Abducted at gunpoint and fearing for his life, Jan Reid took a swing at the gunman and missed. A muzzle flashed, and the bullet that struck his spine would send his life careening out of controluntil he looked within himself, and to his family and friends, and found healing. When Reid's friends talk him into coming along to an Austin boxing gym for a workout, he has no idea it will send him down a path that will completely change his life. Inside, in a ring held together with duct tape and the blood and sweat of a group of gritty boxers, Reid falls under the spell of the sport. As his skills develop, his relationships with his fellow boxers deepen, especially with the talented young Mexican immigrant, Jesus Chavez. Through Chavez's promising career, and his own informal sparring, Reid plunges into the culture of competition among men. But then, just when Chavez achieves a number-one world ranking, he is deported to Mexico. Heartbroken, Reid travels to Mexico City to watch Chavez begin his comeback, when a bombshell of a different sort blows open Reid's own life: One night, after celebrating Chavez's victory in a shadowy part of Mexico City,pistoleroscarjack the taxi he is sharing with his friends. In the ensuing scuffle, a bandit fires a bullet that pierces Reid's left arm, rips through his abdomen, and lodges itself in his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Reid then confronts new kinds of struggles in which the rules are no longer clearthe battle to regain the ability to walk, to bolster his marriage, to untangle his newly complicated relationship with Mexico, a country he once loved, and to live with dignity. Inspired by the love and valor of his wife, Dorothy, and daughter, Lila, Reid also draws on lessons from the boxing ringphysical conditioning, discipline, controlling frustration, and overcoming fear. Thus begins Reid's physical and emotional journey to recover his strength, his masculinity, and his sense of self. Reid not only examines the effects of his physical disability but also offers a revealing portrait of the testosterone-driven worlds that collided on that fateful night. With the observational prowess of a journalist and the raw power of a fighter, Reid shares in these pages his discovery of the value of other kinds of strengthand his new perspective on the evolution of Western male culture and machismo alike. Rich with insight and vividly told, this is the remarkable story of a true survivor.

Prologue

Mexico City April 20, 1998

In the lambent sprawl of Plaza Garibaldi mariachis stood about with slim hopes of anyone hiring them. It was a little after one a.m. But the roving beer hawkers were still busy yanking cans from ring-tops of six-packs and offering singles for a few pesos. Mike Hall noticed that we were the only gringos anywhere in sight. I was oblivious to that but I winced on seeing John Spong and David Courtney buy two more Modelos. I was ready to call it a night. I was fifty-three, the only one among us who was married. Mike, the next oldest at forty, was a thin, soft-spoken man who had tanked a small career as a rock songwriter and recording artist so he could make a better living as a magazine editor and journalist. His laugh was both soft and explosive, and during the long weekend we had gone from being colleagues to friends; with fine wit he had briefed me on the ups and downs of his life as a musician. The lark in Mexico City had been like that for all of us, except that John and David were already close friends, best friends it seemed. Their banter had that timing, the practiced knowing of what the other was about to say.

The younger of the two, John was a dropout lawyer breaking into magazine work as a fact-checker. John was six feet and slender, with auburn hair and long sideburns. People noticed him; he had the air of a wiseacre, a funnyman. David, a freelance writer who specialized in music, was in the second hour of his thirty-second birthday. He wore a ridiculous straw bowler he had bought on the ZÃ?calo, the city's vast central square. David swigged from a fresh beer and pointed out a troupe of norte's--musicians from northern Mexico who were distinguished from the black-clad mariachis by their brown suits. He and John started to amble over and check them out.

We had come to Mexico City to watch a prizefight. The night before, we had watched my young friend Jesus Chavez stop a Mexico City opponent. The arena where he made his Mexican debut was in a dark and dangerous barrio on the periphery of Plaza Garibaldi. I knew we were pushing our luck to come back here. But the others argued that one more night in the Tenampa Bar would give our trip a symmetry--where it began, where it ended. I kept silent, went along, relaxed after downing the first beer and shot of tequila, and soon held up my share of the talk and laughter. But the whole trip had been a bittersweet affair for me. Jesus had gained a number one world ranking the same month the U.S. government ordered him deported. In a few hours we were going home, and I had growing doubts that Jesus ever could.

Watching John and David wander off toward the norte's, I said to Mike: "Let's get these guys out of here." He told me later it was the first time he had ever heard me sound impatient, and it was the only time this trip I invoked whatever authority that came with my years.

In Austin I worked out in the boxing gym where Jesus emerged as a contender. These days I did it just for exercise, sparring rarely, but I had sweated and banged myself into the best condition of my life. Among the young fighters, I was respected as one of the old guys who could make the big bags pop. Jesus lived in a dusty little room at the gym for several months, and it quickly became apparent that we were in the company of a real talent. With undercards that showcased the novelty of skilled women boxing, Jesus's frenetic main events in a converted rock music hall breathed raw excitement into a town with little history in the sport, and for Jesus, with it came the regional titles, then the television, and the climb up the rankings. But Jesus was more than just a star athlete to me, and to him I was more than an aging hanger-on. When I walked in the gym he would call out "Zhannreeed," and at the end of the days we often sat on the ring apron talking about things far removed from boxing. Then, suddenly, his dream and prospects were crushed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and a massive new federal law. Lawyers and federal judges would be analyzing the new immigration guidelines for years, trying to determine exactly what they meant, but one aspect seemed certain: if noncitizens had ever committed a felony in the United States, they not only could be deported--they had to be. The law allowed the INS no discretion, leniency, or, it seemed to me, common sense.

