The Fighter

Chapter 7

The Upper New York Golden Gloves qualifying tournament was held in the basement of St. Michael’s cathedral at the corner of Niagara and 12th. The day was December 31, 2005.

The dressing room boiled with voices and bodies, bodies of men and boys, naked chests and shoulders, black, white, brown, beige, yellow. Altar boy smocks and votive candle holders were hung on hooks beside the weigh station.

Rob stripped to his underwear and took his place in line. Irish guys with freckled arms, Mexican flyweights who looked made of braided rope, black cruiserweights with superhero bodies — muscles where there shouldn’t be muscles — Cuban street kids with scars marking their faces, Italian bruisers with marbled forearms and squashed noses. They’d come from all over the region: Lockport and Erie, Lackawanna and Tonawanda, a few driving north from New York City looking for softer brackets. They eyed one another cagily, sizing each other up, laying their own private odds.

Rob stepped onto a scale. His torso shone blue in places, the shaped muscles touched with shadow. An official scribbled “164” on the cover of his boxing book. A fight doc shone a penlight in his eyes and listened to the thack-thack of his heart.

Rob’s US Boxing book was tossed upon the heap at the matchmakers’ table. Three officials were tasked with matching fighters according to weight and experience. As they sorted through books, the trainers assembled on the sidelines voiced their opinion:

“Make it fair, boys, make it fair…”

“Aw, no, man! That boy’s dead for a ringer — no waaaay we taking that match!”

“We’ll fight anybody. AnyBODY!”

Rob was matched against a twenty-five-year-old amateur from Bed-Stuy: Marty “Sugar” Caine. Caine had recently qualified for a berth on the Olympic squad.

Reuben and Rob sequestered themselves in the temporary trainer’s quarters: a rubdown table bookended by flimsy hospital screens. On either side could be glimpsed the shadows of trainers wrapping their fighters’ hands, massaging necks and shoulders.

“Won’t be a cakewalk,” Reuben said. “Caine’s got skills. But his knockout ratio’s piss-poor. You gotta get inside his head, Robbie. I want him thinking, This kid’s got bricks in his chin. I want him thinking, This kid drinks kerosene and breathes nitrous oxide flames. Got it?”

Tommy poked his head through the hospital screen.

“Where’ve you been?” Reuben said.

“Bus broke down on the side of the highway.” He smiled at Rob. “How you feeling, champ?”

A boxing official stopped by to watch Reuben tape Robbie’s hands; New York boxing commission rules stipulated that an official must observe the pre-fight hand wrap to ensure it was done by the book, no lead slugs or mustard-seed oil. The official initialed Rob’s wraps and Reuben had his son lie down on the training table, working winter-green liniment into the muscles of Rob’s back.

“How you feeling?”

“Nervous,” said Rob.

“Hey, if you don’t have butterflies, there’s something the matter with you. Just remember: cowards and heroes feel the same fear. Heroes react to it differently, is all.”

But his father didn’t understand. Rob wasn’t scared of being hit or even getting knocked out. Rob was scared for Marty “Sugar” Caine.

“Fear has been around for centuries,” Reuben said. “It’s old, and it’s good.”

The basement of St. Michael’s cathedral was cloaked in shadow save for a halo of spotlights above the ring. Rows of folding chairs hosted mothers and fathers, local fight enthusiasts, boxers and coaches, the odd talent scout. The canteen was staffed by the nuns of St. Francis. Fighters skipped rope or shadowboxed in darkened corners. A folding table behind them supported a glittering cargo of trophies, each crowned with a brass boxer with arms upraised.

Rob sat between his uncle and father in a black robe. In the ring a pair of middleweights went at it. That they were the same weight seemed insupportable: one a thick-necked fireplug, the other a lanky beanpole. The fireplug pursued the beanpole, hoping to blow a hole through his willowy opponent with one solid punch. The taller fighter kept him at bay, snapping hard jabs, avoiding those bullish charges as smoothly as a toreador.

When the bell rang, the judges scored unanimously in favor of the beanpole. The decision received scattered boos, most of them coming from the fireplug’s cheering section. The beanpole’s supporters jeered back and before long two women — the boxers’ mothers, in all probability — were screaming hysterical threats at each other. “Hold me back!” the fireplug’s mother cried, “or else I’ll pound her!” She took her husband’s arm, braced it across her chest, and again cried, “Hold me back, so help megod!” Once things settled down, Reuben said, “We’re up.”

