The Fighter (22 page)

Nine
o'clock, New Year's Eve.

Rob
skipped lightly down the stairs. He wore workboots, faded blue jeans, a clean
white T-shirt. Reddened slashes marked his cheeks and chin: burns from Caine's
gloves.

"I'm
heading out."

Reuben
sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of Jim Beam. He stared at the Formica
tabletop as though, were he to fixate his gaze long enough, the random mica
chips might disclose some earth-shattering epiphany.

"Go
on, then." He flicked his hand. "Home no later than twelve- thirty or
I'll be dragging you home by the scruff."

The
party was hosted by Felix Guiterrez—Felix, the guy whose jaw Rob had broken a
year and a half ago. He answered Rob's knock wearing a shiny costume top hat.

"Tully,
my man." Rob noted the dimple scars on Felix's jaw and felt a pang of
regret. To Felix's credit, he didn't hold a grudge. "Come on down. My
folks are partying upstairs."

Thirty-odd
people filled the unfinished basement, standing or sitting on lawn chairs.
Earlier in the night the place had been decorated but now all that remained
were shreds of crepe paper and rubber balloon-rings taped to the beams. Bottles
of rum and vodka liberated from parents' liquor cabinets passed amongst the
throng.

He
spotted Kate with Darren Gregory. Darren was a willowy senior who favored
ripped jeans and Goodwill corduroy; thick dark hair fell over his handsome
features. His mother was a border toll-taker who, unbeknownst to Rob, had
ridden the same bus as his father for the better part of twenty years. Last
month Darren had won a poetry competition; his love sonnet had appeared in the
Sunday
Gazette.
He and Kate sat on lawn chairs, knees touching. Darren made flourishes with his
hands as Kate's mouth formed words—"Yes! Absolutely!"—and she
laughed. Watching them, Rob felt strangely cold,
gutted,
blood running thin as copper wire in his veins.

Felix
sidled up with a jug of Comrade Popov's potato vodka. "Heard about the
draw at the Gloves. Who the hell did you fight— King Kong?"

"Could
have gone either way," Rob told him. "I could've lost."

Felix
appeared upset, or let down. Rob wondered if, sometime in the future, Felix had
wanted to tell people he'd had his jaw broken by a world champion. He drank from
the jug and winced.

Felix's
mother knelt at the top of the basement steps. She wore a pair of novelty
glasses: red plastic shaped in the year 2006, eyeballs set like boozy marbles
in the middle of each zero.

"How's
everything down here? Need more grape sodas—Cheez-Its?"

"We're
fine," Felix said. "Go a
-way."

Rob
took another pull. He was a lightweight when it came to drinking, plus his
body was worn out from the fight; the basement took on a warped convex, as
though he was viewing things through a busted telescope. At some point Kate was
standing next to him. She wore a red sweater: a spray of pale freckles, the
dovelike sweep of her collarbones. Rob wasn't sure if she smelled of vanilla
or if, in the stark basement light, he only imagined that smell.

"Tully,"
she said, "you look a bit greased."

"And
so what? Not like there's a law against it."

Kate
tsk-tske
d.
"Golden Boy, drunk as a sailor. Taking that draw pretty hard, aren't
you?"

"I
couldn't care less. A few more draws, a loss, get knocked out, and I can hang
it up for good."

"Or
you can hang it up before all that."

Rob
gave her a look that said they both knew better. "And don't call me that,
either."

"What?"

"Golden
Boy."

"Touchy,
touchy."

Rob
was still rankled at seeing Kate and Darren together, and Comrade Popov did his
mood a further disservice: level-headed and warm-hearted while sober, it
appeared that Rob could be a nasty jealous drunk.

"What
were you and Shakespeare talking about?" he couldn't help asking.

"Schools,"
Kate told him. "Darren applied to UC Santa Cruz, me to Santa Barbara. I'll
need a scholarship, but Darren's got a plan to make ends meet."

She
detailed Darren's can't-miss moneymaking scheme: he planned to scour the sands
of Monterey Bay with a metal detector, cleaning the beaches of debris and
paying his tuition at the same time. It struck Rob as a childish plan, even by
a teenager's standards. What did he expect to uncover—antique bottle caps? A
trove of Nazi gold?

Kate
said, "Darren's so eco-conscious."

If
Rob had been a little drunker he might have remarked that if
"eco-conscious" were a synonym for "corduroy-wearing
wiener," then by all means, Darren Gregory was as eco-conscious as they
came. Rob saw Kate and Darren on a beach, barefoot on the sand. A beach so far
removed from the weed-strewn lots, tumbledown row houses, and terminal
bleakness of Niagara Falls it might as well be another planet. They bent
together over an object glinting at the rim of a tide pool, touching and
smiling and laughing.

Darren
Gregory materialized, bony and stoop-shouldered with hair like a bear pelt.
"Robert, my fine friend," he said. "You're looking worse for
wear."

Darren
wore his artsy-fartsy heart on his corduroy sleeve; to him, boxing and
cockfighting were distinguishable only in that one involved animals who didn't
know any better.

"Any
job comes with its lumps. And you know what they say— women dig scars."

Darren
placed his hand on Rob's wrist as though they were sharing a close personal
confidence. "And here I was thinking they
dug
sophistication and intelligence. And as for a job—I didn't know amateur boxers
got paid."

Rob
figured amateurs could at least pawn their trophies, earning them more than
most beachcombers. "How much did you make for that sonnet in the
Gazette?"

