The Brave (10 page)

“W
HERE YOU FROM
, S
ONNY
?”

“You really an Indian?”

Faces bobbed up in front of him, asked questions, disappeared.

“What tribe?”

“This your chief here?” A camera swung to Jake.

“Sonny Bear your real name?”

He couldn't understand why anyone would be so interested in where he was born or the size of the Reservation or that his full name was George Harrison Bayer and that he'd been named for his mother's favorite Beatle. They wrote down all his answers. Martin was giving an interview about the importance of their training on Rocky, and Jake was telling a camera that Moscondagas had fought in every American war since the French and Indian.

“Brooksy Baby!” A bull with flashing diamond teeth barreled into the room.

Brooks yelled, “Elston,” and they hugged.

Reporters began interviewing each other. “That Elston Hubbard?”

“When was he champ?”

“Isn't he on a TV series now?”

“Yeah. Who's Brooksy Baby?”

The cameras turned on Hubbard and Brooks, the fuzzy gray mikes hovered above them. Reporters asked them questions. Sonny caught snatches of the story. Hubbard had beaten Brooks in Brooks' last fight, twenty years ago, a slugfest people still talked about because Brooks refused to go down even though he was way overmatched. Hubbard's son had just won his heavyweight semifinal. He'd be fighting Sonny for the Gotham Gloves title.

The reporters seemed to love the story. Hubbard was loving the attention.

“My boy versus Alfred's boy,” boomed Hubbard, “the continuation of a quarter-century grudge match. Everybody write that down. Shoot it on tape. Two great kids for the title. That Sonny Bear is smart and tough. But is he smart and tough enough for Elston Hubbard Junior? Buy tickets and find out.”

The photographers posed Brooks and Hubbard hands up, scowling, as if they were about to continue their old fight. Then Elston Junior was posed with Sonny. They were about the same size.

Then Junior posed with Brooks, and Sonny posed with Hubbard, who whispered, “Never pass up publicity. Remember that.”

Brooks winked at Sonny. He looked proud and happy.

When the photographers finally left, Johnson untaped his hands. “This is really something, Sonny, really something. If only Mr. Donatelli could see this.”

They left the locker room in a laughing, chattering clump, Jake and Martin and Brooks and Johnson around him. The corridor was still filled with fans.

“You were wonderful, Sonny.”

She looked thinner, blonder. Her face was bright with crimson lipstick and baby-blue eye shadow. His stomach turned over and his mouth went dry. Her red dress clung damply to her body.

“I heard you out there,” he said. His tongue felt thick.

“I know.”

He felt as though everyone else had melted away. They were finally alone.

Words began forming in his mouth. Doll, let's go away. Together. Now.

“Great fight, Sonny,” said Stick.

“What are you doing here?” Brooks' hand went to the small of his back.

Stick raised the snake head. “Come to see the fights. Law against that?”

“Stay away from Sonny,” said Brooks.

“Does Sergeant Brooks tell you what to do?” asked Doll. “Or can you come out with us and celebrate?”

“He's got something else to do,” said Brooks.

“That true, Sonny?” asked Doll. “Something else you want to do?”

He lost his breath. Everyone was staring at him. He was frozen. He felt Doll willing him to break away, to leave with her. He found his voice. “Some other time, Doll.”

Brooks and Johnson grabbed his arms and rushed him out of the arena. He knew she would be in his dreams tonight, and that he dared not look back.

H
E WOKE UP TIRED
and cranky all that week, hung over with fleeting, jagged dreams. To chase the dark shadows he ran hard in the mornings, pounding through the park until his mind cleared, shouting birds and squirrels out of his path, whirling to throw windmills of punches at trembling bushes, scaring the park people out of their cardboard homes.

He battered Rocky in the afternoons, snarling at Martin to pick up the pace, to snap out the numbers louder, faster, in ever more complex combinations until his mind was purged of everything except pure action.

Movement in the gym would slow, then stop as he attacked the dummy. Other fighters would drift away from their mirrored images, leave the punching bags dangling, to gather around him, to grin and nod at each other. Hearing them murmur, Sonny's on edge, kid's ready to rumble, drove him to hit harder.
Johnson stroked his beard and looked pleased. The Punching Postman announced, “This boy has it, take it from me.” Even the Fave seemed impressed. “Sonny Bear is the future.”

