Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [56]
By late winter, Bill Connolly’s gym would go out of business, and he would close his doors and move north to Maine. Years later, we would hear he’d died, something to do with his liver or kidneys. But none of that had happened yet, and it was a Saturday morning in the fall of 1976, I’d just turned seventeen, and Bill had arranged an exhibition of his fighters and his new ring. He’d had flyers made up, and he walked all over downtown, dropping them off at shops and barrooms. That morning, he bought a coffeemaker and brewed a pot and set it on a card table beside a bucket of doughnuts. Maybe this was his way of drumming up business, or maybe he was just proud of us and his new ring and wanted to show it off, or both, but he laughed a lot, and slapped people hard on the back, eight or nine real boxers from real gyms in other towns along the river like Lawrence and Lowell.
One of the first fights was Bill’s nephew Brent and Sam Dolan. Sam had his shirt off and looked like carved ice and made the rest of us look good. Next to him Brent looked puffy, his olive skin yellow. Bill called “Time!” and they danced around each other, trading jabs before Brent threw a left hook and missed and Sam hit him hard in the face with two short rights, Brent falling back, his eyes wide, his mouthguard loose, and Bill called “Time!” though the round had just begun. “Eashy, boys, it’s just an exhibition. Andre, you go next.”
“Who with?”
“Sam.”
I didn’t want to fight him. I was sure he would kill me, and even if he didn’t, I did not want to punch the face of my friend. But we couldn’t embarrass Bill in front of the few who had come, so I stepped into the ring, eight-ounce gloves laced tightly over my wrapped hands and wrists, and Bill called “Time!”
Boxing is intimate. The fighter across from you becomes nothing but eyes. You look at nothing else. Your peripheral vision picks up his gloves, his bare shoulders, sometimes even his footwork. But you watch his eyes because they can show you something just before he shoots off a jab or is trying to find his range against you, to set his feet and fire off a combination; his eyebrows may lift slightly, and you can see how his pupils sometimes darken with emotions fighters are supposed to be above: hurt, frustration, fear, rage, all of which can muddy your judgment, make you swing wild when, instead, you should be minimizing damage as best you can, waiting for your move. And so you never think how dangerous this is, that a motivated punch from 600-pushup Sam Dolan could possibly kill you, or at least knock you down and out.
As soon as Sam and I got within punching range, I started jabbing, sticking and moving to keep him off balance and avoid getting hit. The first few jabs, Sam looked surprised I was actually punching him. Then he looked hurt. Then angry. He stepped in and threw a right hook, and when I weaved away from it I could feel the wind behind it. If I’d thought about that connecting, I would have stopped and walked out of the ring, but I kept jabbing. Sam’s eyes blinked every time. I never realized how green they were, like mine, and now they were dark and shining and looked betrayed. He swung at me harder and I was just able to avoid his glove and pop him in the face again. Somebody yelled something from outside the ring. Another voice said, “Quit dancing. Throw a combination.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t do it. You left yourself open when you threw combinations, and I didn’t want to get hit even once by Sam. I jabbed him twice in the nose, and he waded in and threw a cross that knocked my glove into my shoulder and spun me halfway around and Bill called “Time!”
He ducked into the ring. “That’s good, you two. But shomebody’s gonna get hurt.”
Me, he meant. A couple men clapped halfheartedly. Others stood there looking at us like we’d disappointed them, that they’d come here to see a real exchange, not this. Sam and I gave our gloves