Redhanded

by Michael Cadnum

  “Excellent job, Raymond,” said Mr. Monday. He used to be a PE teacher at Merritt College, and even in semi-retirement you’d see him showing people how to fold towels, or set up a row of folding chairs, with a habitually encouraging air.

  Del Toro threw a combination, far away from me, a practice one-two.

  The next instant he hit me hard, I don’t know with what hand.

  Or how he leaped from several paces away, an opponent exactly my weight, but built like a real boxer, with a torso that looked too heavy with muscle to match those thin, deft legs.

  I was hit. I understood that much.

  And then, as I reviewed what had just been happening, I tried to convince myself that I had slipped on some of Raymond’s water. I thought hard. I had been hit with a right cross, it was the only logical explanation. I was down.

  On the canvas, my legs folded, like I was waiting to roast marshmallows.

  I assembled myself, bone by bone, and when I was on my feet I became aware of Mr. Monday’s count. “Seven,” he said, holding out several fingers. “Eight,” he said, methodically, looking over toward Loquesto, ready to stop it.

  I jumped up and down, and said something, “I’m okay” coming out like caveman language around the mouthpiece.

  “Suck it up, Beech,” said one of the older men, a man in his thirties who used the gym as a workout establishment. “Hit him in the face, Steve,” said one of the fourteen-year-olds. Nobody who knows me calls me Steve.

  But I absorbed the sound of this, people cheering for me. I liked it. Del Toro ran a glove over the top of his head, dug a left hook to my ribs, and another one, punches that shook me. We clinched. I hung on hard, climbed into him, pinning his arms, bulling him back toward the ropes.

  I landed a couple of rapid-fire combo, lefts and rights. You could hear the crowd suck air in surprise and pleasure. It looks pretty, when you do it right.

  We wrestled, Del Toro needing a recess. I felt Mr. Monday’s shadow over me, and heard his breath, his teeth gritting together as he forced an arm between us, like a man reaching into the back shelf of a closet.

  Mr. Monday said, like a man very mildly irritated with two little children, “I told you to break.”

  I hadn’t heard him, and neither had Del Toro. Del Toro offered an apology with his eyes, his brows uplifted, and I held out a hand in a half-wave, both of us suddenly the picture of boxing manners.

  Mr. Monday gave a signal, bringing invisible cymbals together, flat-handed: keep going.

  But Del Toro and I circled, breathing deeply, buying a few seconds before we dived in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Good rounds,” said Del Toro.

  It was a hundred years later, and it was over, all three rounds of it. I let the mouthpiece fall out of my mouth, followed by a long splash of drool.

  “Great rounds,” I agreed, sounding like a talking dog.

  Del Toro gave me a gentle, crablike embrace, his gloves impeding us as we hugged around the middle of our bodies, and slung an arm over each other’s shoulders, as though someone was going to take our picture. He was panting, bleeding a little from his nose, but his respiration was already starting to level off. I felt dizzy, my breath sawing in and out of my body.

  No one had a camera, and the crowd was already turning away, clapping with the perfunctory, cheery politeness of people with other things to do, the fight over, life losing much of its gloss. A few of them looking back to say something in Spanish to Del Toro, giving me a thumbs-up.

  Coach Loquesto nodded at me, several silent up-and-downs of his head, like he was agreeing with a point I was making. I wasn’t saying anything. I sidled my way through the entourage of a flyweight twenty-seven-year-old and his friends waiting to take their turn.

  I felt great.

  I showered and used some of the Alfred Dunhill aftershave Raymond had stolen from a department store—or so he claimed—twenty dollars an ounce unless you have smart hands. I laced on my street shoes, my hands feeling puffy and clumsy, while Raymond took random blows at the lockers with a knotted towel. When he struck a locker too loudly he flinched, and gave the metal surface a gentle swipe.

  Raymond was saying that I could have killed Del Toro, if we met in the street. I let him talk for a while, Raymond tough now that it was over. Raymond was always yelling encouragement at his favorite team on TV, and then covering his eyes, afraid to look. We both felt excited by the fact I had survived three rounds with a fighter who had fought on amateur cards in Richmond and Modesto.

