At first, all P.F. could see was the jaw opening and closing slightly. But as the fighters moved nearer to his corner, he began to catch a few of the words.
“You ain’t nothin’,” Elijah somehow growled in a muddy, distorted voice.
Terrence, breathing heavily, with the first-round cut closed above his eye, reared back and hit Elijah with a jab that would’ve put the lights out in a pinball machine.
But Elijah merely bounced into the corner above P.F. and the others. “You ain’t hurt me yet,” P.F. heard him mutter.
Knowing ringside microphones would pick up anything they said, the fighters began to talk more and punch less.
“You a pussy, Terry,” said Elijah, miming the part of a punch-drunk fighter with wobbly knees, getting a laugh out of the crowd.
Terrence came back with a furious left hook. Elijah deflected it with both gloves.
By all rights, he should have been down four rounds ago, P.F. thought. It was only a thin membrane of humanity that kept him standing. And P.F. wished that in his own moments of weakness he’d had a fraction of Elijah’s fortitude.
“Shut up, old man,” Terrence said. His uppercut caught the tip of Elijah’s nose and seemed to drive the bone a little closer to the brain.
Elijah turned his head just enough for P.F. to see he was smiling through the blood. Maybe a demented reflex.
“Who you think you fighting?!!” he glowered at Terrence. “What’s my name?”
“Ah, that ain’t nothing. What’s my name?”
“WHAT’S MY NAME?!”
“WHAT’S MY NAME, MOTHERFUCKER??!!”
By now they’d both abandoned any semblance of defense or strategy. They were standing head-to-head, trading blows, like beasts battling in a primordial swamp. Each shot went straight to the head, a brandished club finding its target each time. The crowd was caught up in the blood mania, its sound ricocheting off the walls and filling P.F.’s ears, like voices coming from inside his own head. Terrence clapped Elijah on the ear with a muffled right hand. Elijah punished him with a driving left under the chin. Terrence countered with a twisting right to the midsection. Elijah mashed the kid’s eye socket with a left and a halo of sweat exploded from the back of Terrence’s head.
“THAT’S WHO I AM! THAT’S WHO I AM!” Elijah kept saying every time he hit him. “THAT’S WHO I AM!!!”
And just when it seemed they’d finally exhausted themselves and couldn’t go any further, the bell rang.
Elijah immediately began to drop where he stood. Whatever spirit had been animating his body was now gone. His brother John rushed forward and caught him in his arms just before he hit the canvas. P.F. never had a chance to help him. Though he weighed less than his brother by some thirty pounds, John hoisted Elijah onto his shoulder and as tenderly as a mother holding a child he began to carry him back to his stool in the corner. As he turned, P.F. could see John crying uncontrollably as Elijah hung limply over him.
Above the cresting roar of the crowd, he could hear John’s voice saying, “I love you, my brother. I love you.”
63
AS SOON AS THE final bell sounded, I was on my feet, trying to shove my way through the crowd so I could stand beside my fighter in the ring. For years I’d thought someone like Frank Diamond or Dan Bishop would show me how to rise above and act like a man among men. But it was Elijah who’d done it. All I wanted at that moment was to shake his hand.
But as I began to climb the steps to the ring, I happened to glance over my shoulder and see Tommy Sick coming up the aisle toward me. I pictured him working me over with an acetylene torch and giggling, “I’m sick! I’m sick!” At the last possible second, though, a security guard grabbed him and started to escort him out.
I hoisted myself through the ropes and went looking for Elijah. The inside of the ring was like a slaughterhouse. Blood was splattered on the blue beer-company emblem in the middle of the mat. The rest of the canvas was still slick from whatever other juices Elijah and Terrence had spilled.
Now all the celebrities and VIPs came flooding in. It was like a billowing yeast of people. Here was the junk bond king, there was the movie star. I found myself pressed up against a United States senator from the West Coast. We were all hemmed in together like cattle in a small pen. And for a split second, I felt like I finally belonged. Because of Elijah, I’d been elevated into the company of winners. We weren’t going to get the decision tonight, but the fact that he’d gone the distance was enough. Frank would have to give us a rematch and money for the options. I was finally respectable.
I caught a glimpse of Elijah and John B. through the crash of bodies and began moving toward them. There were twice as many people as there should have been in the ring. Reporters, high rollers, board chairmen, and various other hustlers and con artists. Their dry, pampered smell was already drowning out the sweat that came off the fighters.
The microphone began to descend from the ceiling as I tried to squeeze between Sam Wolkowitz the cable TV guy and Eddie Suarez, the bagman for the boxing federation. I saw John B. still hugging Elijah and trying to pull the robe over his shoulders. I heaved myself toward them as a voice to the side of me asked to see what kind of access badge I was wearing. I turned and saw a security guard with huge pockmarks on his face. In the confusion, I’d lost the badge, but screw him. I’d earned the right to be here. When he reached for my shoulder, I gave him a shove and kept moving forward.
And then I got hit.
I never saw the guard frown or even draw back his fist. He just walloped me. The punch caught the right side of my head and rattled my brains. I went reeling sideways and fell against the senator. He stepped neatly out of the way, and I hit the floor hard, landing on the back of my head. For a few seconds I blacked out. When I came to, I was staring up at the colored lights and florid faces. I felt like I’d been shattered into a thousand pieces and put back together the wrong way.
Someone grabbed me by the arms and someone else got my legs and before I knew it, I was being carried out of the ring. They deposited me on one of the ringside press tables. I lay there stunned and paralyzed, like a deer strapped to the top of a station wagon, while the ring announcer read the judges’ scores and shouted: “THE WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION TERRENCE THE MONSTER MULVEHILL!!”
The crowd’s cheers made the blood swirl in my brain. I closed my eyes again. It could have been for two minutes, it could’ve been ten. I was vaguely aware of hundreds of people climbing over me, and occasionally treading lightly on a limb.
By the time I opened my eyes again, the arena was mostly empty. There were already maintenance men in orange uniforms sweeping up. It was as if the circus had just left town. I struggled to sit up and figure out how to use the rest of my body again. Everything seemed strange and unfamiliar. I looked at my hands, trying to remember what time I’d said I’d meet Frank in the dressing room to get the rest of the money. All I could think of, though, was Vin holding out his arms and saying “I been your father” on the Boardwalk. But that was part of another life. I couldn’t go back to that anymore.
The clock above the ring said it was ten to midnight. An old black janitor with a face as withered and sad as the fall leaves outside was mopping the canvas. I got slowly to my feet and looked around for the red exit sign that would lead back to the dressing rooms.
