by Tom Schreck
“Well, here it is. The end of five and you know what that means. It’s time to flush out the Clogger—and here he is, right on time, the pride of the real Windy City, Crawford, New York … Clogger McGraw!”
The Yankee Stadium crowd was on its feet like it always was waiting for the Clog to do his thing. Sterling waited, giving the Clogster an exaggerated pause, and then did it.
“… aaaaaand Clogger cannnnnns it!”
The bar roared right along with the crowd at the stadium. It was great to see a local guy make good.
I took the seat next to Kelley, and AJ opened a Schlitz for me. I asked him to back everybody up. The Yanks were beating Tampa Bay eleven to nothing and it wasn’t much of a game, so I figured Kelley was approachable. At least he was as approachable as he got.
“What’s up, Kel?” I said.
“Hey Duff,” he said. “Thanks for the drink.”
That was pretty talkative for Kelley. I decided to take a chance.
“You mind if I pick your brain about Walanda?”
“Go ahead, Duff, but I got to tell you, I don’t know a whole hell of a lot.”
“Did anything ever come of the Webster stuff she mentioned?”
“Not that I heard of. Walanda has said a lot of shit to the both of us over the years,” he took a sip of his Coors Light. “I wouldn’t put a lot into it, Duff. Who knows what she meant.”
“How’s the investigation going on her murder?” I asked.
“Duff, I’m a beat cop,” he put his bottle on the bar with some force. “I don’t decide what the department does. They’ll send someone over and ask some questions. The COs will keep their eyes open, and it might eventually come out who did it. But to be honest, it isn’t a big deal at the station.”
“Does that feel right to you?” I said. It came out more confrontational than I wanted it to.
“Duff, this is all day, every day for me,” he turned to look at me. “The answer is no, it doesn’t feel right, but keep it in perspective. Walanda has no family to speak of looking for answers. She didn’t have a lot going on that was positive, and—let’s be honest—the society as whole probably won’t miss her. I don’t like the way that sounds, but it’s true.”
Kelley was, of course, right. He wasn’t being a jerk about it; he was being pragmatic in the reality he has to deal with every day of his life.
“Did anything about her stepdaughter turn up?” I asked.
“Not that I heard of but, Duff, that girl could have gone thirty different places and still be with family,” he said.
“Would you think I was crazy if I looked into this whole deal a little bit?”
“Looked into?”
“You know,” I said. “Tried to get some answers.”
Kel shot me a look that was part disbelief, part disdain.
“What are you, fuckin’ ‘Duffy for Hire, Private Eye’ all of a sudden?”
“No—nothing like that. I just want to look into it a little bit.”
“Look, Duff, I know you’re a tough guy,” he said. “I know you can take a punch, but you don’t know anything about being a cop.”
“Cop?” I said. “Who said anything about being a cop?”
“Duff—don’t mess around with this. It’s not a good idea.”
“I’ll be fine—I’m just going to get enough answers to settle my mind. I feel I owe her.”
He rolled his eyes, clearly not approving my plan, but as was his way, he didn’t say I shouldn’t or couldn’t. He did go back to watching the TV. The way Kelley reacted, I didn’t dare get into Mikey and Eli; it just wasn’t the right time. I finished the Schlitz and headed to the door. The Foursome had dropped the Hogan’s Heroes debate and had moved on to Green Acres.
“You know,” TC said, “they all wound up eating Arnold Ziffel in the last episode.”
“You mean they were cannibals?” said Jerry Number Two.
“What are you—an idiot?” Rocco said. “Arnold was a pig!”
“That’s not very nice,” Jerry Number Two said. “And it’s no reason to perform a cannibalization.”
Though I tended to agree with Jerry Number Two, it was late and I headed home.
8
I got through work on Friday, met Smitty at the gym, and headed to the airport. Al was staying in the Moody Blue for the weekend and Jerry Number Two and Trina both agreed to check in on him. Between the two of them, they would stop by three times a day to record what damage he had done to my worldly possessions.