Marty “Sugar” Caine was lean and tapered, his every muscle visible under a thin stretching of flesh. Rob noticed a pair of star-shaped welts on Caine’s torso, one between the second and third rib, another above his right nipple.

Gunshot wounds. When Caine turned around in his corner, kneeling to bless himself, Rob saw the exit wounds on his back: scar tissue like lumps of bubblegum smoothed across the underside of a table.

The fighters touched gloves over the referee’s arm. The bell rang.

Caine skipped lightly, appearing to float a half-inch above the canvas. Rob stalked, hands low, gloves poised and rotating. Caine snapped out a pair of jabs, fast but merely pestering; they glanced off his headgear. Rob bulled in and, as Caine hooked behind a left jab, slipped the second punch and threw his own hook, a submarine right to the body.

Caine managed to take a piece of Rob’s punch on his arm, but the shot was thrown with such force it drove the point of his elbow into Caine’s abdominal wall. Caine bent sideways at the hip, lips skinned back from his gumshield. The ref — dressed in white trousers and a vest like an English estate butler — hovered nearby to call the mandatory eight-count.

“Follow up!” Reuben hollered. “Get on it!”

But Rob did not get on it. He threw another hook but pulled short, feinted left for no reason at all, and drew away.

Caine recovered enough to throw a series of jabs coming off the ropes. Rob held his hands low and let the punches hit him flush in the face. Caine came through with a wrecking-ball right that caught Rob under the chin; his head snapped back. He closed his eyes and… wished. But when his eyes opened a split-second later he was still standing. He’d taken Caine’s best shot and knew — right then, knew — that Caine didn’t have the oomph to put him away. This cold fact filled Rob with a measure of desolation the likes of which he’d rarely known.

The bell rang.

In the corner Reuben slapped his face.

“What the hell? You had him. Christ, Robbie — had him.”

Reuben offered instruction but Rob’s attention was focused on the opposite corner:

Caine sat on a stool, face shiny with Vaseline, gumshield socked in the crook of his mouth. Caine’s eyes darted into the crowd. Rob followed his gaze to a slim, beautiful woman in the third row. Girlfriend? Wife? Someone who cared for him, obviously — Rob could see the lines of worry on her face. An infant girl sat on the woman’s lap.

For an instant the fighters’ eyes met across the hunched backs of their trainers.

Caine nodded, a nearly imperceptible motion of his head.

The bell rang.

Caine sprang in slugging, was jolted by a flurry and backed off, dancing high on his toes. They came together again, Caine pepper-potting jabs until a right cross sent sweat flying from his headgear. Spurred by the crowd, he followed two precise jabs with a straight right that Rob slipped by an eighth of an inch, Caine’s hand finding only empty air above Rob’s shoulder. Pivoting on his lead, Rob ripped a body shot under Caine’s ribcage that sent the other boxer into a flutter-legged swoon.

“Go on! You got him!” Reuben yelled.

Caine’s eyes were unfocused; yellow bile foamed the edges of his gumshield. Rob saw the gunshot wound on Caine’s chest, a tight pink asterisk spread like the petals of an ice plant. Where had he gotten it? Here was Marty Caine with a wife and a kid and dreams of big paydays and here was Rob fucking it all up — what earthly right did he have to fuck it up for anyone? He knew Caine would fight until his eyes filled with blood and his arms grew numb, until he was a senseless wreck on the canvas. Caine would fight until there was nothing left because he was fighting for more than just himself, and because the complete sacrifice of his body was everything he could possibly surrender.

They went two more rounds. Though Rob controlled the tempo, Caine kept busy and landed some flashy shots. The judges ruled it a split-decision draw. The decision split the crowd: half cheered while the other half booed.

Rob and Caine fell into a loose embrace in the middle of the ring. “Lordy, did you ever hit me,” Caine whispered in Rob’s ear. “Nobody should have to be hit like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Rob said.

“No sorries, man.” Caine patted Rob’s head. “Never sorries.”

Reuben was at the judges’ table, vowing to challenge the decision. “Hung from the highest bough!” he yelled. “The… highest… bough!”