He tried to exhaust himself during the day so he'd fall asleep early, not think about her. Sometimes when the phone rang at night, he'd shiver, thinking it might be her. But it never was.

Jake stayed at the gym for a few nights, then flew back to the Res to feed the dogs. Sonny missed Brooks. Johnson said he was very close to breaking his big case.

Martin invited him to move into his room for the last two nights before the title fight. He said they could watch old fights on the VCR.

The whole family watched with them, Denise peeking up from her homework, Betty from the papers she was marking. Martin's dad turned down the sound to do his own commentary. “Ali was the greatest, but you can learn more here from watching Joe Frazier. Ali did so many things only he could get away with, get you in bad habits. See how low he holds his hands, see how he backs away from a punch, instead of slipping it—you do that,
Sonny, it's lights out.”

He didn't think he learned much he could use right away, but sitting in this warm place with people who cared about him made Johnson's amateur road seem truly possible, win the Gotham Gloves and the Golden Gloves and the Olympics, follow the path blazed by the champions on the screen. It was beginning to seem real.

The night before the fight, while Martin went to a friend's house to borrow a school-book, Sonny sat at his desk and doodled. After a while it became a drawing, a boxer running behind a hawk up a mountain road. He got lost in the picture.

“Hey! You're really good.” Denise was standing beside him with tea and cookies.

“No, I, uh, just…”

“Don't crumple it up. Please.” She put down the tray and picked up the drawing. “Where'd you learn to draw like this?”

“My mother's an artist.”

“On the Reservation?” asked Denise.

“No, she lives in Arizona now.” He was surprised at how easy it was to talk with her. She was pretty and nice and smart. He should feel
the warms for her. But she wasn't Doll.

“You miss her?”

“Huh?” Did she know about Doll?

“Do you miss your mother?”

“Oh. Sometimes. I do. Maybe after this fight I'll visit her. She sent me a ticket.”

“Maybe she'll come to the fight.”

“No way. She hates me fighting.”

“Then how come she…”

“Hey!” Martin stamped into the room. “Leave him alone. He needs his…You do this, Sonny? I didn't know…”

“You just don't know everything,” said Denise. “His mother's a southwestern artist.”

“The Hawk,” said Martin, snatching the drawing out of Denise's hand. “The one Jake talks about. Follow the Hawk.”

“What's that mean?” asked Denise.

“You just don't know everything,” said Martin.

“Moscondaga fairy tales,” said Sonny. “The Hawk is the spirit inside you.”

“More to it than that,” said Martin. “You got to let it out before it eats up your insides, destroys you. If you follow it, the Hawk leads you to your special destiny. In Sonny's case to
be a Running Brave, a sort of…”

“Jake's brainwashed you,” said Sonny.

“You bet. He invited me to come up to the Res with you sometime. I'm going to tape his memoirs. For a book.”

“Sonny can do illustrations,” said Denise.

“Would you?”

“Let's win the fight first.”

Martin stayed home from school the day of the fight to make Sonny a giant breakfast of bacon and eggs and muffins. They were sitting at the kitchen table, pleasantly stuffed, drowsy in the morning sun slanting through the window, when Martin asked, “Who was that girl?”

“What girl?”

“Come on.”

“Some girl I knew.”

“Was that guy her pimp?”

Sonny tried to keep his face expressionless. It was something he didn't want to think about. “Who said that?”

“Alfred told my dad she was bad news.”

Sonny shrugged. “Don't know.”

“You mean you don't want to talk about it.”

“Right.”

“She's really built.”

“You don't quit, do you?”

“I'm a writer, not a fighter.” He grinned.

“You better remember that.” Sonny made a fist.

“You hit me it's a felony, your hands are weapons.”

“Not till I turn pro.” He stood up. “Might as well get you while I can.”

“You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?”

“Never.” Sonny snatched Martin's glasses and laid them on the table. “Now.”

