Going Fast (26 page)

“I bet,” said the barkeep, who had trouble reconciling platter lifts with the bloated mess before him.

“You wanna believe it!” The flack wobbled, eyes closed under glasses that skimmed the tip of his nose. “I was the only straight guy in the whole chorus, I was like a kid on Easter morning surrounded by chocolate bunnies.” Scott kept his head down, trying to hear MacKenzie over the flack. “Those little skaters are horny too, with legs like a vise.”

Scott could catch snatches, something about an investigative piece by Cullen, the legislature reporter, the MLA Alex Francis MacDougall, mill money, and safety violations. MacDougall was Dick's partner in the fishing lodge, it appeared, guaranteeing all of the necessary grants. MacKenzie said Katherine Redgrave had sent Cullen's story to the
Standard
's lawyers, where it was being X-rayed for libel. Garth slid an envelope across the table, past a pile of dead smokes and all moral qualms. “Alex Francis might want to see this so he can head them off at the pass.” At least, Scott decided, it had nothing to do with him.

In a crisis, MacKenzie always went to his greatest strength: moral ambivalence. It presented him with myriad opportunities that would never have arisen for a fussier man.

“I'll see that Alex Francis gets it.”

“It should help.”

“Don't worry about nothin',” Dick assured him. “Them lawyers of yours, they get a lot of government business. One call from Alex Francis and this story will have more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. If I'm not mistaken, one of them partners is hoping to make judge. He ain't gonna do nothin' to piss off people in high places.”

An hour later, Garth parked at a brick low-rise with a wheelchair ramp and a sterile entrance. Two nurses were wrestling with a stretcher. Inside, the blue hall smelled like Lysol. Dust formed a shroud over dried flowers that reeked of death. God, Garth hated it here, with TVs blaring and orderlies bustling past dry mouths and vacant stares.

He had every right, he figured, to blindside Cullen and that Redgrave broad, since he knew damn well why Gem was promoting her. It was only because she was so bloody tall. Garth had heard about the interviews in Toronto, how the mucky-mucks had marched the four finalists for city editor into the boardroom like prize steers. “Her!” said Gem's CEO, dismissing the others on sight. “That way we get our money's worth. If we are going to promote women, let's go for get the most bang for the buck.” A features writer, Garth swore, a goddamn sob sister.

T
ODAY'S
B
IRTHDAYS

M
ARY
K
NOCK IS
87.

W
INSTON
M
AC
K
ENZIE IS
82.

A gerontologist walked by, bored by the predictability of it all. Garth hadn't seen a doctor in five years, even though his ankles were yellow and as springy as a water balloon. Jean went every week, but that was different, since the change had made her so irritable that she couldn't stand him in the same room.

W
INSTON'S
R
OOM
, announced bright block letters. Garth knocked and entered a stale square with pulled shades. He saw a nurse.

T
ODAY
I
S
M
ONDAY
.

A skeletal man was sitting in a rocker, his stubbly chin wet.
He had a blanket on his lap. Without the infrastructure of teeth, his cheeks had collapsed.

“I haven't seen you since his last birthday,” scolded the nurse.

“No.” Garth cleared his throat. “I've been busy.”

The drawers had been labelled since his last visit: C
ANDY
, U
NDERWEAR
. Garth moved a pair of plaid slippers off the bed and adjusted the man's blanket, the nurse watching with the proprietorial air of a store owner who had brought out a tray of rings for his inspection.

“How is he?”

“The same,” she said, staying close, as though Garth couldn't be trusted with his own father. “He's never any trouble.”

Johnny was standing in Ownie's basement, in the space off the rec room. In a stack of memorabilia, next to an Etch A Sketch and a Jon Gnagy art kit, he found a fight program that had yellowed like a chain-smoker's fingers.

MONCTON STADIUM. SEPT. 8, 1954.

10 cents.

Sponsored by Sportsmans Club. If You Don't

Participate in Sports, Be a Sport.

