Punchdrunk
By Bill Lowenburg
Copyright 2012 Bill Lowenburg
Smashwords Edition
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My old trainer, E.B., always taught me to stay ready to take a fight on two weeks notice.
“Never know when you might get a call,” he’d say in his deep baritone. “Life’s full of opportunities if you’re ready for them.”
E. B. isn’t around any more, but I’ve followed his advice—for the most part. Two weeks was all I had to get ready for the Mexican kid across the ring. For one of those weeks, anyway, I’ve laid off the booze. To come out on top tonight, I’ll have to rely on everything else I learned from E.B. over the years. As for the new guy in my corner calling himself my trainer, I’ll just do my best to block him out. He didn’t even know how to wrap my hands.
With a little luck, I’ll pick up a win in tonight’s six-rounder on the undercard. It’s my first fight since coming out of rehab and will serve as a short expedition to see what I’ve got left. I don’t have a wife, or even a girlfriend, to convince me I should have hung them up two years ago. I do have a brother, Billy, a lawyer. Billy could give a rat’s ass about boxing; the only thing he seems to care about is making money. I shouldn’t complain; he’s negotiated good contracts for my televised and pay-for-view fights. Thanks to him I have money in the bank. Thanks to me, so does he.
If tonight’s fight doesn’t produce any injuries, I’ll return to serious training for a ten-round main event. A couple of ten-round wins and I’m back in line for a title shot. If I become a contender again, Billy will undoubtedly take a renewed interest in my career. Lose at my age, and it’s over.
In the Blue Corner, originally from Dublin, fighting out of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, weighing in at one-hundred forty-seven pounds…with a record of forty-one wins, twenty-seven by knockout, eleven losses, and two draws…Irish Johnny Mullane, the Fighting Schoolteacher.
I raise my glove and take a step toward the center of the ring. The smell of dried sweat from the canvas blends with the perfume drifting up from the round card girls sitting at ringside. The tall brunette taps out a text message with her thumbs despite half-inch fake nails. The black girl checks her eye makeup in a small mirror. The Asian girl, who goes by the name Jayd, stares off into the darkness shrouding the back of the arena. Last year at a match I attended but didn’t fight in, I chatted with her briefly and found out she’s a med student. She notices me looking at her, then smiles and waves.
The main event won’t begin for another hour and a half, so the crowd is thin. A few people in the audience remember me, producing a smattering of applause. I recognize one older gentleman, Morrissey, who was a friend of my uncle back in Dublin. After moving to the New Jersey shore he’s been a fan of mine for years. I appreciate being remembered, having had some of my better fights in this ring—especially the ninth-round come-from-behind knockout of Drummond. But that was five years back—a lot of bottles of beer ago.
Tonight’s fight, I took on a whim. Newly sober and feeling younger, without even calling Billy, I signed on the dotted line for what looked like six easy rounds and five hundred bucks cash. Five hundred bucks is probably good money to the kid in the other corner. Billy would tell me I ought to have my head examined for taking a match with such a small purse. When I was going good I had a string of fights that each earned a hundred times what I’m getting paid tonight. But Billy has never quite understood that I don’t fight for the money. On the other hand, I’m not sure I’ve ever understood exactly why I do fight. Regardless, the kid in the other corner doesn’t care, and the money has got to be important to him. He’s so young I haven’t even seen any video of him. Luckily, E.B. taught me to how analyze and adjust as a fight goes on. He always said I was a good student of the game because I’m a teacher. In fact, he often tried to talk me out of the ring altogether.
“You have a good job Mullane,” he’d say. “Stick to teaching. If you want to be around the fight game, become a manager or a promoter. Or do color commentary for TV.”
Somehow his arguments never convinced me. Part of what’s kept me in the ring has been the thrill of mastering and applying the skills and strategies he taught. At one time, only a handful of fighters in the world could do the things I could do. Even today, with my skills diminished, the majority of them can’t do the things I can still do. Not that it’s a great source of pride. Physical talent is something you’re born with. You either have it or you don’t.
Teaching, on the other hand, also takes a certain amount of God-given talent, but I believe it can be developed far more than, say, hooking off the jab and slipping punches. I wish I was as good in the classroom as E.B was in the gym. Maybe I could be. To the kids in the classroom I always harp on the importance of being a lifetime learner. I’m almost at the end of my career in the ring, but as a teacher I still have a long way to go. If I devote myself to becoming a better teacher, maybe I can make more of a difference.
E.B. always said, “There’s more to boxing than throwing punches.” Though essential to the game and not without a certain satisfaction, punching is the part of it I least enjoy. And when I do punch, I prefer working the heavy bag and speed bag to attacking a bag of bones topped by a central nervous system. I’ve never enjoyed inflicting pain. But other than visitors to the gym, no one admires you for your ability to hit the bags—and certainly no one is going to pay you to do it. To get paid, other people must be punched.
