The Brave (7 page)

H
E WAS SURPRISED
, as usual, by the loveliness of her face, round and dark and soft, framed by the thick black braids that fell over her bare shoulders. Her blouse was embroidered with an ancient Onondaga design, but it was cut too low in front for any Indian woman to wear in a ceremony. Her brown leather pants were tight on her slim hips.

He was embarrassed when she hugged him and kissed him on the lips. She squeezed his biceps and said, “Wow,” then pushed him out to arm's length.

“You look…harder.” Her brow furrowed, but then she smiled and hugged him again. “Oh, Sonny, I've got such wonderful news. I've found our special place. In Phoenix. You'll have your own room, we can blow this dump today.”

“Dump, Answedaywe?” There was sarcasm in the way Jake said her Moscondaga name.

“Oh, Uncle Jake.” She threw her arms
around his neck. “You know what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jake.

A tall white man, elegantly wrapped in a pale-gray suit that matched the limo, put a large hand on her bare shoulder. She patted it.

“This is my…friend. Roger.”

“How are ya?” He waved at Jake, who had sidled out of handshake range. Roger gave Sonny's hand a brisk pump. “Sonny, you always got a place at Sweet Bear's Kiva.”

“Sweet Bear's what?” asked Jake.

“That's what we're calling the boutiques,” said Sonny's mother quickly. “Roger operates luxury hotels in Chicago, Minneapolis and Phoenix. We're going to open authentic Indian shops in the lobbies.”

“Authentic.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Kiva is not in our language.”

“For your foreign tourist,” said Roger, “Indian is Indian. Just so long as they get native goods. They don't want Hong Kong wampum, if you get my drift.” He had a booming voice that reminded Sonny of TV car salesmen.

“Come on in,” said Jake. “Hot out here.”

Roger glanced at a heavy gold wristwatch. “Wheels up in an hour.”

“Roger's corporate jet,” said Sonny's
mother proudly. “We've got a marketing meeting in Chicago tonight.”

“Come for some native goods?” asked Jake.

“I've come for Sonny.”

“How long this time?” The old man's voice was steelier than Sonny had ever heard it.

“For good,” she said.

“Heard that before,” said Jake.

“Sonny, go pack,” said Roger. “Take what you need for a week. Jake can ship the rest.”

She smiled at Sonny. “You'll love Phoenix.”

“I want to stay here.”

“We'll be together. You can work in the shops.”

“I want to stay with Jake.”

“There's nothing for you here.”

Sonny took a deep breath. “I'm in training to be a fighter.”

“Jake!” The softness was gone from her face and voice. Her bird eyes pecked at the old man. “Sonny's got a chance to be somebody now. I'm not going to let you spoil it.”

“Chop chop,” said Roger, tapping his watch. “Gotta go.”

“You go,” said Sonny. His hands curled into fists.

Roger backed toward the limo. “Work it
out, Sweet.” He climbed back inside and slammed the door, disappearing behind the dark tinted window.

“Let him stay,” said Jake. “He's doing real good.”

“Don't get in my way, Jake. I'm not leaving without him. And if that means the sheriff, I'll call him.”

Sonny looked at Jake, who nodded. “She can do it, boy. Come on, I'll help you pack.” He grabbed Sonny's elbow and roughly steered him into the house. “No trouble. Get him on his way. Sweet.”

“Make it snappy, Jake. No tricks.”

Inside, Jake said, “Time to go to Donatelli's Gym.”

“What about Stonebird?”

“Stonebird ain't the only mountain.”

Sonny's mouth went dry. “Am I ready?”

“Find out.” Jake rummaged in a drawer. “Here.” He pressed money into Sonny's hand. “Keys in the truck. Stay on back roads to Syracuse, then use the Thruway. Call me from New York.”

“I don't know the way to Donatelli's Gym.”

“Hundred-twenty-fifth Street and Seventh
Avenue. Harlem.” Jake raised his right hand, thumb tucked between the third and fourth fingers. “Don't forget, you of the People.”

“I'm not a Running Brave, Jake.”

“Not yet.”

