TKO

by Tom Schreck

  Actually, you really can’t get in trouble for loading up on Sudafed and “expressive”—not legal trouble anyway. Suda-Fred had a little anxiety trouble, which often led him to less than a placid existence. So for the next forty minutes or so, it was my job to find out what I could about what had brought Fred to the Sudafed. Fred’s snot issues seemed to have been the trigger that brought on today’s relapse, but perhaps there was a deeper emotional antecedent that together we could uncover. It was up to me, skilled clinician that I was, to deconstruct the behaviors that led up to Fred’s use of the dreaded 418s.

  Turns out all we could come up with was the snot, man, it was all about the snot. Fred and I spent the next forty-five minutes talking about congestion, alertness, and the Yanks—a lot about alertness.

  After Suda-Fred, a session with Stanley Stillman was a welcome change of pace. Stanley was referred to the clinic by his employer’s employee assistance plan for an Internet addiction. Actually, they caught Stanley surfing porn on his company computer, and when they went through his computer logs it was pretty clear that he spent about seven out of eight hours a day on the boner sites. They tried to fire him but the union prevented it, got a doctor to give him an obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis, and now he’s getting paid time off to “recover.” I guess in his position as safety officer for the power company, his “recovery” was pretty important.

  Anyway, he was a welcome relief because he barely said anything at all. I think the guy’s real diagnosis should have been something along the lines of “chronic traumatic embarrassment related to masturbatory activity.” The guys at the power company weren’t real sensitive to Stan’s plight, and not too far behind his back they referred to him as “the stroke-a-matic.” I wouldn’t feel like talking much either.

  While Stan and I put up with the awkward silences, I thought about Howard. I racked my brain trying to think about how I could find out more about him. He didn’t have any family contacts and the counselors at the halfway house said he kept to himself. There was a ninety-page summary from his prison shrink that I hadn’t read all the way through yet. I’d read the first twenty pages and it didn’t say much of anything, so I’d skipped to the end where they had come to the conclusion that Howard was of very little danger to society, that his actions were the result of an abused adolescent mind processing extreme abusive stress, and unless those types of stressors were repeated, Howard was not a danger. They went on to say that even if Howard was placed under stress, he was unlikely to repeat the same violent activity.

  Dr. Abadon read the report and he indicated that it was within the realm of possibility that Howard was in a way relapsing to his old compulsions and that if he was experiencing stress—which a release from prison to his old neighborhood would evoke—he could revert to old ways. That was a fair analysis, but I was afraid that one opinion might be enough for the police to assume Howard was the one and only suspect. With assholes like Larry “the Cop” Bird itching to do something dramatic, I was afraid Howard didn’t have a chance.

  Stan went on his less than merry way and I went back to check out Howard’s file. Reading through assessments was like taking the time to read through the directions for a universal television remote, only not as entertaining. It just went on and on in that annoying psychobabble that had fancy names for everyday things. It talked about his shallow affect, his dysthymic mood, and the fact that he was oriented times three. In English, I think that meant that Howard looked depressed and acted depressed but knew where he was, who he was, and what day it was.

  Hidden in some of this bullshit were some things that may have explained why Howard was the way he was. His mother never visited him in prison and apparently she moved to Wisconsin where she herself was arrested for kiting checks. The mother had a half-sister in Oklahoma who had eight children, though neither she nor the children ever met Howard. The father, who left before Howard was born, died of cirrhosis ten years ago. Now there’s a warm bunch to pass the turkey around with on Thanksgiving.

  Howard was, by most accounts, a model inmate. In his first five years incarcerated he was in Ossining, and on two occasions he was “assaulted.” There wasn’t a ton of information about what constituted a prison assault, but one could only wonder. After those five years he was moved to Green Haven, where he stayed until he was discharged. Twelve years before he was discharged, a guy in the cell next to him was beaten to death over some jailhouse drug dealing, and Howard had always maintained that he knew nothing about what was going on. Apparently, the drug situation was pretty bad for a while because five inmates died of drug use while in Green Haven during that period.

  All very interesting, but averaged out over thirty years there really wasn’t a ton of unusual stuff about inmate Rheinhart. I was just closing his file when Trina buzzed me and told me Michelin wanted to see me. Oh joy.

  “Duffy, I am not pleased with this situation with Rheinhart,” Claudia said.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “It’s bad for the clinic. It puts us in a bad light and it makes us vulnerable.”

  “Bad light? Vulnerable?”

  “It’s bad publicity and it overshadows the work we do. It could interfere with our ability to help clients,” Claudia said, running her hand palm-down through her Starsky-do, which was something she did when she was lying.

  “Uh-huh. What does that have to do with me?” I said.

  “You’re his counselor.”

  “So.”

  “Make sure you do everything you can to assist his apprehension.”

  “What if he’s innocent and he gets hurt?”

  “Duffy—be realistic.”

  “I’m not always good at that,” I said, and I got up. “Claudia, I better go or you’ll be writing out verbal warnings for me.” I turned to get out of her office.

