He had the bag rocking, pounding it with combinations and kicking the sides of it. When he hit the bag it moved a good distance and never quite came back to rest before he hit it again with another round of combinations and kicks.
I put the coffee cup on one of the two-by-fours that helped support the unadorned wall, leaned back and watched. I guess I stood there a full five minutes before he noticed me.
"Well," he said, "you look like a man who's had sex."
"And you act like a man who hasn't. That's why you got to pound that bag, to work off frustrations."
"Tell me about it. No, don't. Just makes me feel bad." He did a combination on the bag, then smiled at me. "Unlike you, I could have all the women I want."
"Go on, talk some shit."
"Could... lots of them, anyway. Ain't that the shits? They want me and I don't want them. They're lined up for me, and me the way I am."
"Maybe you should try to be another way. It's bound to beat jacking off."
"Don't think it wouldn't be easier, but it's like taking up knitting or backgammon. Doesn't work for me."
"Just saying how things could be easier."
He gave the bag a flurry, then winked at me. "You could always help me out, you know. A little relief for a friend."
"I'm not that friendly."
He flurried the bag again, caught it with his forearms and smiled at me. "Got you nervous, didn't I? Tell you a truth, ol' buddy. I like you, but you're not my type."
"That shatters me. I want to go right on out of here crying."
He hit the bag with two hard lefts, one high, one low. "Work the bag with me. I like to see a peckerwood sweat."
I slipped off my jacket and shirt, got the spare bag gloves off a nail, put them on, and went over to the bag. I made some slow, soft moves on it to get the muscles loose. It felt awkward at first, way it always does when you start. Then my muscles began to warm and loosen and I got my rhythm and I was circling and exploding into the bag whenever the mood struck me. Leonard was circling too, staying directly across from me, the bag between us, and no sooner would my flurry end than he would hit with a series from his side, and pretty soon we were making conga music with that old canvas.
When we stopped my hands ached slightly from clenching my fists, and I was beginning to breathe heavily. I took off the bag gloves, hung them up, flexed the tension out of my hands.
"You're getting soft," Leonard said, taking off his gloves. "Haven't been working out enough."
"I'm preferring my rest in my dotage."
"Want to spar some?"
"Sure."
He went over to a shelf, got down the boxing gloves and kick guards and tossed a pair of each to me. I fastened the kick guards over my tennis shoes, then pulled on the gloves. They were the kind without laces; they slid over your hands and tightened at the wrist with elastic, so you didn't need help to get them on.
We had been using the light from the open side door, but now Leonard went over and opened the big double doors and the sun flooded in and I could see dust motes rising from the barn's dirt floor like little slow tornadoes.
Leonard put on his equipment, shuffled his feet, put up his hands and made his way toward me.
"Gonna suffer, honkie."
"Hope you know a home for invalid niggers, cause you're gonna need it."
"Name-calling, huh? Racial slurs."
"Call 'em like I see 'em."
"Minute from now you aren't gonna see anything."
Then we were at it.
It was like Leonard turned into oil and flowed over me. I covered up, but the oil turned hard and the hardness hit my forearms and made them weak, hit the side of my head and ribs and made sounds on my hide like the sounds Leonard and I had made on the bag.
When I got him away from me, I said, "Won't lie to you, that was nice."
"I know," he said, and came again.
I let him think he had me. I jabbed out with a weak left and when he slipped it, I kicked with my forward foot in a roundhouse motion and caught him hard enough in the breadbasket to force his breath out. I swarmed him then, hit him with a right cross above the left eye and tried to hook him with my left, but all I got was one of his forearms. He flurried me, and he was fast, but I had his timing off now, and his blows skimmed across my face and slid on my sweaty chest and didn't really hurt me. I kicked off my back leg this time and my kick caught him in the solar plexus again and drove him back and I came off the other leg and tried the same thing and glanced his side with the ball of my foot. He backed up fast, and I went after him. He turned his back on me as if to run. Instinctively I rushed in for the kill. He swiveled on his left foot and brought himself completely around to face me and his right leg arched into an outside crescent kick and the ridge of his foot caught me on the side of the head and I went down and dirt filled my nostrils.
Suckered.
Leonard bent down. "How are you, peckerwood?"
"I been worse.... Barn's moving, though."
"You're always impatient. I set you up." He patted me on the back. "Lay there a moment."
"No other plans."
A few minutes passed and Leonard helped me up. The barn was still a little wobbly, but starting to shape up. He helped me get the gloves and kick guards off. I weaved over and put on my shirt and coat while Leonard did the same, then I got the coffee cup off the two-by-four and Leonard put his arm around me and walked me to the house.
Leonard put on a Patsy Cline album, turned it down low and started fixing breakfast. I took a seat at the kitchen table and dipped my head between my knees.
"You eaten?" he asked.
"No."
"Able to?"
"Yeah."
"Eggs and toast sound okay?"
"Fine."
He chuckled.
"White boys in distress," I said. "You love it." -
He cracked an egg in the skillet. "You're over here for a reason, Hap. You don't get up this early on Sundays. What happened, that woman leave already?"
"Nope. But I am here for a reason. An important reason." I lifted my head. Nothing was spinning.
"How important?"
"You wouldn't have to go back to the rose fields. Least not for a long time."
He stopped unwrapping the bread and looked at me.
"How long a time?"
"Quite a few years. You might start your own business. Understand you people do well with barbecue stands, stuff like that. Whatever you want."
"Barbecue sounds like work. You know us, loose shoes, tight pussy and a warm place to shit."
"Way I heard it."
"Come on, Hap, quit dicking with me. What's the deal?"
"One hundred thousand dollars for each of us."
"Shit. What we got to do, shoot someone?"
"Nope. We have to swim for it."
Chapter 4
I drove Leonard to my house and parked next to Trudy's faded green Volkswagen with the Greenpeace sticker on the bumper. We went inside and found Trudy at the kitchen table drinking coffee. She was wearing one of my shirts, and it was much too large for her. That and her tousled hair made her look girlish. Less so when she crossed her legs and looked at me. "I was worried about you. I couldn't find a note."
"Didn't leave one. Thought I'd be back sooner."
She decided to notice Leonard. "Hi, Leonard."
Leonard nodded.
"What you told me last night," I said. "I want you to tell Leonard."
Her face showed me she didn't like that. "No offense, Leonard. But that was between me and Hap. He shouldn't have said anything."
"I'm dealing him in for half my share."
"There may not be a share if you keep this up, Hap."
"That's okay, too. Find some other sucker."
"You're awfully tough in the morning."
"Controls his glands better in the daytime," Leonard said. "They tend to get overactive at night."