Maurice chuckled low. “Yeah, I hear you, Champ. Come on, man, I already had a couple early tokes. Stuff’s for reals, I’m tellin’ ya. Fo’. Reals.” He smiled and winked at the others, teasing them with his fluttering joint bag. “Wutchoo idiots get? More to share? Cuz you know, two fatties ain’t much to pass around, you know, mostly good for me, maybe a free toke or so for you, maybe not.”
“Dang, Mo, you jumped the gun on us, man,” Champ replied. “You know, shoulda waited on us, man.”
His real name was Champion DeLeon Cromarté. He told everyone he was named Champion by his proud father, who was once the Este Región Guantes de Oro Peso Welter Campeón. In English: the East Region Welterweight Golden Gloves Champion — in the Dominican Republic. His father moved to the States in ’91, fell in with some bad gamblers, and didn’t make it in boxing. Finally, fifty pounds over his fighting weight and sporting an obnoxious cauliflower ear, Señor Cromarté got hired as a thug for some nobody drug pusher. As was usually the case in that line of work, Señor Cromarté was paid in drugs, booze, and a place to crash, and even then some woman loved him enough to marry him and bear his only child.
Champ told everyone, “Yeah, man, you know, my father held me up in the county clinic, right, and shouted at the top of his lungs, He’s gonna be a champion, a champion like me! That was just a week before he and my mother both OD’d on some shit smack, you know. So you can call me Champ — more like Chump — but don’t call me Champion, cuz it ain’t so, know what I mean?”
Child Protective Services took custody of baby Champ and eventually found some long-disconnected uncle and aunt and, bless them, they at least consented, raising Champ as best they could. But they were barely making it themselves and never really knew his father, who was only some very, very distant third cousin or something, and they knew Champ’s mother not at all. So forgive them if they didn’t lavish much attention or support on the kid. Hijo de punto, he wasn’t their kid anyway. Champ understood that, even at age nine when he ran away for the first of many times, and definitely at fourteen when he ran all the way away once and for all.
Champ sat there, outfitted like the others that evening, in layers of smelly, dirty clothes, anything to keep warm at night: two or three hoodies, the requisite knit hat, khaki pants over sweats; indiscriminate colors, since colors don’t matter when the clothes you’re wearing are torn, filthy, reeking rags. Champ did sport a greasy red, white, and blue do-rag tied around his head, crammed under his knit hat — not for the good old US of A, but proudly for the colors of the Dominican Republic national flag. Champ looked tired, like the others, dark bags beneath sunken brown eyes. He had unruly facial hair growing in uneven patterns on his mocha-colored face, dirty and mucky from being on the street without a shower or shave for over ten days now. Champ was thin, medium height, but his frazzled appearance made him look twenty years older than he was. His frazzled life made him feel forty years older.
Earlier that day Champ had made a couple of bucks and some change sweeping out King’s Gym alongside the disgusted glances of the sweaty regulars working out. Mr. Gordon, or just Gordon as he was called, was the head janitor and had worked for the Kings for many years, had even known Champion’s padre years before. Gordon felt badly for Champ, so occasionally the old janitor would let the kid sweep or pick up garbage and towels in the gym for a few dollars and loose change, anything to help him out. But the handouts came less and less frequently, especially as Gordon saw that Champ was more and more often just hanging out with the other alley bums, not even trying to help himself. And Champ smelled flawed somehow, like all the bums did, slipping further and further into that gory morass of wasted human lives. Gordon saw it too often and it pained him to no end. He knew for certain that if Champ’s father were still alive, he would never have let this happen, no way. He would have knocked some sense into his only son, literally.
“Self-pride is another long-lost art, like the art of boxing,” Gordon often tried to explain when he thought he had Champ’s attention. “You gotta learn to take care of yourself. You can train and train and work out all you want, but once you’re in that ring it’s only you.”
Gordon even tried to get Champ to go back to school — a program at Laney College for dropouts and homeless kids he had read about in the Tribune. Gordon went so far as to contact the school’s director, someone named Tom Gelman. Coach Gelman told him all Champ had to do was call and Gelman promised he’d take care of the rest. Seemed like a good guy. But when Gordon invited Champ into his messy, cramped supply office to explain about the school and have Champ make the call, he saw immediately in the kid’s eyes that he didn’t give a crap. Gordon realized he had just been wasting his own time, and why should he do that? Hell, he was no Mother Teresa, he had a job to take care of. Too lazy to get off the streets? Welcome to the streets, kid! But every once in a while, Gordon still felt badly and he’d help Champ out, for old times and for Champ’s padre, Señor Cromarté, the last real champion of anything from around there.
“Dudes,” Champ was now telling his street buddies, “you won’t believe what happened today, you know. Ol’ Gordon gave me two-fifty for sweeping up his ratty ol’ boxing gym. What an idiot, you know what I mean? So I bought me some sweet old boots from the Salvation Army, perfect size and everything, no holes, and warm too, like new!”
“That old fart is always giving you handouts, man, what’s up with that?” Maurice said. “A little sumpin-sumpin cooking there?”
“Yeah, Champ... hhssssp,” Lawrence added, “he must, like, like you or something, dude. You better... hhssssp... watch out for them old geezers like that.”
“Come, on, holmes,” Champ replied, “it ain’t nothing like that. Old dude just knew my papá once, tries to help me out sometimes. It’s cool, it’s cool.”
“Yeah, okay, but really, what the hell are you talking about, Champ... hhssssp?” Lawrence scoffed. “Look at your raggedy ol’ shoes... hhssssp... they’re filthy and they’re leaking oil, dude!” He laughed, pointing at Champ’s black sneakers that were caked with dirt and mud, one shoestring tied in numerous knots to hold together, the rubber sole on the other just a paper-thin strip.
Maurice laughed too. “Yikes! You crazy Mexican, if you bought those shoes for two-fitty you must be back in Mexico and smokin’ some donkey-piss weed on the tequila farm or something! Them shoes are messed up!”
Champ eyed them with disgust. “Not these shoes, you a-holes. You idiots don’t have a clue, man. Some other shoes, bro, some other boots, right? Dude at the Army sold me a cool pair for my two dollars and fifty cents, a bargain, know what I’m sayin’? Winter boots and the tag said six-fifty, man, no bull! And I told you, I ain’t Mexican, you know, how many times I gotta tell you I’m Dominican, man. Dominican Republic represent!”
Lawrence looked at Champ like he was from outer space. “Well, you talk Mexican and you buy shoes like some dumb-ass Mexican too... hhssssp. But you wasted your money on those crap no-Cons right there... hhsssp!”
Maurice added, “And whatever you are, homeboy, those dirty kicks you’re wearing are definitely representing the facts, loud and clear, that you’re a crazy Mexican, or Dominican, or whatever, and your dang feet are gonna freeze tonight, know what I’m tellin’ you?”