From the ring Rob watched his opponent walk to the locker room. Supported by his trainer, Caine stopped beside the woman. His taped hands moved tenderly on her shoulder, tenderly over the infant girl’s cheeks and hair.

It was dusk when they left St. Michael’s. The dark air quivered in funnels of light cast by gooseneck streetlamps.

Reuben and Rob sat in the idling car while Tommy brushed snow off the windows. Rob drank from a liter bottle of bubblegum-flavored Pedialyte to jack up his electrolytes; a jar of Gerber’s baby food sat between his legs, the only stuff his system could tolerate after a fight. A warrior twenty minutes ago, now he ate like an infant.

“Tully’s Record Sullied,” Reuben said. “That’s what the headline’ll read in the Sports section of the Gazette. They’ll love the goddamn alliteration.”

“That’s not alliteration,” Rob said from the backseat. “Just rhyming.”

“Don’t get smart. I don’t get it,” Reuben went on. “You had him, and not once — three, four times. The hell happened?”

Rob wanted to tell his father how, when he had Caine staggered, he’d thought of his first knockout — those teeth winking like bloody pearls in a black rubber gumshield. He wanted to tell his father that he couldn’t hate a stranger, even for the short time they shared a ring together, even when that stranger’s intent was to inflict harm.

“We might not make it out of the preliminaries.” A mystified shake of the head. “Robbie, you were the favorite. The odds on… favorite.”

Nine o’clock, New Year’s Eve.

Rob skipped lightly down the stairs. He wore workboots, faded blue jeans, a clean white T-shirt. Reddened slashes marked his cheeks and chin: burns from Caine’s gloves.

“I’m heading out.”

Reuben sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of Jim Beam. He stared at the Formica tabletop as though, were he to fixate his gaze long enough, the random mica chips might disclose some earth-shattering epiphany.

“Go on, then.” He flicked his hand. “Home no later than twelve-thirty or I’ll be dragging you home by the scruff.”

The party was hosted by Felix Guiterrez — Felix, the guy whose jaw Rob had broken a year and a half ago. He answered Rob’s knock wearing a shiny costume top hat.

“Tully, my man.” Rob noted the dimple scars on Felix’s jaw and felt a pang of regret. To Felix’s credit, he didn’t hold a grudge. “Come on down. My folks are partying upstairs.”

Thirty-odd people filled the unfinished basement, standing or sitting on lawn chairs.

Earlier in the night the place had been decorated but now all that remained were shreds of crepe paper and rubber balloon-rings taped to the beams. Bottles of rum and vodka liberated from parents’ liquor cabinets passed amongst the throng.

He spotted Kate with Darren Gregory. Darren was a willowy senior who favored ripped jeans and Goodwill corduroy; thick dark hair fell over his handsome features. His mother was a border toll-taker who, unbeknownst to Rob, had ridden the same bus as his father for the better part of twenty years. Last month Darren had won a poetry competition; his love sonnet had appeared in the Sunday Gazette. He and Kate sat on lawn chairs, knees touching. Darren made flourishes with his hands as Kate’s mouth formed words — “Yes! Absolutely!” — and she laughed. Watching them, Rob felt strangely cold, gutted, blood running thin as copper wire in his veins.

Felix sidled up with a jug of Comrade Popov’s potato vodka. “Heard about the draw at the Gloves. Who the hell did you fight — King Kong?”

“Could have gone either way,” Rob told him. “I could’ve lost.”

Felix appeared upset, or let down. Rob wondered if, sometime in the future, Felix had wanted to tell people he’d had his jaw broken by a world champion. He drank from the jug and winced.

Felix’s mother knelt at the top of the basement steps. She wore a pair of novelty glasses: red plastic shaped in the year 2006, eyeballs set like boozy marbles in the middle of each zero.

“How’s everything down here? Need more grape sodas — Cheez-Its?”

“We’re fine,” Felix said. “Go away.”

Rob took another pull. He was a lightweight when it came to drinking, plus his body was worn out from the fight; the basement took on a warped convex, as though he was viewing things through a busted telescope. At some point Kate was standing next to him. She wore a red sweater: a spray of pale freckles, the dovelike sweep of her collarbones. Rob wasn’t sure if she smelled of vanilla or if, in the stark basement light, he only imagined that smell.

