Blood for the Masses Read online

  “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  “One hundred dollars,” Sherman said, “For one round.”

  “Forget it,” I told him. I knew I was going to be making five hundred dollars tonight so I had a bit of room to negotiate.

  I said, “Three hundred, take it or leave it, for three minutes of sparring.”

  He thought for a moment. “All right,” Sherman said, “paid when you arrive at the gym and are ready to go.”

  I smiled, “Sure thing.”

  * * *

  After Sherman Oaks told me where he was having Roy Wilson work out today, I went back up to my apartment to dig out what I could find of my boxing gear.

  I hadn’t touched any of this stuff for a couple of years so I figured my boxing shoes, hand wraps, mouth piece, cup and trunks would be in the back of the closet under a lot of other stuff.

  When I opened the door to my apartment the big calico tom cat was sitting in the middle of the floor staring at me. I started for him and he darted across the floor into my bedroom and under the bed.

  I spoke to the cat. “I really don’t have time to play with you right now,” I told him. I walked over and opened the window again. “Leave while I’m gone,” I yelled, “And I won’t snap your little fucking neck.” If he understood what I said, he chose to ignore me.

  My gear was in the closet where I’d dropped it at least two years before. Everything smelled musty, but it hadn’t rotted to the point of being useless.

  I made sure the shoes didn’t have any spiders or cockroaches in them. I washed my old mouthpiece out and checked to see that no small bugs were living in the crevices that my teeth fit into. Then I put all my gear and something extra as insurance into a paper bag and headed back out to the street.

  My heart was already starting to pound in my chest as I walked to my car. I’d forgotten what this feeling was like. When you have a street fight you don’t know it’s going to happen. So you just react to the situation and dive in. Before you know it, it’s over.

  But, going into an organized fight, you know what’s ahead of you. Your mind has more time to imagine all the terrible things that can happen in just a short time ahead.

  I told myself. "This is only a sparring session. No one is supposed to get serious when you’re only sparring." Another part of my brain said back, “Yeah right, so when has anything ever happened the way it’s supposed to.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Dancing and Knuckle Dusting

  I pulled my tan Olds Delta Eighty Eight into the parking lot of The East Side Gym. It was about eleven o’clock. Breakfast was long overdue and I was hungry as hell.

  The thought ran through my mind that I could just go and get breakfast then come back. The truth was, the chances of me coming back at all if I left now would not be high.

  The East Side Gym was a half block up from the riverfront in a warehousing district. It looked like a small warehouse itself that hadn’t been able to make it at that business and was sold and converted into a gym. People talk about the atmosphere that a boxing gymnasium can have. Places where the sweat and grime of champions learning their craft can inspire the young fighters coming after them to train harder, run longer, and listen closer to their trainers to absorb everything the older champions left behind.

  Well, The East Side Gym didn’t have any of that. It was an ugly discolored white building on the outside with a spray painted stenciled sign over the door identifying what it was.

  The inside was just a big room where six hanging heavy bags were being banged on. There were four places where speed bag platforms were bolted to walls. All the speed bags were being slapped around. There were two rings set up on mats level with the floor. Both of the rings had pairs of boxers flailing away at each other inside of them. I noted with some satisfaction that neither pair of boxers showed any skill at all. They were just banging away at each other. You don’t learn much training like that.

  A bell rang and the two pairs sparring left the rings and were replaced by two new pairs. One of the boxers sparring was Julio Paez. The guy they had him in with was none other than Roy Wilson.

  I spotted Sherman Oaks standing on the other side of the squared circle, leaning into the ring saying something in Roy’s ear.

  Just past the two boxing rings was a weight training area where muscle heads were pumping up and flexing for each other. The bell rang and the sparring started up again. I was walking around the rings to where Sherman Oaks was when a strange sight caught my eye.

  One of the muscle heads in the weight area was using a weight bar with no weights on it. In exaggerated slowness he was mimicking sword fighting slashes. The bar had to weight at least thirty pounds but he handled it with ease and controlled the bar with admirable skill.

