Friends raise fists, funds for knockout cause
From the opening bell, they came out swinging in a display more reminiscent of a street brawl than the sweet science, as professional boxing is sometimes called. Close friends since childhood, Keith Hosea and Chris Perkins were trying to knock each other out with flailing overhand rights, awkward combinations, and slapping body shots.
And with their frenetic pace, the 28-year-old novice boxers whipped the crowd of about 300 at Dorchester's Florian Hall into a frenzy. Perkins won by decision, and the two embraced in the middle of the ring.
Through the course of the night, there were knockouts, bloody noses, and nasty cuts - rare injuries for a fund-raiser. While many groups trying to collect money for a cause look to walk-a-thons or spaghetti dinners, this was a brutal 12-card of amateur fights, culminating in a vicious three-rounder between two buddies.
Perkins thought up the idea about three months ago to help his friend Krystle O'Reilly - as a symbol of a long friendship intertwined with drug abuse and, finally, tragedy.
O'Reilly, Perkins, and Hosea attended St. Mark's El ementary School in Dorchester, but went to different high schools. Living in the same neighborhood, they saw each other often. And, each of them said, they started experimenting with drugs such as OxyContin and heroin.
More than 100,000 adults were admitted to substance abuse treatment facilities in Massachusetts in 2004, according to the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, part of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. From 1997 to 2002, the number of patients admitted had steadily climbed, but it dipped from 2002 to 2004. Health officials say the decline reflects a reduction in program capacity, not a decrease in need for services.
Four years ago, Perkins introduced O'Reilly to another friend of his, Michael McCarthy, and the two hit it off. O'Reilly became pregnant, and the couple's son was born in April 2007. He never made it out of the hospital. Born with a heart defect, the baby died, but the couple found strength in each other, and on O'Reilly's 25th birthday last December, McCarthy, 27, proposed to O'Reilly, offering her a large, fake diamond ring, and a promise of better things to come.
For a brief time, the pain they had felt with their son's death was soothed by their plans to share the rest of their lives together.
O'Reilly was pregnant again, and she decided to move into a halfway house on Cape Cod for pregnant recovering drug addicts.
"I needed to get away from it," she said, standing in the lobby of Florian Hall as the first fight in the benefit got underway.
But while she was visiting McCarthy in February, tragedy struck again.
"We thought we could get high just one more time, and it didn't happen that way," O'Reilly said. McCarthy died of a drug overdose three months before his son, Maddox, would be born on Mother's Day.
Depressed, O'Reilly stopped working. But, she said she recommitted herself to staying sober so that she could give Maddox the kind of life that she and McCarthy envisioned for him. However, without a steady income, she has found it difficult to afford even basics.
Meanwhile, Perkins and Hosea were trying to kick their own addictions. They decided boxing would give them exercise and an outlet - a diversion from the pull of drugs. The two took lessons at different gyms, and would often rib each other about who would win a match between them, echoing a childhood rivalry. Perkins decided a bout could raise money for O'Reilly and resolve the argument.
"We always joked about who could beat who, so this seemed like the perfect way to settle it and do something good for a friend," Perkins said.
"Our main concern is the kid and her health. She's on the right path, doing the right things, but as a single mother, it's very tough for her.
"She was the first person I approached when the idea came to me. She didn't think it was going to happen, and I admit, I didn't think it was going to happen. But I just kept at it. When I called her on the day we got everything in motion, she was shocked."
Perkins and Hosea secured a ring, judges, police detail, and dozens of amateur fighters. For weeks the two went to businesses asking for donations, even stopping by some offices just hours before their bout against each other. Tickets were sold at the door. Before the event started, the two paced throughout Florian Hall, tying up last-minute details.
O'Reilly showed up, with 2-month-old Maddox in a stroller. "He looks just like his father," she said.
By the end of the night, about $8,500 had been raised. About $4,000 will go toward the cost of putting on the event, and the rest will go to O'Reilly, seed money for a college fund for Maddox.
"This makes me feel like there are a lot of people behind me, who are supporting me," O'Reilly said. "It was hard to watch Chris and Keith hit each other, but I love them for what they did." 