Fat City

by Leonard Gardner

  “I just hope I didn’t leave my fight in the bedroom,” Ernie confided to Buford Wills. Buford, matched for the semi-final, was still in his street clothes. “Don’t tell Ruben this, but I was out getting a little last night.”

  “I was too. That don’t make no difference. It don’t matter if you dead drunk, you got two hands you can beat that motherfucker. I don’t care who he is. It all in your mind.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Hoping never done nothing. It wanting that do it. You got to want to win so bad you can taste it. If you want to win bad enough you win. They no way in hell this dude going beat me. He too old. I going be all over him. I going kick his ass so bad, every time he take a bite of food tomorrow he going think of me. He be one sore son-of-a-bitch. He going know he been in a fight. I get him before he get me. I going hit him with everything. I won’t just beat that motherfucker, I going kill him.” Buford was small and thin. His hair, divided at one side with a razor-blade part, was cropped close. His nose turned up, his nostrils flared, his lips were soft and full and his hooded eyes were narrowed in a constant frown. The year before, only fourteen, he had lied about his age and won the Golden Gloves novice flyweight title in San Francisco. Tonight he was fighting the champion of Fort Ord. “You want to know what make a good fighter?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It believing in yourself. That the will to win. The rest condition. You want to kick ass, you kick ass.”

  “I hope you’re right”

  “You don’t want to kick ass, you get your own ass whipped.

  “I want to kick ass. Don’t worry about that.”

  “You just shit out of luck.”

  “I said I wanted to kick ass.”

  “You got to want to kick ass bad. They no manager or trainer or pill can do it for you.”

  “I want to kick ass as bad as you do.”

  “Then you go out and kick ass.”

  “All right.” Ernie moved away, irritated with his deferring to a boy. Lethargically he bobbed and shuffled. When his name was called through the doorway, he began wildly shadowboxing.

  “Hold off. You’ll wear yourself out. We got to go on now,” said Ruben. “Babe, get the towels, get the towels.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to warm up,” Ernie complained.

  “That’s okay, you’re ready. Just stay loose. Where’s the bucket?”

  “I got the bucket in my hand,” whispered Babe. He was dressed in russet slacks, a yellow knit shirt and a moss-green cardigan sweater with a towel over one shoulder.

  “Got the bottle?”

  “The bottle’s right here in the bucket.”

  “You put the water in it?”

  “I wouldn’t bring an empty bottle.”

  “I’m just asking. I don’t want to bring my kid out there without any water.”

  “I got the damn water. Take it easy. I told you I got the water.”

  The three went out into the crowd. The referee, a short, bald, heavy man in gray, was leaning back with outspread arms on the ropes. A towel around his shoulders, Ernie scuffed his shoes in the resin box under the blazing lights. When he went to his corner, Ruben gripped the back of his neck and tried to shove the teeth protector into his mouth. Resisting, Ernie broke away and spit out his gum.

  The bell tolled in summons. Whistles, restive clapping, echoed in the arena. At last a Mexican in a brilliant red robe jogged down the aisle, followed by his handlers. Ducking through the ropes, he caught a foot, and his lunge into the ring was converted to prancing and shadowboxing, a second scurrying after him attempting to untie the robe.

  “Good,” said Ruben. “You got the reach.”

  His name was Manuel Rosales. At the scattered applause given its announcement, Ernie was uneasy; but at his own introduction there was the same tribute to his merely being here in trunks. Ruben and Babe were out of the ring now but their massaging hands were still on him. The house lights went off and Rosales faced him across the white canvas. Startled by the bell and a shove against his back, Ernie bounded forward. His opponent turned around in his corner, went down on one knee and crossed himself. He rose immediately, his hair, in a grown-out crew cut, standing up like a wild boar’s bristles. The two touched gloves across the referee’s arm. Ernie, embarrassed about hitting Rosales so soon after prayer, reached out to touch gloves again and was struck on the side of the head. Offended, he lashed out and felt the thrilling impact of bone through the light gloves. Stirred by shouts, amazed by his power over the crowd, he sprang in, punching, and was jolted by a flurry. He backed off. Chewing on the mouthpiece, he danced around the ring while Rosales charged after him, swinging and missing. The referee maneuvered his nimble bulk out of their way, and the opposing seconds shouted unheeded instructions.

