Body Dangerous
Donnie leans against the ropes, his perfect body swollen with muscle. He nurses a broken rib, his face contorting with make-believe pain. He breathes in great heaves, chest expanding like a piece of mining equipment. He looks big as a house and hard as a boulder. His coach Rocky leans in close and delivers a rousing pep talk in his signature drawl. Now he’s gonna come after you and he’s gonna try to break on that rib some more. But that’s okay. ’Cause you like the pain, you can take it. You know why? Because you’re dangerous.
Donnie sucks air through his teeth, pushes out a sharp exhale. I’m dangerous… he whispers. I mouth the words with him, silently, like a prayer.
This scene is the climax of Creed II, the latest of eight movies in the Rocky franchise. They’re what my friend Stephen calls lyric essays about the body: stories about impossibly jacked guys beating each other to a pulp as an inchoate commiseration of their manly pain. I’m watching the series in its entirety for the second time this year. I’ve picked up boxing as a lockdown hobby. Every morning, I wake up and jog until my heart beats thrice a second. I close my hands into fists and hit my punching bag, a small leather balloon suspended by elastic ropes to the floor and ceiling. It bobs back and forth, side to side, like the head of an imaginary opponent. I dance around it, light on my feet, darting in and out of range, ducking, slipping, weaving. I do this in three-minute rounds, just like in a real fight. In between I sit down and recover. I imagine Rocky in my ear giving sage advice as I await the bell that summons me back to mortal combat. Imagination is very important to the boxing experience.
I’ve always liked punching. When I was a teenage boy, I would get drunk and bruise my knuckles against brick walls and telephone poles. I liked to imagine myself as a god of destruction, come to smash the entire world to pieces. Jeanette Winterson wrote that if you are a man, it is easier to smash something on the outside than it is to feel what’s happening inside. Women know it’s inside, and so that’s what they smash. They smash themselves. I was trying to smash both.
In boxing, punches are assigned numbers for shorthand. There are six basic punches and four variations: a lead hand jab is designated number 1, a rear hand cross is number 2, a lead hand hook is number 3, and so on. I get excited by this cipher because I feel like an expert, which is a big part of the fantasy. I’m obsessive. I’m a perfectionist. I practice every day, punching at an imaginary target. This is called shadowboxing and I’m told it’s an essential learning technique. Now that I’m an adult I don’t have to punch brick walls anymore; instead, I punch a made-up guy standing three feet in front of me. I start stringing punches together on my way to the fridge for ice cream, at the mirror after showering, in my bedroom before I sleep. My internal monologue is all encoded. 1–1–2–3–6. Jab jab cross hook uppercut. 7–6–3–3–2. Body hook uppercut hook hook cross. Rocky points at a mirror and goes, This guy right here is your toughest opponent. I believe that in boxing and I do believe that in life. He’s full of these little wisdoms.
Boxing is changing my body. My pectorals and deltoids are getting bigger every week, the thick bands of muscle fibre becoming shapelier and more defined. I feel conflicted about these changes. There are versions of my body that only exist in my imagination. These phantom bodies are a vague collage of contradictory images of successful womanhood; sometimes I’m a five-foot-two petite damsel, sometimes I’m a tall and distinguished matriarch, sometimes I’m an Instagram bimbo with huge tits and a dumptruck ass. According to Judith Butler, fantasy is not the opposite of reality; it is what reality forecloses, and, as a result, it defines the limits of reality, constituting it as its constitutive outside. These are versions of myself I know I’ll never be, but they still haunt my imagination, ghosts of my impossible selves.
I think that if I never transitioned, I would’ve done something equivalent instead, like joining an alternative rock band. I have a fantasy of myself as the front man of some shitty Radiohead tribute act, effeminately crooning I don’t care if it hurts, I wanna have control, I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul… Maybe this version of me could’ve been happier, or tragic in a more romantic way. It’s difficult not to internalise corrosive ideas about how I look. To be trans is to have a dangerous body. We are deviants, predators, gender failures. We are wretched and repulsive, not worthy of being touched. I can’t seem to shake the shame of my failed womanhood. Maybe that’s why I like boxing so much, why I overidentify with the fantasy of manly pain. It’s my consolation prize. Sometimes when I look at the mirror, I feel that I’m staring at someone else. I stand there scrutinising my naked shape. Is this really what I look like? Are my shoulders this broad? Is my jawline this thick? Maybe they’re right about me. I do look kind of dangerous.
I keep on shadowboxing. The more I practice, the better I get. 1–2–1–2–3. The imaginary figure in front of me coalesces into a clear image of myself. This me is always male, the me that never transitioned, crooning effeminately in rock bands. I don’t care if it hurts, I wanna have control. 1–1–2–3–6. I throw a huge right cross, he twists and the punch rolls off his monstrous shoulder. He’s ducking, slipping, weaving, throwing punches back in my direction. I’m fighting my toughest opponent — just like Rocky told me! 3–3-slip-7–2. I breathe out with each punch, air hissing through my teeth sharply at the moment of contact. SHH SHH SHH SHH. It sounds like pistons. He lands a vicious shovel hook and cracks my rib. I don’t feel a thing. My body is a killing machine, impervious to pain. I’m wretched and untouchable. That’s what makes me strong. 6–5–2–3–4. You can take it, you like the pain. Boxing is about imagination. I lean against the ropes, my body swollen with muscle. I’m nursing my broken rib, my chest heaving like a piece of mining equipment. I’m big as a house and hard as a boulder. Rocky leans in close. You’re dangerous. I say it thrice with my fist-shaped heart: I’m dangerous I’m dangerous I’m dangerous. I mouth it silently, like a prayer.
Dear God, make me perfect, make me beautiful and true.
If you can’t, make me dangerous instead.
This piece was written for Vignettes: The EWF Podcast.
