Remembering that heavyweightwe’d call Hercules,a mellow steroid fiendwho never sparred, just raisedbarbells ‘til he was swollen as that solemnBritish killer from Ninja 2: Shadowof a Tear. He’d flex, hit vacuumposes in ringside mirrors, taking photoafter photo, & lounge in the locker room,nothing but a sideways Sox hat on.A garden-variety goonwith a garbled, guttural monotone& shriveled steroid balls:so Hercules seemed, on the surface.But every word he spoke was praise—“So sick, bro”—softly, near-inaudible.One night, the gym screened a pay-per-view—De la Hoya or Money May.All us gym rats came backin jewelry, jeans, & the reekof cologne instead of sweatto cozy up between dormantheavy bags & watch the fightsprojected on industrial concrete.I brought my old acousticfor between-fight amusement,background-strumming a soundtrackto our cacophony. Hercules satbeside me, saying, “Bro,can you play a corrido beat?”I started to strum a stock waltz-meter,& Hercules, in a bass bel cantothat could rumble the cheap seatsof an opera hall, began a Spanish balladabout a lost bantamweightnamed Amen, who had disappeared,the lyrics went, to Mexico last spring,whom no one had heard from since.The gym was quiet one verse in.Pay-per-view muted, everyone listeningto this supposed boneheadchannel beauty. To his ballad,its fragility—Fly,little dove, fly, he’d sighat verses’ end. I’m amazedthat no one laughed at him—insults, back then, our linguafranca & form of praise—in that moment so holy& ridiculous, when his lips formed O’son long, puretones, & every chordperfectly—somehow—harmonized.I can’t tell you which prize-fighter won that bout,or if we gorged on pizza & beer,blowing off our weight-making regimens.I can’t tell you if it rained, I can’t pretendto know if sparks flew inside all those earsbent in unison toward the amenHercules incanted. As for him,his trainer, a hardass marine,got sick of his preening& told him go find another gymwhere he could kiss his bicepsin the mirror, & drink his creatine& beast his endless deadlift reps.How many songs has he sung since,in the shower of a distant gymwhere he still takes his sweet timesoaping every ropelike vein?What I know, I’ll tell:around the campfire of the muted fightsthat night, he was our horn of Gabriel,our nightingale mid-flight.Sing it again, Hercules?                                                                        “Aight.”