Chapter 14
When you lean against a wall and the sun’s setting, sometimes you just stand there and watch. You taste blood but you don’t move. Like I said, you let the silence speak. Then you go back inside.
“Twenty bucks tip money,” Perry informs me, handing me a bag when everything’s over.
“Huh,” I retort. “Pity money.”
“No,” Perry warns me. He always looks like he’s warning you. This time he’s telling me to shut up and take the compliment.
“It’s pride money,” says Bumper. “Walkin’ through the c
rowd like that. They appreciate that more than my win, more than Rube’s win, more than all of ‘em put together.”
I take the money. “Perry.”
“You’ve got four more fights,” he tells me. “Then your season’s over, right? You deserve the break, I reckon.” He shows Rube and me a sheet of paper that’s a competition ladder. In his other hand he holds the draw. On the ladder, he points out where Rube is. “See, you came in three fights late, but you’re still on top. You’re the only one who hasn’t lost a fight.”
Rube points at the name sitting on second. “Who’s Hitman Harry Jones?”
“You’re fightin’ him next week.” “He good?”
“You’ll drop him easy.” “Oh.”
“Look there, he’s had two losses. One of ‘em was against the bloke you fought tonight.” “Really?”
“Would I say it otherwise?” “No.”
“Well, shut up then.” Perry grins. “The semifinals are comin’ up in four more weeks.” The grin leaves him. Immediately. Now he’s serious. “However …”
“What?” Rube asks. “What?”
Perry pulls us both aside. He speaks slow and genuine. I’ve never heard him speak like this. “There’s only one slight problem — it’s in the last week of the regular comp.”
Rube and I both look at the draw closely. “See it?” Perry sticks a finger on Week Fourteen. “I’ve decided to be a bit of a bastard.” I see it. So does Rube.
“Oh man,” I say, because right there on the page of Week Fourteen in the lightweight division, it says WOLFE vs. WOLFE.
Perry tells us, “Sorry fellas, but I couldn’t help it. There’s just something about brothers fighting, and I wanted the last week before the semifinals to be memorable.” He’s still genuine. Just talking business.
“Remember, I said there was a slight chance this might happen. You said it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“You can’t rig somethin’?” Rube asks. “You can’t change it?”
“No, and I don’t want to either. The only good thing is that it’s gonna be here, at home.”
A shrug. “Well, fair enough then.” My brother looks at me. “You got a problem with it Cam?”
“Not really.”
“Good,” Perry finishes. “I knew I could count on y’s.”
When everything’s packed up, Perry offers us our usual lift home. His voice hammers my mind, as I’m still in pretty bad shabeating I copped.
“Nah,” Rube tells him. “Not tonight, ay. I reckon we might walk tonight.” He goes for my opinion. “Cam?”
“Yeah, why not,” even though I’m thinking, Are you bloody crazy? My head looks like it’s gone through a blender. However, I say nothing more. I think I’ll be happy to walk home with Rube tonight.
“No worries.” Perry states his position. “Next week boys?”
“Certainly.”
We walk out the back door with our gear and tonight there is no one waiting. There’s no more Steph, no more anyone. There’s only city and sky, and clouds that twirl in the growing darkness.
At home, I hide my battle-bruised face. I have a black eye, swollen cheekbone, and a torn, blood-rusted lip. I eat the pea soup in the sheltered corner of the lounge room.
The next few days fight their way past.
Rube lets his gruff grow a little.
Dad is on the employment trail, as usual.
Sarah goes to work and only goes around to her friend Kelly’s place once or twice. She comes home sober and, on Wednesday, with overtime money jammed in her pocket.
Steve comes in once, to iron some shirts.
“Don’t you have an iron?” Rube asks him.
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like you don’t have an iron.”
“Well, guess what, I don’t.”
“Well, maybe you should go and buy one, y’ tighty.”
“Who y’ callin’ tight, boy? How ‘bout you go and have a shave….”
