Pound for Pound (31 page)

“This town used to have a different complexion,” she said, “no offense intended.”

“How far are we from downtown L.A.?”

“On a good day, and at the right time, twenty minutes.”

“How far on to Hollywood?” Chicky asked.

“Another twenty minutes, you’re lucky.”

At the food stand next door, Chicky had Mexican scrambled eggs, with beans and tortillas, and another
café con leche.
He walked for a half hour trying to get his bearings, and, after a good look-see, asked people on the street and in shops if there was a boxing gym nearby. No one knew.

A police car was parked on the street and the middle-aged policeman inside looked Mexican. Chicky greeted him politely and asked about fight gyms and a certain white trainer. The cop thought Chicky was putting him on, then realized he was serious.

“Where you bringin that accent from?” said the cop.

“San Antonio, just got into town, and I’m lookin for a Mr. Dan Cooley, who lives in these parts.”

“What, you a fighter?”

“Yessir.”

The cop hadn’t heard a “Yes, sir” in a long time, and smiled. He thought a moment, then gave Chicky the names of several gyms and general directions to them.

“I don’t know the addresses, but start with these. They can give you more places to check if you don’t find your man there. The nearest one is the El Indio, and that’s just a few blocks over at the corner of Florence and Bear.”

“Bear?” said Chicky, the sound of it tugging at him despite his self-control. “How you spell that?”

The cop looked at him closely, thought he might be a smart-ass after all. “B-E-A-R. Like in
Teddy
bear.”

Chicky was disappointed. “I thought it might be spelled B-E-X-A-R, that’s the county San Antonio’s in. Down there we say ‘Bear County’ for Bexar County, like in Teddy bear. Yeah, well ‘bear’ kinda took me back.”

The cop understood, saw that the boy was showing signs of homesickness. “Well, good luck, cowboy.”

“Much obliged.”

Walking, Chicky took Florence over to El Indio. He passed by the assend of Bell High School and saw the football field and track, and noted that this could be a convenient place to do roadwork. Chicky would learn that El Indio was known among L.A.’s Mexican fight guys as
el taco roto,
the broken taco. But it was clean and presentable and the walls were covered with photos and posters of legendary Mexican fighters, going back to Mexico City’s Raul Ratón Macias of the mid -50s. The gym was nearly empty, most pros having finished their workouts by one o’clock. They’d run early, then slept. Now they’d sleep again, then walk after dinner. Fighters would waste away if they didn’t get their shut-eye and lots of it. An old guy playing dominos told him that the manager, Tony Velasco, would be back around five.

Chicky bought a street map of Los Angeles, and back at his room called information for the addresses of the gyms the cop had given him. He used his blue highlighter to mark the routes he’d take. The blue lines looked like grapevines twisting senselessly through the grid of the map, but Chicky knew that once he’d been to one place, then the next one, the ones after would be easier to track down.

Thinking that Dan Cooley would have a gym closer to downtown and in a white neighborhood, Chicky headed for the gyms that sounded Anglo to him.

Huntington Park Gym, on Soto, sounded white. It was fairly close, but it was all Latino. Though everyone in the gym could pronounce “Cooley” all right, the
cholos
had fun joking with the name, saying
culero
instead of Cooley. One of the old-timers woke up from his nap and said he’d known Dan for years, but that he hadn’t seen him working in corners lately. Fight guys are always polite to strangers, but they are closemouthed around people they don’t know, for fear that they might somehow rat someone out.

Hollenbeck Gym, east of downtown, was a cop gym for amateur kids, mostly Mexican. The amateur coaches weren’t familiar with Dan’s name.

Hoover Street Gym was south of downtown, near where the Rodney King riots had erupted. Black and Latino fighters and trainers worked at Hoover. One of the old-timers said that Cooley had once had a gym in Hollywood, but that it was closed as far as he knew.

“It name Hard Rock,” another old man said.

“No,” the first said. “It Hard
Knock.
Hard Rock be a Hollywood uptown club for spo’tin folks.”

Broadway Gym, at the corner of 108th Street, deep down in South Central L.A., had some Latinos working out, but it was mostly black. The old black men playing checkers knew Dan Cooley, all right, and knew that he’d had a gym some time back, but were not sure of its name or where it had been. The owner, Wardell Purdy, walked with a limp, had lip whiskers and a full head of steel gray hair. Wardell added that he’d known Dan Cooley forever, but hadn’t seen him in a while, and had heard that Dan had closed his gym.

