by F. X. Toole
Dan was friends with the greens master at the nearby Wilshire Country Club. He was the father of an amateur boy Dan had once trained. Dan’s fighters had run there for years, running the paths and under the trees at five every morning except Saturdays and Sundays, and leaving by the back gate before most golfers teed off on the first hole. Now Chicky ran with Momolo and Barky every morning. After breakfast, Chicky cleaned floors in the shop and hauled trash to the Dumpsters. He cleaned toilets and painted the fence. He kept the gym looking bright and spare, the mirrors polished. He finished his duties so quickly that Dan and Earl gave him work making pickups and deliveries. He wanted to work more hours, but Dan made him rest. Chicky was getting strong again, inside and out, and he knew it.
Dan and Earl could see it, too. They’d known the boy was solid after only three days, knew he’d be there when the rockets came ripping in and things got thrilling.
Chicky made the call back home to Poteet and held his breath for fear he might not say things right. But there was no need, because things between him and his granddaddy were the same as always.
Eloy said, “Well, well, if it ain’t the ol’ strawberry man himself.”
“Guess what, Grandpa,” Chicky said, “I found Dan Cooley and he ain’t dead.”
“Huh?”
Chicky related the story of his losses and how he’d come to meet Dan Cooley, about the fight in the parking lot, about Earl, about Barky, and about his part-time job and where he was living and training.
Eloy was so tickled by the good tidings that he forgot the bellyful of tenpenny nails in his guts. “From what you say, this Velasco was bad medicine.”
Chicky said, “More like poison.”
Eloy said, “Cooley’ll cure you.”
“It’s what I’m thinkin, too.”
“You wait and see,” said Eloy. He spat some dip juice down into a Pyrex measuring cup, the liquid pungent and grainy as it soaked into a balled-up paper napkin. “Cooley, he, uh, does Mr. Cooley know about me?”
Chicky said, “He asked if I heard of a Eloy Garza from down Texas, and I’m sorry, Granddaddy, but it just come out that I said I didn’t.”
Eloy smiled, was glad there was nothing to connect him to Chicky for Dan Cooley. He remembered the smashed side of Dan’s face and winced, closed his eyes. “You done good, boy, like always.”
“See, Granddaddy, I said I didn’t know of you ‘cause I was losin my ass off out here, and I didn’t want to bring shame on your good name.”
Eloy set the measuring cup down, used the handle to give it a half spin. “Mi querido chiquito, my beloved little one, you could never bring shame on nobody, least ways not on me.”
I’m the one that brings shame. I should be dead.
Because Trini Cavazo always insisted, Eloy Garza had to meet him at the Cathedral of San Fernando. Like every other time, Trini had made his drop and gone. Eloy remained in a pew, where he read an article on Psycho Sykes’s professional career in the San Antonio Express-News. Eloy shook his head, then dropped his right hand to press his swollen liver. In his left hand he clutched a paper bag of small, boxed brown bottles he’d just bought from Trini. Every time Eloy saw the dope dealer, he remembered the deal with Chicky’s passbook. But now Eloy was able to think of Chicky working and training with Dan Cooley in California, and Eloy was grateful to God. He’d complained to Trini about doing business in the cathedral.
“Ain’t nothin safer than the bosom of the Mother Church, m’hijo,” Trini said. He checked the cathedral again for narcs, and then pinned Eloy with his black eyes. “So Chicky’s still goin school, eh?”
“Claro,” Eloy said. “He calls home all pumped about new science and stuff.”
Trini added, “He been comin back into town some, ¿ése?”
“Nooo,” Eloy said. “He can’t afford to take off from his books, and ain’t no way I’m up to drivin to College Station.”
Trini nodded, but didn’t remove his eyes from Eloy’s. “It’s best he stays up there. Ain’t that right?”
“I know.”
Trini left the church smiling. Scoring was better than anything, especially in a cathedral off a dead man.
Chapter 33
No, I’m not askin for too much money,” Dan Cooley said into the phone. “Garza’ll fill the auditorium.”
Dan listened to the Mexican promoter’s complaints while he savored a reddish brown Montecristo robusto with a fifty-two ring. When the promoter finished, Dan jumped back in.
