Please, Jane said. Take them. It doesn’t seem right. I want to call it even.
Beth understood. OK. She took her coin purse out, opened it, and slid the pennies off the table into the purse. A few fell onto the floor, but she didn’t have the heart to pick them up. I’ll see you tomorrow, Beth said, and she stood and walked to the door, which Jane opened for her. Then she walked down the walk, got into her car and drove home, hurried home.
Jane went upstairs and looked in on Mary, at her huddled shape in the dark.
Mary? she said. Mary? Are you awake?
No answer. So Jane went down into the kitchen and called her husband. It rang five times before he answered. Hi Paul, she said.
Hey. Where are you?
I’m at Mary’s. I’m going to stay with her tonight.
OK.
You sound sleepy. Were you asleep?
Fell asleep in front of the TV, Paul said. What time is it?
Almost ten.
Work tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s Saturday, Jane said.
That’s right. He yawned.
Let’s go somewhere tomorrow, Jane said, looking down at the linoleum floor. For a drive, maybe. Beth is going to come back in the morning and take care of Mary and her family will all be here and maybe you and I can spend some time together.
OK, Paul said.
Jane pressed the phone to her cheek. She put her hand to her forehead. She began to cry.
Are you crying? Paul said. Honey, what’s the matter? What is it? Why are you crying?
I don’t know. Nothing. I’m fine. It’s been a long day.
What’s the matter, baby?
It’s just so sad, Paul. It’s just all so sad.
What’s so sad?
Everything.
Why don’t I come over there, Paul said.
No, you don’t need to do that, Jane said. I’ll be fine.
I’m coming over.
No. Thank you. No need. I’m fine.
I’m coming over, Paul said.
OK, Paul, Jane said.
As he drove to his mother-in-law’s house to pick up his daughter, Robert thought of the only conversation he’d had with Pierce, the one at the Trolley. What they said to each other, what they talked about, he couldn’t recall. Boxing? Did he give the kid advice? Did they discuss the fight? Did he tell him what he always told young fighters, that boxing was like life? Were they drunk? Probably. Were they happy? Were they sad? He didn’t remember. What he remembered were the bruises on the kid’s face, his wet, red eyes. The kid dabbed at his eye with a cocktail napkin to stop the leak. The rest was a blur.
Boxing is like life.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
Boxing is life. Sounded now like
The Lord is with thee.
bullshit.
And though he didn’t remember the conversation and probably never would again, somewhere in Robert’s brain, lost, hidden beneath the bleeding and bruising and dead tissue where what seemed like a lifetime of battles had taken their toll, he knew the conversation remained, inaccessible, but there all the same.
If it would only open up you could see inside…
He passed a grocery store, a fast-food place, a gas station. He passed a market, a video store. When they were in his rearview mirror, he looked back and did not remember their names.
And yet after all these years it had stayed with him: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
And he remembered: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
He pulled into his mother-in-law’s driveway and honked the horn. The front door opened and his daughter came running out with her backpack. She ran awkwardly, her arms pumping but the backpack weighing her down.
What did I tell you about that backpack? he said as she climbed up into the truck.
What?
It’s too heavy. Leave some of that at school.
I need it.
You don’t need it all. Not all of it.
The sign said one more mile to the border.
Good night, the bartender said, and Eric and Marty and Pete waved, said good night, and walked out the backdoor. It was cold outside, and dark. The clock on the bank across the street said ten-thirty. They were full now, bloated. Marty tripped on the gravel, tore his slacks. The other two picked him up. Ow, he said. Where to now? and Eric said,
Nowhere for me. Home. Work tomorrow.
Pete said to Marty, I’m game if you wanna go somewhere else.
Let’s get a drink somewhere else, Marty said to Eric. He tugged on his arm. Come on, Chicken, just one more. One more toast to Jimmy the Kid.
Nah, I’m done. You guys go.
I’ll go with you, Pete said and Marty said,
I guess I gotta work tomorrow too. I guess I’ll go home, and Pete said,
Yeah. Let’s just go home.
Then they got in their cars and drove away. In a few hours they would go to work.
Half a mile to the border.
