Pound for Pound (26 page)

“Everything’s close,” Chicky said, “except the Regionals, and I missed them by a large ration of snakebit.”

“It’s all for the best, you got to think that way.”

“Tell the truth to me, Granddaddy,” Chicky pleaded. “Say the fight was fixed. I just need to hear it so I can go do who I gotta.”

Eloy stonewalled.
“Boy,
don’t you contaminate your mind thinkin like that.”

Chicky ignored the
Boy.
“It was Trini, right? I know he was in on it.”

“Listen to me,” said Eloy. “It was one a them bad-luck deals, that’s all.”

“I never had bad luck before.”

Eloy’s jaws got tight. “Chicky-boy-Garza, what I say?”

Boy
worked this time and Chicky said, “You’re right, but this is like dyin, Granddaddy.”

“I know what you mean.”

Eloy also knew that even if he hadn’t caused the stink with Trini, the passbook fix would surely get loose anyway—someone would get to bragging about it, someone like Steuke, if not the lawyers. Soon as Chicky got wind of it, he’d go hunting with the Mossberg sure as there was stink on shit.

The rain let up to a light drizzle, then stopped all of a sudden. The round black sky was filled with stars all the way to Brownsville.

Eloy said, “We’re comin up on the Palo Alto now.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t about no Palo Alto.” Chicky was digging in his heels.

Eloy pulled Fresita into the school’s big parking lot. He needed to take a pee real bad. As they passed through some deep mud, Eloy felt safer and safer. He rolled down the windows to cool things off, and to keep the windshield clear.

“Talk to me, talk to me,” said Eloy, realizing that he was echoing Trini. “I know these last years’s been hard, but the farm’s paid for, and I got some money stashed Uncle Sam don’t know about. Look how my face got all busted up. Maybe this San Antonio fight bidness ain’t for you after all?”

Chicky went for it like a bay redfish after a lure. “What if I was to go fight somewheres else?”

“Whoa!” said Eloy. This was the opening he’d hoped for, and this time he went for it like a pit bull. “You ain’t talkin about leavin town on me?”

“Course I wouldn’t go,” Chicky said, “if leavin’d cause a mess of boogers and hanks.”

“You don’t think I can cut it? You didn’t know I was fixin to plant again next season?” said Eloy. “You ain’t seen my weight come down?”

Chicky said, “Yeah, I seen it, but I’d have to know you was okay inside.”

Eloy got out of the truck, went to some bushes to pee. As soon as he got back in the truck, he said, “Weeeell, Corpus Christi ain’t all that far.”

Chicky said, “Corpus ain’t got enough fights or trainers, and I’m fed up with Texas. I was thinkin on New York or Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s got good fighters.”

Eloy pretended to hesitate. “Yeah, but who’ll train you? How’d you live?”

“I’d find a trainer, I’ll get me a hotel busboy job.”

“Only problem’s they ain’t got that many of us back there.”

“They got Porto Ricans, ain’t they?”

Eloy said, “Yeah, but the way they talk Spanish ain’t hardly worth listenin to.”

“There’s always Los Angeles,” Chicky suggested.

“Yessir,” Eloy said thoughtfully. “That dawg might hunt.”

Chicky was warming up to the idea. “I can always come back and go to school. And if you get to feelin poorly, I’m just a plane ride away. So let’s make her L.A.”

Eloy stalled a tad, pretended some more. “Yeah, they’s lotsa
raza
out there. Course they won’t be many of us Tex-Mexes, but they’ll be Chicanos and other-side Mexicans, both. But I don’t cotton to you out there layin around on your ass.”

“I’ll get a job, I promise!”

“You know what?” Eloy said, picking his words like emeralds and sapphires out of cow pie. “There’s a trainer out there I heard about, feller name a Cooley.”

“Coolie?” Chicky blurted out. “What is he, some kind a Chinaman or somethin?”

“Not that kind of coolie,” Eloy said. He spelled it out so the kid would remember. “This is C-O-O-L-E-Y, Irish, Dan Cooley.”

Chicky said, “Have I heard of him?”

Eloy said, “Could. At one time he worked TV fights a lot.”

“How do you know about him?”

“He’s a top-ten, that one,” said Eloy. “Feller with a bad eye. But he’s a great trainer.”

Eloy swallowed hard. This would be the tough one. “I want you to keep me outta this. Cooley don’t need to know that you was trained by an old bum like me. I want him to take you on because he sees how good you are.”

