by Tom Nelson
Tommy and Billy are out on a run. Billy’s car is loaded and Tommy is running blocker. The two are headed north into South Carolina this evening. They are driving to Orangeburg, where they are to drop off a load of liquor and pick up three hundred pounds of sugar, which will be used in the making of moonshine.
It’s a dark night. The moon is hidden behind trees and stars are barely visible in the sky. The two drivers have their normal headlights and running lights on and are driving as close to the speed limit as possible. Their trip has been uneventful. So far.
Suddenly, Tommy sees Billy swerve on the road. Tommy is looking for an obstacle in the road as he approaches the area where Billy swerved, but there isn’t one. What the fuck? Tommy thinks. Not again. Billy’s car swerves again, only this time toward the side of the road. It kicks up a cloud of dust.
Tommy presses down hard on the accelerator and, once again, the 454 Chevy engine propels him forward like a rocket. He catches up with Billy just in time to see him swerve across the road again and jerk the car back onto the correct path. Billy is falling asleep again! Tommy flashes his lights and beeps the horn to get Billy’s attention. Billy puts a hand out the window with a thumbs-up and keeps driving. Tommy is hoping the other boy will be able to stay awake for the remainder of the trip.
Tommy drops back to his position about half a mile behind Billy and watches closely as they drive. Billy seems fine for a little while but starts drifting across the road again. Once again, Billy is falling asleep at the wheel. After the other boy’s car swerves several times, Tommy speeds up in an attempt to overtake Billy and signal him to stop and rest a while.
As Tommy’s car accelerates, he passes a small dirt road to his left and can see a highway patrol car sitting there. He is driving well over the speed limit, which draws the attention of the parked patrolman. Within seconds, Tommy sees lights flashing in his rearview mirror.
FUCK! Tommy thinks. Here we go!
Tommy presses his foot down on the accelerator and brings his car up to 100 mph. He is barreling down this old country road with a cop behind him and Billy out in front of him. Tommy hopes Billy will see the lights and react accordingly, and he does. Billy’s car suddenly goes dark. Tommy is unable to see him anymore. Excellent! Tommy can hear the engine in Billy’s car as the boy puts the pedal to the floor.
Tommy gives the Camaro everything it has at that point and pulls away from the highway patrol car a little bit. He turns hard right onto another country road and, seconds later, Tommy sees flashing lights coming from the opposite direction as well. “Son of a bitch!” Tommy swears. He has two cops to get rid of now!
Tommy has the Camaro at 130 mph and is moving faster than he has ever driven! He is pumping adrenaline like it’s gasoline! Tommy is scared shitless but feels a sense of excitement as well. The two seem to go hand in hand, he thinks and chuckles.
The cop that is heading toward Tommy, passes him and the other patrol car, then does a screeching 180-degree turn in the road. He now has both cops behind him! But, no sooner than that thought goes through his head, Tommy sees another set of flashing lights headed toward him. FUCK! Now he has three highway patrol cars on his ass.
The lights in front of him seem to stop moving, and Tommy realizes the third cop is setting up a roadblock. Tommy turns down another country road that intersects with the highway they are on, attempting to circumvent the roadblock, and immediately starts switching off his lights. But the cops are too close. They see Tommy dousing the lights of his vehicle and instantly know they are dealing with much more than a simple speeder who’s decided to take them on a chase!
It isn’t long before Tommy can see more flashing lights ahead of him. A roadblock has been set up! Quickly considering his options, Tommy suddenly slams on the brakes and turns the wheel of the car hard to the left. His car goes screeching sideways down the road until he is able to regain control. One of the cops behind him flies right on by, but the other has time to slow down and is waiting for Tommy to make his next move.
Tommy is now heading in the opposite direction straight for one of the highway patrol cars. The patrolman in the car ahead of Tommy isn’t giving him room to maneuver and the two find themselves in a game of chicken as they drive toward each other at high speed. The two cars are approaching each other fast!
