by Tim Davys
Around the boss on two leather couches sat, and stood, his closest stuffed animals: a tiger, an elephant, a toad, and a somewhat smaller koala. They were competing to see who could look the meanest, and it was impossible to name a winner. I was standing right behind Octopus’s armchair. I nodded carefully to Ortega as he was led up to the gang leader, but we had agreed to pretend not to know each other. Amidst all the animals coming and going, I was the one who had wormed his way into the Octopus’s inner room; for the moment I did not want to take more risks.
Ortega still had his big, ugly, foul-smelling coat on; the cap was pulled low down on his forehead so that no one could see his sparklingly beautiful eyes; and a dog who I only knew superficially led him forward. Fox stopped at a respectful distance, bowed shortly, cleared his throat and said, “Octopus Callemaro, I am a simple animal, and I come to you with a simple question.”
“That’s what they all say,” Octopus rumbled, whereupon his crew laughed.
“In order to get the female my heart has chosen,” the fox continued with no concern for the laughter, “Dragon Aguado Molina has decided that I must give him one of your arms.”
It became dead silent in the room. No one moved, no one dared breathe. Had they heard correctly? Who was this idiot? Mentioning Molina’s name here? Asking for one of Octopus’s arms? There were furtive glances at the windows, because everyone was certain that the pitiful figure in the overly large coat would soon take that route back to the ground. I didn’t dare breathe.
Callemaro had turned pale at first, but now his blackness returned, blacker than before.
“This female you’re talking about, is it Dragon Aguado Molina’s daughter?”
“That’s right,” Fox answered.
“Has he promised you his daughter?”
“In exchange for one of your arms,” Fox confirmed.
Callemaro burst into loud laughter. It reminded Fox of Molina’s hilarity a few days earlier. And just as the Dragon’s henchman had chimed in with Dragon’s laugh, Octopus’s crew now joined in with Octopus’s hoots. The stuffed animals on the black sofas laughed louder and meaner than those who were standing around the fox on the floor.
When the laughter subsided, Octopus began to speak.
“I see, it’s the cursed Aguado Molina who sent you.” Octopus chuckled. “We’ll see what we can think of to answer him!”
And again salvos of laughter were heard in the room.
My Story
My whole body was shaking. I needed a drink, a pick-me-up—whether it was a lukewarm beer or vodka didn’t matter. I was in a cold sweat under my heavy coat and the nausea was taking an elevator ride up and down my throat. I hadn’t washed in more than a week, and even I could smell how I stank. The headache was pounding in my temples, it drowned out my thoughts, and every time a car engine accelerated nearby it was as if someone was pushing my skull into a pepper mill.
We were on the square at linen yellow Piazza di Bormio. Commerce was in full swing, in the stands the sellers were shouting out offers to outdo one another: bananas for a five-spot. Sunglasses for ten. Fried pineapples for fifteen bucks. Every time someone shouted I felt my forehead. Hurried stuffed animals passed us at a trot in all directions, and I wanted nothing more than to go lie down. First a pick-me-up, then lie down.
There were four of us, and at this time we had been together for several months. Days and nights followed each other, but our little group remained intact. Our leader was named Riccardo Spider, and he was the one who ordered us to the piazza. I didn’t know then that Riccardo was working for Octopus Callemaro; I didn’t even know who Callemaro was.
“Vole,” said Riccardo. “I need a smoke.”
I struggled to force back the vomit, and with the back of my paw I tried to dry the sweat from my forehead but was shaking so severely it must have looked like some kind of choreography.
“I don’t have any,” I said.
“Find some,” said Riccardo.
With a gesture he indicated the asphalt on the square.
I looked at him perplexed, and there was a smile on his lips. He meant that I should crawl around on the square on all fours and hunt for butts. I knew just what he was up to. To maintain his absolute power, he was sometimes forced to degrade us so the hierarchy would not be disturbed. As we stood there on Piazza di Bormio we had been going for over twenty-four hours and had made two failed attempts to break into apartments; sold hash to teenagers who would be disappointed when they found out it was only resin; and, just that morning, had left a bar whose location I couldn’t recall without paying the bill—but I do remember we drank up a couple of bottles of vodka before we split. I didn’t have the energy to question Riccardo, and I didn’t have the strength to argue. I got down on my knees and crawled slowly off toward a flower stand. After a minute or two I had forgotten why I was crawling around on the filthy square. The effort meant I wasn’t able to hold back any longer, and I threw up behind a bucket of tulips. I got to my knees and wiped my mouth off with the sleeve of the coat, and at that moment I met his gaze.
My dad, Harry S. Bulldog, was standing six feet before me. Under his arm he held a package of gift-wrapped flowers that he must have just bought, and he stared. We had not seen each other for almost a year. I tried to say something, tried to explain why I was there on my knees, with vomit on my coat and my body shaking, but I could not make a sound. And before I could make another attempt, Dad’s gaze glided past me and he went on.
