“In the ring,” she said, “when a fighter tries to indicate that a punch didn’t hurt him, what it means is it did.”
“Yeah, of course, because otherwise he wouldn’t bother. And they know that because they notice it in other fighters, but it’s automatic. A guy hurts you, you want to make him think he didn’t.” She raised the newspaper, struck him with it.
“Ouch!” he said. “That really hurt!”
“No, it didn’t.”
“No, it didn’t,” he agreed. “Why are we doing this? What’s the point?”
“You don’t even feel it,” she said. “That’s what Darnell always said about blows to the head. Body shots hurt you, when they land and again after the fight’s over, but not head shots. They may knock you out, but they don’t really hurt.”
She punctuated the speech with taps on the head, hitting him with the rolled newspaper, a little harder than before but not very hard, certainly not hard enough to cause pain.
“Okay,” he said. “Cut it out, will you?”
She hit him again.
“Keisha, what the hell’s the point? What are you trying to prove, anyway?”
“It’s cumulative,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“The same as it is in the ring,” she said. “Ribén Molina didn’t kill Darnell. It was all those punches over all those years, punches he didn’t even feel, punches that added up and added up and added up.”
“Could you quit hitting me while we’re talking? I can’t concentrate on what you’re saying.”
“Punch after punch after punch,” she said, continuing to hit him as she talked. “Down all the years, from playground fights to amateur bouts and pro fights. And then there’s training, all those rounds sparring, and yes, you wear headgear, but there’s still impact. The brain gets knocked around, same as your brain’s getting knocked around right now, even if you don’t feel it. Over a period of years, well, you got time to recover, and for a while that’s just what you do, you recover each time, and then there’s a point where you start to show the damage, and from that point on every punch you take leaves its mark on you.”
“Keisha, will you for Chrissake stop it?”
She hit him, harder, on the top of the head. She hit him, not quite so hard, on the side of the head. She hit him, hard, right on the top of the head.
“Keisha!”
She set down the rolled-up newspaper, fetched the roll of duct tape, taped his mouth shut. “Don’t want to listen to you,” she said. “Not right now.” And, with Marty silent, she was silent herself, and the only sound in the room was the impact of the length of newspaper on his head. She fell into an easy rhythm, matching the blows with her own breathing, raising the newspaper as she inhaled, bringing it down as she breathed out.
She beat him until her arm ached.
When she took the tape from his mouth he winced but didn’t cry out. He looked at her and she looked at him and neither of them said anything.
Then he said, “How long are you going to do this?”
“Long as it takes.”
“Long as it takes to do what? To kill me?”
She shook her head.
“Then what?”
She didn’t answer.
“Keisha, I didn’t hit him. And I didn’t try to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. Keisha, there was no damage showed up in the MRI, nothing in the brain scan.”
“I said for you to let an expert examine him. Study his speech and all. But you wouldn’t do it.”
“And I told you why. You want me to tell you again?”
“No.”
“Keisha, he had an aneurysm. A blood vessel in the brain, it just blew out. Maybe it was from the punches he took, but maybe it wasn’t. He could have been a hundred miles away from Rubén Molina, lying in a Jacuzzi and eating a ham sandwich, and the blood vessel coulda popped anyway, right on schedule.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know any different. Keisha, you want to let me up? I gotta go to the bathroom.”
She shook her head.
“It’s your chair. You want me to make a mess on it?”
“If you want.”
“Keisha—”
“Some of them,” she said, “the ones who took too many punches, they get so they can’t control their bladders. But that’s a long ways down the line. Slurred speech comes first, and you aren’t even slurring your words yet.”
He started to say something, but she was pressing the tape in place. He didn’t resist, and this time when she picked up the rolled newspaper he didn’t even attempt to dodge the blows.
A WINNING COMBINATION
by Brendan DuBois
It was dusk when Jerry Hughes stepped out of his car, slipping his reporter’s notebook into his inside coat pocket. He shivered, and hoped he had shivered just because of the October air, and not because of the surroundings. He was in part of the city he had never been before, not once, and he made sure all of the doors to his six-month-old car were locked. His own newspaper had run glowing stories these past months about how the city of Cooper, Maine, was recovering nicely, with federal building funds and grants, but he felt like he had been transported into some industrial stretch of New Jersey or New York.
The streets were cracked and potholed, and most of the buildings had blank storefront windows, with cardboard signs wilting against the dirty glass, offering the spaces for lease or rent. Besides his own Toyota, not a single vehicle parked in view had an undented surface or uncracked windshield. Paper and other trash filled the gutters, and the few men strolling by—no women in sight—gave him a quick and blank gaze of hostility he had never seen before, up in Federal Hill, the arts district, Harbor Point, or even City Hall.
He shivered again and started walking. Before him, on a street corner, was a dirty brick building that extended out, with a cracked cement stoop. The sign above the double-glass doors said Roland’s gym, and as he got closer, Jerry heard some laughter. He stopped, looked across the street. Three or four guys were hanging around a variety store that had bars over its doors and windows— the first time he had ever seen such a thing in Maine—and they seemed to be pointing and laughing at him. His hands felt tingly and he looked to the dirty glass of the doors to the gym. Just a minute ago the place seemed frightening, depressing, a place he would never look at twice for anything.
