Pound for Pound (3 page)

Nora was no fool; she knew something had gone wrong and followed Dan to school one day. From down the block, she watched as two older kids pushed him down and ran off with his brown bag. She wanted to rush and comfort him, and then to spank the asses off the kids who had abused her son, but she also wanted Dan to be the one to teach these bullies a lesson. And seeing her good food scattered on the street made her even more furious.

The next Saturday she took Dan to the Police Athletic League gym near the waterfront. There Dan met his destiny—a part-time boxing coach, Sal Gallardo, who had been a professional fighter in his youth, but like nearly all ex-fighters, he was kind and courteous, and wanted most of all to be known as a gentleman. When he heard Nora out, he suggested boxing to her as a solution to the problem and pointed to the other little kids he was training. She wasn’t sure what to make of him, what with his dark skin and his mashed-in nose. Gallardo added that boxing might be best for Dan because the boys competed with others in the same weight class. He explained how Dan’s size wouldn’t necessarily be a disadvantage, and that he’d be able to build himself up at the same time he learned boxing, the manly art of self-defense.

Nora was wary, but she liked the “manly” part, and sat with Dan to observe how gentle Coach Gallardo was with his charges. Gallardo’s little guys were lean and quick, and had learned how to fight—a glass cabinet full of Police Athletic League and Golden Gloves trophies testified to that. Nora had never thought of boxing, had no idea how fighters became fighters, had assumed that the strongest fighter was the fighter who always won.

Coach Gallardo explained that Dan would wear big gloves, head and body protection, and train to get into proper condition before he could box with other boys. “The worst that can happen, Mrs. Cooley, is that he’ll lose weight.”

Nora started Dan as a spectator, but nudged him gently into Coach Gallardo’s care every Saturday before school was out for summer vacation. It wasn’t long before Dan lost weight, and once that happened, he realized he was fast and strong for his size. Coach Gallardo was careful to make sure Dan understood and could execute fundamentals before he put him in with a suitable opponent—to see if Dan had heart. He did, he did indeed, and was he thrilled with his showing, thrilled with himself, and soon he was strutting to the gym alone.

Opening day of school the next September, he kicked the shit out of the first bully who came for his lunch. He had to fight three more days and got some lumps for it, but each day he was the one who ate his mother’s pie or cake, and after the third fight, he no longer had to fight to eat. He’d earned the respect of his schoolmates, but most important, he’d earned the respect of his mother, and it was only after the semester began that Nora told Padraic how, with Dan’s willing complicity, she’d kept the whole tale secret from him.

Padraic said, “Would it not appear that the lad’s mother invaded the time-honored domain of the lad’s own father?”

Nora placed the back of one hand to her brow in mock martyrdom. “The louts were stealin me pie.”

“So, it’s sympathy for yerself yer afther, is it?” he said.

“‘Tis,” she said. “Because they stole me cake, too.”

Padraic filled his pipe with cavendish. “So the lad’s good with his mitts, is he?”

“Och, Paddy, he’s wizard,” she said.

Once Dan had put the bullies on their asses, he suddenly had friends who were Slavs, blacks, Mexicans, and Italians. When he began winning amateur
tournaments and collecting fight trophies, those same friends invited him home to eat delicious meals prepared by their mothers, who seemed exotic to Dan. Though he was delighted by the food, and always had seconds, he was ever glad to return to the meat and
badehdahs
and the Irish bread he got at home. And pie.

Though he’d never be big enough to play on the high school football team, he was big and tough enough to fight. He got that way working his freckled ass off and eating the best Slav and soul food, and Mexican and Italian and Irish food in San Pedro, pronounced “Peedro” by the locals. Padraic was his greatest fan, and the more the kid had to train in order to win, the less he had to work in the shop. Nora had wanted at least one priest from her litter. Her other two sons would become cops and firemen, but Dan was her fighter, and sometimes she wondered, God forgive her, if he just might be her favorite because of it, her Brian Ború.

At eighteen, Dan was good enough to win the California Golden Gloves featherweight title at the Olympic Auditorium. Coach Gallardo turned him over to professional trainer Willie “Shortcake” Daw, Earl’s father, and Dan made the trip in from San Pedro daily to train at the old Main Street Gym on L.A.’s skid row. It was there in the stink and spit that he learned to grow the nails on his thumbs and forefingers longer than on his other fingers, to better snag and remove adhesive tape from his hand wraps after sparring.

