Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“You were doing okay until the end man. Are you high right now?”

“Insult away but how else can you explain that rain and I didn’t want to mention this but…”

“What?”

“That night of the blackout?”

“Yeah.”

“I swear I saw Time itself. I saw it and it was hideous man. Do you understand? I saw Time!”

I didn’t tell him I had as well.

“So how do you explain those things if I’m wrong?” he continued. “Not to mention Ralph Kramden traipsing around here.”

“You said it was an actor!”

“Maybe it was, what do I know? I’m no expert.”

“It’s not a question of expertise. Was it an actor friend of yours or not?”

“Two seven-year-olds kidnap and kill a baby, people carving each other up like inexpensive deli meat and others lining up to profit from it? The way I see it it’s either my explanation or Alyona’s.”

“Alyona’s?”

“Yeah you remember, healthy kept from the sick and we’re the sick? Does it really matter which of us is right anyway since we both agree on the ending? You don’t even need a theory to agree on the ending right?”

“…”

“Anyway Casi, I got to go.”

“Go? What about your door?”

“Some dude’s on the way to fix it.”

“I don’t get it, where you going?”

“Back to P.C. man where else? Thought I told you.”

“No.”

“I just came back to get some things.”

“Now though? Stay at least tonight.”

“No can do dude. You don’t seem to understand. Hundreds of college girls clad scantily and constantly being urged to show even more SKIN TO WIN! And this cold and rain? You get the picture.”

“What about school? Spring break’s a week not a month.”

“Oh, we’re dropping out.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I can get a job without it, I know a guy.”

“What about Physics?”

“You serious? Look, in Psychology I could’ve been a leading light. In Physics I’ll be carrying the spit bucket. No dice. Anyway, I’m going man. You should come too dude, New York’s over. Nobody lives here anymore, it’s too crowded.” He was grabbing a bag and starting down the stairs.

“Hey Angus wait up?”

“Yeah.”

“What you said about the singularity and stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really believe in it?”

“Believe in it? Heck I seen it done!”

As soon as I got into my apartment I saw that the roof was leaking, in more than one spot and all over my sad pathetic stuff. In a manner of minutes every pot I owned was catching water but every time I started to relax a new leak sprouted. The water flowed in at a greater and greater rate until I realized I had no way to stop it or even catch it anymore; so that finally I just opened my door hoping that, pursuant to the rules of animation, it would take longer for the water to rise above my head, inch by inch, and drown me. Not that I expected to last that long. Whether or not Angus and Alyona agreed on an ending it was clear they expected theirs in maybe half a century whereas I expected mine in about half an hour. I thought about getting out of there and going back to the hotel but I had no money and my cards were all maxed. I was like a sitting duck, wading in actual water. This ending wasn’t going to be a happy one.

The way few in Boxing ever are for example. Marvelous Marvin Hagler, for one, never fought again after the Leonard fight — an altogether intelligent move to be sure but still meaning that his ending consisted of losing a highly-disputed decision to a man he hated with the knowledge that he gave away some early rounds and allowed Leonard to steal others with that lame tactic of using late-round, pitty-pat flurries.

Leonard himself fought in the nineties and the results weren’t pretty. After the third Duran fight a thirty-four-year-old Leonard was dominated by Terry Norris and dropped multiple times in losing a unanimous decision. He retired after the fight only to return six years later against Hector “Macho” Camacho. Leonard’s end would involve being viciously kayoed in the fifth round by the obnoxious and notoriously feather fisted Camacho and there was nothing sweet about that.

Hearns too fought on way past any sense. His name still drew crowds and he won the occasional title until at age forty-one he was knocked out in the second round in front of his native Detroit crowd by the awful Uriah Grant. It can be difficult to understand The Hitman when he talks now but if he’s talking into a microphone chances are good he’s talking about maybe fighting again.

The way Roberto Duran fought Hector Camacho when he was forty-five and again at fifty, competing well against the same fighter who had starched Leonard. In fact, despite fighting often at ridiculous ages like that, the only fighter to have ever truly iced Duran remains Hearns. Nevertheless, Duran’s record after the third Leonard fight was an ugly eighteen wins (only seven by knockout) and eight losses. Ultimately it took a very serious car accident to finally end his immense career.

Wilfred also regrettably fought in the nineties. After retiring in 1986, he must have started to think he was the only person in human history to physically improve with age because after almost four years of sitting around and wondering where the money went he launched a comeback on March 8, 1990, against someone named Ariel Conde. Conde was no great threat, having lost all ten of his fights to that point, but Wilfred had trouble with him anyway. Trouble, that is, until the seventh round when he suddenly smoked Conde with a rare one-punch kayo. It would be the most memorable fight of Conde’s twenty-nine fight career: a career that included one draw and twenty-eight losses, twenty of them by knockout.

Feeling good, Wilfred next took on Pat Lawlor two months later in Tucson. Lawlor was 13-1 at the time so he could fight at least a little, while the same could probably no longer be said for Wilfred, who dropped a ten-round decision. (Lawlor continued his non-calendar annus mirabilis in his next fight with a victory over Duran, giving him one of those accomplishments that looks great on paper as long as you don’t look too closely; of course, the victory over Duran was more a product of a shoulder injury as was established many years later when Duran won their rematch on his forty-ninth birthday [Lawlor was then stopped in five of his last six fights to finish with 23 wins and 16 losses].) Wilfred’s plan for a triumphant and lucrative return to the ring had clearly been derailed but still he wouldn’t quit.

Instead, on August 24, 1990, he returned to the ring and added the last victory he would ever earn by winning a ten-round decision against the execrable Sam Wilson. Wilfred heard the announcement of the scores and raised his fists for the last time. The referee came over to raise his right arm and Wilfred smiled that smile once again. People congratulated him and it didn’t feel all that different from Puerto Rico in say ’74 although sixteen years later it maybe did seem harder to do simple things like express a thought clearly or walk a perfectly straight line.

And when the end came it came in his next fight, held in Canada against someone named Scott Papsadora. On September 18, 1990, Wilfred lost a clear ten-round decision to Papsadora then retired for good with a record of 53-8-1. It was over.

Although there was one more nice day. In 1996 Wilfred became just the sixth fighter to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York in his first year of eligibility and although he had already started to have seizures by then he was still strong enough to raise his arms one more time in victory and call his induction the best and most prestigious honor of my career .