30 September 1974
The Man
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to get all soft and break that promise I made to myself,” she said. “Because I’m not. I said it and I meant it. No presents until you get your grades up above failing.”
He was lying on his back on the couch, watching TV. A show he didn’t like. And pretending to ignore her. And pretending that receiving no gifts from her did not in any way hurt. She was standing over him, partially blocking his view. Railing at him. Which is why he was watching a show he didn’t like. So it wouldn’t bother him when she made him miss it.
He said nothing.
“You probably think I’ll feel sorry for you tonight or in the morning. And that I’ll run out and get something. But I won’t. Because a promise is a promise.”
Nat said nothing.
“And I’m not restarting your allowance, either.”
Still nothing, though Nat felt as if he were wanting to say something. As if communication with her was vaguely possible and yet just beyond his grasp, all at the same time. As if, on the rare occasions he attempted to say something to her, the words hit a brick wall and fell to the floor defeated.
“You’re already looking at summer school. In three subjects.”
He looked up at her for the first time. “What about my present from The Man?”
She looked flustered for a moment. Then she said, “Ah. It speaks.”
“Well? What about it?”
“Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that. Well, you never like anything he gives you, anyway. So it’s hardly a reward. That’s between you and him, I suppose.”
“Has it come?”
“No. Why should it have?”
“Well, the mail’s already been.”
“They don’t come in the mail.”
This was miserable news to Nat, who had been counting heavily on getting a look at the return address. But he was careful not to frown or otherwise betray his thoughts.
“What do they come in?”
“They just show up on the porch in the morning.”
Which is similarly interesting, Nat thought. Because he took it to mean it would be delivered in person.
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Nat sat up in the dark, in his room, on the padded window seat, looking out on to the street. On his lap lay the binoculars The Man had given him when he was six.
He watched the shadows of the maple tree sway on the far wall of his room. The streetlight out front threw spooky shadows, and a good strong wind was up that night. And it gave him something to watch. Because nothing happened on their street at night. No people. No cars. No nothing.
He could read the clock clearly, even though it was all the way over on the dresser. Its face glowed in the dark. And it ticked. The ticking had never bothered him before. But it bothered him tonight.
It was ten thirty.
Sometime in the next half hour he dozed off without meaning to.
He woke to the sound of a car door.
He jumped, and sat upright, his back stiff from the uncomfortable position. Across the street, a car was parked. An older station wagon, with its motor softly running. He couldn’t see the color because of the darkness. And he couldn’t see either the front or rear license plate because it was so directly across the street.
A man was walking across to his house, carrying a parcel.
He glanced at the clock. Five minutes after eleven.
He raised the binoculars and sighted through them. Trying to get a good look at the man’s face. But he was wearing a brimmed hat, and by now he was more or less directly below the window. He disappeared from view, too close to the house to be seen from Nat’s vantage point. Then, a second later, he reappeared on his way back to the car. But now his back was turned.
He stepped back into his car, shifted into gear and drove.
Nat first tried to see the man’s face, but it was too dark in the passenger compartment. Then he turned his binoculars to the license plate, but too late. He had only read the letters DCB when the car disappeared from sight.
Nat sat a minute, nursing his own frustration. That’s not much progress, he thought. And he would only get two chances a year.
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He tiptoed downstairs and out on to the front porch to retrieve his present. A medium-size box. He shook it a few times, but it only made a series of dull and not very telling thumps.
He carried it up to his room. Tore through the paper.
Boxing gloves.
And a punching bag of some sort, but not the kind Nat was familiar with. Not an inflatable speed bag that pops back and forth when you pummel it with both hands. It must be the big, heavy kind you hang from the ceiling. The kind that absorbs huge blows as if it were a person, a real opponent. But it was hard to tell, because it was only the leather and fabric shell of a bag. It wasn’t filled with anything.
It had a chain at the top, presumably to hang it by.
Nat put on the gloves, not knowing how to lace them at his wrists.
“Well, old man,” he said aloud to the empty room. “Now we might be on to something.”
1 October 1974
Nope
On his way to math, Nat thought seriously about cutting class. He had the boxing gloves with him, in his book bag. And they were burning a hole.
The plan had been to bring them along and then go straight from school to the gym downtown. See if there was any way to get some instruction. Which seemed unlikely without money. But maybe he could just talk to somebody about them. Look at the way they laced theirs. Or the way their bag was filled.
On the way to math, he almost cut the rest of the afternoon’s school and went straight to the gym. But he sagged inwardly, thinking how long he would have to listen to the old woman’s railing. It didn’t seem worth it.
He sighed, and went to class instead.
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“OK. Take out a sheet of paper.” Nat’s math teacher — whom Nat didn’t like, and vice versa — always seemed gleeful when announcing tests. The whole class groaned, as if a single body with one voice. “Now, this time you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you yesterday there would be a test.”
Nat briefly searched his memory. There was nothing there about a math test. He might not have been listening. Or he might just have forgotten. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that he didn’t care, not the tiniest little bit.
The teacher wrote the problems on the board. One through ten.
The minute the rest of the class began working on problem one, Nat craned his neck to pick up the answer from the paper of Sarah Gordon, just to his right. She was decent at math, and didn’t block her answers with her arm like so many of the kids who sat near him.
The teacher whipped around and caught him immediately.
