by Otto Penzler
The opponent was six foot tall, three hundred twenty-eight pounds, a big old black country boy from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who couldn’t hardly scrawl his own name. But in the first round, with his damn eyes closed, he hit Coyle high on the head with an overhand right and knocked him on his ass. Me and Dee-Cee couldn’t figure how he didn’t see the punch coming, it was so high and wide. Coyle jumped up, and to his credit, he went right to work.
Bang! Three bitches to the eyes, right hand to the chin, left hook to the body, all the punches quick and pretty. The black boy settled like a dead whale to the bottom, and white folks was dancing in the aisles and waving the Stars and Bars. It was pitiful, but Coyle strutted like he just knocked out Jack Johnson. Me and Dee-Cee was pissed, and our peters had lost their glow. Dressing room afterward was quiet as a gray dawn.
Coyle took time off, not that he needed the rest. He came back for a few days, then it got so he wasn’t coming in at all. If he did, he’d lie around and bullshit instead of work. You could smell weed on him, and his hair got greasy. Now all our fighters started going flaky. Sweat got scarcer and scarcer. There was other times Coyle’d come in so fluffy from screwing you wished he didn’t come in at all. Gym got to be a goddamned social club what looked full of boy whores and Social Security socialites. What with Coyle lying around like a pet poodle, Billy’s other fighters started doing the same. Some begged off fights that were sure wins for them. You never want a fighter to fight if he’s not ready, but when they’re being paid to be in shape, they’re supposed to be in shape, not Butterball goddamn turkeys.
I tried to get Coyle to get serious, but he kept saying, “I’m cool, I’m cool.”
I said, “Tits on a polar bear’s what’s cool.”
That went on for three months, but I wasn’t big enough to choke sense into him. Besides, no trainer worth a damn would want to. Fighters come in on their own, or they don’t come in. Billy wanted a answer, but I didn’t have one. How do you figure it when a ten-round fighter hungry for money pulls out of fights ’cause of a sore knuckle, or a sprung thumb, or a bad elbow? Course old Coyle didn’t volunteer for no cut in pay.
One day he was lounging in his velour sweatsuit looking at tittie magazines. He said to turn up the lights. I said they was turned up. He said to turn them up again, and I said they was up again. Coyle yelled at me the first and last time.
“Turn ’em all the goddamn fuck up!”
“Boy,” I said, and then I said it again real quiet. “Boy, lights is all the goddamn fuck up.”
He looked up. “Oh, uh-huh, yeah, Red, thanks.”
About then I figure Kenny don’t know shit from Shinola.
Vegas called Billy for a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fight with some African fighting outta France. He had big German money behind him, and he was a tough sumbitch, but he didn’t have no punch like Kenny Coyle. Coyle said he’d go for the two-hundred-thousand fight in a heartbeat.
I knew there had to be some fun in all this pain. We whip the Afro-Frenchie and win the next couple of fights, and we’re talking three, maybe five hundred thousand a fight. Even if he loses, Billy’s got all his money back and more, and me and Dee-Cee’s doing right good, too. If we win big, we’ll be talking title fight, ’cause word’ll be out that there’s some big white boy who could be the one to win boxing back from the coloreds. The only coloreds me and Dee-Cee gave a rap about was them colored twenties, and fifties, and hundreds that’d make us proud standing in the bank line instead of meek. Like I say, the amateurs and the pros ain’t alike, and Billy’s figuring to get his money out of Coyle while he can. Me and Dee-Cee’s for that, ’specially me, since it gets me off the hook.
But neither one of us could figure what had happened with Coyle, so we got Billy to bring in some tough sparring partners for the Frenchie fight to test what Coyle had. Same-oh same-oh, with Coyle getting hit. But when he hit them, damn!, they’d go down! A gang of them took off when Coyle threw what that writer guy James Ellroy calls body rockets that tore up short ribs and squashed livers. But it was almost like Coyle was swinging blind. Usual-like, you don’t care about the sparring partners, they’re paid to get hit. But the problem was that Coyle was getting hit, and going down, too. He’d take a shot and his knees would do the old butterfly. We figured he’d been smoking weed, or worse—being up all night in toilets with hoochies.
Dee-Cee said, “Can’t say I didn’t tell him ’bout midnight emissions, but no, he won’t listen a me.”
