Battling Boxing Stories. C. J. Henderson

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      “You don’t look like a fighter.” She tapped him on the shoulder.

      “Ease up, lady,” I said. “We’re just here to relax, so why don’t you do the same.”

      “Fighter,” she continued. “He’s no fighter.”

      One of the men at the table looked over at me. “What kind of fighter trains on ale?”

      Bobby still said nothing.

      “You ever heard of Chuck Wepner?” McCarthy asked.

      “The Bayonne Bleeder?” the man said. “He’s before my time.”

      “Yeah, but not hers.”

      Richie the front room waiter brought us our ales, setting two mugs of dark each down in front of McCarthy and I, ginger ale in front of Bobby, then cleared away the mugs on the other table. He studied the trio of faces, trying to decide whether to give them refills or cut them off.

      Bobby’s cell phone went off and he reached into his trousers’ pocket and took it out. Flipping it open, he held it to his ear.

      “Great,” Bobby said, “see you in the morning.” He closed up the cell phone.

      “Who was it?” McCarthy asked.

      “Harry.”

      “Well?”

      “He said to start losing weight.”

      “You mean he signed you to fight Adams?” I asked him.

      Bobby grinned.

      “He’s a lefty,” McCarthy said. “You’ve never boxed a lefty.”

      “There’s a first time for everything,” I said.

      Before his last fight, Bobby had been training in a small gym up in the Bronx. He lost an eight-round decision on an Atlantic City casino undercard to Jersey Joe Kernan, a local kid who could sell tickets. He banged Kernan around the ring the first couple of rounds, ripping him with vicious body shots, but for some reason couldn’t finish him off. Still, Bobby should have easily won the decision but was jobbed. Superstitious, he changed gyms and now trained at Biff’s in Brooklyn. Biff’s was a larger gym, occupying an entire two-story building under the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. It had better equipment and better fighters, which meant that the local promoters came around more often to check the talent out. So as far as I was concerned, the loss in AC had been a good thing for him. He seemed to agree, something had changed in him after that fight. He worked harder than ever in the gym and out of the ring, he was quiet, serious.

      I bent down and scooped up a handful of sawdust from the floor. “Let’s get out of here. It’s getting too hot.” I liked McSorley’s and didn’t want to get into a brawl here and I sure didn’t want Bobby getting into a fight and busting his hands up on some boozed up clown’s face.

      “Pussy,” the tourist keeps on, talking at Bobby’s back as we headed for the door. “Drinking ginger ale like a little girl.”

      Outside, the afternoon sun was lower and the air felt cool and fresh. I was zipping up my leather jacket when I heard the tavern doors swing open and the drunk’s sour voice. “Pussy. You’re no fighter, you’re a pussy.”

      I turned and saw him standing in the doorway, an empty glass mug in his right hand. His buddy was just behind him. I reached into my pockets and took out a set of keys and tossed them to Bobby.

      “Do me a favor,” I told him. “My Cherokee is parked over on East 6th. Go get it and drive it around and pick us up.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Sure as the sun’s going to come up tomorrow.” He still hesitated. “Go on,” I said, “it’s okay.” I watched him disappear around the corner and then I turned back to the other men.

      “You must be the daddy,” he said to me, “sending little sonny boy off before he gets hurt.” He looked over at McCarthy. “And you must be the mommy.” He stepped out onto the sidewalk.

      “Why don’t you just go back inside?” I said.

      “After we kick your asses and you apologize for insulting my wife.” He charged toward me, his hand holding the mug raised, ready to swing at my head.

      I threw the handful of sawdust into his face and as he tried to wipe it away I landed a pro field goal kick to his groin. He fell to his knees and grabbed his crotch. I started to follow up with a kick to his head but stopped. He wasn’t going to be a problem so I left him kneeling there, holding his crotch and making strange whooping sounds. McCarthy had waited for the other man to come toward him and when he did, McCarthy let him swing and stepped inside and ripped an uppercut to his nose. Blood exploded all over the sidewalk and the man squealed in pain.

      “You broke my nose,” he whimpered.

      “No, I didn’t,” McCarthy said, planting his feet and landing a straight right. “Now, I did.” The punch sent the man sprawling over a series of garbage cans and down a small flight of steps that led to a basement.

      The street fell silent except for the strange whooping sound coming from the man who was holding his crotch. Then, I could hear the roar of an engine as my Cherokee came barreling down the block. Bobby braked when we reached us and we piled into the jeep and drove back to Brooklyn. Bobby wanted to hit Biff’s steam room and try and take another half-pound off.

      McCarthy was flushed from the street fight and on the way to Brooklyn he started needling Bobby again. “You’d have to make the jump to ten rounds,” he said from the back seat. “You’ve never gone ten rounds. That’s a big haul against a fighter like Adams. Ten long rounds. Of course, the fight might end sooner. Adams likes to pump his jab real fast. Doubles and triples it. You can’t block them all.”

      “You don’t know what I can do. Buy a ticket for the fight and see what I can do.”

      “I just might do that,” McCarthy said. “Front row.”

      “I saw him get knocked out,” Bobby said. “That fight took a lot out of him. He’s thirty-four and after the fight he looked it.”

      “Oh, don’t worry about him,” McCarthy said, “he’s well trained. He wants that title back.”

      “What makes you think I’m worried?” He stared at McCarthy. “Say, you’re a southpaw. You want some work?”

      “Sparring with you? Sure.”

      “Be here tomorrow at eleven a.m. Three rounds.”

      “Sure you don’t want to go ten with me?”

      “No, three will do,” Bobby said. His voice was calm and I was relieved that McCarthy’s needling hadn’t got to him.

      After McCarthy left, we went upstairs and Bobby got a fresh towel and stripped and put his clothes in the locker. I asked Bobby what else Harry had said on the phone.

      “Twenty СКАЧАТЬ