Chapter Two

Bobby

Bobby walked up the chipped concrete steps of the old apartment building and pushed through the industrial-strength metal doors. They weren't locked, but he could see that they had been once. The evidence was there of several deadbolts, and even the scratches from chains that, at one point or another, had attempted to close the place off. The doors were strong, but anyone who really wanted to could get in. It's just how things were.

Just inside there was an old, ornate line of mailboxes. Most of them were in bad shape, bent, or even broken so that they could no longer be locked. Number 247 was still intact, the glass coated with a combination of grease, cigarette smoke and grime so thick he couldn't see for certain if there was anything inside. He fished the key out of his pocket, unlocked the box, and slid a thin stack of envelopes free. Two were ads for credit cards, two were bills, and the third – embellished with a fancy stamp and the address of a gym downtown - was a check. These were the only three kinds of mail they ever received, and Bobby knew if he left it to his pop, they'd stay in that box until the landlord, the police, or someone much worse came knocking on the door to send them on their way. I had happened too many times before.

The elevator door was barred, with scrawled warnings over the dingy metal surface in case someone was really dumb enough to tear off the bars and take it for a spin. It did not work. It would not work – ever again. Like so much of the building, it had begun to settle in and wait for entropy to do its damndest.

The stairs were long and steep – high ceilings giving each floor a two-flight stretch. The stairs themselves were concrete poured over metal, the tips of each step corrugated and stained. They looked as if they'd been there forever. He could almost imagine the metal polished, and the concrete clean and smooth. Like the decorative mailboxes below, they spoke of a better time, when the ghetto was not so close, and the tenants had not all been on the downhill slide toward nowhere special. The building had strength; a bit of its original character remained, just not enough to lift the depression formed of crackling, bare-bulbed lights and the stale, sweat over garbage over urine scent that permeated the halls.

Bobby hadn't had time to meet any of the neighbors, though he'd caught sight of a few of them, either slinking in after whatever they spent their daylight hours doing for money – or escaping as quickly as they could down the stairs and out into the streets. It wasn't a place people stopped to make small talk, and the odds were most of them just wanted to be left alone.

He unlocked the door to number 247 and entered, closing the it behind him. The apartment was bigger than a lot of places he'd lived. He and his pop had their own rooms, and there was a third that had been set up as a home gym. The living room sported a 27" flat screen TV – not an LCD or Plasma, but the old-school kind with the fat back end full of cathode ray tube. It was plugged into a worn set of rabbit ears that picked up exactly three networks and two UHF channels, as long as the weather held. There was a couch covered in old blankets and throws to cover where the stuffing was trying to leak out onto the floor, and a plain wooden coffee table covered in equal parts by soiled dishes and beer cans. The coffee table held about three days' worth. It was only day two, but Bobby thought he might not be able to stand looking at it for the duration. It would have to be cleaned. Food would have to be made.

Not yet.

His pop was sitting in one of two worn chairs, feet propped up on one of the only bare spots on the coffee table. He was watching the news. He didn’t' give a rat's ass about what was going on in the world, but when anything to do with sports was on the air, he was all ears. The announcer was giving a run-down of the day's ballgame, and Bobby wandered over to watch. They were highlighting a home run in the eighth inning, and he watched as the ball cleared the wall in left center and dropped neatly into a the hands of a lucky fan. The camera zoomed in, just for a second, and Bobby let out a gasp.

"What?" His pop said. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Bobby said. "Just that kid. I think I saw him today, on the street."

"Huh," his pop said, already losing interest and returning his attention to the TV screen.

Bobby changed his mind, leaned down, and started gathering up the dishes and the trash on the table. He still felt the rush of adrenalin that had come over him when the gang had jumped him, and he needed to wind down. It took three trips to get all the garbage in the can, the bag out of the can, tied, and taken out back, and the dishes soaking in the sink. Through it all, the only time his pop moved was to slide his feet a few inches to one side so Bobby could finish wiping off the table. The temptation to kick those feet right off the table and get into it was almost too much to bear, but he needed to think, and he knew if he started a fight, it would go on for the duration – wherever that might lead.

Pop was a fighter. He'd been making the rounds of local tough man contests and mixed martial arts tournaments for years. He was tough, tricky, and mean. The problem was, he was also getting old. He'd lost half a step, maybe less, but it was enough. He could still throw a punch, could put up one hell of a brawl, but the younger guys were starting to get his number more often.

Every time someone cracked him and sent him sprawling, he got a little meaner. Once or twice, he'd gone the coward's route – low blows and loud bluster hiding the first hint of fear. Bobby knew the old man wasn't afraid of a beating, but he was afraid his days of being able to administer one were coming to an end, and at that end there would be nothing left.

