Nat tied Feathers’s leash to a newspaper dispenser on the street outside the gym. Then he stood a moment, looking at the old place. Jack must be doing better for money, he thought. He had really fixed it up nice.
He opened the door, and froze. Didn’t even go in. Just stood there in the open doorway, the wide, cold handle of the door in his hand. Just staring.
No speed bags. No heavy bags. No ratty gloves hanging on the wall. No sparring ring. No Little Manny. No Jack.
Instead Nat saw a man, who surely must have been on steroids, bench-pressing weights with no one to spot or supervise him, and three women in colorful spandex tights working out on stair-climbers and treadmills. Towels around their necks. The woman on the treadmill was reading a magazine positioned on a rack in front of her.
“Excuse me. May I help you?”
Nat glanced over at a young woman behind the counter. The counter that had never been there before. The counter that wasn’t supposed to be there now. He stared at it briefly, then back at the women in spandex.
“Excuse me. You’re letting the cold in. May I help you?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Nat stepped inside and let the door swing closed behind him. He stepped up to the counter as if in a dream. “Where’s Jack?”
“Jack who?”
“You know. Jack. The guy who …” Owned the place? Did he own the place? Nat realized he had no idea. He had never asked. There was a lot he had never really known. “You know. Jack. The boxer. The guy who trains people to spar.”
“There’s no Jack here,” she said. She was blonde, with a turned-up nose, and Nat felt she was looking down on him. And it was beginning to irritate him. And she seemed to know.
“Well, there was. I mean, there used to be. There always was before. And I need to know where he is now.”
“I’ll get the manager,” she said.
Nat purposely did not look around while he waited. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take it. He was right on the edge as it stood. So he just stared down at the counter, and squeezed his eyes shut, intermittently.
In a few moments a big man with a waist-length blond ponytail came out from behind the curtain. A body-builder. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Nat wished he hadn’t been forced to start over from the beginning.
“I’m looking for Jack.”
“Jack Trudell?”
“Um. Yeah. I think so.”
“The gentleman who used to lease this place?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Trudell is deceased.”
Nat stood stupidly, mutely, measuring how much confidence he felt in knowing the meaning of that word. Not enough. He thought he probably knew. But he wasn’t sure. The old man found it intelligent to ask if you didn’t know. Or so he said. Nat was not at all sure this Mr. Muscles would agree.
“As in dead?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“What did he die of?”
“I wouldn’t know that.”
“He wasn’t a very old guy.”
“No, from what I heard he wasn’t. Anything else we can do for you?”
“Um. No. Thanks.”
Nat walked out with his head down.
Even seeing Feathers waiting for him at the curb, wagging his tail as if he really were Nat’s dog — even that couldn’t make him feel better.
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Nat sat on the freezing concrete in the alley behind the gym. Feathers sat beside him, staring into Nat’s face. Cocking his wiry head slightly, as if trying to ask what the trouble might be. Nat scratched him behind the ear, and he straightened out his head and sighed.
“I guess I should go on down the street and look for a help wanted sign,” Nat said out loud to the dog.
Feathers cocked his head again. Nat watched their clouds of frozen breath puffing out and mixing together.
“But I don’t think I’m going to.”
Nat had been trying to lift the idea in his head all morning. But it weighed millions of pounds. It was heavier than the world in which he’d have to accept such a job. It would have been impossible enough to imagine, even if Nat had been sure that job applications didn’t ask if you’d ever been arrested. But Nat was not sure of that at all. In fact, he figured they probably did ask.
“I wonder if they ask you if you’ve ever been arrested? You think there’s a space for that on a job application?” Nat asked Feathers. “I bet there is. Maybe I just won’t tell them. You think they check?”
A long silence.
His rear end was getting numb from the cold of the pavement, and he could feel the cold seep through his jacket where his back pressed against the brick of the next building. The back wall of the dry cleaners. Nat could smell the chemicals they used. They were making him a little bit queasy.
Well. Something was.
“Maybe I should just go down to the Frosty Freeze instead. That sounds like a better idea. Doesn’t it?”
But in the silence that followed, he knew it was not a good idea. Not at all.
Because he had no money in his pocket. Not a dime.
How could he show up at the Frosty Freeze and not even have the money to order a milkshake? Or even a Coke? What kind of a statement would that make about him? And how could he even pretend he had just come in as a customer, like everyone else, like anyone had a perfect right to do? What would he answer, when she asked him why he was even there? Which she obviously would. If he couldn’t say, “Oh, I was just in the mood for a chocolate milkshake,” then what on earth would he say?
