Atlas

by Teddy Atlas

  “Remember, it’s always good to throw the punch where you can hit him, but he can’t hit you. That’s the science.” He didn’t actually get in the ring with us very often, but he’d demonstrate what he was talking about, moving his hands to indicate. I picked up on things quickly.

  There’s no question that Cus was doing things for me that I’d wanted my father to do: giving me guidance, telling me the things I needed to hear, paying attention to me—things I’d been starving for. He made me feel good about myself, focusing on my strengths, not my failings. “You’re loyal, Teddy. You don’t rat on your friends. I like that.”

  Rooney and I were sparring a fair amount in the gym, and Cus was impressed by my punching power and natural ability in the ring. “You got professional potential,” he told me. “You punch with the right hand as hard as any fighter I’ve ever had, and you got a good chin.” I knew he was exaggerating, but it still felt good to hear stuff like that.

  Jim Jacobs, who was Cus’s best friend and a fight film historian, was going to manage me when I turned professional. Jacobs was rich, plus he had a manager’s license, which Cus didn’t, so that was how they worked it out: Cus the guru, Jacobs and his partner Bill Cayton the money men.

  When he thought I was ready, Cus entered me in the Adirondacks Golden Gloves. I knocked out my first opponent in the opening round, and I kept knocking guys out all the way to the title. As good as things were going for me in Catskill, there was a black cloud hanging over me: My sentencing date for the robbery and gun charges was quickly approaching, and I was more than a little worried about how it would turn out.

  I wasn’t the only one. The specter of me doing real jail time had my mother and father fighting about me again. The lawyer my father hired, Dan Leddy, thought it could make a big difference if my father testified on my behalf. But my father refused. “He says he’s not going into that courthouse to defend a son who broke the law,” my mother told me. “He’s so goddamn stubborn. He won’t listen to me. Why don’t you talk to him, Teddy? Tell him you need him.”

  “I’m not gonna do that.”

  “But it could make a difference.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You’re just as stubborn as he is.”

  I went back to Staten Island, trying to mentally prepare myself for the worst. On the day of the sentencing, I sat at the defendant’s table with Dan Leddy. My mother was seated right behind us in the front row. My father, true to his word, didn’t show up. Near the end of the proceeding, there was a commotion in the back of the courtroom. I looked around, and there was Cus, making his way in. Dan Leddy announced to Judge Rayden, a dour-looking fellow in his sixties, that we had one more person who wanted to speak on my behalf: “The defense calls Mr. Constantine D’Amato.”

  I’ll never know how much Cus’s testimony swayed the judge, but it definitely made a difference in the judge’s final dispensation. Cus had charisma and he knew how to command a room. When Leddy asked him to describe the nature of his relationship with me, Cus turned to the judge, and there was a catch in his throat. He said, “Your Honor, I realize you might not know much about me, but I’ve spent my whole life developing young men. As a boxing manager I trained two world champions, heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and light heavyweight champion Jose Torres.

  “I’ve also helped a lot of other young boys straighten out their lives and build character. I know things about Teddy Atlas this court doesn’t know. Things you won’t find on his arrest record. This boy has character. He has loyalty. He’ll hurt himself before he’ll let down a friend. These qualities are rare, and they shouldn’t be lost. He’s made mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes. But I’ve come to know this boy, and if we lose him, we’ll be losing someone who could help a lot of people.”

  At this point, Cus began to cry. Without wiping away the tears, he said, “Please don’t take this young boy’s future away. He could be someone special. Let’s not lose him. Please….”

  Even the court officers were choked up. Despite a plea bargain that my lawyer had set up, the judge still had some discretion in the terms. He could have made things tough on me; instead, he let me off with probation on the condition that I continue living in Catskill with Cus.

