Fight For You

Chapter 5

Everyone has their rituals before a fight. Some people spend the day at the gym, working out everything. Some spend it in the sauna, sweating it. I usually spend my time at the cemetery.

Yellow roses were my Nonna's favorite flower. Canary yellow to be exact. There was only one florist in Chicago that I was ever able to find them at, and they knew to have them ready for me every time I called.

It rained early that morning which made everything in the cemetery smell even more like death and decay. I hated that smell. Just like I hated the smell of flowers. When Nonna died, our house smelled like flowers for weeks afterwards. Everyone sends flowers when someone dies. Why? All they do is wilt and you have to throw them away a week later because they're dead, just like the family member who passed away. It's a bad reminder of what you just lost. I only ever had flowers when I brought them for Nonna.

My Nanu passed away when I was just a little kid. I barely even remembered him. I just knew that the day he died was the day my dad went from being the guy who was home for dinner every night to the man that made everyone tremble when he walked into the room. The day Nanu died was the day Dad became Don.

The gravel crunched under my shoes as I made my way down the pathway toward her headstone. I'd been to her grave a million times before. I knew the granite tombstone with the praying hands and the Blessed Mother's picture on it by memory. I could see her name etched on it when I closed my eyes: Antoinette Ragusa April 20, 1928 - May 15, 2010.

I walked up and did the sign of the cross before placing the roses on the grass in front of her headstone. "Hey Nonna, it's Nicky." I stuffed my hands into my leather jacket. "It's another fight night."

Anywhere else I would have probably looked crazy talking to an inanimate object, but in a cemetery, that's what you did. You talked to people others didn't see, but you knew, in your heart, that somehow they were listening. And I needed someone to talk to me, someone that didn't think I was as much of a monster as I thought I was. "And this one has got me all kinds of fucked."

I laughed, shaking my head. "I know, Nonna, Mingua, what's wrong with me and my language, ey?" I rubbed the back of my neck. "It's just... there's this girl that's coming to the fight. I don't usually get involved with girls, because you know what happens when I get involved with anyone. I don't want to bring people into my life. Into this family. Into our world, Nonna."

I looked at the carved picture of the Blessed Mother as if somehow it had the answer. Like Nonna would just come out of the picture and give me the answer to all of my problems. "I know. You always tell me family is important. I'm still working at the business with Dad and I try and see the family when I can, but..." I sighed. "It just gets harder and harder every day. Sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for all of this. When I'm in the cage, everything else just goes away. My title. Dad. The pressure. I'm just El Principe. The cage fighter."

I let out a deep breath. "I don't want to be both."

Silence sat in the air as it always did. No one else was in the cemetery on the dismal Saturday afternoon. Staring at Nonna's tombstone didn't give me any of the answers I needed, but it was my way of clearing my head before a fight. Now I was ready to hit the gym and get my last workout in before the real games began.

***

"Ragusa, you're here," Dominic yelled, making a big show of it. Coach and my other trainer, Joey, turned toward me out of their deep and huddled conversation. I knew I was thirty minutes late. They knew I was late. But they knew exactly where I was and they never pressed it. Nobody wanted to fuck with a fighter that went and talked to his grandmother's grave.