Door Prize: 1st prize $10 cash;

2nd prize, a Presto lighter.

MAIN BOUT

10 rounds

Floyd Patterson   vs.   Chief Alvin Williams

Brooklyn, NY           Oklahoma City, Okla.

171 pounds           175 pounds

Ownie pointed to the small print, the Presto footnotes. “See, I had Schmeisser on the undercard.” Ownie paused. “Cheapest bastard who ever lived. He had his wife work the corner once to save money.”

“Isn't that Schmeisser?” Johnny pointed to a photo on the basement wall. In the midst of a black-and-white cluster was a grainy blow-up of a flattened fighter, toes pointed at the camera. Shot up, from ringside, it made his boots look enormous.

“Yeah,” said Ownie, “that's him. I put it up as a reminder.”

They laughed and Ownie touched an empty ceiling hook, all that remained of the heavy bag he punched until Hildred made him remove it, claiming the vibrations cracked the upstairs plaster. What a goddamn shame, he thought, taking down that bag. Ownie believed in collective powers, that the stronger he was, the stronger his fighter became. When he had trained Tommy, he ran ten miles a day in army boots, he went eight rounds on the heavy bag, and then, because he could, he lifted Tommy into the air when the little fighter won.

Johnny crossed the basement, drawn by more photos. There was Ownie with Yvon Durelle, Ownie meeting Ali, Ownie hugging a dark-haired fighter with a cartilage-free nose and a lantern jaw. “My brother Butch, wanted to be a big ten-round fighter.” Johnny looked at the youth, cut-up and swollen in an Eliot Ness overcoat. “He wore the double-breasted serge suit and Bulova watch and never gave me a cent for working the corner. I had to live through that.”

Johnny chuckled and leaned toward Butch, who looked like he had golf balls growing under his skin.

“So, how's the roadwork?” They had moved into the rec room.

“Ah. . . .” Johnny paused. “Good, good.”

Understanding that Johnny's fight days were probably numbered, Ownie relaxed and pulled out his
Ring Record Book
, eight hundred pages of life stories compressed into half-page columns. Joy, triumph, death, and destruction sanitized and condensed into the colourless
Win/Loss/Draw
.

Ownie marked a page in his book, which was dog-eared with pencil marks next to unknowns from Brooklyn or Kalamazoo who may, or may not, have made worthy opponents. Picking a match was like ordering a suit from the Sears catalogue; they might, if you were lucky, send something that corresponded with the description.

“It's just that this guy is very intense,” Johnny blurted. “I mean, we're barely moving and he's talking junk miles, oxidative damages, high-glycemic foods.” Johnny's protest drifted across the rec room. “He's serious about what he's doing,” said Ownie.

Ownie still had time for Johnny because he liked him, but they both knew that Turmoil was on a different track; they both knew that people, years later, might talk about Turmoil with jealousy or awe but always with the understanding that “He meant something.” They knew that.

“See,” Johnny plunged in, “he's got this time he's got to beat. So he never forgets it, he's got it as his bank code, taped to the ceiling over his bed, and written on his watch strap.”

“By race time, he'll come apart like a cheap pair of polyester pants, splitting at the seams.”

Johnny laughed, relieved. Ownie opened his book and copied down numbers. In the front were the World Ratings, the ultimate honour roll, a sign that you had left the masses and moved to a greater place, an elite world inhabited by giants, freaks, and legends. Over the years, Ownie had three fighters in the Top Ten. The Kid was number two in 1948, when there was one world champ per division and eight weight classes, when being heavyweight king was like being president of the United States, a guarantee that your name would stand forever.

Arguello settled at Ownie's feet, which made him think about the dog's Nicaraguan namesake, who was making a comeback at forty-two despite a heart condition. The little dog jumped, startled by a thunderous laugh that bounced off the low basement ceiling and rounded the corner into the rec room. Arching her back, Arguello whimpered.

