Free Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole

blocks down from there.
    “Made ‘er,” said Eloy.
    Chicky softly closed and locked the passenger door of the truck, Fresita, Eloy’s nickname for his pampered strawberry red 1981 Chevy pickup. “Fresita” was a play on the Spanish word for strawberry,
fresa.
His grandfather carefully locked his side. Chicky started for the nearby double doors of the gym, which was a sprawling, two-story enchilada red brick building located just up the street from the Santa Rosa Hospital.
    The gym dated from the late 1950 s, and had originally been funded by the Catholic Church. The far wing was an indoor basketball court with bleachers on opposite sides. Basketball and boxing tournaments were often held there, and drew large crowds. The gym was known to the regulars as the “San Nacho,” the nickname for San Ignacio. At the door, Chicky looked back.
    Eloy was still by the truck, his eyes sad. “Go on in and git to work.”
    Chicky didn’t understand. “What about you?”
    “Got to go to the hospital to see Doc Ocampo,” Eloy replied.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Eloy said, “Nothin’s wrong. I had tests is all.”
    “You sick?”
    “Naw, it’s just tests,” Eloy assured him.
    “When’ll you be back?” Chicky asked.
    “Soon’s Doc Ocampo does his checkup on me. So you gonna fish or cut bait?”
    Chicky said,
“Órale,
later,” and started for the door to the gym, grateful to be training again, but worried about his grandfather. He looked back once more, and Eloy was smiling. Things couldn’t be too bad.
    Chicky wished for times past, for suppers together when Eloy used to tell him about traveling to far places and winning big fights. It was fine even when supper turned into hastily consumed TV dinners once Chicky’s granny was gone. Chicky feared those times had slipped away forever. So when Eloy had asked him earlier that day if he wanted to head into San Anto for a workout at the San Nacho, Chicky said, “Book it,” unconsciously mimicking his grandfather’s way of talking.
    Chicky loved the old-timey Texas way Eloy spoke, his accent even more pronounced than El Paso’s great and charming golfer Lee Trevino. Once Chicky began to wear boots and a wide-brimmed hat, he quickly gave up the
vato
street talk of Victoria Courts to sound as much like Eloy as he could. He soon sounded as Texas as guys with nicknames like Cooter and Cotton. When Eloy let him drive the tractor alone that first time, the kid thought he’d burst with pride, but he never forgot how afraid he’dbeen when his mother left him to live at Eloy’s farm that distant Thanksgiving Day, how he’d huddled in the thin little coat his mother had gotten from Goodwill. And he never forgot how his grandfather and grandmother had made him feel as if he had lived with them always. When the Longhorns were playing the Aggies on TV, Eloy talked to Chicky as if he were a peer and it made him feel like a man, like an hombre.
    Before their first game, they’d flipped a quarter for first pick of a team. Years later he realized that his grandfather had rigged the toss so Chicky would win. Chicky chose the Aggies because he liked the sound of their name, and thereafter would remain an Aggie. Eloy rooted for the Longhorns. They made a pact to watch the annual Aggie-Longhorns game ever after and had never missed one. Before she got sick, Dolores, nicknamed Mamá Lola, had served hot dogs made with Polish sausage, and sauerkraut and spicy mustard. Afterward, they ate homemade flan with strawberries. Lola made coffee she got from Nuevo Laredo.
    Chicky and his grandfather had clapped and jumped on each play of the game. Whenever the Longhorns were behind, Eloy would clap his hands once and urge them on in that way of his. “All rat, ‘horns, ‘bout time t’open up a can a whip-ass.”
    If Eloy thought the referees had made a bad call, he’d rumble low in his throat, “Yessir, somebody got to the zebras.”
    It was Eloy’s influence that made Chicky a throwback. It