I always enjoyed the stretches of training that came between fights—running the road next to the river before dawn, followed by ten rounds of skipping rope and shadowboxing on a secluded section of the riverbank. Later in the day, I’d stop by the gym to sweat and pound out rhythms on the bags. I used to enjoy listening to E.B.’s lessons as he talked to the other fighters, especially the beginners. I often remember a lecture he was fond of delivering from the middle of the ring after making everyone stop their workout and gather around the sagging ropes.
“Boxing is like chess,” he said. “It’s a game of control. And the control emanates from patterns of circular movement.”
Most of the other guys in the gym weren’t sure what he meant by emanates, but after explaining, E.B. always had me demonstrate, walking through the various possibilities with him as the opponent. Then he would set up drills so everyone got the idea.
“Control,” he continued, “can be exerted toward the center of the ring, which is easier, or from the center, if a fighter really knows what he’s doing. The circle can be small, or it can be large. The man who wins is the man who controls the action of the circle.”
E.B.’s lectures were more interesting than those delivered by any professor of literature I encountered on the way to my PhD. If I do manage to land one more big payday, I’m giving a good part of it to Harriet, E.B.’s wife.
Part of me also wants to make one more run at the title because E.B. never got his chance. In his day, the mob only allowed two or three black fighters in the top ten of each weight division. With guys like Ray Robinson and Ike Williams in his class, E.B. never managed to squeeze in. Today, ironically, there are never more than two or three white guys—if that—in the top ten.
I scan the crowd and don’t see anyone from back home. It’s probably better nobody made the trip down here to Atlantic City. Even though the Mexican kid is really young, I’m not in shape and this one could go either way. It could even get embarrassing if he catches me early.
And in the Red Corner, fighting out of Ciudad Juarez, Meh-hee-ico, weighing in at one-hundred and fifty-one pounds…at only nineteen years of age, with a record of twelve wins, ten by knockout, and just one defeat…David` “Chucky” Lo-pezzz…Lopez.”
Chucky? What the hell kind of a nickname is that for a fighter? Maybe it’s a mispronunciation of Chequi, which is the way his friends referred to the great 1960’s light-heavyweight champion, Jose Torres. If so, it’s pretty ambitious. I can tell just by looking across the ring this kid is no Jose Torres. But if Juarez is his home town, he’s plenty tough. Because of the warring drug cartels, Juarez has become the murder capital of the world. It’s more dangerous to live there than in Kabul or Baghdad.
At least the ring announcer properly pronounced the kid’s first name—Da-veed. That, I can relate to—it reminds me of Jacques-Louis David, an Influential French painter in the Neoclassical style. Born in 1748, died in 1825. Often referred to by only his last name, David was considered to be the preeminent artist of his era. While I admire David-the-painter’s work, it’s a bad sign to be thinking of these things. David-the-welterweight would like nothing better than to knock me out.
On my good nights, I don’t let my PhD get in the way—I just fight the way E.B. taught me. It’s a legitimate question to ask what a man with a PhD in literature is doing in the ring and teaching high school. I don’t happen to have a legitimate answer, although I agree with my young rehab counselor, who observed that alcohol seems to have a great deal to do with it. Over coffee one afternoon I believe he even ventured so far as to call me an intellectual underachiever.
“Ballsy pronouncement,” I replied with a smile. “I ought to break your nose for telling the truth.”
I liked that kid. He was right, of course—and the same applies to my ring career. After beating Drummond and then Angel Cruz several years ago, I was rated the number one contender. I trained hard, but not as hard as I could have because I was still secretly drinking. I lost my next three fights.
Also while in rehab, I sparred with the question of do I fight because I drink or do I drink because I fight? Maybe the answer is both. Or, possibly, the answer is neither. I didn’t have time to decide, because shortly after leaving rehab I resumed drinking—and boxing.
Tonight, I should have taken a nip from the pint of Hennessy in my bag before coming out to the ring—just one; it loosens me up and reduces the chatter in my head. Two nips, I’ve learned from experience, slows me down. I made the mistake of taking two before the last fight, and had to spend three rounds running away from that black kid, Johnson, from Brooklyn. By the time the Hennessy wore off and my timing finally returned, I was well behind on points and couldn’t pull it out, even though I knocked him down in the next-to-last round. Then I went on a bender and ended up in rehab.
Inappropriate ring name or not, nineteen-year-old Chucky is twelve and one, with ten knockouts. The announcer had the good sense to skip over how old I am. It’s a little embarrassing to be matched with someone half your age. Chucky’s handlers are shrewd. They figure I’m due for retirement any day. They figure I might not be in the best shape. They figure I’m a good guy to catch on the way down. But, because of my record and the long list of other well-known fighters I’ve beaten, if Chucky wins tonight, he’s probably going to move into the top ten. In the old days, to even think about breaking into the top ten, you had to have at least twenty-five wins—more than half of them against good fighters. These days you can get there in a year and a half—faster, if your manager knows the right people. Chucky’s ten knockouts don’t scare me. All of his victims have been stumblebums or kids greener than he is. Tonight will be his first real test.