“Tully,” she said, “you look a bit greased.”

“And so what? Not like there’s a law against it.”

Kate tsk-tsked.

“Golden Boy, drunk as a sailor. Taking that draw pretty hard, aren’t you?”

“I couldn’t care less. A few more draws, a loss, get knocked out, and I can hang it up for good.”

“Or you can hang it up before all that.”

Rob gave her a look that said they both knew better. “And don’t call me that, either.”

“What?”

“Golden Boy.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

Rob was still rankled at seeing Kate and Darren together, and Comrade Popov did his mood a further disservice: level-headed and warm-hearted while sober, it appeared that Rob could be a nasty jealous drunk.

“What were you and Shakespeare talking about?” he couldn’t help asking.

“Schools,” Kate told him. “Darren applied to UC Santa Cruz, me to Santa Barbara. I’ll need a scholarship, but Darren’s got a plan to make ends meet.”

She detailed Darren’s can’t-miss moneymaking scheme: he planned to scour the sands of Monterey Bay with a metal detector, cleaning the beaches of debris and paying his tuition at the same time. It struck Rob as a childish plan, even by a teenager’s standards. What did he expect to uncover — antique bottle caps? A trove of Nazi gold?

Kate said, “Darren’s so eco-conscious.”

If Rob had been a little drunker he might have remarked that if “eco-conscious” were a synonym for “corduroy-wearing wiener,” then by all means, Darren Gregory was as eco-conscious as they came. Rob saw Kate and Darren on a beach, barefoot on the sand. A beach so far removed from the weed-strewn lots, tumbledown row houses, and terminal bleakness of Niagara Falls it might as well be another planet. They bent together over an object glinting at the rim of a tide pool, touching and smiling and laughing.

Darren Gregory materialized, bony and stoop-shouldered with hair like a bear pelt.

“Robert, my fine friend,” he said. “You’re looking worse for wear.”

Darren wore his artsy-fartsy heart on his corduroy sleeve; to him, boxing and cockfighting were distinguishable only in that one involved animals who didn’t know any better.

“Any job comes with its lumps. And you know what they say — women dig scars.”

Darren placed his hand on Rob’s wrist as though they were sharing a close personal confidence. “And here I was thinking they dug sophistication and intelligence. And as for a job — I didn’t know amateur boxers got paid.”

Rob figured amateurs could at least pawn their trophies, earning them more than most beachcombers. “How much did you make for that sonnet in the Gazette?”

“I do it for the love of words.” He slipped his hand off Rob’s wrist and set it on Kate’s. “She and I were just talking about that, as a matter of fact. We’re going to collaborate on a brace of poems.”

Rob saw the two of them on the beach again, except now Darren was composing poetry for her, dipping a quill pen in a pot of ink. Rob jammed his hands in his pockets, afraid of what they might do.

“You’re lucky, then. Kate’s a great poet. She helped me with that haiku assignment.”

Darren chuckled — indulgently, Rob thought. “Yes, and what did you come up with?”

Rob was certain his own poem would be met with derision; with an apologetic look at Kate, he recited hers instead. “It went, Though there will always / Be those things out of your reach / Never stop reaching.”

“It’s admirable, Robert; an admirable effort. Quite good for a fledgling attempt.”

Kate crossed her arms. “What would you say marks it as a fledgling attempt?”

“The meter’s sloppy, for one. And the sentiment is, should I say…” He gave Rob a sorry-to-be-the-bearer-of-bad-news look. “… a tad juvenile.”

“You’re right,” Rob said. “Juvenile, through and through.”

“Buck up, chum.” Darren clapped Rob’s shoulder. “Not everyone’s made for the world of letters. Some of us are better off…” he shrugged,“… on another of life’s paths.”

Kate looked embarrassed at Darren’s preening, and Rob had had enough. He’d drag the flapping loose-lipped bastard out into the snow and smash him. That blown-glass chin would shatter in one shot.

“Why not say what you mean; let’s not sit here attacking each other on the sly.”

“You recited your poem,” Darren said flatly. “I told you what I thought. If that’s attacking—”

“You know what you’re doing and so do I. You’re not half so clever as you think. You want to talk about juvenile sentiments —” He flicked the sleeve of Darren’s corduroy jacket. “How about a guy from around here wearing this shit? Professor Plum in the study with the candlestick.”

