by Tom Schreck
If Howard was the bad guy, which just about everyone believed, real lives were in danger. I had my gut instincts, but I also knew I had a tendency to go against the crowd just for the sake of going against the crowd. Add to that the fact that I had no respect for the Michelin Woman, I couldn’t get a read on Abadon, and in general I wasn’t a big fan of cops, and-I had to admit-I could’ve been being adversarial for the sport of it. On the other hand, I respected Monique, Kelley, and Trina as much as anyone, and they felt that it was most likely Howard who was doing the slicing and dicing.
I called Claudia’s extension, well aware that it would ruin my day. She came out briefly and then called the police. Within minutes, Detective Morris, the Larry Bird guy whose name I found out was Mullings, and two uniformed cops came to my office. Larry Bird gave me a dirty look but Morris did most of the talking.
They wanted to know when it came, who touched it, did I handle it, did I write on it-they asked just about everything except did I blow my nose in it. Then they took the letter with these fancy tweezers and dropped it in an evidence bag and asked me if they could get my fingerprints so they could tell mine from whatever prints were on the letter.
I agreed mostly because going to the police station would get me out of the office and get me to the gym sooner. They sent me to where they book real criminals, and some cop named Murtagh took my prints without any enthusiasm in about ten minutes. I was in and out of the police station in no time and fit with a perfect excuse not to return to the office. With the fight on Saturday, an extra nap would come in handy and would be time well spent. The Michelin Woman wouldn’t bitch about me not coming back to the office because she’d assume I was at the station cooperating all afternoon.
I pulled up in front of the Moody Blue just in time to catch Marcia putting a letter in my mailbox. Her long, straight hair came down past her shoulders and rested on her peasant blouse. She wore army fatigues and a pair of the Birkenstocks, rounding out a look I hated. Marcia reminded people a lot of the folk singer Jewel, who recently went sort of glam with her look. I had hoped Marcia would follow suit, but she didn’t.
“Hey, Duff,” she said. “I left you a note.”
“A note?”
“I don’t know if it’s something I can talk about. My therapist-”
“Your therapist?”
“Yeah, I’ve been seeing someone.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. Every chick I saw wound up seeing a therapist. Usually right before she broke up with me.
“She thinks it would be best if I wasn’t in a relationship right now. I still want to be friends.”
“Friends, huh?” I’ve been around long enough to know that when your girlfriend wanted to be your friend, she was really telling you she didn’t want to have sex with you anymore. But, if she needed to talk with you to spew a bunch of therapist-induced drivel when she’s lonely, she wanted to reserve the right to call you. That would make me a kind of emotional tampon she could pull out once a month when she needed it.
“Yeah, we can be friends, right?”
“Sure,” I heard myself say.
“You don’t sound like you mean it.”
“I’m going to need a little time to process this.” I’ve learned that if you use the word “process,” women think you’re being a feeling kind of guy.
“Okay, that’s fair, Duff.” She sniffled and there was that awkward moment when you know something’s over and there isn’t anything left to be said. Actually, it was a bit of a relief because she’d been weirding out on me for a while. Just the same, it still left a sickish feeling. It had been about six months, which had been about my girlfriend duration for the last few years, and I’ve gotten a bit used to the whole breakup scene. A bit too used to it.
I was tranced out when I opened the door to the Blue and forgot about Allah-King, who kicked me right in the nuts as I opened the door. No longer in a trance, I bent over, grabbing my nuts while Al spun around in enthusiastic circles. I straightened up and Al jumped up and kicked me in the nuts a second time. They were two good shots and I felt my eyes well up just a bit. Tears ran down my cheeks.
I flopped on the couch, lying on my back to ease the pain in the nuttage, and Al jumped up with me. He awkwardly made his way up the length of my body and intermittently licked and bit my ears. It wasn’t exactly what I’d call recuperative relaxation, but, to be honest, I appreciated his company. Marcia was an emotional ditz and I knew we weren’t going anywhere, but I didn’t really need the reminder that once again a relationship of mine crashed and burned. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t a reflection on my worth. Rationally, I knew I would be fine, probably better off, and rationally, I knew it was an opportunity to meet someone better suited for me. Realistically, I was bummed.
I lay on the couch, watching afternoon cable. I took a fake nap, closing my eyes and doing my best impersonation of sleep. There was an episode of Hawaii Five-O on, and McGarrett just ordered Danno and Chin to get a bunch of uniforms and “seal off this rock.” I wished I were McGarrett. McGarrett had the power to get uniformed police in gear and cover an entire island. Me, I just got dumped by a chick I didn’t even really like that much. I couldn’t see that happening to Steve McGarrett.
Eventually, I threw my gear in my duffel and headed to the gym for my last workout before the fight. I wasn’t in the mood for Smitty’s urgency and repetitiveness, but I knew it was needed. I was going to be about two hours early, but I could use the time to think about Marquason and work on dragging my jab against the bag. I could take my time getting dressed and do some extra stretching. Of course, that meant spending more time in the locker room at the Y, which was just a bizarre place.