That evening we fell asleep as we usually did in a garbage room somewhere in Sors. It was always possible to find unlocked trash rooms, and as long as you didn’t stay two nights in a row there was seldom anyone who complained. You could sleep outdoors, and sometimes we did, but there were lots of rabble prowling around the streets at night, and you were always afraid of waking up without clothes and possessions. The trash rooms were safer, and we could lock ourselves in.
When my friends—even if I hesitate to call them “friends”—fell asleep and were snoring in their respective corners in the stinking, windowless room, I was lying there wide awake, staring into the darkness. The expression on my dad’s face, the pain in his eyes, left me no peace. Every time I closed my eyes I was looking right into his eyes, and I saw disappointment. I imagined that I even saw his attempt to come up with an excuse, to smooth things over. Most agonizing was seeing how he forced himself to look away, to leave, because I knew he had done it for my sake. I knew that in his whole body he wanted to sink down on the square and embrace me and save me from a life that was unworthy and wasted. But he knew it wasn’t possible, and for my sake he forced himself to pretend as if he hadn’t seen, as if he didn’t see.
I lay there the whole night, and the night after that and again the following night, staring into the darkness. Only when I drank myself blind drunk could I relax and fall asleep.
My dad lost his beloved peacock—and I lost my adored mom—when I was four. The notorious Chauffeurs, the ones who pick up stuffed animals who are worn out and used up and end their lives in Mollisan Town, will always strike me as capricious and merciless. Why did they take my mother when she was in her prime and had just gotten her longed-for son? No one can explain it, and I learned early on that life is cruel.
Dad became a single parent, and I assume that in the eyes of the world around him he was an improbable one. Six days a week he had breakfast down at the boxing club Fresco, which was at the far end of the east strip of mold gree
n Rue d’Uzès. On Wednesdays he stayed away, because that day the club’s youth sparred against a zebra named Carlos early in the morning. Carlos was one of the city’s most promising, a featherweight boxer with a lightning-fast right hook. A few years earlier he and Dad had ended up in a conflict that neither of them could sort out, so Dad avoided Carlos.
When I was little, Dad had not boxed professionally for several decades, but he was far from the only veteran who continued to hang around the club even though he’d hung up his gloves. The familiar odors of fear, sweat, arrogance, and leather; and the mute, confident mutual understanding between the boxers were his survival strategy and a way to chase away the incomprehensible challenges of existence.
He left me at day care when the sky turned dark, and then took the bus two stops to Fresco, where he always sat at one of the small tables by the entrance. He always had before him a glass of orange juice, a hard cheese sandwich on a chipped plate, and a cup advertising car tires—that were no longer manufactured—of the steaming strong, bitter coffee that Dad could not live without. He took a bite of the sandwich and read the sports pages in the Daily News. At regular intervals he snorted out loud at the journalist’s stupidity. He read the sports pages every day, so he knew that the whole lot of them were idiots.
At about the time the Morning Rain ceased Dad folded up the newspaper, got up from the table, and nodded to the crook-nosed sloth Charlie in reception. South Sors General Grammar School, where my dad, the fit and healthy bulldog, worked as a physical education instructor, was no more than five minutes from Fresco, and the first class started fifteen minutes after the rain. But he was in no hurry. No preparations were required before the lesson; he had already been working a long time when I was in day care.
The rector of the school took Harry S. Bulldog’s situation into account. For that reason Dad could always pick me up at day care at the same time as the other cubs were picked up. We shopped for groceries on the way home, and we prepared meals together. Dad was not a painstaking or pretentious cook. He prepared staples, and it was our togetherness that was important, not the spices. This continued until I was fifteen. Preparing the food and then eating across from each other at the kitchen table, where there were two chairs, was something I thought all families did. We missed Mom, but while I soon made the loss into a part of my personality, it remained painful for Dad. He talked about her often, and thanks to him she was still part of my growing up.
The stuffed animals in and around Fresco became my family. Dad was quick to take an interest in young boxers, and when he accompanied them to other parts of the city for important matches in the evening, Charlie, the sloth, always took care of me. It was a quarter hour’s quick walk to the boxing club from home. When I was eight or nine we went there a few evenings a week, and we always hung out there on the weekends. We seldom had any real reason to be there. It was more that we passed by, had a cup of coffee, chatted a little. Dad might help someone with technique or tactics, and then we went home again. For me it was as routine as the hours I spent at school.
If Dad’s nearness and openness when I was really little had created a relationship between us that was closer than for most fathers and sons, the respect that everyone showed him at Fresco contributed to my growing admiration. A father doesn’t need to do much to become his cub’s idol, and in my case it was enough that a couple of times he showed what he could do with the punching bag or the jump rope. Dad himself was the first to admit that his talent had not extended very far in the ring, but when he said that everyone at the club objected, and soon even I believed that he really could have gone much further.
