When I Found You (31 page)

For her.

He smiled at her as he stepped into the ring, and she beamed back at him.

•  •  •

Nat’s very first blow landed perfectly. It was a right to the guy’s body, and it felt great. He could hear a grunt as the air rushed out of the kid. Nat had been thinking of him as a kid, for psychological advantage. He had a baby face, so Nat tried to think of him as a baby.

That first punch had been so fast, so perfectly timed, that it just beat the baby’s defenses.

After that Nat could do nothing wrong. And the baby could do nothing right.

Nat stayed a step ahead at all times, listening to the roar of the crowd in his ears. It felt good. Now that same din felt good, because it was for him. Every move the baby made was defensive, because Nat wasn’t giving him time to do anything but guard.

He could hear the announcer over the loudspeaker, but somehow he couldn’t focus on the words. It was all a background muddle of sound. Just “Bates” came through. He heard his last name each time it was said. Which was a lot.

He watched the punches come in through that weird window created by the head guard. It was like watching a movie on a small screen. But even with that handicap, he blocked almost every one perfectly.

He was on fire.

The baby came in too close and clinched with him, trying to avoid the pummeling to his head. He followed Nat for five or six steps, too close to hit. Then the official pulled him off again.

The minute he came free, the baby aimed a powerful swing at Nat’s head. If it had connected, it might have been a knockout punch. But Nat ducked it successfully. And then, in the split second that followed, Nat knew the baby had put so much into that one punch that he was now completely off-balance. And completely unguarded.

Nat capitalized. With a knockout punch of his own.

He drove a hard right to the baby’s head. It connected with a satisfying thud.

The baby did not fall. But he staggered. He took three or four steps back and forth, as if to try to balance himself, his legs looking like rubber. Like a drunkard on a swaying ship.

In a real fight Nat would have thrown one more great punch and finished him off. In a real fight the baby would be down on the mat, the ref counting over him while the crowd cheered.

But this was the amateurs.

The official stepped between them, held up one, then two, then three fingers in front of the drunken baby. Nat turned his head to look for Carol in the crowd. Just as he saw her, he heard the official call the fight.

Nat felt a hand grasp his wrist and raise his gloved hand in the air. The crowd cheered. He felt a little cheated, because he’d wanted to fight for a lot longer than a minute and a half. It felt good, and he wasn’t ready to stop.

He found Carol’s face again in the crowd. She was on her feet. Clapping. Cheering. She threw her arms around Nathan and hugged him from the side, jumping up and down while he stood still and applauded.

She was proud of him. He’d made his wife proud of him. Just like Little Manny said he should. The rest didn’t seem to matter.

•  •  •

Nat stepped up to the urinal, careful, as always, to keep his eyes straight ahead. A guy no older than him stepped up beside him. Nathan could see in the mirror, in his peripheral vision, that it was another fighter. He could tell by the brightly colored flash of his Golden Gloves tank top.

The guy looked over at him.

No, no, no, Nat thought. Eyes front. Always eyes front at the urinals. He did not return the glance.

“So,” the guy said. “You gonna take that fight? Awful lot of money.”

Nat looked over. It was the guy who had won the fight right before his. The light-skinned black guy who had fought so well.

He quickly looked away again.

“I don’t know what fight you’re talking about.”

“The one in the Bronx.”

“I didn’t hear about it.”

“Really? That guy was talking to your trainer. Isn’t that your trainer, that real short little guy? That guy with the beard and the wild hair was talking to him. Right after he talked to my father. Right after my father said no.”

“And he offered you a fight? What kind of a fight?”

“Pro. Hundred bucks for every round you can stay in. But it’s unregulated, so my father won’t let me do it. I just wondered if you were gonna do it. Awful lot of money.”

Nat shook off and zipped up. Stepped back away from the urinal. “Yeah. I am. I’m gonna do it.”

“You’re lucky,” he said. “Good fight, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Nat said. “You looked good out there, too.”

•  •  •

He found Little Manny right where he had left him, sitting with Nathan and Carol, watching total strangers fight. If you could call it fighting.

Carol looked over her shoulder at Nat and smiled in a way that made his stomach feel warm and runny. He wanted to smile back properly, but he couldn’t shake being mad. Not on such short notice.

“Little Manny,” he said, speaking up slightly to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “Can I have a word with you?”

“Sure, kid. You wanna take it outside?”

“Yeah,” Nat said. “I do.”

•  •  •

“So when were you planning on telling me?”

“Never. I was planning on telling you never. Because we’re not gonna do it.”

“Well, maybe
you’re
not. But
I
am.”

They stood with their backs against the brick of the building. Nat nursed the silence briefly while a siren went by. Fire engine. There was always some disaster in New York City. But at least here something happened.

He shivered slightly in his tank top and trunks, but refused to let on that he was cold.

“Look. Kid. It’s my job to protect you—”

“From what? From fights?”

“From fights like this. Yeah. Look. You still don’t know the boxing world so good. So lemme give you a crash course. This is a fight nobody regulates. That means if a guy fights you dirty, maybe the official says something, maybe not. Probably not. No regulation means no weigh-in. This guy tells me his boy is a welterweight, but we don’t know. We’re just taking his word. For all we know the guy could outweigh you by forty pounds. Plus it’s tomorrow night, and I never trust a fight that comes together last-minute like that. And he’s trying to get four, five guys to go up against his boy in one night. Offering big money to whoever can stay in. But did you stop to ask yourself what he’s doing recruiting a bunch of amateurs? Plus it’s too much money.”

Nat snorted laughter. “Too much money?
Too much?
You gotta be kidding me. There’s no such thing as too much money. Too much for who?”

