When I Found You
Page 23
Nat looked over. It was the guy who had won the fight right before his. The light-skinned black guy who had fought so well.
He quickly looked away again.
“I don’t know what fight you’re talking about.”
“The one in the Bronx.”
“I didn’t hear about it.”
“Really? That guy was talking to your trainer. Isn’t that your trainer, that real short little guy? That guy with the beard and the wild hair was talking to him. Right after he talked to my father. Right after my father said no.”
“And he offered you a fight? What kind of a fight?”
“Pro. Hundred bucks for every round you can stay in. But it’s unregulated, so my father won’t let me do it. I just wondered if you were gonna do it. Awful lot of money.”
Nat shook off and zipped up. Stepped back away from the urinal. “Yeah. I am. I’m gonna do it.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. “Good fight, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Nat said. “You looked good out there, too.”
• • •
He found Little Manny right where he had left him, sitting with Nathan and Carol, watching total strangers fight. If you could call it fighting.
Carol looked over her shoulder at Nat and smiled in a way that made his stomach feel warm and runny. He wanted to smile back properly, but he couldn’t shake being mad. Not on such short notice.
“Little Manny,” he said, speaking up slightly to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “Can I have a word with you?”
“Sure, kid. You wanna take it outside?”
“Yeah,” Nat said. “I do.”
• • •
“So when were you planning on telling me?”
“Never. I was planning on telling you never. Because we’re not gonna do it.”
“Well, maybe you’re not. But I am.”
They stood with their backs against the brick of the building. Nat nursed the silence briefly while a siren went by. Fire engine. There was always some disaster in New York City. But at least here something happened.
He shivered slightly in his tank top and trunks, but refused to let on that he was cold.
“Look. Kid. It’s my job to protect you—”
“From what? From fights?”
“From fights like this. Yeah. Look. You still don’t know the boxing world so good. So lemme give you a crash course. This is a fight nobody regulates. That means if a guy fights you dirty, maybe the official says something, maybe not. Probably not. No regulation means no weigh-in. This guy tells me his boy is a welterweight, but we don’t know. We’re just taking his word. For all we know the guy could outweigh you by forty pounds. Plus it’s tomorrow night, and I never trust a fight that comes together last-minute like that. And he’s trying to get four, five guys to go up against his boy in one night. Offering big money to whoever can stay in. But did you stop to ask yourself what he’s doing recruiting a bunch of amateurs? Plus it’s too much money.”
Nat snorted laughter. “Too much money? Too much? You gotta be kidding me. There’s no such thing as too much money. Too much for who?”
“How do I explain it to you, kid? So’s you get it? It’s like, if you see all-you-can-eat pancakes for about a dollar, you think it’s a good deal. You think you’ll put one over on ’em. Get something for nothing. Only, turns out you can only eat three or four pancakes anyway, and they know it. This guy’s got no intention of shelling out a thousand bucks to four or five fighters. If he’s offering that kind of bucks it’s because he knows he’ll never have to pay it. He’s just putting on a show. It’s like a gladiator sport. You know? It’s a chance to make his boy look good in front of a crowd that pays to watch you bleed.”
“I don’t care. I’m doing it.”
For one wonderful moment, Little Manny said nothing. A woman in a startlingly short skirt walked by and gave Nat a suggestive glance over her shoulder.
“You don’t care about much of anything, do you?”
“You want to know what I care about?” Nat said, raising his voice in a way he never had with Little Manny before. “I’ll tell you what I care about. My wife. I care about my wife. Who, by the way, still doesn’t even have a decent wedding ring. If I can hold my ground even three rounds with this guy, I could buy her a nice ring. That’s what I care about. So don’t tell me I don’t care about anything. If you really believe that, you don’t know me at all. Now when is this fight? And where?”
Little Manny shook his head five or six times before answering. “Oh, no. No, no. Maybe I can’t stop you from doing this fool thing, kid, but I ain’t about to draw you a map.”
Little Manny turned on his heel and went back inside.
Nat stood a moment, breathing the bitingly cold city air. Then he followed Little Manny back into the gym.
He scanned the room for a guy with a beard and wild hair. He wasn’t hard to find. A guy with hair like that — like he’d grabbed hold of a live electrical wire — was as easy to pick out of a crowd as a car in a parking lot with a balloon tied to its antenna.
Nat elbowed his way through the crowd to try to reach him. But it was between events, and the spectators were all on their feet and milling. The guy with the hair was talking to another fighter, which made Nat feel he had to hurry. That an opportunity was just about to slip away.
He felt the presence of someone on his heels, and turned around to see Little Manny following barely a step behind.
“What are you doing here? Are you stupid enough to try to stop me?”
“No. No, kid, I ain’t nearly that stupid. I just figure if you’re gonna do this fool thing, you’re better to do it with me than without me.”
• • •
“Um. We’re going to send you guys home without us,” Nat said.
“Is everything all right?’ Nathan asked.
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Everything’s good. Little Manny just ran into some friends of his and we have this chance to do some sparring. You know. Like, on a different level than I could do at home.”