  “I guess Chad couldn’t make it,” said Raymond.

  “Better things to do,” I said.

  Chad was someone new in recent weeks, someone Raymond had bragged about, his new friend, the guy who’d been in jail. With an older brother in prison on a felony murder charge, Chad sounded like trouble. Raymond said Chad bragged about shooting a homeless guy down by Fruitvale Avenue, emptying a clip into him, but I didn’t believe it.

  “Chad missed a good fight,” said Raymond.

  Raymond’s enthusiasm for things tended to win me over. He had introduced me to Loquesto, saying that the former light heavyweight was supposed to be a living legend, a real boxing expert, and now he wanted to introduce me to a new friend who was a criminal.

  I could wait.

  But I was teased by curiosity, and maybe a little jealousy. Chad and Raymond had been seen hanging around the Subway Sandwich place on MacArthur, fellow boxers reporting to me that Raymond’s new friend was big. That’s all anyone would say: “He’s a big guy,” like there was something else no one could bring themselves to tell me, how much trouble he might turn out to be.

  The locker room had a fresh-paint smell, the metal lockers and the high, gleaming walls a fresh lake-water blue. The rooms were ancient, and had been painted so many times the pipes were layered with semigloss, painted fast to the walls. Our twenty-five-dollar registration fee rented us a locker; everything else cost extra. Not much money went into making the place pretty. If you got good enough to box in any of the regional or national competitions, it could run into hundreds of dollars in bus fare and hotel bills.

  Raymond held the door for me, kidding, giving me a butler’s after-you bow.

  On the way down the hall Loquesto was Magic-Marking my name next to Stacy Martell, a security guard who’d been in the navy.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

  Stacy Martell was a natural middleweight with years of experience. He wouldn’t be fighting as a novice except that he had two kids and never got in enough practice rounds to fully develop his ability. Our three-round bout was scheduled for Friday, five days from now.

  “He’ll murder me,” I said.

  I hate the noise Magic Marker makes the same way some people hate fingernails on a chalkboard. Loquesto was deliberate, wiping a little smear after my last name.

  “You’re ready for Stacy,” said Raymond, stepping close to my elbow. “You’ll mess him up.”

  Then he turned to the boxing coach. “Maybe five days away is too soon. Maybe a week or ten days is more realistic.”

  Loquesto gave a wise smile, as though mortal humans like Raymond and me couldn’t understand the nuances of scheduling bouts. He put the cap on his marker, really forced it on, so whatever happened the ink would not dry. Loquesto used to joke around with Raymond, called him Sting Ray and Sugar Ray and other wordplays off his name. But in recent weeks he had just given Raymond a straight-on, almost pitying stare and said things like “Be careful, Raymond,” or “Watch your back, Raymond,” maybe not liking the thoughtful sideways look Raymond had begun giving things.

  “Look at Steven, he’s still bleeding,” said Raymond.

  Loquesto stepped close, peeled down my lower lip, taking hold of my face like an adult checking to see what a toddler has in his mouth.

  “Seepage,” said Loquesto.

  He could speak Spanish, and even some lilting Italian when one of the old-time contenders dropped by, men who had boxed out
of North Beach in the days when there were boxing clubs. I had the feeling that Loquesto relished the Latin tongues and felt that English was a flat-footed language, full of stops and starts. Sometimes I thought that if I spoke Spanish, Loquesto would spend more time with me, explaining what it was like to have a manager and slip punches for a living.

  Even so, Loquesto gave you his full attention when he wanted to. “It’s not a cut,” he said, reassuringly. “Suck on some ice.”

  The fear of cuts haunts boxers. In a boxing match the only medicine you’re allowed is adrenaline salve, and a cut inside the mouth is impossible to treat. You see hard-muscled veterans in great shape, except they bleed from old cuts after one round.

  Loquesto motioned with his head and Raymond took a hint, sauntering up the hall. Loquesto waited for him to vanish through the heavy metal doors, white sun too bright to look at for a second.

