Ten Stories About Smoking by Stuart Evers

Author:Stuart Evers [Evers, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447200635
Publisher: Picador

Charlie was serious about O’Neil’s programme. He’d clearly given it a lot of thought. I wouldn’t have thought that getting O’Neil lifting weights would help him lose weight, but I wasn’t the one who’d owned a gym for twenty years. The first part of the routine was skipping. Charlie showed us both how to do it properly. After my fifth attempt ended with me almost flat on my back, Charlie stopped me.

‘Your heart’s just not in this, is it?’ he said. He said it kindly enough, though it was hard not to sense that I’d let him down. O’Neil kept going.

‘I’m just not that coordinated, that’s all. I find things like this hard work.’

‘I can see that.’

‘I’m only really here to help O’Neil,’ I said, leaning in closer to him. ‘You know, show him some support. Help him lose some weight.’

‘That’s good that you’re looking out for my nephew. It’s good, but I can’t have you hanging around in my gym not training. This place’ – he shrugged – ‘has got rules. Boxing’s all about discipline. I don’t let my boys cuss in this gym. My word is law. This place is a temple, you understand? So when I say you train, you train, all right?’

I nodded and looked around for anything requiring minimum coordination. In the corner was a machine covered with a sheet of tarpaulin. I pointed to it.

‘Is that a treadmill?’ I asked. Charlie squinted.

‘Yes, son, I believe it is.’

‘Can I train on that?’

His shoulders dropped and his weight shifted to the balls of his feet. Charlie looked at O’Neil, then at me.

‘I don’t think it works,’ he said eventually.

‘Really?’

‘I don’t know. You get it to work, you can use it.’

O’Neil came over then, glistening and beetroot-red. Charlie pushed a pair of practice gloves into his stomach.

‘Now you’re going to hit this bag just as I tell you,’ he said, moving us over to the next station. O’Neil made to ask for a break to regain his breath, but Charlie shot him a look that not even the heavyweight champion of the world would have dared contradict.

I watched O’Neil intently from the other side of the bag. At first his combinations were tired and laboured, but then he began to grasp what he was supposed to be doing. The power in his shoulders was incredible. It looked like he was trying to stick his fists through the padding.

‘Right-left-right. Upper cut. Jab. Jab. And relax,’ Charlie called and O’Neil responded. Sweat was dripping off him, his arms slick and tensed. He seemed to be enjoying it. I could barely recognize my best friend in the arms, fist and stance of the man hitting the bag.

‘Left-right-jab-jab-upper-cut.’ O’Neil hammered the bag again. It was too much. I wandered over to the treadmill, took off its wrapper and pressed some buttons. I looked down and followed the power cord to the wall and flicked the switch. There were beeps and flashes. I waited for it to settle then got on the track.

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