He looks at my gym bag.
“That’s a hell of a nice bag,” he says. “A classic.”
The three of us stand there, looking at my classic gym bag.
Older guy says, “Mind if I have a look inside?”
“What’s your name?” I say.
“Does it matter?”
“The police might want a statement later on. I don’t want to have to refer to you as ‘young guy’ and ‘older guy.’”
“That’s funny,” older guy says.
“Why’s that?”
“My name’s Guy,” he says.
“No shit?”
“Swear to God.”
“Now there’s a coincidence.”
“And you are?”
“Donovan Creed.”
I look at the young guy. He says, “What?”
“Your name,” Guy says.
“Why does he care?” Younger guard says.
“I might need a witness later,” I say.
He shrugs. He’s so muscle bound, the simple effort of lifting his shoulders nearly doubles the volume of his neck.
“You can call me Z.”
“Z,” I say.
“That’s right.”
“That your street name?”
“You got a problem with that?”
Z and I are looking at each other, but out of the corner of my eye I see Guy roll his eyes the slightest bit.
“Guy, Z, nice to meet you,” I say, turning toward the door that leads to the boxing ring.
“Mr. Creed?” Guy says.
I turn my head.
“Your gym bag?” he says.
“Oh, right.”
I hand it to him. The bag is an ancient leather boxing duffel, circa 1919, with a single compartment, accessed by a zipper that runs the full length on top of the bag. Guy unzips it, looks inside.
Z says, “What’s he got, usual assortment of guns, knives and bombs?” He laughs.
Guy holds the bag open so Z can see the contents.
Z frowns and shakes his head. “Dude. If you’re here to fight Billy “the Kid” King, you oughta turn around and haul ass before he sees you.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s a three-time former Golden Gloves champion. And he’s half your age.”
I nod.
Z looks exasperated. “And he’s never been beat.”
“So far,” I say.
Z turns to his friend and says, “You believe this guy?”
Guy says, “What’d he do, push you in the street? Embarrass you in front of your girlfriend? Then challenge you to a fight?”
“He made an unsavory remark about my therapist.”
Z says, “Your therapist?”
I nod.
“What, are you nuts or somethin’?”
“Somethin’.”
“And you mouthed off to him?”
“Nope. My therapist did. Then she slapped him.”
“So what happened?”
“He broke her nose.”
Guy says, “Sounds like Billy.”
Z says, “You saw it? You were there?”
I smile and say, “Had I been there, Billy wouldn’t be here. He’d be in the hospital, or dead.”
Z laughs. “You’re big, I’ll give you that. And you look tough, and talk tough.”
“And he’s got confidence,” Guy adds.
“He’s got that in spades,” Z agrees. “But Billy ain’t never been beat. And like I say, he’s half your age.”
I nod. “Thanks, guys.”
Guy says, “Wait. He’s got this move.” Then he demonstrates a left hook to the body, followed by a left hook to the chin.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll look for it.”
2.
I go through the door, see the boxing ring, and sure enough, there’s a guy in it beating some poor shlub half to death. You can see the other guy wants to quit, but his pride is keeping him in it. Billy King is taunting him.
“I’d love to see it go the other way just once,” a voice says, to my left.
I turn and see a frail young man of about thirty in a wheelchair. He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him.
I nod.
“How you doing?” I say.
He smiles. “I’m all right. You here to fight Billy?”
“If he’s into it.”
He laughs. “Oh, he’ll be into it, all right.”
He reaches his hand up to shake mine. He’s about ten feet away, which means I’d have to walk over to him to take it.
“I don’t shake hands with strangers,” I say. “Nothing personal.”
“Oh,” he says. Then says, “What, you got a germ thing?” He pauses. “Or maybe you don’t like gimps.”
I don’t shake hands with strangers because it’s an easy way to get pulled into a knife they might have in their other hand, or the knee they might try to slam into my face. Or they might be able to pull me off balance, or hold me while their friends attack me from the back. There are a million reasons I don’t shake hands with strangers.
Only one of them is the germ thing.
So he got that one right. But he’s sort of right about the other as well, because I especially don’t shake hands with wheelchair-bound strangers. One of the deadliest men I’ve ever met is a wheelchair-bound midget named Victor. As I’ve learned over the years, a wheelchair can be wired with explosives and conceal any number of weapons. The guy could have a spray bottle filled with cyanide under the blanket that’s covering his legs. The guy could have a grenade launcher built into the arm rest. The guy could…well, you get the picture.
