Pound for Pound

by F. X. Toole

  Sykes behaved as if he was the undisputed champion of the world. “Muhfuhs, what I care they be suckin dolla’ bills from my black ass? Ain’t my money.”

  Mr. George forked over ten dollars a round. Everyone knew Mr. George didn’t have money. That meant Sykes had backers. It was illegal by amateur rules for someone to sign a fighter to a professional contract until the fighter finished his amateur career. But there were those in boxing, as in every other business, who felt that rules made to level the playing field were for chumps. Sykes’s backers were two local white-bread criminal lawyers, Toby Redding and Seth Laurel. Both had graduated from the University of Texas and then gotten their law degrees from Georgetown. They were pampered yuppies raised on country-club bourbon and branch. They fancied themselves legal gladiators, but had never shed a drop of blood in anger or fear. By hooking up with Sykes, they looked to lay claim to some tough by getting black gym sweat on their Armanis. Backing Sykes gave them strut. They’d heard of Sykes’s jailhouse record and reputation, and with the testimony of bought-and-paid-for headshrinkers, brought Sykes to San Antonio in the name of rehabilitation. Power in professional athletics was what they were after, and they saw Sykes as their way to becoming agents and promoters without having to spend too much for an education in boxing.

  Unknown to Mr. George, Sykes’s backers’ first choice of trainer had been Trini Cavazo, who had declined because Sykes was sure to come down to welterweight, and he already had Chicky. It was Trini who had referred them to Mr. George.

  Paco said, “Our cholo boy won’t go for a second pair of eggs in the same tepee.”

  “What if Garza doesn’t win the tournament?” Toby asked.

  “Then you bring Sykes back to me, and fuck my dear old friend Mist Jawg,” Paco said with a big grin.

  “Suppose,” said Seth, “that something happens to Chicky, just supposing, and you take over for us? Are you sure Sykes’ll listen to you?”

  “Once Psycho learns I’m a badder psycho than he is, the mothafuck will,” Paco assured them.

  Toby and Seth went to Mr. George and pretended they had located him through big ol’ Lamar Steuke, the manager of the San Nacho gym. Steuke wore an ink-black wig over his bald head, and ran amateur boxing in San Antonio. The lawyers offered Mr. George a hundred dollars a week to get Sykes ready for the Regional tournament, and added that they were paying that much because of Mr. George’s solid reputation.

  Seth said, “The way we see it, you can get our boy the Olympic gold medal, and that means you get bigger paydays down the line.”

  Mr. George knew that nobody could guarantee anything in boxing, but a hundred dollars was more than 99 percent of what the other amateur trainers got, and most pro trainers, as well. Mr. George understood that when these men talked about the Olympics, they expected a gold medal. They probably thought that a black trainer would get along better with a black boxer. Mr. George wasn’t sure about the deal, especially with Sykes being the head case he was, but that hundred a week meant he could buy new equipment for his little guys. He listened and nodded, but only promised to take on Sykes until the tournament was over.

  “That’s when we know if we be happy wit each other, and we go from there.” Mr. George turned to Sykes. “If you can’t do what I show you, that be one thing. If you won’t do it, that be somethin else, you un-dastan’ I’m say?”

  Sykes said, “What, I look like I talk Vietnam?”

  “We’ll see what you look like soon enough,” Mr. George replied. “What you weigh?”

  “A hundred fifty-four, and still goin down from one sixty-four when I was eatin joint food.”

  “He could fight as a one fifty-six,” Toby suggested.

  “No good,” Mr. George said. “He still got fat on him. We’ll fight him at forty-seven.”

  Toby and Seth kept Psycho in clothes and cash, and sported his belligerent ass at political socials. They were careful not to actually sign a contract with Sykes, and that kept them within the law. But they had Sykes sign an undated contract, one that only lacked a day, a month, a year, and their own flourishing signatures. Toby and Seth knew the right judges, had defended Trini successfully against drug charges over the years. It was Trini who told Seth to tell Mr. George that Lamar Steuke had recommended him as a trainer for Sykes. Ol’ Lamar was happy to help. He’d done bidness with the Cavazos before.

