was becoming delirious in all the hysteria, trying to break my spirit, make things seem menacing. Don’t do it, it told me, it happens one time in a million, but it happens-perhaps death awaits you in the ring, perhaps Joe will tear your head off. Spurred on by alcohol and fatigue, I felt myself drift off into morbid delirium: a horrible plunge into a dark and icy lake. I knew it only too well, it was always the same one. All my phobias tore at me. Fear of the dark, fear of madness, fear of death, the whole shebang. It was the moment of total fear that hits you from time to time. It was not new to me-I had already found the remedy. With great effort, I bent down to untie my shoes, saying to myself: Make friends with death, make friends with death, MAKE FRIENDS WITH DEATH!
This did the trick. I came up for air. The others were talking all around me, paying no attention to my problems. The guy in red sweats helped me suit up. I found myself wearing white trunks. My brain stopped carrying on. I climbed into the ring. Joe Attila smiled at me, nicely.
“You know anything about this?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “This is the first time I’ve ever had gloves on.”
“Okay, well, don’t be afraid. I’ll go easy. It’s all in good fun, right?”
I didn’t answer. I had hot and cold flashes. Though Joe and I were about the same size, the resemblance stopped there. My head was bigger than his, his shoulders were wider than mine, and his arms were like my thighs. He started hopping around.
“Ready?” he said.
I felt myself take off. All the accumulated rage and impotence of the last few days channeled itself into my right fist. I took a swing at Joe-the punch of a lifetime-letting out a little grunt as I did. I hit his gloves. He backed up, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Hey! Easy,” I said.
I must have been running a temperature of 100 or 101. He started dancing around again. I seemed to have lead in my shoes. He faked left, then gave me a right cross to the chin. It wouldn’t have hurt a fly. I heard laughing behind me. Joe circled me like a butterfly, tapping me lightly, his gloves a blur. At one moment he turned toward the others to give them a wink. I gave him a straight shot to the mouth. I wasn’t playing.
The results were immediate. I blocked a one-two punch with my face, hit the canvas, and slid under the ropes. Eddie’s face appeared ten inches away from mine.
“What, are you crazy? What the hell’s got into you?”
“Never mind that. Tell me, am I bleeding?”
I couldn’t feel anything. My ears were ringing. His voice and mine both seemed to be coming from a dream. I couldn’t breathe.
“Jesus,” I groaned. “Am I bleeding somewhere?”
“No, but keep it up and you will be. Come on, take those gloves off.”
I pulled myself up by the ropes. Everything was fine, except that I weighed about four hundred pounds and my face was on fire. Joe was waiting in the middle of the ring, hopping around. He looked like an ephemeral mountain. He wasn’t smiling any more.
“I like to have fun as much as the next guy,” he said. “But don’t go too far. I wouldn’t try that again, if I were you.”
Without warning, I let him have it with all my might. He dodged my punch easily.
“Cut that out, little buddy…” he said.
I gave him another one. All I hit was air. I wished he’d stop moving around. I had trouble keeping my guard up-I could hardly lift my arms. Still, I laid into him with all I had, sending him a right cross that I was convinced could have killed a steer.
I don’t know what happened. I didn’t see a thing. My head exploded, as if I’d taken a dead run at a glass door. I hovered in midair for a moment, then landed on the canvas.
I did not pass out. Eddie’s face was floating beside me, a bit pale, a bit worried, a bit crumpled.
“Eddie… my man… you see any blood?”
“Shit,” he said. “It looks like you got a faucet under your nose.”
I closed my eyes. I could breathe. Not only was I not dead, but the air pocket in my throat had disappeared. It felt good to lie down.
I lost all sense of what was going on around me. I didn’t know where I was, or when, or why. I wanted to pull a sheet over me, but my arm wouldn’t move. The old guy in the sweatsuit came and took care of me, splashing water on my face and sticking cotton up my nose.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s not even broken. Joe wasn’t too tough on you, he could have hit you harder.”
Eddie helped me into the shower, calling me all sorts of names. The warm water did me good, and the cold water cleared my head a little. I dried myself off, got dressed, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like somebody who’d been treated with cortisone. I went and joined the others, walking at a more or less normal gait. I was totally sober. Joe was wearing a suit, his little gym bag slung over his shoulder. He smiled at me as I approached.
“So, how does it feel to make an old dream come true?”
“Great,” I said. “I’m at peace now.”
I felt even better back in the convertible, cruising down the main drag with the wind in my face and a cigarette in my hand. Eddie gave me a furtive glance.
“Of course…” I said. “Not a word of this to the girls.”
He half choked. He turned the rearview mirror toward me.
“Really? And what are we going to tell them-that you got bit by a mosquito?”
“No, just that I went headfirst through a bay window.”
One morning the alarm went off at four o’clock. I turned it off quickly, then got up without a sound. Eddie was already in the kitchen. He had gotten the bags ready and was drinking his coffee. He winked at me.
“Want some? It’s still hot…”
I yawned, I wanted some. It was still dark outside. Eddie had wet his hair and combed it. He seemed to be in good shape. He stood up to rinse out his cup.
“Don’t take too long,” he said. “We have at least an hour’s drive.”
Five minutes later we were downstairs. It’s not always easy to get up early, but you never regret it. The last hours of night are the eeriest, and nothing can compare to the shivers you get from the first glow of clay. Eddie gave me the wheel. Since it was nice out, we left the top down. I buttoned my jacket all the way up. It was a jumpy little car.
Eddie knew the area like the back of his hand. He told me how to go. The roads were strewn with childhood memories. All it took was a road sign, or passing through a sleepy little village, and he was off and running, his stories flowing one after the other, drifting off into the darkness.
The trip ended on a dirt road. We parked the car under the trees. The night was slowly evaporating. We got the gear out of the trunk and started off along the stream. It had a fairly strong current, all babbles and burbles. Eddie walked ahead, talking to himself-something about when he was eighteen. We stopped at a peaceful spot, a place where the thin river got wider. There were flower-covered rocks and trees all around. Crass, leaves, buds, dragonflies-all that sort of thing. We settled in.
It was barely daybreak when Eddie slipped on his boots. His eyes were glowing. It was wonderful to see. I felt calm and relaxed. Being close to water always does that to me. He checked his equipment, then went off, bounding from rock to rock as if he was walking on water.
“You’ll see,” he said. “It’s not so mysterious. Watch me…”
Of course the main reason I’d come was to make him happy. Fishing was never my idea of exaltation. I’d brought along a book of Japanese poetry, in case I got bored.
“Hey, if you don’t watch me, you won’t know how to do it…”
“Go on, I’m all eyes.”
“Check it out, pal-it’s all in the wrist.”
He twirled the line over his head, then cast it out. It flew through the air, the reel unwinding at breakneck speed. There was a little plop.
“Hey, you see that? Got it?”
“Yeah, but don`t worry about me. I’m just going to watch for a while.”
A few minutes later a ray of sunlight slithered through the leaves. I unwrapped the sandwiches slowly, trying