But Coyle wasn’t short on wind, and he looked strong. Me’n Dee-Cee’d never seen nothing like it, a top guy gets to be a shot fighter so quick like that, ’specially with him doing his road work every dawn? Hell, come to find out he wasn’t even smoking weed, just having a beer after a workout so’s he could relax and sleep.
Seeing all our work fall apart, I figured we was Cinderella at midnight. Me and Dee-Cee both knew it, but we still couldn’t make out why. Then Dee-Cee come to me, his hand over his mouth.
Dee-Cee said, “Coyle’s blind in that bad eye.”
I said, “What? Bullshit, the commission doctors passed him.”
“He’s blind, Red, in that hurt eye, I’m tellin’ you. I been wavin’ a white towel next to it two days now, and he don’t blink on the bad-eye side. Watch.”
Between rounds sparring next day, with me greasing and watering Coyle, Dee-Cee kind of waved the tip of the towel next to Coyle’s good eye and Coyle blinked automatic. Between the next round, Dee-Cee was on the other side. He did the same waving deal with the towel. But Coyle’s bad eye didn’t blink ’cause he never saw the towel. That’s when I understood why he was taking all them shots, that’s when I knew he was moving on his heels ’cause he couldn’t see the floor clear. And that’s why he was getting rocked like it was the first time he was ever hit, ’cause shots was surprising him that he couldn’t tell was coming. And it’s when I come to know why he was pulling out of fights—he knew he’d lose ’cause he couldn’t see. He went for the two-hundred-thousand fight knowing he’d lose, but he took it for the big money. I wanted to shoot the bastard, what with him taking Billy’s money and not saying the eye’d gone bad and making a chump outta me.
The rule is if you can’t see, then you can’t fight. I told Dee-Cee we got to tell Billy. See, Billy’s close to being my own kin, and it’s like I stuck a knife in his back if I don’t come clean.
Dee-Cee said to wait, that it was the commission doctor’s fault, not ours, let them take the heat. He said maybe Vegas won’t find out, and maybe the fight will fuck Coyle up so bad he’ll have to retire anyhow. Billy’ll still get most of his money back, Dee-Cee said, so Billy won’t have cause to be mad with us. That made sense.
But what happened to mess up our deal permanent was that the Vegas Boxing Commission faxed in its forms for the AIDS blood test, said they wanted a current neuro exam, and they sent forms for a eye exam that had to be done by a ophthalmologist, not some regular doctor with a eye chart. Damned if Coyle wasn’t sudden all happy. He couldn’t wait once he heard about the eye test. Me and Dee-Cee was wondering how can he want a eye test, what with what we know about that eye?
Sure enough, when the eye test comes in, it says that Coyle’s close to stone blind in the bad eye, the one what got cut in Canada. The nuero showed Coyle’s balance was off from being hit too much in training camps, which is why he couldn’t jump rope, and why he ’d shudder when he got popped. The eye exam proved what me and Dee-Cee already knew, which is why Coyle was taking shots what never shoulda landed. What it come down to was the two-hundred-thousand-dollar fight was off, and Coyle’s fighting days for big money was over. It also come down to Billy taking it in the ass for sixty grand in signing money that was all my fault. And that ain’t saying nothing about all the big purses Coyle coulda won if he had been fit.
Turns out that the fight in Vancouver where Coyle got cut caused his eye to first go bad. The reason why word didn’t get loose on him is ’cause Coyle didn’t tell the Canadian doctors he w
as a fighter, and ’cause it was done on that Canadian free health deal they got up there. The eye doc said the operation was seventy percent successful, but told Coyle to be careful, ’cause trauma to the eye could mess it up permanent. What with him dropping out of boxing for a couple of years the way fighters’ll do when they lose, people wasn’t thinking on him. And the way Coyle passed the eye test in Alabama and Mississippi was to piece off with a hundred-dollar bill the crooked casino croakers what’s checking his eyes. When later on he told me how he did it, he laughed the same snorty way as when he told how he played his game on the navy.
That’s when I worked out what was Coyle’s plan. See, he knew right after the Marcellus Ellis fight that the eye had gone bad on him again, but he kept that to himself instead of telling anyone about it, thinking his eye operation in Canada won’t come out. That way, he could steal Billy’s signing money, and pick up the twenty-five hundred a month chasing-pussy money, too. I wondered how long he’d be laughing.
