Sunday October 03, 2004

A WALK 'ROUND THE SOUTH SIDE. Around 11:20 I heard what sounded like a riot outside my apartment, so I padded down the stairs. From behind half the apartment doors in my building came howling and excited chatter. I got to my bodega and found the proprietor sitting well back from his usual station, watching a small TV tuned to a boxing match on HBO.

"Who's fighting?" I asked.

"Tito," said the proprietor, eyes glued.

On the tiny screen, a dark-haired young man was pounding on a pink-haired young man. Other citizens entered the bodega, exchanging money directly and carefully with the proprietor so as as not to divert his attention too much from the event.

"I hate that clown," said one young lady, referring to the pink-haired young man.

"Mm," said the proprietor. He is a small, pleasant- and small-featured fellow, his hair short, both his earlobes sporting small, bulbous growths, his skin the color of weak coffee.

The pink-haired young man was shown in close-up, a sealed cut visible high on one cheek of his dazed visage. Someone was squirting water at his mouth, which he barely acknowledged. "He's done," said a dreadlocked guy, passing the proprietor some bills for a six-pack of Malta Corona.

The pink-haired guy was nonetheless game enough to get up and exchange blows with the dark-haired young man, who soon got the better of him, knocking him down thrice before the referee raised the dark-haired young man's hand. No one in the bodega cheered, though I heard some roars in the street.

On my way home I was preceded by a teenager in a velour-drapery-inspired running suit of deepest purple. "Trinidad won, son," he drawled into his cell phone, swinging his legs as if he were accepting this victory for himself. "Nigga went down three time." "VZVVZZZ ZVVZV NIGGA ZBBZBZBZVVZ," replied the cell phone.

I had no idea the victorious Felix Trinidad is from Puerto Rico, the place of origin of most of my neighbors, but I inferred it quickly enough. His opponent, Ricardo Mayorga, is from Nicaragua, and showed a lot of heart. My compliments to him, and to Trinidad, and to all my neighbors, who paid (if they did pay -- pirate cable is rife here) fifty dollars to watch the fight on television.

I really don't understand why some folks pay extra money to live among white people.

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