Turmoil was in the doorway, arms akimbo, shaking his head, with Louie behind him. Why, Ownie wondered, protective of the dog, does he have to be so loud?

“What's so funny?” Ownie demanded.

“She wahn to put me on contrack.”

“Who?” asked Ownie.

“Lorraine. We talkin ‘bout gettin marrieeed and she say ah have to sign some contrack. Ah tole her ah already hab one.”

“That's a prenuptial agreement,” Ownie said.

“Ah ain' signin no contrack with nobody.”

“Well,” Ownie shrugged. “That will be the end of you.”

Turmoil threw back his head and laughed loud enough to frighten Arguello. He laughed and laughed when nothing was funny. Ownie frowned, thinking about the bridge and the evil spirits. He knew what happened to people who'd been diagnosed and branded. Back in the bad old days, families could sign you into the nuthouse, where they'd dope you up, then run currents through your head like they did to poor Cec DeWolfe when his wife took up with a taxi driver and wanted him gone. “I'm afraid he'll turn violent,” she told the authorities. “He's taken too many punches. I just can't trust him.” That's all it took, and Cec was a ghost.

Louie started up the VCR, loading the tape that Ownie had ordered from a guy in England, who charged him a hundred bucks. “This is our key, boys, our decoding device.”

When Ownie and Tommy had prepared for a fight, there was no need for strategy, no need for tapes. Ownie could turn Tommy loose and he would fight his own fight; he was all guts and heart. It was different with Turmoil. In a fight between two men of his size and power, you couldn't take chances; you couldn't let it just play out.

“What she want me to sign a contrack for?” Turmoil asked.

“So you won't get her money,” Louie explained.

“Ahm goin to be so rich, ah wohn need nobody's money.”

“Shut up, will ya.” Ownie squinted as two fighters left their
corners on the TV screen and circled like tomcats. “You've got to get through this fight first.”

Ownie was taking notes from the TV, focusing on one of the fighters. Ownie had heard that Calvin Mackey, the man who would stop or start Turmoil's career, had been a gang-banger, a mean bastard with hate for a heart. Love and hate complicated everything, Ownie figured, even in the fight game. The people loved Joe Louis so much they never forgave poor Ezzard Charles for beating the Brown Bomber. What was Charles supposed to do: lie down and die? He'd already killed Sammy Baroudi in the ring, and he had to live with that. Ezzard Charles was an unlucky man, born at the wrong time, sharing the ring with Louis, damned to die bitter.

“I heard Barry McGuigan wants to start a union so fighters won't end up broke,” Louie said.

“Ah wohn have no trubble like that,” Turmoil announced. “Ahll get me a smaht lawyer and make investments with real estate and race horses.”

Edgy, Ownie was trying to concentrate, seeking knowledge he just had to have. Watch the tempo, he reminded himself. Every fighter has his own rhythm, and you have to get inside that. If you break it, some fighters get messed up.
Everyone
has a weakness: some fighters can't handle tall guys, some have trouble with southpaws, some can't deal with awkwardness. You just have to figure it out. One. Two. One. Two. Like dancing.

“Now watch here.” He pointed at the tape. “Watch what Mackey's doing!
That'
s his flaw, right there.”

Ownie couldn't remember the man's name, just the eyes, cobalt blue with the longest, curliest lashes he had ever seen. It was as though someone had stuck the fringed eyes on the mashed face as a practical joke, then forgotten to take them off.

“What you up to these days?” Ownie asked the visitor.

The eyes, Ownie remembered, always looked uneasy, as though they knew that people were struck by the incongruity. On the wrong day, a day of low horizons and drought-stunted dreams, it could make a man anxious enough to pop someone.
Boom!

“Cooking,” the visitor replied, twisting a MedicAlert bracelet as though he was cracking open a jar of gravy. “I'm in the kitchen at Lucky Lou's. Right?”