The Boxer and the Spy (3 page)

“Again,” George said.

They did it again. And again. Terry was breathing hard and he could feel the sweat soaking through his gray T-shirt.

“Okay,” George said. “Left jab, bob, right to the head.”

Terry did it. The jab slid off the edge of George’s mitt. Terry stepped back in disgust.

“They can’t all be winners,” George said.

Terry nodded. He was very aware that Abby was in the room.

“Try it again,” George said.

Terry tried it again and got two satisfying pops. He was breathing very hard.

“Again,” George said.

Left jab. Bob. Right cross.

“Again.”

Left jab. Bob. Right cross. Terry was gasping.

“Round’s over,” George said. “Take a seat.”

Terry sat down next to Abby. She smiled at him.

“I didn’t realize,” she said, “how hard it is.”

“Hard ... for ... me,” Terry said.

“Hard for anybody,” George said. “Bobbing and weaving take a lot of energy.”

“It must be much harder if somebody is really trying to hit you,” Abby said.

“Is,” George said. “So you don’t fight until you got all this grooved.”

“But someday you have your first fight, if you’re going to be a boxer,” Abby said.

“You be scared,” George said. “Everybody be scared. Once you got technique, fighting pretty much ‘bout controlling fear.”

“But ... I mean that sounds right ... but there you are and some man is running at you trying to hit you. How ... ?”

“You keep your feet under you, you keep your stance, you try keep him off with your jab while you figure out what you gonna do. He charging at you and swinging wild, pretty soon he gonna open himself up, or he gonna run out of gas. That be your chance.”

“Could you do that, Terry?” Abby said.

“I ... don’t ... know.”

“Not yet,” George said. “I believe he got a cool enough head. But he ain’t got enough training. Can’t be thinking about it then. Got to be muscle memory. And you got to be able to trust it. Be a while ‘fore we get there.”

Terry’s breathing had calmed.

“But we will,” Terry said.

“Starting now,” George said. “Ding ding. Round two.”

A
fter his session, as he was doing his stretching, Terry said to George, “You ever take steroids?”

George shook his head.

“Used to pop a few NoDoz,” George said.

“You know about steroids?” Terry said.

“‘Nuff to know I don’t want you messin’ with them,” George said.

“I won‘t,” Terry said. “Can they make you crazy?”

“Don’t really know,” George said. “Hear a lotta talk about them, don’t know how much is fact.”

“You know anybody takes them?”

“Sure.”

“Does it make any of them crazy?”

“Some of them already crazy,” George said. “Why you want to know?”

“Kid I know committed suicide from taking steroids,” Terry said.

“Oh,” George said, “yeah. Read about that kid. You know him?”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “And I don’t think he was taking steroids.”

George nodded and didn’t say anything.

“Why would anyone take them?” Abby said. “If they’re supposed to be so awful?”

George smiled.

“They may be,” George said. “But everything you hear ain’t for sure so.”

“You mean you don’t think they’re bad?” Terry said.

“I mean I don’t know,” George said. “That the point. People say they bad, but you know lotta people take them, and they don’t seem bad. Say you a fighter. Or a football player, or whatever, and you competing against people who take steroids? And it make them bigger and stronger and faster than you? And you keep losing your fights, or you gonna get cut from the football team? And fighting or football, or whatever, is all you know how to do?”

Terry nodded.

“Maybe you take the chance,” Terry said.

“Maybe you do.”

“You said you never took them,” Abby said.

“Wasn’t around so much when I was fighting,” George said. “By the time they was popular, I didn’t have no need for them.”

“You think you would have taken them?” Abby said.

“I give you a pill that would make you stay beautiful and popular all your life,” George said. “You take it?”

“She don’t need it,” Terry said.

“That’s right, but do she know it?” George said.

Abby smiled.

My God, look at that!
Terry thought.

“Do you think you might have a pill like that with you?” she said.

The three of them laughed.

“How old are you, girl?” George said.

“Fifteen,” Abby said.

“Goin’ on thirty-five,” George said.

“You don’t want me messing with ‘roids,” Terry said.

“‘Cause you don’t know,” George said.

“I could look on the Internet,” Terry said.

“Uh-huh,” George said, “and you could stop people on the street and ask them.”

“You don’t trust the Web?”

“People get a chance to go on free and say anything they want to? Gonna get a lot of crap on there. ‘Scuse me, Abby.”

“Oh I say ‘crap’ all the time,” Abby said.

George grinned at her.

“Hard not to,” he said.

“So how do you find out about stuff like steroids?” Terry said.

“Medical folks, I guess,” George said. “Don’t know much ‘bout that. What I know is, until you know what you taking, and why, don’t take it.”

“I heard it could give you acne,” Terry said, “and maybe stunt your growth, and maybe mess up your sex life.”

“Uh-oh,” Abby said.

Terry stared at her.

“What are you uh-ohing about?” he said. “We don’t have a sex life.”

“Yet,” Abby said.

Terry’s face felt a little hot, as if maybe he was blushing. The feeling that he might be blushing made him blush more.

“I guess I won’t go there,” he said.

Abby winked at George. And as they left, they could hear George chuckling to himself.

Wow,
Terry thought.
Wow!

D
uring free period, Terry went to the health center on the first floor of the high school. The woman at the reception desk had long gray hair and small round glasses with gold-colored frames.

“My name is Terry Novak,” he said. “I’d like to see the nurse.”

“You have a pass?”

“No ma‘am, I’m just looking for information.”

