When Nathan returned to his bedroom, the door had been opened.
Nathan closed it behind him, and found his way to bed in the dark.
“I trust you heard all of that,” he said, not even trying to keep his voice down.
“I have a say in this. It’s our retirement. Not just yours. I know I don’t work, and I know you’ve been putting aside for retirement for years, since long before we got married. But still, in a marriage, what’s mine is yours and vice versa. And it will affect my quality of life when you retire. Just as much as it will affect yours. I’d hate to think you’d make a decision like that without my input.” Her voice sounded strained, Nathan thought, yet not exactly angry. At least, not in the way he expected. In fact, she sounded like she might be about to cry.
“It would only be a small percentage of what we’ve saved,” he said.
“That doesn’t address what I just said to you.”
“Of course I’ll discuss it with you. I discuss everything with you. I’m not going to commit money without considering your thoughts and feelings on the matter. And I would certainly hope you wouldn’t decide to try to stop me without considering mine. Now, you’re borrowing trouble here, Eleanor, because I haven’t even decided what I’m going to do yet. Let’s just get some sleep, and let the matter rest for now.”
But Nathan didn’t sense a lot of sleep, or even rest, in his immediate future.
? ? ?
“It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?’ she asked, startling him.
It might have been as little as five minutes later. Or half an hour might have transpired. Nathan found it significant that she spoke at full volume, as though the conversation had never lagged. As if it had never occurred to her that he might be asleep.
Of course, she was right.
He noticed something else about her voice. She seemed to speak without energy now. As if all the fight had gone out of her.
“Nat will always be part of my life, if that’s what you mean. What do you really want in this situation, Eleanor?”
While he was waiting for her reply, Nathan watched the shadow on the wall cast by the tree outside their bedroom window. Watched it sway the tiniest bit in the warm breeze.
“I want what I thought I was getting when I married you.”
“You knew about Nat before we were married.”
“I guess I thought your relationship with Nat would be more like my relationship with my grown son.”
“Your son wasn’t incarcerated, so you must have known there would be some differences.”
“I just want my life back the way it was before.”
“He’ll move out in a couple of months.”
“I doubt it. But even if he does, some disaster will drop him back here. And even if it doesn’t, he’ll have some disaster wherever he is, and he’ll manage to involve you. And you’ll jump right in and get involved. And nothing I say will stop you.”
“I’ll ask you again, Eleanor. What do you really want in this situation? What would fix this for you?”
“That’s the problem,” she said. “I’m just not sure any more. I’m losing hope that it’s fixable, Nathan.”
7 August 1979
The Debatable Value of Arguing with Life
Nathan crossed the parking lot to the little apartment over the gym, already wilting in the heat. The sun baked the back of his neck, making him wish he had worn a hat. He had always prided himself on being able to gauge the temperature within a degree or two of accuracy. Ninety-two, he decided. Maybe even ninety-three.
The stairwell felt airless and stifling as he climbed.
He stood in front of Manny Schultz’s apartment, listening to the soft, muffled sound of television dialogue filtering through the door.
Then he knocked.
A call from inside. “Yeah? Who’s there?”
“Nathan McCann.”
“Meaning what? I don’t know no Nathan whatever-you-said.”
“Nat’s … guardian.”
Silence. Then the door opened a crack. Nathan was startled to see the man’s head appear at about the level of an average man’s chest. At almost the exact same moment, Nathan’s sinuses caught the assault of stale smoke. Cigar and cigarette both, from the odor of it. He tried not to twist his face into an insulting mask of judgment.
“Oh. Nathan. Yeah. That Nathan. Nat’s Nathan. So. What? Are you pissed at me about something?”
“No. I just want your advice.”
The tiny man snorted rudely. It took Nathan a moment to realize that the sharp, offensive sound was actually a type of laughter.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to laugh in your face. Just that, people don’t come to me asking for advice. Not much, anyway. ‘Cept about boxing.”
“This is about boxing, actually.”
Nathan had always found it hard to stand in the baking heat. Not even so much to walk in the heat, but to stand still. A circulation issue, he assumed. It always made him feel slightly woozy. Today was no exception.
“Aren’t you kind of on the old side?” the little man asked.
“Nat’s boxing. I was hoping you’d give me some advice on my role in Nat’s boxing career.”
“Ah,” Manny said. Still speaking through a several-inch opening in the door. “Now you’re starting to make some sense.”
“No, I was making sense all along. It’s just that you’re only now beginning to understand me.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on in.”
He opened the door wide. Nathan did not step in. Inside he saw beer cans lying on their sides. A torn couch which must have doubled as the only bed in the place, still made up with a pillow and blankets. An empty pizza box lying open on the floor, grease-stained and littered with crumbs. Two punching bags of different varieties, one hanging from the ceiling, one suspended from a metal stand.
An air conditioner strained and blew from its jury-rigged place in the window.
And, in spite of it, that horrible tobacco stench.
“Maybe we could talk outside.”
“You’re kidding, right? It’s like a hundred degrees out there. At least in here we got the air conditioner going. It’s crap, but it’s better than nothing. I mean, at least in here it’s not a hundred. Ninety, maybe. But not a hundred.”