  Two months later, with my legal problems behind me, I fought a guy I had knocked out in the Gloves in a club fight, a tough kid named Danny Chapman. I dropped him in the first round, but he was real gutsy and got back up. I started to go after him again and felt a sudden grab in my upper back. Sharp and very painful. Though I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, my back had been bothering me more and more over the months, to the point where I couldn’t go through sustained training without it tightening up or seizing up on me. So now I was in this fight with this tough guy, and I couldn’t bend or dip. I was getting hit with punches that I normally would have slipped. Instead, I was just standing there, going toe-to-toe with him, hitting him but getting hit because I couldn’t move.

  Somehow, I won a close decision, but it was much tougher than it should have been. Of course Cus noticed. He saw that I was wincing and grimacing after every punch I threw.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked me afterward.

  “Nothing.”

  “You gonna tell me or not? I can see you’re in pain.”

  “My back tightened up.”

  “Where?”

  “Up here. Right below my shoulders.”

  “Has this ever happened before?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know.”

  Cus wanted to take me in for tests. I resisted. I knew something was wrong, I just didn’t want to hear some doctor confirm it. In the end, he took me to see this guy in Manhattan who Jim Jacobs recommended. The X-rays revealed that I had scoliosis, as well as gaps in the vertebrae and a herniated disc.

  The doctor was of the opinion that boxing could make my condition worse. Cus and I wound up having an argument over it on the drive back upstate.

  “You heard what he said, Teddy. It’s a tough break, but what are you gonna do?”

  “I can take the pain. He didn’t say I had to stop.”

  “He said you could make it worse. I won’t allow it.”

  I sulked, and Cus let me drive in silence for a few miles.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” he said at last. “You can still be involved in boxing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think you could be a good trainer. I’ve seen the way you talk to Rooney and some of the other kids. You’re a born teacher.”

  “I’m a fighter, not a teacher.”

  “You can become the same type of success through your fighters. Because if you take a boy and teach him to fight from beginning to end, part of you is in him, too. So that when he fights, part of you is in that ring.”

  From that day on, Cus began working on me every chance he got, telling me he thought I’d make a good trainer. He really knew how to lay it on. He told me that teachers were born, not made; that I had been born with the gift, and it would be a shame if I didn’t make use of that gift. Cus was very smart about people, he had very good instincts about them, and I think he really saw something in me that made him think I’d be a good trainer. At the same time, he had an ulterior motive: if I became a trainer it would serve his own purposes. He was getting older and he needed somebody to help him, an ally. Either way, I didn’t want to hear it. I was still young. I wanted to fight, I didn’t want to teach. The dream of being a professional fighter was the thing that was pulling me forward, keeping me directed. If I couldn’t continue, then to hell with boxing and to hell with Catskill. At least that was the way I felt at the time.

  THERE AND

  BACK AGAIN

  W HENI TOLD CUS THAT I WAS GOING BACK HOME, HE said, “You can’t go. You gotta stay here. I’m responsible for you. That was the deal.”

  The funny thing is that despite the fact that the terms of my parole stipulated that I stay in Catskill under Cus’s supervision, my parole officer
, Steve Zawada, had taken a liking to me (he’d even driven up to Catskill one time to watch me box), so he didn’t bust my balls or try to stop me when I decided to leave. He understood that if I couldn’t fight, I didn’t want to be there.

  Back home, things were pretty much the same as they’d always been. My father was wrapped up in his life and his patients, my mother was still drinking, and nobody’s communication skills had improved much in the time I’d been away. My father certainly wasn’t happy about my situation. I was nineteen years old and a high school dropout. It was disappointing and embarrassing for him. He tried to help me out by getting me a job as a janitor at Marine Hospital, in the Stapleton section of town. I worked there for a while, but pretty soon I was back to my old ways, hanging out with the guys down in the neighborhood, doing burglaries and getting into fights.

  Cus and I maintained phone contact. We’d talk every week, and he’d try to tempt me into coming back. He was crafty. He was a seed planter. Not too long after I left, he called me up and said, “I need a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rooney’s fighting in the Ohio State Fair. Somebody has to go with him. I can’t go, but it’s an important thing for him and he needs somebody he can trust and count on. I need somebody I can trust and count on.”