Angela was asleep on the couch. Lying on her back, her neck bent against the armrest. One heel on the ground, one arm dangled over the side of the couch, fingers almost, but not quite, touching the carpet. The TV was on, showing a late movie, but the sound was off and there wasn’t a light on in the house. Down the hall in the bedroom, the baby stood up in his crib, using the bars for balance, watching a multi-colored mobile spin above him, caught by a gust of wind from an open window. He watched the shapes spin, dim now, blue and gray in the mostly dark room; the only light, soft, faint, stretched in from the street, through the cracks between the blinds. He watched the snapes above him but did not try to touch them, having learned already the concept of reach, of distance, having learned that his arms were not long enough, that the shapes were too far away. He sat down with a thud, then rolled onto his back and watched them spin until he fell asleep and dreamt of them some more.
There were no other cars at the border and Bill pulled up to the painted line and stopped. Inside the booth two uniformed men were talking to each other. They looked out at him, and in no hurry, kept on with their conversation. It was raining. And the rain beat on the roof of the car. The windshield wipers whirred. Bill was tired. He felt that if he closed his eyes he might fall asleep.
The men laughed and one of them put on a raincoat and a plastic hat with a wide brim and came out of the booth. Bill rolled his window down.
How you doing tonight! the man shouted over the rain.
Fine!
What is your purpose for visiting Canada!
Bill didn’t know. He hadn’t planned on coming this far.
Your purpose? the man said.
I don’t know! I should just turn around! I was out driving! I didn’t mean to come this far!
The man nodded. He understood.
Follow me! he said, and he walked past the car and behind it, motioning Bill with his hand to back up as the rain pelted him, walking backwards, drawing a semi-circle in the air, showing Bill the way to turn around. Bill put the car in reverse and, looking behind him, slowly backed up, following the man, thirty feet or so behind the line, no-man’s land. Rain blew in through the open window. The man stopped, finally, and motioned Bill to keep coming until he was even with him. He pointed left to a small thoroughfare that arced, splitting the grass meridian. Follow the arrows! he said, and waved Bill on. Bill followed the arrows on the road, followed them around the arc until he came to a booth on the other side. He stopped at a red light and another man came out, shouted over the rain.
Coming home? the man said.
Yeah!
How long you been gone!
/> What?
How long you been gone!
I never left!
How long have you been gone, sir!
I never left! I’m just turning around!
The man bent down and looked at Bill squarely, rain spilling off the brim of his hat.
You got ID? I’ll need to see some ID!
Bill pulled his wallet out of his pocket, took his license out and handed it to the man. The man studied Bill’s face, looked at the license, looked back at his face again.
Bill didn’t say anything. He smiled.
The man handed him his license—Good night!—and waved him on.
Good night.
Bill rolled up his window, stepped on the gas and soon he was back on the other side again, headed south, building speed, each sign and marker he passed a reassurance that he had never left.
Good night, Robert said.
Good night.
He turned off Amy’s light and closed the door, leaving it open a crack. Then he went into the bedroom. Ruth asleep, he moved the switch on the clock by the bed to wake him up at five, went into the bathroom, picked up a tube of Icy Hot from the counter, then back into the bedroom and turned off the light. The house was quiet. He walked down the hall, locked the front door, around to the kitchen, picked up a vial of Advil from the counter, made sure the sliding glass door was locked. It was. Then he went in and sat down on the couch, set the tube down, turned the TV on with the remote. He flipped through until he came to an old middleweight title fight from many years before.
The fight hadn’t yet started and the cameras went back and forth to both corners, the fighters standing tall and calm as the trainers removed their robes. Robert knew who would win. He’d seen it a hundred times. He had it on tape. They stood, listening, nodding their heads, their eyes focused—one looked into the eyes of his trainer, the other into the distance—waiting for the fight to begin.
In the beginning, Robert had believed that he was going to do something special. He believed that someday he would be a main event, that he would make Ruth a million dollars, back then, in the beginning, when he was young and the dream was real and alive, when it seemed that every time he fought he won. And Ruth was always there. And when he’d win, he’d climb down through the ropes and she’d run up and throw her arms around him. They’d go home and he’d skip work the next day sometimes and they’d stay in bed, talking about their plans, the places they were going to go together, the things they were going to see and do. He imagined all the things he would buy for her.
