The Fighter by Craig Davidson Read Free Book Online Page A

fight. He was getting older
and his body didn't react the way it used to. His mind told him what moves to
make but his reflexes couldn't follow through. But he trained hard and kept in
fighting shape to take a match on short notice—because, hey, you just never
knew.
    "How
many rounds you getting in?" Rob asked him.
    "Five."
Tommy wiped his fingers on his gray trunks. "Unless Scarpella punches
himself out before that."
    "He
that out of shape?"
    "I'll
keep it light; drag it out to four, at least."
    Tommy's
professional record was 28-62-7. It once stood at 22-1, belted out against
tomato cans handpicked by his brother and manager, Reuben, Rob's father. He'd
fought in local clubs throughout the state and across state lines in Akron,
Scranton, Hartford. His only big-money fight had been at Madison Square Garden,
on the under- card of the Holmes-Cooney tilt in '83. Tommy squared off against
Sammy "Night Train" Layne, a slippery southpaw from east Philly;
Tommy's shove-and-slug style, effective against unskilled biffers, was badly
exposed by the ducking and weaving Layne. By the end of the eleventh round
Tommy's face was cut into ribbons, a severed artery above his left eye bringing
forth blood in spurts. After that matchmakers lost interest and Reuben had a
rough time lining up fights.
    From
there Tommy turned into a trial horse, the sort of workman who'll take a stiff
belt without folding. A good horse will give you ten solid rounds but never
pose a serious threat to a contender. Tommy was in demand due to his rep as a
bleeder: by the end of a fight he was a mess and his opponents came off looking
like executioners. Until a mandatory pre-fight CAT scan showed a blood vessel
had snapped inside his head. The NY boxing commission revoked its sanctioning
license, citing medical unfitness.
    Reuben
Tully poked his head into the change room. Squat and potbellied, he was the
polar opposite of his younger brother. He wore a rumpled button-down shirt and
snap-brim hat; his short hair was shaved up the side of his head like a zek in
some Russian internment camp.
    "What's
this, social hour?" Reuben banged a fist on the lockers, set the brass
locks jumping. "Ass in gear, Robbie. And Tommy, that big shitkicker from
Buffalo's waiting."
    "Tell
him to hold his water." Tommy snapped off a few ponderous jabs and smiled
over at his nephew. "Time to make the donuts."
    Rob
rose to the sink and studied his face hemmed by a red hood: unbroken nose,
forehead peppered with acne, eyes of such pale blue his father joked they must
be unscrewed nightly and soaked in bleach. Some days he felt handsome, or at
least that he was working his way toward it. Yet he knew he was one hard punch
away from a busted nose or split brow or knocked-out tooth. No way you can eat
leather round after round and expect to keep your looks.
    Fruit
bats squeaked and fluttered in the dark roost between locker- room ceiling and
furniture-store floor. Rob stared down at his hands: thick and calloused,
joints swollen from all the rough treatment. Old man's hands. He was only
sixteen, but at times felt years older.
    "Robbie!"
    "Keep
your shirt on," he whispered to the mirror. Then: "Coming!"
     

     
    Top
Rank lit up now, vapor tubes popping and fritzing as they warmed. Three huge
ceiling fans with oarlike blades stirred stale air around. A pair of middleweights
skipped before a long mirror. Beyond them a young Mexie straw-weight performed
burpees with a fifteen-pound medicine ball. A two-hundred-pound anvil with the
words that bitch painted on its side sat beside
him; boxers in a dick-swinging mood occasionally goaded each other, "Go
on—lift that bitch!"
    The
gym was dominated by its ring: twenty feet by twenty feet and enclosed by
sagging red ropes. The canvas stank of blood and sweat; to the best of anyone's
knowledge it had not been replaced in thirty years. Spitbuckets were strapped
to opposite ring posts: wide-mouthed funnels attached to flexible PVC hose
trailing down to