Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“Neal,” said Mrs. M., “thank you! How did you do that?”

“Practice.”

Carol’s mother looked at her and said, “I like this one.”

“Hope to see you again, Neal. We have to go, Joan.”

“My parents like you,” Carol said much later as they were walking back from a Chinese dinner after the movie. “They have good taste, my parents.”

The elevator ride lasted about eighty thousand years. Her parents weren’t home yet, and Carol and Neal sat down on the sofa next to each other. Her kisses were delicious and kisses were enough, more than enough, for this night. They were sitting at a proper distance when her parents discreetly rattled their keys at the door.

“I really don’t want to be doing this,” Neal said to Graham. Neal was seventeen and there were a whole lot of things he really didn’t want to be doing. Lacing on boxing gloves in a stinking old gym off Times Square headed the list at the moment, however.

“I don’t blame you,” Graham answered, “but it’s either this or that kung fooey crap Levine does.”

The gym was on the second floor of a decrepit building off Forty-fourth Street and smelled like the inside of a jockstrap that had been left in the laundry bag about a month. Neal took another look around the room, where a dozen or so honest-to-God boxers banged on speed bags, heavy bags, and each other. Another guy was jumping rope, an activity that looked a little more appealing.

“Why,” Neal asked, “do I have to learn to fight at all?”

“Company rule.”

“It’s stupid.”

The guy lacing up his gloves looked as if he had stepped out of a casting call for Darby O‘Gill and the Little People. He kneeled in front of Neal’s stool and blew cigarette smoke in the kid’s face.

“It’s the manly art,” Mick croaked, pulling the laces a little tighter for emphasis.

“I never been in a fight yet they stopped to put gloves on,” Graham responded.

“You hang around a scummy class of people. Okay, kid, on your feet.”

Neal stood up. He banged his gloves together as he’d seen them do on television. The hollow thwump was reassuring.

“Take a poke,” Mick offered.

“You don’t have gloves on.”

This amused Mick. He snorted and it sounded like an old steam engine going to its last reward. “You ain’t gonna hit me.”

“He’s probably right,” Graham said.

Neal launched a tentative right that looked like it had all the lethal menace of a kitten swatting at a Christmas-tree bulb.

Mick leaned away from the punch and shot a center-right jab that ended a quarter inch from Neal’s nose. “Keep your left up,” he said with a measure of disgust. “Ain’t you never fought nobody?”

“I run away.”

“Yeah, I knew fighters like that. But the old squared circle gets smaller in the late rounds.”

“Squared circle?”

“Can’t stay on the bicycle all night.”

“That’s why I take the subway,” Neal said.

“We’re gonna have to start from scratch.” Mick sighed.

So they started from scratch. Three times a week, after school, Neal reported to the gym to study boxing under the tutelage of Mick, pugilist. He learned to keep his left up, to pop his jab, to counter hooks with straight rights, and to keep his mouth shut and his chin tucked in. He learned to do push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. He hated all of it.

After three months of this, Mick decided he was ready to spar with a live boxer.

The great event took place on a Saturday morning and Joe Graham and Ed Levine came to watch. Levine wanted to check on Neal’s progress. Graham averred that anytime there was a chance of Neal getting punched, he was going to be there to enjoy it.

The sparring partner was a young man named Terry McCorkandale. He was from Oklahoma, had a red crew cut, and looked like his mother had conceived him with her first cousin. He was a sparring partner of another pro, who was a sparring partner of a ranked contender.

This record gave Neal some comfort. True, the guy was a pro, but just barely, judging by his record. Besides which, Neal was feeling pretty good about his training. He was no boxer, he knew, but he could hold his own. He stepped into the ring, shook hands with McCorkandale, and flashed a quick smile at Levine and Graham. Then he assumed his defensive stance and shot out a crisp left jab.

He woke up hearing McCorkandale pleading defensively, “I just tapped him. Honest.”

“Glass jaw?” Mick asked Graham.

“Glass brain,” Graham answered.

“What day is it?” Mick asked Neal.

“January.”

“Close enough,” Levine said. “Let’s try it again.”

Neal was on his feet but not quite sure how he had gotten there. He knew he had been humiliated, but he didn’t mind that as much as he did the physical pain. McCorkandale was smiling at him apologetically.

Mick whispered in his ear, “Lucky punch, kid. Go get him.”

Neal had an album of the 1812 Overture at home, and the next three minutes were like living inside the drum section, The Tulsa Terror rattled on him like a snare drum, beat a few timpani shots, and thumped a couple of bass drumbeats before Neal could move his hands. He could not have been more helpless if he had been tied up in telephone wire. He was only grateful this guy wasn’t really trying.

“Interesting strategy,” Levine observed to Graham, “wearing the guy out like that.”

“That Neal’s a terror.”

Neal the Terror did what he could. He started to laugh. It was funny to him now that every time he attempted a punch or a parry, he got hit with three shots, so he covered up the best he could and got pounded on. And giggled.

“I gotta stop this,” Mick said.

“He’s not hurting him,” Ed said.

“This kid’s gotta fight tonight. He won’t be able to lift his arms.”

“So?” Levine asked Mick while Neal was in the shower.

“He’s hopeless,” Mick wheezed. “The worst I ever seen.”

“Yeah, okay. No more lessons.”

“Aw, thank God, Ed. I ain’t got the heart. What that kid does to the Sweet Science shouldn’t be done.”

“You want a milk shake?”

“I can eat solid food. I want a cheeseburger.”

Neal and Graham were at the Burger Joint, of course, after the big match. Neal’s jaw was a little puffy and he had a black eye.

“That was fun, Neal. I enjoyed that. Thanks for the afternoon.”

“That makes it all worth it, Graham.”

“You did pretty good. I think your ribs bruised his hand once.”

“I had him right where I wanted him. Another ten minutes, he would have dropped,” Neal checked his face in the mirror on the side wall. “Carol’s not going to like this.”

“Are you kidding? Women love that stuff. If you had a broken nose, she’d propose to you.”

“I need an iced coffee.”

“For your face?”

“It does kind of hurt.”

Neal took small bites of his burger. The iced coffee came and Neal alternately sipped at it and held it against his jaw. He felt really tired all of a sudden.

“Forget about it. Guy was a pro.”

Neal shook his head. “That’s not it. I don’t know what to tell Carol. Her parents.”

“She doesn’t know what you do?”

“Get real.”

“We’re not the what-do-you-call-it, the CIA, son. You can tell her.”

“If I tell what I do, I’d have to tell her how I got doing what I do.”

“So?”

“So she’ll split. And if she doesn’t, her parents will make her split.”

“You got quite a problem there, son-”

“Tell me about it.”

“With your head.”

Graham tossed a five on the table, chucked Neal under the chin, and left. Neal sat there for a while and then went home to get ready for his date.