“Can’t y’ afford an iron? This movin’ out thing can’t be too easy then.”
“Damn right. It’s not.”
The thing is, though, that as they argue, both Steve and Rube are pretty much laughing. Sarah laughs from the kitchen and I smirk in my own juvenile way. This is the sort of thing we specialize in.
Mrs. Wolfe has actually taken the day off work.
What this means is that she has time to notice that there are cuts and bruises healing on my face. As I eat some cornflakes that afternoon, she corners me in the kitchen. I watch her watching me.
She calls out. One word. It’s this: “Rube!”
Not too loud. Not panicked. Just a confident strain ofexpects nothing less than his quick arrival. She asks, “Is it the boxing training?” Rube sits down. “No.”
“Or have you boys been fighting in the backyard again?”
He confesses a lie.
“Yeah.” He’s pretty quiet. “We have.”
She only sighs and believes us, which is the worst thing. It’s always bad when someone believes you when you know they shouldn’t. You feel like screaming at them, telling them to stop, so you can live with yourself a little easier.
But you don’t.
You don’t want to disappoint them.
You can’t face your own gutless self and explain that you’re not worthy of their trust.
You can’t accept that you’re that low.
The thing is that we have been fighting in the yard, even if it’s only practice for the real thing. I guess Rube hasn’t exactly lied, but he hasn’t told the truth either.
It’s close.
I feel it.
I come so close to telling her all about it. Perry, the boxing, the money. Everything. The only thing stopping me now is the bowed head of my brother. Looking at him, I know he’s heading somewhere. He’s at the edge of something and I can’t bring myself to snatch it from under his feet.
“Sorry Mum.”
“Sorry Mum.”
Sorry Mrs. Wolfe.
For everything.
We’ll make you proud another day. We have to. We must.
“You know,” she begins, “you fellas ought to be looking after each other.” Her comment makes me realize that through the lies, the greatest irony is that we are looking out for each other. It’s just that in the end, we’re letting her down. That’s what injures us.
“Any luck with work?” Steve asks Dad. I can hear it. They’re in the lounge room.
“Nah, not really.”
I expect them to begin the usual argument about getting the dole, but they don’t. Steve leaves it alone, because he doesn’t live here anymore. He only gets a fixed look on his face and says his good-byes. I can tell by his expression that he’s thinking, It’ll never happen to me. I won’t let it.
On the Friday of that week, what seems like a typical morning turns out to be a very important one.
Rube and I are out for a run and it’s nearly seven when we return. , we have our old jerseys, track pants, and gymmies on. The day wears a sky with boulder clouds and a bright blue horizon. At our gate, we arrive and Sarah’s there. She asks, “Did y’ see Dad while you were out? He’s disappeared, ay.”
“No,” I reply, wondering what the big deal is. “Dad’s been taking walks lately.”
“Not this early.”
Mum comes out.
“His suit’s not there,” she announces, and instantly, we all know. He’s down there. He’s waiting. He’s gone down to get the dole.
“No.”
Someone says it. Again.
Against the hope that it isn’t true.
“No way,” and I realize that it’s me who has spoken, because the morning-cold smoke has tumbled from my mouth with the words. “We can’t let him.” Not because we’re ashamed of him. We’re not. We just know that he’s fought this for so long, and we know he sees it as the end of his dignity. “Come on.”
Now it’s Rube who has spoken, and he tugs on my sleeve. He calls to Mum and Sarah that we’ll be back soon, and we take off.
“Where we goin’?” I pant, but I know the answer, right up until we get to Steve’s place. Out of breath from the sprint, we stand there, gather ourselves, then call out.
“Hey Steve! Steven Wolfe!”
People yell out for us to shut up, but soon enough, Steve appears on his apartment balcony in his underwear. His face says, You bastards. His voice says, “I thought it was you blokes.” Then a shrill, unhappy shout: “What are y’s doin’ here? It’s seven o’clock in the bloody morning!”