I tell the wheelchair guy, “I said it was nothing personal.”
“So you did,” he says.
Then he does something that completely surprises me. He gets to his feet and takes a few shaky steps toward me.
“Holy Jesus!” he says. “I can walk! It’s a miracle!” Then he makes a whispering sound like “Waaaauuu!” as if there are thousands of people applauding all around us. He stops, straightens up, does a quick little shadow dance that looks all knees and elbows.
“Jimmy Christmas,” he says, extending his hand. “Former Lightweight Champion, South Bronx Golden Gloves.”
I doubt this kid was the boxing champion of anything. I look at him and think he couldn’t beat up my breakfast. But why antagonize him? He seems a decent sort.
“Christmas?” I ignore the hand he’s holding between us, waiting for me to shake.
He flashes a toothy grin. “You love it, right?”
“Why Christmas?”
“Because,” he says, with a gleam in his eye, pausing to create a buildup. “Like Santa…I deliver the goods!”
He does that whispering “Waaaauuu!” sound again, like he’s in an arena and the crowd is cheering wildly.
“Why not call yourself Jimmy Santa?”
A hard look crosses his face. “You makin’ fun of my boxing name?”
“Not at all.”
“Sounds like you were.”
“If I were making fun of your name I’d tell you to call yourself Jimmy U.P.S.”
That throws him a second. Then he says, “Because UPS delivers?”
“That’s right. And because they’re into boxing in a big way.”
He frowns. “But you didn’t say that. About me being U.P.S.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But you could have.”
Was he serious?
“Right. I could have said that. But didn’t.”
His eyes study my face a few seconds. Then he grins his toothy grin and says, “Tell you the truth, I like Jimmy Santa. You care if I use it?”
“Knock yourself out, Jimmy.”
He gives me another funny look. His hand is still hanging out there between us. I can’t imagine what sort of clue this kid needs before he understands I’m not going to shake his hand.
“What’s with the wheelchair?” I say.
Jimmy Santa shrugs, looks to either side, as if making sure no one’s listening. “I’m sorta runnin’ an insurance scam while I’m between fights.”
I think if he’s lucky he’ll be between fights a long time.
He says, “My brother’s Philip Ward.”
I finally make the connection.
“I saw you working Phil’s corner last year in Vegas,” I say. “Helluva fighter, your brother.”
He nods.
The room we’re in is set up like an auditorium, with four tiers that can accommodate about 200 chairs for a boxing event. Each tier is stepped down about twelve inches, which means we’re standing about five feet higher than the dozen or so guys at ringside, who watch as Billy circles his fallen prey. He’s shouting “Get up!” to a guy who can’t hear him. Most of the guys around the ring look sick to their stomachs. Probably friends of the poor bastard that’s had his ass handed to him.
“Billy’s good,” he says.
“Damn good,” I say.
“Could’ve been Cruiserweight Champion of the world, maybe,” Jimmy Santa says.
“Why isn’t he?”
“His father died and left him a successful company. Brokerage firm, he calls it. You know what that is?”
“I do.”
We watch the corner guys elevate Billy’s opponent. Jimmy says, “Tall one on the left?”
“Yeah?”
“Medical student.”
“He’s going to have his work cut out for him.”
Billy King’s walking back and forth on the far side of the ring like a caged tiger. He’s not just warmed up, he’s juiced. Steroids, probably. Or coke. He shouts, “Who’s next? Anyone else?”
“That your cue?” Jimmy says.
“It is.” I raise my hand and shout “Next!”
Jimmy says, “I s’pect my brother could handle Billy.”
“I s’pect you’re right.”
“Not many others could.”
“I’ll handle him,” I say.
Jimmy smiled. “You look a bit long in the tooth, you don’t mind my sayin’.”
I smile. “Nice to meet you.”
I turn and walk toward the ring a few steps, then stop and turn back to him. Jimmy’s hand is still extended. I walk back to him and take it.
“Donovan Creed,” I say.
Jimmy smiles broadly. “Jimmy Santa,” he says.
“Former Lightweight Champion, South Bronx Golden Gloves,” I say.
“Waaauuu!” he whisper-shouts.
I start heading toward the ring to meet Billy “the Kid” King up close and personal.
