“You know my fight against Santos is Tuesday night. Right?” Talking about this now, while we still sat in the tabernacle, wasn’t probably the best time. The hairs on my arm had been standing at full attention for the last half hour while we listened to one song after another. The choir was singing “Beautiful Savior,” and I was looking down at Millie’s face, thinking what a beautiful savior she’d turned out to be. If heaven was the octagon then Millie was my angel at the center of it all. The girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim.
“Yes?” Her lips were turned into my ear so our conversation wouldn’t interrupt the rehearsal taking place. I didn’t answer immediately, waiting as the stirring rendition came to a close. The director waved the organ and the choir into silence, and I grabbed Millie’s hand and we slipped out the way we’d come, mouthing a thank you toward the friend in the Tabernacle Choir who had made it happen. He gave me a wink and a thumbs up, and Millie clung to my arm until we were out in the open sunshine. She loosened her grip and tipped her face up, soaking in the warmth and giving me a perfect view of her lovely throat.
“I don’t want you in the audience on Tuesday, Millie,” I said abruptly.
“You don’t?” Her chin dropped, sunshine forgotten.
“I don’t, baby,” I said gently.
“Why?” Her tone was plaintive.
“I won’t be able to focus on what I have to do. I’ll be worried about you.”
She sighed, a gusty swoosh that lifted the dark strands of her hair closest to her mouth.
“As soon as I win, I’m coming to you,” I promised.
“You’re that sure you’re going to win?”
“Yep. I’m gonna win, I’m gonna raise my arms over my head, and I’m gonna say, Yo Millie, we did it!”
“How very Rocky Balboa of you.” She smirked.
“That’s right. And then I’m gonna go running through the crowd, out the doors, three blocks down, two blocks over, and I’ll bang at your door, and you can congratulate me in any way you see fit. Make sure Henry’s with Robin.”
She laughed, but I could tell she didn’t want to laugh. Silence settled between us, and we started to walk, meandering in the general direction of where I’d parked. The grounds around the tabernacle were perfectly maintained and ideal for walking, even if Millie couldn’t enjoy the landscaping.
“I’m not made of glass, David,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“Really? Because I’m guessing if I could see, you would want me at your fight.”
“Maybe,” I admitted, nodding to myself. “But you can’t see. And having you out there in the crowd, being bumped and pushed, hearing the fight going down, and not knowing if I’m winning or losing, that seems unnecessarily cruel. And I don’t want that. You’ll be afraid for me, and I’ll be afraid for you, and if I’m worrying about you, my mind won’t be where it needs to be.”
“But Tag, that’s kind of how it works. I care about you, you care about me. It’s called a relationship.” There was frustration in her voice, and I noticed she called me Tag whenever she was a little irked at me.
“I protect you, you protect me,” I insisted. “That’s how it works. You protect me by being safe and secure while I fight, so I’m not distracted. And I protect you by insisting on it.”
She sighed again, and I stopped walking and turned her to face me. Gently, with the pads of my fingertips, I smoothed her forehead, traced the scowl between her eyes, and then touched her unsmiling lips, pushing the edges up, forcing her to smile.
She grabbed at my hands and nipped at my fingertips, biting a little harder than was playful, showing me her frustration.
“It’ll be broadcast on FightNet. FOX sports will be there too, but I don’t think it’ll air until later. But on FightNet you can watch it in real time. You can log in and watch it at home. Mikey does the play-by-play for Tag Team fights. He’s good at it, Millie, and I’ll make sure he knows you’re listening so he gives a little more detail than usual. That way you will know exactly what is happening, when it happens.”
She shook her head as if she didn’t like it at all.
“Please, Millie?” I whispered.
“I don’t want you to feel alone. It feels wrong not to be there,” she protested.
“Everyone fights alone, Millie. That’s not something you can help me do.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Okay,” she acquiesced.
I kissed her gratefully, almost desperately, and she kissed me back. But I sensed the hurt and tasted her reservations.