But to Nat’s own ears it sounded like the lie it was. And he was sure everyone else must have heard the lie in it, too. Plus Little Manny kept looking away, at the floor, and that didn’t help one bit. Nat felt a strong jolt to his stomach, remembering Nathan’s voice when he said “Don’t ever lie to me again.” He had done it, and it was too late to undo it now.
“So, Carol and I will drive home and you’ll …” Nathan trailed off. Let Nat finish the sentence.
“Take the bus. Or the train. Probably day after tomorrow.”
“OK,” Nathan said.
So Nathan did not have super powers after all. He could not see right through Nat, as feared.
• • •
Just before they left the gym, Nathan pulled him aside.
“I just want you to know I’m proud of you tonight,” he said.
“You are?”
“Very.”
“You never said that to me before.”
“I never claimed to be easily impressed.”
“As a matter of fact I’m trying to think if anybody ever said that to me before. But I don’t really think so.” The pause felt awkward, so he rushed on. “Because I won?”
“No, not because you won. Partly because you’ve worked so hard, but mostly because you did this thing right. I know you wanted to rush, and I know there are parts of your trainer’s schedule that you don’t like, but you exercised patience. Along with everything else you exercised.”
Nat looked away. Down at the gym floor. “Thanks,” he said.
When he looked up, Nathan was already walking away.
For one long, struggling, balancing-act of a moment, Nat almost ran after him. Almost said, Never mind. We’ll catch the ride home with you after all.
Carol tipped it for him. She tossed a glance over her shoulder at him. Smiled. Blew him a kiss. Then she turned and ran back to him. Threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. “You were so great.
I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
“Have a good time sparring. Be as good as you were tonight.”
He looked down at her left hand, resting on his bare forearm. At the impossibly cheap silver band they were using as a sort of placeholder for the real thing.
“I’ll try,” he said.
7 March 1980
Tremble
“This can’t be it,” Nat said.
“Oh, this is it, all right,” Little Manny said. “What’d you expect? Madison Square Garden?”
They stood in front of a dark equipment yard, surrounded by high-chain link topped with loops of razor wire. A good city block back into the yard, Nat could see a few dark shapes of people moving into and out of a huge sheet-metal warehouse.
“Not too late to back out, kid,” Little Manny said.
“I don’t back out,” Nat said. “I’m not a guy who backs out.”
The words seemed to tremble slightly as they rose up from his lungs, making him feel like a layered being with his steel only on the outermost skin.
“Yeah. Tell me all about it. I noticed that about you. I’ll be sure to carve that on your gravestone.”
“Thanks heaps,” Nat said.
• • •
“That’s a welterweight?” It came out of Nat’s mouth before he could stop it. He hoped the crowd noise had swallowed his words. That Little Manny had never received them. He looked down at the little man, who was just opening his mouth to speak. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. Don’t even bother to say it. You warned me. I know.”
The first fight was already in progress. No announcer, which seemed weird to Nat. The seats consisted of a bunch of folding chairs scattered at random. Maybe a hundred guys sat around the ring, cheering and booing and drinking beer and hard liquor out of translucent plastic cups, the bottles sitting on the concrete floor at their feet.
The dominating boxer had a smaller fighter on the ropes, pummeling him. Nat waited for a bell to ring, or an official to pull the big guy off. Then he reminded himself. At least he hadn’t said it out loud, to Little Manny, and opened up another opportunity to be reminded that he’d been warned. Because the smaller fighter was pinned on the ropes, it was hard for him to fall. And as long as he wasn’t on the mat, the fight would go on. But it looked like nothing more than a bloodbath to Nat. The kid on the ropes had completely given up fighting, and just held both gloves in front of his face while his big opponent landed blows to the head on either side of them. It got clearer by the second that only the ropes held the poor guy up at all. The crowd went crazy. Really ate it up. I guess I was warned about that, too, Nat thought.
He felt a deep and growing sensation of heat, melting heat. It started in his lower gut and groin and poured down through his thighs, making them feel wobbly and weak.
The poor kid on the ropes finally went down by the quickest route possible. His knees buckled, folded up, and he just sank away from his opponent, as though a trap door had blessedly opened under his feet to swallow him, leaving nothing left for his opponent to strike.
Nat watched the count, but couldn’t hear it over the wild noise of the crowd.
He looked around and saw, with a jolt of panic, that Little Manny had disappeared.
It had never felt so important to him to keep someone he knew standing by his side. Someone he trusted to be solidly on his team. His mind shifted back to last night’s amateur fight. Looking up to see Nathan and Carol in the audience cheering for him. He wished he could transport himself back there, somehow.
Little Manny appeared suddenly in front of him, and he sighed with relief.
“You wanna go next? Get this over with? The next fighter didn’t show.”
“Wonder what happened to him.”
“Prob’ly had a brain left in his head, unlike you, and backed out.”
“Yeah, OK,” Nat said. “I’ll go next. Get this over with.”
“OK, go change into your trunks.”
“Where?” Nat asked, looking around.
“Men’s room, I guess.”
