Chapter 10
We train and fight and keep training, and I get my first win up. It’s down in Helensburgh, against some lowlife yobbo who keeps calling me cowboy.
“That all y’ got, cowboy, huh?”
“You hit like my mother, cowboy.”
All that kind of thing.
I put him down once in the third and twice in the fifth. I win it on points. Fifty dollars, but more importantly, a win. A sniff of victory for the Underdog. It feels gr
eat, especially at the end, when Rube smiles at me and I smile back.
“I’m proud a’ you.”
That’s what he says afterward, in the dressing room, before concentrating again. Later, he worries me. He … I don’t know.
I notice a deliberate change in my brother. He’s harder. He has a switch, and once a fight comes near, he flicks it and he is no longer my brother Rube. He’s a machine. He’s a Steve, but different. More violent. Steve’s a winner because he’s always been a winner. Rube’s a winner because he wants to beat the loser out of himself. Steve knows he’s a winner, but I think Rube’s still trying to prove it to himself. He’s fiercer, more fiery, ready to beat all loss from his vision.
He’s Fighting Ruben Wolfe.
Or is he actually fighting Ruben Wolfe?
Insid
Proving himself.
To himself.
I don’t know.
It’s in each eye.
The question.
Each breath.
Who’s fighting who?
Each hope.
In the ring tonight, he leaves his opponent in pieces. The other guy is barely there, from the very beginning. Rube has something over all of them. His desire is severe, and his fists are fast. Every time the guy goes down, Rube stands over him tonight, and he tells him.
“Get up.”
Again.
“Get up.”
By the third one, he can’t. This time, Rube screams at him. “Get up, boy!”
He lays into the padding in the corner and kicks it before climbing back out.
In the dressing room Rube doesn’t look at me. He speaks words that are not directed at anyone. He says, “Another one, ay. Two rounds and he’s on the deck.”
More women like him.
I see them watching him.
They’re young and trashy and good-looking. They like tough fellas, even though guys like that are likely to treat them poorly. I guess women are only human too. They’re as stupid as us sometimes. They seem to like the bad ones a bit.
But is Rube bad? I ask myself.
It’s a good question.
He’s my brother.
Maybe that’s all I know.
As weeks edge past us, he fights and wins and he doesn’t bother shaving. He turns up and wins. Turns up and wins. He only smiles when I fight well.
At school, there’s a new air about him. People know him. They recognize him. They know he’s tough, and people have heard. They know he does fight nights, though none of them know that I do. It’s for the best, I s’pose. If they saw me fight, it would only make them laugh. I would be Rube’s sidekick. They’d say, Go watch them Wolfes fight, ay. The younger one, what’s his name, he’s a joke, but Ruben can fight like there’s no tomorrow.
“It’s all rumors,” is what Rube tells people. “I don’t fight anywhere except in my backyard.” He lies well. “Look at the bruises on my brother. We fight all the time at home, but that’s it. No more than that.”
O morning, a colder one than normal, but clear, we go out for a run. The sun’s barely coming up, and as we run, we see some fellas just coming home. They’ve been out all night.
“Hey Rubey!” one yells.
It’s an old mate of Rube’s named Cheese. (Well, at least, his nickname’s Cheese, anyway. I don’t think anyone knows his real name.) He’s standing on the walkway up to Central Station with a giant pumpkin under his arm.
“Hey Cheeser.” Rube raises his head. We walk up toward him. “What y’ been doin’ lately?”
“Ah, nothin’ much. Just livin’ in a drunken haze, ay. Since I left school, all I do is work and drink.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s good, mate.”
“Enjoyin’ it?”
“Lovin’ every minute.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” But really, my brother doesn’t care. He scratches his two-day growth. “So what’s the go with the pumpkin?”
“Been hearin’ you’re a bit of a gunfighter these days.”
“Nah, just in the backyard.” Rube recalls something. “You of all people should know that.”
“Yeah mate, certainly,” because Cheese used to be in our yard sometimes when we got the gloves out. He remembers the pumpkin he’s holding. He lifts it back into the conversation. “Found this in an alley, so we’re gonna play football with it.” His mates arrive, around the three of us.
“About here, Cheese?” they ask.
“Why, certainly,” and he gives the pumpkin a good kick down the walkway. Someone chases it then and comes running back with it.
“Belt him!” someone else yells, and it’s on. Teams divide quickly, the fella gets belted, and pieces of pumpkin go flying all over the place.
“Rube!” I call for it.
He passes.
I drop it.
“Ah, y’ useless bloody turkey!” Cheese laughs. Do people still use that word? It’s a word people’s grandfathers use. In any case, I erase my disappointment by tackling the next guy into the concrete.
A bag lady walks past, checking things out for breakfast.
Then a few couples get out of the way.
The pumpkin’s in half. We continue with one of them, and the other half is squashed against the wall under the money mach
Rube gets belted.
I get belted.
Everyone does, and all around us, there’s the stench of sweat, raw pumpkin, and beer.
“You blokes stink,” Rube tells Cheese. “Why thank you,” Cheese responds.
We keep going, until the pumpkin’s the size of a golf ball. That’s when the cops show up.
They walk up, a man and a woman, smiling.
“Boys,” the bloke cop opens with. “How’s it going?”
“Tosser Gary!” Rube calls out. “What are you doin’ here?”
Yes, you’ve guessed right. The cops are our mates from the dog track. Gary, the corrupt, bet-placing male cop, and Cassy, the brilliant brunette gorgeous cop.
“Ahh, you!” the cop laughs. “Been down the track lately?”
“Nah,” Rube answers. “Been a bit busy.”
Cassy nudges Gary.
He pauses.
Remembers.
His job.
“Now fellas,” he begins, and we all know what he’ll say. “You know this kind of thing isn’t on. There’s pumpkin all over the place and when the sun hits it, it’s gonna stink like my old man’s work boots.”
Silence.
Then a few yeahs.
Yeah this, yeah that, and a yeah you’re right I s’pose. But no one understands, not really. No one cares. I’m wrong.
I’m wrong because I find myself stepping forward, saying, “Okay Gary, I know what y’ mean,” and start picking up pieces of pumpkin. Silently, Rube follows. The others, drunk, only watch. Cheese helps a bit, but none of the others do anything. They’re too shocked. Too drunk. Too out of breath. Too stoned.
“Thanks a lot,” Gary and Cassy say when we’re done and our drunken friends are on their way.
“I think I’d love to beat the hell out of some of those fellas,” Rube mentions. His words are offhand, but fierce. Like he’d do it if the cops would turn their backs for a minute.
Gary looks at him.
A few times.
He notices.
He says it.
“You’ve changed mate happened?”
All Rube says is, “I don’t know.”
Neither do I.
It’s a conversation with myself at Central Station. It goes on inside my head as Rube and Gary talk a little further.
It goes like this:
“Hey Cameron?”
“What?”
“Why does he scare you all of a sudden?”
“He’s fierce now, and even when he smiles and laughs, he stops it real fast and concentrates again.”
“Maybe he just wants to be somebody.”
“Maybe he wants to kill somebody.”
“Now you’re bein’ stupid.”
“All right.”
“Maybe he’s just sick of losin’ and never wants to feel it again.”
“Or maybe he’s the one that’s afraid.”
“Maybe.”
“But afraid of what?”
“I don’t know. What can a winner be afraid of?”
“Losing?”
“No, it’s more than just that. I can tell….”
“All the same, though, Cassy looks great, doesn’t she?”
“She sure does….”
“But afraid of what?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”