  The two months Mr. George had to work with Sykes seemed like plenty of time in the beginning. Sykes got down to 146 in two weeks. He was cooperative, and appeared to apply himself, but his biggest problem was that he didn’t seem able to retain even the simplest fundamentals. As the Regionals approached, Sykes’s impatience with his progress increased, and he began to revert to his slam-bang jailhouse style, one based on strength and virtually no brainpower. It was a subtle shift at first, but there it was, little refusals about minor things. The direction was clear. When Mr. George called Sykes on his lack of attention, or reminded him that he was not executing properly, Sykes would feign innocence. Pussy games was the way the old man saw the little rebellions.

  The boy also had a smart mouth that Mr. George thought would one day cost him his teeth. He’d seen it happen, when a boy went to the ER from an aluminum baseball bat to his face. Mr. George came to think of Sykes as a gold front tooth over a root canal, all puff and shine on the outside, but everything dead inside.

  Sykes had a compact body at five foot seven, all cuts and grooves and shine, but he wouldn’t run as he was supposed to. When called on it, he’d hold up his gloves and say that it was the other boy who would be doing the running.

  “I got def in bof hands.”

  He threw a good shot, Mr. George admitted, but not as good as Sykes thought he threw. What Mr. George liked least was that Sykes had a temper like a wild dog—worse, like a bitchy child. Mr. George called Sykes’s backers, ostensibly with a progress report, but it was more to complain that things weren’t going right, and that he didn’t want the mess dumped on him.

  Mr. George told Toby, “Sykes a fuckup. He see a cat sleepin, he got to kick it, see I’m sayin? He a boil ready to bust.”

  Toby said, “There’s still time. If anyone can fix it, you can.”

  Mr. George hung up, wondering how someone could be such a fool and still be rich.

  As the days ticked off, the pressure increased. Sykes would lose himself, as if hypnotized, in repetitive, full-force banging on the big bag. Old-timers were reminded of Sonny Liston and George Foreman before their fights with Ali. Punching as hard as he could, time after time, served to feed Sykes’s grand impression of himself, but hitting a stationary target meant nothing to Mr. George. If he tried to improve on the mechanics of Sykes’s punching or footwork, Sykes would stomp off and pout. A good trainer starts looking for a way out the door when that kind of shit comes down.

  Sykes was even worse in the ring. He’d become frustrated with his pro sparring partners, who made him miss; he’d storm for the dressing room, calling it quits for the day.

  In the shower, he’d bellow, “Stan’ still and fight me now muhfuh, or watch you muhfuh back on the street. Check it out!”

  Other fighters would double over, trying to keep from bursting out in open, derisive laughter. When Chicky heard about it, he laughed along with them, but he laughed out loud. Mr. George could only shake his head. Meanwhile, Sykes would play the wronged-brothuh game.

  “Muhfuh don’t play fair wif me, why I pay a muhfuh?”

  When Sykes acted as if he didn’t care what others thought, wiser folks knew better—a fighter is a performer, after all. But by then, those whom Sykes wanted to impress didn’t care at all.

  Toby and Seth often came by the gym. Watching Sykes rip into the big bag, they were thrilled by what they considered to be his primal force. They became so convinced of it that they incorporated, calling themselves Primal Force, Inc. They began to show up in, and to hand out, PF baseball caps, and PF T-shirts. They had leather jackets made at $400 a pop for themselves and Sykes
in the University of Texas’s longhorn orangey-tan. On the backs of the jackets, in bold white letters outlined in black, was “PF Boxing.” Guys in the gym decided that “PF” stood for Palm Fuckers.

  Sykes, meanwhile, who had, at least, pretended to listen to Mr. George in the beginning, began to rage through his workouts like a bug-eyed nut. The closer to the tournament, the worse he became. The more he raged, the softer he punched, his power squandered foolishly. Mr. George saw how Sykes might be able to intimidate amateurs, but also how easily the pros jacked him around—how they slipped his punches, how they caught them, how they countered his punches with their own. But they didn’t hit him hard, not hard enough to run him off, just hard enough to make him think they were earning their money. The pros winked at each other, but kept silent. Picking up an easy forty to sixty dollars a day in beer and nachos money was good duty, and they joked about how they had the mayate shit-bug pussy lapping up their whipped cream. Mr. George wanted to give Sykes a bitch slap.