  The guy with the bar had long brown hair that came down to his shoulders. He was roughly around six foot two and probably weighed around two twenty. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

  I couldn’t put my finger on it but something about the guy just didn’t seem right. He just did not seem to belong here. He caught me looking at him and his eyes flashed me a challenge that if I didn’t know better, I would of taken for a death threat.

  * * *

  Sherman Oaks had his back to me when I walked up to him. He never took his eyes off of his fighter in the ring.

  “Didn’t think you’d show up,” he said to me.

  “You got my money?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he answered. “If I pay you now, you're not going to duck out the back door are you?”

  “No chance of that,” I told Sherman. In fact, the idea had gone through my mind.

  Sherman shouted to Roy, “Move and jab the rest of the round. Practice defense the rest of the way.”

  He turned to me. “No, I don’t think you are the kind to run.”

  I smiled at him. “Not likely,” I said.

  Sherman reached into his pocket and brought out the same roll of bills I’d seen on the street. He counted out three hundred dollars in twenties and handed them to me.

  I stashed the money in my pocket.

  * * *

  In the locker room as I was changing from street clothes to my boxing gear, some of the training fighters wandered in and out. There was a full length mirror at the end of the aisle that I was changing in. I could see the difference between them and me.

  They were lean, and hard, and young, and fast with corded muscles, and hard steely eyes. I only had the hard eyes. My body was soft. I hadn’t even worked out for a couple of years. I knew I was not prepared for this. So, what in the hell was I doing here? I asked myself.

  Just making a couple of bucks was my answer and knowing the risks involved, that was not a good enough reason. The truth was I was here because I couldn't stomach the thought of ever backing down from a fight. I'm getting too god dammed old for that attitude, but I just can't seem to out-grow it.

  I changed into my stuff. My cup, my trunks, my socks and shoes, put my mouthpiece in and wrapped my hands. On the way out, I shadow boxed for about thirty seconds in the full length mirror. Even in that short period of time, I caught myself doing lots of things wrong.

  I’d shoot a left jab and my left hand would drop when I brought it back. That invited a counter right. I wasn’t stepping in when I threw the jab. That was decreasing my reach. I kept seeing my elbows wind-milling out when I threw a left hook or a right cross. Doing that can get your ribs broke by a good body puncher.

  Roy Wilson was an excellent body puncher.

  Damn, this sparring session is going to be real fun, I said to myself. Just like going to the dentist.

  As I finished my shadow boxing Julio Paez walked in. “Hey John,” he said to me and took off his sparring gloves and helped me put them on. “I think Roy loves you man.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked him as I pushed my hands past the elastic wrist bands of the gloves.

  “Roy was being kind of lazy today,” Julio said and laughed.
“Until Sherman told him he’d be sparring with you. Then he tried to take my head off.”

  “Thanks Julio,” I told him. “That’s just what I needed to hear.”

  Julio followed me to the ring, but I was the only one who climbed between the ropes. The first thing you learn in this business is that the ring can be one of the loneliest places on Earth. It’s only you and that guy that’s trying to rip your head off, because you can’t rely on the referee to keep you from getting killed.

  We didn’t even have a referee today.

  Roy Wilson was standing in the far corner with his back to me. Sherman Oaks was talking to him.

  I banged my gloves together to get the feel of them on my hands. They were tight and sweaty from Julio using them.

  They felt good. I never did like starting with cold gloves on my hands.

  Sherman looked at me over Roy’s shoulder. “No cheap shots,” he shouted. “OK.”

  “Just as long as he doesn’t,” I said through my mouthpiece. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to stick to that.

  Sherman shoved in Roy’s mouth piece and Roy turned around and faced me.

  Our eyes met for a second then he jerked his gaze away. Roy was biting down so hard on his mouthpiece that his lips were white.

  Without any ceremony, the bell rang.

