looked like a left hook that missed Nickâs chin. It was the elbow trailing the fist, however, that was meant to do the damage, and it did, knocking Nickâs mouthpiece halfway out. He had just enough of his wits left to tie up Burgess and waltz him into the ropes, reflexively throwing punches but far more eager to find a momentâs peace before the referee made them break. He rested his head on Burgessâs left shoulder, looking away from those unshaven jowls, treasuring every second he had to regroup.
Burgess responded by turning his shoulder into a weapon, abruptly bringing it up into the side of Nickâs face. Nick reeled backward, unable to protect himself against the overhand right that Burgess brought crashing down on his head. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. It was what he deserved for getting suckered, and it would have been worse if he hadnât unscrambled his thoughts and climbed off the deck at the count of eight. The referee warned Burgess about the shoulder, but there was no disqualification, not even any points taken away. Fuck it , Nick thought, heâd take care of the dirty motherfucker himself.
He was so wrapped up in his anger that he scarcely realized his left eyebrow had been split until he was back in his corner and Cecil Givens, his trainer, was closing the cut with a mixture of Vaseline and adrenaline 1:1000. All the while, Cecil kept telling him not to let Burgess work him that wayâjust hit and run and let the old son of a bitch wear himself out. And donât fall for any more of his damn tricks.
Burgess just missed thumbing Nickâs right eye in the sixth, and he tried stepping on his feet too, but Nick was too nimble, or maybe Burgess was too slow. Every round seemed to take a little more out of him, depleting any quickness heâd had to begin with, stealing the sting from his punches. What the hell, he was thirty-eight years old and he worked days on the docks. Motherfucker had a right to be slowing down as the sixth round bled into the seventh, the seventh into the eighth, and the eighth into tragedy. No fight of Nickâs had ever lasted this long, but he was twenty-two then, and young legs trump old ones every time. Old legs turn to stone.
If Burgess saw any openings, he was a split-second late getting to them. The openings Nick saw, he filled with the punches that were his vengeance. And his vengeance began with a right to the heart that stopped Burgess where he stood and turned him into a statue to be disassembled. Nick followed with a right to the ribs. Was that a death rattle he heard somewhere inside Burgess then? No, he would tell himself later, just his imagination giving him a preview of the tape loop being embedded in his memory. And the beating went on.
He kept moving, always moving, striking from angles Burgess was no longer able to defend, throwing âpunches in bunches,â the way Cecil liked them, the phrase so innocuous that it sounded like something out of a nursery rhyme. Nick double-jabbed Burgess, stepped to the right and shot an overhand right to his head, stepped to the left and ripped a left hook to his ribs, back to the right for a right uppercut, back to the left for a hook to the body and another to the head, before tying a ribbon on the package with another double jab.
The whole time Nick was thinking, You pulled that dirty shit on me, you motherfucker, and now Iâm kicking your ass and you canât stop me. How do you like that, you motherfucker? You canât stop me.
Cecil said later it was the referee who should have stopped it. Nickâs manager, Frank Delzell, said it too, but he wasnât talking out of love, the way Cecil was; he was just trying to protect an investment. They wanted to blame everything on the ref, like he was a second-rate bum who froze at the worst possible time. And, okay, maybe he should have seen how Burgessâs head was lolling helplessly, unprotected, a perfect target. But
Burgess responded by turning his shoulder into a weapon, abruptly bringing it up into the side of Nickâs face. Nick reeled backward, unable to protect himself against the overhand right that Burgess brought crashing down on his head. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. It was what he deserved for getting suckered, and it would have been worse if he hadnât unscrambled his thoughts and climbed off the deck at the count of eight. The referee warned Burgess about the shoulder, but there was no disqualification, not even any points taken away. Fuck it , Nick thought, heâd take care of the dirty motherfucker himself.
He was so wrapped up in his anger that he scarcely realized his left eyebrow had been split until he was back in his corner and Cecil Givens, his trainer, was closing the cut with a mixture of Vaseline and adrenaline 1:1000. All the while, Cecil kept telling him not to let Burgess work him that wayâjust hit and run and let the old son of a bitch wear himself out. And donât fall for any more of his damn tricks.
Burgess just missed thumbing Nickâs right eye in the sixth, and he tried stepping on his feet too, but Nick was too nimble, or maybe Burgess was too slow. Every round seemed to take a little more out of him, depleting any quickness heâd had to begin with, stealing the sting from his punches. What the hell, he was thirty-eight years old and he worked days on the docks. Motherfucker had a right to be slowing down as the sixth round bled into the seventh, the seventh into the eighth, and the eighth into tragedy. No fight of Nickâs had ever lasted this long, but he was twenty-two then, and young legs trump old ones every time. Old legs turn to stone.
If Burgess saw any openings, he was a split-second late getting to them. The openings Nick saw, he filled with the punches that were his vengeance. And his vengeance began with a right to the heart that stopped Burgess where he stood and turned him into a statue to be disassembled. Nick followed with a right to the ribs. Was that a death rattle he heard somewhere inside Burgess then? No, he would tell himself later, just his imagination giving him a preview of the tape loop being embedded in his memory. And the beating went on.
He kept moving, always moving, striking from angles Burgess was no longer able to defend, throwing âpunches in bunches,â the way Cecil liked them, the phrase so innocuous that it sounded like something out of a nursery rhyme. Nick double-jabbed Burgess, stepped to the right and shot an overhand right to his head, stepped to the left and ripped a left hook to his ribs, back to the right for a right uppercut, back to the left for a hook to the body and another to the head, before tying a ribbon on the package with another double jab.
The whole time Nick was thinking, You pulled that dirty shit on me, you motherfucker, and now Iâm kicking your ass and you canât stop me. How do you like that, you motherfucker? You canât stop me.
Cecil said later it was the referee who should have stopped it. Nickâs manager, Frank Delzell, said it too, but he wasnât talking out of love, the way Cecil was; he was just trying to protect an investment. They wanted to blame everything on the ref, like he was a second-rate bum who froze at the worst possible time. And, okay, maybe he should have seen how Burgessâs head was lolling helplessly, unprotected, a perfect target. But
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