But now, with those guys across the street looking at him, the place looked as inviting as Disney World. He opened the glass doors and walked in.
Earlier in the day, Jerry was at his desk at the Cooper Sentinel, trying to decide which upcoming event he should highlight for his weekend column, “Port of Call.” The newsroom was fairly quiet, nothing like the old days, some of the old-timers complained, but Jerry rather liked the stillness that came over the place during the afternoon. The old-timers would talk about the times when the floor was tiled and typewriters were still used, along with the old teletype machines, and when it came close to deadline, there would be a low roar that would get louder and louder, from phones ringing and editors yelling and reporters typing.
Now there was the occasional blew-bleep of a phone ringing, and the constant, almost monkish clack-clack of computer keys, and except for the vibration that one could feel every afternoon at 1 p.m. when the presses started up in the basement, a visitor could be in an insurance or bank office.
Jerry looked through the offerings yet again. A press release from a woman sculptor who was opening her own one-woman show at the Cate Gallery in the Port District, and the gallery owner had called yesterday, saying the woman had a great story to tell, that she had left an abusive relationship and was now on her own, creating dark pieces of wood sculpted to reflect her inner turmoil. The other possibility was about a poet who was slowly going blind and was writing furiously, as fast as he could, because he could only create his best works by taking an old-fashioned fountain pen to white paper and—
“Jerry? My office, okay?”
He looked up, saw the receding form of his new editor, scratching at his butt and heading into his office. He sighed, picked up a notepad, followed the man in. Rick Burrows, one of the old-timers and one who hated anything soft about the newspaper. Soft news, soft features and especially, soft columns. Rick had been an assistant city editor until the features editor had left, and he was warming that seat until a new editor could be hired. A month ago Jerry didn’t know how good he had it with Rhonda Owens. The two of them worked well together, explored the art and history of the old port city, and while she could be a tough editor, she had loved his copy and loved his stories even more. But now she and her partner had gone out west to Santa Fe, leaving him behind. He still couldn’t shake off the feelings of abandonment, as silly as it sounded.
Rick sat down at his desk, breathing hard, his thin black hair not even coming close to hiding a large bald spot. He was close to three hundred pounds in weight and sucked a lot of hard candies, since the office was a no smoking area and it seemed his editor didn’t like making the fifty-yard walk to smoke outside. The office was a mess: old coffee cups, file folders, filing cabinets so full that the drawers couldn’t shut. Rhonda’s office, at the other side of the newsroom, was still dark and closed, almost like a shrine. Days like this one, Jerry thought, he considered lighting a candle outside of Rhonda’s office, still mourning for her passing.
Rick coughed. “I’ll get right to it, Jerry. There’s gonna be some changes in your column.”
Jerry said, “Well, I could try writing them in French, but it’s been a while. Those damn verbs keep tripping me up.”
Rick’s eyes narrowed. “What you call your sense of humor won’t go far with me, or anybody else in this paper.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“You didn’t mean that, so I won’t say you’re welcome,” Rick said. He opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out five or six lottery scratch tickets. In his large hands the quarter he used to rub off each ticket looked as small as a nickel. “Let’s see. Last column you wrote about a high school dance club that needs to raise money for a trip to Augusta. Week before that, you wrote about a songwriter whose favorite guitar got stolen. And the week before that, a story about a glassblower who burned his right hand and can’t work as well anymore. You see a pattern here, Jerry?”
He was going to say something wise about a collection of prize-winning pieces for next year’s New England Press Association Awards, but he didn’t like the way Rick wasn’t even looking at him, how he was concentrating on carefully scratching off each lottery ticket. Little bits of gray fluff started piling up around his hands. “No, I don’t see a pattern,” Jerry said.
“Well, I’m glad to clue you in, me being your editor and all. Those stories are heart-tugging pieces about the artists in our fair city and the troubles they face. In other words, about losers that nobody cares about.”
His hands tightened about his notebook. “I care about them. And so do our readers.”
“Wrong,” Rick said. “You care about them and hardly anybody else does. Which means your columns are going to take another tack, Jerry. You’re going to start doing stories about real people in the city. And you’re gonna start with this one.”
Rick wrote something down on the back of an empty envelope, passed it over. “Here you go. Sonny Gaston. At Roland’s Gym. Get there this afternoon.”
Jerry didn’t pick up the scrap of paper. “Who’s Sonny Gaston?”
“Kid about twenty, twenty-one. Has had some rough times growing up. Nice feature piece.”
He picked up the envelope. “All right, who is he? A gymnast?”
Rick laughed. “Yeah, in a manner of speaking. He’s a boxer.”
“A fighter?” Jerry asked, looking up in surprise.
“Yeah, a boxer.”
“You want me to do a story about a guy who fights somebody else? On purpose?”
“Sure seems that way.”
