Free The Fighter by Craig Davidson Page B

wasn't like he was in dire need of a carving knife
or a tattoo. What caught his eye was the small sign with
its clipped red lettering.
     

     
    The boxing club
entrance was around back. A worn linoleum staircase and bare concrete walls
taped with posters advertising a local fight card: brawl in the basement, December 5. At the base of the staircase was another door: thick steel with an inset
combination lock, the sort of thing you'd see fronting a bank vault. It was
wedged open.
    A short hallway
hung with boxing photos in gold-edged frames: Panama A1 Brown and Nigel Benn,
Baltazar Sangchili, Fighting Harada, Sixto Escobar. A Spanish beer poster:
Oscar De La Hoya hoisting a Budweiser over the words salud-respecto-contro .
The famous George Bellow oil painting: Louis Firpo, "The Wild Bull of the
Pampas," knocking "The Manassa Mauler" Jack Dempsey through the
ring ropes.
    The hallway led
to a tiny unlit office. A shape was sprawled out on a couch. Paul knocked. The
shape snuffled. Paul said, "Hello?" The shape stirred.
    "I
low much do I owe?"
    "Excuse
me?"
    "Don't
play silly buggers. Joke's on you, asshole. I can't pay." A mirthless
chuckle. "Can't squeeze water from a stone, jackass."
    "I
saw your sign."
    "Oh."
The voice brightened. "So you want to join?"
    The
voice assumed the aspect of a man: short and barrel-chested and wearing rumpled
slacks, a short-sleeved pearl-button shirt, crack- soled Tony Lamas. Bald with
deeply furrowed cheeks and a bloated nose. There was a blob of dried food on
his chin.
    "Caught
me in the middle of naptime." His face had the haunted look of a man who'd
crawled to daylight from a caved-in mineshaft. "Lou Cobb. I own the
place."
    Paul
introduced himself.
    "Ever
box before, Paul?" Lou asked. "Looks it—got the build all right. You
work with Ernie Riggs over at Knock Out?"
    Paul
said he hadn't.
    "Good,
that's good. Riggs is a bum. Riggs has abused more boxers than Inspector Number
Twelve. He stinks. How old are you?"
    "Twenty-six."
    "I
won't lie—bit old for a rookie. We like to get kids in the ring at twelve,
thirteen tops, parents allow it. But a young twenty-six—now that we can work
with. Sure you're not a fighter? Got that fighter's smile."
    "I
fell down a flight of stairs."
    "We must be talking some mean-ass
stairs."
    Lou
scraped the blob of dried food off his chin and studied it, as though straining
to recall what meal it had been a part of. "Paul, you can join yearly,
bi-yearly, or monthly. But you can't expect to learn anything in a month."
    "Can
I take a look around?"
    "Not much
to see." Lou seemed disappointed his spiel had not earned a quick sale.
"Go take a peep round the change rooms. After I'll give you the grand
tour."
    The dingy change
room was lit by a single bulb. Headgear and leather foul cups hung from wooden
pegs. A showerhead dripped. Paul considered himself in the mirror. He'd lost
fifteen pounds in the grapefields. He shed his shirt and stared dejectedly at
his chest: despite the gains at Jammer's, he still looked like a human boneyard
covered in a quivering layer of flab.
    When he emerged,
Lou beckoned him over to the ring apron. "So, ready for that grand
tour?" He swept his hand in an ironic, all- encompassing fan.
"Ta-daa."
    It was
impossible for the place to look like anything other than what it was: the
basement below a paint store, with a boxing ring and a few punching bags hung
from exposed girders. Paul judged its Spartan nature suitable to the sport.
    A new boxer made
his entrance. The guy wasn't big; his limbs jutted in raw bony oudines through
his track pants and sweatshirt. His hood was pulled low to obscure his face.
Only his hands were visible and they looked awful: curled into talons and
terribly swollen, knuckles gone black.
    "What are
you doing here?" A tiny vein throbbed at Lou's temple; a note of nervous
tension picked at his face. "Supposed to be home, in bed."
    The guy shuffled
over to a heavybag. He moved with obvious difficulty—Paul couldn't help