Boca Knights

by Steven M. Forman

  “I’m applying for a job as a golf course ranger.”

  “Very funny. What the hell happened on the course today?”

  “The F troop must have told you what happened.”

  “Yeah, according to three of them you physically and verbally intimidated them.”

  “I didn’t touch anyone.”

  “They didn’t say you touched them. Mrs. Frost said you stared at her like you wanted to kill her.”

  “Mrs. Frost is wrong. I stared at her like I intended to kill her.”

  “They’re filing a grievance against you.”

  “To who?”

  “The grievance committee.”

  “There’s a complaint committee at Boca Heights?”

  “Yes,” Mike said. “That’s the way it works around here.”

  “Can I file a grievance against having a grievance committee?”

  “I’m sure you could,” Mike said.

  “How?”

  “Put it in writing and submit it to the grievance committee.” He laughed. “And, by the way, you have to appear before the committee next week to defend yourself against their grievance.”

  “I’m not appearing before any committee.”

  “Then they’ll fire you.”

  “They can’t fire me. I already quit.”

  “I know.” Mikey was exasperated. “I wish you hadn’t. Mrs. Fine said you did nothing wrong.”

  “Mrs. Fine is a nice woman,” I said.

  Mrs. Fine is a fox! said Mr. Johnson. “Will you appear before the grievance committee or not?”

  “I’m not grieving.”

  “You might be able to help Mrs. Fine. I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you did.”

  We’ll be there. Mr. Johnson made the decision for me. He did that from time to time.

  I drove from State Road 7 to the Regency Shopping Center on Powerline Road. When I walked into the Publix supermarket I was still ruminating about the “haves and have-nots” in the area. I had a throbbing headache. I was hungry. I needed a nap. The supermarket was crowded, and the lines at the registers were long. After waiting patiently for fifteen minutes in line, it was my turn. I started unloading my groceries on the counter when a short, white-haired old lady darted in front of me and started placing her items on the counter.

  “Excuse me, but I’m waiting here,” I said politely.

  The woman looked at me over bifocals. “So wait,” she said, as if it was logical. This drew a few laughs from people behind me in line, but the woman didn’t acknowledge the attention. She just unloaded her cart casually. The teenage boy at the register, dressed in Goth black under his mandatory green Publix vest, smirked at me.

  Bing! One red spot. Stay calm, I said to myself, knowing that mayhem was only a red spot away. I studied the old woman in front me. Why was she in such a hurry? How old was she? I guessed mid-seventies.

  “Stop staring at me,” she said, glaring.

  “I’m not staring at you.”

  “Yes, you are,” she snapped. I noticed that there weren’t any wrinkles around her eyes. I glanced at her hands holding a hundred-dollar bill toward the Goth. They didn’t look like an old woman’s hands. Alarm. Distraction Action! I watched as the cashier took the woman’s money. He placed the hundred in the cash drawer on top of other hundreds.

  I’ll be damned, I said to myself.

  The cashier gave the woman forty dollars in change, which she put in her pocketbook. She gave me a “get over it” look and walked across the aisle to the customer service counter. I watched her. She cut in front of two people in the customer service line, creating a minor disturbance. She cashed a check, producing two forms of identification while arguing with the two people she had cut off.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said, out loud this time

  When the cashier gave me my change, I pointed to the hundred-dollar bill the woman had just given him.

  “I want that hundred,” I told him. I took two fifties from my wallet and held them out to him.

  He looked exasperated.

  “Next, please,” he said.

  Bing! Bing! Two red spots.

  “What didn’t you understand?” I was losing my temper. “I told you I want that hundred-dollar bill for my two fifties.”

  “I heard you,” he said. “Next.”

  Bing! Bing! Bing! Man overboard!

  “If you don’t give me that hundred, I’m gonna pull that ring right out of your nose and stick it in your ear.”

  “You don’t scare me, you old geezer,” the cashier said.

