Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

Everyone saw this and Wilfred felt it. It hurt him more than just physically but he kept fighting because ultimately it was what he was , the one thing he had made himself into, and everyone who’s like Wilfred wants to be something whatever the cost. He fought three more times in 1986. He fought even though he didn’t feel great, didn’t sound great, and was acting more erratic and childlike every day. He fought and posted two decision victories, even including a win over the decent Paul Whittaker who was undefeated at the time.

But then the first end came and it was a vicious one.

Fighting Carlos Herrera on November 28, 1996, in an unnoticed fight held in Salta, Argentina, Wilfred Benitez was knocked out in the seventh round. Forget Hearns and Leonard, this guy couldn’t be said to be on the same level as Hamsho or Moore or even a rising Hilton as was evident in Herrera’s next and last fight when he was knocked out by fellow-Argentinean Juan Roldan in the second. The brutal, ignominious loss to a guy like Herrera was finally a hint even Wilfred could take. He retired and hoped he would start feeling better.

I had banged the payphone receiver into its holder out of the frustration I felt when no one answered and now I held the phone’s exposed innards in my hands and tried again. When it somehow worked and Dane answered he wanted to know whether I was crazy and what I was talking about confession.

“Are you crazy?” he said. “And what are you talking about confession ?”

“I confessed.”

“To who? That detective?”

“No not that kind of confession, the sacrament.”

“The what?”

“The sacrament of confession. I participated in it, sort of.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago maybe.”

“Okay so what’s the problem?”

“Well, what Assado said for one.”

“But if it was a couple of weeks ago.”

“It’s hard to explain but—”

“Just come over, come over and we’ll talk about all this.”

Which I did. And this happened at an obscenely opulent suite at The Plaza.

“The hell you doing here ?”

“Where else should a man of my means live?”

“You live here now?”

“Sure, for now. Like it?”

What wasn’t to like in a suite the size of an auditorium with carpet so thick we grew six inches, multiple silver trays of food rolling about and square vents blowing perfect temperature in? And Dane walked around in a slow semicircle occasionally dragging from a fat cigar from you know where and also sipping from a foot long champagne flute while wearing a ridiculously shiny, almost mirrorly-reflective, black robe.

“Have some Cristal, relax. You look a mess,” he said.

“No.”

“Fine have some Maine lobster tails, right there. Pulled up this very morning and still warm. I haven’t laid a fork on them either.”

“No thanks.”

“What then? You want to go get your money now don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just have more pressing things right now.”

He inhaled deeply, flaring up the end of the brown log pointing out from his mouth. “So what’s the big problem?” he said. “Because as I see it it’s that you’ve let this flatfoot tie you all up inside and for what? You haven’t enjoyed minute one of this victory and for no good reason.”

“This fucker knows man, you know he knows.”

“So what he knows? You sound like a fucking client. Who cares what he knows? What can he prove ? I’ll tell you what. Nothing! So he’s fucking with you. I told you, fuck him up right back. It’s not like you don’t have the materials or the tools to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Unbelievable. It’s as if, having established that you’re the kind of person capable of doing what you did, you now suddenly want to regress into being the kind of person who worries about things like cops.”

“I never stopped being that person. I told you from the outset what my principal concern was. And as it turns out it appears I was wholly justified because whatever happened back there we seem to have screwed up in such a fundamental manner that the unthinkable, law enforcement involvement, is currently all I can think about.”

“Not true, that’s not the way it happened, you’re wrong about that. But before I even get to that there’s a more basic issue to consider here. As I’ve said, I find the whole avoiding-apprehension-after-the-fact deal supremely boring but since you obviously don’t then it would seem you need to do something about the situation. Something decisive even extreme if necessary but something that will finally put this all to bed for good so you can fill your pockets with treasure in peace. Now what’s this about a confession?”

“What did you mean when you said I could fuck with him back? How?”

“See that’s where you surprise me because it seems that the stress or whatever of this situation has messed with your brain in a way that is completely unacceptable.”

“ What ?”

“Well the way you apparently hear this fucker’s declarations and are either unable or unwilling to look past the limited question of how they potentially imperil or otherwise affect you to what they say about their speaker.”

“I see.”

“Not yet but you will.”

And we talked about Detective Assado and what Dane thought about it but I didn’t tell him about Clerical Confessions and truth is when I walked out of there, having reconsidered and imbibed a substantial amount of the champagne, having ordered and received a therapeutic massage, having likewise ordered a ton of room service and sampled one of the Cubans, I did feel a whole lot better. Better that is until I stepped out into the artificial brightness of the circular area where rich people give strangers their car keys and heard that infernal voice again.

“The Plaza wow. Not bad for a public defender,” Assado said. “I’m serious, where you getting that kind of scratch exactly?”

“They don’t charge you to visit their guests.”

“Oh who are you visiting? Are you at liberty to tell me?”

“No.”

“Funny I chose that phrase huh? I mean who knows how much longer you’ll be at liberty right?”

“Can I help you with something? In other words, is there a reason you’re following me?”

“Just a couple of things I want to discuss with you. Maybe we could grab something to eat.”

“I just ate.”

“Really? Here? That’s like a fortune. What’d you have?”

“I forget.”

“And I suppose you forget who you just met with as well?”

“That’s right, I do.”

“Okay so you’re full. Let’s go get a drink instead then. I’m told there’s a couple of good bars around here.”

“I don’t drink.”

“You don’t? Because you look like you’ve had a couple tonight.”

“I did.”

“So what did you mean?”

“I didn’t say I’ve never had a drink. I said I don’t drink and I don’t. But I used to drink.”

“A couple hours ago.”

“Right.”

“Well come watch me drink then. That can be entertaining in its own right.”

“Thanks for the offer but no.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do? I want to go home.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Since you ask, I want you to crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out from under a few days ago and never show me your face again.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen though don’t we? I’m nothing if not persistent. Persistent Peter my friends used to call me in high school.”