The First Time I Punched Someone in the Face. [Consensually]
Spoiler: I liked it. Other guy, not so much.
The following is a excerpt created for a Special Edition print of my book SoupfromBones to be housed for free at the Lowell Public Library. It is situated at the beginning of the book before the story begins and stands alone as a slice of time from the early 2000s. I hope you enjoy this read and please consider subscribing to support my writing. Thank you!
Preface
Before this book begins, I want to share something special with my audience in Lowell—a story from my time boxing in the city. This particular tale is about an old gym called The West End Gym, run by the late Arthur Ramalhos in South Lowell. It’s about 16-year-old me, my teenage angst, and the lessons that were quite literally punched into my face by one of Lowell’s toughest boxers.
This story will only be available in print, on the shelves of the Lowell Public Library.
One more thing—people and places live on through the stories we remember and tell. There’s an Egyptian saying that we die twice: once in life, and again when no one says our names. Arthur Ramalhos let a scrawny Lao kid into his gym, meeting me with kindness and curiosity as he shared his love of boxing. He did the same for so many young men who had the honor of hitting that duct-taped mitt hanging from the support beam in that legendary, creaky mill building. He lives on with every jab and every hook I ever throw and teach to others.
Admittedly, I never won a fight in the ring, nor came close to a belt, but the lessons I learned from a good 1-2 to the face have stayed with me well into adulthood. I am proud of the work I have done and got the tools I needed to keep moving in the face of defeat. As Bruce Lee once said "Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to accept the way to lose—to accept defeat. To learn to die is to be liberated from it. So when tomorrow comes, you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying." The West End Gym was my introduction to handling defeat and because of that I am less afraid to take risks and live the life I do now.
The old gym is closed now. Arthur is watching matches in the next life, and many of my sparring partners and trainers are fighting their own battles these days. We have lost contact over time but I still remember the lessons and I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to Arthur and his family. Because of that gym I am a more balanced and level human being, and once again thanks for giving me a safe space to channel all that energy. He would be so stoked to see his name in print at the Library. If you ever hit a heavy bag in Lowell, I’m sure Arthur can hear it from wherever he is now. And when you think about quitting, he’s there, waiting to say:
“You got heart, kid. Keep going.”
The First Time I Punched Someone in the Face.
West End Gym. Lowell, MA 2006
“MOM, I don’t know why I need to do this!”
“I know why. And I don’t care. No more.”
I was told to stop boxing, but my stepdad intervened, and somehow I kept getting punched in the face. As a parent, it must’ve been hard for her to see her son come home with bruises and black eyes. But I swear I was getting better, and stronger, and faster. Yet I was 16 years old and filled with angst, and all I could come up with was: I need to do this! So I did and I fell in love with the way of the fist.
I trained for $15 a month at Arthur Ramalhos’ rundown mill gym called The West End over in South Lowell. It had these classic seafoam green dilapidated walls, and boarded up mill windows. I even remember an old poster of Marvelous Marvin Hagler on the wall. There were duct-taped bags and worn-out wooden floors, stairs smoothed slick from decades of use—the same stairs I ran up and down for months. The place was cold, all the time. Jumping rope was more about getting warm quick so you could keep working out. It was ghetto as fuck, and I loved that little gym with its amateur-sized ring and corner office full of browned photos of old boxers and trainers.
Arthur was the institution: a classic American boxing gym owner. A man of few words but a kind heart, who employed my trainers Pablo and Tommy—though I’m not sure they ever got paid. It felt more like a charity keeping kids off the streets than a for-profit business. He was such a fan of boxing, so eager to see me get that jab just right.
In my little crucible, my Lowell Ludus, there was Dennis the Menace of Mass. A year younger, redheaded, the only other person in the gym most days. We didn’t talk much. The first time we sparred for real, he lit me up. I got absolutely destroyed. I can’t even recall what he hit me with, but my body remembers: redheads in the ring equal pain for me. For a year, I was his punching bag—until I wasn’t even good enough to spar with him, and they had to bring in older, more experienced people. He was good, with aspirations to be the new Micky Ward, a local legend and champion of the WBU light welterweight division in 2000.
When we were training as teenagers, it would’ve been around 2006. Now and then, you’d still see Micky Ward around town, and once my stepdad may have flirted with his then-girlfriend—allegedly. Oh man, if you love boxing the Ward vs. Gatti Trilogy is a gift from the Boxing Gods.
Anyway, for months, Dennis beat me up. It really sucked because I thought I was getting better, but he just excelled far beyond me. Until one day, I decided to train a bit more. I watched him spar with the other guys for weeks. I could see where he was good, when he’d dominate. I was watching too much Hajime No Ippo, a boxing anime. I was obsessed with trying to defeat my rival, so I studied his movements.
Then the day came. Everyone was like, “Johnny, jump in—you’re with Dennis.”
Dennis says: “You. Dead. Get in.”
I think it’s fucking hilarious now. He was such a good bad guy!
