When I Was the Greatest (6 page)

Malloy himself told me that he had never really even been out of Brooklyn except for the time he spent in the service. Army. Vietnam.

He was drafted. He said back in those days wasn't no black kids just signing up to fight. He said, “We wasn't that dumb, or that stupid.” I always laughed when he said that. Malloy said, back then, he felt like the government was substituting all the poor black kids for the rich white kids when it came to serving in the war and that getting that letter in the mail, the one that said he had been drafted, felt like he was called from the far end of the home-team bench, asked to go in the game, and sucker punch the other team's star player. Take the rap. Be the bad guy. That's how Malloy always put it. He never went into too much detail about the actual war, though. I got the feeling he just didn't like talking about it too much. Once I asked him if he ever killed somebody, and all he said was, “Ain't grits groceries?” I took that as a yes.

One thing he loved talking about, though, was how Muhammad Ali didn't have to fight in the war. He always, always, always said how he respected Ali for standing up to the government, even though they put him in jail. I wonder what was worse, jail or war. Well, I guess if you're Muhammad Ali, one of the biggest stars and the best fighter ever, jail ain't so bad. I mean, it ain't like people were going to mess with the champ. Shoot, the biggest and ugliest dude in there was probably begging for Ali's autograph.

But for a regular Brooklyn Joe like Malloy, I'm not so sure. When I asked him what he learned from the army, he
said he learned discipline, brotherhood, and most importantly, how to box. Said he was the baddest boxer in his camp, and couldn't nobody see him with the hands. Too fast. Too focused. Floating and stinging, just like Muhammad Ali, except he ain't sting like no bee, more like a Mack truck, he bragged. Malloy always said the army was okay, but it was the war that messed him up. Like I said, he never talked too much about it, but one thing he never seemed to mind was running down the story of what it was like waking up in the medic tent with no legs.

“It's strange, still. It'll always be a little strange,” he said, his eyes looking away at something invisible. “You spend your whole life running, paying attention to nothing but all the dumb stuff, and then one day, while you running, something runs into you and leaves you with nothing.” I really didn't understand totally what that meant, but it somehow made sense in some kind of way. The liquor on his breath was always there, just like the tears caked and crusty in the corners of his eyes. And he hated—HATED—for anyone to try to ignore his legs.

His nubs didn't look like legs at all. They looked more like giant fingers attached to his waist. When I first started coming to his house, I would try not to look at them because my mother taught me real early in life that it was rude to stare. She said she'd slap my eyes off if she caught me. Picture that, her slapping my eyes off! So when I first met him, I would look all around the room, at his face, over his head, at the floor, everywhere but his legs, until finally one day he said,
“Listen, the most important rule when you dealing with me is, the obvious should never be ignored.” I didn't know how to take that statement, but I knew, early, that it was an important one. He followed up with, “Now look at them. It's okay. That way the pathetic legless elephant can disappear, and we can get the hell on with it.”

His role in my life, according to Doris, was to be some sort of positive male figure. Go figure. But not just me, a lot of the kids in the neighborhood, mostly the ones without fathers in the house, would randomly pop up at Malloy's and talk to him about girls, and, well, mostly girls, and he would be there to listen and give some drunken but still pretty solid advice. My mother had known him since she was a little girl growing up in the same house I'm growing up in now. She said her father, my grandfather, Kirby, and Malloy were pretty much best friends, which is why she trusted him to look after me. She started sending me over there when I was around six; I guess she figured anything to keep me on the good path while John was locked up. Jazz was little and Doris probably just needed a break. Or some help. So one day she walked me down there. When Malloy opened the door, he looked at my mother's face and could probably see how tired she was. She always says it was like Malloy was reading her. There was no conversation about why she brought me there, or what she needed. Nothing like that. Malloy didn't even invite her in. All he did when he opened the door and saw us was squeeze my mother's hand and say, “Okay.”

I've only been in one room in Malloy's house. The gym.
Which is really the living room. On the walls there are posters of boxers. Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis (who I found out later Malloy named his grandson after), Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Johnson. It's just a big open space for sparring, and over on the side he's got a few dumbbells, a weight bench, a speed bag, and two punching bags, one hanging from the ceiling and one on a stand. The one on the stand is for him. No one can touch it. He keeps a permanent bottle of gin on a small, shaky wooden table in the corner, and a carton of Newport cigarettes next to it, along with a few military medals.

His face is like leather, and he usually keeps sunglasses on, even inside. He always wears an army T-shirt and old blue jeans, the thick, medium blue kind from back in the day. He knots them at the legs and cuts the extra fabric, which makes his legs look like denim sausages. It's strange to describe a person who doesn't wear shoes because he doesn't have feet. But he doesn't have feet.

The first time I went to Malloy's, as soon as I got inside, he asked for my hand. I gave it to him, and he shook it tighter than anyone had ever shaken it, and then he balled it up into a fist.

“Where's your father?” he said sort of rudely.

I couldn't believe that was the first thing out of his mouth. What a jerk, I remember thinking.

“I don't know.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah.”

“When's the last time you seen him?”

“I don't know.” My mother told me to never tell people my dad was in jail. She didn't want people to judge us.

“Are you mad about that?” Malloy squeezed my fist tighter. “Are you mad at him, son?”