• • •
Nat stood a moment in front of the filthy mirror in the tiny, filthy toilet. The bare light bulb over his head seemed to show everything for what it really was. Nothing hidden. No lies.
He took himself in. The boxing trunks and belt. The six-pack abs. The biceps. The pecs. No head guard. No tank top. Just him, and his months of hard work.
I look like a fighter, he thought. You look like Jack, his head said back to him.
Nathan had said boxing was a dream, until Nat did it. So, tonight was the night. Tonight the dream was real.
The door pushed open a crack and Little Manny stuck his head in.
“Enough with admiring yourself, Cinderella. It’s time to roll.”
• • •
Little Manny hovered over Nat in their corner of the ring, holding out Nat’s mouth guard. Nat opened up to receive it. He barely felt himself doing it. He couldn’t hear himself think over the noise of the crowd. Every movement felt like a walk through a vivid dream.
Ironic, he thought. Tonight it’s not a dream, but it’s never felt more like one.
“OK, here’s what I’m thinking for a strategy. Just guard. Just keep your guard up. Don’t try to get fancy, because I don’t think you’re going to throw a punch that’ll faze him much anyway. So don’t even leave yourself open. The idea is to hold in a few rounds, so just stay away from him and keep your guard up.”
Nat wanted to say something like, thanks for all your confidence in me. But he settled for a weak nod instead.
“On your feet, kid.”
Nat stepped into the center of the ring and touched gloves with his opponent. A white guy with his wiry black hair shaved short, who Nat had sized up as a good two weight-classes too big. Maybe even light heavyweight.
The guy sneered at him. It was a sarcastic smile that seemed to say, this will be easy.
The warm, melty feeling in his groin intensified. It felt more liquid this time, and he glanced down to be sure he hadn’t literally urinated on himself. Thank God he had not. Thank God it was only a sensation.
He returned to his corner as instructed. Found Little Manny’s face, because it was something familiar. The only thing familiar. Then he looked away again, because he didn’t like what he saw on that face.
The bell in his vivid dream rang.
Nat stepped in boldly, but the monster fighter of this dream stepped in faster, and threw a punch. Nat felt as though he’d seen first the monster, then the monster’s fist, approaching in slow motion. He blocked the punch, but was surprised by the force of it hitting his gloves.
Three more landed, each equally surprising.
He heard Little Manny shout something about footwork.
A sudden flash of a memory. The old gym. Little Manny’s voice. “Watch Jack’s footwork. When it comes to footwork, he’s the king.” It woke him up, and he began to dance away from the punches. At least make himself harder to hit, a moving target. Minimize the number of blows that would land.
Jack would want me to fight this one, Nat thought.
He threw a punch, but it bounced off the monster’s gloves.
After that, it seemed he had no choice but to dance, evade and protect. He was able to kill well over a minute just by being hard to pin down.
Each second seemed to last minutes, but the bell was coming. It was right around the corner. He knew it by feel. Every cell in his body knew the length of two minutes in the ring. It should come … right about … here.
No bell.
Nat continued to dance, taking blows to his gloved fists and occasionally his head, thinking his timing had been off by a few seconds.
Still no bell.
That’s when it dawned on him. This was an unregulated fight. No one was keeping watch. They could ring that damn bell any time they wanted. Or not. And every time they did, it would cost somebody a hundred bucks. So why should they?
Before he could regroup, the monster landed a body blow to Nat’s right side that broke several of his ribs. Or cracked them at least. He heard himself involuntarily release a big sound. A cross between a grunt and crying out loud. It ashamed him, but he couldn’t help it. It just all happened so fast.
The crowd noise intensified, if such a thing were possible, inside Nat’s skull.
He raised his gloves again to defend himself, but the right didn’t come up as high as he expected it to, as he told it to. As if the pain tied it down closer to his waist.
The final blow hit him in the right temple.
He heard the crowd suck in its collective breath.
His head whipped around, painfully wrenching his neck and sending his mouth guard flying. Time dealt a weird, uneven wrinkle. First he hovered too long, out of balance and destined to go down, hanging at an impossible angle for an impossible length of time. Then the mat smacked him without any intervening fall.
The jolt to his ribs felt searing, but he found himself unable to express anything about it.
He lay with his eyes open. He vacantly saw the crowd on its feet now, cheering and sloshing beer. The scene in front of his eyes moved from crowd, to dim, to dark, then back to crowd again. Back to dark. Back to crowd. It felt surprisingly satisfying to lie entirely still. Appropriate. The ceiling lights at the far end of the building glowed with light haloes. He heard the counting but it sounded muted, muffled. Drawn out and far away.
He might possibly have lost a few brief segments of time, but he wasn’t sure.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “You OK, kid? Can you get up?” Little Manny.
“I’m fine, yeah.”
“Can you get up?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
Nat placed both gloved fists on the mat and raised himself to his knees. The haloed ceiling lights began to spin in a broad circle around him, making him feel as though he might throw up. The crowd was booing. Booing him? That was too hard to figure out. But he knew they’d been doing it for some time. It just hadn’t quite broken through.