Avski remembered a similar situation when Milton was falling apart in a fight and losing his strength. The story was repeated by Johnny Pitalúa and was recorded in Avski’s book. That was a day when Olivella was taking a beating like none that anyone who followed his fights had ever seen. Miguel López, a Mexican fighter without any special talent, was punishing Olivella with an array of punches he couldn’t figure out. One of the fight commentators remembered having said in the third round, “For those of you just joining this broadcast we want to clarify that the fighter boxing like Olivella is Miguel López from Mexico, and the one fighting like López is the Colombian champion Milton Olivella.”

  Pitalúa tells that Milton, during the break after the fourth round, asked his seconds to pass him the handkerchief. So one of them rubbed a white linen handkerchief against Milton’s nose and he snorted a cloud of cocaine that could have anesthetized a horse. “That was one of those things I didn’t agree with,” said Johnny Pitalúa to Joseph Avski. “Sure, cuz, Milton came out of the corner right after that like they just turned a wild animal loose and he gave López a beatin’ like you ain’t never seen. The referee had to stop the fight because López’ corner was hollerin’, ‘Stop it, he’s ‘bout to kill him!’ That same day they paid Milton with a kilo of cocaine and one of those cars Milton used to like.”

  According to former world champion Antonio García Madero from Mexico, that fight was the beginning of the end for Olivella. Milton’s body started to crave more drugs, and the discipline he had cultivated over years evaporated in a question of months. The cocaine that helped him win the fight against López started to have the opposite effect: destroying his fitness, deteriorating his reflexes, and diminishing his speed. But the physical change didn’t register in Milton’s mind. He stated publically that he was faster than ever, that his strength counted more now that it was backed up by experience. Dr. Lefebvre believes that timeframe marked the beginning of Milton’s mental problems. Olivella’s self-image, along with his understanding of the physical demands of his livelihood, unhitched themselves from reality and he fled farther and farther from the present to take refuge in the past.

  After he lost the championship Milton started to spend more money than he made. The drug cut several years off of his career and the fortune accumulated over years, the astronomical amount of money that seemed impossible to spend in ten lifetimes, started to disappear as if it were consumed by apocalyptic fire. One day the zeros in his bank account started to shrink until they disappeared. The next day the collection of luxury cars was auctioned. A week later the apartments bought two-by-two were sold four at a time. What were savings turned into debts. On another day the Olivella family was forcibly removed from their apartment in front of television cameras. Milton’s son, Julián, who had been going to the most expensive private school in Cartagena, was put in a public institution where he eventually received his high school diploma.

  It was about that time that the poet Raúl Gómez Jattín successfully underwent treatment for drug addiction at a hospital in Cuba and a group of reporters and officials at the ministry of culture and sports started a campaign to send Milton to the same treatment center. Milton was going to be sent to Cuba with the hope that his ego would be broken and that he would realize that his days of glory in the sports world had ended. In Cuba the people who saw him on the street would neither make fun of him nor stroke his ego. Another point in favor of sending him to Cuba was that he would be isolated from the pack of hyenas in Colombia who stood to gain from his descent into the vortex. In Cuba the merchants of misery wouldn’t be there to surround him hoping for a false step, whether it was to sell him drugs, sell their own books, or publish articles in the newspaper. The fundraising campaign to send Milton to treatment was capped off with a concert in Cartagena’s Apollo Park. The concert opened with El Combo de las Estrellas and headlined cumbia artist Rubén Ríos. The program also included speeches by a line-up of candidates for mayor and senator, ex-presidents and even television actors with political aspirations who used the event as a platform for self-promotion. The event received extensive press coverage, but what was not well known was the fact that the amount of money raised was well short of what was required to send Milton to Cuba for treatment.

  A couple of years later, when the money to send Olivella to Cuba had been finally raised thanks to donors who didn’t stand to gain politically from the ex-champ, Milton decided to have one last party to celebrate. He stole most of the donations and gave himself over to a colossal orgy that lasted almost a month. When he finally showed up and said he was ready to go to Cuba he found his donors so enraged that the subject of Milton’s treatment was forgotten forever.