“It’s not too much money, not when Chicky Garza can knock your dick in the dirt with either hand.”
“Ya, ya, but nobody wan’ Garza,” said the Auditorio Municipal promoter in Tijuana. “Garza fight at welter, but he hit like a goddan middle, and from the lef’ goddan side.”
“So I pay ‘em extra.”
“They don’ wan’ extra.”
Dan winced as he nipped at the end of the Montecristo. Except for being a southpaw, a kid like Chicky was Seabiscuit, Whirlaway, and Man o’ War all rolled into one.
I got no more juice, Dan thought. He looked in the mirror on the opposite wall across from him, saw himself and his white hair. Why keep tryin, old man? You had your run.
But being in his sixties had never stopped him before, so he gave the promoter’s nuts another squeeze. “Louie fuckin Carbajal.”
“Dan fuckin Cooley, el culero, the butt-fuck,” chortled the Mexican promoter.
Dan came back with, “Póg mo hón.”
“Eh, what’s that you say, culero?”
Dan laughed. “I said kiss my ass in Irish.”
Carbajal enjoyed this rough talk between old friends. “Dan, you know I’m sorry.”
Dan touched his ruined right eye unconsciously, a habit he’d years before given up trying to kick. “Louie, we go back a lotta years. Garza’s a KO puncher, he’s what all fans want, specially you fuckin Mexicans, c’mon, talk to me, gimme some love.”
“Dan, you was always good to me when I start out,” said Carbajal, “but Garza’s got that hebby left hand, and managers don’t want they prelin boys knocked on they ass. I got ten-round fighters for you boy, but you don’t want that.”
“Garza’s only had seven fights and he lost three of those, for chrissakes,” Dan said. “He’s not ready for ten rounds.”
The promoter said, “Maybe on my next card, okay?”
“I’ll pay ‘em extra outta my own pocket, what do you say?”
“Nobody wan’ the extra, that what I’m sayin.”
Dan said, “You could bring in somebody from Mexico City who don’t know about Garza.”
“Costs too much for me, plane tickets and all that shit. Maybe next tine.”
Dan said, “Yeah, okay, Louie, maybe next tine.”
Dan hung up the phone and glared at it. He’d called three U.S. promoters before he called Carbajal, got the same answer each time. He left his soundproofed office and started downstairs to the main floor of his body-and-fender shop. It was his crew’s afternoon break, and they were kicked back eating junk food from the coffee wagon. Only Earl was on his feet. He stroked his Dizzy Gillespie lip whiskers and looked up.
“I lost my juice,” Dan said, ready to spit. “I had it, and I threw it away.”
“You still got juice,” Earl said, wiping a speck of dust from a shiny tail fin with a polish cloth he held in his bad right hand. “Makin fights for a lefty’s like findin a free ho house.”
“Yeah, but me stayin out of the gym all that time didn’t help none. We lost some good fighters. And they spread the word around about me. ‘Cooley’s a burnout.’ “Dan spoke through his nose somewhat, like people who have suffered broken noses and such. “I shouldn’t a taken time off.”
“We could still get lucky with Garza.”
“I wish he was right-handed.”
“Me, too,” said Earl.
The two partners stood admiring Dan’s newly restored, factory-red 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible, its high whitewalls gl
eaming. Under Earl’s supervision, Chicky Garza had restored Dan’s car from the hubcaps up.
Dan sighted down the fenders of the Caddy for wrinkles and warps; checked the chrome for pits and flaws; eyeballed for defects the leather upholstery Chicky had chosen to be installed. Dan looked up to Earl. “You find anything wrong at all, at all?”
“Not a thing I could see,” said Earl.
“Me neither,” said Dan. “Chicky on his break?”
“He’s deliverin that ‘forty-one Ford woody he helped me with to Universal. Momolo followed in the pickup.”
“You and Chicky did a good job on that one, too,” said Dan.
“What say we raise Chicky another two dollars a hour?” Earl suggested.
“Why not?” Dan said. He again thought about getting Chicky a fight and decided to give it another go. “I’m going to try the promoter for the casino in Indio,” he said.
Earl nodded. “It’s a shot.”
