Tom Schreck: TKO

“Classic paranoia, indicative of delusions of persecution,” Claudia said.

“It ain’t fucking paranoia if you’ve been physically beat on and emotionally ridiculed every single fucking day of your life!” I said. Then I slammed my fist down on top of my powdered donut. The force sprayed powdered sugar all over the side of the Michelin Woman’s head. It kind of gave her black curly hair white highlights.

“Duffy-in my office right away,” she said.

You wouldn’t say that the Michelin Woman was in my corner when it came to, well, anything. Now I was going to have to listen to her bullshit and probably receive some double-special secret warning for being disrespectful to her. Michelin took the seat behind her desk, reached into the top drawer and produced a series of forms. She was in her element and after neatly stacking the forms so that they were nice and even, she looked up at me.

“That was totally inappropriate,” Michelin said.

I believe there is a law that social workers need to use the word “inappropriate” a minimum of eleven times a day.

“I am the executive director here and I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect.”

“How about disrespecting the clients… you know, those annoying people we work with?”

“Don’t be wise, Duffy, you are in enough trouble.”

“C’mon, Claudia-you were being rigid. I was trying to stick up for the client.”

“That is inappropriate. You need to show the appropriate respect. You are receiving a verbal warning for inappropriate language, behavior, and insubordination,” Claudia said. She was down to eight “inappropriates.”

“Do you really have to fill out three different written verbal warnings?”

“Yes-your behavior was inappropriate in regards to language, inappropriate in regards to behavior, and inappropriate in regards to insubordination,” Claudia said.

Holy shit-a hat trick! Three “inappropriates” in a single sentence! I wonder if I could call the Social Worker Hall of Fame or something. She was down to five and it was only quarter after ten.

I signed my three written verbal warnings and came to the realization that I wasted a perfectly good half a donut by smashing it. Now there’s something that was inappropriate. Grieving the loss of my donut but grateful that my little hissy fit shortened the meeting, I decided to head for my desk. Our office is small, with cubicles for Monique, the other counselor, and me, another batch of cubicles for business office staff, and a few multipurpose rooms. “Duffy’s Cubicle of Love” was right next to Monique’s.

Monique was talking to Trina, the office manager. They stopped chatting when I approached.

“Girls, were you talking about me?” I said.

“You outdid yourself today,” Monique said. “Assaulting the director with a powdered donut,” she said. Monique was wearing an orange dashiki that really highlighted her smooth black skin.

“Yeah, Duffy, you’ve really made a commitment to stay in trouble here, haven’t you?” said Trina. Trina looked good today; she always looked good.

“You guys trying to tell me that she wasn’t out of line?”

“Duff-the evidence points at Howard, doesn’t it?” Monique said.

“I don’t know. Howard freaked out for a period of time in his life when he was getting provoked and tormented in every facet of his life. That isn’t going on now. I think-” My phone interrupted.

“Duff, has our buddy shown up today?” It was Kelley.

“Nah, no sign of him.”

“There’s been another one,” Kelley said.

“Another what?” I feared I knew what he was talking about.

“Another murdered kid.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Duff.” Kelley hesitated. “The kid was McDonough’s QB.”

I did what I always did when my stress climbed into the red zone-I went to the gym. I’ve been fighting since I was a teenager, first as a karate guy and then as a boxer. I had gotten my black belt as a teenager, and one day I felt ultra-confident going in the boxing ring against a guy with a few amateur fights. He hit me in the stomach and I puked all over myself. As soon as I stopped tossin’ my Cheerios, I started training as a boxer and I’ve never looked back.

It’s funny-karate gets all the hype as this quasi-spiritual thing for deep-thinking ponderers while boxing gets portrayed as something for guys who just learned to walk upright. Yet both involve the science of assaulting someone to unconsciousness or maiming them into submission. Just because karate guys yell things out in Japanese and wear pajamas with no shoes while they’re learning to kill you, it gets more of a New Age rep. The real deal is there’s something spiritual to fighting, something at our very core that most people don’t understand. I believe it’s something that’s inside every person and it gets sublimated in boardrooms and bedrooms and every place else you can think of. I also believe if people got in the ring once in a while, then they wouldn’t have to be such pains in the asses with their bullshit competitiveness in life. Of course, there would probably be a gigantic dip in the sales of SUVs.

I’m what’s known in the boxing trade as a professional opponent. I fight ham-and-egg guys who stink and I beat them, which gives me enough wins to make my record credible. Then, I get put in the ring with some up-and-comer whose manager wants a W for his fighter, and more often than not I get my ass kicked. The ironic thing is that the ass-kicked money is way more lucrative than beating some guy who’s as big-or bigger-a nobody as I am.

I train at the Crawford Y, where the boxing gym is in the smelly old basement. The equipment is old and worn just like it should be, and you rarely see anyone dressed in spandex in the basement. The “boxercise” movement hasn’t reached the basement, and even though every now and then somebody who watched a couple of exercise videos comes in and thinks he can box, he usually doesn’t last long-thank God.

The best part of the fight game is that you can’t fight and really think of anything else. If you do, you get smacked in the head and that has a way of interrupting irrational thought patterns. That type of meditative step was exactly what I was looking for today, and I was hoping the sweat would exorcise the Michelin Woman from my soul.

I wrapped my hands and moved around enough to break a sweat so that when Smitty motioned me into the ring, I’d be ready. Smitty worked everyone through the mitts, and you did it on his schedule-it was understood that you didn’t leave him waiting. Nothing was ever said, but it got around the gym with the fighters real quick what expectations were. Smitty had been my only trainer and he believed in repetition. He would tailor your training for an upcoming fight, but before you got working on your strategy he would run you through the same fundamental drills.

You could tell a fighter trained by Smitty. One way was by conditioning-if you weren’t in shape you didn’t fight. That was all there was to that. The second way was we all had superb defense. Smitty used this drill to make sure that your punching hand went back to protect your head so much that I couldn’t not recoil my punch because it was simply ingrained into my nervous system. I’ve been knocked out more than a few times, but every single one of them came when I was throwing at the same time as my opponent. It was never because I dropped my guard.

“I got a call about a short-notice fight,” Smitty said after he took me through five rounds.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Money’s good. It’s on the undercard of the lightweight title fight with the Irish champ, what’s his name…?”

“Mulrooney.”