  “Jab! Throw the right! Throw the right! Jab! One-two!”

  “Pégale! Tírale al cuerpo! Abajo! Abajo!”

  Between rounds Ruben coached with a ruthless expression Ernie had never seen on him before, his arms sometimes punching out in demonstrations.

  “Step in and nail him. Understand what I mean?”

  “Hook,” croaked Babe, leaning through the ropes with the tape-covered water bottle.

  At the bell, Ruben’s hands were at Ernie’s buttocks, heaving him up off the stool, and when Ernie came back after a round of dancing and jabbing, he was hit in the face with a wet sponge. He was rubbed, patted, squeezed and kneaded. Cold water was poured into his trunks. He was harangued, he was reprimanded, and he listened to nothing at all. As he stood up, the towel passed under his nose and he recoiled from the fumes of ammonia.

  His lead sent a shower flying from Rosales’ hair. He stepped away and Rosales hurled himself into the ropes.

  “Go in! He’s tired, he’s tired, he’s tired!” Ruben yelled, and Ernie realized he was tired too. He struck out and moved away. Backed into a corner, he was attempting to clinch when a blinding blow crushed his nose. Bent over with his arms around Rosales’ waist, he became aware of the referee tugging on him. Locked together, the three staggered about, blood spattering their legs, until Ernie’s grasp was broken.

  Blearily he saw a gush of blood down his chest. The referee was holding him, looking up at his eyes. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Ernie said through a throbbing nose and began to understand that something was wrong with him. Afraid the fight was going to be stopped, he pushed toward Rosales, there openmouthed behind the referee, his gleaming body splashed with blood. He was blocked. He lunged, but the referee, his face fat and red above the black bow tie, was pressing him back, his fingers fumbling for the mouthpiece. Ernie turned his head from side to side, dodging his hand and protesting through the rubber: “Shit, I’m okay. Shit, goddamn it, I’m okay.” Then Ruben was in the ring, holding him by the shoulders.

  “Tilt your head back. Breathe through your mouth.”

  He was being sponged in his corner when his opponent, now back in the red robe, came over, mumbling, to hang an arm briefly around his neck.

  “Look to me like he butted you,” whispered Babe after Rosales had gone back across the spotted canvas. “I don’t know what it was.”

  “Sure he butted you. Because he can’t punch,” said Ruben, and he went to the referee.

  With his hand on the back of Ernie’s neck, Ruben complained loudly up the aisle to the dressing room, where Buford Wills sat lost in the folds of a royal-blue robe and Wes Haynes stood waiting in gloves, white shoes and jockstrap.

  “You lose, huh?”

  “He wasn’t hurt at all. It should never been stopped.”

  Ernie’s gloves were pulled off and the handwraps cut away with hasty precision. A gray-haired manager came and peered at his nose.

  “You want to get a note from the doctor before you leave. You can get that nose set tomorrow and it won’t cost you nothing.”

  “He was butted. They should throw that kid out of the ring.”

  Ernie removed the trunks and cup and they were given to Wes Haynes. G
rumbling, he put them on. “They all bloody,” he objected to Ruben.

  “That’s all right. It’s not your blood.”

  Ernie was left standing with his head tilted back. Blood still trickling over his lips, he went to a mirror. His nose looked like a boiled sausage about to burst. He went into the shower room and, feeling the pulse of splintered bone, stood with closed eyes under the spray.

