Pound for Pound

by F. X. Toole

  Chicky was a nickname that had developed first from chico, and then chiquito, words meaning small and smaller still. The name stuck because he was small and sickly as a child. Because of his light complexion and green eyes, he was often taken for white, despite his dark hair. Even Mexicans would sometimes call him güero, a word used to describe light-skinned, or blond, people. Once he started fighting as a boy, some of the other kids called him Zurdito, Lefty, but that nickname never stuck. Being a southpaw had helped in the amateurs, confused other fighters when he boxed in ways they were unused to, but he preferred Chicky.

  Garza y Duffy came from his grandpa Eloy’s side of the family. The Duffy handle stemmed from way back, when immigrant Irish soldiers, abused under General Zachary Taylor’s command during the Mexican-American Wars, deserted to fight for Mexico. An annual parade is held in San Antonio to celebrate them. Many Mexicans proudly carry Irish blood.

  Chicky didn’t know who his father was. His mother wasn’t sure, so she gave him her family name when he was born. All the kid knew was that he was Chicano, someone of Mexican descent born in the U.S., but he was also something else entirely: a Tex-Mex, a pocho Tejano, a Mexican born in Texas, and that was something to be especially proud of. Southside poverty and the slick talk of the lawless vatos, pronounced bahtos—the toughs of the project—quickly converted the little boy’s gentleness into aggression and rebelliousness. Gang fights and cuchillados and navajazos, knife and razor wounds, were common and often fatal in the project. Jailhouse pachuco tattoos of a Christian cross located on the back of the hand between thumb and forefinger were commonplace. Chicky was caught riding a stolen bike. He was arrested, and a stern Tex-Mex judge named Herrera gave him a break because of his age, but promised him time in el bote, the can, should he see him in court again. The boy shrugged it off, thought of the slammer as a road to manhood and valor.

  He was but a small package, and the darker-skinned kids teased him for his light skin, told him his father had to be a redneck GI from Kelly Air Force Base. Chicky refused to believe it. Some called him Whirly-bird, and had to fight for that mistake. His resentment toward his mother, Rafaela, for his light complexion became so great that she knew she couldn’t deflect it as long as he lived with her in the run-down Victoria Courts, temporary housing dating from the end of World War II. It was an anthill of danger and drugs and dirt where the vatos saw themselves as the baddest of the bad in San Anto, one of the long-standing Tex-Mex names for San Antonio.

  Though Rafaela was far from an ideal mother, she feared the loss of her son to the prison system. She figured his only chance was for her to get him out of the project. She bundled his things up in a sheet one day and delivered him to her parents at their strawberry farm in Poteet. She said she was doing it for the boy. But her father, Eloy, also knew that she was doing it because of her part-time pimp, an over-the-road truck driver who aimed at increasing his income by taking her with him and working her at truck stops.

  Chicky never saw her again. His respect and growing love for his grandparents, Eloy and Dolores, coupled with the responsibilities of the farm, would change him back into the decent child who at five had promised his mother to work hard and earn money and move them out of La Vica. Chicky could recall what she looked like only if he saw her photograph at an aunt’s or uncle’s house—there were no photos of her at the farm—but he was reminded of his time at La Vica whenever he heard of a stabbing or a drive-by shooting.

  Amateur boxing would change the world for the scrawny little boy. His grandfather had been a fighter before he was a farmer, an amateur who turned pro and became known as el Lobo, the Wolf. Under Eloy’s tutelage, the kid grew and got strong. He stopped wearing wife-beaters and baggy pants down to the crack of his ass, outfits designed by homeboys to trumpet their cholo toughness, their valor mexicano. Eloy had inherited fourth-generation Mexican-border poverty, but with the encouragement of his wise and hardworking parents, he had worked and boxed his way up through it, and he would not let it destroy his grandson.

  Instead of turning to violence and drugs like so many other boys his age, Chicky, with his grandfather’s encouragement, won several amateur competitions that were held for all kids of every background, ages eight to fifteen. From there he progressed to the open, or senior, ranks, and one wall of his room was gradually covered in trophies from every weight and age division he fought in. When Eloy told him that his green eyes and light skin came from the San Patricios side of the family, Chicky’s shoulders relaxed for the first time since he was a little kid. He knew about the San Patricios from the parades.