“It was called the School of Hard Knocks,” said Wardell, “somethin like that. I ain’t sure, but I think it was on Wilcox, in Hollywood near Melrose someplace. Cooley could fight, I can tell you that, and he did it so pretty you wished you had the same daddy.”

Wardell also suggested the Boxing Commission. Chicky called, and spoke to a polite secretary, but she informed him that the last time she’d tried to call Cooley for her boss the phone had been disconnected.

Chicky said, “Can you tell me where his gym is?”

“Sorry, we don’t keep that information on file.”

Chicky checked with information, but there was no listing for the School of Hard Knocks, and none for Hard Knock, either. By the time he got back to Bell, he was bushed and returned to the motel instead of to the Indio. He had Pepsi and another
torta
next door, and fell asleep watching grainy TV in his room.

The next day, he was offered a deal at the motel. If he paid for the room a week in advance, $210.00, the rate would be thirty dollars a day instead of $42.50. He was also offered a deal of $500.00 a month if he paid in advance, and that included maid service and clean sheets and towels once a week. Chicky realized that finding Dan Cooley was going to take some doing, and went for the monthly deal. He could always move after thirty days. He’d done the numbers and felt that he was saving money, but paying out five hundred in one chunk hurt. He hoped that he’d find
Mr. Cooley, who could surely help him settle into a cheapo $200 bachelor apartment somewhere close to his gym. Without realizing it, Chicky was still operating at San Antonio prices, but he would soon realize that in L.A., his fortune of $
2,600
wasn’t going to last long.

Chicky’d picked up the names of several other gyms along the way. Someone confirmed that Cooley’s gym had been in the vicinity of Melrose and Wilcox, but that Cooley had somehow dropped out.

Chicky asked, dreading the answer, “He couldn’t be dead, could he?”

“Could be, I suppose.”

Chicky checked his map, marked the L.A. grid with his blue highlighter, and lit out. He circled the area for an hour, passing the Hollywood division of the L.A. Police Department twice, but he saw no sign of a gym. He was ready to head back for Bell when he noticed an old building set back from the street, its front dirty and neglected. Dry eucalyptus leaves and bent weeds had claimed the yard. The door and windows were boarded up with slabs of weathered plywood. Chicky pulled over and got out, leaving his truck to idle. A man dressed in a dirty T-shirt and plaid brown-and-green bell bottoms was watering his lawn next door. He had a drinker’s nose; the veins looked like they were ready to burst. Apprehensively, Chicky asked if the adjacent building was the Hard Knock Gym.

“I don’t know if it had a name. Used to see people comin and goin that looked like fighter types, but not in a while, now.”

The boozer set the hose down, motioned Chicky over to a patch of weeds, and pointed down. Lying there, half covered with hard dirt, was Dan’s small hand-painted sign: “GyM.”

“¡Ay!”
Chicky said. “You know what the owner looked like?”

“Is he a black man?”

“White, far as I know.”

The neighbor said, “I only saw a black man, that I recall.”

“That rips it.”

Even though he was tempted to give up, Chicky decided that he might have one more shot, and returned to the Hollywood division PD.

He spoke with a female desk officer, “Payson” on her name tag, and asked her if she knew of a Dan Cooley.

Officer Payson said, “Seems like there was a Cooley involved in a traffic death a while back, but that’s all I remember.”

Chicky said, “I was afraid of somethin like that. Thanks.”

He drove back to Bell, his options exhausted, his mind blank. That night, he dreamed that he couldn’t sleep, and that was worse than not sleeping at all. He was exhausted the next day, and slipping into despair. He’d spent five hundred on the motel for nothing, in addition to the money for the trip. He’d been ready to go to New York or Philadelphia alone, but now he was alone in
Al-lay.
A new kid in town. He thought of the El Indio.

Chicky wore his straw Resistol hat. He entered the El Indio gym at ten-thirty, knowing that most of its fighters would have already arrived. No whites, no blacks, all Latinos. Some were warming up, others were still changing into their gym togs. Chicky could tell that most were four-round fighters, but he could also see that others had the moves and weariness of bust-out, ten-round pros. Trainers worked the punch mitts, or stood coaching boys on the body bags. It was too early for the
bippity-bippity
of the speed bags, or the
yop-yop-yop
of the leather jump ropes. Two fighters stood in opposite corners of one of the rings. They wore protective cups, mouthpieces, headgear, and gloves. Their corner men greased them with Vaseline. It wasn’t Bexar County, but Chicky felt at home.