In the car on the way over, Smitty talked nonstop about strategy and attitude. It was what he did building up to fight time, and sometimes I wondered if it was his way of dealing with his own butterflies. Smitty’s whole life was regimented; he did the same things every day in the same ways. It made him a good trainer because he drilled you on the same stuff over and over and over.
Repetition is important in boxing. You might bring your guard back to the side of your head ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but the one time you don’t, you’re liable to get knocked unconscious. Smitty’s tendency to go over things a lot helped in the ring, but it tended to make you crazy when he was a travel companion.
In some ways, Smitty’s strategy repetition was a relief because it prevented me from thinking about Walanda, Shondeneisha, Mikey, Eli, Lisa, or about getting fired from my job. Just the same, even if everything wasn’t on my mind persistently, the uneasy feelings along with the fight jitters were there. There was something incredibly fucked up about people putting hurt on other people for stupid reasons. That may sound strange coming from a guy whose main hobby is punching other men in the face, but it’s the way I feel. There was a certain meanness in this world and I didn’t like it when it got to people I cared about.
We were booked into a Ramada Inn, but there was only enough time to leave our bags because there was some sort of press conference to promote the bout that we were required to attend. Usually, the fights I’m in don’t warrant press conferences, but Suggs was a big deal in Lexington. The ballroom at the Crowne Plaza down the street from the Ramada was set up for the press, and I was supposed to be there by nine o’clock. It was a quarter after nine when Smitty and I found our way there.
The place was all lit up and there were about ten reporters, some local TV, and a whole group of Suggs’s fans. Suggs was there, standing on his chair, leading some sort of cheer when we walked in. As Smitty and I made our way to the podium, I noticed Suggs had about fifteen guys with him as an entourage. Just about all of them sported acid-washed jeans and mullets. Welcome to Kentucky.
Suggs abruptly ended his cheer and gave an exaggerated look in our direction. He raised one eyebrow and smiled crookedly.
“Looky, looky here …” The crowd hung on everything the guy said. “It’s two-thirds of an Oreo cookie.”
The crowd and the mullets laughed hard as Suggs paused. The guy worked the room well—that is, if you were a fan of pro wrestling.
“Hey boy—you teach the Polack everything he know?” Suggs pointed at Smitty. “You gonna use the monkey defense?”
This got another big laugh. This whole thing caught me off guard, not because of the fact that he was talking trash—that came with the game—but this was getting ugly. I was expecting a few people and some reporters and the same stupid but harmless questions that always seemed to get asked before fights. I wasn’t ready for this festival of idiocy.
“And you, boy, which was it with you?” he pointed at me and paused again for dramatic affect. “Was your mommy the drunk and your daddy the Polack, or was it the other way around?”
The crowd roared, the entourage hooted and hollered, and Suggs stood there with his hands on his hips in mock confusion. I didn’t hear all of it because I was busy flying out of my chair and knocking over the podium. Smitty was holding me back and a couple of the mullet-heads stepped forward toward me. I pushed three of them back and one fell to the ground. Through the confusion I heard one of them say, “Get the nigger.”
I wheeled again but Smitty grabbed me and pulled me toward the door. I fought it for a while, but over the years doing what Smitty said came as second nature to me. He walked me out of the room like an angry mother walks a kindergartener who she had just caught misbehaving. The security cops had intervened between the mob and us, so there wasn’t anything left for us to do anyway. Smitty pushed me into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby. When it started to move he pulled the emergency stop button.
“What the hell is a matter with you?” He stared at me like I had done something terrible. “All these years, and this is how you act.”
“Smit—”
“Shut up. You know better,” he said. “That fool wanted a circus and you gave it to him.”
“He was way the fuck out of line, Smitty, and you know it.” Now I was getting pissed off.
“That’s not the point. The point is the damn fight is tomorrow night.” Smitty raised his voice even more. “That’s what’s important.”
“I’m fuckin’ sick of people like him—I ain’t taking it any more,” I yelled right back at him.
Smitty stared at me, thought for a second, and let out some air.
