In Benito Eufemia, 50 years old, even today there are those who want to kill him for some stupidity, like when he was 19 years old and a camel dressed as Corruption in Miami was the first of many to point a gun at him because wouldn't let him into an after party in Castelldefels. A few months ago, the same situation, another after, Barcelona. None pulled the trigger. The eternal story of his life.
– All the bad beasts come out at night. And some go blind.
Benito Eufemia says goodbye to boxing around midnight, his redemptive passion. Today he faces Fredy the Giant, a Cuban-American who surpasses him in wingspan – 1.99 meters against 1.73 – and kilos, at the Hyatt Tower hotel (ex Hesperia), in Bellvitge.
The evening is a tribute to Alfonso Goya – his second father, the last great Catalan manager, who had enough with the way a boxer entered the ring to know if he was good or a package –, the same as he advised against the farewell.
- I'm like that. Total, I've been about to be killed so many times.
Eufemia is not of the braggadocio type. A few months ago, at the after party of a hotel that he asks not to mention, four individuals arrived at five in the morning.
– I have a very good clinical eye with clients. If I warn "this one will create problems", I never fail. There were four of them and I knew from the tattoos which side they were from.
These things and others are learned in prison. In twelve years of pain, he met four.
-La Model was outdated, but there was a good atmosphere.
They threatened him after the refusal. "Either you let us in or we kill you." Cocaine to the top. One took out a razor and tried to go for his liver. He dodged it. Then appeared the pipe, symbol of the rooster and head of the group. The leader of a band, and not Latino. A local band.
The arrival of a security partner dissuaded the gunman. "They always tell you that they kept your face." Benito Eufemia let him go. He did not warn him, as in Castelldefels:
- If you don't take me out of the world, I'll die.
He was exaggerating: he just beat him to death.
Not even a shadow of that bad life remains. Two years at the CAR as a pre-selected boxer for the Barcelona Games '92, but on weekends he worked in nightclubs as a doorman. The doors opened: Estilo de Santa Coloma, Complices a l'Hospitalet, Vértigo and Chasis de Mataró, Tron, Psicosis, Trauma and much after. Some nights, he would go out to five fights. "I have had 180 misdemeanor trials".
He was predestined for "that" to happen, which cut his career short (Spanish amateur runner-up). He would no longer be a great boxer like the professionals he saw training at the sports palace on Carrer Lleida, men who in the shower scratched their eyebrows with pumice stone to harden them and not jump at the first punch.
Benito's older brother was never a good influence. And he collected debts from brothels. With another "partner" they seriously injured two. The partner was not Benito Eufemia, but a witness identified him.
– I was sentenced to 28 years in prison (he served thirteen). I went in innocent and I came out innocent.
He knew who his brother's second companion was. a boxer He never said the name. He didn't whisper. "I paid to protect my people."
Alfonso Goya, a good person, did not abandon him and guided him to train in prison. The first fights, the officials and police wouldn't even let him take a shower before going back to prison. The day he got his freedom he made his professional debut at La Paloma. Around 2004.
Mort Goya, friend and ex-boxer Xavi Moya offered to be with him tonight. Others had failed him. Not everyone knows how to properly bandage hands or cut bleeding in the corner. But Moya died in a motorcycle accident on Carrer Aragó on October 7. According to a report from the Guardia Urbana, the fatal fall was due to an incorrectly placed pylon.
A few days ago, some boys stole Benito's only son's mobile phone when he was leaving a train station. He's 17 and he'll be in the corner, putting on his mouth guard. In another era, he would have recovered his son's cell phone quickly. at times He went to the police station. When the agent in charge of filing the complaint saw Benito Eufemia's history, she called a colleague, who was behind him the whole time.
Eufemia understands and smiles.
– I don't want my son to do things the way I did them at his age.