  8

  Wes Haynes had not lasted a round. Hurling himself forward with a right swing, he had run into a cross to the jaw. Then wildly pummeled, he had crouched against the ropes with his gloves cupped before his face, unsure of what to do and so merely waiting for his opponent to stop hitting him so that he could start hitting again himself. But when the punches ceased he looked up to find the fight had been stopped. Mortified before so many witnesses, he had shaken his head as though truly dazed.

  In the dressing room afterwards, Wes had remained close to Buford Wills. He sat next to him in the car. In a Mexican café in Salinas he was next to him still, their dark fists side by side on the table, each holding a bottle of orange soda. Buford had been outboxing the flyweight champion of Fort Ord until knocked senseless in the final round, and now Ruben glanced at him, inquiring with a cheerfulness Wes could see was forced: “Doing all right? How you feel?”

  “Just pissed off,” said Buford.

  “You dropped your left. Don’t sweat over it. You’ll get him again. They’ll have you back and you’ll knock him out next time. He don’t have what he use to have. Ernie, you’ll get that nose set as good as new, don’t worry about it. Look at mine. Would you believe mine was ever busted?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know what kind of deal we were getting there tonight, but I never seen anything like it. Stopping that fight when Ernie had the guy beat. You saw it, Babe. That kid should of been disqualified. Wes wasn’t hurt either. Anybody can get tagged the first round. You take a good punch like Wes does, it don’t mean a thing. And Bobby, he won every round.”

  “He did,” Babe agreed. “That’s a fact. That was robbery if I ever seen it. You were hurting that boy.”

  “What difference it make?” Scowling, his broad, tan face unmarked, Bobby Burgos took a drink from his bottle of beer.

  If you guys was any kind of trainers, look like one of us ought to won, thought Wes.

  Babe called in vain for the waitress, his voice failing under the exertion, his cries like the desperate nasal mumbling of a mute. Ruben turned, said “Hey,” and she approached.

  “Sweetheart, give us some more beer, and some pop for these boys.”

  “I want a beer, too,” said Wes, sulking. “I don’t want no pop. Want a Lucky Lager. I’m twenty-two.”

  “I can’t help it. If you had an ID I’d serve you.”

  “Left it home.” Wrinkling his forehead, Wes, seventeen, looked her in the face as if to invite closer scrutiny.

  “This one’s all right,” she said to Ruben, nodding toward Bobby Burgos. “It’s just these three.”

  “We been through all this,” said Ruben. “Forget it. Pop’s better for them anyway. Wes, sure you don’t want another one? Bring him another pop. These boys fought their hearts out tonight over at the Del Monte Gardens.”

  “What are they, boxers?”

  “These boys are the top amateurs in the Valley. We come all the way up from Stockton. You like fights? Come with us sometime. I’ll get you in free.”

  “She’s married,” said Babe, drawing on a thin cigar.

  “How do you know?”

  “Ring.”

  “That’s all right. Your husband wouldn’t mind if you went to the fights one night, would he?”

  She laughed evasively, and as she walked away with the empty bottles, Ruben said: “Nice ass.”

  “How old you think she is?” asked Wes.

  “She’s old enough. She’s old enough.”

  “Shit. I wish I could get her out in the car,” said Wes. “I’d fuck her to death.”

  Wes Haynes had drunk four bottles of soda by the time they went out. They drove along the highway until a neon cocktail glass appeared in the darkness. By then Buford was asleep. Wes remained with him in the car. When the others finally came out of the bar, Ruben got in back, and the motor droned on into the night. Jolted awake, the car momentarily off onto the shoulder then swerving back onto the pavement, Wes saw flat misty fields, fences, barns, the dark contours of distant hills. Waking again to the faint sound of music, the motor silent, only Babe and Bobby gone from the car, the others sleeping, Wes saw a low building in the fog with Regal Pale glowing in blue neon in a window and was overcome with dejection. He had made no secret of his training. Acquaintances at school spoke to him as though they believed he was a professional, and he had not cared to correct them. He had believed he would be one soon enough—because it had seemed the natural and inevitable thing for so many years, because against all contrary evidence, and simply because he was himself, he felt he could never be dominated. Now he felt he should have known all along that he was nothing. Boxers were men in other towns, in big cities far from this car parked in the darkness alongside the highway between fields of vegetables. Resting his cheek against the cold window, he thought of killing himself, but years ago, standing beside his father’s legs in a crowd on a night sidewalk, he had seen a dead man profiled in a puddle of blood, his eye dumfounded, and Wes knew that if he was going to be killed he was not going to do it himself. They would have to come and get him and he would club them and choke them and shoot them and then he would run.