Eloy thought fast and decided to cinch it down tight. “Besides, we
met once a long time ago and … well, we didn’t get along. Fact is, bringin me into this ain’t gonna do you any good.”

The rain came back and slowed the go-away for a week, but Chicky had his stuff together and was ready to take off soon as there was a break in the weather. He’d grab the Greyhound bus to Los Angeles to keep expenses down. He figured L.A. had plenty of buses to get around on. He’d heard of trains and subways, too. He was sure he could hack it.

“How’ll I find this Cooley guy?”

“I’d say check around the gyms,” said Eloy, “or maybe call the Boxing Commission.” He intentionally left out just how he had come to know Cooley. What the kid didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, Cooley had probably forgotten about him.

No sense to open a can of worms.

The sun was bright enough to split your eyeballs as Eloy and Chicky headed for San Antonio. Eloy had gotten a lube and oil change the day before, and Fresita was full of gas. Chicky had six hundred dollars saved, and withdrew it in twenties and tens and fives. It felt like a lot more than it was. His two bags were in the back of the truck, the big one filled with his gym goods.

When they got to the bus station, Eloy got out of Fresita and stood by his door instead of driving into the adjacent lot.

Chicky said, “What’s this?”

“Get out.”

Chicky did, and crossed around to Eloy. It took everything Eloy had to keep from breaking down, but he managed a smile instead, and hugged his grandson to him, squeezed hard as he could, knew this could be the last time he’d ever hold him. He turned away for a lick to wipe his eyes, then faced the boy.

“In case for some dumb reason I don’t see you again,” he said. He held
out a pink Lobo Farms envelope. Inside were twenty century notes. “Here,” said Eloy, “you take this.” “What is it?” “Take it, it ain’t much.” “I got money.”

“Now you got more,” said Eloy. “There’s enough to get you that brand-new birthday hat out there, and then some.” “Aw, gee, Granddaddy.”

Eloy said, “Now git your ass back in the truck.” “Huh?”

“Git behind the wheel,” Eloy told him. “Fresita’s yours now, go on.” “No way,” Chicky protested. “Fresita’s your baby girl.” “She’s your baby now,” Eloy said firmly, “so git on in ‘fore I change my dumb-assed mind.”

“You sure, Granddaddy, you serious about this?” “Seriouser than the twisty dick on a horny boar.” “But you won’t have nothin to drive.”

“I still got the flatbed, and I can always buy me a run-around.” Chicky choked on his words. “Whe-when should I go?” “Go now.
Vete.”

D
an pulled up in front of an all-night Bakersfield supermarket. He slept in the backseat of the car. He checked his atlas while he had coffee early the next morning in a McDonald’s. He washed up in the john, then went back to the counter and bought a large orange juice to go. He laced the juice with vodka in the car, lit a cigar, then headed out of town. He took the 58 East back through the baked desert to Mojave. From there it was more desert to Barstow, where he picked up the 40 East to Needles and on across the Colorado River into Arizona, the old Mercedes clipping along at a steady sixty, the radio turned off. The Black Mountains were on one side, the Buck on the other. His cell phone rang. He tossed it out the window of the car. He drove on to Yucca, stopped for no reason other than he had a sore ass. He stayed at the Injun Motel, a truck stop of free-standing old buildings shaped like tepees. He ate in the trucker café, greasy food, overcooked frozen vegetables, margarine on white rolls. Vodka and a Xanax put him to sleep after midnight.

He bought fuel the next morning. He checked his map. He was aiming for Phoenix by dark. He would stay on the 40 through Kingman and then on to Flagstaff, where he’d take the 17 South. In need of provisions,
he walked over to a nearby air-cooled market. So he wouldn’t have to stop along the way unless to pee or whatever, he bought a loaf of bread, some sliced cheese, and two packs of luncheon meat. He also placed a pack of precooked smoky links in his shopping cart, then added a squeeze bottle of mustard and a gallon of orange juice. He bought three quart bottles of water so he wouldn’t dehydrate. As an afterthought, he selected some apples and grapes and bananas. On the way to the cashier, he picked up a package of sticky pastry, a large bottle of Rolaids, and a quart of milk to coat his stomach.

Outside the market, he removed two bottles of vodka from the trunk. He popped one, and drank hot vodka with OJ straight from the gallon bottle. He drank until he had the shakes under control, then headed east. After Phoenix would come Tucson, then Las Cruces, New Mexico, and after that he’d be out in the West Texas town of El Paso. Cigars would keep him company.