Bobby saw that ending all too clear. It was the point where he was going to have to veer off and take his own path, and it both saddened, and inspired him. There was a big world out there, and he knew he had a place in it. Despite the moving, the craziness, the beatings and his mother's death five years back, Bobby's grades were good. He worked night and day – cleaning, studying, taking care of his half-broken father, and dreaming. Doing the dishes, cooking dinner, clearing the trash, all of it was part of his ritual, the mantra that kept him sane. Never stop. Never let any of it get a step ahead of you. Swing, and follow through.

Pop probably thought that when his own days in the ring, alleys, and back-lots of bars ended, Bobby would step in and they'd just go on like always. He had reason to believe it – he knew what his son was capable of, though it confused and angered him.

A couple of years back, things had shifted in ways that Patrick O'Brian just couldn't handle, and that was probably half the reason he drank, and sulked, and waited for the world to collapse in on him and take him away.

Their last home had been a two-story colonial, paint peeling from the exterior walls, and rotted boards on the porch, but solid, for all that. The place had a detached garage, and from the first day they'd moved in, it had been dubbed "the gym". This was, of course, a very optimistic name for the place. They had a few hundred pounds of free weights, some pushup bars, dumbells, a heavy bag, and a speed bag so beaten and wounded it required patching and inflating after nearly every use. Once or twice pops had tried to emulate some strange training device stolen from a bad Kung Fu movie, but these efforts always ended the same way. Cursing, the slamming of wood, or tools, or whatever else was handy, and enough beer to settle the whole matter in a dark haze.

One corner of the gym was roped off. It wasn't as big as a regular ring, but it left enough room to work on footwork. The ropes were strung tightly and looped through large hooks screwed into the support posts holding the old building in place. They were solid enough to bounce off of, roll to right or left, and come up swinging. Pops spent hours in that ring, swinging at the air, whirling and slicing out with legs gnarled with muscle and scar tissue at the legs of imagined opponents. If he tried to work out when he was too drunk, the ropes kept him upright and prevented serious injury.

Then there were other times. Bobby had always been big for his age. Pops had started training him to fight so far back the memory was nothing but a vague, unpleasant impression of pain. The lessons were hard ones. Very little was held back, and as he grew, Bobby became the sparring partner his father needed – one that would take abuse, punishment, ridicule, and still be there the next day to do it all over again. Someone who wouldn't fight back too hard. Someone who would always take the beating and leave behind a sense of victory, no matter how stale and hollow.

Bobby had talked his way out of more than one social worker's clutches, made up more stories about running into doors and falling down stairs than he cared to think about. It was what it was. When his mom died, pops was all he had – that, and his dreams. Without pops, he'd never make it through school and out the door to that new life. Along the way, he learned to fight. He grew tall and lean. He worked out, even when pops was passed out on his couch, and when they were both in the gym, he moved slowly through the paces, taking the punishing shots to head and torso day in and day out, biding his time.

Then it happened. One night, he felt something snap inside – some lingering strand of control that snapped and flooded him with rage. Pops had been drinking, and he was lumbering around the ring like a tired ape. His swings were wide and looping, elbows away from his body, leaving himself unprotected – not worried about the boy he planned to beat into submission for the thousandth time. Invincible. That's what he thought. He was some sort of invulnerable superman. The king. Mohammed-freakin'-Ali baby.

Bobby stepped in, elbows tight, and slammed a hard hooking right to Pops' midriff. It wasn't hard enough to inflict damage, but it caught the old man's attention. Instead of calming him down, though, the pain slid straight to his eyes. They went grey like gun-metal, and suddenly the haze of the alcohol faded. Bobby was expected to fight back. He was not expected to do it well.

Pops dropped back half a step with his right foot. Bobby moved in, thinking he might get a lucky shot and use the older man's momentum against him. He never even saw the right cross that slammed into the side of head. He saw a bright, white light. He saw what seemed to be black haze rising in waves from the floor. His legs vaporized, unable to hold him, and he fell. Nothing broke the fall. He hit, hips, then shoulder, and then, his head.

That should have been it. It was the knockout, the K.O. of his young fighting career. He was surprised to be aware at all; he was more surprised to realize that, without actually considering his actions, he'd rolled to his knees. He shook his head. Something had changed. The light was different. He heard pops breathing hard, but didn't look up to meet the old man's eyes.

"You stay down, boy," Pops said. "Don't piss me off."

Bobby braced himself and then, with a lot less trouble than he expected, he stood. His head rang, and he knew he probably had some kind of concussion, but it didn't matter. Everything looked different. He saw the old man, still poised on his toes, one arm cocked back. For just a second he caught a flicker of emotion in those mean, angry eyes. He ignored it, and dropped into a fighting crouch, squaring his shoulders.

