Undercard

by David Albertyn

  Semi-private. Craig Quinn noticed his son idling and barked, “Is this how you train? Move your ass, Keenan.” The teenager hurried away; Craig Quinn was not a man to disobey when he was angry.

  But Keenan had already heard much that surprised and intrigued him.

  “Look, I think what you’re doing is honourable. I really do. More than that, I actually agree with you: we can’t have the most lucrative strip in America and the rest of the city poor as shit, I get it. But what I’m trying to tell you is that it doesn’t matter if you’re right. You’re pissing off the wrong fucking people.”

  Terrence Shaw: “Who are these people I’m pissing off ?”

  “Christ, man, you’re missing the point. I already told you who they are, the wrong fucking people. I shouldn’t even be telling you to back off; they’ll have their eye on me next.”

  Terrence Shaw: “Did they send you to intimidate me?”

  “Send me to intimidate you? You call this intimidation?”

  Craig Quinn’s face was a mottled red. A cop, six-three like Keenan is now, a big man with a furious temper, it was difficult to describe him as anything but intimidating. Yet Terrence Shaw did not look intimidated. Though not a small man, he was not as tall or as broad as his son Tyron would become — as Tyron was even then — and yet he did not seem afraid in the least.

  “If you think this is intimidation, you really have no idea what kind of people you’re up against. I wouldn’t even give a shit but it’s not just you, Terrence. You and your wife are behind this movement. Don’t think they won’t —” Here his father tried to lower his voice, but he was so jacked up that it came out louder than he expected. “— take out a woman. I wouldn’t even give a shit, but I like your boy. He’s a good kid. I don’t want to see him turned into a fucking orphan.”

  Terrence looked for a moment into Craig’s face, and then he said, softly and slowly, “Craig, changes have to happen. They have to. People have too little and they’re suffering too much. And those fighting for them cannot always be afraid.”

  “For Chrissake, dammit, Terrence!” Here Craig looked around to see if anyone had noticed his outburst, which was when he caught Keenan eavesdropping.

  A few moments later, on the other side of the gym, Craig Quinn grabbed his son by the scruff of his shirt and slammed him against a wall. Jabbing his finger almost into Keenan’s eye, he said, “You never heard what you think you heard today. You never heard it. Which means you can’t repeat it. Especially to your fucking friends. You say one word of this to them, I swear to God, boy, I will give you the beating of your fucking life.”

  Keenan was grateful that the gym was almost empty when all this happened. When Tyron and Antoine came back from their run, they asked him why his face was so red. He was afraid to cross his father, and even if he wasn’t, he was too humiliated to explain what had happened. From what he could gather, Terrence Shaw never mentioned the conversation to his son, either.

  Keenan had willed himself to forget the incident. In fact, he did such a good job of forgetting that the memory didn’t surface even when he heard that Terrence and Viola Shaw had been killed in a gang shooting, the culprits never caught. It was only at the funeral, as he watched their coffins being lowered into the ground, that the conversation between his father and Terrence Shaw came back to him.

  The details of the shooting were murky. It was assumed to be a drive-by that had gone wrong, the real target missed and the Shaws hit instead. All witnesses had seen was a car screeching away after the shots were fired. Everyone said — Craig Quinn, most of all — that the Shaws had lived in a rough neighbourhood and that this sort of thing happened in places like that. To Keenan’s reply that the Shaws were the most beloved people in their community, his father had shouted, “You think gangbangers give a fuck who they’re killing? They’re high out of their fucking minds. Wise up, boy.”

  Keenan didn’t know who was responsible for the double murder, but he thought it best not to tell Tyron what he had heard that day in the gym. Tyron was distraught enough without a mystery to solve. As for Antoine, Keenan never thought it was his business, even if he was the Shaws’ foster son. He wasn’t their real son.

  But Antoine wept like he was their real son. So did everyone. Keenan couldn’t believe how many people were at the funeral and how many tears were shed. His own tears amazed him. He couldn’t remember crying like that since he was a little kid. He hadn’t realized how much the Shaws had meant to him until that moment.

  At Keenan’s request, the Quinns offered for Tyron to live with them. Tyron was grateful but declined, and he and Antoine moved in with Tyron’s cousin Tara and her mother, Patricia. But the women didn’t really have the means or the space to support two more, and Tyron soon realized that he was closer to the Quinns than he was to his own relatives. Also the Quinns had a far larger, more comfortable home that was closer to Tyron’s high school. On top of that, Keenan had his own car and they could travel to and from school and various sports practices together, while living under the same roof. All in all, staying with the Quinns would allow Tyron to concentrate less on his basic needs and more on his priorities: schooling and sport.

  But in truth, all of that was just window dressing to the fact that the Quinns adored Tyron, from Keenan’s mother to his sisters to his older brother, and even to his curmudgeonly father. And right then, in the wake of his parents’ funeral, Tyron needed them. He changed his mind, and everyone was on board with the move. The only question was, what was to be done with Antoine?

  “It’s up to you, boy, if you want us to take him or not,” Keenan’s father had said.

  This felt like an overwhelmingly large decision for Keenan to make. “Do you want him to stay here?”