Overhearing this, a few partyers voiced their drunken approval.

“Your ma’s a toll-taker,” Rob went on. “Your pops works a wrecking crane. Look in your fridge and I’ll find a pack of Helmbolds bologna, same as in mine.”

“Rob, come on —”

He cut Kate off. “You’re the same Darren Gregory who took a shit on the floor in first grade. Remember that? Mrs. Frieberger stepped out and you couldn’t wait for her to get back with the hall pass so you squatted next to the goldfish bowl. So go on wearing your jacket and writing sonnets — you’ll always be the kid who shit on the floor.”

Darren jerked a glare of solid malevolence at Rob, then gave Kate a you-see-how-it-is look. “When was that?” he said quietly. “Ten years ago? It’s okay. One day I’ll leave here and end up someplace where people have no memory of what I did as a six-year-old; I can start over, fresh. But you’ll never leave, because your best and only hope is right here.” He reached over Rob’s head, pantomiming, like his hand was hitting something solid. “Feel that? It’s a glass ceiling, and you’re about to slam into it.”

Rob was jolted. “Who cares? I’m not ashamed of where I come from —”

“And it’s not just a ceiling — it’s a box with glass walls, and you’re never going to grow out of it because you never tried to when you had the chance. And the rest of your life you’re going to wonder, Robert.”

It was the Robert that did it. Blinding rage. “I swear, for a nickel I’d smash you —”

Darren rummaged through his pocket. “Here’s a dime.” He bounced it off Rob’s chest and jutted his chin out. “If you leave a scar I can lie and say it isn’t from some Love Canal bully, because I’ll be someplace where nobody knows any better.”

Bile rolled up Rob’s stomach and spread into his mouth. He’d never been called a bully before, and was proud of the fact. But next his hands were wrapped up in Darren’s jacket and he was shaking him so hard his teeth rattled. He yanked Darren’s jacket until their noses touched.

“You don’t know anything,” he growled. “You’re not getting out of here. You’re not—”

Felix Guitterez jammed his body between them. “Take it outside, guys.”

The rage drained out of Rob; in its wake only regret at the hollow-ness of his actions. He smoothed Darren’s jacket. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “No, no going outside. Sorry, sorry.”

Kate grabbed his hand. As she dragged him up the basement steps, Rob caught Darren looking at him, giving him the most sympathetic smile he’d ever seen.

Outside, Kate dropped his hand and marched down the sidewalk toward her home.

“Idiotic, Tully,” she called over her shoulder. “Grade-A asshole material.”

The night sky was salted with stars. Rob walked down the street on snow packed hard from car tires. Revelers headed to their cars — wives supported drunken husbands; husbands cradled drunken wives. He felt awful for what he’d said about Darren.

He shouldn’t have recited Kate’s poem, either.

Tommy sat on the porch steps; he raised a hand and shook his head, a wry, guilty gesture.

“Your dad’s still up. Don’t think I can face him right now.”

Rob said, “You lose at cards?”

“Yuh.”

“The whole Christmas bonus?”

“Yuh. So what happened this afternoon?”

“I wasn’t on.”

Tommy scratched his neck, winced. “I don’t know… looked to me you had the guy.”

“Don’t know what else to tell you.”

“It’s just, y’know, boxing is rough business, Rob. If you’re not very, very good, you can get killed or made over into a vegetable or what have you. Anyone who doesn’t have his heart in it can get himself hurt.” His memory twigged.

“I ever tell you about Garth Briscoe? He was this light-heavy used to train at the club. Good fella; a give-you-the-shirt-off-his-back kind of guy…”

Fritzie Zivic’s bulldog rounded the corner at 22nd Street, followed by Zivic himself.

“Put that hell-hound on a leash,” Tommy called. “Damn thing nipped my toes tonight.”

“Were your toes under the table? Under the table is a dog’s domain.”

“So where you want they should go?” Tommy wanted to know. “Maybe you nail boots to the ceiling and let us all hang.”

Zivic came up the walk. “Your uncle, uh?” he said to Rob. “Always the bitch and moan. And to think, I come bearing gifts.”

He produced a few sawbucks from his navy peacoat and shoved them at Tommy.

“What’s this?”