"Got nothin' to prove, boy," Pops said. "Shoulda stayed down."

Bobby paid no attention. He began, very slowly, to circle his opponent – not Pops, not the old man, any longer, but the enemy. The target. It only took a second of this for the anger to flush Pop's face, and his eyes to return to their flat, cold malice.

"You won't be getting up this time," he said. "Not any time soon."

Bobby ignored him. What he saw was amazing. It was a little bit like some of the geometry problems he'd worked in school. Where before he'd seen well enough, shifting hips, whirling gloves, shuffling feet, all of it blurring and flashing in quick bursts – he now saw angles. It wasn't exactly as if there were lines connecting things, not that he could see, but he sensed them. Pops shuffled his feet, and before he shifted to Bobby's left, Bobby had already turned, feinted, and jabbed. He caught the old man squarely on the chin. It wasn't a hard punch, but it was solid and it was dead on target.

Then it was on. The Room around them faded. Bobby saw his old man, felt the squared area of the ring on all sides, caught tremors in – something – telegraphing the older man's moves. Even with this, Pops was fast. He had years of experience, and he'd won most of his battles. If he hadn't been angry, it might have ended some other way, but as it was, he was overconfident, moving too quickly and not giving Bobby an respect.

Words whispered through the air. Bobby heard them like the ghosts of lessons past. His father's words, ironically, calling the shots. Jab. Keep them at a distance. Move. Now…the combination. The one two, maybe a third, always follow an attack with an attack.

Pops swung with the same right cross that had laid Bobby out earlier. At the last second, Bobby pivoted on his inside foot, let the punch graze by, then drove his right as hard as he could into the old man's gut. It took the steam out, just long enough, for the combination. The left. Bobby had always been faster and stronger from his left, and he put everything he had into that left cross, slamming it into his father's head, just over the ear. He followed it, a right to the jaw, and stepped back.

Just for a moment, Pops held his ground. The look of shock on his face was almost comical, but he stood. He stared. Then, like a balloon that's been blown up and released without tying, he deflated. His legs gave way, and he dropped to the floor in a crumpled heap.

Bobby only stood, and stared. The room focused normally. He glanced down at his hands. The side of his face was swelling where he'd taken the right cross, but he felt well enough for all that. He leaned down and shook his father's shoulder. The old man didn't stir. Bobby leaned closer.

Pops was breathing, he was just out. Bobby turned, left the makeshift ring, and crossed to where Pops hung the heavy robe he sometimes wore before big fights. Bobby carried the robe back to the ring and settled it over Pops' prone form. Then he rolled a towel, lifted the old man's head, and tucked it beneath for a makeshift pillow.

Without looking back, Bobby had headed into the house, showered, and gone to bed.

They'd never spoken about it. Now and then he caught Pops watching him out of the corner of his eye, sizing him up, but Bobby never worried it would come to another confrontation. Pops hated to lose. If there was even the chance that the first incident could be repeated, he wasn't going to step into it. He also wasn't the type to take a cheap shot. He kept his distance, and Bobby took care of him, cooking, cleaning, studying, and dreaming. From the moment that last punch had connected, he'd been able to view the dark tunnel leading into his future as a thing with an end, and a bright light burning.

He finished washing the dishes, dried them and put them away. In the living room, the flicker of the television never wavered. Pops held his silence. Bobby headed down the hall to his room, dropped down at his desk, and reached for his books. He had work to do, but somehow he couldn't quit thinking about that baseball. The alley had been long, and narrow. The throw, from that distance, was so unlikely that – if he hadn't had his own strange ability to see trajectory and angles –he would have said it was impossible. It wasn't, just perfect. A perfect throw, and the other kid – Shooter? He hadn't seemed remotely surprised by his own accuracy.

It was all interesting, and it was a long time before he was able to put it out of his mind and get to work. He had two chapters of history to get through, and an essay for his favorite class – Creative Writing. His old school had only taught Composition. Most of the assignments had frowned on creativity. They had taught form and function, drilling grammar and classics home with relentless apathy. Over the past couple of weeks he’d found a freedom in words, and their proper arrangement. He didn't know if anything would ever come of it, but he thought that it was possible writing would have something to do with his future.

He was partway through his nightly journal entry, one of the requirements of the Creative Writing class, when it hit him. He knew that kid – Shooter. He'd seen him in class. He stayed off to himself, never spoke up, never did anything to attract attention, but he was there most days. Bobby thought back, and realized that today, the desk near the rear of the classroom had been empty. He thought about the baseball, and he smiled. Things were definitely starting to get interesting.