  “You mean I got the blood of those Irish men in me, the ones who fought for Mexico?”

  “A huevo.” Eloy grinned. “Just goes to show that the Irish will marry anybody.”

  By the time Chicky was almost sixteen, he’d already begun to take more responsibility for the farm. With his granddaddy always pedo o crudo from the booze, drunk or hungover, Chicky worried that some gran chingadazo, or enormous screwing, was on its way.

  His grandmother Dolores had once attempted to make light of Eloy’s alcoholism. She said that Eloy had swallowed the worm at the bottom of a mezcal bottle, and had to keep drinking so the worm wouldn’t die. Realizing the depth of his grandmother’s suffering, Chicky swore to her that he would never drink alcohol. That was tough in Texas, where roadies—ice-cold beer for the road—were as legal and common as blue-bonnets. But despite offers from kids at school, girls as well as boys, Chicky had kept his promise.

  After Dolores died in 1991, Eloy would get up sick every day, and pass out early. His foreman ran the farm for a couple of years, but got fed up and moved on. Chicky suddenly realized that he was his grandfather’s caretaker and the boss of the farm. He took over as best he could, and he was glad to do it, but seeing pain in his grandfather was to suffer pain himself.

  Eloy had his devils, but he was always protective of Chicky. The boy would not suffer the burnout so many youngsters experience when pushed too hard in any sport. Eloy would allow Chicky to train seriously only when upcoming tournaments were scheduled. Afterward, Eloy would lay the boy off for several months so Chicky could absorb what he had learned. Besides, there was football as well as other sports to play. But the kid was fascinated with boxing, wanted to be a fighter the way Travis, Bowie, and Crockett had wanted to hold out at the Alamo.

  Since Chicky lived out in the country, this last year had been especially hard for him because he depended on Eloy to drive him to the gym. What he needed most was to spar. Without sparring, a fighter can’t get sharp, can’t become accustomed to pain, can’t develop the speed and hand-eye coordination necessary to win. But now Eloy either sat around or slept. Chicky missed the workouts in their homemade gym, starting when he was brand new to the game. Eloy would talk strategy in his rough and funny way, and had even tried to get him to convert from southpaw to fighting orthodox, or right-handed. Eloy argued that fighting orthodox would give him the advantage of having a bigger left hook than most right-handed fighters. He also pointed out that right-handers, especially the pros, would do their best to “duck” southpaws, avoid them whenever they could, because facing left-handers was a handicap for most orthodox fighters.

  “Come on, at least try it huevón,” lazy big balls.

  Chicky would laugh and try, but he felt better fighting as a left-hander. “I hit harder my natural way, Grandpa.”

  “That’s because you don’t practice at it.”

  The mischievous kid in Chicky would always stall the old man. He’d stumble purposely, or pretend he’d hurt his hand when he worked right-handed. “Maybe mañana,” he’d tease, stretching the Spanish syllables.

  “Ay-yai-yai,” Eloy would say. “Mañana don’t never come, you don’t know that yet, huevón?

  Chapter 7

  Chicky and Eloy left the farm one afternoon in 1994 and drove to the San Ignacio Gym in San Antonio. Chicky operated tractors and trucks on the farm, but, at fifteen, was too young to legally
drive roads and highways. As usual, he rode shotgun with his grandfather. The sun was bright as a white duck’s bill, and he had to squint to see through the broken bugs and wings and yellow gut smears that nastied up the windshield.

  Once they got to San Antonio, Eloy steered his pickup along Santa Rosa and into the San Ignacio parking lot at the corner of Travis. The Greyhound bus station and Crockett’s barbecue were a couple of blocks east of the gym, the Cathedral of San Fernando a few blocks down from there.

  “Made ‘er,” said Eloy.

  Chicky softly closed and locked the passenger door of the truck, Fresita, Eloy’s nickname for his pampered strawberry red 1981 Chevy pickup. “Fresita” was a play on the Spanish word for strawberry, fresa. His grandfather carefully locked his side. Chicky started for the nearby double doors of the gym, which was a sprawling, two-story enchilada red brick building located just up the street from the Santa Rosa Hospital.

  The gym dated from the late 1950 s, and had originally been funded by the Catholic Church. The far wing was an indoor basketball court with bleachers on opposite sides. Basketball and boxing tournaments were often held there, and drew large crowds. The gym was known to the regulars as the “San Nacho,” the nickname for San Ignacio. At the door, Chicky looked back.