  Julián

  Nobody wants to hit the sheets with someone who’s been seen on TV being kicked out of his home by the police, it seems to me. There are the cops telling us we have to leave the house because it’s titled to a gringo named Green and Mama’s explaining to the police that this is the only apartment left of all the ones Papa bought when he was world champion and that the property is titled to Milton Olivella and not to some gringo Green and then the TV cameras came to cover the scandal that was again shaming the ex-world champion boxer Milton Olivella and his family but Papa isn’t aware that he’s no longer world champion or at least he’s not conscious of it all the time and sometimes believes that he’s still living in that era. When he came to eat lunch with us everything seemed normal and he’d talk about the sea swells and how they were damaging the tourism in Cartagena and Mama seemed happy that Papa was well and because he didn’t come home violent and throwing things on the floor or breaking things and he’s sitting down for lunch and says that the sea swells were affecting the tourism and the economic outlook of the whole department and the investments destined to support sports and especially boxing in the city could be reduced and the President’s visit to the port and the close relationship the President has with Cartagena and all that he was prepared to do for the city and for San Basilio de Palenque and that sounded strange to us and Mama looked up with a shadow of worry and she kept looking at Papa and Papa kept talking and saying that it�
��s not that he would want anyone to thank him but if the President cared about Cartagena and Palenque it was because the world champion Milton Olivella had interceded with the ruler of the country and said that he had to go meet with the President because he was going to put electricity in Palenque and suddenly he asked Mama where the keys to the Porsche were and Mama with tears running down her cheeks tells him he had sold the Porsche and Papa says he doesn’t have time for games because the President is waiting for him and he needs the keys to the Porsche, the car, and Mama’s looking at him crying and he stands up and looks through his pants pockets and I yell at him that he doesn’t have a Porsche or anything or shit, that he had spent it all and then he says you watch how you talk to me because I’m Milton Olivella, World Junior Welterweight Champion and I tell him he’s not champion of shit anymore and it seems like he doesn’t hear me and he says out loud to himself Now I know where I left the keys to the Porsche and he leaves the house. And now it’s we who have to leave the house because the policeman explains to Mama, in front of the reporter and in front of the camera, that Milton Olivella signed the papers that say that the apartment is now the property of William Green and that the corresponding payment has been made and then the reporter asks the cop how the amount was paid and who is William Green and the cop responds that it seems that the amount was paid with cocaine but until it’s proven they couldn’t act on it and that the name is probably an alias for a gringo narco-trafficker but for now they had not been able to prove anything and Mama doesn’t stop crying and tries to talk but can’t for the crying and the policeman tells us again that we have to leave immediately or he’s got to take us into custody for home invasion and Mama says between sobs that this is our house and we haven’t invaded the home of anyone and the cop says it’s not our house anymore and that Papa already sold it and we can only take a few items of clothing and Mama throws herself on the floor crying and I try to pick her up and she doesn’t get up and just cries and says crying Where are we going to live . . . Where are we going to live . . . Where are we going to live . . . Where are we going to live . . . and the cop and the reporter don’t care that we’re left in the street without a dime and homeless and nobody cares what happens to us because now we don’t have money and you’re only worth what you have.

  Is it around here? the taxi driver asks.

  I look at the place and realize that yes, it’s around here where I’ll find Papa, it seems to me.

  Yes, let me off here, I say. I pay him and I get out.

  A thing like that can’t be forgiven, it seems to me. Nobody’s going to want to hit the sheets with a person who gets thrown out of his house on television. Nobody decent would want his wife and son to be homeless. Before, all the women wanted to hit the sheets with me but that was before, it seems to me.

  I call Lucero from a pay phone. Never any answer. I walk to the cafeteria where I’m going to meet Papa. There are a couple of streets right after Estanco de Tabaco Street, it seems to me. Lucero and I met in the days when nobody wanted to go out with me because when your father is world champion and has money all the women want to hit the sheets with you, but if your father blew all the money and you’re dying of hunger in the street then no woman wants to hit the sheets with you and if your job only earns you enough to take care of your mother and you don’t have your own car and the apartment where you live is rented because they kicked you out of where you live while everybody watched it on television and you’re black and your boss is a Jew and you’re not as good looking as Saint Jude, then nobody’s going to want to have anything to do with you, it seems to me. Lucero used to say that she didn’t care about that but now she doesn’t answer the phone and it’s because she’s already found someone with money, it seems to me.