  “You’re this close, Steven,” Loquesto said. “This close to being really good.”

  A scar over each eye made him look strangely effeminate—his eyebrows looked penciled on.

  I gave my head a toss, accepting the compliment.

  He added, “You could be Junior Olympics top of the line, or come out of San Diego with a name. I put you in against Del Toro, and I’m wondering, maybe I should have a hearse standing by, all Steven can do is fight dirty, Del Toro will give him a brain bruise.”

  “Nice of you to worry about me.”

  Loquesto smiled. He turns it off and on, but for an instant you see the real person inside him, liking you. “I never worried. I’m kidding you, Steven. You don’t look bad today, you land some punches, you show some maturity.” He counted these points off on his fingers, like I might lose track of them.

  I knew what was coming.

  “You also try to fight like a gangster, like you were mugging some guy down on Foothill Boulevard. You knew that stuff wouldn’t work against Del Toro. I’m surprised you’d even try.”

  I hate to make excuses. I kept my mouth shut.

  “If you get in trouble out there,” he added, “the tournament is out of the question.”

  Trouble and out there were both code words. For all Loquesto’s bluntness, he wouldn’t come out and say what he meant in English sometimes. He meant: Don’t get mixed up with the police.

  San Diego might be out of the question anyway, I almost replied, unless I got my hands on some cash.

  He shot a look down the corridor, where Raymond was sticking his head back in through the metal doors.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On the way to Raymond’s customized Volvo we saw Del Toro and some of his friends, young men and women who looked like Latin movie stars, cowboy boots on the guys, perky breasts and tight sweaters on the women.

  Del Toro gave me a salute crossing the parking lot, one raised fist. His friends flashed smiles. They were speaking Spanish. I knew that if I spoke the language I would be able to share some of that cheer.

  By tomorrow Del Toro and I wouldn’t feel quite so warm toward each other, but we would still be glad to be in each other’s company. Boxing changes the way you feel toward your opponent. You could see it in the way Loquesto greeted his weathered pals who used to go ten rounds with him in Bakersfield and Tijuana. They meant something to each other, even after years.

  Benny Gilmartin, Raymond’s dad, gave me a slap on the shoulder. Raymond said, “Take it easy, he’s been giving boxing lessons. Getting hit in the mouth.”

  Benny pulled his hand back, his broad face crinkled with concern.

  “I’m okay,” I said, and I did a little shuffle and tuck, showing off just a little.

  Benny pursed his lips sympathetically. He had boxed in the army, as a cruiser weight. He never talked about his experiences, except to say that he was glad he tried it, and glad he stopped.

  “It feels better already,” I said.

  I always liked coming here. The Gilmartin family had a stucco house on Golf Links Road, a tiny front lawn, and a huge, rambling backyard.

  Raymond reached into the freezer compartment of the fridge, and brought out a mass of ice cubes frozen into a large chunk. The frozen asteroid was stuck fast together, and Raymond had to scrabble in a bottom drawer for a hammer.

  “Whoa,” said Benny. “You want to break off some cubes or smash it all to snow?”

  “I know what I’m doing,” said Raymond.

  A couple of blows, and enough chunks had broken off to fill a plastic Safeway bag. Raymond handed me the bag, heavy with fractured ice, and I held it tentatively to my mouth.

  I liked everything about the Gilmartin family better than I liked my own. Raymond’s older brothers were hefty, tanned men who drove flatbeds or operated jackhammers, grown guys with new wives. Adam and Jesse got into manly trouble, found themselves being arrested for throwing beer cans onto the freeway, got into fights at Raiders games, but even municipal court judges liked them, sentencing them to community service. My own dad is an aspiring pianist, always out of money, and he never drives over the speed limit.

  “The coach told you to do that?” Benny asked.

  “Loquesto told me to suck some ice,” I said.

  “So suck,” said Benny. “Don’t stand around with an ice bag all over your face.”