Both drivers are nervous, white-knuckling the wheels of their cars, and wide eyed with anticipation of what’s about to happen. The two cars are headed straight for each other! At the last second, both drivers turn their wheels to the right, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, but still swiping the sides of each other’s vehicle. Both vehicles swerve away from the sideswiping collision, but Tommy is unable to maintain control of his vehicle and the Camaro slides sideways into the ditch.
By the time Tommy is able to get out of the car and take off running, the cop behind him manages to stop and is already on foot. Tommy, somewhat shaken from the crash and pumped to the gills with adrenaline, starts to run and finds his legs are like jelly. The cop catches up with Tommy quickly and tackles him to the ground.
Tommy sees glimpses of his short past mixed in with what must be glimpses into the future as he is manhandled by the cops, cuffed, and put into one of the patrol cars. Once again, everything seems completely surreal.
Billy makes his delivery and gets home safely.
Tommy will spend the next three years behind bars.
1980
Tommy is sitting in court. He looks back and sees his parents in the audience. They are here because the court has ordered them to be here. Tommy doubts they would be here otherwise.
Tommy is accepting a plea bargain for one to six years in prison under the South Carolina Youthful Offender Act, which allows the court to charge a juvenile as an adult under certain circumstances.
Tommy assaulted an officer at the juvenile facility where he was being held for the crimes related to bootlegging for Jack. He broke the man’s nose and humiliated him among the other juvenile inmates as well as other officers.
He’d had it coming, Tommy rationalizes, because he was constantly singling me out and picking on me. He’d told the guy to leave him alone, but he just didn’t listen.
Tommy’s parents are required to sign paperwork at the court in relation to his trial and sentencing. They don’t look happy to be here.
Tommy’s father has written him off. His mother, on the other hand, has never given up on her son and will write occasionally. She sends him books on the power of positive thinking and other self-help literature. Tommy reads all of it. He even reads the Bible twice, cover to cover, during his six months in solitary. After all, what else does he have to do?
Tommy spends the longest six months of his life in solitary confinement waiting for his seventeenth birthday to arrive. The minimum age limit for prison in South Carolina is seventeen, so younger offenders are held in isolation until they are of legal age. It’s hard time!
“Happy birthday, punk!” comes the voice of the guard as he opens Tommy’s cell door. “You’re going to prison!”
“It’s about fucking time!” Tommy replies. He is dying to get out of isolation. Sure, it’s fine for a week or two. But, stretch it out for six months and it gets very, very old.
Tommy has no idea what lies ahead of him but looks forward to it anyway!
1981
Tommy is walking across a prison yard in South Carolina toward the track. He has been pumping iron in the mornings and running a few miles on the track every afternoon. He is in incredible shape at age eighteen.
The prison yard consists of a field that is used for sports. It has a track around it, a workout area referred to as the iron pile, and a shabby old boxing ring.
Tommy walks past the boxing ring on his way out to the track almost every afternoon.
As Tommy is walking past the ring today, a skinny African American man is bouncing around the ring, shadowboxing and fighting an unseen adversary. Tommy sees him out here most days. Arthur is his name. Arthur Jackson. Arthur had bee
n a Golden Gloves boxer before joining a gang and getting into a world of shit selling drugs and gangbanging.
Arthur spends most of his time in the boxing ring, of course, and will occasionally talk shit to passersby. It is mostly playful, but can be aggravating as hell some days. Today is one of those days.
“Where you goin’, white buuooooooyyy?” Arthur asks in his Southern gangsta voice. “You goin’ out to da track again?” Arthur is still bouncing around the ring but is throwing punches down at his sides now.
“Don’t fuck with me today, geech!” Tommy hollers back. Tommy has been having a bad day, which happens when you’re in prison. Arthur is a member of the notorious Geech gang from the Charleston area of South Carolina.
“Man,” Arthur responds, “fuck you, white buuooooooyyy! Dis geech’ll fuck yo ass up!”
“Really?” Tommy asks sarcastically.
“Dat’s right!” Arthur eggs him on, “Get up in here and put some gloves on.”
Tommy thinks about Arthur’s invitation for a moment, then says, “All right, motherfucker, here I come.” He climbs into the ring and fishes a pair of gloves from a milk crate and starts putting them on. He has only worn boxing gloves a few times in his life, despite being in a lot of fights. Tommy pops his gloves together to signal to the other man that he is ready.