“How do I explain it to you, kid? So’s you get it? It’s like, if you see all-you-can-eat pancakes for about a dollar, you think it’s a good deal. You think you’ll put one over on ’em. Get something for nothing. Only, turns out you can only eat three or four pancakes anyway, and they know it. This guy’s got no intention of shelling out a thousand bucks to four or five fighters. If he’s offering that kind of bucks it’s because he knows he’ll never have to pay it. He’s just putting on a show. It’s like a gladiator sport. You know? It’s a chance to make his boy look good in front of a crowd that pays to watch you bleed.”

“I don’t care. I’m doing it.”

For one wonderful moment, Little Manny said nothing. A woman in a startlingly short skirt walked by and gave Nat a suggestive glance over her shoulder.

“You don’t care about much of anything, do you?”

“You want to know what I care about?” Nat said, raising his voice in a way he never had with Little Manny before. “I’ll tell you what I care about. My wife. I care about my wife. Who, by the way, still doesn’t even have a decent wedding ring. If I can hold my ground even three rounds with this guy, I could buy her a nice ring. That’s what I care about. So don’t tell me I don’t care about anything. If you really believe that, you don’t know me at all. Now when is this fight? And where?”

Little Manny shook his head five or six times before answering. “Oh, no. No, no. Maybe I can’t stop you from doing this fool thing, kid, but I ain’t about to draw you a map.”

Little Manny turned on his heel and went back inside.

Nat stood a moment, breathing the bitingly cold city air. Then he followed Little Manny back into the gym.

He scanned the room for a guy with a beard and wild hair. He wasn’t hard to find. A guy with hair like that — like he’d grabbed hold of a live electrical wire — was as easy to pick out of a crowd as a car in a parking lot with a balloon tied to its antenna.

Nat elbowed his way through the crowd to try to reach him. But it was between events, and the spectators were all on their feet and milling. The guy with the hair was talking to another fighter, which made Nat feel he had to hurry. That an opportunity was just about to slip away.

He felt the presence of someone on his heels, and turned around to see Little Manny following barely a step behind.

“What are you doing here? Are you stupid enough to try to stop me?”

“No. No, kid, I ain’t nearly that stupid. I just figure if you’re gonna do this fool thing, you’re better to do it with me than without me.”

•  •  •

“Um. We’re going to send you guys home without us,” Nat said.

“Is everything all right?’ Nathan asked.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Everything’s good. Little Manny just ran into some friends of his and we have this chance to do some sparring. You know. Like, on a different level than I could do at home.”

But to Nat’s own ears it sounded like the lie it was. And he was sure everyone else must have heard the lie in it, too. Plus Little Manny kept looking away, at the floor, and that didn’t help one bit. Nat felt a strong jolt to his stomach, remembering Nathan’s voice when he said “Don’t ever lie to me again.” He had done it, and it was too late to undo it now.

“So, Carol and I will drive home and you’ll …” Nathan trailed off. Let Nat finish the sentence.

“Take the bus. Or the train. Probably day after tomorrow.”

“OK,” Nathan said.

So Nathan did not have super powers after all. He could not see right through Nat, as feared.

•  •  •

Just before they left the gym, Nathan pulled him aside.

“I just want you to know I’m proud of you tonight,” he said.

“You are?”

“Very.”

“You never said that to me before.”

“I never claimed to be easily impressed.”

“As a matter of fact I’m trying to think if
anybody
ever said that to me before. But I don’t really think so.” The pause felt awkward, so he rushed on. “Because I won?”

“No, not because you won. Partly because you’ve worked so hard, but mostly because you did this thing right. I know you wanted to rush, and I know there are parts of your trainer’s schedule that you don’t like, but you exercised patience. Along with everything else you exercised.”

Nat looked away. Down at the gym floor. “Thanks,” he said.

When he looked up, Nathan was already walking away.

For one long, struggling, balancing-act of a moment, Nat almost ran after him. Almost said, Never mind. We’ll catch the ride home with you after all.

Carol tipped it for him. She tossed a glance over her shoulder at him. Smiled. Blew him a kiss. Then she turned and ran back to him. Threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. “You were so great. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he said.

“Have a good time sparring. Be as good as you were tonight.”

He looked down at her left hand, resting on his bare forearm. At the impossibly cheap silver band they were using as a sort of placeholder for the real thing.

“I’ll try,” he said.

7 March 1980   

“This can’t be it,” Nat said.

“Oh, this is it, all right,” Little Manny said. “What’d you expect? Madison Square Garden?”

They stood in front of a dark equipment yard, surrounded by high-chain link topped with loops of razor wire. A good city block back into the yard, Nat could see a few dark shapes of people moving into and out of a huge sheet-metal warehouse.

“Not too late to back out, kid,” Little Manny said.

“I don’t back out,” Nat said. “I’m not a guy who backs out.”

The words seemed to tremble slightly as they rose up from his lungs, making him feel like a layered being with his steel only on the outermost skin.

“Yeah. Tell me all about it. I noticed that about you. I’ll be sure to carve that on your gravestone.”

“Thanks heaps,” Nat said.

•  •  •

“
That’s a welterweight?
” It came out of Nat’s mouth before he could stop it. He hoped the crowd noise had swallowed his words. That Little Manny had never received them. He looked down at the little man, who was just opening his mouth to speak. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. Don’t even bother to say it. You warned me. I know.”

The first fight was already in progress. No announcer, which seemed weird to Nat. The seats consisted of a bunch of folding chairs scattered at random. Maybe a hundred guys sat around the ring, cheering and booing and drinking beer and hard liquor out of translucent plastic cups, the bottles sitting on the concrete floor at their feet.