  Skipping to the center of the ring, I did something that was uncharacteristic for me to do. I extended my left hand to touch gloves. It was a show of friendly good sportsmanship.

  Roy leaped forward past my extended glove and threw a wild left hook.

  Without thinking, I stepped inside it and Roy’s hook went behind my head. I shoved him backward and was grateful as hell that my reflexes weren’t so dulled that I couldn’t avoid that first hook. If he would have landed that one, my head would have been bouncing among the muscle-heads and their weights.

  Roy backpedaled and moved to his own left in a circle away from me. He flicked out a few fake left jabs that missed by at least a foot. Roy was moving far faster than he needed to.

  That right hand shot that I’d landed on Roy at Dottie’s Body Shop must still be giving him all kinds of nightmares. Roy wasn’t letting me get anywhere near him.

  So I moved toward Roy slowly and carefully. If Roy wanted to run out the three minutes that would be fine by me. Sherman paid me three hundred dollars for three minutes of sparring. If his boy wanted to do it as a three minute track meet, that was okay. I’ll just follow him around for three minutes.

  Roy probably had no idea how far out of shape I was. I didn’t want to show him.

  While giving Roy some shoulder and head feints, I moved toward him gradually. He was falling for almost every one of my feints by jerking away from the anticipated punch. While Roy was out of position, I didn’t take advantage of him on purpose.

  I didn’t want to engage Roy in a shootout. All I wanted to do was get through these three minutes as painlessly as possible.

  Everything was going along just fine. I was sliding around and feeling a little bit of a rhythm to my feints and half thrown punches. Roy seemed to be cooperating. He was moving around, making serious faces, throwing punches not intended to land and posing.

  He threw a series of left jabs and slightly pulled back his right to throw a punch I knew wouldn’t even be close to my head and ripped a left hook instead.

  That one caught me clean.

  I was now convinced that Roy Wilson definitely could punch. The left hook smashed into my teeth. Fireflies buzzed in front of my face. The bells of St. Michael’s church were ringing all around my head. I didn’t like the song those bells were playing. It seemed like all the bones in my legs vanished at once and I was having one hell-of-a-time just staying on my feet.

  I stumbled forward and Roy let loose with a series of left hooks to my right side. Roy was close to me so I grabbed onto him like a horny high school quarterback going after his cheerleader girlfriend.

  “Get loose! Get loose!” I heard someone yelling and turned my head and saw Sherman Oaks shouting at Roy. “Get loose, damn it. Make him pay.”

  There were quite a few onlookers now. The one that caught my eye was the one that stood in back of Sherman. It was that big muscle-head that had been doing the slashing movements with the weight bar. He had a kind of a half-smile on his face as he watched me get pummeled. The look in his eyes, I can only describe it as hunger.

  I got Roy’s arm under my armpit and locked it to my side. Roy was trying hard to shove me away because I was too close to him for him to get off another powerful punch. I had a hold on Roy like a politician grips a taxpayer's money. I wasn’t letting go till I was ready.

  After about fifteen seconds, that felt like three hours, my legs came back and my vision cleared up. When Roy shoved to get me off of him, I went with it.

  Roy leaped after me with a wide right hand that I easily avoided.

  Sherman yelled from ringside, “Use your speed! Use your speed!”

  Roy circled, dancing lightly on his toes. He came in with a quick jab-right-left hook All of them landed. When I tried a counter right to the left hook, Roy was gone and I ate two more left jabs for my trouble.

  Roy was in a rhythm.

  Sherman yelled, “That’s right, use your speed, he can’t handle your speed!”

  Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, I thought. Because the truth was, he was right. When Roy used his quickness and basic boxing technique, he was too fast for me. Way too fast.

  Well, I thought, I’m just going to minimize the exchanges. Maybe I can last these three minutes out.

  Roy snapped a jab in my face. When he tried to follow it up with a combination, I picked off those punches with my gloves or slipped them with head movement.

