Pound for Pound (16 page)

A good ol’ boy in the crowd stood up and shouted, “Remember the Alamo!”

It got a good laugh from everyone, and a Mexican fan slapped him on the back.

The food stands sold hot dogs and potato chips, but there were also tacos, tamales, nachos, and enchiladas. There were soft drinks and coffee, but it was clear that some of the
raza
had smuggled in bottles of their favorite adult beverage. A huge U.S. flag stretched across one wall, but there was also the Texas Lone Star flag and a Mexican flag. Several vendors offered T-shirts, caps, boxing equipment, and gaudy posters. The most popular were those of Muhammad Ali and Julio César Chávez.

The officials, headed by Lamar Steuke, were mostly folks from San Antonio, male and female, but there were officials from other parts of Texas as well. Officials wore white uniforms, but because of their big butts and hanging guts, they looked foolish next to the finely tuned athletes. Various boxing teams wore shorts and tank tops that blazed with primary colors. Chicky wore his Aggie colors, maroon and white, and Farrell wore the same green and gold shorts with a white top that he’d worn when he’d cleaned Chicky’s clock. Sykes wore pearlescent white, and greased himself to make his body shine.

Sykes smirked, “I like white.”

The fighters were frightened, fearless, worried, and bored, depending on experience and who their opponent would be. The sixteen fighters in Chicky’s classification ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-eight.

There would be eight bouts in the welterweight division on Friday night, and eight of those sixteen boxers would be eliminated. There would be four bouts on Saturday afternoon, which would eliminate four more fighters. The two bouts Saturday night, the Semifinals, would match four boys who had already fought once that day. Fighters would be getting tired, some might be fighting hurt. The two winners of the Semis would fight in the Final on Sunday afternoon. Depending on the number of fighters entered, the same process would play out in all twelve weight classifications. Winners of the Finals would go to the Nationals in Colorado Springs. The losers would have long rides home, whether all the way to the Panhandle, or just down the block. Folks in these parts called it nut-cuttin time.

There were two open-area dressing rooms, each fifty feet square—one for the red corner, one for the blue. Each had a chalkboard with the schedule of matches as determined by the drawing. Officials had matching bout sheets. Xeroxed programs were handed out at the door, where admission was $ 5. Fighters in the lower weight groups would go first. A few girls were part of the show, and they would be matched with other girls. All females had to present their passbooks. Once a fighter won the Semis, his passbook would be kept locked overnight in a tin box to prevent screwups on the day of the Finals. Taking home a passbook marked with a win in the Regionals was better than a brand-new Chevy four-by-four with ten-inch subwoofers going full bore.

The national anthem was dutifully sung, and the bouts proceeded quickly, some lasting the scheduled three three-minute rounds. Others lasted less than a minute of the first round—fights would be stopped when a referee decided that a fighter could not defend himself, but there were a few outright KOs, as well. Chicky would have to beat four opponents to win the tournament. Two could be Sykes and Farrell, and if so, Chicky knew that both would be knock-down, drag-out affairs. He was elated by the prospect of facing both, because, by beating both, it would move him to the Nationals, where everyone would know he was a badass.

On the first night, Sykes said, “This Chicky-dickie punk ain’t nothin, right?”

Mr. George sensed Sykes’s fear. So he couldn’t be faulted later, the old man said, “This Chicky-dickie a whup-ass Messkin boy who will fight you three minutes of every round.”

Sykes said, “Who hit hardes’?”

Mr. George lied. “You do.”

“What it is!”

Mr. George watched Sykes dress for his bout. Psycho was sober, as reasonable as he would ever be, and his weight was right.
At least, Mr. George thought, crack don’t make a muhfuh hongry. Goddamn weed make a boy go through a gallon of rocky road watching dirty movies. Onlyest way he stop playin wit his dick be eat more ice cream.

On the first night, Chicky fought at 145 pounds. Many of the boys in his weight class had trained down eight and more pounds to make
147.
Because Chicky had worked with bigger fighters in the gym, he felt comfortable against his heavier opponents. As expected by nearly everyone in the know, Chicky was pure search-and-destroy. He beat his first opponent by a comfortable margin. Eloy was elated, but Chicky’s opponent had clipped him with some wild shots. It made Chicky realize he was short on defense. Out of respect for the other boy, a fireplug of a Tex-Mex kid from Abilene, Chicky shook hands mid-ring.