But then he started losing. And he didn’t understand why. He trained even harder, got in better shape. But his boxing wasn’t getting better; he had no real technique, and the other fighters were figuring him out. He started losing more than he won and afterwards, when he’d lose, he’d climb down through the ropes, slowly, and Ruth would get up from her seat, slowly, and she’d put her purse over her shoulder and wait for him in the aisle. She’d take his hand and they’d walk out together, slowly. And he kept working on his technique but it never came and he kept losing and he couldn’t stand anymore for her to see him lose, so one night in the truck on the way home he told her not to come anymore, he said he didn’t want her there. He told her she was bad luck. They were still kids then. You’re bad luck, he said, and she had cried. And she stopped coming and he told himself it would only be a little while, just until he got on track again, because surely this was only a dip in the road, he’d get on track again soon, and then she’d be back in the seats again, proud of him, rooting him on again. And he fought without her and he lost some and won some, and she would know by the expression on his face when he got home what had happened. And if he’d won she would ask him to tell her all about it, and he would, and if he’d lost, she wouldn’t say a thing. But after awhile it didn’t really matter anymore, he was getting tired and even winning wasn’t exciting anymore—it wasn’t enough just to win—because nothing was happening; his record was bad, he wasn’t moving up, nobody was calling; he was realizing he wasn’t good enough. But he still fought because he’d had a dream and now he was awake but he couldn’t forget the dream.
And life went on. He took time off now and then, a few months here and there, then back into training and the ring. He got jobs and lost them, he found new jobs. He fought and won and lost. And Ruth got pregnant. And he lost more fights. And he won some and it didn’t matter and by now he was too old to be fighting these boys, anyway, it was an embarrassment, but he kept fighting, never getting better, never moving up, no one interested in him. And she had the baby. And somewhere along the way his brain started closing up on itself. He started forgetting things. And his head was hurting so much all the time, and Ruth said it was time to quit, and he looked for new trainers because they kept quitting on him, but Robert didn’t quit. And his hands and his joints ached, and his head hurt so much, and there was always so much pain, and Ruth said it was time to quit but he didn’t quit, he kept fighting, and there was always so much pain and he kept forgetting things, things he knew he should remember—he forgot his anniversary, he forgot Amy’s birthday, he’d forget what day it was, he’d forget what month it was, he’d forget sometimes, only for a moment, that he had a wife and a daughter, that he had anyone at all. And finally he began to forget what it felt like to believe and Ruth said it was time to quit, and now he had finally forgotten the dream, because he no longer remembered believing, and he promised her that this one would be his last. And he fought. He put everything he had on it. And he lost.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and always shall be. Amen.
The bell rang. The fighters on the TV screen left their corners and walked out to the center of the ring. They met and began to circle each other, their hands up, bobbing, moving, and he remembered:
Stick him with your right.
Stick him with your right.
Step in. Jab.
Back him up.
Wait for it…
Wait for that opening…
Wait for your opening…
His head hurt. Robert opened the vial and shook out a few pills into the palm of his hand, tilted his head back, dropped them in, left them sitting on his tongue until he had enough saliva to swallow them down, then swallowed. He picked up the tube next. He squirted some paste onto the back of his hand, set the tube down, and massaged the paste in and around his knuckles, around his wrists, rubbed his palms with his thumbs. He looked up at the TV—
—a quick left jab followed by a hard right hook that the other fighter blocked easily. Then the two began trading blows, missing with most, blocking what they could, stepping in, falling back, and again. It would go on like this until the end.
He wiped his hands on his shorts, reached for his pack and took out a cigarette. Couldn’t find the matches. Where had he put them?
Not on the coffee table. Not on the carpet. Hadn’t fallen below the chair…
Here they are.
Robert took the book out of his pocket and struck a match. Lit his cigarette and set the match in the ashtray. He watched the flame grow as it traveled down the matchstick, orange at the center surrounded by a soft blue sheath. Watched it grow, and the embers glow behind the flame, then the center began to shrink, fade, and finally, it disappeared.
He’d watch the first few rounds. He’d watch the first few and call it a night.
It’s going to be all right, Tom said.