“Yours, dummy. Dropped them under the card table.”

Tommy, skeptical: “Another guy could’ve dropped ’em.”

Fritzie cut a glance at Rob, like he wished he wasn’t here to see this. “They were under your seat, okay?”

Tommy’s big hand reached out and covered Zivic’s; when they came apart, the bills were gone. “Thanks, Fritzie. Ought to be more careful.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Ah jeez… I’m sorry, fellas.”

Fritzie apologized on behalf of Murdoch, who had chosen to bestow his nightly movement on the Tullys’ lawn.

Tommy said, “Looks like he’s enjoying himself. Bring a bag with you?”

“Ah, come on, Tommy. It’s nature’s way. Whaddayacallit — biodegradable.”

“Yeah, and so are corpses. Doesn’t mean I want one —”

“—on your front lawn, yeah, yeah.” Fritzie kicked snow over the load. “Did I hear you talking about Garth Briscoe? Sad story, was Garth.”

“What happened?” said Rob. “He get hurt in the ring?”

“That was his problem,” Fritzie said. “He couldn’t get hurt enough.”

“Let me tell it,” Tommy cut in. “Fritzie tells it, we’ll be here come next New Year. Briscoe was a good guy; he taught English composition down at St. Mary’s of the Sacred Heart —”

“The Professor, is what the guys around the gym called him,” said Fritzie.

“And in the beginning, he did have that professor-like air about him.”

“But he had a problem,” Tommy said. “He was one of those whaddayacallems — like to hurt themselves?”

“Punch pugs,” Fritzie supplied.

Rob said, “A masochist?”

“Right,” Tommy continued, “so a masochist. Briscoe took punishment the likes of which I’d never seen. He’d hardly protect himself. His ribs were always bruised, face always bristly with catgut.”

“His old lady left him,” Fritzie said. “Took the kids. Briscoe kept on fighting.”

Tommy said, “Don’t get me wrong — I respect a man who sucks it up and can give as good as he gets for a few rounds and, when it comes down to it, takes his beating like a man —”

“You should,” Fritzie cut in. “Made a career of it.”

“People in glass houses, Fritzie…”

Fritzie gave Rob a pointed look. “Some of us, that was the only way to go. We didn’t have such talent.”

“I asked Briscoe one time,” Tommy said.” What exactly is the point? He told me his aim was to get hit so hard and so often that, y’ know, not getting hit became its own pleasure.”

“Euphoric pleasure,” Fritzie said, pleased with himself. “Thought if he dealt with pain on a nonstop basis, when that pain was taken away, his body would exist in this state of constant bliss. Crazy, but…” He shrugged.

“God, it was awful watching him fight after hearing that. And the problem was he never reached that state of grace, so after a while the pain became an end in itself. A guy can get addicted to pain, just like anything. Get so his body craves it.”

Rob pictured a man taking that sort of punishment — eating leather, the gym bums called it: That poor palooka ate leather till his face was full.

Murdoch was now chewing on the wooden steps. Gnawing with rotten yellow teeth, a meringue of foam slathering his chops.

“Can you stop him doing that, Fritzie? First he turds in the yard, now he’s like a beaver on the steps. You’d think he was sent by the realtors’ board to drive house values down.”

“Yawh!”

Fritzie prodded the dog’s haunches. “Scit!” Murdoch wheeled and nipped Fritzie’s boot. “Miserable devil. He’ll be dead soon.” Feeling poorly for having wished his sole companion dead, Fritzie picked the old dog up and kneaded its ears.

“Briscoe…” Tommy went on, “… ended up not entirely human. Your dad booted him out of the club: guys felt ill staring at his bashed-in mug. I saw him a few years ago, walking down Ferry Street. His face was so scarred I barely recognized him. And this nothinglook in his eyes — like he was dead and hadn’t quite figured it out yet. Boxing’s a wonderful thing, Robbie, but it’s not the only thing. It wasn’t the thing for Garth Briscoe. It isn’t for everyone.”

Murdoch squirmed and whined. “Fine, you loveless brute,” said Fritzie, setting him on the ground. The dog’s hips gave out; his rear legs crumpled under his haunches.

“It’s why he’s so mean all the time.” Fritzie’s eyes glassed over; Rob was worried he might start sobbing. “A dog gets old, it doesn’t understand why it can’t do the things it used to. Makes a creature ornery.”