It felt almost like entrapment, Nat thought. Like the teacher turned away just long enough to let Nat Bates get himself into trouble, and then turned back just in time to gleefully nab him.
“Mr. Bates. Front of the class.”
Nat sighed deeply. Hoisted his book bag. Trod heavily up to the blackboard.
“Principal’s office. I trust you’ll have no trouble finding it with all your experience. Try following the rut you’ve worn into the hallway on your previous fifty trips. I’ll call ahead, just in case you need a search party.”
Nat walked out of the classroom.
Some birthday, he thought. Why can’t you get a day off from this hell on your birthday? It’s only one day a year.
He trotted down the two flights of stairs. Along the dim and dingy hallway. Past the principal’s office. Right out the front door.
As he trotted down the outside stairs in front of the school, he heard his name called.
“Mr. Bates. Just where do you think you’re going?” It sounded like the assistant principal.
Without turning around, Nat waved goodbye.
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“Can I help you, kid?”
“I don’t know. I got these boxing gloves for my birthday. And I want to use them. But I don’t know exactly how.”
The little man rolled his eyes.
He was weirdly short. Much shorter than Nathan. But probably twice his weight. Not fat, though. All muscle. Fifty-something maybe. He had a half-smoked cigar clenched between his molars, but it wasn’t lit. His artificially dark reddish-orange hair was slicked back with a bizarre amount of hair cream, his jet-black shoes perfectly shined. Nat could see the reflection of the gym ceiling in their uppers.
The little man stood in a spill of light from the storefront gym windows, which also illuminated swirling dust.
“Jack, you got time for a kid who don’t know nothing about nothing?”
Jack came out from the back room. He was younger, taller. Smooth-looking. Ladies’-man handsome. He had a big chip broken off the corner of a front tooth. Nat watched him approach. Actually stared as Jack approached, unable to take his eyes off the man’s face. As if looking into a mirror that reflected not what Nat currently was, but what he wanted to become.
He reminded Nat of the often-imagined mental picture of his unknown father. The image of Richard A. Ford that he conjured up behind his closed eyelids.
“What, this kid?” he said.
He walked up to Nat and sized him up. Like Nat was a used car on a lot. A cheap one. Nat was less than a second away from turning on his heels to leave.
Then Jack smiled. “Looks a little like Joey, huh? OK. Put on your gloves, kid. We’ll see what you can do.”
Nat pulled his new gloves out of his book bag. Put them on and stepped into the ring with the laces still undone. The little man laced up both his and Jack’s gloves, leaving him as unclear as ever about how he would later do that on his own.
“Hey. Nice gloves, kid. Where’d you say you got these?”
“They were a present.”
“Must’ve cost a pretty penny. These’re the kind the pros use. Somebody must think well of you to give you these.”
“Too bad it’s nobody I know,” Nat muttered under his breath.
“What’d you say, kid?”
“Nothing.”
The little man ducked through the ropes and out of the ring.
Jack circled Nat a few times. Nat raised his hands in imitation of the way he had seen fighters box. He felt the sudden pressure of trying to impress an admired figure with no idea of how to proceed.
“No, no, no,” Jack said. “You gotta keep ’em up. Up. Or you’re gonna get killed. And think about your footwork, kid.”
Nat looked down and realized he was simply dragging his feet, circling, thinking of nothing but his gloved hands.
“Watch Jack’s footwork,” the little man called out. “When it comes to footwork, he’s the king.”
Nat watched and imitated.
Jack threw a punch and it hit Nat square in the gut, knocking the breath out of him.
“OK, Time!” Jack called, giving Nat a moment to lean on the ropes and try to breathe. “Boy, Little Manny, you weren’t kidding when you said he knows nothing from nothing. Come here, kid. I’m gonna put you on this heavy bag.”
They ducked through the ropes together, and Jack led him up to a bag that looked a great deal like the one he now had at home. Except this one was filled.
“I got one like this,” Nat said. Trying to talk like someone who hadn’t just been gut-punched. “But it’s just this outside part.”
“You gotta stuff ’em yourself. But that’s good you got one. Cause you’re gonna need the practice.”
“What do I stuff it with?”
“The ones we got here are stuffed with sawdust. Or sand. Or both. But don’t try that at home, unless you really trust your ceiling. Old clothes works OK. Or you can stop at the dumpster behind that carpet store down the street. Get a bunch of old padding. You can roll that up around some old clothes or rags or whatever and then slide the whole thing inside. Now, step up to this bag here.”
He stood behind Nat for the first minute or two, correcting the position of his hands between each jab.
“Make you a deal,” Jack said. “You go home and practice just like you’re doing now — only don’t forget that footwork — for a week. And then come back and maybe I’ll get in the ring with you.”
Nat agreed, yet stayed for over two hours, working. Stealing glances at Jack. And feeling the warm sense of having been taken under somebody’s wing. Someone he could relate to. Someone he could model himself after. A clear marker on the road to the man Nat suddenly wanted and needed to be.
When Nat got home with his big roll of discarded carpet padding, the old woman was nowhere to be seen.
Probably in a conference down at my school, he thought.
He stuffed the bag, then tried to figure out how to hang it.
Eventually he solved the problem by taking down the big hook that held the dining room chandelier and putting it up on one of the beams of his ceiling instead.
He pulled on his gloves and, leaving them untied, began to practice.
It felt good.
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