  Raymond filched a couple of beers behind his back, a quick move, his fingers making a quiet, aluminum whisper as he tucked the cans under his shirt. “Steven’s developing a real punch,” Raymond was saying.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Benny. “We need kids who develop something.” This was perhaps a criticism of Raymond, who I thought might be a disappointment to Benny and Sharon, always home late, unable to hold down a summer job. Raymond was out of step with his family. When all the other Gilmartins laughed at a show on TV, some character falling down or walking into a door, Raymond would just shake his head.

  Sharon Gilmartin, Raymond’s mother, worked for a paper warehouse, doing inventories on a computer. If someone lost a shipment of manila folders she found out where it was.

  It had been right there in the Gilmartin backyard, under the large date palm tree, that I had learned the boxing basics from Raymond and his dad.

  “I’m going to move the goats in about an hour,” said Benny. “You want to come along?”

  When I first started to spend time with Raymond and his family, moving the goats was a highlight for all of us. Benny ran a brush-clearing service, cleaning hillside lands of fire danger. He operated a herd of goats that ate poison oak, tumbleweeds, star thistles. We used to help herd the quick-footed creatures, clapping our hands.

  I wanted to be outdoors today, but Raymond had already decided what he wanted to do. He was heading out toward the small yacht, a gray ark on a boat cradle among the ivy. He was hunching to one side to hide the cans of beer faintly clanking under the tails of his shirt.

  “Maybe not today,” I told Benny.

  Our feet crackled on the peeling varnish on the wooden deck. A mast had never been set into place here on this unnamed yacht, but it was easy to imagine one. For a few moments Raymond and I were like we used to be.

  “Drink up,” said Raymond as we settled into the cabin of the vessel.

  We were miles from water. Benny had laid the keel and hammered the planks long ago, with a plan to christen the boat and sail her out to sea some distant, sunny morning. The cabin was naked plywood, warped in the corners around the nail-heads. The shadowy interior had a pleasant, earthy smell, years of mice and rain.

  I rarely liked the taste of beer, that flavor of soapsuds and day-old bread. I took one sip, and heard Loquesto’s voice in my head, counting off on his fingers what we were not supposed to eat and drink.

  “Your dad’s not going to notice a couple of missing beers?” I was asking.

  “Drink fast,” he said.

  I sat there, listening to the sparrows in the big date palm outside.

  “Chad’s streetwise,” said Raymond at last. “He sees things the way they really are.”

&nbs
p; I gave a little twitch of my mouth, something I had picked up from Dad, who liked to communicate without interrupting the symphony he was listening to.

  Raymond rolled his eyes, and laughed an aw-come-on laugh that made me see him the way he used to be, when all we were trying to do was climb into a junkyard for the thrill. Lately he had grown silent and serious, worried about something.

  I didn’t like the way the beer made me feel, even after two or three swallows. I put the can out of reach.

  “Businesspeople have insurance,” Raymond was saying. “If some cash gets stolen, they report it to the insurance company, and get their money back. There’s no such thing as a victim anymore.”

  I gave an openhanded gesture: maybe, maybe not.

  “Your dad doesn’t hesitate,” Raymond was saying. “He’ll buy himself a big expensive musical instrument if he wants it. Like that new thing he’s buying. Everybody takes care of themselves, Steven. They reach out and take. Don’t you get tired of watching everybody else cruise by with whatever they want?”

  I put my head back against the bulkhead and closed my eyes. I could hear it in Raymond’s voice: he wanted to be sure, but he wasn’t. Raymond had always been this way, like the time we went down to the salt marsh, throwing rocks at passing freight trains. Raymond squinched up his eyes so he couldn’t see what he hit.

  “You wash dishes for minimum wage,” Raymond said.

  I let him talk.

  “How much do you think your boss takes home, after taxes?” he said.

  I said that I had no idea.

  Raymond said, “The thing to remember is—whatever plan we come up with, nobody gets hurt.”

  “You told me yourself,” I said, “Chad’s brother got convicted of murder. His partner killed a gas station cashier, right? If you’re involved in a crime where someone gets killed, it’s the felony murder law. You get life in prison, even if you didn’t hurt anybody.” I watched the news, and I knew my facts were right.