Sunday, March 16, 2014

A Brief Excerpt from the Book

This is a passage where Roberta Wiederganger meets Morton Revenant for the second time, only under more stressful circumstances.

Ro had earned a reputation in her close circle of friends who trained together as an unforgiving fighter. She was one who could take a tremendous beating, while demonstrating an indefatigable ability to rise again and again, eventually and most often overcoming a vastly superior opponent. It was her  over-the-top determination coupled with an unworldly insensitivity to pain. She once missed four days of work, using the excuse of an unreported car accident. Those who witnessed her underground fight saw Mama Oso (the 'Bear'), a female Mexican behemoth of a fighting machine standing over six feet two and weighing almost two hundred seventy pounds, spend over an hour pummeling the smaller female Police detective from El Paso. The undefeated Mexican fighter broke several of Ro's ribs, her jaw, and an ankle bone, while giving her two black eyes and innumerable bruises.  For 75 minutes, a largely Mexican crowd, having bet exclusively on her victory despite 40-1 odds, watched the most lop-sided fight they had seen in years. They had come to watch a terrible beating and were getting their money's worth.

The fight was almost stopped early when Ro became blinded by the amount blood on her face and in her eyes and another when she almost lost consciousness in a submission hold. However, the fight took a dramatic turn after an hour and fifteen minutes. Mama Oso decided that Ro was beaten down enough and it was her time to end the war.  She sensed that Ro was now vulnerable, sore, tired, and bruised enough to be unable to sustain her final, overwhelming attack. The two stood some fifteen feet apart. Ro slumped, sensing the attack. Rope-a-dope style, a la Muhammed Ali, she tried her best to look defeated and defensive. Oso bought the ruse and came at her furiously. Ro dropped to her knees, further promoting her stance as a defeated opponent, but waited patiently.  The huge Mexican got to a point about three feet away and reached down to grab Ro by an arm. Ro was much faster and agile than her slew-footed adversary, jumping to her side and striking Oso one time left hand to her throat with a followup right upward palm into her nasal cavity. The big Mexican fell like a bag of rocks, attempting to breath for about 15 seconds, then passed out. She died within a couple minutes. The spectators, first energized by the  expected ending of Oso's knockout punch, fell silent as Ro stood over her, raising her bloodied arms in victory. After the shock of the sudden reversal in Oso's fortune, the crowd cheered loudly for their new heroine. Ro never fought underground again, but her reputation never diminished. It grew, although no one really knew who she was. She fought under a thick veil of anonymity. Sometimes someone who attended the underground battle in Juarez thought he recognized her as the Yanqui beetch who defeated Mama Oso, but she never admitted anything to anyone. Knowing she had won was sufficient for her.