The Fighter (38 page)

And
was that same pragmatism at work now? Paul thought of how lizards will sever
their own tails when attacked, forfeiting some vital part of themselves in
order to survive.

"You
know, I have to laugh," Jack said, "because in a lot of ways you're a
better man than you were. I'm sitting here looking at you
all...
mulched,
and still I think that. Not that
you were ever a bad kid. Ineffective, I'd say. But then I looked at your
buddies, sons of guys I did business with, and you all sort of came off that
way. You weren't ahead of the curve, or behind it. You were
just..."

"One
of the pack."

"I
guess as much as you want your kid to distinguish himself, you're happy enough
to see he's the same as everyone else."

Jack
poured another scotch. Paul noted the sunken bags under his father's eyes and a
three-day beard furring his jowls. "I don't guess you realize
how..."
Jack searched for the right word."... how
insulting
all of this is, do you?"

"Insulting
to who?"

"To
me. To every man who goes down the traditional path."

"That's
not the point at all—"

Jack
cut him short. "You're saying the only way to be a man is your way. Throw
yourself into a meat grinder and claw your way out. You're saying my way of
being a man—work a steady job, support a wife, a kid, try to carve out a life
for all of us—you're saying it's useless and proves nothing."

"I'm
not saying that. I'm only saying it doesn't appeal to me."

"Suffering
for the sake of suffering—we didn't raise you Catholic, did we? And you could
have gone your own way at any time, but you were scared to. Like you said."

"That's
true."

"Scared
of what, Paul?"

"Of
everything."

"And
after all this what's really changed?"

"Everything
else."

"Has
it?" Jack slid the money across the desk; he pushed down on the stack with
his fingertips, forcing Paul to pull it from under them. "Strikes me as a
pretty familiar dynamic."

"This
is the last time. And I'll pay you back."

"Don't
worry about it. This isn't a loan."

Jack
had the air of a man who'd come to an awful realization: that nothing he might
do for his son, here and now or tomorrow or the next day, would really matter.
The realization that a man could spend his whole life climbing onto crosses to
save people from themselves, but nothing would ever change. And finally, the
understanding that all human beings—even fathers, even sons—were each as alone
as dead stars and no amount of toil or love or litany could alter by one inch
the terrible precision of their journeys.

"I'll
need my passport," said Paul. "And something to wear."

"Your
mother holds on to passports. In her files upstairs."

"I
don't want to wake her."

"Your
mom," he said, "isn't living with me right now.
This ...
what's
been
happening ...
hasn't been easy on her."

"I
didn't know. I'm sorry."

"Nothing
to be done for it now. She'll be fine—your mom's a strong woman."

Jack
led Paul upstairs. Signs of neglect abounded: a collection of neckties looped
around the banister, a stack of dirty dishes at the top of the stairs.
"Maid's got the week off," he joked.

The
bedroom was a pigsty. Heaps of soiled clothes. Greasy Chinese takeout boxes.
Jack hunted through Barb's dresser, found Paul's passport, and flipped it to
him. He snapped on a light in the walk-in closet and found something to fit
Paul.

"Might
be the first suit I ever bought." Jack held it up: cream-toned polyester
with wide, winglike lapels, a black open-throated shirt, white vest, white
pants. The sort of thing John Travolta wore in
Saturday Night Fever.

"I
think it's what they call vintage." Jack ran his finger down a lapel,
yanked it back as though cut. "Get a load of those flares—sharp."

"It's
spiffy," Paul said. "I've got to go, Dad."

"Places
to go, people to see, uh? Can I ask you something, Paul? Was
I...
your mom and
me ....
were
we ... ?"

"Whatever
you may think, none of it is your fault. I don't blame you for any of this, and
I don't think there's anything you could have done to stop it. I am what I am
because I made myself so. You did the best you could with me and that's all I
could have ever asked. I have no excuses for what I am or what I've done or what
I've put you through."

"Need
to borrow a car?"

"That
would help."

"You
know where the keys are. Can't promise I won't call the cops the second you're
gone to report it stolen."

"You
can't save me, Dad."

"And
I know that, son."

Reuben
Tully paced his brother's hospital room, acridly awake. Tommy had been moved to
a room with oatmeal-colored walls; he shared it with five—
five!
—other
patients. The ringing splash of urine in bedpans so loud it sounded like
someone pissing directly in your ear. Even the meals were crappier. Discount
Jell-O. No Name tater tots. Next thing you knew, they'd wheel Tommy's bed out
into the hallway.

Reuben
sorted the day's mail. Bills, bills, bills. Tommy's employer wasn't kicking in
a cent to cover hospital costs: the accident occurred off-premises, so they
weren't liable.

Kate
arrived with coffees. "Thanks," Reuben said, taking his cup.
"Any idea where my unreliable lug of a son is tonight?"

Kate
went over to Tommy; gently, she smoothed the lank hair across his forehead.
"It's strange," she said, "he looks so restful."

"Robbie?"
Reuben said.

"I
talked to him this morning." "Oh, he still talks? News to me. I can't
get two words out of him." He took note of the look Kate was giving him
and said, "What?"

"This
isn't easy for anyone, Reuben."

Reuben
bristled. "How am I supposed to make it any easier, he doesn't talk to
me?"

"That's
Rob's problem. He doesn't say what he feels."

