Rope Burns - [SSC]

by F. X. Toole

  “But you ain’t ranked, Deedee,” Shawrelle would tease. “Champs gotta fight someone in the top ten, man.”

  “I’ll fight him anyway, anytime, anyplace!”

  “But then it wouldn’t be a title fight, and if you won, you wouldn’t be champ,” say Shawrelle, walk away say this be one dumb white boy. Shawrelle a amateur and be stone black.

  Danger don’t understand rankings, but when he show up for two weeks in the gym he be there working out twice a day, sixteen 3-minute rounds at noon when the pros train, and another sixteen in the evening with the amateurs, and that ain’t counting his five miles every morning at six at the Trade Tech track. It be pitiful to watch, but he keep on, and after a while the boy get strong.

  “Say, Orbit, why don’t you go a few rounds wif me?” say Shawrelle.

  I say, “Don’t be talkin that mess.”

  Danger say, “I’ll do it, Mist Scrap, do it right now.”

  I say, “No, you ain’t goin in wif Shawrelle, forgit it.”

  “You scared, right Flippy?, you a little white rabbit?”

  “I ain’t scared a no man!”

  “Scrap he be scared,” say Shawrelle. “Scrap got the blood of the slave master in him, see that skin? Scrap talk like a brother, but Scrap be runnin a game.”

  “Cut that shit, Shawrelle,” I say.

  Shawrelle say, “You still be lickin the boot of the oppressor, old man.”

  I tap the pocket where I keep my shit, say, “Till you know how it was when it was, watch you mouf.”

  Shawrelle walk away grinning like a shit-eating dog, like he be jokin, Shawrelle don’t joke, Shawrelle ain’t smart enough to be funny. Think he be tough. Tough ain’t enough.

  Danger loosen up with leg exercises and stretches like a fighter do. And he shadowbox four rounds and Hymn treat him like a contender, never tease or laugh at him, and always find time to work four rounds with him on the punch mitts, not that Danger can punch worth a damn. Danger don’t know how to breathe like a fighter and can hardly stand up after four on the mitts, but he go on to work in his own way on the big bag for four rounds, slap at the speed bag for four, stumble around with the jump rope four more, and then do 120 sit-ups—four different sets of thirty reps each. He be so red you think he cut, but he got no quit in him and Hymn never lose patience when Danger can’t remember things Hymn told him two minutes before, or a thousand times before that. Danger call Curtis Mist Hymn, picked “Mist” up from the brothers. Call me Mist Scrap.

  Curtis Odom, see, he find his church early on and peoples respect him because he never run a game on nobody and because when he a contender he knock out top fighters all over the country, and in France and Japan, and in South Africa. Take me with him every fight he have except South Africa because there was no ticket but one. Joburg what he call Johannesburg, what the South Africans call it. Fought there twice and won both times and was treated white because he was a fighter. Said if he couldn’t live in America he’d choose South Africa. Said he take me there next time, make sure they be two tickets. No next time. Still good-looking, Hymn, too bad about his dead eye, but his weight still same as his fighting weight, 160 pounds. Hymn be bad.

  Now, Danger, he another thing. Beside being blood simple, boy have this big head on him and this big neck, head and neck like a heavyweight on this small body. He about five-six, five-seven and good-looking for a white boy, weigh forty-five, maybe fifty tops, natural welterweight. First off, you don’t know he simple. It when he talk you know.

  “A lotta white boys died ‘cause a you niggers in Lincoln’s War up around home. Fought and died all the way through them Ozarks. Lotta my kin died under Old Pap Price at Wilson’s Creek, and folks still talk about it up in them hills and talk about hangin a nigger in a minute. Me, I got nothin against niggers ‘cause my mama taught me that, said not to cause hurt.”

  I had to smile. “Is that like the Golden Rule, Dange?”

  “I don’t rightly know.”