“Put dat on too, man,” Arthur tells Tommy and points at headgear. Tommy looks at it, considers it for a moment, then picks it up. Arthur is a Golden Gloves boxer, after all. Tommy puts the headgear on and pops his gloves together again. “Okay, white buuooooooyyy,” Arthur says, “here we go!”
The two men approach each other and Arthur takes a jab right away, but Tommy deflects it. They move around in an imaginary circle, feeling each other out. Tommy acts as though he is going to throw a right but holds back at the last second. Good thing he did. Arthur had obviously seen an opening and was going for it. His glove brushes the side of Tommy’s face as it swishes by. Tommy counters with an uppercut, which is easily deflected by Arthur. Arthur takes a couple of steps back and starts talking shit.
“Is dat all you got, white buuooooooyyy?” Then, he heads back in toward Tommy and begins a flurry of punches. He does a good job of deflecting many of them, but the other man is a much more accomplished pugilist than Tommy.
Tommy steps back from Arthur and gets his bearings. The rapid flurries of punches he has just received from Arthur has him seeing a few “chrome beetles” flying around his head. Once he has regained his equilibrium, Tommy steps back up to Arthur and throws a combination of punches that don’t do a lot of damage. And, once again, Arthur seizes the opening provided by Tommy and throws another series of punches that knock Tommy backward.
“You had enough, white buuooooooyyy?” Arthur asks in his Southern drawl.
“Just about,” Tommy says as he steps forward once again. Arthur looks at Tommy as if to say, “You’s a hardheaded white boy,” and moves forward also. He is feeling confident after knocking Tommy around a bit. He can see the fatigue on Tommy from the hard work of boxing and taking punches.
“Okay, then,” Arthur says and starts to put his gloves up when he suddenly feels a searing pain in the top of his foot that makes him forget everything else. He grabs his foot and is making tormented faces. Tommy has stepped up close enough to Arthur to stomp on the top of the other man’s foot, which has him hopping around and howling.
Tommy seizes the opportunity he has created for himself, which he knows will be the only one he gets, and places a right, then a left, to Arthur’s head. Arthur topples to the mat in pain and disbelief.
“Is that all you’ve got, motherfucker?” Tommy shouts.
“Man, dat ain’t boxing, fool!” Arthur shouts back from the mat. “You can’t step on a motherfucker’s foot!”
“Shit,” Tommy says, “I didn’t know that.” He shrugs his shoulders as he removes the gloves and headgear and tosses them back into the crate. “I guess you’ll have to explain the rules next time.” With that, Tommy hops out of the boxing ring and heads out to the track. Tommy knows damn well that Arthur can whip his ass and he is fortunate that the other man didn’t.
Tommy has been using his daily workouts and runs as “therapy” during his long days in prison. They have a calming effect on him. Now, though, by fighting with Arthur, he has experienced the other side of that equation: exhilaration. He will seek that feeling again many times in future fights.
~~~
Tommy is again walking across the prison yard toward the track. He walks past the boxing ring on his way out to the track, as he does almost every afternoon. The skinny African American Golden Gloves boxer is again bouncing around the ring, shadowboxing and fighting his unseen adversary. Tommy sees him out of the corner of his eye and acts like he doesn’t see Arthur. Although Arthur’s taunts are generally playful, today is another one of those days that they’re aggravating.
“Where you goin’, white buuooooooyyy?” Arthur asks in his Southern gangsta voice. “You goin’ out to da track again?” Arthur walks over to the side of the ring and rests his gloves on the top rope.
“I’m not in the mood for you today, geech!” Tommy hollers back. Tommy has been having another bad day, which happens when you’re in prison, especially at age eighteen.
“Man,” Arthur responds, “fuck you, white buuooooooyyy! Dis geech’ll fuck yo ass up!”
“Really?” Tommy asks sarcastically. This conversation seems to be going exactly like their last one, Tommy realizes.
“Dat’s right!” Arthur again eggs him on. “Get yo ass up in here and put some gloves on.”