I jumped in the ring, and sure enough—pop, pop, pop—all the pain. But this time, I was learning. I could take the shots. I was moving better, defending better. It didn’t hurt as much. (This was likely because I switched trainers—a whole debacle, but I’ll spare you that story.) My new trainer, Tommy, was a stout Irish-American man, a real charmer who talked shit and bought you a beer at a dive bar.
He taught me how to not take so much punishment: more head movement, more defense, more footwork. I was using all of that to stay out of Dennis’s max damage zone. He loved torturing me, and he was getting frustrated that he wasn’t landing as much. My shitty jabs were just mosquitos he swatted away—harmless even when they landed.
But this one moment? I remember it so clearly.
He loved to throw the right hand with full power, but he had a small tell: his right elbow would flare out before he threw it, and he’d drop his left hand. BANG. BANG. BANG. The ten-second timer goes off. He’s hunting for blood, wants to know what a knockout feels like, and I’m the recipient of his teenage angst.
But it didn’t go the way he thought.
I’d given up long ago on seeing the punches—they were too fast to track with my eyes. So I had to rely on strategy and timing. My reflexes weren’t as keen, and there was no way to match his speed or power. So I took a gamble: I dropped my hands for a second. He saw it and launched a vicious 1, then—the right cross.
Just like I pictured, it came. I slipped left, leather whizzing by my headgear, and my own right hand had already launched at the same time. Except mine would land.
CRUNCH.
I felt the vibration in my wrist, reverberating into my shoulder, it was the first time I felt cartilage crunch on impact through my gloves. Months of getting tasting my own blood and for once I was in the fight.
“NICE, JOHN! THERE IT IS!!!---” Tommy was so excited. Arthur even came out from his office to see the commotion.
“KEEP ON HIM!” But was at that moment I knew I had fucked up. There’s an unspoken rule that you don't go full power on your punches in sparring but Dennis didn't really agree with that idea, and this might have been the first time he had taken any significant damage.
The bell was about to ring. Dennis’s head snapped back—then returned to Terminator mode. He was pissed. And I was fuuuucked.
“FUCK YOU.” He says through his mouth piece.
He charged me, landing a series of full-powered hooks to my body. I covered up. The bell rang. He stopped.
The gym was happy for me and Coach Tommy egged Dennis on “We coming for you Dennis!” he laughs but Denise just glares at me.
Dennis wasn't happy. He did not smile. But then said “Alright then. No more nice Dennis.” Says the same guy who I am sure wanted to make me puke blood just a few moments ago. And so, training got harder, I got better and Arthur would say to me often, “You have heart kid. You can’t train that. Good work.”
And I found something in me that keeps me fighting today.
They say sparring is where you get hurt most, and I learned that the hard way. Eventually, I’d fight in my first real boxing match, then my first Muay Thai fight many moons later. My results as an active competitor were not exactly what I wanted but the lessons learned have repeated and reinforced a sense of calm. I’ll likely get some bumps and bruises but the body will keep persisting. Its amazing to what the human body can withstand.
And the lesson from that one punch still serves me well in life:
When life gets tough, when people are out to harm you or your interests—be patient. Believe in your mind, your body, and your training to guide you through the shitstorm of misguided bullshit. Your stronger than your fears.
There will always be a moment when you can turn the tides. And it’s not always the fault of external conditions that you’re getting punched in the face. Don't always default to its societies fault for failed systems, sometimes it's your lack of discipline. That’s ok, it takes patience and practice and honesty. Just get back up and keep going. It’s ok to lose, it’s not ok to never have tried with everything you have at least once in awhile. Also your allowed as many practice runs on existing as you need but, sometimes, you just gotta put the work in.
And one day? You too can punch life back in the face.
Old pictures of the gym and Arthur himself in the bottom left! If your wondering they this looks a little familiar there was a movie starting Mark Walberg called The Fighter based in Lowell about the champ Micky Ward. The gym was used as a set and Arthur has a cameo. :)
On Deck: Cooking for an Art Gala in Mexico City!
I was asked to revisit my friends over at Womb Mexico to cook for their fundraising Art Gala! I cooked for this group back in 2022 and did a Laotian - Mexican BBQ for their Art Club series. It was so fun and I was able to share a lot of my skills and learn about real Mexican Cuisine while I was there. Why Mexico? The premise or, inquiry I had was simple enough; you give a lime, tomato, cilantro, and coconut to a South East Asian Chef and a Mexican Chef and you will get two very different dishes but they are beautifully in communication with one another. I wanted to taste that history.
So — while I get my book into my public library I’ll also be developing a menu for the fine folks down south and keep laying the groundwork for SaiTera.
Previously On SoupfromBones:
Thanks for reading! If you have stories about fighting through adversity I would love to hear them. I think these are the stories we need as a society and the myth building and hope we need to keep making stories comes from thing place. Happy writing, reading and existing! Best - Johnny
I really liked reading this and could feel the grittiness of the space. I think this is a lot of what kids DO NOT have these days - everything is polished or non existent because it's on a screen.