Shortcake Daw worked full time as a sorter in Los Angeles’s old main post office across from Union Station. He also hustled football cards for a bookie on Central Avenue, and doubled his income among his fellow postal workers. If an inspector came sniffing around, Shortcake would slip him a few cards for himself. He made a lot of friends among government inspectors, who’d go out of their way to make social calls.

Under Shortcake, Dan developed into a slick and tireless boxer-puncher, and his black hair and handsome face reminded old-time fans of Irish Billy Conn, the great light-heavyweight out of Pittsburgh. The
Irish dubbed him “Connman” Danny Cooley to connect him to Billy Conn. “Connman” identified Dan with the cleverness of Billy Conn in the ring, but also hooked him to the “con” in the word “confetti”—Irish confetti—the old mick term for bricks.

By the time he was twenty-two, Dan had grown into a tall and wiry lightweight at 135 with a pro record of thirty-two and two, with twenty-one knockouts. He’d never been down, and most fight fans believed he was on his way to the world lightweight title. Because he stood five-nine, it was also thought that he would grow into a welterweight, and that he was good enough to hold both world titles at the same time.

But all those hopes turned to ashes when Dan sustained massive injuries to his right eye and the bone structure around it. The fight that was the one he needed to win to get his shot at being a champion turned out to be his last fight.

It was like déjà vu to Dan.

One evening, while they were washing and drying the dishes, Tim Pat said, “Grampa, I wanna start comin home for my lunch, okay?”

Dan said, “I thought you liked the lunches I make.”

“I do, but I like eatin at home better.”

Tim Pat had been brown-bagging for three years. Dan said, “Why do you want to eat lunch at home?”

Tim Pat said, “I just wanna.”

Dan said, “Son, the shop’s always busy at lunchtime. When my guys are all at lunch, and people come in for their cars and stuff, I have to be there.”

Tim Pat said, “You could take my lunch to the shop and I could walk over there to eat.”

Dan said, “Walkin would take time, and maybe I wouldn’t be able to get you back to school for class. Besides, you couldn’t play noon games with the kids, right?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Dan didn’t understand. Tim Pat had grieved following his parents’ death, and after Brigid’s. That was normal enough, but like most kids he was resilient, especially when he found abundant love from his grandfather, comfort from the nuns, and playful attention from Earl and the guys at the shop. All served to compensate for much of the boy’s loss. He began to grow, to flourish, to break through the sadness and reserve of silence. He was particularly secure in his grandfather’s love. He’d had his scuffles at school, like every other little boy, but no one had ever preyed upon him. He still walked to Christ the King School the way Brigid and Dan had taught him. Dan picked him up at school and usually took him to the shop, where Tim Pat would do homework or tinker with junk cars until closing time. The boy was good at team sports and liked to compete, but had never shown an interest in boxing, which was fine with Dan. Boxing was something you wanted, or you didn’t, and Dan would never have pushed it on a son of his own, much less Tim Pat. Tim Pat liked baseball, was a good hitter, seldom struck out. Dan went to every game. Now things had changed. Tim Pat no longer seemed interested in baseball and Dan didn’t understand why.

Earl said, “Watch the boy close, it could be his hurt comin back on him.”

A week later, Dan noticed that Tim Pat had dark circles under his eyes. As a fight trainer, Dan was attuned to shifts. Tim Pat looked like he’d lost weight. A loss of a pound or two is nothing to an adult, but for a nine-year-old weighing sixty-four pounds at four foot six, it’s a significant amount. Two pounds can be significant in boxing, as well. Should a
135
-pound fighter come in at 137 at the weigh-in for a 135 -pound fight, he’d have to make weight by sweating off the two pounds in the steam room or by doing roadwork. Having to lose weight so close to a fight would give the other guy the edge. Only the dummies showed up overweight. But this was about something more than weight.

Dan said, “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what’s wrong, son?” Dan asked.

“Nothin.”

Dan didn’t buy it, waited a few days. The kid withdrew even more, looked cold all the time, went to his room.

Sister Mary Virginia called from school. “Is there something wrong with Tim Pat, Mr. Cooley?”

