Leonard Gardner: Fat City

His face morose, the boy went off to check out the gloves. Tully continued his warm-up and was breathing heavily by the time the other returned. They pulled on the gloves in silence and entered the ring. When Tully reached out to touch gloves, the boy sprang warily away. Smiling tolerantly, Tully pursued him. After that he felt only desperation because everything happened so quickly: smashes on his nose, jolts against his mouth and eyes, the long body eluding him, bounding unbelievably about the ring while Tully, flinching and covering, tried to set himself to counter. In sudden rage he lunged, swinging like a street fighter, and his leg buckled. Hissing with pain, he began hopping around the ring.

That was how it ended. Bent over, kneading a pulled calf muscle, his face contorted, Tully asked between clenched teeth: “What’s your name, anyway?”

The boy remained at the far side of the ring. “Ernie Munger.”

“How many bouts you had?”

“None.”

“You’re shitting me. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Tully gingerly took a step. “Well, you got it, kid. I fought Fermin Soto, I know what I’m talking about. I mean nobody used to hit me. They couldn’t hit me. They’d punch, I wouldn’t be there. You ought to start fighting.”

“I don’t know. I just come down to mess around. Get a little exercise.”

“Don’t waste your good years. You ought to go over to the Lido Gym and see my manager.”

In the showers, Tully was thankful he had not gone to the Lido Gym himself. Beside him water streamed over Ernie Munger’s head. The boy’s shoulders were broad, his chest flat and hairless, his waist narrow, his arms and legs long and slender, and looking at his face, Tully regretted that he had not had a chance to hit it squarely. It was well formed and callow, the forehead wide and high, the nose prominent. In the dressing room with a towel around his waist, Tully brought a pint of Thunderbird from his athletic bag, and sensitive to its impropriety here in the YMCA, he took a drink with the metal door of his locker blocking him from Ernie’s view. In the ceiling a ventilator labored in vain against the odors of sweat and soap and musty athletic clothes.

Tully limped upstairs and, whispering curses at his leg, started back toward his hotel. The sun was setting on a gray day, tinting mauve the flat undersides of clouds beyond the deserted shipyard where two great cranes slanted against the sky. Leaves and papers blew along the gutters. Boats rocked in the floating sheds of the yacht harbor. Farther down the channel a lone freighter was moored by a silo fifty miles from the sea.

There were few figures along Center Street. In the Harbor Inn half the stools were empty. Tully seated himself with care, grasping the edge of the bar. Opposite the notice

PLEASE DON’T SPIT

ON THE FLOOR

GET UP AND SPIT

IN THE TOILET BOWL

I thank you

he ate a pickled pig’s foot on a napkin and drank a glass of port. He was eating a bag of pork cracklings when a familiar couple sat beside him. The man was a Negro, with a parted mustache and bald temples, his face indolent and dejected. The woman was white, near Tully’s age, with thin pencil lines where her eyebrows had been and a broken nose much like his own.

“Don’t you ever go home?” she asked him.

“I just got here.”

She turned to her companion. “What’s keeping him? He knows we’re here. Can’t you make him come over and serve us?”

“Just take it easy. He be here.”

“Well, you spineless son-of-a-bitch, you’d take up for anybody against me.” She stared ahead, face propped in both hands. “I want a cream sherry.” Then she was again speaking to Tully. “Earl and I have something very wonderful together. I love that man more than any man’s got a right to be loved. I couldn’t live without him. If he left me I just couldn’t make it. But you think he’d even raise his voice to get me a drink? No. He’ll just sit there and let him ignore us.”

“Here he come,” said Earl.

“No thanks to you.”

Tully shifted his leg, wincing. He gave a small groan and the woman glanced at him. “Charley horse,” he said. When she did not inquire, he went on to tell what had happened to him just as he had been about to get into shape.

She spoke over her shoulder. “Earl?”

“Uh huh.”

“This guy’s a fighter.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Christ. Why did I even mention it? What do you know about it anyway?”

“Not much.”

“That’s what I mean. Sorry to bother you. Why did I open my mouth? I apologize. Well, what do you want? I said I was sorry, what more can I say?”

Earl gazed toward the mirror, where a row of gloomy faces looked out into the room. “I hear you, baby.”

“You sure don’t act like it.” With a sigh she took up her glass. “Sometimes I wonder why I put up with him. Basically they’re a mistrustful people. You don’t know the things I do for that man, but he couldn’t care less. You’re not as black as he is, then you’re shit in his book. He don’t like me talking to you, I know. I got to talk to some body.”

“This kid could make a lot of money some day,” Tully continued. “He’s a natural athlete.”

“What’s his name?” Earl inquired, leaning in front of the woman, his face impassive.

“You wouldn’t know who he was if he did tell you.”

“Just asking.”

“Got to know everything. Now he won’t talk. He’s mad. Butts in and then shuts up. I wanted to hear this.”

“There’s nothing more to hear. That’s it. The kid’s a natural, that’s all. They come along about one in a million.” Enjoying himself, Tully signaled for another drink.

“He’s so goddamn sour. I’m having a good talk, that’s what’s eating him. I don’t see why I can’t have a little fun. Let him sit there and stew, I don’t care. If that’s what he wants, why should I? I believe everybody’s got a right to live his own life. So screw everybody.” She straightened, her voice louder. “I want to say something. I want to give a toast to this gentleman. I’ll make it short, just a few words. Here’s to your health. God bless you and keep you in all your battles.”

Not a head turned as she raised her glass. With large, dark, intense eyes she regarded Tully until he too, in embarrassment and sudden erotic curiosity, lifted his drink.

“Oma?”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

She turned. “For Christ’s sake, what do you want then? Can’t I even talk to anybody?”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“No, you’re not stopping me. Oh, no, you just sit there with your sad-ass face shut until the minute I start having a good time. I’m sick of your bellyaching. Is it my fault if you can’t fit in? Why can’t you mind your own business? And that goes for the rest of you. None of you is worth a fart in a windstorm. So to hell with it.” She got down from her stool and went off toward the back of the room.

Uncomfortable, Tully studied the cigarette-burned surface of the bar. A glass of port was set down by his hand. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Earl. “I don’t claim to be nothing more than I am. You maybe can fight, I’m an upholsterer.”

“That’s the way it goes.”

“One man got muscles, another got steel. It all come out the same.”

They drank in silence. When the woman returned, Tully rose and went out. He crossed the dark street to his hotel and limped up the stairs. On the bed in the dim light, hearing coughing from across the hall, he knew he had magnified Ernie Munger’s talents. He had done it in order to go on believing in his body, but he had lost his reflexes — that was all there was to it — and he felt his life was coming to a close. At one time he had believed the nineteen-fifties would bring him to greatness. Now they were almost at an end and he was through. He turned onto his side. On the worn linoleum lay a True Confession and a Modern Screen , magazines he once would not have thought could interest him, but in reading of seduction and betrayal, adultery, divorce and the sorrows of stars, he found the sad sentiment of his love.