“That thing was ornery as a pup,” said Tommy. “Poor Murdoch…”

Fritzie went on,“… doubt he’ll see another year.” Inside the house: a crash, a drunken roar. Tommy said, “Reuben’s pissed as a jar of hornets.” Fritzie said, “Sounds like he’s just plain old pissed, too.” Tommy nodded. “Yuh.”

“Come on, Murdoch.” Fritzie slapped his thigh. “I’ll leave you men to it.”

Reuben Tully’s forehead lay on the table like it had been glued there. The bottle of Jim Beam was empty. At some point in the evening he’d taken Rob’s boxing trophies out of their display case and arrayed them across the tabletop.

The sound of Tommy’s and Rob’s feet squeaking on the linoleum jerked him from his stupor. “If it isn’t my two favorite people in the whole… wide… world.”

“You look like shit, Ruby. The drunkard style doesn’t suit you.” Reuben’s eyes were red-rimmed. “You’re not wearing a rain barrel. You win, Tommy?”

“I did not.”

Reuben nodded, as though expecting it. “And you,” he said to Rob. “The great white hope.” He gulped air and slurred, “The pacifishht.”

“Head on up to bed, Robbie. I’ll get him squared away.”

“Uh-uh-uh.”

Reuben held his hand out like a traffic cop — halt. “I wanna talk. Discuss the…” His head bobbed. “… happened today.”

Rob said he only wanted to go to bed.

“Well, I want things, too. I want to know…” Reuben’s hand cinched around the golden boxer on top of a trophy, his finger tapping its little golden head. “… why you tanked the goddamn match today.”

“I didn’t tank it, Da—” Tommy cut in. “Don’t answer him. He’s loaded and talking nonsense.”

“I wasn’t loaded this afternoon! And I been around long enough to spot a piss-tank!”

Tommy guided Rob toward the stairs. “Okay, you’re off to bed.”

Reuben jerked up, knocking the table with his knees. Trophies bucked off and hit the linoleum, their cheap metal heads and arms busting off. The bottle shattered, spraying shards. He lost his balance and collapsed onto his chair; a metal leg buckled, spilling him onto the floor.

Tommy grabbed his brother’s sweater and yanked him up. “Goddamnit, get your hands off me!” Tommy shoved his brother up against the fridge. Reuben swatted Tommy’s face, a glancing shot that drew blood above his eye. The fridge rocked on its casters; the jar of quarters Tommy collected for the laundromat tipped off and smashed. Rob was surprised at how easily Tommy was able to manhandle his father. “Let go, you prick!”

But Tommy pinned Reuben’s wrists and jammed his head into Reuben’s shoulder.

“You’re in sock feet and there’s busted glass all over. Damned if I’ll let go.”

Reuben closed his eyes; he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. When he opened them they were focused, with calm intensity, on his son.

“In the ring,” he said, “you hit a man, you earn his respect. Other places — the office, the boardroom, wherever — that man does not have to respect you. But in the ring, it’s the law. And sure, it’s rough. And no, I can’t say you won’t ever get hurt. But that pain is temporary, Robbie, and better than the pain of a wasted life, the same faces and places and heartbreak for seventy, eighty years.”

“I don’t care about getting hurt, Dad. What worries me is that this” — he nodded to the broken trophies — “… is all there’ll ever be.”

“It won’t be. Listen, we want the same thing — for you to get out of this town.”

He shoved against Tommy, who didn’t budge. “Boxing is your ticket. You see the ring as a trap, but it’s not: it’s a doorway. You got to step through.” He sighed. “I’m done, Tom. You can let go a me.”

Tommy kicked stray bits of glass away so that Reuben could make the stairs without slicing his feet. Supported by the railing, Reuben ventured into the unlit darkness of the second floor.

Tommy wiped at the trickle of blood rounding his eye. “That went about as good as you could expect.”

“He doesn’t listen. Never has.”

“What’d you say?” Tommy threw an arm around his nephew’s shoulders, hugged him close, kissed the top of his head. “I’m kidding. Listen, the sauce turns your pops into a comic book villain — the Asshole from the Black Lagoon. Let’s hit the sack; the Asshole can clean this mess up tomorrow morning.”