  “Make sure you do what I told you,” she said.

  I needed to get to the gym … for a lot of reasons.

  6

  With just a few days before a bout there’s not a ton you can work on, but it felt better to be in the gym doing something to get ready. I had been sparring on and off for the last month so I was reasonably sharp. Sparring too close to a fight can be dumb because you can get an injury that would make you pull out of the fight. When you’re a fighter of my caliber, that’s a big mistake because they’ll just go to the boxing registry and find another guy with your weight, height, level of competition, and won/loss record. Professional opponents really have a lot in common with the bovine futures being bought and sold at the Chicago Board of Trade. If you’re a boxing superstar like Oscar de la Hoya and everyone’s dying to fight you and you get injured, you call the fight off and the whole boxing world will wait for you. Well, the boxing world wouldn’t wait the length of a beer commercial for Duffy Dombrowski and guys like me don’t see many $15,000 paydays, so I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I did want to get a feel for the Mexican gloves because I hadn’t worn them much. They’re expensive and the shows I fight on usually cut costs by using cheaper gloves. I swallowed the $250 and got a pair, figuring it was money well spent. God, they felt great, probably as good as an alligator shoe feels on someone who cares enough to buy the repulsive things. They really formed around my fists, and my hands just felt natural inside of them. I did three rounds of regular bag work and then practiced throwing the jab and just grazing the corner of the heavy bag. I saw some of the Puerto Rican fighters working this move with the Mexican gloves on the bags at Gleason’s in Brooklyn one time and they had it down to an art form. I don’t know about my artistic expression but I was getting a feel for letting the seam drag over the bag.

  Smitty took me through some pad work, finishing with two full rounds drilling the recoil on my left cross. This was Smitty’s pride and joy, and he felt like if he could train a fighter to bring his hands back after a punch, then that fighte
r’s defense could be almost impenetrable. He was right and all his fighters did it well. If they didn’t, and didn’t practice, pretty soon they weren’t his fighters anymore. Smitty would drop them because he felt that strongly about it.

  After the last round on the pads he told me to shake down a little bit and to do some stretching. He gave me the speech of what not to eat before a fight and how to get as much sleep as possible—like the nerves I went through the week of the fight would possibly allow me to concentrate on nutrition or leave me calm enough to get any sleep. The last few days before the fight I was miserable. Irritable, cranky, and generally just pissed off, and dealing with the Michelin Woman today hadn’t helped matters either.

  I was undoing my wraps and heading up the stairs to the locker room when I was distracted by the yelling in the karate room. Looking through the little square window with the crosshatched lines, I saw Mitchell and Harter, the two barney-badass black belts. They were standing over the goofy kid, the one with the really bad pizza face. He was doing knuckle pushups and his arms quivered from the fatigue. The kid wasn’t blessed with a whole lot of physical strength, but it was clear that he was a karate diehard. If a karate instructor wants to work the kid’s ass off that was one thing. Corny and as politically incorrect as that sort of thing is, I do believe facing and overcoming adversity does build character in people. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the only thing that builds character. Even in a goofy karate class where the adversity was contrived, it could still breed character.

  The thing with these guys was that they seemed to be enjoying making a mockery of the kid. It wasn’t about any kind of respect—it was about the opposite. I opened up the door and quietly went into the karate class and leaned against the wall.

  “You are weak,” Mitchell barked at the kid. “You do not have the black belt’s heart.”

  The kid looked up from his pushups and fought back the tears. The poor kid—here these guys were abusing him and he had the loyalty to be hurt by their disapproval.

  “Too weak,” Harter snickered. “You can’t even finish your pushups. You will never make black belt.”

  The kid started to cry, though he hid it by putting his head down in his pushup position. My neck started to twitch, and I noticed that my left hand was clenched. Today, something was going to keep me from minding my own business.

  “Hey—that’s probably enough, don’t you think, fellas?” I said as I crossed my arms. I hadn’t moved otherwise and stood still, holding up the wall.

  The room got quiet. The rest of the students tried not to look at me while they maintained their quasi-military forward stares.

  “Sir, this is a closed class. There are no visitors,” Mitchell said. He glared at me like he thought I would melt in front of him.

  “Good for you, but why don’t you leave the kid alone,” I said. I felt the vein twitch in my neck again.

  “No one speaks to the sensei in this class like this. You are putting yourself in danger,” he said. His partner took an exaggerated stance with his hands on his hips. He stood up straight in a posture that was impossibly rigid.

  “Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t tremble,” I said.

  I walked across the gym floor, grabbed the kid by the back of the uniform, and lifted him to his feet.

  “C’mon, pal. You’re getting outta here.”

  The kid tried to pull away and he tried to say something to his instructors, but nothing came out. They stood with their hands on their hips.

  “You’re doing us a favor. He’s kept the rest of the class down,” Harter said.

  I stopped. I put the kid down and I turned around.

  The vein in my neck was doing the Twist and I had had it.

