MY FINGERNAILS DON’T STAND A CHANCE. I’ve bitten all but one, my left pinkie, down to the skin. I am saving that final sliver of white for tonight’s fight.
Daddy has moved Speaky from his private room to our kitchen table. Otis and Willie are here with Lila Weiss and Daddy and me. They’ve even brought Willie’s mama, a cat, a pan of corn hash, a jug of lemonade, and a radio of their own.
I remember Daddy telling me about the kids at Mercy. Some being true orphans. Others living there because of parents who couldn’t take care of them, or from hard times at home. I don’t ask Willie about his mother. I notice her skirt, though. It’s gathered at the waist with a ribbon sash that glints when she moves. I’ve never seen fabric gleam that way. Up close, it looks like regular cotton. But whenever she turns, even a little, that sash shines like lamé. All of me says, I want one of those.
Daddy goes to the larder to get six drinking glasses and some plates, then sets them in front of us on the table. “Sister Weiss,” he says, “welcome to you and your friends.”
Willie and his mama serve us their corn hash, then slide on the kitchen bench next to me.
Otis gets to the bench from the other side. He says my whole name slowly, like he’s enjoying a caramel. “Hibernia Lee Tyson.”
I like hearing how he says my name. It sounds smooth, like an introduction to a singer at the Savoy.
Quietly I say, “That wrapper chain you made me is sure pretty.”
He says, “It looks good on you.”
I giggle. “I do look good in jewelry, don’t I.”
I reach for Lila’s lemonade and pour everybody a glass, Otis first. I drink mine down quick.
The cat plunks his paw into my empty glass and licks the lemony drink from his white patch of fur.
“Don’t go showing off,” says Otis. He sets the cat between me and him on the bench. “Bird,” he introduces, “this is Hibernia Lee Tyson.”
Otis waves the cat’s lemonade paw like it wants to shake my hand. I take the cat’s wet mitt in two of my fingers. “Pleased to meet you, cat.”
“Bird,” Otis corrects me.
Then we hear it—sudden cheering from the spectators at ringside, and Skip Gibson’s quicksilver introduction to the fight. I’m so glad to hear Skip’s voice. It’s a greeting from a friend.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Skip Gibson coming to you live from Comiskey Park in Chicago, where I am looking out at forty-five thousand fight fans waiting to see who will be the next heavyweight champion of the world.”
All of us scoot toward Speaky. We might as well be a bunch of hairpins, pulled fast by a magnet—the radio. Otis’s Philco adds extra boom to the commentary. With so much radio surrounding us, it’s as loud as being ringside.
Even Bird’s got his ears pricked, and he’s up on all fours. I close my eyes to listen. I make what Skip says come into my mind like a moving picture.
“Champion Braddock is wearing the trunks with the white stripes. Joe Louis is wearing the all-dark trunks.”
With my eyes shut tight, I say, “All-dark trunks! What kind of star appeal is that? Joe, don’t you know? A white stripe adds star appeal under bright lights. Braddock is already ahead with the right shorts.”
Before I can give Joe any more ideas about his boxing trunks, I am hushed up quick. Daddy and Lila, Otis, Willie, and his mama all pounce on my advice with a firm “Shhhhh!”
“But if only Joe just had a little stripe of his own—” I start to defend the importance of trunks with some flash.
Another chorus rings out against me. “Shhhhhhhhh!”
I suck my tongue. “You people don’t know a thing about show business.”
Nobody bothers to hush me again.
Daddy gets up and starts walking the length of our small kitchen. Even with the radio’s magnetic power, he can’t stay put. His feet make heavy clomps on the floorboards. He lifts the window sash even higher to let in more of the night’s breeze.
I start up with my pinkie nail, slowly coaxing it off with tiny little teeth snips.
“Louis looks strong from his corner, eager, like he’s ready. Like he’s been ready. Braddock, from his corner, is quietly confident. They enter the ring.”
Lila pours her second glass of lemonade.
Willie’s got Bird now and is hugging him close. The cat fights Willie’s hold. He wants to nose the radio. Otis knuckles Bird’s head softly. “Easy now,” he says.
Daddy fiddles with the radio’s tuning knob. He turns up the volume almost to its fullest.
I bite down hard on my nail. I start to tear it away from the skin. Otis gently draws my pinkie from my clamped teeth. I’m grateful for the favor. Anything to save my nails.
Out from the radio the start bell rings.
Something in me is ringing, too. It’s not a bell, though. The ding, ding, ding comes from a single place inside my chest.
It’s a signal that tells me I’m at a beginning.