I
T WAS NEARLY
midnight before he found the Harlem street. The Korean grocery on the corner was bright with fresh fruits and vegetables and bustling with customers. The second-floor law offices were dark. A single light on the third floor glowed behind the letters on the dusty window—
DONATELLI'S GYM
. Sonny double-parked the tow truck.

A Korean man shelling peas on the sidewalk shouted, “No park,” but Sonny strode past him, through the wooden door and onto the dark steps.

He knew he should take a deep breath, wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, move cautiously up the narrow, twisting stairs, but all he had thought about on the long drive from the Res was getting to the top of the stairs, into the gym and on with his journey.

He took the steps two at a time, feeling them sag under his pounding weight. Wood
screeched, his boots slipped on the worn-smooth steps, he fell to one knee, could be a guard dog up there, but he couldn't slow himself down, a guy with a bat up there, a gun, too late to stop he scraped his shoulder against the wall, light leaked through the crack under the door marked
GYM
, he took a breath and threw open the door and plunged into the murky room.

“What took you so long, young gentleman?”

Brooks was sitting on a wooden folding chair under the only light in the room, a naked bulb hanging on a cord from the ceiling. He was dressed for a workout, high-topped black boxing shoes, trunks. His tee-shirt was dark with sweat. Punching-bag mitts were on the floor beside him.

“Jake called me.” Brooks took a long pull on a bottle of water. He pointed to a chair facing him and waited for Sonny to sit.

“Life is funny. I came up those stairs the same way you did, alone, at night, running scared. Twenty years ago. Mr. Donatelli sat in this chair and looked right inside me and figured I'd never be much of a boxer, but if he
gave me a chance to train here, I might be able to beat the streets, be a contender.”

The softness of his voice drew Sonny forward, straining to hear. Sonny felt his heart beating.

“You know what a contender is?” Brooks didn't wait for an answer. “A guy coming up, willing to bust his tail and take his lumps to find out just how far he can go. Mr. Donatelli said it's the climbing that makes the man, that getting to the top is an extra reward. You believe that?”

Sonny shrugged.

“You got to make a commitment to yourself before you make one to anything else. You got to decide to have pride, to act smart, to take control of your life. Control. You know what I mean?”

Sonny nodded.

“That thing inside you. What Jake calls the spirit. The Hawk. Mr. Donatelli believed there was a fire inside. He used to say a fire can keep you warm and cook your food, or it can burn you to death. Fire's not good or bad, it's just something you've got to control. Fear is that fire. Most people either let fear control them or
spend all their energy keeping that fear bottled up. The great champions use that fear—they turn it into fury when they need it. You learn to do that, you can beat anything, anywhere.”

Brooks stood up and pulled a dangling string. Sonny blinked at the sudden dazzling light of a dozen or more naked bulbs. Brooks leaned against the ring ropes.

“From now on, this is your life. Run every morning, train every afternoon, go to fights, watch fight movies, read about fights. And Rocky. You got to put in your rounds with Rocky.”

Brooks pointed across the room at a life-sized stuffed dummy hanging from the ceiling by a thick chain. The dummy's canvas skin was divided into squares from forehead to waist, each with a number. “Mr. Donatelli invented the system, after my time, and Henry perfected it when he took over the gym. Sharpens your reflexes, gets you thinking about combinations.”

“I can do it.”

“Anybody can do it. Rocky doesn't have arms to hit you back. And training's the easy part. There are rules here. Henry has his rules and I have mine. You're going to sleep here,
and you're gonna keep this place clean. That's how you pay for your training. Every night, you sweep the gym and mop it and scrub the blood off the canvas, and wash the bathrooms and showers and whatever else Henry tells you. Got that?”

Sonny nodded. He felt excited. This was for real.

“The only time you leave this place alone is to run in the morning. Don't want you wandering around the neighborhood. Don't want you spotted by X-Men. And I'm only going to say this once.” Brooks' voice dropped. “Stick and Doll are out of your life. If you go down to The Deuce, don't come back. Got that?”

He nodded.

“You got talent. You could go all the way. But before you beat anybody else, you got to beat yourself. And this is sink-or-swim territory. Henry'll tell you right off it's no therapy group. I'll help you all I can, but it's like a fight—you got to do this by yourself.”

