God Save the Child

I shuffled toward him. The ground was dry and firm. I had a lot of room. We were in the middle of the football field. A few people had begun to gather in along the sidewalk and a couple in the stands. They were uneasy, looking at the trouble. We who are about to die salute you. I was dressed for the work; I had on sneakers and Levis, my stakeout clothes. I put a left jab on Harroway’s nose. He grabbed at me, and I moved out. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Come to think of it, he wasn’t champ anymore, was he? Harroway swung on me with his right hand. Better and better. I let it go by, stepped in behind it, and drove two hard right-hand punches into his kidneys; hitting the muscle web of the latissimus dorsi under his rib cage was like hitting a chain link fence. I moved back away from him. He grazed me with his left fist, and I hit him in the nose again. It started to bleed. I hoped Marge Bartlett was pleased. The silence in the open field seemed thunderous. The sound of a helicopter, probably one of the traffic reporters, made the silence seem more thunderous by contrast. The helicopter bothered my concentration. Watch his middle, watch his feet, let peripheral vision take care of his fists, he can’t fake with his middle. Stay away. Don’t let him get hold of you. I tried a combination. Left jab, left hook, right cross. It worked. I scored on all three. But no one was counting. Harry Balleau wasn’t going to jump into the ring at the end and raise my hand. If we clinched, Artie Donovan wasn’t going to jump in and make sure we broke clean. There was a mouse starting under Harroway’s right eye. I circled him counterclockwise. Moving my hands in front of me, shuffling, keeping my left foot forward. Don’t get caught walking. Don’t let him get you between steps. Shuffle, jab, one two, shuffle, jab, one two. Move in. Move out. I was way ahead on points. But Harroway didn’t seem to be weakening. He lunged at me. I moved out of the way and got him with the side of my fist on the temple. Don’t break your hand. Don’t hit his head with your knuckles. Shuffle, move. Jab. The sweat began to slip down my chest and arms; it felt good. I was getting looser and quicker. Ought to warm up really. Should do some squat jumps and stretching exercises before you have a fight with a 215-pound body builder who probably killed a guy with his fist last week. Harroway was breathing a little short. I gave him a dip with my right shoulder, went left, and dug my left fist into his stomach. He grunted. He got hold of my shoulder with his left hand. I twisted in toward him and came up under his jaw with the heel of my right hand. His head jolted back. I hammered him in the Adam’s apple with the edge of the same hand. He made a choking sound. I rolled on out away from him, breaking the grip on my shoulder as I did, and brought my left elbow back against his cheekbone with the full weight of my rolling 195 behind it. He went down. I heard Kevin gasp. Harroway was halfway up when I finished my roll and kicked him in the face. I sprawled him over on his side. He kept going, rolled over, and came up. Maybe I was just making him mad. There was a lot of blood on his face and shirt now. Besides his nose, there was a cut under the eye where the mouse had been. The eye was almost closed. The right side of his face where my elbow had caught him was beginning to puff. He seemed to have trouble breathing. I wondered if I’d broken something in the neck. He came at me. I went to work on the other eye. Two jabs, a left hook. Move away, circle. Concentrate. Don’t let him grab you. Don’t let him tag you. Concentrate. Move. Jab. He swung a right roundhouse, and I caught it on my forearm. The whole arm went numb, and I backpedaled out of range waiting for it to recover Better not let that happen again. Harroway kept coming. His face was bloody. One eye was shut and the other closing. His breathing was hoarse and labored, but he kept coming on. I felt a tickle of fear in my stomach. What if I couldn’t stop him? Never mind what if I couldn’t. Think about jabbing and moving. Concentrate. Don’t think things that don’t help. Don’t think at all. Concentrate. I jabbed the closing eye. Harroway grunted in pain. He was having trouble seeing. I hit the same eye again. There was a cut on the eyebrow, and the blood was blinding him. He stood still. Weaving a little. Like a buffalo, with his head lowered. I stepped away from him.

“Stop it, Harroway,” I said.

He shook his head and lunged toward the sound of my voice. I moved away and hit him a left hook in the neck.

“Stop it, you goddamned fool,” I said.