Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [53]
Saul was talking on the phone when we walked in. He nodded at his son, his eyes passing over me, then he squeezed the receiver between his neck and shoulder and leaned back and reached into his front pocket and pulled out more cash than I’d ever seen before, fifties, twenties, tens, all in a wad three inches thick. Clipped to his belt was a semiautomatic pistol in a leather holster.
“Yeah?” he said into the phone. “Well fuck him, too.” And he fingered some bills away from the fold and handed them to Bobby. He winked at him, then nodded at me as if we’d known each other a long time. He pushed the money back into his pocket. On the way out of his office, we passed another glass case, this one lined with brass knuckles and weighted black saps and boot knives.
Bobby saw me looking. “You didn’t see those.” He smiled. “Cops carry ’em, but they’re not ’sposed to.”
LATELY, EVEN though the weather was warm, I’d been wearing my leather jacket more. All I ever seemed to do was work out, but whatever muscles I’d begun to build in the last year were getting smaller. I was tired all the time and never felt like walking the two miles down to the gym or even having Bobby pull up to my house in his pickup. Still, I’d go.
One September afternoon, I had gotten to Connolly’s ahead of Bobby and lay down on the incline sit up board, waiting for him. Outside there was a soft rain ticking against the glass. I could hear the transistor radio Bill sometimes played out back where he slept—talk radio, men speaking heatedly about some kind of game. Around the corner where the heavy bag hung, somebody was punching it, the shots coming hard but far apart.
“That’s good,” Bill’s voice said. “That’s good, Tommy.”
My eyes were closed and I began to drift off, all the sounds becoming one sound I was floating away on.
“Hey.”
I sat up. Bill was standing a few feet away looking at me, a pair of red Everlast hitting gloves in his hand. He smiled and held them up. “Get over here.”
Then I was around the corner, this part of the gym unfinished, the walls naked brick, the floor concrete. It was cool and damp and smelled like sweat and rust.
“I know you want to be a muscle man, but let me show you a couple things, all right?” Bill was wrapping my wrists with two-inch-wide strips of what felt like Ace bandage. “This is sho you don’t hurt yourshelf. Watch me.” Bill pulled on the hitting gloves. They were made only for punching the bag, not for sparring, and they fit the hand close to the skin. Sewed inside the palm was a small iron bar. He raised his hand and shot his left fist into the bag. “That’s a jab to throw ’em off balance.” He threw two more, the bag jerking on its chain, then he threw a punch from his right shoulder, his back foot pivoting on his toes. There was a loud whop and the bag swung back three feet and Bill followed it, both hands up at his ears, and he dropped his left shoulder and got off two more quick lefts that jerked the bag to the right. He weaved to the left and shot another right, the bag jolting to a stop.
He was breathing hard, sweat breaking out just above his thick eyebrows. “Shee what I’m doin’? The jab shets you up for your combinations. I just threw three jabs, then a right crosh, a double left hook, then a shtraight right. Here, put these on.”
I did. I liked the feel of the iron bar in my fists. Bill told me to raise my hands up and to turn more to the side, to put my weight on my back foot. “Now bring your elbows into your midsection and throw a jab.”
I punched the bag. It was heavier than it looked. It barely moved.
“Rotate your fist as you throw it. That’ll cut your opponent up good. Now jab three times, then throw a right.”
I punched the bag three times, then threw the right as hard as I could, an ache jolting up my arm into my shoulder, the bag swaying away from me.
“Good power, but do it with your legs, too, Andre. Just like shwingin’ a bat in baseball. You squash the bug with your back foot.” I nodded like I knew what he meant. He raised his fists up. “Look at my feet.” He threw a slow-motion right, his weight