  Roy tried the exact same sequence again. Jab followed by a right-left-right, with the same results. I ate the jab and avoided all the rest of the punches.

  When a man is only trying to avoid punches, he’s hard to hit with anything other than the fastest punch. A properly thrown jab is too quick to react to before it hits you. I knew I could avoid everything that Roy threw except for that jab. Roy knew it too.

  After I had eaten about five jabs and avoided somewhere around fifteen power punches Roy was getting frustrated. I was beginning to get a little winded, even if I wasn’t letting it show. This round seemed like it had already lasted far too long. I was beginning to wonder when the hell the bell was going to ring.

  Roy decided that now was the time to make everything personal. He dropped his hands and while standing halfway across the ring from me he yelled, “You ain’t nothing but a bitch! Quit running and fight me, you faggot!”

  I smiled at Roy.

  Sherman must have sensed something. He shouted, “Roy, don’t!”

  Roy Wilson launched himself at me in a wild and uncontrolled attack. He was throwing bombs meant to kill.

  The gloves come off now, I said to myself.

  I backed off and slipped a few of the wild hooks. Roy was cursing at me the whole time he was attacking, calling me all kinds of names that weren’t in the dictionary.

  Suddenly I stopped and moved into Roy and we were nose to nose.

  I grabbed Roy behind the head with my right glove.

  “Let go of me, bitch!” He yelled and went to shove me off.

  He gave me the little bit of room I wanted. I stomped down on his toes with the heel of my foot. The crunch of breaking toes was loud enough to be heard at ringside.

  “No!” Sherman shouted.

  I smashed my forehead into Roy’s nose and heard it snap. My knee, I slammed into Roy’s crotch. With his cup on, that didn’t do much damage. But, he instinctively dropped his hands.

  Using my right glove I drove Roy’s face into my left elbow. Blood flew in a spray from Roy’s crushed nose and gashed right eyebrow.

  Roy fell away from me. I felt like kicking him on his way down but didn’t. Roy lay on his side blood running from his ruined nose and busted lips. He spit out a few blo
ody teeth.

  I turned and walked away toward the corner and ducked out between the ropes.

  Sherman Oaks was looking at me in white faced shock. I spit my mouthpiece out.

  “Your boy sure is one hell-of-a-fighter,” I told him. “A real fucking contender.” I spit back into the ring where Roy was still crawling around on his hands and knees.

  CHAPTER 6

  Muscle-heads & Meat-heads

  Julio met me at the door to the locker room. He helped me pull the gloves off my hands.

  “Damn John,” Julio said, “You are one bad mother fucker.”

  “He ain’t nothin' but a boy,” I told Julio. “Anybody could’ve slapped him down.”

  “Maybe so, but you made it look like fun.” He slapped me on the shoulder and walked back into the gym.

  The adrenalin from our short bout was wearing off now. I walked the rest of the way to my locker and looked at myself in the full length mirror. The right side of my torso had large red splotches up and down it. A few of the larger spots looked like they would be purple by tonight.

  My ribs on that side felt tender. It was starting to hurt just to breath.

  While I gingerly started to change from my gear to my street clothes, the muscle-head who was doing the slashing movements entered the locker room. He walked straight toward me. The way this guy moved reminded me of the lions and tigers I’d seen on Marlon Perkins’ Wild Kingdom. He moved like he was balanced and gave the impression of a coiled spring.

  The muscle-head stopped in front of me just as I pulled up my trousers and was buckling and zipping up.

  “You are a good fighter.” He said. His words were stiff. He had some kind of a foreign accent that I couldn’t identify, something between German and Russian. “A good boxer? No! A good fighter? Yes!”

  He looked at me. His eyes moved up and down my body like the way I look at a woman who I want to do the horizontal tango with. He reached toward my chest with his left hand.

  I backhanded his hand to the side before he touched me. “Back off faggot Frank! I don’t go for none of that guy on guy shit.”