Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [55]
He wrapped our wrists and hands, helped us lace our gloves, made sure we had mouthguards, then ducked out of the ring. He studied his wristwatch and called, “Time!”
I expected to get beaten up, my heart pulsing hard in my temples as Brent and I raised our gloves and moved to the center of the ring. Bill had taught me to keep the right up to block any head shots, to jab, then move constantly to avoid being a target, to wait for my opening. Brent jabbed first and I blocked it with my left, then jabbed back and popped him in the forehead. His eyes blinked and I blinked too, a ripple of heat passing through my cheeks at what I’d just done. He jabbed again and as I blocked it, a right slammed into my right glove and smashed me in the eyebrow. I moved to the left and jabbed him two more times in the forehead, his eyes tearing up. His mouth looked swollen from the mouthguard and I knew mine did too and it was harder to breathe with it. Brent stepped in and threw a straight right I weaved away from, then got off a left hook into his ribs, bright green flashing through my brain. I brought my left back up from where I’d dropped it, from where Brent had seen his opening and connected with a right.
“Shtick and move, Andre! Shtick and move! Brent, keep your right up, kid!”
I jabbed again and again, trying to do it from my feet up, putting some kind of snap into it, and maybe because I was an inch or two taller than Brent, it wasn’t hard to hit him, his eyes pink and wet now, as if he was about to yell or cry, and I did not feel badly about what I was doing to him. I only wanted to keep jabbing and scoring points, to get him so frustrated he’d throw a wild punch and leave himself open for something more dangerous than a jab.
“Time!”
Brent turned and walked back to his corner, pulling at the laces with his teeth. He ducked between the ropes and yanked off his gloves, and Bill followed him. “Where’re you goin’, Brent? That was only one round, kid.”
“I gotta go to work.” Brent dropped his gloves in the crate and unwrapped his hands and walked out.
I was still in the ring, sweating, my breathing back down to normal again. Ray Duffy stood from where he’d been sitting against the wall. I hadn’t known he was there. He said to Bill, “The bag don’t hit back.”
Bill nodded once. He smiled over at me. “That was a good shtart. I think you got the killer instinct, kid.”
Which meant it didn’t bother me too much to hurt somebody, that seeing his pain did not make me slow down or stop.
TWO OR three times a week I’d spar whoever was around. Many times it was Bobby, who’d come back to the gym and was doing his own lifting routine. He’d gained some weight, but he looked happy and in love, and sparring him was like fighting somebody crazy. He fought with both hands down at his sides, smiling at you even after you’d popped him in the face, then he’d shift to the side and his right would swing up hard and fast, and once I wasn’t able to avoid it and it caught me in the cheek and knocked me four feet back against the ropes. Bobby moved in to finish me off, but Bill blew the whistle to stop it. He did that often because we still didn’t have any headgear and now guys were climbing into the ring with others not even close to their weight, and he was afraid of getting sued. “I could lose this place, boys, sho take it eashy, all right?”
He was in danger of losing it anyway. Except for Sam and me, Bobby Schwartz and six or seven other guys from the neighborhood, his gym just didn’t have that many members. He didn’t have the cash to take out an ad in the paper, and he wasn’t even in the phone book. He often looked worried about this, walking around the floor holding his membership notebook, its pages largely empty.
One afternoon I walked by the room where he slept. Usually a couple of sheets hung over the opening, but now they were down and I could see the mattress on the floor, the unzipped