6:53 a.m. - Tuesday, Mar. 04, 2003
An Evening of Boxing and Laura

I spent Saturday night at Laura�s house in Baton Rouge. I hadn�t seen her in a while, which is always a bad thing in my friendships. It�s not fair, I know, but I seem to need �in your face� friends who won�t let me fade out of their lives. At least now I can say that to them. I�ve let a lot of other friends slip away because we weren�t living on top of each other. I treat friends horribly.

We ordered an arm load of pizzas. The young man who brought them to us was surprised. He thought he was looking for a party. There was a large pizza apiece for James, husband of Laura, Jamey, husband and pitiful misser of Mike, who was on a train trip to MI with her mama, Laura, and me. Plus there was an order of bread sticks and spinach dip just in case anyone had a tapeworm.

I found my bottle of Captain Morgan�s rum resting quietly on top of the fridge, just as I had left him, so I had lots of rum and diet coke.

In another life in Pullman, WA, I delivered pizzas to college kids. The whole town was college kids. Washington State University. I delivered pizzas for a year at night while I went to school in the daytime and I can honestly say I never got a single tip from anyone. I had a wife and two small kids. I struggled with school in the daytime and pushed pizzas at night. Money was tight.

I delivered huge pizzas with extra cheese to young college girls at the dormitories. I could never understand why they ordered these pizzas and then, to wash them down, a six pack of Diet Coke. Now here I am, years and years later, ordering extra-cheese-laden pizzas with all the meats and drinking diet Coke. It turns out that once you get used to it, diet Coke is sweeter. Those girls weren�t trying to cancel out the calories from their pizzas, they were just being even more self-indulgent by getting the sweetest drink they could get.

I also make sure to over-tip the delivery boy.

I sat in my customary spot on the floor just in front of her leather couch so I could lean against it. My left leg�s been stiff since 1968, so I can�t sit on the floor with my legs folded under me. I have to keep the left one straight. I like sitting on the floor. We watched boxing on the television. First the undercard, in which relative boxing unknowns pummeled each other in desperate shows of aggression in hopes that they�d be noticed by the important crowd who was there to see the magnificent Roy Jones (he boxes well too) take on a heavyweight by the name of something Ruiz. The important people didn�t show up until just before the mainfight.

One of the undercard fights was between two women. Seeing women in the ring really challenges my perception of boxing as the ultimate expression of masculinity and the most basic relationship between men. I can�t understand why a woman would want to participate. I like to watch them fight though. They have as much heart in the ring as any guy, and more heart, perhaps, out of the ring as they have a ton of obstacles to overcome in pursuit of their boxing dreams. The women�s match we watched on Saturday was in a weight class I�ve never heard of before. If I remember, it was called �ampleweight�. I think everyone understands how dangerous it can be to refer to a woman boxer as a heavyweight. One of the ladies was in the ampleweight class mainly because of her height. She was proportioned well, but just tall, and with long arms. The other lady is the one I really had to respect. She was shorter by a good deal, and let�s face it, she was heavy.

Even in the boxing ring, women face scrutiny for their looks. From men, of course, but from women too. Women may have noticed this fighter�s smooth, olive skin. They might have seen her shiny black hair, but they certainly noticed as well that she was broad in the hips and belly. This is the first and only thing I think the men would have seen. In any case, I was fascinated by this woman as she plowed into the superior, taller fighter before her. What she lacked in conditioning and training, she more than made up for in pure determination. Time and time again, she plowed into a flurry of blows to deliver a huge roundhouse swing which often as not connected with a thud to the left cheek of her opponent.

There is no doubt that this woman knew she was fat. She knew she was getting clobbered. She knew people were seeing her weight. It must have been so humiliating. But she pressed on with her attacks until the very end. This is a person who wants to box and is willing to go through unusual pain to do it. I have to give her all my respect. Did she win? You know, I can�t remember. I don�t think it matters. I think she is a winner. And during the match, I learned that she had taken this fight on one day�s notice.

On a different note, I just realized that boxers fight for a purse. Have you ever thought of that?

Roy Jones boxed with his usual style, easily confounding and pummeling Ruiz, who out weighed him by some thirty pounds. Jones looks to be a reincarnation of the old saying �the bigger they are, the harder they fall�. As long as he doesn�t get himself trapped on the ropes by a ham-handed heavyweight, I don�t think he can be beat. I love to watch him box. His style is unique, fast and interesting, his face is dapper, and his chest and stomach perfect. Somebody should invent a website where Roy Jones holds a sign in front of his naked torso that says �I Love Leslie Smith�. I might fall for that.

In between fights we made soap. Another first for me. It was simple but very satisfying and fun. Laura insisted that I take home most of the soap; pure glycerin bars with jasmine scent and my own little creations in colored dye added in layers. Then after the fights, we dipped our hands and feet into her paraffin bath and sat on the couch with our hands and feet in plastic bags, waiting for the wax to do its thing. It was great. The wax was great, but greater still was just sharing the quiet time with her. We talked about nothing with a little something thrown in. Private stuff, don�t you know?

I slept on the couch and left early in the morning. She had to go to work and I had to go back to my solitary life in my apartment. We sure live in different worlds.

I�m old enough to be her mother. She�s working hard to build a life with her man. I�m just trying to live mine out as best I can. She keeps a nice house. I need a HAZMAT team for mine. I can� figure out exactly why we are friends. But we are, and she�s a good one. I keep her e-mails in the file folder marked �family�.

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