Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski [59]
“You can take him, Hank!” yelled Gene.
“Go get him, Hank!” yelled Dan.
I rushed Gibson and tried a right lead. I missed and his left cross flashed on my jaw. I saw green and yellow and red lights, then he dug a right to my belly. It felt like it went through to my backbone. I grabbed him and clinched. But I wasn’t frightened, for a change, and that felt good.
“I’ll kill you, you fucker!” I told him.
Then it was just head-to-head, no more boxing. His punches came fast and hard. He was more accurate, had more power, yet I was landing some hard shots too and it made me feel good. The more he hit me the less I felt it. I had my gut sucked in, I liked the action. Then Gene and Dan were between us. They pulled us apart.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t stop this thing! I can take his ass!”
“Cut the shit, Hank,” said Gene. “Look at yourself.”
I looked down. The front of my shirt was dark with blood and there were splotches of pus. The punches had broken open three or four boils. That hadn’t happened in my fight with Gene.
“That’s nothing,” I said. “That’s just bad luck. He hasn’t hurt me. Give me a chance and I’ll cut him down.”
“No, Hank, you’ll get an infection or something,” said Gene.
“All right, shit,” I said, “cut the gloves off me!”
Gene unlaced me. When he got the gloves off I noticed that my hands were trembling, and also my arms to a lesser extent. I put my hands in my pockets. Dan took Harry’s gloves off.
Harry looked at me. “You’re pretty good, kid.”
“Thanks. Well, I’ll see you guys…”
I walked off. As I walked away I took my hands out of my pockets. Then up the driveway, just at the sidewalk, I stopped, pulled out a cigarette and stuck it into my mouth. When I tried to strike a match my hands were trembling so much I couldn’t do it. I gave them a wave, a real nonchalant wave, and walked away.
Back at the house I looked at myself in the mirror. Pretty damn good. I was coming along.
I took off my shirt and threw it under the bed. I’d have to find a way to clean the blood off. I didn’t have many shirts and they’d notice a missing one right away. But for me, it had finally been a successful day, and I hadn’t had too many of those.
38
Abe Mortenson was bad enough to be around but he was just a fool. You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn’t deceive anybody. It’s the deceivers who make you feel bad. Jimmy Hatcher had straight black hair, fair skin, he wasn’t as big as I was but he kept his shoulders back, dressed better than most of us, and he had a way of getting along with anybody he felt like getting along with. His mother was a bar maid and his father had committed suicide. Jimmy had a nice smile, perfect teeth, and the girls liked him even though he didn’t have the money the rich guys had. I would always see him talking to some girl. I don’t know what he said to them. I didn’t know what any of the guys said to any of them. The girls were impossibly out of reach for me and so I pretended that they didn’t exist.
But Hatcher was another matter. I knew he wasn’t a fairy but he kept hanging around.
“Listen, Jimmy, why do you follow me around? I don’t like anything about you.”
“Ah, come on, Hank, we’re friends.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He even got up once in English class and read an essay called “The Value of Friendship,” and while he was reading it he kept glancing at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded when he finished, and I thought, well, that’s what people think and what can you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, “The Value of No Friendship At All.” The teacher didn’t let me read it to the class. She gave me a “D.”
Jimmy and Baldy and I walked home together from high school each day. (Abe Mortenson lived in the other direction so that saved us from having to walk with him.) One day we were walking along and Jimmy said, “Hey, let’s go to my girlfriend’s house. I