Nathan did not answer. And he still did not move.
“Oh, wait,” Little Manny said. “I get it. You’re a neat freak.”
“More of a non-smoker,” Nathan said.
“OK, have it your own way. We can sit out on the fire escape. At least that way we’ll be in the shade.”
? ? ?
“Nat didn’t seem to be able to provide what you might call a comprehensive summary of how much money he’s going to need.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not an exact science. I mean, you work with what you got.”
Nathan felt the warm grating of the fire escape under his buttocks and the heels of his hands. He looked down at the parking lot. At his own car. He had never thought to appreciate the joys of a neighborhood with lawns and hedges and trees. It had seemed so automatic. As if everyone lived the way he did.
He wondered briefly what it would feel like to look out over the urban decay of downtown every day of your life. Would it change a person?
“How can I know whether I’m willing to lend him the money if I don’t even know how much money we’re talking about?”
“I guess I could work you up a rough estimate. Like, if we had this much we could do just these basics, but if we had this much more we could do this much more. That type of a thing. Like I say, you work with what you got. But you gotta have something. I mean, right now he doesn’t even have enough for decent trunks and a robe and good shoes and stuff. Without that, he’s gonna look like somebody’s poor relation walking into the ring. They’ll laugh at him. The handicap’ll be too much for him. You know. To his psyche.”
Nathan was surprised to hear the word “psyche” come out of Little Manny’s mouth. It seemed out of keeping with the rest of his vocabulary. Then he chided himself for being judgmental.
He looked at the little man’s hands during the pause in the conversation. Trying to decide if he was actually suffering from some type of dwarfism. But his fingers, stained orange from tobacco, looked perfectly proportioned.
“I can’t imagine that trunks and a robe would be too expensive.”
“That ain’t the half of it. It’s the transportation. Plus meals and lodging on the road. Most of these fights’ll be out of town. New York, especially for the amateurs. Atlantic City mostly after he goes pro. Or even Vegas. And it costs more to get to Vegas.”
“Here’s what I really want you to tell me. We can worry later about what it will cost. Right now I need to ask you if he’s good enough.”
“No,” Little Manny said.
“No, I may not ask you that?”
“No, he’s not good enough.”
“You don’t think he’s good enough to win?”
“Not really, no.”
They sat in silence for a beat or two. Nathan could feel perspiration trickle down under his collar. He wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” the little man said. “I’m not saying he’s bad. I’m not even saying he’s not good. Only, you didn’t ask me if he was good. You asked me if he was good enough.”
“What about him is good? And what about him is not good enough?”
“His attitude is great. Just what it needs to be. It’d be the wrong attitude for just about anything else. But for a fighter, he’s really got the frame-of-mind thing nailed. He has a lot of passion, you know? Anger, really. But he’s learning to use it right. Plus, he’s not afraid of hard work. Some guys, they got all the talent in the world. But they just won’t buckle down to the training. It’s like they just don’t have the discipline. But Nat, boy, he works like a Trojan. I tell him, ‘You can knock off now,’ and he just wants to keep going. Now, here’s the thing, though. He doesn’t have enough of that natural talent. A lot of it is about instincts, you know? The competition is real stiff. Real high. You really gotta have both. Oh, he could win a pro fight or two on sheer stubbornness. But he’s not a natural. And he never will be.”
Nathan took a minute to absorb the little man’s words.
“I’m surprised,” he said.
“Why? You figured he’d be great?”
“Not necessarily. But I suppose I didn’t expect you to be so candid with me. And I’m surprised that Nat would even let me come over here and talk to you if he knew that’s what you were going to say.”
“Oh, Nat doesn’t know I feel that way.”
“You never told him you don’t think he’s good enough?”
“Nope. I never told him that. Probably never will. One, he never asked. And he probably never will. Two, he wouldn’t never hear me anyway. He hears what he wants to hear, just like anybody else that wants something real bad. There’s two things you can do with a kid like that. Way I see it. You can burst his bubble. Or you can wait and let life burst it. Let life do the dirty work for you. If you burst it he’ll hate you forever. And he’ll never really believe he couldn’t have made it. He’ll always think it’s your fault for standing in his way. For not having more faith in him. Now, life. When life bursts your bubble, well. It’s a little harder to argue with life.”
“I see people argue with life all the time,” Nathan said.
“Betcha never see ’em win, though.”
Nathan breathed deeply and rose to his feet. He could feel the dampness of his shirt as he moved. It would be good to get back in the car and turn on the fan.
“Thank you, Manny. That was just the advice I needed.”
“Yeah, hey. Don’t tell the kid I talked you out of backing him, huh?”
“You didn’t talk me out of backing him. You talked me into it.”
“I did? Huh. Well, what do you know?”
? ? ?
The little man accompanied Nathan to the top of the sweltering stairwell.
As he was walking down the stairs, he heard Little Manny call after him. “Hey. I bet you were the guy gave him those sweet gloves. That was you, wasn’t it? That first time, I mean. Way back when.”
Nathan stopped and turned back. “Yes,” he said. “That was me.”
“Yeah. I knew it. I knew that kid didn’t have two people in his life that would treat him so good.”