Dan returned to his office, which had been enlarged several times over the years. Dan and Earl’s two desks took up most of the space; the rest was jammed with filing cabinets and shelves that overflowed with paint and fabric catalogs, and dusty cartons full of faded receipts. In the bottom of one of the cartons were some old scrapbooks. One wall of the office was glass and it looked out on the shop. Two walls were covered with before and after photographs of whacked vehicles that Shamrock Auto Body had returned to showroom condition. A fourth wall was covered with fight photos, many of them of Earl when he fought at 160, Dan in his corner. There were fight photos of others as well, blacks and Chicanos mostly. There were a few whites, but not many. There was a Philippino fighter, Buzzsaw Magallanes, out of Manila, a bantamweight champion in whose corner Dan had worked as cut man when Buzzsaw came to the States. He’d worked corners of several other champs as well, but he’d never had one of his own. There was heavyweight Luther Willis, now a paramedic, and featherweight Petey Rosas, now a sergeant with the San Ysidro PD. Schoolboy Tommy Ryan, just an average kid with a big dream and a bigger smile, always fought his heart out, but heart wasn’t enough to bring him back from Vietnam. There was one small photo of Dan winning the featherweight finals of the California Golden Gloves at the Olympic Auditorium.
Dan checked his card index, but before he could place a call, the phone rang. “Hello,” Dan said, “Shamrock Auto Body.”
“Yessir,” a deep male voice said in greeting. “Is this here where Chicky Garza works? I’m callin long distance from Poteet, Texas?”
Dan smiled at the accent, thought it must be the Tex-Mex grandfather Chicky had sometimes mentioned. Dan had been delighted to learn that there were many Tex-Mex Mexicans who talked just like good ol’ South Texas boys, and in the beginning he would bullshit with Chicky just to hear the kid talk.
“Yes,” Dan said, “Chicky works here, but he’s makin a delivery. Can I help you?”
“Yessir, you can. This here’s Coach Harlan Oster. I was his football coach, and I been knowin him and his granddaddy ol’ Eloy Garza a long time. See, the Wolf’s terrible sick and I need to talk to Chicky, ‘cause this here’s a emergency.”
Stunned, Dan sat back. “I’ll have him call as soon as he comes in, shouldn’t be very long.”
“I surely do ‘preciate it.”
Dan took Oster’s number, said good-bye as calmly as he could, and hung up. He stared at the phone.
“Well, fuck me.”
Eloy Garza, the Wolf, the Lobo Tejano.
Dan’s face felt funny, felt as if all the blood had gone somewhere else.
It fit! Dan understood, some of it, anyway. He also wondered how much the kid knew, wondered if maybe the kid didn’t know anything about any of it. He thought about dialing Chicky’s cell phone, but decided to wait so he could be there when the kid called Texas.
He was about to go back down to the shop when the pressure hit his chest. One knee came up, and he caved forward. Kogon had warned him. An angioplasty solved the problem temporarily, sometimes for an extended period. Then it either had to be redone—or you were off to the races with a coronary bypass. Dan figured that the pain meant he was headed for a rematch with Kogon. It would start as an escalating pain over his left tit. He’d never had anything wrong with him except for his eye, and he kept hoping that the tit pain would just go away. Which was like hoping that your opponent in a fight who was slamming you with head shots would ease up on you.
Dan’s knee came down and he pressed hard on the left side of his chest with both hands. He momentarily summoned up what he thought open-heart surgery would be like. It would make the angioplasty look like a day at the beach.
He took an aspirin, his second that day, hoping to further thin his blood. Aspirin was part of the long-term treatment he’d begun once Chicky came into his life, along with medication to lower his cholesterol. At night he took half of a .5 Xanax to keep him asleep once he fell asleep. He was off the sauce, thanks to the dog and Earl and Chicky. But the call from Coach Oster had been like an arrow through his ears. He touched his eye.
In less than a minute, the pressure subsided. He waited a few moments more, caught his breath, then found excuses to climb and reclimb the stairs to his office, dared his heart to kill him. No more pain. He told no one about the incident.
Because of the Texas phone call, Dan let everyone off early. Earl knew something must be wrong.
Earl said, “You need me to hang around?”
Dan shook his head. “I’ll cover it.”