  I get to the place, but Papa hasn’t arrived yet, so I light a cigarette.

  Johnny Pitalúa

  So I asked him again, “What happened to you?”

  And Milton, “Nothing, brotha, like I told you, an accident.”

  And I said, “Don’t bullshit me, Milton, you were in a fight.”

  And Milton, “Keep it down; I said it was an accident.”

  And I, “However you like. Where are you coming from?”

  And Milton, “From meeting with Julián. You know, bro, I gave that pension the government gives me to Julián and Ángela. It’s that, you know . . . I’m going to start doing things right, you understand.”

  And I, “And you fought with Julián?”

  And Milton, “Knock it off, Ol’ Johnny, I just told you to keep it down.”

  We sat there for a while without saying anything. With the blinds of my office closed it seemed like the gym was empty.

  Until Milton says, “Did I tell you that a reporter wants to talk to me tonight?”

  And I, “No, you haven’t told me anything.”

  And Milton, “They tell me that the guy writes books and wants to write one about me. So you see, in Colombia they still remember a champion.”

  And I, “Congratulations.”

  And we go back to waiting in silence. I go to looking at a photograph hanging on the wall where Milton and I are dressed up like the Fania All Stars singers in the good times.

  And Milton, “You know something, Bighead, I don’t believe Julián’s ever going to forgive me for that thing about the apartment.”

  And I, “Nobody admired you and idolized you as much as Julián. I remember when he went out those nights to look for you because you didn’t come home and Ángela was worried, and he went into all those places that weren’t for a child to go into. And when the people in the street got into it with you because you were drunk the boy defended you like a little cornered lion.”

  And Milton, “I know, Ol’ Johnny, I know, and that’s why it hurts me.”

  His voice broke a little; he cleared his throat and kept talking; “Now he hates me, Ol’ Johnny.”

  We went back to sitting in silence for a while. The photo was taken in Los Angeles. Milton always asked me to go with him, like another corner man. Sometimes we sparred; sometimes I just went with him. Milton looked at the photo, too.

  And Milton, “You know something, Bighead, see how life is. You never won anything and now you’re better than me.”

  And after a second he kept talking, “Take care of the kid Miguel. Not so he’ll be a champ, but so that he doesn’t turn into shit afterwards.”

  * * *

  “It all happened in one second,” explained Milton, raising his left arm to cover his jaw and setting his feet in the form of a T, “Everything went black but I didn’t go down. When I reacted I hid my chin behind my shoulder and got my guard up. Ol’ King came at me again. He wasn’t letting me rest, bro. I tried to take advantage, you understand, let him throw punches and wear himself out, study his attack to know where I could do him some damage.” Milton was moving from side to side slipping King’s invisible punches in the bar. He feinted toward the right and bumped against a chair with his thigh, and in that moment saw an opening in King’s defense and launched an upper cut that exploded against King’s jaw. King went backwards and went sprawling against the ropes. Milton immediately pressed the attack trying not to let King fall. He knew that if King went down he’d have time to recover from the punch and come back to attack, but if he was able to punish him enough before he hit the ground he was sure that he’d not be able to get up before the referee counted to ten and he’d go home with the money for his treatment in Cuba. Milton worked King into a corner and corralled him there. A right hook reopened the cut that King had on his eyebrow. Milton sent a combination to his ribs and finished with an uppercut that, in its trajectory, banged into an empty beer bottle and sent it exploding on the floor. King covered up but he couldn’t respond. Milton attacked with every offensive combination he had. The younger fighter seemed to be going down but Milton didn’t let him fall and kept up the punishment. The crowd shouted louder with each blow. In the middle of the audience’s enthusiasm Milton Olivella c
ould make out the sound of the bell that announced the end of the assault, but he couldn’t believe it. He cursed himself for not having let him fall. A young man like King could recover in the sixty seconds between rounds while he had nothing left for another attack.