“Settle down, settle down.” Smitty’s voice went soft. “It’s over, you need to get your head back into the fight and clear your mind.”
Smitty was talking to me like I was a child, and he put a hand on my shoulder.
“Now we’re going to our rooms, and let’s get our rest,” he said.
He hit the elevator button, and just as quickly as it erupted, the anger subsided. We hit the lobby and headed out to the street for the walk back to the Ramada. We hadn’t walked a block when Smitty started in again with the fight strategy.
“Son, don’t fight this guy. It’s all about movement.” Smitty was consoling now, almost hypnotizing.
“Yeah, Smitty, I know, I know,” I said.
Back at the Ramada, we went to our separate rooms and settled in for the night. Actually, settled wasn’t the right word. Like the night before most fights, I got very little sleep and whatever sleep I got was shitty, the kind where you sort of cruise over real sleep. This was the worst part about fights. There was nothing to do but sit around and get edgy the night before and most of the day of the fight.
I walked around the town the next day, mostly trying to avoid Smitty a bit because he was getting on my nerves with all his repetition about moving and using the jab. Walking the streets and spending a lot of time on my legs wasn’t a good idea because I was going to need them for the fight, but sitting around was making me nuts.
I thought about calling Rudy to check in on Eli and Mikey. I thought about calling Lisa and decided against it. I almost called Trina to see if she could tip me off about Claudia’s plans to fire me. Then I thought about Kelley, and I wanted to call him about Walanda and Shony. The more I walked, the more shit got to me.
It had been a hell of a week and now tonight I was facing this fuckin’ asshole who was probably going to knock me out. Honestly, the guy was stronger, hit harder, and was younger than me. I could probably take him into the later rounds, absorb a lot of punishment, and lose a decision. I just couldn’t stomach looking across the ring and seeing that asshole grinning and exalting himself.
I got back to my room to rest for a couple of hours before I had to leave for the fight. I sat on my bed, and as I looked down at my hands, I noticed they were curled up into tight fists. My right knee wouldn’t stay still, and I got up and paced the room. This was more than the usual pre-fight bullshit—this was something else. My breathing was hard and my palms were coated in sweat.
Whatever this was, it needed to be exorcised and I knew how. It was going to mean something I’d never done before but knew how to do. I might not be a top-ten fighter, but I’ve spent years in inner-city gyms paying the tuition of this game. I knew boxing in and out, and that included the underbelly of what was sometimes a cruel and unforgiving game. Suggs had the strength, he had the talent, but he hadn’t paid for his tuition like I had. He was brought along, managed, and taken care of, and he didn’t know about the respect that was due to another fighter.
I’ve seen and known some fighters who the average guy on the street would think were the biggest assholes in the world. A lot of those guys understood the gym and understood the code fighters lived by, and I respected them. Maybe they wouldn’t be getting citizen-of-the-year awards, but around gyms they had integrity. Suggs pissed on that integrity, he pissed on me and a man like Smitty, a man who should be revered in this. He also hated people for the sake of hate, and I decided then and there that he had to be taught a lesson—Duffy Dombrowski, judge, jury, and executioner.
When Smitty came to my room, I stared straight ahead with nothing but a scowl. I’m usually loose before a bout, cracking wise and making jokes, but this was different and Smitty didn’t like it at all.
“Boy, where’s your head at?” Smitty said.
“I’m good, Smitty, let’s get there,” I said.
“Son,” Smitty almost begged. “It’s about the movement, remember?”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
We waited for the preliminaries, and with two fights to go before the bout, Smitty wrapped my hands. He kept looking up at me with a worried expression on his face. He was concerned, even baffled, because after fifteen years together he’d never seen me like this. When it was time to go, I stared straight ahead and when they announced me, I walked out instead of jogging with my usual bouncing and trotting.
I had on my custom-made trunks, which blended the Irish, Polish, and American flags together. Usually, I come out to Elvis’s opening, the Space Odyssey theme, but tonight I changed it to Elvis’s song “Trouble.” The King was screaming a challenge about whether another man had the guts to look me right in my eye, and I knew that this guy was about to get the trouble he seemed so eager to find.