I didn't know what was going on. I started feeling scared. I was only six. Why was he grilling me with all these questions? Why was he squeezing my fist? I thought my mother just needed a break. A babysitter that was a man, so that I could have a strong man around since my father was locked up. Is this what strong men do?

“I don't know,” I answered, stuttering.

“You don't know?” he said, confused. “Well, let me ask you this, let's pretend this punching bag is your father. What do you want to do to him?” He slowly released my fist. My nails were digging so deep into my palm that I thought I had broken the skin.

“Show me,” he said again, this time nudging my shoulder.

I turned toward the punching bag, opened my fist, and wrapped my arms around it.

Malloy sat there in his chair staring at six-year-old me, hugging a punching bag like it was a person. He nodded his head like I had passed some sort of test.

“Okay. I got it,” he said.

I stepped back.

“So you're not mad?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I wanna teach you something.” He took my hands in his and continued, “And I'm only gonna teach you because
I know you won't abuse it, like some of the other kids around here. You love first, and that's always a good thing. You're not fighting the war that so many of the other kids are fighting. You're rebelling against it, like Muhammad Ali. You know who that is?”

I shook my head yes.

“You're like him. Got a heart for people.” He looked at me for a second with a funny smirk on his face. I'm not sure I really knew all of what was going on.

“Okay,” I said. I had no idea where this was going, but I was hoping that eventually it would lead to a TV and a snack.

This time he balled both of my hands up into fists.

“I wanna teach you how to box, kid.”

• • •

Now here I am, almost ten years later, still at it. Except I'm actually throwing punches now.

“Come on, Ali! Hit him!” Malloy barked as I threw my right jab at this kid, Jamaal Crowder. Jamaal was just another neighborhood guy that Malloy had taken under his wing. He didn't talk too much, and if I was his size, I probably wouldn't say too much either. I mean, who needs words when you're a teenage giant.

“Hit him!” Malloy commanded again, our shoes squeaking on the wood floor.

I threw another jab, one I knew was a stinger. It would've had any normal person doubled over, but Jamaal didn't even flinch nor did he wait for me to follow with another shot. He unloaded a flurry of body blows, backing me into a corner. I
tried to defend myself by doing what Malloy had taught me. Block and counter. None of it was working.

“Punch! Don't slap him, son,” Malloy said, annoyed.

The thing is, I knew what to do. I knew how to take cover and wait for the perfect time to throw the uppercut. I mean, Malloy had been training me for a long time, and it's not like I had never sparred before. I guess the stupid yarn situation was still bugging me—distracting me. I was just glad Doris didn't flip out about it.

“Okay, okay, that's it,” Malloy murmured, saving me while trying to light a cigarette. “We're through. Good job.” Jamaal backed off and held his gloves out for me to tap them with mine. A sign of sportsmanship and, thank goodness, a sign we were done. Don't know much more of the big guy I could've taken.

“How your hands?” Malloy wheeled over to me.

“Sore,” I replied, pulling off the gloves and unwrapping layer after layer of the white tape Malloy always wrapped around my fists. He said it would toughen up my hands, but it didn't seem to be working.

Jamaal quickly tossed his equipment in a duffel bag and zipped it shut. He didn't say nothing. He just looked at me and Malloy, nodded, and headed for the door. He never hung around and helped clean up or talked trash with us. He just showed up, beat up on whoever was there, and rolled out.

Malloy shook his head, sort of confused, but instead of making some slick comment about how strange Jamaal was, he focused back on my hands.

“Let me see,” he said, the cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. I held them out. “This one here is swollen.” He pointed at the middle knuckle on my right hand. “I don't know how many times I have to tell you—”

“I know, I know, keep my fists tight. Squeeze water out of a rock,” I finished his sentence. I had heard it a million times.

“Your punch has gotten pretty solid over the years, but what you gonna do when you finally get in the ring, not for a spar but for a real match? Break your hands all up?”

Malloy took a pull on his cigarette and shook his head. Then he tapped the ash on the floor.

“Come on, man,” I said, sucking my teeth. “I keep telling you I don't wanna fight nobody.” I bent my fingers back to loosen them up.

“Hey, hey, don't get mad. I'm just saying.” Malloy backed off, and rolled back over to the corner. “I ain't never met a boxer that's scared to box, that's all.”

“It's not that I'm scared, I just ain't ready yet,” I muttered, embarrassed. And totally lying. I was scared to death.

Malloy held up an empty bottle to see if there was anything left in it. Not much. Maybe a swallow. He shook his head like he was more disappointed in the bottle than he was in me.

“I know, Ali,” he said, taking one more puff on his cigarette, then mashing it out. He blew a smoke stream up to the ceiling that seemed to go on forever, and then he looked over at me. “Aight, we're done for the day.”

“But I didn't clean up yet,” I said, confused. Usually it's training for an hour, then cleanup for an hour.

“Ah, it's Sunday. Don't worry about it,” he said, twisting the cap off the bottle. “Just come by and do it tomorrow. I got things to do today.” Yeah, like buy another bottle. Malloy took the last swallow and hissed. “Now go home and pray to God for some balls,” he chuckled. I knew he meant it as a joke, but I didn't think it was funny at all. Low blow.

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