  “Tell you what, tough guy, how about you come over here and make me do a pushup. Or does the fact that I’m over 140 pounds disqualify me?” I said.

  “A time and a place for you, there will be,” Mitchell said.

  “Hey Confucius, you want to try me? C’mon!” The neck was getting intense. “You weren’t all philosophical two minutes ago when you were abusing this kid,” I said.

  “Go now, while you still can,” Harter said.

  I didn’t move or say anything for a while, but I looked Mitchell right in the eye.

  “C’mon, kid,” I said. The kid didn’t want to go, and I had to pull him away. I dragged him out to the stairwell. He struggled to stand up straight, he wiped his eyes, trying to make it look like he wasn’t crying, and he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Why did you do that?” he said. “I am a karateka. I will be a black belt one day.”

  “Hey kid—”

  “Who are you? Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  He looked up at me and his face was covered with zits. The very tip of his nose had a huge whitehead on it, and it was about the size of a nickel. He had a traumatized look on his face as he held back the tears.

  “Kid—you don’t need to be treated like that. That’s not what being a black belt is all about,” I said.

  “How would you know?”

  “I am a black belt, have been for years.” Which was true. I was a black belt as a teenager before I got into boxing.

  The kid froze and looked frightened like he just farted in the Pope’s presence. He came to attention and bowed.

  “I am sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Kid, it—”

  He interrupted me again. Something came over his face.

  “You will be my new sensei. You have been sent to lead me to my black belt.”

  “Uh … kid … uh …” I couldn’t find the words.

  “Yes, it is destiny. I will put my trust in you,” he said, and a calm came over him.

  Oh boy. I couldn’t think of what to say, but I was fully aware that I did stick my nose in this kid’s life without him asking me to.

  The kid gave me a big exaggerated bow.

  I bowed back, which … uh … I guess is what you do to a karateka under your tutelage.

  Oh geez.

  It had been a long day for about eleven different reasons, so I headed to my bastion of stress management. I needed a little insanity to balance out what the rest of the day had been, and I was still cooling down from the workout when I walked into AJ’s.

  “So you’re saying they’re what you call Native American Canadians,” Rocco said.

  “Yeah, have to be,” TC said.

  “Why not just Native Canadians?” Jerry Number Two asked.

  “Isn’t that what they call the Canucks from Quebec?” said Rocco.

  “I don’t think they care for the term ‘Canuck,’” Jerry Number Two said.

  “Isn’t there a pro hockey team called the Canucks?” Jerry Number One asked.

  “So,” said TC.

  “They play in Vancouver,” Jerry Number Two said.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Rocco said.

  “That’s why they call themselves the Canucks—to piss off the Native Quebecians,” Jerry Number Two said.

  “So how bad could the term be if they named a hockey team after it?” Jerry Number One said. “We don’t have a team in the NBA called the Alabama Spooks.”

  “There’s the Globetrotters,” TC said.

  “They’re not Canadian,” Jerry Number Two said.

  “They’re Native Harlemenians,” TC said.

  AJ slid a bottle of Schlitz in front of me and I sat next to Kelley, who was watching the old fights on ESPN Classic. It was Basilio and Robinson again.

  “What do you hear from your hackin’ friend?” Kelley asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I spent some time reading his prison file today though.”

  “And …”

  “Not much there. In his first five ye
ars he was assaulted a couple of times,” I said.

  “That’s pretty routine.”

  “Then the guy in the cell next to him was beaten to death over some drug stuff. Apparently there was some bad drugs floating around Green Haven and some inmates died.”

  “I think I remember that,” Kelley said. “Turned out the stuff they were taking was some homemade poisonous shit.”

  “Bad shit,” I said.

  “Yeah—but also pretty routine inside. Those guys are always trying to get high.”

  “Are you involved in the search for Howard?”

  “Not really. I mean we get bulletins and shit like that, but nothing official. There’s a big-deal task force,” Kelley said.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Hey—you’re fighting in the Garden, huh?”

  “Yeah, some hot-shit contender.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it,” I said.

  7

  “AHOOOOOOO, AHOOOOOOO, MMMMMM, WOOF, WOOF, AHOOOOOO.” It was my alarm clock.

  My alarm clock has no snooze control—in fact, it has very little control. It does have long ears, short legs, and a tendency toward flatulence. This morning Al was particularly intense around the front door to the Moody Blue. Intense enough that I decided to forgo my first stop to take a leak and my second stop to get the coffee going.

  “GRRRRRRR, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said. Three consecutive WOOFs usually meant something unusual was going on. Al tended to stick to the two WOOFs, a single AHOOOO, followed by two more WOOFs.

  I peeked through the front-door curtains and rubbed the gook out of me eyes. It was the goofy karate kid from last night, just standing there waiting for something. I’m not a rise-and-shine kind of guy, and this was going to be a real challenge to my cognition first thing in the morning. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but it was early and I was curious about what might’ve brought him to my trailer. I opened the door to see just what I had here at such a God-awful hour.