Only now what am I supposed to say to Billy? After all, it was my name on Coyle what clinched the deal. It got to be where my shiny, big old white boy was tarnished as a copper washtub. I talked with Dee-Cee about it.
Dee-Cee said, “You right. That why the schemin’ muhfuh come down South from the front!”
See, we surprised Coyle. He didn’t know the tests had come back, so me and Dee-Cee just sat him down on the ring apron. Starting out, he was all fluffy.
Dee-Cee said, “Why didn’t you tell us about the eye?”
Coyle lied, said, “What eye?”
Dee-Cee said, “Kenny, the first rule’s don’t shit a shitter. The eye what’s fucked up.”
Coyle said, “Ain’t no eye fucked up.”
“You got a fucked-up eye, don’t bullshit,” said Dee-Cee.
“It ain’t bad, it’s just blurry.”
“Just blurry means you ain’t fightin’ Vegas, that’s what’s muthuh-fuckin’ blurry,” Dee-Cee said, muscles jumping along his jaw. “I’m quittin’ you right now, hyuh? Don’t want no truck with no punk playin’ me.”
Coyle’s eyes started to bulge and his neck got all swole up and red. “You’re the punk, old man!”
Coyle shoved Dee-Cee hard in the chest. Dee-Cee went down, but he took the fall rolling on his shoulder, and was up like a bounced ball.
Dee-Cee said, “Boy, second rule’s don’t hit a hitter.”
Coyle moved as if to kick Dee-Cee. I reached for my Buck, but before it cleared my back pocket, Dee-Cee quick as a dart used his cane bap! bap! bap! to crack Coyle across one knee and both shins. Coyle hit the floor like a sack full of cats.
“I’ll kill you, old man. I’ll beat your brains out with that stick.”
Dee-Cee said, “Muhfuh, you best don’t be talking no kill shit wit’ Dark Chocolate.”
Coyle yelled, “Watch your back, old man!”
Dee-Cee said, “Boy, you diggin’ you a hole.”
Dee-Cee hobbled off, leaning heavy on his cane. Coyle made to go after Dee-Cee again, but by then I’d long had my one-ten out and open.
I said, “Y’all ever see someone skin a live dog?”
I had to get Coyle outta there, thought to quick get him to the Texas Ice House over on Blanco, where we could have some longnecks like good buds and maybe calm down. Texas Ice House’s open three hundred sixty-five days a year, sign out front says GO COWBOYS.
Coyle said, “Got my own Texas shit beer at home.”
Texas and shit in the same breath ain’t something us Texans cotton to, but I went on over to Coyle’s place later on ’cause I had to. I knocked, and through the door I heard a shotgun shell being jacked into the chamber.
I said, “It’s me, Red.”
Coyle opened up, then limped out on the porch looking for Dee-Cee.
Coyle said, “I’m gonna kill him, you tell him.”
Inside, there was beer cans all over the floor, and the smell of weed and screwing. Coyle and a half-sleepy tittie-club blond gal was lying around half bare-ass. She never said a word throughout. I got names backing me like Geraghty and O’Kelly, but when I got to know what a sidewinder Coyle was, it made me ashamed of belonging to the same race.
I said, “When did the eye go bad?”
Coyle was still babying his legs. “It was perfect before that Marcellus Ellis butted me at the casino. But with you training me, hey baby, I can still fight down around here.”
“You go back to chump change you fight down around here.”
“My eye is okay, it’s just blurry, that’s all, don’t you start on me, fuck!”
“It’s you’s what’s startin’.”
“This happened time before last in Mississippi, okay? And it was gettin’ better all by itself, okay?”
I stayed quiet, so did he. Then I said, “Don’t you get it? You fail the eye test, no fights in Vegas, or no place where there’s money. Only trainer you’ll get now’s a blood sucker.”
Coyle shrugged, even laughed a little. That’s when I asked him the one question he didn’t never want to hear, the one that would mean he’d have to give back Billy’s money if he told the truth.
I said, “Why didn’t you tell us about the eye before you signed Billy’s contract?”
