You Don't Even Feel It (A Story From the Dark Side)

by Lawrence Block

  Contents

  Copyright

  Introduction

  You Don't Even Feel It

  About The Author

  A Word About Ehrengraf

  You Don’t Even Feel It

  Lawrence Block

  copyright 2001, © Lawrence Block

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by electronic, mechanical or other means, is forbidden without written permission of the author.

  A Note From The Author

  When I was ten years old, my father took me to Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo to watch Willie Pep take apart some poor tomato can. I’ve been a fight fan ever since, and my wife’s become an even more rabid aficionado than I; she’ll tell anyone who’ll listen how she wangled a press conference pass and met Freddie Roach and Manny Pacquiao.

  It’s a tough sport to love. You have to watch twenty lousy fights to see one good one, and I think you get better odds kissing frogs. The judges miss half of what you see on TV, and screw up their cards accordingly.

  And the sport’s brutal, and takes its toll...

  A Story From The Dark Side, by Lawrence Block

  She found them at the gym, Darnell in sweat pants and sneakers, his chest bare, Marty in khakis and a shirt and tie, the shirt a blue button-down, the tie loose at the throat. Marty was holding a watch and Darnell was working the speed bag, his hands fast and certain.

  She’d been ready to burst in, ready to interrupt whatever they were doing, but she’d seen them like this so many times over so many years, Darnell working the bag and Marty minding the time, that the sight of them stopped her in her tracks. It was familiar, and thus reassuring, although it should not have been reassuring.

  She found a spot against the wall, out of his line of sight, and watched him train. He finished with the speed bag and moved on to the double end bag, a less predictable device than the speed bag, its balance such that it came back at you differently each time, and you had to react to its responses. Like a live opponent, she thought, adjusting to you as you adjusted to it, bobbing and weaving, trying not to get hit.

  But not hitting back...

  From the double end bag they moved to the heavy bag, and by then she was fairly certain they had sensed her presence. But they gave no sign, and she stayed where she was. She watched Darnell practice combinations, following a double jab with a left hook. That’s how he’d won the title the first time, hooking the left to Roland Weymouth’s rib cage, punishing the champion’s body until his hands came down and a string of headshots sent the man to the canvas. He was up at eight, but he had nothing left in his tank, and Darnell would have decked him again if the ref hadn’t stopped it.

  “The winner, and...new junior middleweight champion of the world...Darnell Roberts!”

  He’d moved up two weight classes since then. Junior middleweight was what, 154? And middleweight was 160, and he’d held the IBF title for two years, winning it when the previous titleholder had been forced to give it up for reasons she hadn’t understood then and couldn’t remember now. The sport was such a mess, it was all politics and backroom deals, but all of that went away when you got down to business. You sweated it out in the gym, and then you stepped into the ring, you and the other man, and you stood and hit each other, and all the conniving and manipulation disappeared. It was just two men in a pure sport, bringing nothing with them but their bodies and whatever they had on the inside.

  He was a super middleweight these days. That meant he’d have to be under 168 when he weighed in the day before the fight, and seven to ten pounds more when he actually stepped into the ring. You wanted those extra pounds, she knew, because the more you weighed the harder you punched.

  Of course your opponent had those extra pounds, too, and punched harder for them.

  Darnell had run through his combinations , and now he was standing in and slugging, hitting the bag full force with measured blows that had all his weight behind them. And Marty was standing behind the bag, holding on to it, steadying it, while Darnell meted out punishment.

  Marty saw her then. Their eyes met, and she didn’t see surprise in his, which meant she’d been right in sensing he knew she was there.

  Other hand, Marty hardly ever looked surprised.

  She drew her eyes away from Marty’s and watched Darnell as he hit the bag with measured lefts and rights. He weighed what, 185? 190? But he wouldn’t have trouble making the weight. He had two months, and he was just starting to train. All he had to do was work off twelve or fifteen pounds. Rest was water, and you sweated it out before you stepped on the scales, then drank yourself back to your fighting weight.

  She always used to love to see him hit the heavy bag. It was fun to watch him train, watch that fine body show what it could do, but this part was the best because you saw the muscles work beneath the skin, saw the blows land, heard the impact, felt the power.

  Early days, watching this, she’d get wet. Young as she was back then, it didn’t take much. And, young as she was, it embarrassed her, even if nobody knew.

  Fifteen years. They’d been married for twelve years, together for three before that. Three daughters, the oldest eleven. So she didn’t get wet pants every time she watched him work up a sweat. Still, she always liked the sight of him, digging in, setting himself, throwing those measured punches.

  She wasn’t liking it much today.

  “Time,” Marty said, but he went on holding the bag, knowing Darnell would throw another punch or two. Then, when his fighter’s hands dropped, he let go of the bag and stepped out from behind it, smiling. “Look who’s here,” he said, and Darnell turned to face her, and he didn’t look surprised, either.

  “Baby,” he said. “How I look just now? Not too rusty, was I?”

  “I heard it on the news,” she said.

