Sam Lipsyte - The Fun Parts

Why Marvelous Marvin Hagler? Why not? He was one of the best of his time, my time, really, meaning the time I was a boy and the world still seemed like something that could save me from the hurt, not be it. Why for children? Children were people you could reach. You could really reach out and reach them. Plus, low word count. That meant I’d get the money faster. I was experimenting with unemployment, needed to make rent quickly. I was no longer experimenting with drugs. I knew exactly what to do with them.

Thing was, I remembered certain facts about Hagler from my father’s boxing magazines, the ones my stepmother always groused about, stacks of them littering our house in New Brunswick. Hagler was tough and bald, for instance, perhaps the toughest, baldest fighter ever. I could begin with that piece of the story and just build out. Maybe my friends could help, though I’d never heard them talk about boxing, and most of them were hopeless drug addicts, good for only a couple of hours. I was hopeless, but prided myself on being good for more than a couple of hours. I still had what my father called get-up-and-go. Also, I was in possession of a positive outlook, which is just a trick whereby you convince yourself that the desolation of your world is a phase in your personal growth.

The weird thing is it works.

* * *

One evening a few of us got together in the apartment Gary and I shared. John and John’s cousin were there. John’s cousin went to divinity school. He told us about his fellow students, the gay guys in the closet battling their mothers and God, the brainiacs who approached faith as a physics equation, the bruisers groomed for ghetto heroics, the quivery social needs types. I stood, paced around the steamer trunk, which was cluttered with bleach and alcohol and glasses of water, bent spoons, cotton balls. I had a social need. I waited until John’s cousin nodded off, the dope overtaking his narrative imperative.

I wanted everybody to witness the fire in my eyes. I wheeled on them, announced my goal to write a children’s book about Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

Mostly when one of us spoke like this, by which I mean shared a dream or ambition or plan with the others, nobody would pursue the topic or even offer comment. The group would regard such an utterance with stricken silence. Then somebody would start in on something else entirely. It felt cruel at times, but served, I believe, to slightly check our plummet. Even as we sat around and measured, cooked, tied off, we would not indulge one another’s delusions.

But tonight when I mentioned the Marvelous Marvin Hagler children’s book, somebody spoke up. It was John’s cousin, the guy in divinity school. He was new, I guess, ignorant of our code.

“Hagler was bald, right?” he asked, rising out of his nod.

“Yes,” I said. “He was the first bald guy.”

“The first?”

“In the modern era.”

“Nobody was ever bald before?” said Gary.

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“I remember him,” said John’s cousin. “Dude was relentless.”

“Nobody would fight him,” I said. “That’s why it took him so long to be champ.”

“Like me,” said Gary, tapped the barrel of his syringe.

“But why Marvin Hagler?” said John’s cousin.

“He was relentless,” I said.

“Did he ever lose?”

“Just a few times.”

“I was robbed!” said Gary.

“Huh?” said John.

“I’m being Hagler.”

“He was, actually, robbed,” I said. “In a fight with Boogaloo Watts. But then they became good friends. That’s partly what the book is about.”

Nobody said anything, and I figured this would be the moment a new topic got introduced. I could see Gary doing the things he sometimes did when he was about to launch a rant, maybe about the cunning rhetoric of the soft left (he was the hard), or the immense number of people he believed had pancreatic cancer but didn’t know it, or how the smartest pop songs were by definition the dumbest, namely letting his head drop so that it was nearly in his crotch and doing some painful-looking thing with his shoulder blades and breathing super quickly, but then he didn’t lift his head or say anything at all, and it was John’s cousin who spoke, looked into my eyes, and said the oddest thing: “I can help.”

It turned out that the divinity student had an older sister in publishing. Children’s books, in fact. She kept an eye out for fresh talent, John’s cousin said. He’d be happy to write down her number.

“Oh, he’s fresh talent,” said Gary, his head still buried in his corduroys. “This motherfucker is fresh and juicy.”

* * *

The next afternoon, I called the sister.

“Yes, Leo said you’d be in touch,” Cassandra said. “He thinks the world of you.”

“Who’s Leo?” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Sorry. We have a different name for old Leo. A nickname.”

“What is it?”

“John’s Cousin,” I said.

“How endearing.”

“I’m a big fan,” I said. “But anyway, the reason I called you—”

“You want to write a biography of that boxer.”

“He battled racism,” I said.

“I’m intrigued. We need books for boys. With real stories about gritty people who struggled and triumphed.”

“I could do that for you,” I said. “No sweat.”

“No sweat?”

“Look,” I said. “I’ve never written anything like this before, but I feel a passion welling up in me. Before he forgot everything, my father was what he liked to call a ‘wordslinger.’ Also, I was accepted into a name college, though I was unable to attend.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Cassandra. “And sad. The last part is sad. The last two parts, I think.”

“No matter,” I said. “I mean, here we are now. You guys pay money up front, right?”

“Sometimes,” said Cassandra. “Listen, I don’t usually do this, but since you’re a friend of Leo, why don’t we meet for a drink tomorrow evening and you can tell me about this project.”

“Better bring your checkbook,” I said.

“Oh, you’re a riot,” laughed Cassandra.

* * *

Ever since Gary’s band, the Annihilation of the Soft Left, had broken up, I’d been eyeing his beautiful twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar. He didn’t seem to play it much, and I thought maybe I could sell the thing for a decent amount of cash. The way Cassandra had talked, the book contract looked like a done deal. I’d buy Gary’s guitar back once I got the advance the next night. I just needed something to tide me over.

A twelve-string Rickenbacker in a hard-shell case is a vexingly heavy object to ferry about the city in summer heat. I knew my feverish mien and the jones stink rising out of the holes in my T-shirt might aversely affect the guitar shop’s initial offer, but the guy at the counter seemed impressed with the make and year of the instrument.

“Sweet,” he said. “Great condition. People are playing these again. That guy from the Annihilation of the Soft Left plays one.”

“Never heard of them,” I said. “But I don’t know much about today’s scene. How much can you give me?”

The guy named a figure. I had to steady myself on the counter.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I accept. Let’s do it.”

“Great,” said the guy. “Just give me the papers, and we can take it from there.”

“Papers?”

“Ownership. You have to prove ownership. A receipt is fine.”

“Tell me,” I said. “Is that the policy in all the guitar stores around here?”

“Bet your ass.”

“Think I have to go,” I said, closed the case and slid it off the counter.

“Think you fucking better,” said the guitar store guy.