Leonard Gardner - Fat City

But with Billy Tully and Ernie Munger back in the gym, Ruben was charged with new purpose. He was imagining a local promotion, headlined by Tully, with Ernie making his professional debut in one of the preliminaries. Now that Ernie was married he would need money. Without it, Ruben was afraid he would again lose interest. It seemed better to risk moving him too soon out of the amateur ranks than to lose him entirely. When Ernie brought his wife to the gym, Ruben, seeing that swollen belly, felt his decision was right.

Rain fell for days. The black surrounding fields, past which Ruben drove his family one Sunday afternoon, were stripped and mired. The rows where choppers, cutters and pickers had stooped through the heat of summer now were only austere lines converging in the distance. Ducks floated on flooded fields among reflected clouds, and through the day their formations were etched high over the city. Down his own street, under bare sycamore trees, his children waded in the gutter. Earthworms, disgorged from saturated lawns, lay drowned on the sidewalk. At night in bed he listened to the wind and the dripping from the eaves. Then there were days of dense fog, impenetrable to the lights of his Pontiac as it crept to the gym.

Billy Tully was sparring now, between rounds leaning over the ropes, panting, his face red, his pulse visible in the pit of his stomach. Crudely painted on his leather cup, worn outside his trunks, was the head of a ram.

“Looking great,” said Ruben.

One day he called Owen Mackin, who had promoted at the Civic Auditorium since the days when Ruben had fought there himself. “Owen,” he yelled into the phone. “Ruben Luna. Luna. I got Billy Tully back in training. Billy Tully. In training. Owen, I’ll tell you what I want for him. A good tune-up fight.” He heard Western music from the jukebox in Mackin’s bar. “A couple good wins and he’ll be ready for the best. But right now I’d like somebody that’ll give him a good workout, give him back the old confidence. I don’t mean a bum. Maybe some kid ready for main events. What do you think?”

“Tully won’t draw.”

“He’ll draw fine. He’s a good clean athlete with a fine record. He’s got a lot of class.”

“Maybe I could use him in a semi-final.”

“A semi? Tully in a semi? He’s still got the old stuff. I don’t want him in a semi.”

“He won’t draw.”

“We can have a Stockton boy in every bout. I got a fine young welterweight for the opener. I told you about him.”

“That’s how it stands.”

“Munger.”

“What?”

“Munger, Munger.”

“It’s too big a risk.”

“Tully’s going to be sharp. Come down and take a look at him.”

“How about Arcadio Lucero?”

“Lucero?”

“I can get him. When’s Tully going to be ready?”

“Well, Lucero — maybe five or six weeks — Lucero, I don’t know. He’s a puncher. What I meant, you know, was a tune-up. Why should I put him in with Lucero when he’s just getting in shape? I mean if he had a couple good tune-ups first.”

“I think I can get you Lucero,” said Owen Mackin.

“Not that I doubt he can take him.”

“He made friends here.”

“Not that I think he’d ever nail Tully.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, I think I can get Lucero.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad win on the record.”

“I could phone.”

Ruben hung up thinking Lucero used to mean something and knowing he still did in Stockton. Two years ago he had knocked out Manny Chavez a few days before Chavez’s picture appeared on the front page with the story of his arrest for selling heroin to a federal narcotics agent. Lucero had returned to fight Mike Cruz, whom Gil Solis had brought out of retirement and then sent back to it with a few hundred dollars and a face already beyond worries of disfigurement even before that final one-round beating. These bouts had won Lucero fans, but Ruben knew the quality of his opposition. What he did not know was whether Billy Tully was any better than the others. Massaging him after his workout, Ruben mused over the firmness of his arms and shoulders. Tully lay face down on the rubbing table in the private dressing room — a windowless cubicle lit by an unshaded bulb and smelling of sweat and liniments, its rough board walls covered with posters of past bouts. Patiently Ruben’s fingers kneaded the knotted calves and thighs, wandering, pausing, concentrating at points across the white back, the tanned neck, sinking into damp armpits.

“You asleep? How would you like to fight Arcadio Lucero?”

“Uh. Fight Lucero? What for?”

“I think you can beat him.”

“I thought I was going to start out with an easy one.”

“Lucero’s over the hill. You’ve still got the stuff. You let yourself get out of shape, that’s all.”

“Why him?”

“Thought it might be a good fight.” His hands grasped, rubbed, squeezed, rose to the taut cords at the base of Tully’s neck, finally came to rest and slid away.

“That all?”

“That ought to do it.” Ruben, arms tired, spoke in a brisk cheerful voice calculated to rouse Tully to his feet.

“Didn’t seem like very much,” said Tully, his face still on the table.

“That’s plenty. Get your clothes on before you get a chill.”

Groaning, Tully struggled to his hands and knees.

That night, after Ruben had gone to bed, Tully phoned. Standing in the dark cold hall, Ruben listened with chagrin.

“All right, I’ll fight Lucero if that’s the best you can do, and knowing you it probably is. All I want is a fight, and I think you’ve had your mind made up for you. But I don’t know about you. You never gave a shit about me and I don’t give a shit about you and you never will give a shit so why should I? That’s what I want to know. If you would of went to Panama — Ruben, I’m talking to you, goddamn it — if you would of demanded those expenses and done that one little thing everything would be different now. Do you know that? I know it, how come you don’t know it?”

“Listen now, where are you, what’s the problem?”

“What do you mean what’s the problem. What’s your problem?”

“Now just hold on. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You tell me. I’m doing all right.”

The conversation trailed off into an exchange between Tully and someone else. He said goodbye, the connection went dead, and Ruben hung up.

“Who was it?”

“Tully. He’s been drinking.”

Back under the covers, Ruben stared into the darkness, aggrieved that Tully could talk to him like that after all the care and attention he had given him, but aggrieved more at the thought of him drunk. That was a more personal affront, an act of spite. Heavy with foreboding, Ruben was confronted again by the same old frustration of his will, by the inevitable weakness he found in everyone, and for all his efforts could not root out.

The next afternoon Tully was back at the gym.

“You weren’t boozing last night, were you?”

“I had a few. Don’t worry about it. I was just kidding around.”

“You’re not going to get in shape if you’re boozing.”

“All right, I know. You don’t have to go through that again.”

“Booze is poison to the body.”

“I’m off it. I’m not drinking. You got to break loose once in a while. I’m living with a lush — you know how that is.”

Through the door of the locker room came sounds of dripping showers and the light bag thumping. “Get rid of her,” Ruben said, grave, convinced, uncompromising.

“I know it. I’m going to. I know.” Tully’s shiny blue slacks dropped down his legs with a clink of change.

On the dusty floor of the closet was a clean square where the carton of Earl’s clothes had been.