Chicky said, “Good fight.”

Abilene said, “Y’all’ll win the whole shitteree, you watch.”

Sykes knocked out his first opponent in two rounds, a white farm boy with a near Oklahoma accent, from up in Wichita Falls. Once the boy recuperated, Sykes refused to shake his hand. The ref warned Sykes that he would not raise Sykes’s hand in victory until he did.

Mr. George growled at Sykes, “You do the right thing, or you be all alone out there doin the wrong thing, you hyuh?”

Sykes didn’t like it, but he went to the beaten boy, whose eyes were still half goofy. The most Sykes would allow was to pound one of the other boy’s gloves.

“Yeah,” Sykes said. But under his breath he muttered, “Cracker, I get you dawg-mess momma, too.”

Mr. George heard the last part, and said, “Ain’t this a bitch.”

He would be glad when the tournament was over, so he could quit Sykes’s common ass altogether, and get back to his real fighters. By now, the only reason he stuck was because he’d given his word to the lawyers to see Sykes through the tournament.

Farrell had a tough fight with a left-hander like himself, but won by unanimous decision. Chicky went to Farrell’s dressing room to congratulate him.

“You did good, pods.”

“You, too,” said Farrell, and added, “Who’s this Sykes dirtball?”

“Some jailbird hails from Houston.”

“He’s built like a brick shithouse, awright,” Farrell said, “but can he handle sout’paws?”

“He’d best.”

The next day, Saturday, the second round of the tournament followed weekend procedures. Weigh-ins were at eight
a.m.,
and included a physical exam. That gave boys time to eat and rest before the first fight at noon. Out-of-towners would return to their motels and cheap hotels. Some stayed with relatives. Eloy and Chicky had gone home the night before, and at dawn the old man had used the last of his morphine. He had a pocketful of money and would see Trini later that day for more painkiller. He was calm as he drove into town, but after the weigh-in
that morning, his habit began to jitter through him. He’d wanted to make a buy, but Trini had taken off.

Trini said, “Later.”

“But what about my you-know?”

“Later,
damn!
What don’t you understand about
wait?”

Eloy began to fret as he drove Chicky to the Cattle Drive Hotel. He fed the kid what was billed as the “Longhorn Breakfast” at Crockett’s All-Nite Barbecue Palace downstairs. Fear of pain and his growing need for the Lullaby Lady had him talking to himself, had him picking at dried-up gum stuck underneath his side of the booth.

“Eat,” Eloy told the boy, though he couldn’t even think of food. “Put some meat on your ribs.”

He checked Chicky into a room upstairs after breakfast, and had to sit down. Chicky would drink iced tea with lemon and rest until eleven-thirty. Eloy had grown sicker over the last year, but had stayed away from Doc Ocampo—there was no way he’d cop a plea about being strung out to the old man. He knew that what ailed him could not be cured.
Son cosas de la vida,
fate, destiny, whatever. As he sat in a brown overstuffed chair, the view of his beloved San Anto through the hotel room’s window was blocked by a newer, taller building. He felt sick as a gut-shot buck, but tried to remain calm.

Afraid that he’d vomit, Eloy left. “Rest,” he told Chicky. “I’m walkin down to the cathedral, light us some candles.”

That was a lie. He tried to phone Trini as soon as he was out the door, but there was no answer. He drove over to the tournament, but no dope dealer. He went to his truck and drank Popov vodka from a paper cup, and hoped no one would smell it on his breath. He chewed a handful of Rolaids, hoping to make sure, then swallowed half a tin of Mexican
aspirina.

The tournament was packed. At one forty-five
p.m.
, Sykes overwhelmed a boy who had come all the way from Texarkana. He had a good record,
but he’d had easy fights. Unprepared for Sykes’s onslaught, he was first put on his heels, then flat on his back. The ref didn’t bother to count. Mr. George urged Sykes to go say something sportsmanlike to the beaten boy. Sykes went over, but when he didn’t look at the boy as he banged his glove, the audience saw Sykes’s bad manners and hooted him. He started shouting back, but the ref stepped in front of him, and, shaking his head, ushered Sykes back to Mr. George.

In the dressing room, Mr. George took Sykes aside. “Didn’t you mamma teach you nothin?”

“I won—what you want?”

“Yeah, you did, but you lose sometime and you watch you lawyer money dry up like a dead skunk in the Pecos sun.”

