Going across town to another gym was a win-win situation. Just south of Crawford was Ravenwood. They had their own boxing club so I drove the fifteen-minute ride. I wanted to spar so much I could taste it, and with Elvis doing Trouble from '68 on the way over, I was primed and ready to go. Stan Cummings had run the gym for twenty years. As an amateur I regularly competed against his guys, so I was known and respected at Ravenwood. There had about a half dozen guys training in the gym, and from watching for a few seconds I could tell only one of the guys actually fought. If you've been in gyms most of your life you can tell almost instantly who fights competitively, who might be a sparring partner, and who just comes to hit the bags and feel like a fighter. You can tell by the way they carry themselves mostly. The guys who fight aren't posturing or strutting, their movements are natural and not contrived because they're not thinking about proving anything. The guys who spar, and particularly the guys who come in and out of the gym with long periods of not sparring, are more herkyjerky in their movements. They're not as at ease and, though they don't posture all the time, you can sometimes pick them out because they're doing their best not to look nervous, which is, of course, a dead give away.
The final group is the guys desperately trying to fit in. They study how guys talk, how they move, and what kind of slang they use. They have the right equipment, sometimes the most expensive kind, but it's broken in differently because they haven't really programmed the body to do everything in an economical boxing style. When they hit the bag they waste movement, they wind up and over hit-all things that would leave you open in the ring. After you did it once and got drilled in the ring you'd stop doing it in your shadow boxing and on the bag. People ask me if I hate the whole boxing-as-workout movement that kind of peaked and since has sort of petered out. I didn't feel strongly about it either way, but I never considered it boxing, and no one who really boxes did. Sometimes guys got good at hitting bags and doing drills and they'd want to go to the next level and actually spar. They'd get in the ring with even the kindest of real boxers, and the realization that they knew nothing about what they were about to do would hit them. A decent guy wouldn't blast a newbie like this unless maybe they needed to be taken down a peg, but probably not even then.
Even though they didn't really get hurt, the boxercise guys would all of sudden understand when someone else is in there with you it is a whole new thing. 'Boxing' without fighting is kind of like masturbation is to sex-there're some similarities and it can make you feel good, but you should never mistake it for the real thing.
Cummings finished working his one real fighter on the pads, wiped the sweat off his own scar-tissued forehead, and caught my eye.
"Duffy…what brings you around?" Stan carried about fifty pounds more than he should, but his years as a middle of the road heavyweight were still there under the layer of hard fat.
"Just looking to see if I can get some work in," I said.
"Nobody at the Y?"
"I don't know. I just wanted to get some different work in." The real deal was if your trainer didn't want you sparring, another trainer wouldn't let you. I didn't want to lie so I let ambiguity do it for me.
"Smitty okay with it?" Stan said.
"Uh-huh," I said which felt damn close to a lie.
"Well, let's see, the only guy I figured on working was Stefon, the young heavy. He's got the Golden Gloves in a week and half. You wanna work with him?"
"Sure," I said.
I loosened up a bit, got my hands wrapped, and Stan got me laced up. When the round bell rang, Stefon and I touched gloves and went to work. A big and wiry kid, maybe six foot three, and around 200 pounds who clearly had strength, but like a lot of amateurs his footwork gave away his inexperience. We exchanged some jabs with the neither of us landing. The punches slid off the 18-ounce gloves and I turned Stefon just by my positioning. Most people don't let footwork cross their mind when they think of boxing, but it may be the most important thing when you get up to the higher levels of the sport. I kept moving to my left, planting and throwing my straight left-a very fundamental practice for a southpaw fighter. He blocked the punches easily and I trying to figure out if the kid was quick or if I was telegraphing my punches. I could tell one thing for sure, my body wasn't in a hurry to loosen up. I felt stiff and a little slow. It was one of the reasons I hated staying away from the gym and out of the ring. It always seemed like it took a little while to get my reflexes back.
The kid doubled up a jab and they connected off the top of my headgear. The first one he just flicked out, but the second one he stepped behind and it thudded. He was a decent amateur and an athletic kid, but he shouldn't have got that in on me. I threw a right hook followed by a straight left and they both missed. I lost a little balance by missing. The kid leaned backed and countered with a straight right and a hook of his own. The hook hurt. I got up on my toes to shake things out and work my footwork a bit. Stefon got a rhythm and now moved on his toes. He came in with the same double jab and I could see it coming a mile away, but for whatever reason I didn't get my hands up in time. The flicky one caught me on the bridge of the nose and the thudder thudded. I swung a hook and missed again and this time I was off balance enough to be embarrassed.
The kid waited, timed it until I stood up straight, and drove his right hand straight down the middle.
There came a thud, and then a flash of orange light inside my head.
That was all I remember.
7
"Duffy, you know where you are?" Stan Cummings said. My head felt soupy.
"Duff, you all right?" Stan said again. I was on my back, squinting to figure out what was going on. The top left part of my head ached and I felt like I when I came out of a deep sleep.
Maybe hibernation.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said and began to sit up. When I did, it felt like my brain rushed to the front of my head and I felt like I throwing up.
"You know where you at?" Stan asked.
"Sure," I said. I was at Gleason's but it didn't look right.
"You're at Ravenwood, remember?"
"Fuck you, Billy. I know where I am. I just got caught." I started to stand up. When I did it didn't seem like all the circuits fired. My legs were a little slow on the uptake.
"Easy, easy," Stan said.
"Oh fuck you, Stan. I'm all right," I said. "Smitty didn't call an ambulance or anything did he? Smitty! Where is he?"
"Duffy, Smitty ain't here."
"Huh?"
"You're at Ravenwood, remember?"
"Billy, stop the dramatics. I know where I am." A tall wiry black kid stood on the other side of the ring, looking at me like I just landed from Uranus.
"Nice shot, kid," I said and walked over to touch gloves.
"I hardly hit you, man," the kid said. He didn't say it to brag.
He said it out of confusion.
"That's the way it happens sometimes." I stepped out of the ring and walked carefully down the steps of the ring.
"Duff-You wanna go to the hospital?" Stan said.
"Stan, c'mon will ya," I said.
Instead I went to my own treatment center-AJ's. I'm not trying to say I felt fine. There's no question I got my bell rung. It wasn't the first time and it damn sure wasn't going to be the last time, at least as long as I stayed a fighter. It's not as macho as it sounds, it's just something over the years you get a little used to, or your muscles and joints get used to it, and it's not a big a deal. Big deal or not, I had a pretty good headache and it was starting to feel like a bourbon night. I'm mostly a Schlitz man, but when medicinally called for, I'll prescribe myself some of the brown elixir. Getting out of the car got it throbbing a bit, which wasn't pleasant. As I headed into AJ's, the Foursome were already throbbing about something else.