  See, you ax him something he can’t answer, he walk off and start messing with shoelaces, or fuss with his fingernails, or just stand there squeezing his mind trying to understand what you ax him. In hot weather, some trainers freeze water in plastic bottles and then add more water to the bottle in the gym so they boys can have ice water. Danger would study the ice in those bottles, squinting at it ten minutes and more. Come over to me one day like he worried sick. I be sweeping up and he ax me how they get that ice down through the small hole in the top of the bottle.

  “What you do is fill the bottle partway wif water and then put the bottle in the freezer. Water change to ice and then you bring it on to the gym next day in the bottle.”

  Boy understand and jump around like a family dog. Next day he come in wif his own bottle wif ice in it, and his face be so proud he make you think he invent frozen water.

  After Danger been coming around like I say, he stop by me in his simple please-and-thank-you way he have and we get to talking. Most times he bring me some Twinkies to go wif my coffee. I try to give him one back.

  “No, sir, Mist Scrap,” he say. “I’m in trainin.”

  “Talk to me, Danger, where you go when you don’t show up ‘round here?, you ain’t cheatin on us now?, be goin ‘round to other gym?”

  “No, sir, Mist Scrap, no siree. You my friends, you’n Mist Hymn.”

  “So where you go?”

  “I go home.” Say it like a little boy.

  “You go to Missouri?, boy, that be halfway to New York an’ mo’.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, it is, hail.”

  “Don’t seem real far.”

  “Far? Damn! You from Kansas City, St. Louis?”

  “No, sir, Bolivar.” He say it like it was wrote Ball-ivax. “It’s a small town like most back there.”

  “Bolivar, huh?”

  “Yes, sir, like that Simon Bolivar freedom fighter there from south a the border? We got a statue a him was give to President Truman?, who’s a Missouri boy like me. Course he ain’t no hillbilly.”

  “Where is this Bolivar?”

  “We’re just a spell up from Springfield where all the fightin was? See, from Bolivar you come on down 13 to 44 West outta Springfield and keep headin west till you take up 40 West outta Oklahoma City to Barstow here in California where you get 15 down to 10 West and you wait for Main Street in Los Angeles and you get off there and walk over to Hope Street ain’t but five blocks easy as that.”

  Danger proud he can remember all that, go on to say that he collect some kind of welfare check back home and soon as he cash it and pick up his medicine he head on back to Hope Street.

  “An’ once I’m all outta money here, see, then I get to hitch back home and get some more? Easy as pie.”

  “So you say it take you a week to git home and a week to git back here once a mont?”

  “Ain’t it great?”

  “How you eat you got no money?”

  “Truckers. An’ families when they eat I get to. Sometimes I don’t for a couple a three days, but that keeps me lean and mean for the Hit Man.”

  “How’d you come to LA. in the first place?”

  “Come with Ervel, my mama’s boyfriend?”

  “Come wif you mama on vacation like?”

  “Uh-unh, just me an’ Ervel come in his pickup. I don’t rightly know why we come, just one day we did. An’ right away on the first day?, we was over on East Fifth Street there on Skid Row there in the middle of the Nickel?, an’ he bought me a soda, an’ next thing I know I look around an’ poor Ervel was lost. Lordy, I looked for a week for Ervel, and when I couldn’t find him a policeman took me to the wino shelter.”

  “What happen to Ervel?”

  Danger smile all big and sweet. “He made it home all by himself!”

  I’m thinking that jive-ass honky white-trash hillbilly Ervel. “He got there ahead a you, did he?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “How you get home, Danger?”

  “W
ino-shelter lady got a map and wrote it all down for me and then rode me in her van out Highway 10 a ways and dropped me off. When I come home my mama was spittin mad at Ervel. Started kissin on me and cryin, and then pointin her finger at Ervel and laughin. He went away an’ never come back.”

  “But Dange, what I don’t unnerstan’ is why you come all the way back here?, that hitchhikin half the country, man.”

  “It’s on account of the guidance I get under Mist Hymn for my title fight?”

  “They other gyms closer, ain’t they?”