My friend was deported to a country he scarcely knew. He hadn't lived in Mexico since he was ten years old. As the day of his departure got closer, for a couple of hours we could forget and escape it in the gym. Jesus used to train me, and I was fascinated by how much the little guy knew. One day I was trying to make my left uppercut into more than a clumsy shove. "Relax your hand," he told me, "and raise your right heel just a little." The heavy bag popped loudly and danced on the end of the chain. Explain that. Jesus refused to patronize or humor me, though. Calling and taking my punches with gloves that resemble catcher's mitts, he would pop them together loudly, as if to wake me up, and poke me between my heaving ribs and wheezing lungs.

"How you gonna hit me standing way out there?" he ragged me for my cemented footwork. "You've gotta step up in the pocket, then throw that jab."

Those words would come back to haunt me.

I can't remember when I first heard about the peril of the green cabs. It was one of those buzzes that suddenly pervade the conversation of travelers bound for a common destination. In the Mexi- can capital, drivers remove the passenger bucket seats of old-style Volkswagen Beetles to make room for more fares to pile inside, they paint the cars bright green with white roofs, and hit the streets. You see them by the thousands--unregulated gypsies and, lately, predators in collusion with armed robbers. Residents swore these urban bandits were cops or ex-cops. My friends and I had discussed the hubbub about the green VWs. How much was real, and how much was gringo paranoia? Logistics had divided us and forced us into the green bugs a few times, and nothing had happened. We spoke some Spanish and were veteran travelers. We were big strong guys. We figured we had strength in numbers. We were unaware that the U.S. State Department had just added Mexico City to its list of most dangerous foreign destinations.

Finally all of us were ready to call it a night. Despite my brooding about the immigration policy and my worry about Jesus, we had enjoyed a fine getaway in the Mexican capital. Now it was time to go back to our apartment and sleep and, the next day, board a plane and resume our lives in Texas. With self-assurance John Spong walked out to the line of taxis that served Plaza Garibaldi. He waved on a couple of VWs, then a mostly white Japanese compact pulled up. It looked fairly new and expensive, which made it seem reliable. But the lower fenders and doors were painted green.

I never saw the driver's face. I said hello to him as I slid across the backseat. He stared straight ahead and offered nothing but a vague grunt. We had already taken one cab ride from the plaza to our apartment, and I knew landmarks along the well-lighted way. Soon after leaving the cabstand, this driver made a sharp turn and raced through the dark barrio.

"This doesn't look right," I said.

Why didn't I lock the doors, if my presentiment was so strong? Or just throw my arms around his neck? I could have easily overpowered the guy. But you want it not to happen; you want to be wrong. And so you do nothing.

We reemerged on the Paseo de la Reforma and breathed easier. But in the detour we had picked up a tail--one of those green and white Volkswagen Beetle cabs. Mike rode in the front seat of our Nissan; in the back I was squeezed between John and David. The taxi driver carried us almost to our apartment--hen stopped abruptly in the middle of a block. Mike had noticed the VW, and he looked back and saw a nightmare. In disbelief's slow motion, two men jumped out and ran toward us holding guns. "Go, go!" Mike cried, turning to the driver, but he was hunkered down, stonefaced. The deliveryman.

The pistoleros threw open the doors and vaulted inside; with a lurch our taxi sped off. Both men appeared to be in their thirties. Their guns were old, scarred .38 revolvers. In an instant I went from drunk to sober. A gun in your face does that to you. The robber in the backseat was fat, doughy-faced, and nervous. He forced down the heads of John and David and tried to hide his own face by burrowing into an absurd, rolling semblance of a football pileup.

In the middle, pinned back by their weight, I sat face-to-face with the honcho in front. He had sharp, angular features and black hair combed Elvis-fashion. Possibly a ladies' man. "Shut up! Go to sleep!" he yelled. He sat on Mike's leg and stuck the gun's muzzle in his ear.

The last thing I needed was a lot of eye contact with this guy, but with all the weight and bulk in my lap, forcing me back against the seat, I couldn't avoid it. Responding to my gaze, Honcho leaned over the seat and pistol-whipped me across the cheekbone. He didn't hit me very hard. It was like he was asserting his dominance, controlling an animal. His English was pretty good. He was used to handling a gun and ordering people around. Even odds the robber was a cop.

But he was a bungling thief. Honcho took Mike Hall's watch, then seemed to get distracted. On and on we rode with the second gunman, this wordless, out-of-breath hooligan, in our laps. The preposterousness magnified the terror. I watched Mike lean over until his head touched the driver's shoulder. His expression was that of someone patiently bent on riding this out. For no reason I could determine, Honcho whacked me with the gun again. I was astonished by my calm.

"Well, so much for not taking the green cabs," reflected John. In the hassle and backtalk of telling Honcho that he had spent his last peso on beer, he also got his mouth bloodied by the gun. "I don't know, man," he said in high register, to no one in particular, "this has gone on a long time."

On my right, David was twisted like a pretzel under the second gunman's weight, yet he clung to his dumb straw hat. "I can't breathe, get him off me," David groaned at one point, sounding panicky. Moments later he announced: "I'm gonna open the door and throw this fat fuck out of here."

That's a bold idea, the others of us thought. We wondered what we would do with the driver and Honcho then, and the scenario did not look promising. Watching the muzzle of Honcho's gun, which was an inch away from Mike's temple, John told David, "You might hold up on that."

Excerpted from The Bullet Meant for Me: A Memoir by Jan Reid
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Bullet Meant for Me : A Memoir

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