When I dropped her off at home, I didn’t come inside and she didn’t sulk or simper. I was buzzing with pent-up energy, nerves, and anticipation. I had forty-eight hours to mentally prepare for the fight, and I needed a clear head and no distractions. Even beautiful ones.
“You’ll come here Tuesday night, no matter what time it is?” she asked, her hand on the door handle, her stick at the ready.
“I will,” I promised. Bloodied, bruised, beaten, I would be there.
“I’ll be listening, I’ll be cheering, and I’ll be waiting,” she said simply. She pushed the truck door open, slid to the ground, and I watched as she made her way inside and carefully shut the door.
(End of Cassette)
Moses
MILLIE HADN’T BEEN at the fight. I realized that now. At the time I was too amped on the energy of the crowd and the hype of the big event to notice a missing female, especially when she wasn’t my female.
Georgia hadn’t gone either. She’d kissed me and told me that babies and brawling didn’t mix so I should go without her. She said she and Kathleen would stay home and do girl stuff. I knew that ‘girl stuff’ basically meant that Georgia would feed and bathe Kathleen, rock her to sleep, and go to bed early herself, but I let her talk me into it.
So I was running solo, sitting on the very front row with a few Tag Team members who weren’t working Tag’s corner, when Tag strutted into the arena to a Waylon Jennings song about cowboys being hard to love and harder to hold. The crowd cheered and joined in on the chorus, and Tag egged them on. It made me laugh. I was so nervous for him I was practically seeing double, and he was acting like a big gorilla, monkeying it up to the packed house, his smile wide, his muscles bulging. He didn’t seem nervous at all, and when he caught my eye he smirked and pounded his chest.
Bruno Santos, on the other hand, entered the arena cloaked in a shimmery white robe with a hood so deep the only thing visible was the tip of his chin. His song of choice was something so bass heavy I couldn’t make out the lyrics, though I caught the words “destruction” and “annihilation.” He was hopping on the balls of his feet, shrugging his shoulders and tossing his neck, and I suddenly wished I’d stayed home with Georgia. Caring about people was a pain in my ass. Watching Tag fight was a bigger pain in my ass. My stomach turned over, and I glared at my friend, willing him to put me out of my misery as soon as possible.
Of course he didn’t. But he battled. He battled hard and ugly, taking as many blows as he dished out, and as usual, he seemed to fight better after he’d taken a couple swipes to the face. Like the song said, he was hard to hold onto. But he definitely wasn’t hard to love. The crowd was solidly on his side, and when he came back from a close call in the fourth round, escaping a near arm-bar that had made my stomach shake and my eyes water, the crowd was in a frenzy.
And then, when it looked like it would end in a decision, a decision that wouldn’t favor the challenger—they so rarely did—Tag caught Santos in the temple with a booming roundhouse that wowed the crowd and rocked his opponent. Santos stumbled, and Tag was all over him, his fists flying, Santos covering his head, not returning the blows. And then it was over. TKO for Taggert. I was out of my seat, screaming and jumping with the rest of the team, delirious with relief and overjoyed with the upset.
Funny, it
never even occurred to me that Millie wasn’t there, but I’d definitely noticed that Tag didn’t stick around when it was all over. He was all business at the end, interviews and congratulations, hand-grabbing and palm-greasing. But he left when I left—I walked him to his truck—and the party went on without us. I went home to my wife, and clearly, he went home to Millie.
IT TOOK ME about two hours after the fight ended to keep my promise. I had an interview, a shower, a deep muscle rub-down, and another series of interviews before I could separate myself from the celebratory atmosphere and head for Millie’s. I was sore, and I’d popped a couple ibuprofens, but the adrenaline was still pumping, and I wanted to see my girl.
They must have been watching for me, because Henry shot out the front door and was buzzing around me before I was all the way out of my truck. Millie had her stick and was on the porch, waiting for me, just like she’d promised.