  That’s one of the times Danger walk away because he don’t have a answer. He always keep hissef clean, which is more than some with good sense do, but I don’t know how he do it, or where he flop. Except for his fall-apart gym clothes he don’t look but to own one set of clothes and they be secondhand army-navy. But when he come back, he always come back with Twinkies for me and with a hopeful little smile.

  “Hey, Flippy!” Shawrelle call from the ring. “You got to bring ass to kick ass, ain’t that right?”

  “Yeah!” Danger say, hop around throwing his pitty-pat jab all pleased somebody talk to him. “You got to bring ass!”

  “Wher you fightin the title?” ax Shawrelle.

  That when Danger go stand by a wall.

  Shawrelle call hissef Shawrelle Muhammad, but his real name Shawrelle Berry, and Shawrelle he eat swine in a minute. He have a hook that move a tank, I’m telling you, but he have a heart like a split pea. Right hand on him and a left hook, bof would knock you out you think you dead, knock you down with a jab. Hymn teach him to punch the way I teach Hymn. But Shawrelle think he smarter than he was, and he spend all his time telling his little lies and acting uppity like he already be somebody. He a punk, Shawrelle, but he can hit, I give him that. But he can’t fight, what it is, hitting and fighting be different. All the time he talk about he so bad and what he suppose to get because he so bad, what somebody suppose to give him, but he never do what it take. Hymn be first one to train Shawrelle, think the boy would change, but one day in the gym he walk away from the boy’s corner during a round when Shawrelle start yelling about the other boy hitting him too hard after it was Shawrelle hissef who tried to knock the other boy out.

  “Hey, man, come back man, what I do?” Shawrelle be whining.

  Hymn call off the session and explain it to him, that in the gym you be there to work, not to knock somebody out, that you work a boy too hard one day the boy ain’t gonna come back tomorrow, and that it be natural for the boy he crack today to crack him back to get respect.

  “Yeah, main, yeah, I can dig it.”

  So once Shawrelle got Hymn to give him another chance, Shawrelle think Hymn be his bitch, and next trick Shawrelle try to pull be to tell Hymn to carry his gym bag down to the street.

  “Eight, nine, ten, you out,” was all Hymn said.

  But the look he give Shawrelle, Shawrelle don’t say jack, but his eyes be mean and you know he want some git-back. Yeah, that be Shawrelle, and next day he easy get hissef a new trainer good as Shawrelle look in the gym, tall boy Shawrelle, like Sugar Ray Robinson, six feet and 160 pounds of thump, say 15 pounds bigger than Danger, but for all his talk, he want out, not in, spend all his time making sure he on the outside so he can cry about being on the outside. He a ho what he was, a ho looking for Santa Claus to rob, a little gangsta punk looking for a sugar daddy. Scared of white boys, too, Shawrelle. Get to amateur tournaments and come up against a white boy?, say he have a toothache, can’t fight. Why he was always on Danger and want to get Danger in the ring and why me and Hymn say no good. Shawrelle mean but he got no left titty.

  Maybe my fault what happen to Danger. I ain’t suppose to leave a gym unless the owner or somebody like Hymn be there to cover. Well, owner of Hope Street be in Vegas and then Hymn get a call on a ten-round fighter he have, call come from the promoter over at the Olympic who want Hymn’s boy in the next show, so Hymn go. Gym full of amateurs and Danger there shadowboxing. Shawrelle there too, working like everybody else. Hymn’s boys be waiting for Hymn to come back from the Olympic. Somebody say that the drain in the shower be broke, and I go to fix it. Well, I’m gone from the floor maybe half hour. Not like I leave the building, but I be in the back so I can’t watch.