  Yet he knew his job was to get the boy in shape one way or another, maybe even teach the hardhead something, so he kept putting Sykes in with the pros, who by now loved Mr. George, referred to him as “Don Jorge.” He knew what they were up to, and couldn’t blame them—he was doing the same, and didn’t kid himself. He nonetheless worried about Sykes, and regretted that he had been unable to reach him. He wondered if a white or a Mexican trainer wouldn’t be better for Sykes, since the dummy wouldn’t listen to one of his own. Now he was rejecting everything he didn’t already know, and that was a hatful. Mr. George couldn’t see Sykes taking the tournament from a fighter like the Garza boy, and that would be the end of any hope of Sykes getting a place on the Olympic team. Experience also told Mr. George that PF Boxing would go out like a cheap cigar in a piss trough.

  With three days to go before the first of the three days of the tournament, Mr. George instructed Sykes to go for a light run, and then rest until fight time. He wasn’t surprised when Sykes showed up at the San Nacho that afternoon whacked out of his head. Mr. George doubted that Sykes’s cough syrup would make him that goofy, so he could only guess at what he’d taken. He watched regretfully as Sykes would strut a few steps, like a mechanical chicken, then crank his head back and forth, his eyes wide and unblinking, first in one direction and then the other. Then he’d strut and crank again. Mexicans in the gym understood immediately that the chicken strut and head movements were a crack-cocaine tip-off. The vatos had an expression for it:

  Homeboy’s chickidín.

  Sykes talked as if he were already on the plane to the Olympic Games, held up a fist, then did more chickidín. Mr. George wanted out right then, but he still had stuff to buy for his real fighters. Besides, he sensed that his paydays would be over soon enough, probably on the first night of the tournament. He also knew that you could never count a fighter out before the ref did. Maybe Sykes was the avenger he thought he was. Mr. George tried to imagine Sykes winning the tournament, but couldn’t.

  Chapter 14

  Fighters arrived in San Antonio for the Regionals from as far away as Amarillo and Jasper, and would fight in weight classifications ranging from 108 pounds to super-heavyweights, for which there was no weight limit. The lesser of the two heavyweight classes topped at 201. But as a super-heavy, a boy could weigh 201 pounds, plus a fraction of an ounce, and find himself fighting someone as heavy as 265 or more. Fighters would weigh in and be paired according to a blind drawing. If there were eight fighters in a given classification, the numbers 1 through 8 would be written on bits of paper. Once they were drawn, numbers 1-3-5-7 would be paired with numbers 2-4-6-8. If there was an odd number of fighters in a weight class, one would draw a bye and advance to the next round without having to get hit.

  Two rings had been set up to keep the action flowing. Each had a red and a blue corner. Half of the contestants would fight from the red corner and wear red gloves with white knuckles. The other half would fight from the blue corner and use blue gloves with white knuckles. It was a system followed in every weight group. There could be as few as two entrants, but in the Regionals there were typically many more. In Chicky’s classification, there were sixteen fighters. They would be paired according to standard drawing procedures, and being in a lower weight division would be some of the first to fight each night or day of the tournament.

  Tournaments can go on for days, but are never static. The crowd swells and shrinks according to how many fighters are entered at a given weight, and how many friends and relatives have come to support their champion. Children and grannies are there, as well as the parents of the fighters. Spectators are racially mixed; in San Anto, the crowd would be mostly Latino.

  A good ol’ boy in the crowd stood up and shouted, “Remember the Alamo!”

  It got a good laugh from everyone, and a Mexican fan slapped him on the back.

  The food stands sold hot dogs and potato chips, but there were also tacos, tamales, nachos, and enchiladas. There were soft drinks and coffee, but it was clear that some of the raza had smuggled in bottles of their favorite adult beverage. A huge U.S. flag stretched across one wall, but there was also the Texas Lone Star flag and a Mexican flag. Several vendors offered T-shirts, caps, boxing equipment, and gaudy posters. The most popular were those of Muhammad Ali and Julio César Chávez.