  I had never been called a geezer. Under different circumstances I might have thought it was funny. But with this imbecile, I was seeing red. I made a move with my right hand for his left nostril. He jumped backward and held both hands over his nose. “Are you crazy?” he shouted.

  I reached across the counter and removed the hundred-dollar bill I wanted from the register. I placed my two fifties in the drawer.

  “Hey, you can’t do that,” he protested.

  “I can’t do what? Give you two good fifties for this phony C-note?” I held the bill up to the light to confirm my suspicion.

  “What do you mean, phony?”

  I looked out the window. The old lady had just reached her car, which happened to be near mine. I still had time. I held the hundred toward the Goth. “Take your hands off your nose, Pinocchio, and look. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He ventured closer, but his hands remained on his nose.

  “Whose picture do you see in the watermark?” I pointed.

  “Lincoln’s!” he said proudly.

  “Good boy,” I said. “Now whose picture is in the middle?”

  “Franklin’s,” he said with equal pride.

  “Right again.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Einstein, is that Lincoln’s picture isn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Well, it’s there,” the kid said indignantly.

  “That’s because it’s counterfeit money, numb nuts.”

  I put the hundred in my shirt pocket and hefted my shopping bag. The old lady was in a Honda and backing out of her parking space. I threw my groceries in the back seat of my car and jumped behind the steering wheel. I followed the Honda east on Yamato and then south on Second Avenue. I watched the car turn left into the potholed parking lot of a defunct auto-parts store. I turned left into the adjacent driveway and parked as close to the lot line as possible. Through the foliage I could see the empty Honda and another empty old car parked behind the building. The woman must have gone inside to meet someone.

  I shut off my car engine and waited. About a half hour later, the back door of the building opened. A blond woman, who looked to be about thirty-five or forty, exited the building. She was followed by two large, balding white males with colorfully flowered short-sleeved shirts worn casually outside their jeans. The woman walked briskly to the Honda. So much for a white-haired, old lady, I thought. The three of them exchanged comments and checked their watches. She got in the Honda and drove away. The men followed in the other car.

  I decided to wait a while before approaching the building in the event they made a quick return. I got out of my car and surveyed the small commercial area. There was an air-conditioning repair shop, a vacuum-cleaner repair shop, and a body-piercing store. I also saw the initials P.A.L. hand-painted above a metal door. In Boston, P.A.L. was an acronym for the Police Athletic League. I walked across the lot, opened the metal door . . . and stepped into my past.

  The gym embraced me like an old friend. I heard the familiar rhythm of the speed bags mixed with the ponderous pounding of the heavy bags. I heard the whir of a jump rope. I smelled sweat. Across the room, I saw an elevated boxing ring. Two black teenagers were sparring while an older white man stood on the ring apron coaching them. To my left I saw a weight-lifting area where six teenage boys in workout clothes looked me over stoically. I walked toward the elevated boxing ring and read the s
igns along the way:

  FATIGUE IS THE ENEMY! TRAIN HARD OR GO HOME! DO NOT SIT IN THIS AREA! FIGHTERS ONLY!

  There were flags hanging from the high ceiling advertising Title King boxing equipment and Contender gloves. Posters announced coming events and events that had come and gone.

  “Can I help you?” a man in a gray sweat suit asked. I looked up and saw that the two sparring partners were resting in their corners.

  “No, not really. I just sort of wandered in,” I explained. “I’m a retired cop from Boston, and when I saw the P.A.L. sign on the door, I had to check it out.”

  “Welcome.” He smiled. “We’ve been getting a lot of visitors lately.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “One of our kids just won a national Silver Gloves championship. The local papers have been playing it up big.”

  “Hey, that’s great.”

  “Take a break, kids,” he called to the resting sparring partners, who left the ring immediately. The coach descended the wooden ringside steps carefully. He was over six feet tall with a middle-aged body.

  “I’m Barry Anson,” he told me, holding out his hand.