You had your sixty-year-old handball players who all hated each other and argued every single day for the last forty years. There were the hoop players with their baggy shorts and headbands and hip-hop attitude. And then there were the guys who came to the Y, took a shower, and then walked around a lot in the nude.
Every time you’d go around a row of lockers, there’d be one of these guys, not talking to anyone, just walking to or from the shower. Every once in a while, one of these guys would come into the showers and you would know they just took a damn shower, but here they were again. It was funky stuff, but every Y I’d ever been in had its collection of guys who liked walking around nude a little too much.
When I got down to the gym, Smitty was talking to Billy, my new karate kid.
“Duff, this kid said something about you being his new senor?” Smitty said.
“That’s sensei,” Billy corrected.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said.
Smitty rolled his eyes at me, which he did about three times a day since the day I met him.
“Well, sensei,” Smitty said. “You think you’ll have time for a boring old boxing workout?”
“Yeah-I think so.”
I instructed my karate student to sit, watch, and quietly observe everything he saw. He went and sat in the lotus position against the wall. Smitty took me through the recoil drill, spent a half an hour on how I should move to my left to stay away from Marquason’s power, and had me spin out of the corner while he threw punches at me. Then he had me shake it out with some light bag work.
I took the time to drill my drag punch, hoping Smitty wouldn’t be paying close attention. That, of course, was a mistake; Smitty was always paying attention.
“What the hell is that?” Smitty said.
“Nothin’ really. I saw some of the Puerto Ricans doing it at Gleason’s once,” I said.
“You plannin’ something I should know about, son?”
“Nah.”
Smitty gave me eye roll number two for the day and went to his office just behind the old speed-bag platform. I did some stretching and saw Billy out of the corner of my eye, rocking with enthusiasm. I had promised and figured it was time.
“All right, kid. In the ring.”
Billy bounded through the ropes charged up in front of me a
nd bowed.
“WASABIIIIIIIIIII!” he yelled, then snapped his fists down around his belt.
“Wasabi? What’s that all about?” I said.
“It is my unique kiai.”
“Kiai is the yell, right?” I noticed Billy had a brand-new purple zit on his left cheek that looked like a gumdrop.
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Why are you yelling about Japanese horseradish?”
“Sir?”
“Wasabi is that green stuff you get with sushi, isn’t it?”
“Sir?”
“Never mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, kid, get in your fighting stance,” I said, trying to muster some vigor.
He stepped back with his left leg and with exaggerated motion hurled his arms into a formal fighting stance.
“WASABIIIIIIIII!”
That was going to take some getting used to. I noticed Smitty was out of his office, leaning in the doorway, watching the karate lesson as if he were watching the first inhabitants of Uranus to land in Crawford.
“Stepping forward, high punch,” I yelled. It was a struggle to remember how karate commands went.
“Sir, I am accustomed to hearing the commands in Japanese.”
“Well, you’re going to have to change that.”
“Yes, sir!”
And so it went. I considered having him wax my ’76 Eldorado with the whole “wax on, wax off” deal, but that would mean the kid would probably be in my hair for another six hours. That, and I wasn’t confident the burnt orange finish could handle a waxing. The whole car could disintegrate from shock or something.
I gave the kid a half an hour of training, such as it was. He wasn’t very good, but what he lacked in power and grace he certainly made up for with excitement. When the half hour was through, I bowed him out and congratulated him on good workout.
“Sir, when will I train again?”
“I have to go away for the weekend, kid. I’ve got a fight.”
“A fight? Western boxing?”
“Yep.”
“What shall I work on in the meantime?”
“Uh, let’s see. Just work your fundamentals.” It was the best I could come up with. “And kid, you don’t have to wear a formal karate outfit, if you don’t want.”
“Sir, I prefer to train in my Karateka Nu-Breath Modern Ninja uniform.”
“That would be fine, I guess,” I said and then dismissed my class.
8
I hate the day before a fight.
It was in New York, so we were going to head down to the city at night, go to the weigh-in, have dinner, and go to bed early. Notice I said “go to bed” and not “go to sleep” because I never slept the night before a fight. Before we could leave I still had the morning and part of the afternoon to kill, so I arranged to work some time at the clinic. I didn’t have a ton of vacation time left but I could spare a half a day.
I had a ten a.m. session with Javier Sanchez, a migrant farm worker who came up to Crawford from Florida and the orange groves to work in the apple orchards. Sanchez got busted driving one of the orchard tractors on the Thruway, which was only part of the problem. The other part was that he was two and half times over the drunk-driving limit. I think the troopers got suspicious because he was in the passing lane doing eight miles per hour.