“Is he skipping classes, or something?”

Sister said, “It’s not that. It’s his schoolwork.”

“Is he eating at lunchtime?”

Sister said, “I’m sure he is. No one has said otherwise.”

Dan hung up. He could have kicked himself. “No one said otherwise” back in his own school days either—least of all him.

Dan waited for Tim Pat to leave for school the next day, then followed in the pickup from nearly a block back. Instead of going by way of Melrose, Dan and Brigid had taught him, Tim Pat dropped all the way down to Rosewood, then crept along the fence of the Wilshire Country Club. He danced through traffic on Rossmore, then headed for Arden Boulevard, and cut back again toward school.

Seeing Tim Pat weave through traffic had nearly stopped Dan’s heart. When the boy got a short block from school, he slid behind a hedge and waited. He peeked through the leaves, and waited a few moments more. With his books and his lunch clutched to his chest, he began to run to school. Dan sped up, and as he drew closer, he saw two boys on the far side of Arden, one white, and a bigger boy, whom Dan thought was maybe Mexican. The bigger boy was several inches taller than Tim Pat. Dan judged him at ten to twelve pounds heavier, and maybe two years older. A size and weight differential like that were huge to someone Tim Pat’s size and age.

The Latino boy ran across the street and jumped Tim Pat a half block from school. As other kids from Christ the King looked on, he knocked Tim Pat down, then bent down and yelled in his face. He snatched Tim Pat’s lunch, as Dan suspected he would, and yelled some more. As the
big kid walked away, Tim Pat caught up to him and tried to grab his lunch bag back. The bigger boy raised his fist, while the white boy kicked Tim Pat in the leg. Tim Pat backed off, fury in his little face and his fists clenched. Dan knew this wasn’t the first time this had happened, knew that this wasn’t the same as when he was a kid—now even children carried weapons. Tim Pat had done the right thing to back off. But backing off was what had caused him to lose weight, backing off was putting worry in his eyes, backing off meant he’d
always
have to back off.

Dan decided to fill in some blanks. He waited in the pickup and watched as the boy who had attacked Tim Pat crossed Melrose. Dan followed slowly as the kid sauntered up to Gregory Elementary, which was just two blocks from Gower Street and Paramount Studios.

Dan waited for school to begin, and then approached Mrs. Krikorian, the school principal, about the bully. She told him that nothing could be done because the alleged incident had occurred off school property.

Dan said, “Alleged incident. You think I’m lyin?”

“I didn’t say that. Good day.”

That night, just as they were finishing dinner, Dan looked Tim Pat in the eye and asked, “So what’s this kid’s name?”

“What kid, Grampa?” The boy was clearly at a loss.

“The one who is beating you up and taking your lunch.”

Tim Pat looked down at his plate, as a blush of shame suffused his face. “I dunno—I mean I don’t know his real name. The other kids call him Tiger.”

Dan smiled and ruffled his grandson’s hair.

“Tiger, is it? Well now, I knew a Tiger or two in my time, when I was just about your age. And I learned what you have to do about kids like him.”

Tim Pat looked up, an expression of hope dawning on his face. There was also relief there. If anybody had the answer, it would be his grandfather.

“Only one way—you got to hurt this Tiger so bad that he will keep his hands to himself. You have to go at him. You can’t walk away.”

“But he’s biggern me,” said Tim Pat.

“You don’t have to be big to win.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” said Dan.

“Of Tiger.”

“The worst thing he can do is kill you.”

That shocked Tim Pat into silence, but it was something he would never forget.

Dan said, “The rule is, you must fight according to the rules of the aggressor. He punches, you punch. He fights dirty, you fight dirty, except you fight so dirty he crosses the street the next time he sees you.”

Dan felt a thrill run through him when he saw a spark kindle in Tim Pat’s eyes.

Though Tim Pat knew his grandfather trained fighters, until now he had never shown an interest in the fight game.

“Grampa, I want you to show me.”

D
an allowed Tim Pat to cock around in the gym on his own for a few days, wanted him to learn how much he didn’t know about boxing. The boy put on beat-up old bag gloves and, without thinking, flailed at the heavy bag. He tore skin from his knuckles. He surprised himself by how quickly he pooped out and had to sit down.