In Phoenix, he’d hole up in some air-conditioned beer joint until he decided where to sleep. Just a few days more. Not even a week. The old car was a winner. Too bad he’d have to torch it. Make one more phone call to Earl. That would be it. Another round of drinks.

It was early afternoon and Dan sailed, without a hitch, through El Paso, the sprawling modern city rising on either side of a web of freeways that connected it with the prosperity of the new world and the poverty of the old.

As he passed through the parched stretches on the east side of El Paso, Dan realized his ass was sore again, so he took an exit that put him on the 20, a local road that ran parallel to Interstate
10.
He decided on a beer and a burger and some Texas chili.

On a side road up ahead, a quarter of a mile, was a beer joint. A half block away, a truck stop and mini-mart that sold everything from motor oil to frozen foods. Although Dan would soon be dead, he still needed to restock a few of the same items he’d bought back in Yucca and Phoenix.

He drank two beers in the café side of the Yippee Saloon 4 Good Eats, but only messed with his food. After one more beer, he drove back to the truck stop. He’d buy fuel first, then go for the groceries. He turned off his AC, and was about to pull into the pump area, but had to stop. A big dog that looked like a cross between a bull mastiff and a pit bull trotted mindlessly straight at him. The dog had large patches of hairless, raw skin, and his dry tongue flopped almost to his chest. He was scabby white around the face and mouth, with brindle spots on his back and down one leg. The rims of his eyelids were a fuchsia pink, and glowed. Both clipped ears had been chewed on. One had been split in half.

The dog tried to swerve at the last step or two, but lost his balance and stumbled headlong into Dan’s left-front fender. He fell flat down in a lump of dirty hair and bony angles. As if powered by a weak battery, he got to his feet in sections. His eyes were set deep in his head. He stumbled twice, but picked up speed and trotted on in the heat. The dog was dying, but this did not register with Dan, whose own eyes were as sunken as the dog’s.

Dan filled his tank at cheap Texas prices, then hit the mini-mart. Bread, lunch meats, cheese, OJ, more water. Enough to get him where he was going. If he didn’t get the job done that night, he’d do it the next.

Driving slowly east, Dan took his eyes off the road briefly to pour juice and booze into one of his paper cups. He felt the car edge toward the side of the road. As he looked up and adjusted the steering wheel, he saw a large animal in the middle of the road up ahead. Dan honked the horn, but instead of moving out of the way, the animal suddenly collapsed. Dan slammed on the brakes. He spilled juice and vodka on himself as he fought to keep from going ten feet down the embankment into a dry wash. The engine stalled. Dust swirled over and around the car. Dan sat for a minute, his heart thumping up somewhere behind his eyes. To his left he saw that the fallen animal was the big, scabby dog from back at the truck stop. It looked dead. Dan dried himself off with paper towels.

Two cars swerved around the motionless dog and kept going. Dan sat back, waiting for his hands to stop shaking. When he looked over again, he saw that the dog had several open sores, but that he was still breathing. Since no one else seemed to care, the only thing was for Dan to put the scabby-assed mutt out of his misery.

Dan thought for a moment. He didn’t have a gun, which would be best. A knife could get nasty if the dog resisted.

He’d pull ahead, and then back up over the dog’s head. He’d done it years before for a cat with a broken back. Once he’d dragged the dog’s carcass off the road, he’d get on with his own death. Dan drove slowly past the dog. He knew he should keep his eyes up and away from the animal, but like an idiot he had to look down at the last instant. The dog’s tongue was touching the hot pavement, but his bloodshot eyes were staring straight into Dan’s.

“Aw, fuck!”

Dan pulled over to the side of the road. He walked back to the downed animal. The dog squinted into the sun. The raw rims of its bloodshot eyes looked ready to bleed. The dog wagged its bare tail across the pavement. He was big and raw and starving. His paws were bloody and he seemed half melted into the road. Another car swooshed by. Dan covered the sheepskin passenger seat with paper towels, muscled the scrawny dog into the front seat of the Mercedes, then turned the car around and headed back toward the truck stop. The dog was a fifty-pound sack of bones, and limp as a worn pillow. He melted into the seat the way he had melted into the road. Ticks big as a thumb feasted on what was left of him. Dan was suddenly afraid that the dog would die before he could get back to the truck stop and find out where to locate a vet. He pulled over and the dog raised its head, fear in its begging eyes. Dan grabbed the first stuff he could from the backseat and fed the dog bits of bread and cheese and leftover sausage. The dog swallowed without chewing. Dan loosened the top of one of his quart water bottles so a small stream would flow. He cupped one hand and dribbled water into it.