"So,
what—he's telling
you
how he feels?" Her
noncommittal shrug made Reuben's hackles rise. "You've been here less than
a minute and already you're getting on my nerves. And what's with this 'Reuben'
stuff? What happened to Uncle Ruby?"

Kate
flipped him a look: spare, flat. "You know, Rob would never say this, so I
guess it falls to me—"

"And
what's that, Kate?" Reuben challenged. "What is it he'd never
say?"

Then
Fritzie Zivic was saying, "I brought him here directly," and both
Kate and Reuben saw Rob in the doorway, Fritzie standing over his shoulder.

Rob's hands,
Reuben thought.
Something's the
matter with my son's hands.

Zivic
held his hat to his chest like a policeman come to deliver grim tidings.
"I didn't know what he was doing till it was a done thing."

Rob's
hands were bundled in a grimy towel. The towel was dark. The towel was red.

"What's
happened, Robbie?" Reuben struggled against a rising tide of dread.
"What have you done?"

Rob
seemed to have aged dramatically in the hours since Reuben had last seen him.
The skin ringing his eyes was of such shocking whiteness Reuben felt as though
he were staring into the headlights of an approaching vehicle.

The
towel was drenched. The towel
was...
dripping.

"Rob
..." Reuben touched his son's shoulder. "What...?"

Except
he knew. From the moment he glanced up and saw his son in the doorway—
knew.
Where he'd gone, what he'd done, and why. For Tommy's sake, yes, but more than
just Tommy.

And
how long had Reuben known—really
known
? For years. The evidence had
been everywhere: in his son's every forced acceptance and grudging nod of
consent, every time he'd pulled a punch to spare an opponent or took a punch
where he could have given, the forlorn and defeated air with which he laced his
boxing shoes. Of course he'd known. Why else would he have been so unrelenting?
To push Rob past the point of resistance, after which he'd settle into his
role. Jesus, nobody was taking his
life
away: he would box until he was
thirty, maybe thirty-five. Reuben would manage him carefully, bring him up the
right way so he could retire with his brain intact and enough money to spend the
rest of his days in comfort. On the streets he'd hear "There goes the
Champ!" and he'd die knowing that part of him would remain on this
earth—in the record books and archived footage—forever. This was Reuben's plan:
a wise and reliable plan. A plan for the future. The family's future. And yet
always he'd known, in the greater part of his mind and soul, that his son had
never accepted his role.

Reuben
and Kate guided Rob to a chair and sat him down. Rob stared, with a gaze of
deep absorption, at the halogen lights overhead. Slowly, with great care,
Reuben peeled sodden toweling away.

"Oh,
my... oh ...
oh ..."

What
they saw resembled nothing so much as what might be found clogging the filter
of a slaughterhouse sluice grate. Meat. Red and flayed and broken meat.
Everything tangled up, enmeshed, no one part all that distinguishable from the
next. Reuben marveled, with knife-edged sickness, at the fortitude it must've
taken to commit an act of such desperate aggression against oneself.

"My
god, Rob ..."

Reuben
could not take his eyes off his son's hands. What if they healed that way, skin
grafting and bones setting into a scarred lumpen ball? Would they ever be right
again? Not right enough so he could box—there was no way he'd ever step inside
a ring again—but right enough to grip a pencil? To tie his own shoelaces?

"I'm
sorry," Rob said. "I'm
so ...
sorry."

"Sorry?
No...
you
don't have to be sorry. You don't ever have to be sorry."

"I didn't...
couldn't do it. For you and Tommy
and everyone I wanted to but I couldn't anymore and I'm so, so sorry."

"It's
okay," Reuben said even while he felt his whole world collapsing, all the
things he'd striven for coming down around his ears. "It'll be okay."

Reuben
set his arms around his son's shoulders. Rob's every muscle tensed; his entire
body quaked. Reuben had no idea as to the precise sequence of the night's
events, what his boy had been through since they'd last spoken. He only wished
he'd known of Rob's intentions: if not to stop him, then at least to have been
there for him—his father, instead of some neighborhood bum like Fritzie Zivic.
Christ, what were they going to
do
? Rob was a smart kid,
hardworking, but college? No way could he afford it. So what were his options:
pouring concrete, snaking toilets, hammering two-by-fours. The same ones open
to every go-nowhere do-nothing slug in town. For a soul-destroying instant
Reuben pictured his son at the bakery with a bag of enriched flour on his
shoulder. Flour in Rob's hair and ears, gathering at the sides of his eyes.

"You
didn't have to do this," he said. "You could have told me."

But
was that really true? Perhaps there was no other route his son could have
taken: only an act of this magnitude—an act of zero recourse— could steer him
off the path he'd been set upon. Bonds of family are the fiercest, and can only
be broken by the most extreme strokes.

"We'll
be okay." If his words lacked conviction, at least his voice was steady.
"We'll figure all this out." He touched his lips to Rob's forehead.
"You need a doctor. Kate, stay here."

Reuben
shot Fritzie an unforgiving look as he shoved past him out into the hallway.
"I'll go with your dad," Fritzie said meekly. Murdoch padded into the
room and sat by Tommy's bed; he started to chew on a dangling IV tube.

Rob
could still feel the lingering wetness of his father's lips on his forehead.
When was the last time his dad had kissed him—as a baby?

Kate's
expression was caught somewhere between dread and wonder. "You've
destroyed them," was all she could say.

"I'll
never box again."

She
smoothed the sweaty hair on his forehead. Though the sight of his hands
obviously made her queasy, she smiled.