A neighbor shrieks, “What the hell’s goin’ on out there?”
“Well?” Steve demands.
“It’s,” Rube stutters. “It’s Dad.”
“What about him?”
“He’s …” Damn, my voice is still panting. “He’s down there.” I’m shaking. “Getting the dole.”
Steve’s face shows relief. “Well, it’s about time.”
Yet, when Rube and I stare into him, he can tell. We’re pleading with him. We’re crying out. We’re howling for help. We’re screaming out that we need all of us. We need — “Ah, bloody hell!” Steve spits out the words. A minute later, he’s with us, running in his old football training gear and his good athletic shoes.
“Can’t y’s run any faster?” he complains on the way, just to repay us for pulling him out of bed and humiliating him in front of his neighbors. He also says through clenched teeth, “I’ll get you blokes for this, I promise y’s.”
Rube and I just keep running, and when we get back to our place, Mum and Sarah are dressed. They’re ready. We all are. We walk.
After fifteen minutes, the employment service is in sight. At the doors, there sits a man, and the man is our father. He doesn’t see us, but each one of us walks toward him. Together. Alone.
Mrs. Wolfe has pride on her face.
Sarah has tears in her eyes.
Steve has our father in his eyes, and finally, the realization that he would be equally as stubborn.
Rube has intensity clawed across him.
As for me, I look at my father, sitting there, alone, and I imagine his sense of failure. His black suit is a bit short at the ankles, exposing his worn-out socks beneath the pants.
When we get there, he looks up. He’s a good-looking man, my father, although this morning, he’s defeated. He’s broken.
“Thought I’d get down here early,” he says. “This is about the time I normally start work.” All of us stand around him.
In the end, it’s Steve who speaks. He says, “Hi Dad.”
Dad smiles. “Hi Steven.”
That’s all there is. No more words. Not like you might expect. That’s all of it, except that we all know we won’t let him do it. Dad knows it too.
He stands up and we resume the fight.
When we walk back, Rube stops at one point. I wait with him. We watch the others walk.
Rube speaks.
“See,” he says. “That’s Fighting Clifford Wolfe.” He points. “That’s Fighting Mrs. Wolfe and Fighting Sarah Wolfe. Hell, these days, that’s even Fighting Steven Wolfe. And you’re Fighting Cameron Wolfe.”
“What about you?” I ask my brother.
“Me?” he wonders. “I’ve been given the name, but I don’t know.” He looks right at me and says truth. “I’ve got some fear of my own, Cam.”
“Of what?”
What can he be afraid of?
“What will I do when a fight comes along that I might lose?” So that’s it. Rube’s a winner. He doesn’t want to be. He wants to be a fighter first. Like us.
To fight a fight he might lose. I answer his question, to assure him. “You’ll fight anyway, just like us.” “Y’ reckon?”
But neither of us knows, because a fight’s worth nothing if you know from the start that you’re going to win it. It’s the ones in between that test you. They’re the ones that bring questions with them.
Rube hasn’t been in a fight yet. Not a real one.
“When it comes along, will I stand up?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
He’d rather be a fighter a thousand times over among the Wolfe pack than be a winner once in the world.
“Tell me how to do it,” he begs. “Tell me.” But we both understand that some things can’t be told or taught. A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn’t make a winner a fighter.
“Hey Rube.”
“Yeah.”
“Why can’t y’ be happy bein’ a winner?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know.” He goes over it. “Actually, I do know.”
“Well?”
“Well, first, if you’re a Wolfe, you should be able to fight. Second, there’s only so long you can win for, because someone can always beat you.” He draws a breath. “On the other hand, if you learn how to fight, you can fight forever, even when you get belted.”
“Unless you give up.”
“Yeah, but anyone can stop you being a winner. Only you yourself can make you stop fighting.”
“I s’pose.”
“Anyway …” Rube decides to finish it. “Fighting’s harder.”