  The voice of Bobby Burgos approached as if arguing with itself. Not until the voice reached the car did Wes hear Babe’s hoarse replies. “I’ll whip your ass. I’m not going to let you behind that wheel. I’ll take you on right now. Put up your hands. Don’t you believe me? I’m not going to let you behind that wheel. It’s Ruben’s car, I can’t be responsible for letting you behind that wheel. I’m sorry, old buddy, but that’s the way it is.” The interior light came on and as Babe crawled in, Burgos gave him a shove that sent him across the seat and against Ernie Munger, who sat suddenly upright.

  “Don’t get smart,” warned Babe.

  “Just shut up.” The door slammed. In a moment the engine started.

  “Don’t drive too fast, Burgos. I’ll nail you one.”

  “Man, I’m not going to drive fast. You’re the one was driving too fast.”

  “I wasn’t driving fast.”

  “Hundred’s pretty fast.”

  “I wasn’t going a hundred.”

  “You were all over the road. You’re drunk as a pig.”

  “What? What am I? What did you say to me?” asked Babe. And they were off again down the highway, Buford’s small lax body vibrating against Wes in the drone of the motor that for moments faded to silence as if the car were still back in the parking area outside the bar with the blue neon sign.

  Wes awoke on a street of small frame houses. The driver’s seat was empty. All was silent except for the snores and snuffles of damaged noses. Shivering from the cold, his mind stark and confused, Wes got out to look up and down the wet street for Bobby Burgos. There was nowhere he could have gone, no bar or café or gas station, not even a lighted porch. Wes found himself at the corner looking down another street just as deserted. He looked back at the car; there was no one in sight anywhere. Burgos had vanished. A heavy mist was falling, making a nimbus around each streetlight. His face wet, his straightened hair standing upright from moisture and sleep, Wes looked up at the low, drizzling sky. Where he was he had no idea, but it was a town he had never seen before. He returned to the car and waited behind the steering wheel for Burgos.

  “Bobby gone,” he said aloud. “Where’s Bobby?” But no one in the car answered and the sound of his voice made him uneasy. Finally he started the motor, thinking the sound might summon Burgos from wherever he was, but the idling motor seemed to make the car the focus of all the stillness of the street. He did not honk the horn. He
put the car into gear and drove off. Afraid he might be unable to find the place again where Burgos had vanished, Wes looked at the names on the street signs. Before long he began to notice a familiar sequence. Driving slowly on, he waited to see if the name of his own street would come up in its proper order as had the names of the others; and seeing it, he turned mechanically, continuing along with that same suspension of thought until he was parked before his own house, the simulated tan bricks of its asphalt siding already faintly discernible.

  “Buford, we home.” Leaning over the seat, he shook the thin leg.

  “Uh.”

  “We in Stockton. You want to drive the rest of the way? I’m going to bed.”

  “Don’t know how.”

  “Ruben? Ruben, hey, wake up, we home. Ruben?”

  “Okay.”

  “You awake?”

  “Oh, yeah, everything’s fine.”

  “I leave it to you then.” Wearing his hat and carrying his bag, Wes went around the house to the back door. He felt his way to his room, undressed to the sound of his brothers’ even breathing, got into bed and lay waiting. He heard nothing. Soon he rose and tiptoed to the front room, where he looked out the window and saw the car still there, clear in the first light of dawn that filled him with all the desolate reality of defeat. Quietly, in dread of waking his family, Wes crept back to his bed.