I won’t make the obvious joke about the teacher giving a test—the newspaper hacks covering the fight for tomorrow’s paper are more than welcome to use it. Of course there’s the very real possibility the papers won’t even mention our little tête-à-tête. When I was going well, reporters used to love me. It was almost embarrassing the way they flocked around, grubbing for a good quote. After stopping the Russian in round 5, I compared him to a character out of Dostoevsky. That gave the hacks plenty to write about after they looked up who the hell Dostoevsky was. Tonight I don’t see anyone I recognize at the ringside press table. Only the main event is being televised and the camera crew has already set up and gone for coffee.
Maybe it’s just as well my first comeback fight doesn’t have much coverage. The kids in my honors lit seminar hate it when I try to be clever. They can do without a quote in tomorrow’s paper.
“Just teach, Mr. Mullane,” they shout out in class. “We love you, but you’re killing us!”
I love them too, but I probably do kill the little bastards. My jokes go right over their swelled upper-middle-class heads. Don’t get me wrong, they’re likeable, and smart as hell—a few are smarter than I am—but they haven’t lived very long or read very much. Or been punched.
I enjoy the intellectual sparring matches with the kids. I can go on for period after period, the way in the old days I used to be able to box round after round in the gym. E.B. taught me how to conserve energy and how to evaluate my performance. At any given point in the fight I have a clear picture of how much gas I’ve got left. He also taught my how to push myself when necessary. When I had a tough opponent coming up, E.B. used to run me through a special routine in the gym: every two or three rounds, he’d bring in a fresh sparring partner. Each new guy would be better than the last. I could fool around with the first one or two, but as I tired, the opponents got tougher and I had to get serious. Keep joking around tonight and I’ll end up as knockout number eleven on Chucky’s record.
Staring hard at me during the referee’s instructions, Chucky makes a sincere attempt to intimidate. It’s an admirable effort, but for me it’s like looking into the eyes of one of my seniors I’ve just caught cheating on a test. Normally the Hispanic kids in school don’t make eye contact with elders in situations of conflict. In their culture it’s a sign of respect. The fact that Chucky and I have inked a contract to punch one another in exchange for money has suspended that protocol. Our forthcoming mutual pain will supposedly lead to mutual benefit. Standing here listening to the referee’s instructions, it occurs to me several of my high school students would also benefit from receiving a punch from me between the eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine any promoters who would be willing to put up the money. Plus I doubt the kids’ parents would approve. In Juarez, perhaps. In Wilkes-Barre, no.
“Chucky,” I say as the ref drones on, “Beat me tonight and I’ll call you Mister Lopez.”
“Fuck you, old man,” Chucky mumbles through his mouthpiece as we touch gloves. Back in my corner I ignore all of the words flowing from between the gold-capped teeth of my so-called trainer. He’s actually wearing sunglasses.
The bell rings. Chucky charges straight out of his corner to the middle of the ring. I circle to the left, taking away his chance to land the hard overhand right he knows better than to throw, but throws anyway. I interpret this as a genuine lack of respect—little kids sometimes tag one another with surprise haymakers in the novice division of Golden Gloves, but on this level such shenanigans are considered gauche. Not many fighters know what gauche means, but they know what an insult it is to be greeted in this way. Chucky misses badly, but recovers instantly and gets down to business. I guess he feels it was worth a shot at embarrassing a guy with a reputation. I’ll try not to make him pay for it too dearly in the later rounds.
“Settle down, son,” I tell him, poking a jab into his field of vision and continuing to circle left. “Important people are watching this fight. Carry yourself like a pro.”
Chucky knows nothing about E.B.’s theories. The difference between Chucky’s awareness and mine is the difference between a rabbit grazing in a clover field and an eagle circling him a quarter of a mile above in the sky. Of course I no longer have the reflexes to take full advantage of the difference. And it might all be for naught if my legs cramp up due to an electrolyte imbalance caused by excessive alcohol intake. Even though I stopped last week, I still don’t feel like myself again. Maybe I never will.
I tap his forehead with a jab, measuring the distance. He’s two or three inches shorter than I am and also has short arms. That doesn’t bode well for a distinguished career. Neither does the scar tissue already beginning to accumulate over his eyes. I can see why it’s there—he doesn’t move his head well at all. His left eye is scarred worse than his right and that’s the precise location my jab will begin to connect shortly—if it connects. Almost all of my losses have been by early knockout. If I make it past the first three rounds, Chucky could be in trouble. But I might be in trouble, too, with only two weeks in the gym and just one of them without booze. A win tonight might help keep me sober for at least half a year. Or it might touch off a celebration lasting the rest of the weekend and find me waking up at an unknown address.