Coyle got old. He looked off in a thousand-yard stare for close to a minute. He stuttered twice, and then said, “Everybody knew about my eye.”
I said, “Not many in Vancouver, and for sure none in San Antonia.”
Coyle said, “Vegas coulda checked.”
I said, “We ain’t Vegas.”
Coyle stood up. He thought he wanted to hit me, but he really wanted to hide. Instead, he moved the shotgun so’s it was pointing at my gut.
He said, “I don’t want you to train me no more.”
I said, “Next time you want to fuck somebody, fuck your mama in her casket. She can’t fuck you back.”
That stood him straight up, and I knew it was time to git. As the door closed behind me, I could hear Coyle and the tittie-club blonde start to laugh.
I said to myself, “Keep laughin’, punk cocksucker—point a gun at me and don’t shoot.”
I drove my pickup over to Billy’s office next day, told him the whole thing. It wasn’t far from my place but it was the longest ride I ever took. I was expecting to be told to get my redneck ass out of Texas. He just listened, then lit up a Montecristo contraband Havana robusto with a gold Dunhill. He took his time, poured us both some Hennessy XO.
He could see I felt lowdown and thought I’d killed his friendship.
I said, “I’m sorry, Billy, you know I’d never wrong you on purpose.”
Billy said, “You couldn’t see the future, Red. Only women can, and that’s ’cause they know when they’re gonna get fucked.”
Billy put the joke in there to save me from myself, damned if he didn’t. I was ready to track Coyle and gut him right then. But Billy said to calm down, said he’d go over to Coyle’s place later on. I wanted to go, said I’d bring along Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.
“Naw,” said Billy, “there won’t be no shootin’.”
When Billy got to Coyle’s, Kenny was smoking weed again, had hold of a big-assed, stainless steel .357 MAG Ruger with a six-inch barrel. Billy didn’t blink, said could he have some iced tea like Coyle was drinking. Coyle said it was Snapple Peach, not diet, but Billy said go on’n hook one up. Things got friendly, but Coyle kept ahold of the Ruger.
Billy said, “Way I see it, you didn’t set out to do it.”
Coyle said, “That’s right. Ellis did it.”
Billy said, “But you still got me for sixty large.”
Coyle said, “Depends on how you look at it.” He laughed at his joke. “Besides, nobody asked about my eye, so I told no lie. Hey, I can rhyme like Ali, that’s me, hoo-ee.”
Billy said, “Coyle, there’s sins of commission and there’s sins of omission. This one’s a sixty-thousand-dollar omission.”
Coyle said, “You got no proof. It was all cash like
you wanted, no taxes.”
Billy said, “I want my sixty back. You can forget the free rent and the twenty-five hundred you got off me every month, but I want the bonus money.”
Coyle said, “Ain’t got it to give back.”
Billy said, “You got the BMW free and clear. Sign it over and we’re square.”
Coyle said, “You ain’t gettin’ my Beamer. Bought that with my signing money.”
Billy said, “You takin’ it knowin’ your eye was shot, that was humbug.”
Coyle said, “I’m stickin’ with the contract and my lawyer says you still owe me twenty-five hundred for this month, and maybe for three years to come. He says you’re the one that caused it all when you put me in with the wrong opponent.”
Billy’d put weight on around the belly, and Coyle was saying he wasn’t dick afraid of him.
Billy didn’t press for the pink, and didn’t argue about the twenty-five hundred a month, didn’t say nothing about the lost projected income.
“Then tell me this,” Billy said, “when do you plan on gettin’ out of my building and givin’ back my keys?”
Coyle laughed his laugh. “When you evict me, that’s when, and you can’t do that for a while ’cause my eye means I’m disabled, I checked.”
Billy laughed with Coyle, and Billy shook Coyle’s left hand with his right before taking off, ’cause Coyle kept the Ruger in his right hand.
Billy said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”
“Not hardly,” said Coyle. “I’m thinkin’ on marrying that cop’s daughter. This here’s our love nest.”
Me and Dee-Cee was cussing Coyle twenty-four hours a day, but Billy never let on he cared. About a week later, he said his wife and kids was heading down to Orlando Disney World for a few days. On Thursday he gave me and Dee-Cee the invite to come on down to Nuevo Laredo with him Friday night for the weekend.