They were back now. The lights were off and it was pitch black in the room. Tom could feel the blanket tighten around him as Anna moved her legs. She sighed. The shot the doctor had given her had taken effect and her nose didn’t hurt anymore, what she felt was a tightness in her face, she felt she was made of water everywhere else. She breathed through her mouth.
It wasn’t broken, just badly bruised. You need to take it easy for awhile, the doctor had said. You’re exhausted, and he had taken Tom into the hall and Anna had stayed there, on
the uncomfortable hospital bed, she felt sleepy, it must be the shot, she thought, I’m so tired, it must be the shot, closed her eyes. Tom carrying her, setting her in the car, she fell asleep, reaching for the small, bright circle so far away. Tom undressing her, putting her in bed, then she had watched his blurry shape undress, walk to the light switch, turn out the lights, felt him crawl in beside her. She was filled to the brim—filled to the brim—she always cried in churches—always did—she didn’t know why…
It’s going to be all right.
And Tom was afraid. In the dark, in the stillness, he was afraid. He felt the blanket tighten around him as Anna moved and sighed and he was afraid.
He would get up in the morning. He would make sure she was comfortable, he would give her some pills if she were to wake, some pills to set her asleep again, when she was asleep he would go downstairs and catch up on his paperwork. He would come up every few minutes to check on her.
How long this day had been. That a single day could take so long…
Tom lay in the dark. He thought of his brother. He wondered what it had been like for Jimmy at the end.
Was there a song playing on the radio? Was there noise from out on the street? Could he hear the voices of people in other rooms? Could he hear through the walls? Could he understand what they were saying?
What was the last thing he remembered? What was the last thing he felt? Who was the last person he thought about?
WAS IT DARK LIKE THIS?
Did he see a light?
Did it open up?
Did it usher him in?
I’m sorry, Anna said. I need— and she began to cry, softly.
It’s going to be all right, Tom said.
It’s fine now.
It’s going to be
fine.
Outside, someone started a car. Backed up and stopped. Moved into first gear. Drove on, shifted, and disappeared down the street.
Tom reached out and put his hand on Anna’s thigh. She felt his hand on her thigh.
ALL IS WELL
When the season was over and the boat came back to Seattle, the first thing James always did was to go down to the Pioneer Square Saloon and see if he could find any of his friends. Sometimes they were there and scoring was no problem. Sometimes he had to foot-it all around the city with his pack over his shoulder, looking. Usually he rented a cheap room with a bed and a sink, but sometimes, if it wasn’t too late and he wanted to save money for a night or two, he went down to the mission. He liked hanging out in bars with people and sharing his dope with them. Sometimes it was old retired guys and most of them only liked to drink. Sometimes it was people he knew from the old days and most of them had stopped all that nonsense, told him he should cut it out too. Often he’d find companionship with the white kids who’d hang around the bars downtown, and they’d always smoke with him, sometimes come around a few days later looking for him. James never forgot a name and he liked to be close to people when he talked to them. He felt good giving these kids advice about life. A lot of them didn’t have father figures and he liked to think of himself as a father figure. Sometimes he would invite these kids back to his room to hang out and talk, but they would never have the time. So he’d give them a folded-up piece of tin foil and a tube and let them have a smoke, then maybe play a game of pool. Maybe they’d buy him a drink. He’d take the drink but it was the only sort of payment he would take. He never sold to them or made them pay for what he gave. That would be against the spirit. When they’d come back looking for him he’d call them by name, laugh, and yell at the bartender to bring his young friends some drinks. He’d put his arms around them and tell them they better be staying out of trouble. It made him feel good when people came looking for him. Back in the day he had been a trumpet player in a funk band and everyone was always looking for him. He was well-known around town those days and he had a yellow Cadillac convertible that he drove all around. That car was the envy of the entire scene. Sometimes on nice days he would drive around with his wife and his baby, the top down, cool wind rushing around their heads. Now his wife and daughter were back down in Federal Way living with a man, and James had a picture of his daughter sitting sideways on a football field with one leg raised in a triangle and her chin resting on her knee. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said Decatur High and her hair was cut short. She had beautiful brown eyes and skin. Everyone he showed the picture to said how beautiful she was and he’d tell them she was the spitting image of her mother at that age, all eyes and legs and he would laugh.
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