Going Fast by Elaine McCluskey

think he’s going anywhere,” Ownie looked up, making his meaning clear. “I’m not knockin’ Sparks. I know the family.”
    â€œUh-huh?”
    â€œThey’re nice people. I hear Hansel and his mother, Girlie, are thinkin’ of openin’ a bed and breakfast.”
    Scott let it pass, reflexes slowed by desk rust. “What about Turmoil?’ he asked. “Could he have the crowd appeal?”
    â€œHe’s raw, but he has the physical ingredients.” Ownie took a deep breath. “He’s a heavy, and he’s personable, but he’s not from here. We’ll have to see what happens.”
    The gym was on the second floor of a wooden building that sagged like an old sofa bed full of crumbs. Downstairs was a wedding shop named White Lace and Promises. Across the street was a strip club run by bikers, brutes with shattered psyches numb to the violence that defined them, men with spiderwebs tattooed on their elbows, crosses on their cheeks.
    From Tootsy’s second-floor window, Ownie could see Halifax and the harbour where convoys once queued, forming a lifeline to Britain. He could, if he tried, smell the uncertainty of young boys besieged by fear, and bombs that exploded like solar flares on the surface of the sun.
    The trainer taped a ball. He had careful movements and a time-worn code that had got him this far.
    1. Watch out for smiley-faced guys.
    2. Never wear a dead man’s clothes.
    3. Never train a fighter under the thumb of his father.
    4. Don’t hunger for revenge; it ain’t always sweet.
    â€œSee this guy.” Ownie pointed at a pug-nosed fighter doing rapid-fire sit-ups. “He can hit, he can take it, and he ain’t too smart. They call them guys dogs. They’re good for nothing, really.”
    As the Dog grunted, a pair of hungry eyes and jagged cheekbones loped up the stairs, a college distance runner trying to build strength by punching the bag. He was part of Tootsy’s outreach program. Scott watched him shed his backpack, his face a hollow homage to the Cult of Serious Training, a cult that owned his body and shunned non-believers. His arms were as thin as broomsticks.
    When Scott had trained at Dalhousie University during the school year, the outdoor track was full of cross-country runners who seemed cold and wet, bloodless wraiths who came up behind you like a ghost ship, then vanished.
    As Ownie waved at the Runner, Scott studied the trainer’s hands, which had two dented knuckles and age spots. Feeling Scott’s gaze, Ownie held up a big mitt for inspection.
    â€œWhen I was a boy, my father thought I was going to be a giant. He saw my hands and feet and he kept waiting for me to grow into them. But I never did,” he snorted. “Five-foot-seven with triple-E feet.” He laughed at the ridiculousness of it. “Practically a dwarf.”
    â€œI read once that everyone is born with a three-inch height range,” said Scott, an inch over six feet himself. “Whether you reach five-six or five-nine depends on what you eat. If you grew up in the 1930s, maybe the nutrition . . .”
    â€œNutrition?” Ownie laughed. “You’d sell your soul for a turnip.”
    Age had shrunk the fabric of Ownie’s face, leaving an oversized Irish nose and ears under an HMCS
Prince Rupert
ballcap. Ownie’s blue eyes were fixed on the Dog, who was lying face down on the floor until, with a slight grunt, he executed a prone push-up.
    â€œThe best athletes are either extremely smart or extremely stupid.” Ownie pointed at the Dog. “They’ll put their bodies through the worst punishment and they’ll repeat it over and over without ever getting bored.” He looked at Scott. “The smart ones are seeing something new each time, a fine point the others miss. The dumb ones are just too dumb to get bored.”
    Scott wrestled with the theory and all its implications.
    After years of