  The officials, headed by Lamar Steuke, were mostly folks from San Antonio, male and female, but there were officials from other parts of Texas as well. Officials wore white uniforms, but because of their big butts and hanging guts, they looked foolish next to the finely tuned athletes. Various boxing teams wore shorts and tank tops that blazed with primary colors. Chicky wore his Aggie colors, maroon and white, and Farrell wore the same green and gold shorts with a white top that he’d worn when he’d cleaned Chicky’s clock. Sykes wore pearlescent white, and greased himself to make his body shine.

  Sykes smirked, “I like white.”

  The fighters were frightened, fearless, worried, and bored, depending on experience and who their opponent would be. The sixteen fighters in Chicky’s classification ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-eight.

  There would be eight bouts in the welterweight division on Friday night, and eight of those sixteen boxers would be eliminated. There would be four bouts on Saturday afternoon, which would eliminate four more fighters. The two bouts Saturday night, the Semifinals, would match four boys who had already fought once that day. Fighters would be getting tired, some might be fighting hurt. The two winners of the Semis would fight in the Final on Sunday afternoon. Depending on the number of fighters entered, the same process would play out in all twelve weight classifications. Winners of the Finals would go to the Nationals in Colorado Springs. The losers would have long rides home, whether all the way to the Panhandle, or just down the block. Folks in these parts called it nut-cuttin time.

  There were two open-area dressing rooms, each fifty feet square—one for the red corner, one for the blue. Each had a chalkboard with the schedule of matches as determined by the drawing. Officials had matching bout sheets. Xeroxed programs were handed out at the door, where admission was $ 5. Fighters in the lower weight groups would go first. A few girls were part of the show, and they would be matched with other girls. All females had to present their passbooks. Once a fighter won the Semis, his passbook would be kept locked overnight in a tin box to prevent screwups on the day of the Finals. Taking home a passbook marked with a win in the Regionals was better than a brand-new Chevy four-by-four with ten-inch subwoofers going full bore.

  The national anthem was dutifully sung, and the bouts proceeded quickly, some lasting the scheduled three three-minute rounds. Others lasted less than a minute of the first round—fights would be stopped when a referee decided that a fighter could not defend himself, but there were a few outright KOs, as well. Chicky would have to beat four opponents to win the tournament. Two could be Sykes and Farrell, and if so, Chicky knew that both would be knock-down, drag-out affairs. He was elated by the
prospect of facing both, because, by beating both, it would move him to the Nationals, where everyone would know he was a badass.

  On the first night, Sykes said, “This Chicky-dickie punk ain’t nothin, right?”

  Mr. George sensed Sykes’s fear. So he couldn’t be faulted later, the old man said, “This Chicky-dickie a whup-ass Messkin boy who will fight you three minutes of every round.”

  Sykes said, “Who hit hardes’?”

  Mr. George lied. “You do.”

  “What it is!”

  Mr. George watched Sykes dress for his bout. Psycho was sober, as reasonable as he would ever be, and his weight was right. At least, Mr. George thought, crack don’t make a muhfuh hongry. Goddamn weed make a boy go through a gallon of rocky road watching dirty movies. Onlyest way he stop playin wit his dick be eat more ice cream.

  On the first night, Chicky fought at 145 pounds. Many of the boys in his weight class had trained down eight and more pounds to make 147. Because Chicky had worked with bigger fighters in the gym, he felt comfortable against his heavier opponents. As expected by nearly everyone in the know, Chicky was pure search-and-destroy. He beat his first opponent by a comfortable margin. Eloy was elated, but Chicky’s opponent had clipped him with some wild shots. It made Chicky realize he was short on defense. Out of respect for the other boy, a fireplug of a Tex-Mex kid from Abilene, Chicky shook hands mid-ring.

  Chicky said, “Good fight.”

  Abilene said, “Y’all’ll win the whole shitteree, you watch.”

  Sykes knocked out his first opponent in two rounds, a white farm boy with a near Oklahoma accent, from up in Wichita Falls. Once the boy recuperated, Sykes refused to shake his hand. The ref warned Sykes that he would not raise Sykes’s hand in victory until he did.

  Mr. George growled at Sykes, “You do the right thing, or you be all alone out there doin the wrong thing, you hyuh?”