  Eloy was still by the truck, his eyes sad. “Go on in and git to work.”

  Chicky didn’t understand. “What about you?”

  “Got to go to the hospital to see Doc Ocampo,” Eloy replied.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Eloy said, “Nothin’s wrong. I had tests is all.”

  “You sick?”

  “Naw, it’s just tests,” Eloy assured him.

  “When’ll you be back?” Chicky asked.

  “Soon’s Doc Ocampo does his checkup on me. So you gonna fish or cut bait?”

  Chicky said, “Órale, later,” and started for the door to the gym, grateful to be training again, but worried about his grandfather. He looked back once more, and Eloy was smiling. Things couldn’t be too bad.

  Chicky wished for times past, for suppers together when Eloy used to tell him about traveling to far places and winning big fights. It was fine even when supper turned into hastily consumed TV dinners once Chicky’s granny was gone. Chicky feared those times had slipped away forever. So when Eloy had asked him earlier that day if he wanted to head into San Anto for a workout at the San Nacho, Chicky said, “Book it,” unconsciously mimicking his grandfather’s way of talking.

  Chicky loved the old-timey Texas way Eloy spoke, his accent even more pronounced than El Paso’s great and charming golfer Lee Trevino. Once Chicky began to wear boots and a wide-brimmed hat, he quickly gave up the vato street talk of Victoria Courts to sound as much like Eloy as he could. He soon sounded as Texas as guys with nicknames like Cooter and Cotton. When Eloy let him drive the tractor alone that first time, the kid thought he’d burst with pride, but he never forgot how afraid he’d been when his mother left him to live at Eloy’s farm that distant Thanksgiving Day, how he’d huddled in the thin little coat his mother had gotten from Goodwill. And he never forgot how his grandfather and grandmother had made him feel as if he had lived with them always. When the Longhorns were playing the Aggies on TV, Eloy talked to Chicky as if he were a peer and it made him feel like a man, like an hombre.

  Before their first game, they’d flipped a quarter for first pick of a team. Years later he realized that his grandfather had rigged the toss so Chicky would win. Chicky chose the Aggies because he liked the sound of their name, and thereafter would remain an Aggie. Eloy rooted for the Longhorns. They made a pact to watch the annual Aggie-Longhorns game ever after and had never missed one. Before she got sick, Dolores, nicknamed Mamá Lola, had served hot dogs made with Polish sausage, and sauerkraut and spicy mustard. Afterward, they ate homemade flan with strawberries. Lola made coffee she got from Nuevo Laredo.

  Chicky and his grandfather had clapped and jumped on each play of the game. Whenever the Longhorns were behind, Eloy would clap his hands once and urge them on in that way of his. “All rat, ‘horns, ‘bout time t’open up a can a whip-ass.”

  If Eloy thought the referees had made a bad call, he’d rumble low in his throat, “Yessir, somebody got to the zebras.”

  It was Eloy’s influence that made Chicky a throwback. It was because of Eloy that Chicky’d never cottoned to Lone Star cholo—Mex-American—rap like so many of his contemporary Tejanitos, why he liked rancheritas and polkas, and the honky-tonk music played in juke joints and ice houses.

  Once Chicky had passed into the bright interior of the gym, Eloy crossed Santa Rosa against the red light, and walked slowly down the block to the hospital at the corner of Houston Street. Old at fifty-eight, and heavy for his height, he still walked like a fighter—short steps, chin tucked, shoulders slightly rolled forward. The Santa Rosa Hospital was where

  Chicky had been born. It was where Dolores’s cancer had been diagnosed and treated before she decided to go home. Now Eloy was going for a treadmill test, X-rays, and to get the results from previous blood and urine tests. They had been ordered by Dr. Rodrigo Ocampo, the family doctor of forty years, who promised a rush on the findings and that he’d be there to explain them.

  “Somebody musta messed up here,” Eloy protested when he was given the results.

  Dr. Ocampo said, “Guess who.”

  Ocampo was nearly eighty years old, but looked sixty. His full head of stiff white hair and Zapata mustache gave him the look of a revolutionary, but his black almond eyes were those of a poet. He was one of the few who knew the truth about why Eloy’s boxing career had effectively ended in a dreadful fuck-up, desmadre, out at the Olympic Auditorium in L.A. Ocampo had forgiven Eloy—what else could he do?—even if Eloy hadn’t forgiven himself.