Sykes held his taped hands up and boasted, “I’ont worry about it, I got these.”

Mr. George said, “Don’t never leave ‘em home.”

Following Sykes’s fight, Farrell also had it easy. His opponent had the chinky-shaped blue eyes the Poles had brought into Texas, eyes donated way back by Genghis Khan and his golden horde. He was a farm boy from Bandera, and had worn his dusty black cowboy hat outside the ring while standing by. He was proud of it, and of everything it represented, but because of Farrell’s two left shots to the liver, he was unable to meet the bell for the second round. The boy’s daddy was his coach, and stomped on the black hat when his son could not continue.

“I tried, Daddy.”

The boy’s daddy had immediately realized the hurt he’d unintentionally caused, and cursed himself for one dumb redneck sumbitch. He quickly hugged his boy to him, kissed his neck, and said that he was proud the boy had made it this far. It was hard for him to talk, but he gritted it out. “What say we head for Paris Hatters, and after we git you a new Stetson, we could get us a few thousand Pearl roadies for the ride back home and some of Momma’s venison steaks?”

“I’d like that a lot, Daddy.”

Chicky was next to fight. He had a tough opponent, a typical fast-moving Eastside black fighter who made Chicky miss more than he was used to. Chicky stood in the center of the ring after the last bell, and worried a ton while waiting for the decision. He got the win by a slim margin, and said a silent prayer of gratitude. He hadn’t been rocked at any time, and was never worried about the other boy’s power, but Chicky’s dug-in, stiff, wide stance had limited his ability to navigate the cardinal points of the squared circle, and he was unable to corner his slippery target and explode on him. He knew he wouldn’t have to go looking for Farrell or Sykes, and was grateful for that. Dissatisfied with his showing, he was nonetheless grateful for his power, and felt he had more pure juice than Sykes. Farrell was another thing. He had power to burn, plus experience. Being a left-hander like Chicky would make it tough for both of them. A short, stocky boy named Sal Torres from Eagle Pass would be included in the final four opponents going to the Semi. Torres’s left hooks to the body had separated ribs and temporarily paralyzed his first two opponents. He was considered the dark horse to win.

Chicky took a shower and weighed himself. He was down to 141, but still in the 147 -pound classification. He needed carbohydrates and potassium. While he was dressing, Eloy sought out Trini. Trini knew what Eloy was after.

“When can we have a sit-down?” Eloy asked.

“I’ll wait around here. Go take care of our boy.”

Chicky walked the half mile to Crockett’s barbecue with Eloy. He skipped a meat dish, and ordered two glasses of grapefruit juice. After that, he had double servings of corn bread, beans, and bread pudding that was made with cinnamon and raisins and served in a lemon sauce that reminded him of his granny’s lemon meringue pie.

“You still miss her?” Chicky asked. He didn’t have to explain who
her
was.

Eloy picked at his uneaten fried chicken, and slurped up his sugar-laden coffee.

“All the time ever’ day, ‘n more n more. She’s what kept me honest.”

Eloy’s transactions with Trini humiliated him, but without them he couldn’t get through the days or the nights. He’d croak if Chicky ever learned what he was up to, so he seldom spoke to Trini when Chicky was around. Just as he thought of Dolores daily, he constantly thought of ways to aid and protect Chicky. One of those ways was to keep Chicky from knowing how little time he had left to live, and his nasty ritual with a needle.
Shame,
he thought, shame was what his Lola had told him he’d lost. But if he’d lost it, why did he still feel it? A
sinvergüenza
was someone who was without shame. In Spanish, being called shameless was worse than being called a whoreson, a motherfucker, and a
puto
cocksucker to boot.
S-s-sinvergüenza
made Eloy stutter, but once he had Chicky resting safely in bed, he went searching for Trini at the San Nacho.

Eloy didn’t see Trini’s bust-out
‘78
Monte Carlo lowrider in the parking lot. Hoping for a note from Trini, Eloy checked under Fresita’s windshield wipers, then went inside the arena.

“He better come through, he’s gotta come through.”

The tournament was winding down for the afternoon, and the cleanup crew was already preparing for the Semi scheduled for that night at seven o’clock. Eloy had the all-overs and started to sweat. He checked everywhere for Trini, and when he didn’t see him, the all-overs got worse. He went back to the parking lot and found Trini sitting in Fresita. Eloy was sure he had locked the truck.