  “Of course I don’t want him to stay here. What do I look like, Immigration Services? You think I want to open my door to every Mexican that doesn’t have a home? Christ, Keenan. I don’t like that kid anyway, even if he wasn’t a Mexican. He’s too shifty. Like his father.”

  “You knew his father?”

  Craig nodded. “A real piece of shit. A career criminal. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “So he can’t stay here then?”

  “No, he can stay here. Just because I don’t want him doesn’t mean I won’t take him. Your mother’s got a soft spot for him for some reason. But it’s your decision. He’s your friend.”

  To be magnanimous or to get rid of Antoine? Keenan pretended to grapple with the decision longer than it actually took. The idea of living one room down from someone who so easily grated on his nerves was all it took to make up his mind.

  Without her nephew included, Patricia wasn’t going to put up Antoine. He seemed to think Tony Wilks would take him in, but the boxing coach explained that half the fighters in his gym had family troubles and it was impossible for him to offer safe haven to all of them, so to be fair he would offer it to none of them. Keenan suspected that this was true, but that Tony also didn’t like the idea of bringing in a teenage boy, almost a young man, to live with his flowering daughter. Which was misguided. Other than Tony himself, there was probably not a better defender of her virtue than Antoine.

  So while Tyron moved in with the large Irish-Italian family, Antoine once again became a ward of the state. For about six hours. He continued training at the Rising Star Boxing Club, which was how Keenan, Tyron, and Naomi still got to see him, but everywhere else he fell off the map. He disappeared from school, from the social housing for minors where he was meant to live, even from official records — there were rumours that all files on him in the possession of state enterprises vanished. If a cop or a social worker showed up at the boxing gym looking for Antoine while he was there, they would be waylaid by the other fighters and word would be sent to him to escape out a back door.

  Tony stopped charging him for training, probably out of guilt that he didn’t let a twice-orph
aned boy share his roof, but it served him also to have Antoine there. At sixteen, almost seventeen, Antoine was the hardest worker in the gym — perhaps, as Tony had once said, the hardest worker he had ever seen. And the fact that he still wasn’t the best, or even close to it, set a precedent for everyone else. “This guy’s never going to be a contender and look how hard he trains. You want to be a world champ, you call yourself committed, you better step up your game.”

  Of course, they were wrong. Antoine was the only one from Rising Star to claw his way up to contention; the others all petered out as amateurs or low-level professionals.

  Tony would give Antoine food too. Whether this was more guilt or generosity, Keenan couldn’t tell, but it was a good thing he did. Always a lean kid, Antoine began to look very thin in those days. Very thin. If anyone asked him where he was staying, he had a set response. “How is that your business?” If pressed further, he’d add: “The time to worry about me has passed. Leave me alone now.” And if you were to press him after that, you had a fight on your hands. While Antoine wasn’t the best boxer in the gym, he was a hell of a lot better than he used to be, and his fists never stopped coming.

  Antoine didn’t have to say where he was staying for them to know the truth — his grubby and dishevelled appearance told them in plain words: some nights he was sleeping on the streets. Keenan told him that it was his parents’ decision that he couldn’t stay with his family, and Antoine gave him that discomfiting, unblinking stare of his. Antoine never said a word, and Keenan wondered if he knew the truth.

  7:45 p.m.

  The number of celebrities in the crowd is humbling, even for a minor celebrity like her. Former minor celebrity, she reminds herself.

  Naomi climbs the steep flight of stairs to the top of the arena. Even the nosebleeds seem filled with the rich and famous — so many fake breasts and oven-baked tans, bespoke sports coats and designer dresses. The Gibbons-Suarez main event is just one fight away and the alcohol is flowing; the anticipation is a bubble that keeps sucking in more air.

  “Naomi! Naomi!” Ricky shouts as he squeezes past two middle-aged men wearing blazers and ripped jeans. He steps forward to embrace her and she stretches out one arm for a handshake. To his credit, Ricky closes both hands around her single one, as if that was what he’d been going for all along: a big windup with the arms for a hearty handshake.

  “It’s been such a long time, Naomi. Way too long. Way too long. How you been?” Before she can answer he adds, “Ty messaged me that you were taking his ticket and I saw you coming up the stairs. You look great. I mean, even better than you used to, which is . . . well . . . What’s better than great? Really great, I guess.”

  Taken aback by his energy and activity, Naomi tries to think of a response, but he has taken her hand in his and is pulling her along with him, up a few rows and then down one of them to their seats. People generally get out of her way, especially when she is in heels, but this crowd stares up at her, sullen and superior, reluctantly shifting their knees, and she is reminded why she avoids this side of Vegas. Ricky plops down right in the middle of the row, a spot with a fine view: the entire arena beneath them, filled with people from top to bottom.

  From this high up, the ring looks small. It’s strange being in the crowd. More nerve-wracking on this side of things, she thinks, as she wants Antoine to win so badly. He deserves it: to have success on a scale like this, to be vaulted into stardom. Deserves it, both for how hard he has worked and for how much he has endured.