“No,” he told Feathers. “First I have to get a job. Then we can go down to the Frosty Freeze.”
But the instant he said it, the millions of pounds descended on him again. Nat felt that his thoughts had just dragged him on the world’s most depressing neverending loop, dumping him right back at the impossible spot where he’d started.
A voice startled him. “I know you. You’re that kid Jack was gonna train.”
Nat looked up.
“Little Manny!”
“Yup. That’s still me, all right. Whatever happened to you, kid? Jack was just starting to like you. Then you up and disappeared.”
“Got myself thrown in Juvie Hall for three years.”
“Oh. That explains it.” Little Manny squatted beside Nat, his back against the brick of the dry cleaners. Patted Feathers on the head. “Funny-looking dog,” he said, not making it sound like much of an insult.
He’d stopped coloring his hair, Nat noticed. It was now shot through with gray. And much shaggier. No hair cream and neat comb-marks. As if he hadn’t the time or the patience any more. Maybe he had just stopped caring.
“Little Manny. What are you doing here?”
“Same thing I always did. Mopping the floor at closing time. Spraying bleach in the showers. Wiping sweat off the machines.”
“So you still work here.”
“Well, they still needed somebody to clean. And I just live right up there. So why not me?” He pointed to a window on the second floor above the gym, and Nat looked up. “That’s how I knew you were down here. I heard you talking. I had my window open. I like the cold. People think I’m crazy, but I like it. Colder it is, the more I like it. So I looked out the window, ‘cause I heard you talking. And all I saw was some kid and a dog. So I come all the way down here to see what kind of a kid talks to his dog. And it was you.”
“Yeah,” Nat said. “That’s me. I’m a strange boy.”
“I’ll say.”
A long silence. Feathers licked Little Manny’s wrist.
Then Nat said, “What happened to Jack?”
Another silence.
“Jack’s dead.”
“Yeah, I heard that much. But why? How? How did he die?”
Nat heard only a long sigh. He thought Little Manny was never going to answer him. Then, “Let’s just call it a series of unfortunate choices and leave it at that.”
“Oh,” Nat said. “I guess I can relate to bad choices.”
“At least you’re still here.”
“Yeah. Great. I’m still here. What terrific news, huh? What good does that do me?”
“What’s so bad about not being dead? I mean, when you weigh the alternatives.”
Nat wondered if he could explain. It made him tired to even consider it. But it was Little Manny asking. So he had to at least try.
“I don’t know. It’s like … The whole time I was inside, that whole three years, all I thought about was getting back here. I figured I’d walk in the door, and there Jack would be. Sparring with some old guy in the ring. I pictured it a million times. Really saw it in my head. I figured he’d walk over and ask me where I’d been so long. And I’d tell him. And he’d nod like he totally understood. ‘Cause he understood stuff like that. And then he’d say something like, ‘Well, come on, kid. We wasted three years as it is. Let’s not waste any more. Put on a pair of gloves and we’ll make up for lost time.’”
“Yup. That’s probably about what he would’ve said all right.”
“Now who’s going to teach me to box?”
“Well …” Little Manny said. Then he paused for a time. As if trying to decide whether to finish the thought.
“What? You know somebody? You got an idea?”
“Well …”
“I’m pretty desperate here. In case you didn’t notice. If you got something, I’d really appreciate hearing it.”
“I’m the one trained Jack in the first place.”
“You trained Jack?”
“Yup. Taught him everything he knows. I mean, knew. I had the savvy and all. You know, the instincts. I knew how to fight, but I wasn’t worth much in the ring. Just not built for it. They got weight classes but not height classes. You know? Where could I hit except below the belt? I couldn’t reach much higher. You know the old saying. Those who can’t do something, well, then, they just teach it.”
“Teach me.”
“I don’t know, kid.”
“Please?”
“It’s been a long time since I trained anybody.”
“You’re my only hope.”
“Aw, don’t lay that on me, kid. I couldn’t take it. I’m too old and broke-down to be anybody’s last hope.”
“You’re younger and less broke-down than anybody else who’s gonna be willing to train me to fight.”
“Yeah, I guess I see your point about that.” A long sigh. A long pause.
Nat watched their breath puff out in great clouds of vapor. All three of them. He knew Little Manny would say yes. Because he had to. It just couldn’t go any other way. It was too important.
“Aw, hell. Come on upstairs, I guess. Might as well. What better have I got to do? I got a couple bags up there in my room. We’ll see if you remember anything at all.”
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