“Have to have a pass signed by a teacher or guidance counselor,” the receptionist woman said, “to see the nurse.”

“I’m not sick or anything,” Terry said. “I just need to ask her about steroids.”

“Not without a pass,” the receptionist said. “School regulation.”

“How ‘bout if I got bitten by a rattlesnake,” Terry said. “I still need a pass?”

“Don’t get smart with me, young man,” the receptionist said.

“Wouldn’t do much good,” Terry murmured, mostly to himself.

“What did you say?”

“I said, yes ma‘am, thank you ma’am.”

“This is not an information booth, young man.”

“I can see that,” Terry said.

After the end of classes, Terry went down to the library and began to read in the newspaper files everything he could find about the death of Jason Green. He had left a note, probably typed and printed out on one of the computers in the school library. The note said simply that he was filled with ideas and feelings that he could no longer bear, and it was time to say good-bye. At the end of the note it said, “I love you all,” and his name, typed, not written. He had been in the water for maybe a day, according to the coroner’s office, and his system showed traces of steroids. As he read the accounts in the newspaper files, Terry realized suddenly that nobody at the coroner’s office actually said the steroids caused his suicide. The newspaper stories all sounded as if that’s what happened, and Mr. Bullard had sounded as if that was what happened, but the cops didn’t actually say so, and neither did the medical examiner’s office.

Tank lumbered into the library, saw Terry, and came over and sat down beside him.

“Whaddya doing?” he said, looking at the newspaper files.

“I’m reading about Jason.”

“Man, you’re really into that, aren’t you?”

“I liked Jason.”

“Yeah,” Tank said. “He was okay. I think he was gay. You?”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “I thought so.”

“He ever say?”

“Not to me,” Terry said.

“You didn’t care?”

Terry shook his head.

“I didn’t care,” he said.

Tank nodded.

“Couple guys on the team are using steroids,” he said.

“Football players?”

“Yeah. I won’t tell their names,” Tank said. “But they look good, and they told me it really helps.”

“No bad symptoms?” Terry said.

“They say no.”

“They know anything about Jason using them?” Terry said.

“Nope. They kind of laughed when I asked.”

“Where do they get ‘roids?” Terry said.

“They won’t say. This is kind of hot stuff, Terry. Guys don’t like to talk about it.”

Terry nodded.

“You ever try them?” he said.

“Hell no,” Tank said.

“I can see why,” Terry said. “You get any bigger you’ll have your own zip code.”

Tank shrugged.

“What are you gonna do?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “If you ever find out where the ‘roids came from that your friends take ...”

“If I can,” Tank said. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know why I want to know,” Terry said. “I don’t know anything. I’m fishing.”

“For what?” Tank said.

“Anything that bites, I guess. I can’t seem to let go of it.”

Tank laughed. The librarian glared at them from her desk in front.

“I known you all my life,” Tank whispered. “You never let go of nothin‘.”

I
went on the Internet looking up steroids,” Terry said.

“You learn anything?” Abby said.

“I learned that some people think they’re poison, and some people think they’re not.”

They were hanging on the Wall together, across the common from the town library. There was no one else on the Wall.
I like being alone with her,
Terry thought.

“So we’re nowhere,” Abby said.

“It’s like you can’t trust anything, you know?” Terry said. “You go to some anti-drug site and they preach to you about how bad it all is and talk like kids are morons and we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”

“No wonder we don’t trust them,” Abby said.

“Adults?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “They’re so know-it-all. And mostly they don’t have a clue.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean why can’t they say, you know, some people think steroids do this, and some people think they do that, and here are the known facts,” Abby said. “Why isn’t there anyplace like that to go to?”

“I don’t know,” Terry said.

Abby looked at him for a moment and smiled.

“And you don’t care,” she said.

Terry shrugged.

“Well,” he said. “My mother’s not much like that. She’s pretty fair, you know. She doesn’t pretend to know everything.”

“And your father?” Abby said.

“He’s dead,” Terry said.

“I know. I’m sorry. I meant was he like your mom when he was alive?”

“He was okay,” Terry said. “He just started teaching me how to box.”

“What did he die of?” Abby said.

“Worked for the power company, got electrocuted on a job.”

“Oh how awful,” Abby said.

“Happened when I was twelve,” Terry said. “I’m kind of used to it now.”

“Your mother works,” Abby said.

“Yeah. She’s a bartender.”

“Really?” Abby said. “Does she make enough? To live in this town?”

“Power company was to blame, I guess, when my father died,” Terry said. “They gave her some money, and she paid off the mortgage and made some kind of trust fund for me to go to college. So yeah, we’re getting by.”

“Funny, I’ve known you since we were three,” Abby said. “But I never knew how your father died.”

“No reason you should. Hell, I don’t know anything about your parents, what they do, what their names are. I don’t know about anybody’s parents.”

“They do seem kind of, like, they don’t have anything to do with this life.”

“The one we have with each other?” Terry said.

“Yes, you and me, and the other kids. It’s like adults don’t get it that this life is going to school, hanging on the Wall,” Abby said. “This is real life.”

“You think a lot,” Terry said.

“I guess so,” Abby said. “Don’t you?”

“Not so much,” Terry said.

“You’re thinking a lot about Jason Green,” Abby said.

“That’s different,” Terry said.

“Why?”

“Because I want to find out what happened to him.”

“So you think about problems and I think about how things are,” Abby said.

“Actually,” Terry said. “I think about you a lot too.”