There was a hammering knock on the door.

Sonny froze. His mom must have called the sheriff in Sparta, who called New York. It was over before it had begun.

The Korean man stuck his head in. “Truck block way.”

“Be right down, Kim,” said Brooks. “Want you to meet Sonny. He's going to take care of this place.”

“Hard job,” said Kim.

“Great job,” said Brooks. “Could be worth millions.”

“T
HIS IS NO THERAPY
group,” said Henry Johnson, “no training program for minorities, no rehab-detox-support center. This is a
pro
-fessional boxing gymnasium. You got it?”

Sonny nodded.

Johnson pulled at his little beard and frowned as if he wasn't so sure Sonny got it. “I seen this before. Kid watches a Rocky movie and comes in here looking to be champ. Hate those Rocky movies. That's why I call him Rocky.” He tapped the life-sized dummy swinging from the ceiling. “I'm going to show you this just once.”

He squared off in front of Rocky. Johnson was tall and thin. He walked with a slight limp. He wore a white shirt and a tie. “Your partner calls the punches. Like so. Jab…one.”

He didn't look like a fighter, but the punch Johnson threw at Rocky's head was brisk and precise. It landed on the point of Rocky's canvas chin, in the square marked 1.

“In the beginning you just practice your punches, how you throw them, where they land. Right…eight.”

A straight right landed on the numbered square on Rocky's left eye.

“After a while you'll go for combinations. Jab…five. Right…six. Hook…seven. Right…nineteen.” He grunted as his right uppercut thumped into Rocky's belly. “You got it?”

“Yeah,” said Sonny.

“Your partner'll be Martin Witherspoon. He comes by every day after school. You can take two hours off to train. That's your time.” Johnson surveyed the empty gym, dusty in the early-morning sunlight. “Rest of the time is mine. Hot plate in my office, cook your meals there, make sure you pull the plug when you're done. Wash your dishes. Anything you leave in the fridge, you mark your name on it. Use the TV if you like. No visitors overnight, no smoking, no drugs. Any questions?”

“No.”

“Start mopping.”

 

“Jab…five…five.”

Martin Witherspoon was a big fat black kid with round glasses that made him look like an
owl. His voice was low and bored. For three minutes he droned out the commands. When the bell rang to end the round, he turned away and picked his nose or pulled at the wedgie in the seat of his tight black pants. He looked as though he wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

“Right…sixteen.”

Every other training partner in the gym snapped out the punches like bingo numbers, urgent and sharp. Why had Johnson stuck him with Martin? Didn't care? Just looking for a free janitor? Sonny began to imagine Martin's face divided into numbered squares.

“Right…two. Jab…seven.”

Martin's monotone hung heavy on Sonny's arm, slowed his reflexes, dulled his brain. He was pushing at Rocky instead of hitting him. He was tired anyway. At four o'clock in the afternoon he needed a cheerleader, not a sleep talker. By four he had already put in a full day.

An old-fashioned alarm clock jangled him awake at five o'clock on mornings he hadn't already been jerked out of sleep by screams or gunshots or police sirens. From the cot he could watch a grotesque parade of shapes
across the ceiling, shadows thrown up by passing cars and trucks.

They reminded him of his junkyard drawings. He thought about the sketchbook in the deerskin pack. The Deuce. Doll. Would he ever see her again? Brooks said, If you go down to The Deuce, don't come back. But someday, when I'm somebody, with some money, a pro boxer, I'll go find her, take her off The Deuce.

He never got too far with that scenario. If it came to him at night, he would usually fall asleep in the middle of it. There was never any time to dream in daylight. Up at dawn, fold the cot, roll it into the utility closet where the mops and pails waited for him to scrub and wipe the bathroom, to sweep and swab the gym floor, the locker room, the shower room, and Johnson's private office.

While the floors dried, he stretched and bent and twisted, then kicked a pencil from foot to foot until he did it without a miss for three minutes. Then out to run. It was the best part of the day.