Jerry pushed the paper back. “No. I won’t. I’ve got a reputation with my readers and the paper. Look, Rick. I’m a features column. I do pieces about the art life in Cooper, culture and—”
“Wrong,” Rick said, returning to his lottery tickets. “You’re a columnist in the features section of the Sentinel. You do columns about feature stories that take place in Cooper. You’re going to do a column about this kid boxer. And it’s going to be a good column. And if you start whining and thinking of excuses for not doing it, here’s a news flash. Your old editor’s out west with her girlfriend. Her old job may not be filled. There may be cutbacks coming down the pike for the Sentinel, which means I’m doing everything to keep my job ’cause I got tuition to pay for two daughters. And the first ones out the door will be writers who don’t listen to the editors. There. Clear enough?”
Jerry just nodded. Picked up the old envelope and left without a word.
Inside the gym the air seemed like it came from another planet, perhaps Venus of the old science fiction pulp magazines. It was thick and hot and muggy, and filled with powerful scents that almost made him gag. There was a reception desk of sorts that was empty and some old easy chairs kept together by duct tape and stitching. The tile floor looked like it had been white once, and was now a dull yellow. He followed the noise down a small corridor, and then paused as he entered the gym, now breathing through his mouth because the smell was so thick. The first thing he noticed was the crowded condition of the gym, followed instantly by the noise, the loud sounds coming from every part of the room. There was a series of rapid slap-slap-slap sounds, coming from boxers doing jump-rope exercises, their black-booted feet pounding the floor, and another, harsher, slap-slap-slap sound came from other boxers in the corner, striking at hanging punching bags with such speed that their gloved hands were a blur. There were deeper, thumping noises as other boxers struck heavier punching bags, the chains holding them up jangling with each blow. Dominating the room were two raised platforms, bounded on all four sides by ropes. Rings, Jerry thought, though why in hell would they be called rings if they were square?
In each ring were two fighters, seemingly egged on by coaches from the sidelines. The fighters wore shorts and tank-top T-shirts, and each wore a padded helmet. In addition to the noises of the jump roping, the bag punching, and the feet slapping the ground, there were sounds from the boxers and coaches themselves. Grunts, snorts, puffing sounds like locomotives from the breathing of the boxers, and the shouts from the coaches: “Jab! Jab! Duck now! Keep your elbows in!”
Jerry felt like he had been upended from a safe and secure platform and dumped into a swamp of scents and sounds he had never experienced before. The young men in here were hitting each other, were actually striking blows against one another, and he felt nauseous at hearing the sounds of the gloves striking flesh. He remembered reading somewhere that boxing was called “the sweet science,” but he didn’t see anything sweet here, not at all. One young boxer sat down on a stool, breathing hard, sweat making his dark skin glisten, as an older man leaned over and yelled in his ear. The boxer nodded blankly, took a swig of water and leaned over and spat it onto the dirty floor.
Sweet science indeed.
He looked around, trying to spot somebody in charge, but everybody seemed locked in their own little world. The fighters at the different punching bags were eyeing what they were doing, and the boxers in the rings were either fighting their opponent or listening to their coaches. No one paid him any mind at all, and he looked at the large clocks on the stained walls, at the signs that said think like A champ, hit like A champ and peeling posters from boxing matches from years gone by. Finally, a slim man in trunks and T-shirt came by, wiping at his face with a towel, and Jerry said, “Excuse me?”
“Yeah?” came the voice, partially muffled from the towel.
“I’m looking for the owner,” he said. “Or the manager. Or somebody in charge.”
The towel came down, exposing a puffy lip and swollen ch
eek, but the guy didn’t seem upset by his injury. “That’d be Tom. Tom Hart. The guy over there in the corner.”
“Thanks,” Jerry said, but the young man had already left. Jerry walked over to the corner, where a man in his early forties was examining a clipboard. He was about Jerry’s size but his shoulders were wider. He had a thick black moustache and prominent ears. He looked up as Jerry approached and said, “You’re the guy from the Sentinel.”
“Yes, I am,” he said. “Jerry Hughes. I’m sorry, have we met before?”
Tom laughed. “No, I was expecting a guy from the paper to stop by, and don’t be offended, pal, but you sort of don’t fit in. You know?”
Jerry knew it well, felt that flush of shame that came from being a good student in grammar school and high school, good enough with books and assignments, never quite good enough for sports or girls. “Yeah, I know. I’m not quite meeting the dress code around here.”
Tom smiled. “Good call on your part. I know your editor, Rick. Looking for Sonny, right?”
“That’s right.”
Tom pointed over to the far corner, where a young boxer was punching a suspended bag, his moving hands a blur. “That’s him. Go on and talk to him, but good luck.”
Jerry didn’t like being told good luck in a place where men were pounding on each other. “What do you mean, good luck?”
Tom smiled again, showing surprisingly good teeth, or the results of a good dentist. “I mean I talked to him about an article, and he’s not too crazy about it. See, he’s a good kid, big heart and fast hands. He just hasn’t had many breaks. He’s got a big fight coming up in a couple of days that he’s gonna lose, and well...I thought something like this might make it better. Give him something positive before he gets whaled on.”
Sure, Jerry thought, that’s what his column was designed for. To make slow-thinking punchers feel better. “All right, I’ll see what 1 can do. Thanks.”
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