  “We got to dry you out, pods. Your liver is getting as hard as a rock.”

  “I don’t want to hear about no cures,” Eloy said firmly.

  “You know I saw this coming, right?”

  “It ain’t no big surprise to me, either, if you had any doubts,” Eloy replied.

  Ocampo slipped into a heavy cholo accent, “Come on, come on, goddamnit, this is the fuckin doctor’s orders, man.”

  Eloy answered the same way. “Eloy Garza don’t take no stinkin orders.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “I’ll last awhile.” But Eloy knew he might not have a hell of a lot of time.

  “He’ll do better with you around longer than shorter,” Ocampo told him.

  “Doc, I’d’a changed a long time ago if I couldda.”

  Ocampo nodded. “You got my number if you change your mind, hear?”

  Eloy swore Dr. Ocampo to silence about the results of the tests. The Wolf, his soiled T-shirt stretched tight over his distended gut, would never share the results with anyone.

  The San Ignacio was a bustling gym, crowded primarily with Latinos, but there were a few blacks as well. No white fighters, though Chicky was often taken for one. There were two large, elevated rings and swaying body bags hung on cables and chains from the high ceiling. There were several rows of long benches near the entrance, and light from bright overhead lamps spun off the lime green walls as if dancing with the racket of the banging speed bags and whapping leather jump ropes. Some trainers huddled to whisper with their fighters, some moved through the commotion like monks gliding to evensong. There was one old-time white trainer who moved lithely despite his age. Some youngsters tried to teach each other, none of them teaching or learning much.

  Two longtime trainers in the San Nacho, the brothers Trini and Paco Cavazo, went back almost to the day the gym had first opened. They always staked out territory near the back of the ring, and barked like jailers at their fighters on the premise that either discipline ruled or chaos would erupt.

  Chicky took his time changing into his outfit—jock and T-shirt, sweatpants, and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off below the elbow. He wore dark blue gym shorts over the pants, and over the shi
rt he wore a kind of vest made from a faded black sleeveless sweatshirt. Layers meant perspiration. By the time he laced up his high boxing shoes, he figured Eloy would be in the gym waiting. He wasn’t. Chicky wrapped his hands. He warmed up for three rounds, then stretched. He went on to shadowbox, and after three rounds had broken into a good sweat. It felt good, his sweat steaming him, his body feeling oiled inside. He was ready to work the punch mitts, but Eloy was still at the hospital, so Chicky worked the big bag. He took it easy for two rounds, wanting to save some gas for Eloy, still known around San Nacho as the Wolf, who hadn’t returned.

  Chicky cut loose, worked four hard rounds on the big bag, then went flat. He dogged it on the speed bag for two more rounds, painfully aware that he wasn’t in the shape he liked to be in. He forced himself through only two rounds on the jump rope, then did a hundred sit-ups in four sets of twenty-five. Ordinarily, he’d do five or six sets of thirty. No Eloy.

  Chicky showered quickly. He dried his close-cropped hair, then changed back into boots and jeans. Disappointed, and growing more concerned, he returned to the floor, which was nearly empty. Good fighters will go as many as fifteen, even twenty rounds nonstop in less than one and a half hours, then leave the gym promptly, no socializing. Chicky took a quick look around, nodded to the Cavazo brothers, Eloy’s former trainers, and then hurried out to check Fresita, but the pickup was gone. He’d known from experience what to expect, but tried not to believe it. He waited ten minutes in the dark, then gave up and reentered the gym. He crossed over to where the Cavazos were finishing up.

  “You seen my grandpa?” Chicky asked.

  Trini, the older of the brothers, said, “You need a ride?”

  Chicky said, “Naw, he’s late, that’s all.”

  Trini, the nickname for Trinity, as in the Holy Trinity, had also been known as Flash, but that was when he had a fine pro record of twenty-two and four, with sixteen KOs. Then the booze, the chicas, the gambling, and, finally, all the coke and the other shit he ingested made him a functioning addict. He thrived, became a dealer himself, and had maintained his habit for more than half his life. No street drugs for him, and none for what he referred to as his GQ customers, his uptown junkies.