Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole Read Free Book Online

back. But while he’s starin straight into your eyes, you’re gonna look at the strip of skin just below his eyebrows and above his eyeballs. Keep starin at that eyelid skin. He won’t be able to tell where you’re starin. He’ll be the one with the dry eye. When he blinks first, he’ll start thinkin he’s the pussy, not you. Got it?”
    “Yeah, I do.”
    The ref waved Tim Pat and his opponent to the center of the ring. The stare-down began. Tim Pat followed Dan’s instructions. The Mexican kid blinked.
    Tim Pat said, “Pussy.”
    The Mexican kid flushed.
“Tu madre.”
    The ref said, “No talking or I take points.”
    The Mexican kid, now pissed, which was just what Dan wanted, came out winging shots, tried to drive Tim Pat back. Tim Pat surprised him. He shoved off on that right toe and drove left jabs into his chest and neck. The other boy stumbled back. In the second round, Tim Pat stepped in with more lefts and a few straight rights, most of which connected. The other kid could not get set, was always on his heels. In the third, Tim Pat repeatedly landed with the one-two combination. Near the end of the round, he followed the one-two with his hook,
Boom!,
landed it flush on the other kid’s chin, the hook as pure and tart and sweet as lemon pie.
    The other little boy stumbled back again, hurt this time, but wouldn’tgo down. Tim Pat stalked him. The boy, still dazed, was unable to defend himself, but still wouldn’t quit. The ref stepped in, pointed Tim Pat to the farthest corner. The ref turned to look at the hurt kid’s eyes, then waved his hands to signal that he was stopping the fight. Tim Pat whooped and strutted and Dan had to calm him down, whispered to him to go congratulate the other kid for a good fight. By now, the fight over, the kids touched gloves and smiled. The outside corner of Tim Pat’s left eye was pink and would swell slightly.
    Dan quickly removed Tim Pat’s gloves and took his mouthpiece. The ref motioned both boys to the center of the ring. The announcer from ringside called Tim Pat’s name as the winner, and the ref raised the
palomita’s
wrapped hand in victory. The crowd, winners and losers, stood to cheer him. Flashbulbs went off. One of the tournament officials, an old friend of Dan, congratulated him ringside.
    The official said, “I got a good shot of him with his hand raised. I’ll send you an eight-by-ten.”
    “Yeah, and here I was hopin for only a little one!” Dan said. He reached for his pocket. “Let me cover it.”
    “Naw, don’t worry about it.”
    Dan said, “Thanks. Will you be here for the finals tomorrow?”
    The official said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
    It was close to one o’clock by the time Dan got back on the Harbor Freeway and headed home. Earl would hoot when he heard about Tim Pat’s hook. The little boy squirmed in his sweat suit, Dan’s precaution against catching a cold. It was Tim Pat’s first time to warm down. It felt good.
    Dan touched his grandson’s hair. “You hungry?”
    “No, but I’m still thirsty.”
    Dan pulled off the freeway at Rosecrans, where he drove to a mini-mart. “What do you want?”
    Tim Pat said, “How about one of those lemon-lime frozen juice bars like I get from the ice-cream truck that comes by the gym?”
    Lupe Ayala had parked the clinic’s van at the rear of the horse corrals of the Santa Cruz Sports Arena. Lupe was on a field trip with five of her students, six-and eight-year-old deaf kids from the Boyle Heights Clinic for the Deaf, the CFD on Whittier Boulevard, near Euclid. Though not yet seventeen, she’d already been teaching part-time at the clinic for two years. This visit to the corrals was one she’d wanted to share with the children from the beginning, and finally getting her driver’s license made it possible. The arena was a little over twenty miles east of Boyle Heights, located near the marshy Whittier Narrows in Pico Rivera, and close to the intersection of the 60