“Tag!” Henry was clicking his fingers again, obviously thrilled to see me. “Forty percent of Light Heavyweight fights end in TKO’s or KO’s,” he recited. It was nice to see he had the lingo down. I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him back toward the house.
“Amelie cried the whole fight. Then I told her your nose was bleeding, and she covered her ears.”
“Henry,” Amelie sighed, rebuking him. But she reached out her hand for me, and I took it, releasing Henry and pulling her toward me, tucking her against my body, under my right arm as we all entered the foyer and shut the door behind us.
“The referee stopped the fight! Did he stop the fight because you were going to kill Santos? Did it make you mad when he made your nose bleed?” Henry shadow boxed around the foyer.
“Nah, it just made me fight harder.” I laughed at Henry’s wild-eyed recap.
“Everyone was yelling Tag Team! I started yelling it too! The whole crowd had on Tag Team shirts!” Henry was so animated he was practically levitating. I remembered the shirt that was still clutched in my right hand.
“That reminds me! Here, I got you one.” I tossed it to Henry, and he caught it and pulled it on, right over the Kobe Bryant jersey he was wearing. The shirt silenced him momentarily, and he admired himself in the ornate mirror hanging to the right of the staircase.
“I brought you one too, Millie,” I murmured, “But I left it in my truck. It’s your favorite color.”
“Does it say, ‘My boyfriend fought Santos, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt?’” she said drily, a smile playing around her lips.
“Oh man, that’s cold!” I drawled, but I leaned in and touched my mouth to hers, wrapping both of my arms around her. She returned my embrace and held on tight, her face buried in my chest.
“I forgive you,” she whispered. “But I’m never staying home again. That was the single most agonizing experience of my life.”
“I told you I would win. And then I’d come here. And here I am,” I said, nuzzling her hair.
“Will you marry us, Tag?” Henry asked intently, inserting himself back in the conversation.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him right.
“Will you marry Millie and be my brother?” he repeated, his expression completely serious. He wasn’t messing around. “We want to be part of Tag Team.”
I laughed and looked down at Millie. Her face was frozen. Her back had stiffened the moment the words left Henry’s mouth, and she pulled free of my arms. She reached for the stick she’d set aside, as if she needed something besides me to hold onto.
“Statistically, athletes with solid family units have better stamina, more purpose, better mental health, and overall improved performance than athletes who are either divorced or unmarried,” Henry rambled off robotically, and I tore my gaze from Millie’s stunned face.
“Did you make that up, Henry?” I grinned.
Henry looked confused, as if making up sports trivia to support his arguments was impossible. Maybe it was. Maybe in Henry’s world, where lines and facts were clearly drawn, lying wasn’t even feasible.
“You’re already part of Tag Team, Henry,” I said gently. “You’ve got the shirt to prove it. I’ll get you as many as you want, in every color, and you can be in my corner any time.”
Henry tilted his head to the side, considering my offer, but the disappointment was evident in his expression. Millie turned around and, fumbling for the front door, exited the house in a rush.
“Millie!” I called after her, but she didn’t hesitate, and I could hear her stick clicking and clacking down the sidewalk in front of the house.
“Ah, Henry. You’ve gone and done it now.” I laughed, and my laughter surprised me. So did my relative non-reaction to the ‘M’ word. When girls started dropping hints about any type of commitment, it was always the last time I asked them out. Always. I was great at playing tag. No one ever caught me.
I guess I’d always thought I would marry someday. When I was eighty. Yet Henry was proposing, and it didn’t alarm me in the slightest. In fact, the thought of marrying Millie made my pulse quicken. It made my palms tingle. It made my heart smile so big I could feel the edges of the grin poking me in the ribs. That, or I was starting to feel the hurt from the Santos fight.
“Because they both lost so many players to WWII military service, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles combined to become the Steagles during the 1943 season,” Henry recited.
“What? The Steagles?” My eyes were on Henry, but I needed to chase Millie down.