  “Eddie Perlmutter.” We shook hands.

  “Are you with the Boca police?” I asked.

  “Me? No. I’m just a volunteer trainer. I love the kids, and I love boxing.”

  “Were you a boxer?”

  “I tried, but I wasn’t much good,” he said frankly. “I just didn’t have what it takes. That’s why I respect these kids. They’re doing something very few people can do.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Were you a boxer?”

  “I was more of a brawler.”

  “Brawlers are tough to teach.”

  “I know,” I laughed. “Do your brawlers ever beat your boxers?”

  “Not often,” Anson said. “Golden Glove’s rules favor boxers. Three unanswered punches, and there’s a mandatory standing eight count. If there’s a knockdown, there’s a standing eight count. Big soft gloves and head gear do the rest. Not many knockouts, and only a handful of stops. Brawlers usually lose on points.”

  He looked at his watch. It was almost four in the afternoon. “I better do some coaching,” he said. “Matt McGrady should be here any minute, and you can talk to him about the program. He’s with the Boca police department and really runs the show.”

  The metal front door creaked open, and we both turned in that direction. A small entourage appeared, led by a slight Asian boy who looked like he was eleven or twelve years old. The boy was followed by a middle-aged Asian man, who I guessed was his father. A young man carrying a professional-looking camera and another young man holding a pad of paper and a pen followed them. The last one in the procession was a small, cream-colored boy of about eight. The photographer had begun taking random pictures in rapid succession upon entering the gym. The click, whir, click of the camera seemed to slow the frenetic pace of the boxers. Barry Anson and I had our picture taken. Click, whir, click. The Asian boy was talking to the reporter, who was busy taking notes.

  “What’s that about?” I asked.

  “Very interesting,” Barry said. “The photographer and the reporter are from the Boca News, a small local paper. They’re doing a story on that kid, Han Zhang. He’s called ‘The Pugilist Professor.’ “

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows more about the subject of boxing than just about anyone I ever met,” Barry explained. “I think he has a photographic memory.”

  “No kidding.”

  “He’s amazing,” Barry continued. “What he doesn’t already know about boxing he researches on the Internet. We let him use our computer when he’s here at the gym, so he’s never far away from his information. He’s a computer genius, too. He set up his own Web site.”

  “Impressive. Is that his father with him?”

  “Yeah. Nice guy.”

  “And the little kid?”

  “That’s Tommy Bigelow. He idolizes Han and follows him around all the time.”

  “They seem far apart in age.”

  “They are. Han’s twelve, and Tommy’s only about eight, I think. I wouldn’t call them friends. Han is more like a role model for Tommy.”

  “Isn’t that Tommy’s father’s job?”

  “No one really knows who Tommy’s father is,” Anson sighed. “His mother was single, and when Tommy was born, both the mother and the boyfriend were addicted to crack cocaine.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “That’s the right word.” Anson shook his head. “The State of Florida took Tommy away from his mother and put him in a foster home. A few years later she got him back after she went straight. Now he’s back in foster care.”

  “Did his mother go back on drugs?”

  “No, she never did,” Anson told me. “She tried to straighten out, but she had this new live-in, shithead boyfriend who beat the two of them and molested the boy.”

  “What happened to the boyfriend?”

  “Tommy’s mother killed him. Shot him in the head with his own gun while he was sleeping.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She killed herself with the same gun after she called the police and told them to rush over and get Tommy. The cops found the two bodies in one room and Tommy in his bed asleep. He’s been in foster care ever since.”

  “How old was he when all this happened?”

  “I think he was about four.”

  “How come no one has adopted him in all this time? He’s a cute kid.”

  “Yeah, he’s a cute kid,” Barry agreed. “But he’s half black and half white, which makes him hard to place. He can also be very difficult. People don’t want to bring his attitude into their homes no matter how bad they want a kid.”

  “He probably doesn’t trust anyone.”