“I’ll stay if you want,” Earl offered.
“I gotta talk with Chicky.”
“I hope it ain’t bad,” Earl said.
“Me, too.”
It was four o’clock when Momolo and Chicky got back from delivering the woody, and Chicky was surprised that Dan was alone in the shop. Dan told Momolo that he could take off, too.
“Is there somethin up?” Chicky asked.
Dan waited until Momolo left, then gave the kid Coach Oster’s phone number.
“He said it was about your grandfather. If I remember right, Oster called him the Wolf.”
Chicky said, “Lordy,” and stood a minute not knowing what to think or do. Cat’s outta the bag, he thought.
Dan said, “Use the office phone.”
Chicky ran up the stairs, and Dan hurried up behind him. Still no recurring chest pain, so Dan conveniently forgot that it had ever happened.
Chicky telephoned Oster, and the coach told him that Eloy was in bad shape and needed him. Chicky was as stunned by the call as Dan had been, but for different reasons. “I knew he was hurtin some when I left,” he told Oster, “but I been callin him regular like since I been out here and he never said nothin about feelin bad.”
Oster said, “Bad enough that if I’da known about it two weeks ago, I’da called and said come home then.”
“I’ll get the first plane out.”
“Ain’t no plane until tomorrow. I checked,” Oster told him.
“I’ll be on the first one I can get. Thanks, Coach, God knows I mean it.”
“Glad to he’p you, boy.”
Chicky hung up and turned to Dan. “I gotta go home tomorrow. Is it too late to get a ticket?”
“There’s a travel agent open late in the Beverly Center. Ticket won’t be cheap, comin so close to the flight.”
Chicky kept his savings in Dan’s safe. “Take whatever you need outta my stake.”
Dan said, “Traffic and parkin’ over there’ll be a bitch, but you go pack anyway, in case we can get you out of here tonight. Maybe do a connecting flight or something.”
Chicky said, “I guess you’re gonna wanna talk to me some, huh?”
Dan said, “Is there a T in Texas?”
“Yup, an’ere’s a T in Tennessee, too, but I figure that ain’t gonna he’p me much.”
Dan could talk some Texas, too. “Rat.”
Chicky’s insides were hanging upside down, and he was filled with a shitload of wouldda-couldda-shoulddas for leaving
his granddaddy alone to come to California. It didn’t help that Eloy himself had backed this move. Now there was this T for Texas business.
He sat on the bed in his room. Packing wouldn’t take but a lick, but Chicky had the heebie-jeebies. What would he do until tomorrow if there were no red-eye flights? How would he get through the night? He decided to warm up and go ten hard rounds on the big bag, bust himself up, mash his nerves down, jump rope till his knees buckled and his skin sizzled.
Nailed to one wall of Chicky’s room was a clipping with a photograph from the San Antonio Express-News. It had been sent to Chicky by his grandfather, and featured Houston’s Cyrus Psycho Sykes, rising junior-middleweight star, whose record was nine and zero, with six knockouts. In the photo with Sykes were his two smiling trainers, San Antonio “boxing legends and trainers of champions,” Trini and Paco Cavazo.
According to the article, the Cavazo brothers had such faith in Sykes’s dedication to boxing and the clean life that they often sent him to the city for a few weeks of R & R after a fight, “… because it provided the Houston native with the best comfort zone to rest prior to returning to the wars of his skyrocketing career.”
The article added that the two San Antonio Chicanos training an African American “was but another example of how wonderful it is when members of different ethnic and racial groups cast aside real or imagined differences to work toward a common goal.”
Chicky said, “I got your common.”
He glowered at the clipping at least once a day.
While Dan was buying the kid’s ticket for a nine a.m. flight the next morning, Chicky pushed himself to exhaustion in the gym. When Dan returned, the kid innocently asked him if he would drive him to Christ the King Church.
Dan hesitated, then said, “You want to take the Caddy?”
To drive the old Cadillac was tempting, but Chicky said, “I don’t much feel like messin with traffic, is all. Or bein alone.”
Dan had come to loathe the lovely old church and its newer school. He didn’t want anything to do with the place, hated God and the Catholic faith. But because Chicky sought solace there, Dan kept his mouth shut and drove him over.
