China Boy by Gus Lee

Author:Gus Lee [Lee, Gus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 1994-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

15

IRON

Gonna teach ya some bodybuildin,” said Mr. Barraza.

Mr. B taught me how to lift weights. He taught me the movements. It was like boxing. Form was everything. It was very disciplined, and when it was done correctly, it hurt.

“When yur a kid, there’s only one way. My way.

“When yur a world champeen, ya pick yur own path. Then you teach kids yur way, and yur right till they become growed men. Form,” he said. “Stretchin. Breathin. Interval. No cheatin.”

The Duke was everywhere.

Mr. B used dumbbells with three digit numbers and worked so hard that other lifters stopped to watch him. He flipped the black iron forty-five pound York plates like Eatery eggs over easy and could bench four hundred pounds on an even-keel press without a spot. He blew compressed air out of his mouth like the smooth steel hydraulic lifts in Cutty’s Garage.

Men watched him press, and curl, and extend, in those suspended moments when the mind leaves the body, and there is no self-consciousness, no awareness, that one is staring. Tony focused when he was at his work, and infected those near him with his fearsome ability to concentrate.

I was too skinny to wear the smallest weight belt. They did not make them for kids, even big kids. I tried one on when no one was looking and it fell from my head to the floor without touching anything, the huge metal buckle clanging on the locker-room floor like the commercial waste cans on McAllister on garbage pickup day.

I was too skinny to sweat; my body couldn’t support the effort. Tony produced sweat quickly and voluminously. He watched me as I studied his sweat glands.

“Ya want water on yur body when the glove lands. Shows yur loose. If it’s not a true blow, it skids off. Takes a pro shot ta get through yur water.” He studied me for a moment.

“Chinese kids sweat?” he asked.

I shook my head and raised my shoulders, so to speak.

“Yeah. ’At’s right. Ya dunno.”

I lifted his personal five-and-eight-pound wrought-iron bells that he used for bag practice. He held them in his big hairy fists while doing three-minute shadow rounds, the air in the empty ring popping with snapping punches and his trademark body hooks. When he was done he pitched them into a small, red-handled, green leather grip, flicking them with his wrists as others would toss car keys.

I struggled to hold them in my trembling hands.

He taught me about breathing, stretching, and thinking about practice. “Ya got a brain, I know it, so this’ll add up. Ya ask yurself: ‘Why am I here?’”

Big Willie Mack, the Bashers, and Hector, I thought. Edna, too. Chinese Communist Army and that man, Mao Tse-tung.

“Yur here, Master Ting, ta make a man a yurself. ’At’s why. Ya come ta the gym, ’at’s in yur mind. Ya curl the iron, ’at’s in yur mind. Ya don think ’bout crap, or nothin. Jus ’at.”

I was not very communicative. He would cock his head and peer into my eyes the way Marine Drill Instructors check rifle actions for lint.

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