  “Can you blame him? Although, I think he trusts me,” Barry said. “And I know he trusts Matt McGrady. Those two should be father and son.”

  “Why aren’t they?”

  “Matt’s a cop on a cop’s salary and has two kids of his own to worry about.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  Matt McGrady arrived just as the interview with the Pugilist Professor ended. Matt was a good-looking, friendly guy about the size of a light heavyweight, six feet one, 180 pounds. Barry introduced us, and we talked about boxing and police work for a while. The Pugilist Professor and his protege were nearby, and Matt called them over.

  “How was the interview, Han?” Matt asked.

  “Same old thing,” the Professor said.

  “Were you with him, Tommy?”

  “Yeah,” was all Tommy said.

  “Well, boys,” Matt said, “I want you to meet Eddie Perlmutter. He’s an ex-cop from Boston, and he used to fight in the Golden Gloves. You ever heard of him?”

  “They couldn’t have heard of me,” I said. “That was over forty years ago.”

  “I know about fighters from eighty years ago,” the Professor said.

  “Yeah, so do I,” Tommy said.

  “Okay.” I directed my question to Tommy. “Who was Barney Ross?”

  The four of them looked surprised and exchanged glances.

  “You told him!” Tommy said to Matt and Barry.

  “Tommy, we didn’t say a word,” Matt promised.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “Why did you ask about Barney Ross?” Tommy challenged me. “He’s not famous anymore.”

  “It sounds to me like I picked a guy you don’t know about.”

  The kid rolled his eyes. “Barney Ross was called ‘The Pride of the Ghetto.’ He was a champion in three different weight divisions,” Tommy recited. “He fought Jimmy McClaren three times - ”

  “Okay, okay,” I stopped him. “You know all about Barney Ross. So why did you make such a big deal out of it?”

  The boy didn’t smile. “Everyone here knows Barney Ross is my favorite fighter. Someone must have told you.”

  “No on
e told me anything, Tommy.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  The kid was getting aggressive.

  “Tommy,” Matt interrupted. “Watch your manners.”

  “There are a million fighters, Officer Matt. Why did he pick Barney Ross?” The boy glared at me.

  “Barney Ross was my grandfather’s favorite fighter,” I explained. “And he told me I fought like Ross.”

  “Were you any good?” Another challenge.

  “Not as good as Barney Ross,” I said honestly.

  “‘Course not,” the boy said. “Did you win any championships?”

  “A couple.”

  “I can look you up on the Internet, you know.” He was testing me.

  “You probably won’t find anything. It was a long time ago.”

  “If you’re telling the truth, I’ll find you.”

  “Tommy,” Matt said sharply. “Stop it.”

  “It’s okay,” I said to Matt.

  “No, it’s not.” Matt was annoyed. “Tommy, apologize to Mr. Perlmutter.”

  The boy stared at Matt, then at me. “Did you know Barney Ross was a war hero?” he asked unapologetically.

  “Yes,” I replied. “He won a Silver Star at Guadalcanal.”

  “Did you win a Silver Star?”

  “I wasn’t in the war.”

  “Did you win any awards for anything?”

  “A few,” I replied honestly.

  “Like what?” the boy raised his voice.

  “Tommy, I didn’t say I was Barney Ross.” I tried to calm him down. “My grandfather just compared me to him.”

  “You can’t compare to Barney Ross,” Tommy shouted. He turned abruptly and ran toward a small office at the front of the gym.

  “Tommy! Get back here,” Matt called after him, but the boy darted into the office and slammed the door behind him.

  “Barry.” Matt turned to his assistant. “What’s with him today?”

  Barry shrugged. “He’s probably on the computer checking Eddie out.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” I said. “He doesn’t know me.”

  “That kid’s a handful,” Matt said. “You know much about kids?”

  “I know I like them,” I said. “I coached a youth boxing program in Boston for a while.”

  “You did?” Matt said. “Well, how about doing some volunteer work for us? We could use you.”