  Naomi can scarcely believe just how nervous she is. She wishes she could reach inside herself and crush those fluttering butterflies. It’s an uncomfortable sensation, one she is unused to because she never got nervous for herself. Not when she was competing. Not really. Not even for the WNBA Finals. Nothing like Tyron used to get at least. Or Keenan. With Antoine, who could tell? He wasn’t exactly the type to share his feelings, and as far as facial expressions and body language went, he was almost always intense, brow furrowed, dark eyes searching, like he was constantly competing. If he was nervous, then he was always nervous; and if he was calm in life, then he was calm in the ring. At this point, she supposes, it makes no difference: if you’re always one thing, then you’re adapted to it no matter what. And yet she did see something else in him once — something she had never seen in him before nor has since.

  It was more than a year after Tyron’s parents had been killed, almost at the end of high school. Tyron was living with the Quinns and Antoine was staying God knows where. Naomi, Tyron, and Keenan were at the gym only occasionally, other sports taking precedence. But Antoine was always there, quietly training on his own.

  It was a Saturday. Naomi was at the gym because her dad was driving her to a game after he finished up some classes. She found Antoine at the coffee table by the front desk reading a boxing magazine. He greeted her with his typical reserved nod and a quiet “Hey Naomi” — though there was that extra bit beyond his eyes, like he wanted to say more. It was there every time they spoke, and she had given up on waiting for him to divulge it.

  After a few pleasantries he went back to reading The Ring, and she sat next to him to do the same. She felt the change in him before she saw it, a prickling of her skin that she couldn’t explain until she noticed he was transfixed by the pages in his hands. Slowly his knees straightened so that he was standing now, and she stood too, wondering what he could be reading for it to hypnotize him in this way. At last he looked up from the magazine and seemed to remember where he was. He looked at her beside him and smiled slightly. Without warning, Antoine took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. Then he stared at her, saying everything she had always guessed at in one look: I love you, I know you don’t love me, either way I’ve moved on to more important things. Then, with brisk purpose, he walked out of the gym with the magazine clutched in his hands, and she was left behind, stunned by how good the kiss had felt.

  When she had gained control of herself, Naomi snatched up another copy of The Ring from the table and flipped through its pages until she found the article he’d been reading: a puff-piece about the newly opened Reef Resort and Casino on the Strip, and the first boxing event held in its state-of-the-art arena. She read the article three times over and still had no clue why it had produced such a reaction in Antoine.

  The article outlined the usual details: who won, who lost, upcoming bouts for the fighters, reactions of the crowd, some snippets about the casino owner, and a description of the arena and the aquarium-themed Reef Resort. What jumped out at her most was the image of sharks and stingrays swimming beneath the feet of gamblers, shoppers, and hotel guests. Bright fish everywhere, you didn’t need to go all the way to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef when you had it right here in Las Vegas. The whole thing was the vision of the new casino magnate, Norman Bashinsky, who, the article reported, had an armed escort with him at all times. However, at the recent fight, Bashinsky threw caution to the wind and left his escort behind to visit with each of the winning fighters and congratulate them in person. “I like winners,” the article quoted him as saying. “Those are the people I want to spend time with. If someone is good enough to win in my place, he deserves to get a handshake.” The tradition had just begun, but Bashinsky planned on continuing it as long as the Reef was in his possession. “And the only way I’m ever giving up the finest resort on the Strip is if they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Even then I won’t let go!”

  Naomi thought Bashinsky sounded like a bit of a nut, but then again all these casino moguls did. The Reef sounded awesome, though. But what — what — had brought about that change in Antoine?

  She put the magazine down and sat back into the sofa. Thought about that kiss again. He must’ve wanted to do that for a long time. What a different person he had seemed.

  Naomi wondered if Antoine was a virgin. She had wondered it for a while. Of course, he might not be. Even before the Shaws were ki
lled, he would disappear for long stretches, sometimes a day or two. And now he was completely on his own; who knew what other lives he had? Perhaps there was another girl out there, someone he could tell all the secrets that glinted behind his eyes. But she doubted it. Her guess was that this was it, his one moment of release. She had seen it. She had felt it, flowing from his lips into hers.

  * * *

  Ricky is saying something to her, which she only half hears through her musings. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, what are you up to these days?”

  “Coaching.” She doesn’t want to explain it further, yet she sees that he’s expecting more. “I’m an assistant with the men’s and women’s teams at UNLV, coach a girls’ AAU team, a girls’ high school team, some camps and clinics for younger kids, and I do some personal training on the side.”

  “Whoa,” he says. “So you like coaching, then. You must if you do so much of it.”

  Her eyes are on the empty ring and the tunnel leading to it, and she is annoyed having to keep glancing away to answer him. From what she can tell, Ricky hasn’t changed much since high school.

  “For sure. My dad’s a coach. My brothers are coaches. It’s in my blood.”

  “You’re not still playing ball, then?”

  There seems to be some activity around the ring, various officials mobilizing. She feels the butterflies inside her mounting. It’s been seven years since she last saw Antoine. Seven years since she told him she was engaged to Keenan. Seven years since he told her to stop visiting him in prison.

  “No. Retired a few seasons back,” she says.

  “That’s right, I think I heard that. Tara must’ve told me. So how come you retired?”