A kindly looking man, one who reminded Chicky of a smoother version of his grandfather, was on the phone at a desk against a wall. Owner of the gym, the man at the desk also trained and managed fighters. He had a bit of a gut, but otherwise looked in good shape for his age. Gray hair, dark, dark skin, frameless glasses. Tony Velasco smiled and pinched a thumb and forefinger together, indicating to Chicky that he’d be with him in a moment. The ring timer was on. When the thirty-second whistle
sounded, Velasco hung up the phone. He hurried over to Chicky and smiled again. Given Chicky’s straw hat and boots, Velasco couldn’t be sure where he was from, but newcomers from the other side of the border often wore the same outfit. Velasco figured Chicky for Mexican of one kind or another, despite his light complexion. Some of Velasco’s fighters wore the
vato
baggy shit from the barrio. Others, having assimilated more than the younger guys, wore standard white-bread clothes. When Chicky got to the desk, Velasco held out his hand.

Velasco said, “You speak English?”

“Yessir.”

“Hey, I’m Tony Velasco, can I help you?”

“Hi’ya,” said Chicky, shaking hands. “I hope you can. I’m lookin for a trainer, white feller name of Dan Cooley?”

Velasco heard the accent and figured Chicky for a hayseed, but he also noticed the flattened nose and scar tissue. “You a fighter?”

Chicky said, “Yessir. You know Mr. Cooley?”

“Why you want Cooley?”

“I want to turn pro. You know of him?”

Velasco knew Dan Cooley. Cooley had kicked Tony’s ass at the Olympic in the old days. In a rematch, Cooley kicked his ass again, only worse. Cooley’s fighters always whipped Velasco’s fighters as well. But that was expected by insiders, given Velasco’s reputation for supplying “opponents”—inexperienced, unprepared, or worn-out fighters who could be offered to promoters looking to build a favored fighter’s record. “Opponents” could also be fighters who could aspire only to being “opponents.” Just being in the game was enough. Maybe they’d catch a break, who could tell? And the “opponent” sometimes got paid more than the favorite. Such fights weren’t “fixed” fights, in the sense that the outcome was predetermined; but they were “rigged,” meaning that the playing field had been seriously tipped. When insiders saw Velasco in some boy’s corner, the smart money usually went down on the opposite corner.

Tony Velasco looked into the exposed rafters of the old building. “Cooley? You say Cooley?”

Velasco seemed legit to Chicky, and he grew hopeful despite himself. “Yessir, that’s Dan Cooley?”

Velasco loved to lie, cheat, and steal. “Older guy, right? Like my age?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I hate to be the one to say it,” Velasco told him, “but I think I heard he was dead.”

“Shucks,” said Chicky.

“Yeah,” said Velasco, “seems like it was a while ago. Maybe it was he retired and moved, but I think I heard he bought it.”

Chicky said, “It’s about what I’d come to.”

Velasco said, “What’s your name? Where you from? What’s your amateur record?”

“Chicky Garza. San Antonio. Fifty-six and seven, with twenty-nine KOs.”

Velasco knew that having a good amateur record didn’t guarantee success in the pros, but he was looking for bodies, not success. Velasco appeared to be considering something, but he already had a plan, the same plan he’d always made his living by, and he was sure he could make some quick money off this hick.

Velasco said, “That’s some record. I got connections, you know. Maybe you should come train here, see how you like it, you know? I could turn you pro.”

Chicky hadn’t had a better offer, but at this point he was thinking more about whip-out money. “How much’ll you charge me?”

“If me or one of my guys trains you, there’s no charge. But you got to be good, and always ready to fight, no excuses like the bullshit punks come in here lookin for a sugar daddy. Otherwise, it’s thirty a month, your towels,” said Velasco. “I could find you a cheap place in one of my apartments close by, bed and stove and that, for maybe six hundred and fifty.”

“I already got a place at the Bell Motel for a month, and cheaper, too.”

“That’s even better,
mano,”
said Velasco, slipping into an Us-Versus-Them tone of voice. “I take a lot of boys up to Vegas, eh? Or I take ‘em
down to Mexico, you know, along the border, so they can make quick money and no taxes and fight in their hometowns or at least in front of
raza, ése.
My cut is the standard one third for manager, and one of my guys gets the standard ten percent off the top for trainer.” Velasco didn’t mention that the “trainer” was washed up, slept in a back room for his pay, and bombed himself out every night on a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.