  “I was gonna tell you,” he said, “but you was sleepin’ when I left this morning, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

  “And I guess it was news to you this morning,” she said, “even if you signed the papers yesterday afternoon.”

  “Well,” he said.

  “Last I heard,” she said, “we were thinking about quitting.”

  “I been thinkin’ on it,” he said. “I not ready yet.”

  “Darnell...”

  “This gone be an easy fight for me,” he said. He had the training gloves off now and he was holding out his hands for Marty to unwind the cotton wraps. The fingers that emerged showed the effects of all the punches he’d landed, on the heavy bag and on the heads and bodies of other fighters, even as his face showed the effects of all the punches he’d taken.

  Well, some of the effects. The visible effects.

  “This guy,” he said. “Rubén Molina? Man is made for me, baby. Man never been in against a body puncher like me. Style he got, I can find him all day with the left hook. Man has this pawing jab, I can fit a right to the ribs in under it, take his legs out from under him.”

  “Maybe you can beat him, but—”

  “Ain’t no maybe. And I won’t just beat him, I’ll knock him out. All I need, what you call a decisive win, an’ then I get a title shot.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I fight, probably for the WBO belt, or maybe the WBC. And I win, and that makes three belts in three different weight classes, and ain’t too
many can claim that.” He beamed at her, and she saw the face she’d seen when they first met, saw the face of the boy he’d been before she ever met him. Under all the scar tissue, all the years of punishment.

  “And then I hang ‘em up,” he said. “That what you want to hear?”

  “I don’t want to wait two more fights to hear it,” she said. “I worry about you, Darnell.”

  “No call for you to worry.”

  “They had this show on television. Muhammad Ali? They showed him talking before the Liston fight, and then they showed him like he is now.”

  “Man has got a condition. Like that actor, used to be on Spin City.”

  “That’s Parkinson’s Disease,” Marty said, “that Michael J. Fox has. What Ali has is Parkinson’s Syndrome.”

  “Whatever it is,” she said, “he got it because he didn’t know when to quit. Darnell, you want to wind up shuffling and mumbling?”

  He grinned, did a little shuffle.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Just jivin’ you some,” he said. “Keisha, I gonna be fine. All I’s gonna do is win one fight and get a title shot, then win one more and get my third belt.”

  “And take how many punches in the process?”

  “Molina can’t punch worth a damn,” he said. “Walk through his punches, all’s I gotta do.”

  “You think Ali didn’t say the same thing?”

  “It may not have been the punches he took,” Marty put in. “They can’t prove that’s what did it.”

  “And can you prove it isn’t?” She turned to her husband. “And Floyd Patterson,” she said. “You don’t think he got the way he is from taking too many punches? And that Puerto Rican boy, collapsed in his third professional bout and never regained consciousness.”

  “That there was a freak thing,” Darnell said. “Ring ropes was too loose, and he got knocked through ‘em and hit his head when he fell. Like gettin’ struck by lightnin’, you know what I’m sayin’? For all it had to do with bein’ in a boxin’ ring.”

  If the boy hadn’t been in the ring, she thought, then he couldn’t have got knocked out of it.

  “You worry too much,” Darnell said, and gathered her in his arms. “Part of bein’ a woman, I guess. Part of bein’ a man’s getting’ the job done.”

  “I just don’t want you hurt, Darnell.”

  “You just don’t want to miss the lovin’,” he said, “the whole last month of training. That’s what it is, girl, innit?”

  “Darnell—”

  “All that doin’ without,” he said, “just make it sweeter afterward. You think about that, help you get through the waitin’ time.”

  “Tell her,” Darnell said. “Tell Keisha how it went.”

  “He had a brain scan and an MRI,” Marty told her. “This was to make you happy, because he had a scan after his last fight and there was no medical reason for another one.”

  “He’s been slurring his words,” she said. “Don’t you call that a reason?”

  “He sounds the same as ever to me,” Marty said.

  “Maybe you don’t listen.”

  “And maybe you listen too hard.”

  “Hey,” Darnell said. “Maybe I gets a little mushmouth some of the time. Sometimes my lips be a little puffy.” He tapped his head. “Don’t mean anything’s messed up inside.”

  “All the punches you’ve taken—”

  “Let me tell you something about the punches,” he said. “Gettin’ hit upside the head? Nine times, you don’t even feel it. It don’t hurt. Body shots, a man keeps beating on your ribs, man, that’s a different story. Hurts when he does it and hurts the next day and the day after. Head shots? Don’t mean nothin’ at all. Why you lookin’ at me like that?”

  “Nine times.”

  “Huh?”

  “‘Nine times, you don’t even feel it.’ That’s what you just said.”

  “So?”

  “Nine times out of ten, you meant.”

  “What I said.”

  “No, you just said nine times.”

  “Well, shit,” he said. “You tellin’ me you didn’t know what I meant?”

  “I’m telling you what you said. You left out some words there.”