Sanchez barely spoke English and what he did say was mostly unintelligible. He really wasn’t of this culture and he didn’t get how the people in our country operated. He certainly didn’t get this whole human-services deal at all. The idea that the police arrest you and then you have to go some place to talk about things just didn’t make any sense to him. Getting locked up for a year in a smelly jail with little food and lots of bugs probably would’ve made sense, and in many cases might have been easier to take than the Chinese water torture of getting involved in court-ordered treatment.
To make matters worse, he hadn’t paid his clinic bills because, well, he made about a buck-fifty a day and didn’t understand why he was coming to the clinic in the first place. He was one of those victims of the absurd social-services laws. He didn’t have an official address because he lived in a tent on an orchard and he changed orchards frequently. Without an address, a citizen can’t get welfare or Medicaid. He couldn’t even apply for our sliding scale because he didn’t have any of the necessary paperwork like pay stubs and letters from landlords because he got paid in cash and he didn’t have a social security card or a driver’s license. Yet, even with all this bullshit, if Sanchez missed a couple of sessions, the Michelin Woman would make me contact his probation officer and he might go to jail.
Sanchez was half Mexican and half Filipino, and even though he was in his late fifties, he looked seventy. Lots of sun, too much work, and a steady diet of tequila will do that. All in all, he was very likable and I felt for the position he was in. As far as his treatment goals went I didn’t think he was going to be getting any AA MVP awards any time soon, but then again, neither was I.
Sanchez was a half an hour late as usual because he walked three miles each way to the clinic, which he said he didn’t mind. Today, he was wearing faded jeans, ratty Converse All Stars, a wife-beater, and a Chicago Bulls hat. He didn’t look happy and he didn’t smell good.
“Senor Duffy,” he said in his thick and mumbled accent. “Sanchez no money. Sanchez no number house.”
“No number house?” I said.
“No, no number house, no money, no money clinic.”
“No number house?” I repeated. “Oh… no address?”
“Si.”
“No Medicaid, no welfare because no address, right?”
“Si.” Sanchez frowned.
Sanchez had as much chance of solving this dilemma as he did getting accepted at the Crawford Country Club. This was the exact type of bureaucratic bullshit that made me want to jump out of my skin. I mean, I think welfare probably hurts as many people as it helps, but if there was ever a guy who needed some help from the government, it was Sanchez. Of course, I wasn’t even sure he was a citizen, but guys like Sanchez were the only guys who would pick apples and we all love to eat those apples, at least in our McDonald’s apple pies, don’t we? Most people, or at least most people who call in to talk radio shows, don’t get that point-oh well, they didn’t get much of anything.
I thought for a second and had an idea. My ideas often got me in trouble, but I figured that was probably the case with most Robin Hood-type geniuses. I also figured that my chances of getting caught were low. That figuring was probably wrong, but what the hell. I scribbled on a sticky note and handed it to Sanchez.
“Give them this and tell them to call this man,” I said. I gave him my address with the letter B after the street number, like it was an apartment building-as if an Airstream trailer could have a couple of floors or something. Sanchez smiled.
“Gracias, Senor Duff. You da man, si!” Sanchez said.
He left happy and I called Dr. Rudy.
“Rudy here,” he answered his office phone.
“Hey pal.”
“Whatya want.”
“Geez, what kind of mood are you in?”
“I’m fuckin’ busy and the only time you call me, you need me to stick my neck out.”
“That hurts.”
“So what is it?”
“I got a migrant farm worker who needs an address. I told him to tell DSS that he’s renting an apartment from you.”
“You what?”
“C’mon, all you have to do is tell them that he rents from you when they call.”
“Welfare fraud is what it’s called.”
“You do have a way with words.”
“Fuck you.”
He hung up, which I knew he would do. That was fine because I saw it as the price I had to pay for his favors. There was no doubt Rudy would come through. He always does. I’d take shit for it and maybe for a long time, but that was the surcharge I paid for his kindness.
I
started to head for the coffee machine when I noticed the TV was on in the break room and all the staff were gathered around it. There was an MSNBC special report on and it was midmorning.
I walked up behind Monique.
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
“There’s another one. All they’re saying is that a high-school girl was murdered and sexually mutilated.”
“What is ‘sexually mutilated’?”
“I can only imagine,” she said.
“They think it’s Howard?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
What was supposed to be an easy half-day was turning into a nightmare. All I had wanted to do was get some paperwork done, see Sanchez, and then get out and focus on my fight. Now there was going to be a thing, I could sense it. Claudia loved making a thing of things, and if it gave her an opportunity to be officious and pompous, then she would milk it for all it was worth.
Turns out that she demanded that none of us leave until she gave the okay, and she reminded us over and over not to speak to the press. Then, she called in the board for a special meeting. The board at Jewish Unified Services was the biggest bunch of phony goofs you ever wanted to see. A while back, one of them actually shot me after I exposed his Internet porn industry. He was the same guy who shot Al, who happened to come to my rescue and save my life. Well, that board member won’t be attending any meetings soon because he drew a twenty-five-to-life sentence and actually was doing time at Green Haven, which had me wondering if he and Howard ever crossed paths.