The crowd booed and heckled, but it sounded like it was detached from me. Soon after I made it into the ring, the crowd erupted as Suggs made his entrance to some goofy country song about kickin’ ass. He was thumping his chest and acting like he was coming to a coronation rather than a fight. He danced past me when he entered the ring.
“You’re getting hurt, you nigger-lovin’ Mick Polack,” he said.
I stared straight ahead, just barely shuffling my legs to stay loose. When the ref called us together for the final instructions, I stared right through Suggs. He said some bullshit that I didn’t hear. I just looked through his eyes. I could taste it.
The bell rang, and I came out in my southpaw stance. I studied the ref’s movement, noticed he was inexperienced, and right from the opening bell I could see he was easy to get out of position. Suggs threw a hook that I partially blocked and partially took on the side of the head. He could hit and it wobbled me.
The crowd cheered like Suggs was the second coming of Joe Louis and Ali mixed together, and I decided to do what I had to do sooner rather than later. The tuition I spent in gyms for years paid for a lot, and not all of it on the square. Tonight, it didn’t matter. Tonight was about something else.
I moved to my right, making sure the ref was behind my left shoulder. I gave Suggs a stutter step to get him on his heels and then I threw my right jab as hard as I could. The jab is the best thing I throw, but tonight I gave it something extra. In the split second before it was to land on Suggs’s face, I snapped my right hand down counterclockwise and I stretched my thumb out as far as I could. My thumb landed solidly into Suggs’s eye and I felt his eyeball give slightly and then bounce against the back of the bony orbital. It was thrown perfectly.
Suggs gasped and then grabbed his eye, temporarily blinded while I threw a wicked body shot into his left side. That made him drop his guard, which
was exactly what I wanted. Then, I stepped closer to him and threw an uppercut with my left, except I deliberately made my fist miss his chin and instead connected with my elbow. My elbow came directly in contact with his jawbone and it made a sick crackly sound. His knees crumpled and he went through the ropes.
As Suggs lay on the ring apron going in and out of consciousness, I called to him.
“Hey, asshole—nis govia and top of the mornin’ to you!” I figured he liked my heritage so much I wished him good health in Polish and good luck in Irish.
Then I spit on him.
The crowd and the ref hadn’t picked up the thumb and the elbow, but they did catch me spitting on him, and that’s when the bedlam started. Beer cups started to fly, Suggs’s corner started to yell at me and Smitty, and the crowd, which was made up of a bunch of toothless Deliverance extras, were getting nuts. There were about two thousand fans there and not a single one for me. It was definitely time to go.
Smitty grabbed me and we ran straight out the exit for the car, getting pelted with beer and popcorn and everything else on the way out. Whatever we had in the locker room wasn’t worth going back for. We started the car and hit the gas and got out of there as fast as we could. We got back to the Ramada, packed whatever shit we had, and got back in the car. Smitty drove us about twenty miles to a nameless motor inn where no one could find us, checking all the way to make sure no one was following us.
It wasn’t until we had checked in to the new motel that we had a chance to say anything to each other. We checked in to separate rooms and for the longest time I just stared into the mirror looking at myself like I was going to find some sense in what had happened. I feared Smitty wouldn’t want anything to do with me, that I violated everything he held dear, and that I was going to lose him and, more importantly, his respect, forever. I needed Smitty; he’d been my anchor since I was a zit-faced teen, and the thought of losing his respect made me feel sick. I couldn’t take that now, not with everything else swirling.
I wasn’t real confident about my mental state. I mean, I knew what I just did and I did it on purpose. I’m glad I did it, but that worried me. Something … something to do with the mess of Walanda’s lost life, the potential of her stepdaughter losing hers, and the bullshit cruelty Mikey and Eli were suffering was eating at me. Maybe it was that existential angst bullshit about the cold cruel world, or maybe that thinking was just a convenient way of categorizing it to cover up the fact that I let Walanda down. She asked for help and I didn’t give it.