  The Ohio State Fair was one of the toughest and most prestigious boxing tournaments in the country, on a par with the National Golden Gloves and the National AAU. Any amateur who wanted to be taken seriously had to compete there. If you wanted to fight in the Olympics, you needed to fight in the Ohio State Fair.

  Cus knew how I felt about loyalty. He was basically telling me, Rooney needs you, and I need you.

  I understood that he probably could have gone himself or sent someone else. But what was implied in the way he asked me was that I owed him something and I owed Rooney something, and it was true, I did. But Cus was also saying that Rooney would have a better chance to win if I was there, and even though I didn’t necessarily believe that, I wanted to believe it, which Cus understood.

  “Rooney’s trying to make the Olympic team. You could be the difference, Teddy.”

  A couple of days later, I took a train to Catskill, and then Rooney and I drove the five hundred miles to Ohio, a twelve-hour ride. The cheapest accommodations were at the university, so that’s where we stayed, sharing the top and bottom of a bunk bed in one of the dorm rooms.

  As Rooney’s trainer, I had to register him, get his medical approval in order, find out when he was fighting, and make sure he got there on time. It might not sound like much, but it was important, because if you were late you would be disqualified. When I called Cus to tell him what was going on and how we were doing, he said, “See, I told you you’d be good at this.”

  The fights took place outdoors on the fairgrounds. There were three fights going on at any one time in three different rings. They used a whistle in one, a bell in another, and a clang in the other, so the fighters would know when a round was over. There were hundreds of fighters milling around, all waiting for their bouts. Across the fairgrounds were the rides and food stalls, the smell of grilled hamburgers and hot dogs hanging in the air. The first day, Rooney’s fight didn’t start until one in the morning. I’d found out from my father that it took five hours to digest food (“Except pork,” he said. “Don’t eat pork, it takes longer for the body to break it down”), so I timed Rooney’s meal accordingly. While we were waiting for our fight, I eavesdropped on conversations between the other trainers and fighters. There was a lot you could pick up just by listening.

  About an hour before Rooney’s fight, the clouds opened up and it poured. They didn’t have tents over the rings, but they couldn’t cancel the bouts because the schedule wouldn’t allow it. The ring was slippery. The grounds had turned to mud, and the fighters’ shoes were slick with mud by the time they climbed into the ring. I found plastic bags and taped them on Rooney’s feet. Just before he stepped in the ring for his fight, I cut the bags off. He was the only fighter with clean, dry shoes. I told him to take small steps, bend his knees, and not move around too much. He kept his footing, won the fight, and afterward I noticed that everybody else started using plastic bags.

  Following each fight, I looked at the draw, found out who Rooney had next, then dug up all I could about the guy. In the quarterfinals we fought a New York boxer I knew very well, Davey Moore, a future world champ. He had a very big rep. I called up Cus to discuss strategy. Moore liked to shoeshine—a showboat move where you drop your hands and throw a rapid flurry of punches to the midsection. Cus said, “That’s good. You know what his main thing is.” I had also noticed that Moore didn’t bend his knees when he did it. It left him open. So I’d instructed Rooney to fire right back to his head when he tried to shoeshine. At the very least it might take it away from him.

  “Call me when it’s over,” Cus said. “I’ll be waiting by the phone.”

  I phoned Cus right after Rooney won the fight. He started gushing. “The Young Master,” he said, “you’re the Young Master.” You had to hand it to Cus. He knew exactly what to say.

  In the finals we fought Bernard “Bad” Mayes from the Kronk gym. Mayes was very fast, very talented. Pure speed. Lightning hands. Cus asked me, “What are you gonna do?” I said, “We gotta go to the body, take some of that speed away, some of that eagerness. Also, time him. Timing can beat speed!” Rooney would need to be very disciplined to win.

  At the end of our conversation, Cus said, “Well, he’s in good hands.”