He was kneeling on Martin's lap, tickling him under the arms, when the phone rang. Martin was still cackling and gasping as he answered it. He swallowed suddenly.

When he hung up the phone, his face was twisted. “Alfred's been shot.”

“Is it bad? What happened? Who…”

“I don't know. My dad just said to get there fast.”

Spoon met them in the hospital lobby. “It's very bad. He took a load of buckshot in the back. If he hadn't been wearing his gun, he would have died instantly. As it is, he's para
lyzed and they're worried about infection.”

The elevator and the corridor were filled with police officers. Mrs. Brooks came out of a room and headed straight for Sonny. “He wants to see you.”

Brooks' eyes were closed. Tubes ran out of his nose, his throat, his arms. Machines hummed and beeped around him. A nurse stood near his head. “A minute, that's all,” she said.

Brooks' eyes fluttered open. His lips formed words, but Sonny couldn't hear them. He put his ear close to Brooks' mouth. He thought he heard the word “win,” but he could have imagined it, could have thought that's what Brooks would say.

The nurse tugged at his arm. Brooks' eyes were closed.

“He's going to be all right?”

She looked away.

He walked out of the room on rubbery legs. He remembered how he had felt when the fat farm boy hit him in the groin. Gasping for air, for strength, trying to focus. He was glad when Spoon put his arm around his shoulders. “Did he say anything?”

“Told me to win.”

“That's Alfred,” said Mrs. Brooks. She started to cry. The police officers closed around her.

T
HE GUARD OUTSIDE
the dressing room barred them all this time. “Not on the sheet.” He pointed to a list of names on a piece of paper taped to the door. “Commission rules.”

“This is Sonny Bear,” said Martin. “He's fighting for the title.”

“I know Sonny,” said the guard, “but nobody goes in without your name on the sheet. I don't make the rules.”

“Got to be a mistake,” said Johnson impatiently. “Get the commissioner.”

“Can't leave my…”

“You taking responsibility for this?” Johnson looked fierce. “If my boy loses because of you…”

The guard said, “Okay, Mr. Johnson, I'll be right back.” He scurried off.

“I seen this before, Sonny,” said Johnson. “They're trying to mess up your mind before the fight.”

“They're scared of the tomahawk,” said Martin. He held up his palms. “Stay loose, champ. Jab…seven…five…two. Never opened with that combination before.”

The monster stirred, snickered. No mistake, Injun. They're not scared of the tomahawk. Journey's over. No Stonebird, no championship. Sonny felt suddenly sad. He wouldn't be able to win a fight for Brooks.

The guard returned with a man in a red blazer. “You're out, Henry. Didn't you get my telegram?”

“What telegram?”

“Bear's disqualified.”

“Says who?” Johnson's fists came up. His body swelled.

“We got documents. Kid's had six pro fights. Upstate.”

Johnson whirled on Sonny. “True or false?”

“Smokers,” said Sonny.

“You take money?”

“Yeah.”

Johnson's hands dropped. His body deflated. “Sorry.”

“Late for that.” The commissioner rapped his clipboard. “Some title fight you left me with. Have to put Velez in against Hubbard.” He
glared at Sonny and marched away.

“What're smokers?” asked Martin.

“Lousy little fights for has-beens and wanna-bes,” said Johnson. “Should of told me.”

“Didn't think of it,” said Sonny.

“What's the big deal?” asked Martin.

“Rules,” said Johnson. “If you take money, you're not an amateur no more.” He leaned against the stone wall of the corridor. “Somebody out to get us. This never comes up 'less somebody makes a big complaint to the commission.”

“Hubbard,” said Martin. “Afraid of Sonny.”

“No, even if they knew, they'd want to win in the ring. Somebody's out to wreck Sonny's career. And they did it, yessiree, they did it.”

“No,” said Martin. “It's not over yet.”

“Is for me,” said Johnson.

“We'll fight pro,” said Martin. “We'll do it the hard way, be better, coming up through the tank towns, leaving a trail of broken bodies, right, Sonny?”

He had no more words. There was only one thing left to do.

“Where you going?” yelled Martin. “Wait for me.”