Proving Ground by Peter Blauner

Author:Peter Blauner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

24

“Spread your fingers,” Ben says. “Wider.”

Natty leans against the ropes in the boxing ring as Ben starts to wrap the red fabric around his hands. He hesitates when he gets a close look at Natty’s knuckles.

“Jesus,” he says. “You got scar tissue on these. This all from the bar fight with the firemen?”

“No, it’s older.” Natty starts to close his fists and pull them back, embarrassed. “Listen, Ben, I should be able to do this myself.”

“Shut up.” Ben holds his wrist firmly. “Let me help you. Okay? Put your hand flat, like I showed you.”

Ben, wearing black Nike workout pants with a white stripe and a red-and-white Everlast muscle shirt, furrows his brow as Natty gives him the left hand back, palm-down, arm still sore as Ben weaves the doubled-up fabric delicately over the knuckles. He waits for Ben to repeat his father’s “you don’t have to do this,” knowing the injury from the other night can’t have healed completely. But Ben just keeps wrapping and humming “Finiculi, Finiculà” as if he never noticed the sling Natty was wearing before.

It’s an hour after work, sunset glaring through the windows of Landau’s Gym under the Manhattan Bridge, slants of amber light and shadows crossing the half dozen rings being used by ghetto contenders, Wall Street traders trying to get their macho on, fierce female kickboxers, two large Orthodox Jews throwing bombs at each other with beards and fringes of tzitzis flying under their t-shirts, and a pair of gimpy professional wrestlers stuffed into spandex singlets and moving between the ropes gingerly like aging Broadway showgirls as they practice their theatrical violence.

Ben paid the $60 entry fee to get Natty into the gym, a smelly, acne-floored old pugilists’ emporium where they used to go when Natty was attending a school with no contact sports. With his two preadolescent daughters already hating on him, Ben relished the chance to impart the sweet science. Stick and move. Keep your elbows down and your guard up. Cut the ring off. Mind your footwork. Don’t present too much of a target.

“Madonna.” Ben gives a little laugh. “You got piano player hands, like your dad.”

“I thought you said it’s not what you got, it’s what you do with it.” Natty flexes his left hand into a fist, smiling through the pain shooting up his arm.

“You need big gorilla mitts like I have.” Ben shows his palms. “But at least you got hair on your knuckles. Guys like us never have to worry about anyone saying we have girly hands.”

Natty can’t remember his father ever setting foot in Landau’s. After the schoolyard brawl with Stephen Carbone, he started training for the Golden Gloves with Ben on Saturday mornings while his afternoons with Dad became more strained and obligatory: homework sessions, aborted guitar lessons, and the occasional leisurely drive upstate, where they found they had less and less to say to each other. Especially after Natty realized the old man defended cop killers. Every mile marker on the highway a reminder of how he wanted to distance himself.

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