Henry nodded, straight-faced. “We could do that. We could combine. We could be the Taggersons.”
“That’s a very interesting idea, Henry.” I nodded, biting my lip so I wouldn’t laugh. “But I need to convince Millie. I’m not sure she wants to be a Taggerson just yet.”
“Andert?” Henry offered another combination, wrinkling his nose, and then shaking his head, as if it didn’t have the same ring.
“Give me a minute to see what Millie thinks. Okay?”
Henry gave me a solemn thumbs up and sat down on the bottom stair to wait for the verdict.
I ran out the door and down the walk to the street, looking right and left down the sidewalk, hoping Millie hadn’t gone beyond where I could easily find her. I spotted her about half a block down.
“Millie!” She looked like she was headed for the church, and I loped to catch up, calling after her, feeling every single blow I’d taken that night as I chased her down.
“Millie! Wait, sweetheart. You’re killing me.” She stopped but didn’t turn around. She held herself stiffly, holding her stick vertically the way she’d held it the very first time I saw her outside the bar, the silent shepherdess once more.
“Millie.” I slowed to a walk and approached her, wrapping my hands around hers so we both clung to her stick, like two people on a subway, sharing the same pole. Then I pulled gently, taking the stick from her hands, so she would hold onto me instead.
“Why you runnin’ away?”
“The question is, why aren’t you?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Do you want to be a Taggerson, Millie?” I whispered, freeing her lip with my teeth and kissing it better.
“A what?” she breathed.
“Or maybe an Andert?” I brushed my mouth over hers again, and her lips opened slightly, waiting for me to apply a little pressure.
“Henry seems to think we should merge our names,” I explained.
Millie groaned, and I could feel the embarrassment coming off her in waves.
“Henry really needs to quit asking grown men to marry him,” she complained.
“Yeah . . . he’s a little young for that kind of commitment.” I pressed another kiss on her upper lip, then one on her lower lip, soothing her, reassuring her, and for several long minutes there was no conversation at all.
“David?” she whispered when I finally let her breathe.
“Yeah?” I sank back into her, not able to help myself. She tasted like cold water and warm wishes, and I was drowning and baskin
g, my fight forgotten, the swelling on my cheekbone and the tenderness in my ribs completely non-existent.
“I’m in love with you,” Millie confessed softly. I felt her words on my lips and the shape of them in my head, and we both stood completely still, letting them whirl around us. The air was suddenly blooming, alive, a riotous explosion of color and sound. The world was magic, and I was king.
“I’m in love with you too,” I said, no hesitation whatsoever. The words slid out of my mouth with the absolute ease of total truth.
Holy shit.
I was in love with Amelie Anderson. I was in love with a blind girl, and everything was in sharp focus.
Millie drew back and smiled, a big, dazzling grin that had me smiling too.
“Does this mean you’ll wear my T-shirt?” I asked.
“Proudly,” she answered.
Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, the streetlight creating a pool of soft white around us, I kissed Millie with every intention of never letting her go. Ever.
I walked her back home and there was no more talk of Taggersons or Anderts that night. Millie sternly informed Henry that he was too young for marriage, and he would just have to be happy with the T-shirt. He’d seemed a bit irritated by that, and I shrugged at him, like it wasn’t my decision. I made sure he had a T-shirt for every day of the week, and one for Ayumi too, and that seemed to appease him slightly.
But the seed had been planted.
I’d only known Millie for two months, yet I was surer of her than I’d ever been of anything in my life. I was halfway down the aisle and just waiting for her to catch up with me.
IN THE DAYS that followed the Santos fight, things got more hectic, not less, and the frenzy had me running on empty. I was tired for the first time in my life. It was kind of a strange sensation. I found that I really just wanted to be with Millie and Henry, and I spent more time at their place than my own. In fact, it started to feel like home. So much so that I fell asleep on the couch one night watching a game with Henry, and woke up to music.