Here Lies a Father. Mckenzie Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ a big waste of time, so my interests unfolded elsewhere. Since we’d come back from Florida I had been training regularly at an amateur boxing gym in Wellbourne. The workouts were intense and grueling, but I looked forward to the agony. I never talked about it because I didn’t want anyone to roll their eyes at my ridiculousness or think I came from a bad family. Besides, the idea of me fighting was laughable. Troubled boys with criminal records and violent fathers went into boxing, not docile, ineffectual teenagers like me.

      I had waited too long to answer Marie’s question and she regarded me with concern. Given the extraordinary circumstances that brought us to New Brimfield in the first place, I decided to break normal protocol and provide a straightforward, honest answer to her. I’d never see her again anyway.

      “I’ve been going to an amateur boxing gym,” I said. Air escaped my mouth rapidly like I had been holding my breath.

      Marie set her coffee mug down on the coffee table, a Las Vegas mug with a giant set of colorful dice printed on one side, and she smiled. “That is so fascinating,” she said. “What made you decide to start doing that?”

      “Nothing, really. I don’t go much,” I said, trying to downplay it.

      “Is that where you got the black eye?”

      I reacted without thinking, bringing my hand up to my face. “Oh, it’s still noticeable?”

      “Well, faintly really, but I can see where you had one recently. Did you have a fight recently or something?”

      I stammered and tried to think of an excuse. “Well, no, of course not. I’m not very serious about it. But, sort of, I mean, it was from all that stuff, so, yes.”

      She looked confused.

      “It’s not a big deal,” I said. I wasn’t ready to tell her the real story behind my black eye. “I only do it once in a while. Not every day or anything. It’s not a big deal.”

      Before my first night at the Wellbourne Boxing Club I’d been carrying the flyer in my pocket for two weeks straight. I couldn’t initially muster the courage to go. The gym was housed in the back of an office building at the local fairgrounds, vacant year round until the traveling carnival came to town each summer. Crumpled pieces of wax paper, remnants of giant pretzels, and fried dough rolled across the grounds like tumbleweeds. A large wooden grandstand was occasionally used for cattle auctions, rodeos, and demolition derbies, but otherwise it sat like a creepy ghost town all year long. The sun had set when I first arrived by foot, but an eerie purple and orange glow made the clouds resemble the sky of some faraway planet.

      I stood in front of the entrance and weighed my options.

      I wasn’t big enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t tough enough. I wasn’t coordinated or athletic enough. I had quit everything I’d ever started. I didn’t know anyone at the gym. They would all laugh at me. Everyone at school would make fun of me when they heard about it. I would break my nose, and Mom would get spooked and ban me from leaving the house ever again. But something in me, maybe a sense of destiny or adventure, forced my hand to reach for the door. There had always been an instinctual side to me, yearning to be dangerous and uncharacteristic, yet I had learned to bury it deep.

      I took a breath, exhaled, and pulled open the gym door, plowing a thin pile of snow flurries to the side of the walkway. I couldn’t open it all the way, on account of it being wooden, warped, and old, but I managed to squeeze myself inside and saw three people standing around, two teenagers and an old man. They looked bewildered and I realized they probably didn’t get many new visitors.

      The old man turned as he heard the creaking of the door. He smiled. “Hello,” he said, stepping up to me. “My name’s Bud Johnson. Are you here for the club?”

      What a strange question—what other reason would I have for entering?

      Bud Johnson and I were about the same size, but his cheeks were flushed and his round belly filled his faded sweatshirt. His gray hair was carefully barbered and brushed to one side. His most pronounced feature was the flatness of his nose, like someone had used a roller on it, and I realized it was from years of getting punched in the face.

      “Call me Bud, by the way. For tonight, just do whatever you see everyone else doing until you start to pick up the basics. There is always one thing I tell new recruits, whether they last one night or one year, and that is: you get out of it only what you put in. If you’re prepared to work hard, you’ll see the fruits of your labor. If not, then you only have yourself to blame.”

      I nodded in understanding, but really I had no idea what he was talking about.

      Inside the gym there were four heavy leather bags covered with gray duct tape, hanging from long chains attached to metal beams in the ceiling. They looked like giant, dusty cocoons. The gym was narrow. A homemade boxing ring, four feet high with three wooden steps, fit snug in the far corner. Beside the ring was a rickety card table full of musty gear: gloves, headgear, jump ropes, and pads that you put on like underwear to protect your groin. Some of the gear was decades old.

      We started stretching and warming up. I saw my breath as I did jumping jacks. Bud could tell I was nervous and he smiled encouragingly. I wore a ratty San Francisco 49ers T-shirt, even though I didn’t watch football, and hoped he wouldn’t ask me if they were my favorite team because I’d have to lie. Below the waist I sported a pair of baggy, worn-out sweatpants that looked like pantaloons. My clothes had been graciously donated secondhand from my cousins in Fairfall Valley, including a pair of old soccer sneakers to cushion my feet. Mom insisted everything was as good as new and that we didn’t have the money to purchase new anyway.

      Bud asked me whether I had hand wraps or a mouth guard. I shook my head.

      “I didn’t think so, but we have some extra just in case,” he said, pulling a dusty cardboard box from under the ring and slamming it down on the tabletop.

      He dug around inside the box for a moment and pulled out two bright-yellow hunks of cloth. He unrolled them like toilet paper and they reached the other end of the gym. He lifted my left arm, which had been resting on my side, to begin rolling the cloth across my wrist and palm. I had to spread my fingers out wide as he circled the cloth over and over so it was snug but not too tight. He systematically wrapped it around my wrist, over my thumb, and around my knuckles until a thick padding covered my hands.

      “Always wear these when you train,” he said. “They protect your hands from being broken or sprained. You won’t have to worry about those injuries as much once you get the proper form down, but wear the wraps anyway to be safe. They’re important. Got it?”

      I nodded blankly.

      He placed two swollen gloves on my wrapped hands and led me to a dangling red heavy bag. I tried to recall whether I had consented to the class in the first place, but now it was too late. He led me around the room like a timid puppy.

      “The only thing you need to worry about right now is the jab,” he said.

      “The what?” I asked quietly so the two teenagers wouldn’t hear me.

      Bud brought his fists to his cheeks and threw a straight left into the air. “Like this. Keep your hands up at all times and throw your left straight into the bag. Master that and we’ll go over more later.”

      “Just this one punch?” I asked.

      “That’s it,” he said. “One СКАЧАТЬ