“Your dad,” Charlie sometimes said, “is the nicest stuffed animal that has ever been produced.”
And so he was, I could do nothing but agree. At school there were many who were afraid of him; he could be a strict teacher. But that he was the most considerate and loving dad you could imagine, I had always known.
When I was twelve I started training at Fresco. I’d wanted to start earlier, but Dad advised me to wait. He let me roam around in the big, light gym, jump rope if I wanted, or punch one of the sandbags until I was worn out; there were always so many active stuffed animals in there that no one minded. But he never encouraged me. It was too soon. It had to do with coordination and maturity, he would say. Boxing is like chess. If you’re too little you should only play around, not play for real.
But when I started sixth grade he thought it might be time, and he set up a cautious training program. It included everything: diet and endurance, strength and flexibility; but above all it was arranged so I would not get tired. How many cubs had he seen come down to the club and burn their powder in one season? But my enthusiasm knew no bounds. To me being able to start boxing was a sign that I was big; I was no longer a little cub. It had never been about whether I would start or not, it had only been a question of when.
On Sundays Fresco ran a beginners’ group for cubs who had turned thirteen, and after having struggled alone with Dad for a whole year it was amazing to start training with those my own age. In my class in school no one boxed, and even if Dad was always around I realized, when I met Adam Llama in the Sunday group, that I really had been missing someone. For Adam boxing was only one activity of many. He played badminton on Saturdays and went to rhythmics on Wednesdays, because his mom forced him. For me there was suddenly someone to compare myself with, someone to complain with, and training became more fun.
Adam was strong, and that served as a spur. If we were doing pushups he managed fifty when I could do forty, he was always a couple of steps ahead of me when we did interval training, and I got tangled in the jump rope when he could always keep going a few more minutes. Dad seldom got involved when I trained with Adam; he realized that it was a different kind of training, and that the camaraderie was just as important as the training results. He liked my new friend, and often spoke of him in appreciative terms.
“Adam has tremendous explosiveness in his right arm,” Dad might say, and somehow I felt proud then.
When we turned fourteen we got to go up in the ring and start boxing for real. We had various sorts of protection on, and if someone got angry and blew up, training was immediately stopped. It was hard to explain. The idea of the sport was to hit each other, and at the club everyone bragged about their knockouts, but at the same time they were afraid of conflict and extremely careful about the cubs and future prospects. I would go up with Adam because we knew each other so well. Usually I could only do one or two rounds before I was through. Dad said that was due to my footwork. I danced in the ring, while Adam was so agile he didn’t need to jump around as much.
I never thought about what I am sure Dad had already seen. I was living in a dream world, absorbed by my training and my friendship with Adam. I was doing well in school, I was happy at Fresco, but the bubble burst one month after my fifteenth birthday when Adam unexpectedly reported that he was quitting boxing. It was his badminton coach who forced him to choose. He was promising in both sports, but to advance to the elite level he had to focus. And then, under his mom’s influence, I contended, he chose the racket and shuttlecock.
I was devastated of course, and in Adam’s absence I finally realized what everyone, including my father, already knew: I had fallen far behind the others in my age group; I was a mediocre athlete.
Just as in my young years I had been Dad’s biggest supporter, he now proved to be mine. The insight about my limitations came
as a shock, and I, who to this point had been spared the anxiety of puberty, had my first existential crisis. I lost the desire to train, I was truant from school, and I closed myself in and didn’t help with cooking. It sounds a little ridiculous, but keep in mind that Dad and I had cooked together basically my whole life.
Dad left me alone. Afterward he said he understood that it was a grief process, and that each and every one of us has to do that sort of thing our own way. When I opened the door and came out of my room a week later, he was as wise as you might expect. He said that training was not about results, not at my age, it was about laying a foundation for the future. That boxing was not a sport but a way of life. At Fresco we had our family, and a healthy life had nothing to do with how many squats you could do.
Slowly he lured me back to the gym. Once again it was him and me, now that Adam was out of the picture. But I had changed forever and couldn’t turn back time. From having listened to Dad, I now paid attention to myself in relation to all the others. And the comparison was not flattering. When I practiced footwork, stumbled, and lost my focus, Dad smiled in a way I had always perceived as encouraging. Now I saw that there was something else in his smile. When I practiced with the punching bag and wasn’t able to hold my arms up after a couple of minutes, I felt something different in the consoling paw he placed on my back.
Disappointment.
“You’re still developing, Gary,” he might say when we had dinner together. “No one knows what your reflexes, your muscles, your coordination are going to look like in a few years. The important thing is not to be the best. The important thing is to exercise in a way that means you feel well.”