  “Man, there’s a sign,” he said heavily. “I must have brain damage, leavin’ out ‘out of ten’ like that.”

  “It’s cumulative, Darnell.”

  “What you talkin’ now?”

  “Punches to the head, the effect is cumulative. Even if you barely feel them—”

  “Which I just said I don’t.”

  “—they add up, and you reach a point where every punch you take does real damage. It’s irreversible, you can’t turn it back, and once you see signs—”

  “Which there ain’t yet.”

  “If you’re slurring words,” she said, “then we’re seeing signs.”

  “What happens,” he said, grinning, “my tongue gets in the way of my teeth an’ I can’t see what I’m sayin’. Why you lookin’ at me like that?”

  “Your tongue gets in the way of your eye teeth,” she said, “and you can’t see what you’re saying.”

  “What I just said.”

  “Except you left out ‘eye’,” she said. “You said your tongue got in the way of your teeth, and that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “But you know what I meant.”

  “And I also know what you said.”

  Damn,” he said. “We just had the tests. Didn’t have to, had ‘em just to keep you happy, and look at you. You ain’t happy!”

  Marty said, “What’s that, a Coke? You want something stronger?”

  “This is fine.”

  “Because you’re not in training. You can have a real drink, if you want.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Well, I want a drink,” he said, and ordered vodka on the rocks. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “I won’t pretend I wanted to be having this conversation, but we ought to have it. Because you really got to cut the guy some slack, Keisha.”

  “I’ve got to cut him some slack?”

  “Molina’s style is tailor-made for Darnell,” Marty said, “just like he says it is. You look at tapes of his fights, that jumps right out at you. But that doesn’t mean this is gonna be a walk in the park. Molina’s ten years younger.”

  “Eleven. He’s twenty-six and Darnell turned thirty-seven last month.”

  “Can we compromise? Call it ten and a half?” His smile was disarming. “Keisha, what I’m getting at, he should have training on his mind and nothing else, and what he’s got is you hammering away at him, telling him he’s slurring his words. He’s training hard, he’s tired by the end of the day, and is it any wonder his speech might be the least bit blurry? Time the day’s done, I’m slurring my own words, come to that.”

  “Just let him see a doctor,” she said.

  “Keisha, he saw one. He had a scan and an MRI, remember?”

  “A doctor to test his speech,” she said. “There’s a specialist, I wrote the name down. All Darnell has to do is sit down and talk with him, and he can tell whether there’s been any damage.”

  Marty was shaking his head. “We looked at the brain waves,” he said, “and he got a clean bill of health. No evidence of damage.”

  “Or proof there hasn’t been any.”

  “You can’t prove a negative. There’s no evidence of any organic brain damage, Keisha, and he’s been pronounced okay to fight by experts. You sit him down, have some quack listen to his speech and measure how his tongue moves, and it’s a judgment call on his part, got nothing to do with anything you can put your finger on. And if he gets it into his head that there’s something wrong, the fight’s off. Doesn’t matter that your expert turns out to be full of crap. The fight’s off and Darnell’s chance at a third belt’s down the toilet.”

  “He doesn’t need a third belt.”

  “He wants it, Keisha.”

  “And you? What do you want, Marty?”

&
nbsp; “I want him to have a shot.”

  She looked at him. “The money doesn’t mean a thing to you,” she said.

  “Not as much as it means to Darnell,” he said. “His fight with Molina’s on the pay-per-view undercard. He’s getting eighty thousand dollars for it, Keisha. He’s had title bouts where he didn’t get that.”

  “We don’t need the money.”

  “That’s not how he sees it. What he sees is he can stand in there for ten rounds and put eighty grand in his pocket.”

  “Minus your cut, and training camp expenses, and everything else that takes a bite out of his check.”

  “Including taxes, which gets a lot more of his money than I do, and a lot more of mine, too. But ten rounds is what, thirty-nine minutes, start to finish? You do the numbers, Keisha, you’re the one’s good at numbers, but it’s better than anybody ever made bagging groceries at the Safeway.”

  She looked at him. He met her gaze, then picked up his drink and drained it.

  “And if he gets past Molina,” he said, “which he will, and it won’t take all ten rounds, either. I can get him a title shot, prolly WBO but it could be WBC, and for that he’ll make close to a million. And if he wins it, which there’s no reason why he can’t, then he’s a man won three different belts in three different weight categories, and he’s that much more desirable when it comes to endorsements and public appearances, because that’s the only way you can make any money after you hang the gloves up. You show up at a dinner, you make a little speech—”

  “How’s he going to make a speech,” she demanded, “if he can’t talk straight?”

  “He sounds fine to me,” Marty said. “Maybe you got ears like a dog, hear things I don’t, but he sounds perfectly fine to me. And nobody is gonna expect him to perform Shakespeare. All they want is for him to show up, three-time champion of the world, sign some autographs and pose for some snapshots. Keisha, all this is beside the point. It’s what he wants, this fight and the fight after. Then he’ll quit winners and hang ‘em up.”