“Wait a minute,” Jimmy says.
I turn my head.
“He’s got this move,” Jimmy says, demonstrating a right cross that flies halfway toward an imaginary target, then hesitates, before snapping forward.
“Check hook,” I say.
Jimmy gives me a “thumbs-up.” Then he says, “You want me to work your corner?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?” he says.
“It’s not going to last that long.”
3.
I step down the levels until I’m at ringside. Billy sees me standing there with my gym bag. He trots over, spits on the canvass, and rubs his crotch.
Apparently Billy King has a lot of moves.
“Who the fuck’re you?” he says, leaning over the ropes, leering down at me.
“Donovan Creed.”
“Donovan? Donovan?” He looks around for approval. “What’re you, gay?”
“Compensatory displacement.”
“What?”
I looked at my watch. “I hate to rush you, but can we move this along? I’ve got someplace to be.”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes were wild. He was definitely on something. Crack, maybe, or PCP. But if PCP, he was simply fortified with it, not completely whacked. I saw a six-foot-five, three hundred pound guy in a bar once in New Orleans who was so high on PCP, when a cop came in to arrest him, he broke a bottle and used it to gouge his own eye out. Then he started laughing and stripped off all his clothes, jumped onto a table top and defecated. It took the cop a full minute to realize what he’d just witnessed. He looked at the bloody eye socket, the steaming pile of shit, then turned and ran out the door, gagging. He practically vomited his spleen out in the parking lot. By the time he finished puking, all the other bar folk, including the bartender, were vomiting alongside him. Which made it just two people inside the bar: me, and the naked, one-eyed, three-hundred-pound table shitter.
I had a helluva time kicking that guy’s ass.
Billy, though highly skilled, would be a walk in the park compared to him.
“If you’ve got gloves in that bag, put ’em on,” Billy King says. “’Cos I’m not just gonna whip your ass, I’m gonna make you my bitch.”
“Compensatory displacement,” I say.
“Stop saying that. What are you, retarded?”
“You can wear gloves if you think you need them,” I say, “to protect your hands. Of course, I don’t plan to hit your hands.”
“You can’t fight in the ring without gloves,” he says.
“Why not?”
“What do you mean, ‘why not?’ They got rules,” he sputtered.
“Then climb out of the ring and fight me here.”
He glanced at the activity in the opposite corner. The med student was checking over the guy on the stool. Billy King turned his attention back to me and stared at me as if he were inspecting a bug he’d crushed under his shoe.
“What’s in the bag?” he says.
I hold it open so he can see the pen and single sheet of paper. I remove them and hold the paper up to him.
“The fuck is that?” he says.
I notice Guy and Z have entered the room and are standing by the doors.
“Don’t mind us,” Guy calls out. “We just want to watch.”
I nod.
“What’s it say on the paper?” Billy repeats.
“It’s a release. And down here on the left is where we’ll get the witnesses to sign.”
“A release for what?”
“In case I kill you by mistake.”
“You? Kill me?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I could shit you for breakfast!” he says.
I wait.
He says, “Are you fuckin’ serious? Because I will flat fuck you up! I’ll make you my plaything! You’ll be doin’ my laundry, pretty boy, and takin’ it in the ass when I come home after a hard day’s work.”
“So…you gonna sign it or what?” I say.
He yells at the men in the opposite corner. “Get that bitch outta my ring, and get this old motherfucker—”
He looks at me and says, “What are you, forty?”
“I’d rather not say. I’m sensitive about my age.”
“—Get this old motherfucker a pair of gloves.”
4.
There are a number of rules for winning a fist fight. Chief among them is, don’t fight your opponent the way he wants to fight you. I put the release back in my bag, hop onto the lip of the ring, slide under the ropes. Then get to my feet and stand directly in front of Billy “the Kid” King.
“I’m not fighting you without gloves,” he says.
“It’s quicker to take yours off than wrap my hands.”
“You might get in a lucky punch. It’s not fair.”
“You might get in a lucky punch. I’m willing to take the risk.”
“You tryin’ to make me look bad? In my own gym?” he shouts, and launches his lightning-fast left jab.
I may be twice his age, but I’m light years faster. I can see it’s a feint. I can tell it’s going to stop an inch from my right eye. He’s throwing it to make me flinch. But I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink. Instead, I say, “Compensatory displacement is when you substitute something for the thing you don’t have.”