Craig Davidson - The Fighter

Felix sidled up with a jug of Comrade Popov’s potato vodka. “Heard about the draw at the Gloves. Who the hell did you fight — King Kong?”

“Could have gone either way,” Rob told him. “I could’ve lost.”

Felix appeared upset, or let down. Rob wondered if, sometime in the future, Felix had wanted to tell people he’d had his jaw broken by a world champion. He drank from the jug and winced.

Felix’s mother knelt at the top of the basement steps. She wore a pair of novelty glasses: red plastic shaped in the year 2006, eyeballs set like boozy marbles in the middle of each zero.

“How’s everything down here? Need more grape sodas — Cheez-Its?”

“We’re fine,” Felix said. “Go away .”

Rob took another pull. He was a lightweight when it came to drinking, plus his body was worn out from the fight; the basement took on a warped convex, as though he was viewing things through a busted telescope. At some point Kate was standing next to him. She wore a red sweater: a spray of pale freckles, the dovelike sweep of her collarbones. Rob wasn’t sure if she smelled of vanilla or if, in the stark basement light, he only imagined that smell.

“Tully,” she said, “you look a bit greased.”

“And so what? Not like there’s a law against it.”

Kate tsk-tsked .

“Golden Boy, drunk as a sailor. Taking that draw pretty hard, aren’t you?”

“I couldn’t care less. A few more draws, a loss, get knocked out, and I can hang it up for good.”

“Or you can hang it up before all that.”

Rob gave her a look that said they both knew better. “And don’t call me that, either.”

“What?”

“Golden Boy.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

Rob was still rankled at seeing Kate and Darren together, and Comrade Popov did his mood a further disservice: level-headed and warm-hearted while sober, it appeared that Rob could be a nasty jealous drunk.

“What were you and Shakespeare talking about?” he couldn’t help asking.

“Schools,” Kate told him. “Darren applied to UC Santa Cruz, me to Santa Barbara. I’ll need a scholarship, but Darren’s got a plan to make ends meet.”

She detailed Darren’s can’t-miss moneymaking scheme: he planned to scour the sands of Monterey Bay with a metal detector, cleaning the beaches of debris and paying his tuition at the same time. It struck Rob as a childish plan, even by a teenager’s standards. What did he expect to uncover — antique bottle caps? A trove of Nazi gold?

Kate said, “Darren’s so eco-conscious.”

If Rob had been a little drunker he might have remarked that if “eco-conscious” were a synonym for “corduroy-wearing wiener,” then by all means, Darren Gregory was as eco-conscious as they came. Rob saw Kate and Darren on a beach, barefoot on the sand. A beach so far removed from the weed-strewn lots, tumbledown row houses, and terminal bleakness of Niagara Falls it might as well be another planet. They bent together over an object glinting at the rim of a tide pool, touching and smiling and laughing.

Darren Gregory materialized, bony and stoop-shouldered with hair like a bear pelt.

“Robert, my fine friend,” he said. “You’re looking worse for wear.”

Darren wore his artsy-fartsy heart on his corduroy sleeve; to him, boxing and cockfighting were distinguishable only in that one involved animals who didn’t know any better.

“Any job comes with its lumps. And you know what they say — women dig scars.”

Darren placed his hand on Rob’s wrist as though they were sharing a close personal confidence. “And here I was thinking they dug sophistication and intelligence. And as for a job — I didn’t know amateur boxers got paid.”

Rob figured amateurs could at least pawn their trophies, earning them more than most beachcombers. “How much did you make for that sonnet in the Gazette ?”

“I do it for the love of words.” He slipped his hand off Rob’s wrist and set it on Kate’s. “She and I were just talking about that, as a matter of fact. We’re going to collaborate on a brace of poems.”

Rob saw the two of them on the beach again, except now Darren was composing poetry for her, dipping a quill pen in a pot of ink. Rob jammed his hands in his pockets, afraid of what they might do.

“You’re lucky, then. Kate’s a great poet. She helped me with that haiku assignment.”

Darren chuckled — indulgently, Rob thought. “Yes, and what did you come up with?”

Rob was certain his own poem would be met with derision; with an apologetic look at Kate, he recited hers instead. “It went, Though there will always / Be those things out of your reach / Never stop reaching.”

“It’s admirable, Robert; an admirable effort. Quite good for a fledgling attempt.”

Kate crossed her arms. “What would you say marks it as a fledgling attempt?”

“The meter’s sloppy, for one. And the sentiment is, should I say…” He gave Rob a sorry-to-be-the-bearer-of-bad-news look. “… a tad juvenile.”

“You’re right,” Rob said. “Juvenile, through and through.”

“Buck up, chum.” Darren clapped Rob’s shoulder. “Not everyone’s made for the world of letters. Some of us are better off…” he shrugged,“… on another of life’s paths.”

Kate looked embarrassed at Darren’s preening, and Rob had had enough. He’d drag the flapping loose-lipped bastard out into the snow and smash him. That blown-glass chin would shatter in one shot.

“Why not say what you mean; let’s not sit here attacking each other on the sly.”

“You recited your poem,” Darren said flatly. “I told you what I thought. If that’s attacking—”

“You know what you’re doing and so do I. You’re not half so clever as you think. You want to talk about juvenile sentiments —” He flicked the sleeve of Darren’s corduroy jacket. “How about a guy from around here wearing this shit? Professor Plum in the study with the candlestick.”

Overhearing this, a few partyers voiced their drunken approval.

“Your ma’s a toll-taker ,” Rob went on. “Your pops works a wrecking crane. Look in your fridge and I’ll find a pack of Helmbolds bologna, same as in mine.”

“Rob, come on —”

He cut Kate off. “You’re the same Darren Gregory who took a shit on the floor in first grade. Remember that? Mrs. Frieberger stepped out and you couldn’t wait for her to get back with the hall pass so you squatted next to the goldfish bowl. So go on wearing your jacket and writing sonnets — you’ll always be the kid who shit on the floor.”

Darren jerked a glare of solid malevolence at Rob, then gave Kate a you-see-how-it-is look. “When was that?” he said quietly. “Ten years ago? It’s okay. One day I’ll leave here and end up someplace where people have no memory of what I did as a six-year-old; I can start over, fresh. But you’ll never leave, because your best and only hope is right here.” He reached over Rob’s head, pantomiming, like his hand was hitting something solid. “Feel that? It’s a glass ceiling, and you’re about to slam into it.”

Rob was jolted. “Who cares? I’m not ashamed of where I come from —”

“And it’s not just a ceiling — it’s a box with glass walls, and you’re never going to grow out of it because you never tried to when you had the chance. And the rest of your life you’re going to wonder, Robert.”

It was the Robert that did it. Blinding rage. “I swear, for a nickel I’d smash you —”

Darren rummaged through his pocket. “Here’s a dime.” He bounced it off Rob’s chest and jutted his chin out. “If you leave a scar I can lie and say it isn’t from some Love Canal bully, because I’ll be someplace where nobody knows any better.”