"I
do it for the love of words." He slipped his hand off Rob's wrist and set
it on Kate's. "She and I were just talking about that, as a matter of
fact. We're going to collaborate on a brace of poems."

Rob
saw the two of them on the beach again, except now Darren was composing poetry
for her, dipping a quill pen in a pot of ink. Rob jammed his hands in his
pockets, afraid of what they might do.

"You're
lucky, then. Kate's a great poet. She helped me with that haiku
assignment."

Darren
chuckled—indulgently, Rob thought. "Yes, and what did you come up
with?"

Rob
was certain his own poem would be met with derision; with an apologetic look at
Kate, he recited hers instead. "It went,
Though there will always / Be those things out of your reach
/ Never stop reaching."

"It's
admirable, Robert; an admirable effort. Quite good for a fledgling
attempt."

Kate
crossed her arms. "What would you say marks it as a fledgling
attempt?"

"The
meter's sloppy, for one. And the sentiment is, should I say..." He gave
Rob a sorry-to-be-the-bearer-of-bad-news look. "... a tad juvenile."

"You're
right," Rob said. "Juvenile, through and through."

"Buck
up, chum." Darren clapped Rob's shoulder. "Not everyone's made for
the world of letters. Some of us are better off ..." he shrugged,"...
on another of life's paths."

Kate
looked embarrassed at Darren's preening, and Rob had had enough. He'd drag the
flapping loose-lipped bastard out into the snow and smash him. That blown-glass
chin would shatter in one shot.

"Why
not say what you mean; let's not sit here attacking each other on the
sly."

"You
recited your poem," Darren said flatly. "I told you what I thought.
If that's attacking—"

"You
know what you're doing and so do I. You're not half so clever as you think. You
want to talk about juvenile sentiments—" He flicked the sleeve of Darren's
corduroy jacket. "How about a guy from around here wearing this shit?
Professor Plum in the study with the candlestick."

Overhearing
this, a few partyers voiced their drunken approval.

"Your
ma's a
toll-taker,"
Rob went on. "Your pops works a wrecking
crane. Look in your fridge and I'll find a pack of Helmbolds bologna, same as
in mine."

"Rob,
come on—"

He
cut Kate off. "You're the same Darren Gregory who took a shit on the floor
in first grade. Remember that? Mrs. Frieberger stepped out and you couldn't
wait for her to get back with the hall pass so you squatted next to the
goldfish bowl. So go on wearing your jacket and writing sonnets—you'll always
be the kid who shit on the floor."

Darren
jerked a glare of solid malevolence at Rob, then gave Kate a you-see-how-it-is
look. "When was that?" he said quietly. "Ten years ago? It's
okay. One day I'll leave here and end up someplace where people have no memory
of what I did as a six-year-old; I can start over, fresh. But you'll never
leave, because your best and only hope is right here." He reached over
Rob's head, pantomiming, like his hand was hitting something solid. "Feel
that? It's a glass ceiling, and you're about to slam into it."

Rob
was jolted. "Who cares? I'm not ashamed of where I come from—"

"And
it's not just a ceiling—it's a box with glass walls, and you're never going to
grow out of it because you never tried to when you had the chance. And the rest
of your life you're going to wonder, Robert."

It
was the
Robert
that did it. Blinding rage. "I swear, for a nickel I'd smash you—"

Darren
rummaged through his pocket. "Here's a dime." He bounced it off Rob's
chest and jutted his chin out. "If you leave a scar I can lie and say it
isn't from some Love Canal bully, because I'll be someplace where nobody knows
any better."

Bile
rolled up Rob's stomach and spread into his mouth. He'd never been called a
bully before, and was proud of the fact. But next his hands were wrapped up in
Darren's jacket and he was shaking him so hard his teeth rattled. He yanked
Darren's jacket until their noses touched.

"You
don't know anything," he growled. "You're not getting out of here.
You're not—"

Felix
Guitterez jammed his body between them. "Take it outside, guys."

The
rage drained out of Rob; in its wake only regret at the hollow- ness of his
actions. He smoothed Darren's jacket. "Sorry," he mumbled. "No,
no going outside. Sorry, sorry."

Kate
grabbed his hand. As she dragged him up the basement steps, Rob caught Darren
looking at him, giving him the most sympathetic smile he'd ever seen.

Outside,
Kate dropped his hand and marched down the sidewalk toward her home.

"Idiotic,
Tully," she called over her shoulder. "Grade-A asshole
material."

The
night sky was salted with stars. Rob walked down the street on snow packed hard
from car tires. Revelers headed to their cars—wives supported drunken husbands;
husbands cradled drunken wives. He felt awful for what he'd said about Darren.
He shouldn't have recited Kate's poem, either.

Tommy
sat on the porch steps; he raised a hand and shook his head, a wry, guilty
gesture.

"Your
dad's still up. Don't think I can face him right now."

Rob
said, "You lose at cards?"

"Yuh."

"The
whole Christmas bonus?"

"Yuh.
So what happened this afternoon?"

"I
wasn't on."

Tommy
scratched his neck, winced. "I don't know... looked to me you had the
guy."

"Don't
know what else to tell you."

"It's
just, y'know, boxing is rough business, Rob. If you're not very, very good, you
can get killed or made over into a vegetable or what have you. Anyone who
doesn't have his heart in it can get himself hurt." His memory twigged.
"I ever tell you about Garth Briscoe? He was this light-heavy used to
train at the club. Good fella; a give-you- the-shirt-off-his-back kind of guy..."