Tommy thinks about Arthur’s invitation for a moment, then says, “All right, motherfucker, here I come.” He climbs into the ring and fishes a set of headgear and a pair of gloves from the milk crate and starts putting them on. Tommy pops his gloves together once again to signal the other man that he is ready.
“I ain’t goin’ for da foot stompin’ today, man,” Arthur tells Tom. “Okay, white buuooooooyyy,” Arthur says, “here we go!”
The two men approach each other. Once again, Arthur takes a jab right away, but Tommy deflects it. They move around in an imaginary circle, again feeling each other out. Tommy acts as though he is going to throw a left but holds back at the last second. He watches Arthur’s reflexive response.
Tommy throws a right jab, which is easily deflected by Arthur. Arthur takes a couple of steps back and starts talking shit, as he usually does, “Wassup, white buuooooooyyy?” then heads back in toward Tommy and begins another flurry of punches. Tommy does a better job of deflecting them this time, but the other man is undoubtedly the better boxer.
Tommy steps back from Arthur to get his bearings, then steps back up to Arthur and throws a combination of punches that do absolutely no damage. And, once again, Arthur seizes the opening provided by Tommy and throws another series of punches that knock Tommy backward.
“You had enough, white buuooooooyyy?” Arthur asks in his Southern drawl.
“Not yet,” Tommy says as he steps forward once again. Arthur looks at Tommy as if to say, “You’s still a hardheaded white boy” and moves forward also. Arthur is feeling confident, of course, and can see Tommy is beginning to tire.
“All right,” Arthur says and put his gloves up.
Tommy steps up to Arthur and fakes the left he had at the opening of the round. When Arthur reacts in the same way, Tommy comes forward with a right-hand uppercut to his chin. Tommy can hear Arthur’s teeth clack together as he absorbs the unexpected punch. Lucky shot, Tommy thinks, and likely the only one I’m going to get.
“Is that all you got, motherfucker?” Tommy shouts.
Arthur doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, shouts, “Dat’s it, fool.”
“Shit,” Tommy says, as Arthur closes in on him. The black man throws a series of punches, some of which land and manage to knock Tommy back to the ropes.
“Man, you fucked up one of my teeth!” Arthur says. He shows his teeth in an o
dd sort of smile and Tommy can see that at least half of them are made of gold.
“Lucky shot, man,” Tommy says. Arthur throws another few punches at Tommy, but they seem halfhearted and are easily blocked.
“I know dat, fool!” Arthur says in his defense. “I won’t never let yo crazy ass get me again though. You can count on dat!”
Tommy just laughs. He’d been lucky to catch the boxer off guard once, much less twice.
Arthur should know better than to underestimate an opponent, though. “Dat’s it for today.”
Tommy and Arthur remove their boxing gear and toss it in the crate. The two don’t speak much as today’s round ends and Tommy makes his way out of the ring.
Tommy heads to the track for his afternoon run. As before, fighting with Arthur has made him feel exhilarated. The physical conditioning young Tommy is getting from pumping iron, running, and boxing is turning him into a lean, mean, fighting machine!
~~~
Tommy will return to the ring for a couple of more years. Fighting is becoming a new form of “therapy” for him and boxing with Arthur will serve Tommy well in the life that lies ahead of him.
“You got a lotta heart, white buuooooooyyy,” Arthur is saying, “but you can’t fight for shit!” The two men are standing in the boxing ring again. Both are wearing gloves and mouthpieces. “I’m gonna teach you some skills, fool.”
“Okay,” Tommy says, “then shut the fuck up and get to teaching.”
Arthur starts in on Tommy with a quick series of punches that catches Tommy off guard momentarily and knocks him back. Tommy regains his footing and moves up closer to Arthur again and is met with another flurry of punches.
“See, fool?” Arthur says. “You gotta be aggressive. Throw the first punch!”
“Okay,” Tommy says. He takes a few swings at Arthur, but they are easily dodged. He throws a jab that falls useless.
“Watch,” Arthur says, and begins his dancing and shadowboxing. He starts throwing punches in a very deliberate way and in certain patterns designed to help a boxer focus.