The fifteen blocks to Central Park was his warm-up, an easy three quarters of a mile over concrete, broken glass, crack vials, pools of
wine and vomit, banana peels, chicken bones, oil smears. He hurdled the cardboard homes and the ragged lumps wheezing in sleep. When he hit the park, he shifted his body into overdrive.

The sounds of the city were muffled in the park, birds chirped, squirrels and rats scampered across the soft earth that cushioned his steps. The dark green soothed and strengthened him. He ran hard for an hour in a wide circle that took him downtown toward the luxury apartment buildings with penthouses overlooking the park. He wondered if he would ever make enough money to live in one. He wondered what the house in Phoenix looked like. He was glad Mom had something going for herself now, and he wished he could tell her he was okay, too. But she'd never understand how he could be living in a gym in Harlem thinking he was okay. She'd send the sheriff down if she knew. Even Jake didn't understand. He tried to make it more than it was. On the phone, Jake kept saying it was like Stonebird, only a different kind of solo.

No way. It was just what it was. A chance to be somebody.

The run always ended too soon. He came back out of the park into the morning rush hour, streets jammed with hot metal screeching, honking, farting fumes, sidewalks jammed with men and women hurrying to work, children to school. The traffic slowed him to a walk. Sometimes he thought he got suspicious glances from the beeper dudes, but he just kept moving. He was careful not to eyeball anyone. He didn't notice any tattooed X's.

At the Korean grocery on the corner he bought oranges and muffins. Upstairs he boiled water for coffee on the hot plate. He missed the eggs and cereal and toast that Jake had made for him, but his money was starting to run low. He would be finished eating by the time the early birds came chattering up the steps, a few businessmen and politicians who worked in Harlem and liked to skip rope and hit the bags while they gossiped about real-estate deals and what the mayor was going to do next. They didn't need much attention besides getting towels for the shower. The real fighters didn't start drifting in until the late morning, and they always came with their managers and trainers and sparring partners and pals. One heavyweight, Dave
Reynolds, a loud guy whose handlers all wore black silk jackets with D
AVE THE
F
AVE
stitched on the back, brought along his own disc jockey, a guy who did nothing but program the portable compact disc player the fighter trained to. He was into rap. Some of the other fighters didn't like it too much, but the Fave was the number-eight-ranked contender, and he had a big fight in Atlantic City coming up.

The Fave never noticed Sonny. Nobody did, except to call for extra towels or tell him to mop up after a blood spill or send him out for food. That usually meant a free lunch. When one of the pro trainers gave him money for Chinese or sandwiches or fried chicken, he almost always told Sonny to feed himself from the change.

He tried to pick up pointers as the trainers shouted instructions at their fighters. He watched the pros throw their punches, make their moves in the ring, hit the bag, shadowbox. They knew what they were doing. They were serious workers. Some of them were preparing for matches in Atlantic City and at Madison Square Garden.

Most of them were finished with their training by the late afternoon, when the schoolkids
and the yuppies and the beginning pro boxers who needed to keep their day jobs arrived. One of Johnson's sons took over Sonny's chores for two hours while Sonny did his sit-ups and push-ups, skipped rope, punched the bags, shadowboxed and pounded Rocky to Martin Witherspoon's monotone. He grew to hate the fat owl, the way he gasped for air after the three-story climb, the way he kept pushing his round glasses up his sweaty nose, the drone of his voice.

“Jab…one. Hook…two.”

His sessions on Rocky grew shorter. He began to lose interest. He even stopped getting angry when a squat heavyweight who arrived at the gym in a postal carrier's uniform tapped him on the shoulder and said, “‘Nuff lovin' for Rocky today, my man—let The Punching Postman put some real hurt down.”

He began to wish Brooks would come by. At night, waiting for the laundry machines to finish the towels and the jockstraps and the workout clothes, he thought about Doll and The Deuce. Brooks had said, Go down there and don't come back.

Might just do that.

Dinner was some more food picked up at the Koreans', something easy he could cook on the hot plate, or something from the salad bar. Sometimes he fell asleep in front of an old movie on TV. Sometimes he just watched the dark shapes roll across the ceiling until they swallowed him.