The Full Cleveland by Terry Reed Read Free Book Online

got together and decided to donate the money, plus some, to a boys’ correctional institute’s sports program, which happened to be very big on boxing.
    I’m sure Matt would have gladly furthered his career as a juvenile delinquent just so he could land in that boys’ correctional institute with the well-endowed boxing program, but I guess he was saved by the grace of God. Because shortly after the crime, a series of big brown boxes arrived from UPS, addressed to Dad. When he came home from work, Mother said, “George? What’s in those big boxes?”
    Dad said, “Matt’s boxing equipment.”

    We all lined up to watch their first big fight, now taking place behind the closed library door.
    It was an almost festive atmosphere. Luke went to the kitchen to get home-baked sugar cookies from Clarine, so we even had snacks. We sat and ate them on the front stairs. As self-appointed ringmaster or something, Cabot repeatedly went to the library door and listened, reporting back, “She says she wants him to be class president.” “She says what good will it do him, they don’t have boxing in the Ivy League anymore.” The whole time, Matt stood in the corner biting his nails, which didn’t make him look very fierce like a boxer at all.
    After an hour or so, it quieted down in the library, and Cabot came back with a nervous look on her face, like maybe Dad was in there, knocked out on the floor. But when the library doors opened, Dad said, “Okay, Matt. Let’s take these downstairs.”

    Punch drunk from his sudden change in fortune, Matt tore through the boxes right there in the hall. He got not just boxing gloves but a speed bag and a heavy bag and a double-end bag too. “Boy oh boy!” he cried at the last box. “Look, you guys! My very own crazy bag!”
    Cabot peeked into the box. “Is that what this one’s called?”
    He looked at her like a maniac. “Yeah!”
    â€œJust checking.”
    Then Matt glanced at the ceiling and smiled the serene smile of one who has just learned firsthand that crime, not to mention sin, does in fact pay. Wearing this mug, he glided behind Dad to the basement, where they spent the evening installing the boxing equipment in the sort of gym down there.

    A few days later, after school, Matt approached me in the breakfast room. “Hi, Zu,” he said, very friendly.
    â€œHi.”
    â€œSo how’s school, little sis?”
    Little sis? What was this? I said it was fine.
    â€œThat’s great.” He did a little one-two punch for emphasis in the air. “That’s tremendous.”
    I was having a leftover sugar cookie. I held up the plate, but he said he was in training. And he did a little shuffle, and punched at nothing some more. Then he stopped dancing around the room and got serious. “You know, I was thinking, you’re only a little girl. You need to learn self-defense.”
    Oh. He needed a sparring partner.
    I said, “Don’t butter me up to box with you, because I don’t like the basement.”
    He said, “You don’t like the basement?” As if he’d never heard of it before.
    â€œRemember? The subconscious? Well, I don’t like it too much, Matt.” He himself had told us that every house has a subconscious, which is the part below ground, and evil things you can’t even imagine happen down there. Don’t get me wrong, we all knew he’d said it just so he could have the basement all to himself, but the way he made our subconscious sound, he had it. The rest of us couldn’t go down there without clutching the hand of Dad or Clarine.
    â€œThe basement is beautiful.”
    â€œYou just need someone to box with.”
    â€œSo? Don’t be such a girl.”
    That made me mad enough to go learn to box, so next time I could defend myself against people like him. He taught me to do things like hook, jab, and slip a