quitting time. I decided to give the gym another shot. It had been almost a week, my head hadn't been throbbing a lot, and I wasn't hearing a bunch of shit about being wobbling or repeating myself. To be honest with you, if I'm tired or under-caffeinated I tend to be kind of stupid.
I wrapped my hands in front of the mirror when I felt someone watching me. Smitty was in the doorway to his office chewing gum and staring at me. He didn't say anything, but he didn't break his stare. When I started to warm up, he took a couple of steps closer and watched me as he stood there with his arms folded.
I just shook things out, throwing jabs, and an occasional left and began to circle the ring. Jab, jab, left, slip, move to my right. Jab, jab, jab, stutter, step, move to my left, flurry with a series of uppercuts to the body, spin to my right. It was how I loosened up every single day and it did a couple of things. It got me loose, but it also ingrained in me automatic patterns that, hopefully, my nervous system would respond to when split-second things happened in the ring. It wasn't unlike what I did when I trained in karate and we'd do katas for hours and hours. It programmed the nervous system to do things without the delay of consciousness. Guys drifted into the gym little by little. Angel, the 116pound guy with a dozen fights, and seven or eight wins was there. Fat Joe, a guy who didn't ever get in the ring, but who hit the bags, grunted and scowled, was there, not doing much. I think Fat Joe liked telling people he went to the boxing gym. Larry, the middleweight, came in, probably high, and started right in on the speed bag. He did three or four rounds there and then left.
Tashaun, the 200 pounder, came in and wrapped his hands. I was on the heavy bag and checking him out at the same time. He shadow boxed and I caught him glancing over at me once in awhile, but he pretended not to. Unconscious and semiconscious stuff is going on constantly in a gym, especially when someone comes in who's a potential sparring partner. Eyes dart around, evaluations are silently made, weaknesses are explored, and a mental game no one ever admits to is begun from the moment a fighter crosses the threshold. No one talks about it, no one wants to get caught doing it, and no one ever, ever admits to it. When the coach suggests two guys work in the gym both guys will act like they didn't even know the other guy was there and they'll shrug like the sparring partner is an inanimate object. Smitty came out of his office looking at me again. I knew he was evaluating me and he knew I knew but neither of us spoke. It was my first day back in this gym and he probably didn't know anything about Ravenwood, so it was about the time he would let a guy get back in the ring. That is, if he felt the guy was okay.
'Tashaun and Duff. You want to work?' I'd been waiting for the call.
Both Tay and I gave muted affirmative shrugs and got our gear on. Smitty helped each of us with the gloves, and he took a long look into my eyes without saying anything. I held his look for a while before it creeped me out a bit. I turned away and started to dance a bit in effort to look like I was loosening up, but it was mostly to break his stare.
The bell rang. Smitty stood on the ring apron, which was a bit unusual for him. He called out instructions to both of us at different times. Sometimes he'd bark one word 'guard', which meant get your hands up. Other times, 'recoil', which meant bring your hands back after throwing. 'Work and get out' when we tied up and 'Hook off that jab' were his standards. Tashaun was a pro, with six fights and a four and two record. He had won the state amateur championship, but he got sloppy with his training habits and had kind of under performed. He caught me with a hook that landed a bit high on my headgear. I felt it, and it had some steam on it, but it didn't land flush and it didn't do any damage.
Honestly, I felt a little relieved to take one and not have it do anything weird to my head. I feinted Tay to the body, jabbed to the head, and caught him with the cross that followed it. My timing felt good. The bell rang. Mostly uneventful give and take sparring round, but it left me loose and a little excited. The second went the same, and Tay tired. I feinted, coming in with a stutter step, and he went slightly back on his heels. I caught him with a combination. A nice move and it showed the differences in our experience. The whole thing probably occurred in less than two seconds, but it had about five components to it. I maneuvered Tay into the center of the ring, I jabbed, I stutter stepped like I was going to jab again, then I stepped in with three punches. It wasn't an accident; it was the game within a game that goes on all the time in boxing. Tay landed a thudding right and I partially blocked it, but part of it caught me in the face straight on. I felt the throb, but it wasn't bad and something I probably wouldn't even have noticed if I wasn't looking for it. That round ended and the next one went pretty much the same, only with less action. The rule of thumb in the boxing jungle is in a sparring session like this one where there's no important fight coming up, you don't take it to your partner when they're tired. You can step it up a bit and give enough action so the guy knows he needs to work on his stamina, but you don't punish him with it. Again, not said, probably not even in some guys' consciousness, but it's one of those rules of the gym.
'Time' Smitty called. 'All right boys, that's enough. Tay you probably ought to get in here more often and get out on the road if you want to fight.' Tay breathed heavy and he nodded knowingly without saying much. He knew he was a little out of shape.
'Not bad, Duff,' Smitty looked at me. 'Still, not turning over the hook,' a criticism Smitty had said to me every time I sparred here for a decade and a half. 'How'd you feel tonight?' Smitty's way of checking in about my head.
'Good… Good, Smit.' I still breathed heavy. 'I wanted to get off with the jab more, but Tay's movement kept me from it.' That was the answer that my head felt fine. Smitty held his eyes on me a little longer, evaluating me. After a second, he nodded and helped us both off with our gloves. He headed over to Angel with the mitts and I headed to the medical center to give Karl a lift home.
17
I felt satisfied with how things went and more tired than I usually am after three rounds of work and my head throbbed a bit, but it wasn't a big deal. It was well worth the feeling I had from getting in the ring. It's hard to explain to someone who has never done it. It feels like a cleansing-like you just did something important. I'm sure it has something to do with exertion, which you get from all exercise. It also probably has something to do with the relief you feel from not getting hurt and having it over. Although those two together don't add up to the entirety of it. I think it has something to do with facing your demons. Facing what scares you the most and keeping on even when you don't have to. I know a very small percentage of the population is willing to do what we fighters do in the ring. To me anyway, that gives a person some rank. It's not the only way an individual gets rank, but it sure is one way. People who face what they're afraid of, I believe, are people of the strongest character.
Speaking of characters, it headed toward seven o'clock and time to give Karl a ride. I swung by the hospital and wound the El Dorado through the serpentine path to the parking garage. Parking garages weren't made for Cadillacs built in the middle of the seventies, so negotiating some of the turns wasn't much of a party. I got the $6.00 ticket for the privilege of picking up my friend recovering from an assault, and felt like another assault had just taken place, though this one was to my bank account. Inside the medical center I followed the arrows around to the area known as 'discharges.' In the room were about twenty people, most in wheel chairs, and most with one or two family members. Most of the non-patients had kind of a relieved look on their face as their loved one was deemed well enough to go home. Karl got wheeled into a corner by himself. He didn't look relieved at all. He nervously twitched and looked around like something bad was about to happen.
'Hey, Karl, how are you? Must be good to be going home.'
'Duffy, what are you doing here?' He looked up at me.
'I came to give you a lift.'
'Why?'
'I don't know. I heard you were being discharged and I figured you could use a ride.'
'They just called the Mission.'
'Huh? The Mission? I thought you had your own place?'
'Nope.'
'But I had an address for you in the Westview Apartments.'
'That was a lie.'
'You didn't want to admit to being in the mission?'
'Yeah, but not because I was embarrassed like you think. I'm too vulnerable in there.'
'The Mission can be a bit of nightmare but you got benefits. Why not let DSS get you an apartment?'