  The fight started well for us. Rooney won the first round, but when he came back to the corner, I saw the cut he’d gotten on his eyelid was bad. Rooney had thin skin. Irish skin. It was his curse. I managed to stop the bleeding, but the ref came over—in the amateurs it’s safety first—and he took a look at Rooney and waved his hands. Fight over. Boom, just like that. I didn’t make a big deal. I knew that was the rule. You can do things right and it can still be taken out of your hands. The other officials came over and said great job. But it wasn’t much consolation.

  Back in the locker room, I cleaned Rooney’s cut, took some adhesive tape and made four butterfly bandages, and taped him up. The butterflies looked good, professional. I was proud of myself for that. I’d learned from watching my father. When I took Rooney to the hospital to get him stitched, the emergency room intern even complimented me on what I’d done.

  Back in Catskill, Cus saw only the positives. “You did a great job, Teddy. He wouldn’t have gone that far without you.”

  Camille said, “See, Cus was right.”

  “Why? I didn’t do anything special.”

  “No, Cus was right.”

  I knew what they were trying to do. I guess I didn’t trust them completely, that they were thinking only of what was good for me. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready yet to make a commitment to being a trainer. In my mind I was still a fighter. Whatever the case, I went back to Staten Island a few days later.

  For a year I’d lived a clean, disciplined life with Cus in Catskill. Now I was sliding backward, finding out how easy it was to do that. In a way I was even more dangerous than I’d been before the year in Catskill because of the fighting skills I’d developed and honed there. I was like a walking stick of dynamite. Someone looked at me wrong, or said the wrong thing, wham, I’d go off on them.

  I was running with most of the same guys from down the hill that had been around before. Despite what had happened with Billy Sullivan when we’d gotten arrested, and the fact that he had signed that statement for the cops, I wound up letting him talk his way back into my good graces. Another guy, maybe I wouldn’t have, but Billy had that charm; he got me to forgive him.

  ONE NIGHT, IN THE SUMMER OF 1977, THE TWO OF US WERE driving around Stapleton in my old red Chevy, drinking Heinekens. Suddenly, this Cadillac with tinted windows cut us off at a light. Billy hit the brakes, and his beer tipped over, sloshing on his pant leg.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He gu
nned the Chevy hard, pulling even with the Caddy.

  “Hey, jerkoff!”

  He swerved in front of them and hit the brakes. They screeched and slammed to a halt. The driver of the Caddy opened his door and got out. He was a tall black kid, with a cigarette in his mouth. He took the cigarette and flicked it toward us. I was out the door of the Chevy like a shot. Before I got more than a few steps, the other doors of the Caddy swung open and four more guys appeared. Big guys.

  I kept right on going, no hesitation, and dropped one of them with a straight right hand, and hit another one with a left hook. I was doing pretty good, but then the third guy hit me from the side with a blackjack. It stunned me. Before he could hit me again, I grabbed his hair and got him in a choke hold. Meanwhile, Billy was on the roof of the Chevy, brandishing a broken Heineken bottle to keep them away from him.

  I threw the guy with the blackjack to the ground, and then saw the driver coming at me, saw the flash of a knife in his hand. It was this kind of knife called an 007, a flick blade. I remember thinking, That’s a double-oh-seven.

  I knew that he’d have to come with a downward motion so I tried to close the distance, get inside before he could extend his arm. But I was too late. He stepped back and spun, like a matador, slashing the side of my face. The blade was so sharp, I barely felt it. I put my hand up and my fingers just went into my cheek; there was this thick, meaty flap of skin that moved, a warm, wet, syrupy goo oozing from the gash. I staggered and fell to the ground.

  The next thing I knew, Billy was dragging me across the street. We were on Broad Street, right by the projects. There was this little bodega across the way. Billy took me in and laid me on the floor. I was losing a lot of blood; it was all over the place, streaming through my fingers and onto the linoleum floor. The old couple who ran the bodega were afraid. You could see it in their eyes. Billy was shouting at them to call an ambulance. The old woman found a towel and held it to my face. Almost instantly, it soaked through with blood. She got more towels. The same thing happened.