  Once I fix the drain and mop up, I hear all this yelling from the ring. I get back about the same time Hymn come on in from the Olympic. Somehow Shawrelle hustle Danger to get in the ring with him. Danger wearing some old sixteen-ounce sparring gloves, but he got no head gear and no cup and no mouthpiece. Shawrelle wearing everything, and he got himself some ten-ounce fighting gloves on instead of sixteen. His trainer know better than that, young boy for a trainer, but he think he slick like Shawrelle. Whole thing don’t last but a few seconds, but Shawrelle jump on Danger like he putting out a fire. He hit Danger all upside his head, and Danger be looking around for someone tell him what to do. Shawrelle hit him with twenty, thirty shots, all combinations, bip-bip bang!, bip-bing!, but he can’t knock Danger out, what he want. Both Danger’s eyes bust open by the time me and Hymn get there and his face be swelling up bad, but he won’t go down, and the more Shawrelle hit him the more Danger walk straight to him until Danger’s hands be hanging at his side and his face look like he in a wreck and he stand there like a dumb animal so sick he ready to die. It all happen quick like a stabbing, and there be no ref to stop it, and bloody slobber be coming from Danger mouth where he bite his tongue. Shawrelle throw that first shot it be the death of Danger’s dream, rest of Shawrelle shots dig the grave to dump it in.

  Hymn sail into the ring and pin Shawrelle to the ropes where he hold on to him like a thief so I can come get Danger.

  “How’d I do, Mist Scrap?”

  I hug him to me. “You done great, Danger, you my man, you bad, you be next champion of the world.”

  Danger pull back. “No, I won’t, Mist Scrap,” he say. He smile his little smile, his bloody teeth look like neon shining in his mouth. “I shoulda knowed.”

  “Here, baby, let me hep you,” I say, start to take off his gloves.

  “I can do her, just untie the knots.”

  He want to clean up alone, but he need help. He come out front again once Hymn stop the blood with adrenaline and close the cuts on the boy’s eyes, stuck the swollen edges of split skin together with butterflies. Danger’s face go all lumpy with blue knots deep to the bone and one eye swole shut and he walk stoop over from Shawrelle body shots what separate his ribs.

  Shawrelle strut, all proud with himself with his lips tight together all righteous. “Flippy Deedee Orbit be ready for the Hit Mem now.”

  “Come on back to Scrap’s room,” Hymn say to Danger. “Lay down while I go get ice for my ice bag.”

  Danger say, “I would, Mist Hymn, and 1 sure thank you for all you done, but I’m fixin to go on back home to Bolivar right now.”

  Danger smile at me again, shake Hymn’s hand and mine, and then he empty his pockets on a bench near the ring, thirty-two crumpled dollars, a piece of string, and some change that roll on the floor. Gym bum stand on a penny.

  “Bye,” say Danger. Simple as that.

  “Here, son, take your money,” say Hymn, he afraid Danger be paying him for training.

  Danger say, “Goin home, Mist Hymn. Cain’t go home I still got money.”

  He walk out on his own and gym bums scramble for the money, but now Shawrelle race over from the big bag and knock everybody back, ten-ounce gloves still on his hands.

  “It mine!” he shout. “I whupped that white boy’s ass and it mine!”

  “No good,” say Hymn. He grab up the bills in a tight ball and hold it in his right hand.

  “I won it!” scream Shawrelle. “It be mine!”

  “Boy, I said no good.”

  “Boy! You call me boy? You call me boy?”

  “I don’t call you Roy.”

  “That money by right be mine, old man!” Shawrelle yelling and trying to grab the money with his gloves.

&nbs
p; “I said no good.”

  And then Shawrelle bang Hymn on same side his bad eye on. Hymn stagger and one leg lift up off the ground, but he don’t go down. Shawrelle try to hit him again same right-hand shot, but quick as light Hymn slip the punch. He rotate his left shoulder back and in a half crouch he put his weight over the left knee. Shawrelle eyes roll like a mule’s, but he know there nothing he can do once Hymn get the angle. Hymn still be holding Danger money in his right hand when he shift his weight and hit Shawrelle with a left hook yip! to the liver that made him gut-sick and spread yellow all through him and he know what be next on the way. Hymn he double up the shot, come on back yop! with a hook to the jaw that snap Shawrelle’s neck like a hanging knot and put the boy out close to five minutes.