Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole Page A

it would feel so good that he would always have it.
    Dan saw it. “He’s not switching his weight.”
    Earl said, “That’s what I figured, but I can’t watch his hands and feet at the same time and maybe get hit. You show him.”
    Dan took the mitts, lined the African’s feet up.
    Billy Tucker directed Lupe past Santa Monica Boulevard. He signed for her to turn right at Willoughby, and signed again for her to go two blocks west, to Wilcox. At the Wilcox intersection, he signed for her to turn left and to park at the second house on the right. As Lupe pulled over, a candy-striped pink-and-white ice-cream truck passed her on the left as it headed south toward Melrose, the truck’s loudspeaker blaring its signatureinvitation to kids, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” What Lupe couldn’t know was that the ice-cream truck’s usual route was from Melrose north, not south, that it should have passed an hour ago.
    Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.
    Momolo couldn’t get the hook. “It is most difficult, this move. Is it so for all?”
    “It is like a Ferrari,” Dan said, mimicking Momolo’s formal way of speaking. “If they were effortless to obtain, everyone would have one.”
    Momolo and Earl slapped their thighs and squealed with laughter.
    Dan laughed with them. “Now we try it the other way around. Watch me. Instead of
movin forward
a step, this time I want you to go
back.
Push off your left toe, like me, see? But you gotta move both feet back the same short step, same as when you move forward. As you take the step, turn your hip like this. As your hip begins to turn, see it? As your hip begins to turn,
then
let the shot go.
Whip!
”
    Momolo listened, moved slow as a sleepy snake until he felt it. He nodded and smiled that big smile. He executed at the speed of light, and
Boom!,
it was the best hook Momolo had ever thrown.
    Dan said, “Now all we gotta do is get you to do it goin forward.”
    “Mr. Cooley, sir, I am indebted to you.”
    Momolo practiced moving backward and forward until he no longer had to think about his feet. Now the shots came like a drum out of Africa.
    Mary had a little lamb …
    The music came faintly into the gym, then grew louder. Tim Pat had heard it hundreds of times—at home on Cahuenga, and here at the gym. He was still thirsty, the fight having drained him of fluid and energy. Dan would feed him soon, and then send him off for a nap.
    Tim Pat said, “Grampa, can I get another lemon-lime from the ice-cream man?”
    Dan gave Tim Pat a five-dollar bill. “Here. But be careful when you cross the street, and don’t forget the change.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Then we head for home and some sack time. I want more ice on that eye.”
    Lupe delivered Billy Tucker to his mother, checked the van’s rearview mirrors for cars, saw no one, and then edged carefully away from the curb. Down the way, she would pass the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles, on the corner of Waring. Melrose was just a short block farther. She slowed from twenty-five to twenty at Waring, checking both ways for cars, then continued on at twenty. She’d noticed that the pink-and-white ice-cream truck had pulled to the right halfway down to Melrose, but her immediate focus had been on checking Waring for cars. Lupe felt happy. She’d soon be back on the Hollywood Freeway, and into familiar parts of
Al-Lay.
Her horses were less than an hour away. Thinking of them, she had to smile, could see Bobby and Tessie waving their heads for carrots.
Relámpago,
Lightning, would be sulking because she’d taken so long to get there. He’d make up once he got his carrot. Lupe smiled again.
    As she neared the ice-cream truck, she checked her rearview mirrors again, slowed to fifteen miles per hour, and signaled to anyone who might come from behind that she’d be passing the pink-and-white truck.
    Tim Pat held his change in his left hand. He was