Lauchlin of the Bad Heart (4 page)

“Who was the last? Art Hafey, but he was from up the mainland. We had lots of fighters right here and bouts every damn week, but there wasn’t any money. For the love of the sport, eh?”

“Something like that. Some free equipment from the merchants. That kind of thing.” Lauchlin turned away from the window. “The
last fight they promoted here, they had to throw in some wrestlers to get a gate.”

What kids remembered the glory days when Cape Breton was called the Cradle of Canadian Boxing, let alone wanted to talk about them? The young fellas didn’t know or care how many good boxers the Island had turned out, all the way back to Jack Munroe in the early 1900s who’d beaten world heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries in an exhibition in Montana, and Munroe had grown up on the Head here just a few miles away. But Lauchlin might as well talk up the Battle of Killiecrankie. Their heads were full of TV athletes, hockey and baseball stars, and spectacular money. The boys of Lauchlin’s era
wanted
to box, Cape Breton was fight country, it mattered. Did anybody now care to slave away in the rank space of a boxing gym pounding leather, striving to get in prime condition so he could get hit and shoved and elbowed around a ring, grind his face into another man’s skull, taste blood, his or his opponent’s, get his nose pulped, his ears red and ringing? Lauchlin had been in the best shape of his life then, but still he ached after a hard match, after the high of fighting somebody good and winning he was down and sore, he had to ease sideways out of bed, the ribs and kidneys, sleeping with his sore mouth wide open he’d wake up with blood in his throat or creeping out a nostril. Kids didn’t buy that punishment anymore. Why endure that tough apprenticeship with no guarantee of attention or money or fame? Its solitary discipline made no sense to them, the diet, temperance, rising at four in the morning for road work, then in the gym in the evening after a day job, working the bags, some hard sparring. And yet Lauchlin would have boxed on, just to be ranked would have made it all worthwhile, Maritime champ maybe, God. Anything above that would have been gravy. Canadian title, British Empire, like Blair. How could he explain this to anyone? Why try? Its context was gone, its atmosphere. Even though she had backed him without complaint, not even Morag had understood what drove him in those years, and shadowed him afterward.

“There goes Clement now,” Malcolm said.

Across the road, the fish van had turned up the driveway to the MacLean house. His mother would be pleased, she was in one of her dark moods today and he might pull her out of it. She always perked up when she saw his truck arriving once a week or so, fish fresh or frozen and none of it cheap, but she often bought haddock if he had it or halibut. Johanna never liked turning him down, she’d buy what she could. She loved swordfish, Have you any swordfish today, Mr. MacTavish? she’d say, and it would have to be No, Mrs. MacLean, they’re small these days anyhow, the big swordfish are gone from the ocean. They’d go back and forth, for fun, and she’d tell him about the swordfish they used to harpoon off the coast of Cape Breton, the steaks you’d get from them, too big for a frying pan, you’d have to cut them up. They’d have a good chat, he was never in a rush with her. She could tell him local things he wouldn’t otherwise know, being from away as he was, out west, and he would give her some gossip he’d picked up. He had an easy way with older people, Lauchlin liked that about him, that he’d spend time with them.

But what about his wife? What was Tena doing at home? Was she outdoors much? He was curious how she moved through a day, if her trip to this store had changed anything.

Shane came in with Effie’s money. The day was warm and he wore a black T-shirt underneath his motorcycle vest, because he made sure his shirt was on when Johanna came down. Lauchlin had had to persuade her to take him on despite his black buzz cut, and the single ring in his earlobe and forearm tattoos, which disgusted his girlfriend, and because he was local and Johanna knew his family, and because the earring was small and the tattoos muted, she had hired him. Today he had a bruise near his eye.

“You look worn around the edges, boy,” Malcolm said.

“You have to pay the fiddler, eh? We had some awful smooth ‘shine.”

“How’s Jenna Marie?” Lauchlin said.

“I don’t know, Lauch. Every time she leaves for college, she comes home different.”

Lauchlin had seen Jenna Marie grow up, coming in and out of the store different until she didn’t come in at all. She was smart in school and liked to read and told him at an early age she wanted to be a writer. But Lauchlin, as she matured, was not spared her critical eye. She came to disdain gossip and small talk, that currency of a country store, and Lauchlin wanted to tell her that he too might welcome something more stimulating but that such talk was a ritual, a simple bond, a well-worn path that led them all reliably and politely home, and there were days when mutual banalities were a blessing, your mind without wit or spark or purpose, yes, please, let’s just do the weather—today’s, tomorrow’s, last summer’s, or that awful July of 1987, share our knowledge and remembrance of this particular spot on earth. But he never had the right chance to explain this to Jenna Marie, fast at work becoming an intellectual. What would a storekeeper on her own road, a man once a boxer, have to say that she needed to know?

“Women go through stages, Shane, you’ll have to get used to that,” Lauchlin said. “Did you hit something or did it hit you?”

“This? A little fracas, that’s all.”

“The Blue Skies got a bit stormy Saturday night?”

“You know what that place is like, somebody’s always wanting to get in your face.”

“I’d say he got into yours. It helps if you duck.”

“He suckered me, Lauch. Just a goddamn bodybuilder, not a fighter anyway. You have to be a little bit nuts to be a good boxer. Right?”

“But you can’t
fight
nuts. You get mad maybe the first time or two you’re hit, that’s natural, but you get over it. If you don’t, you’ll never make it in the ring. You can fight behind a dance hall, in a bar, go off like a fuse, those fights are over quick anyway.”

“Show me some stuff, Lauch. I’d like to learn.”

They used to want a flash lesson—acquaintances, customers, sometimes a kid. Show me a right cross, Lauchie, Hey Lauch, what was your best punch? Let’s see it, you throw a hook like this or like this? But he wouldn’t do it for entertainment, forget it, that clowning, and after a while they didn’t ask him anymore. There was a glimmer of promise in Shane, but then again he might just be fooling around.

“Maybe some day, after hours.”

“You riding your motorbike like that, with your head full of booze?” Malcolm said.

“You ever try it, Malk?”

“Try what? Acting stupid? I used to be an expert.”

“Don’t let Johanna get wind of that, Shane.” Lauchlin hoped he didn’t sound like a teacher, and who paid attention anyway? Not Shane’s crowd.

“Strictly on the side, Lauch, just partying like, now and then.”

“Don’t make an arse of yourself, driving the road at night. There’s others to consider besides yourself,” Malcolm said.

“Clement MacTavish’s wife, for instance,” Lauchlin said. He glanced out the big window. “The woman is blind. She walks the road sometimes.”

“I’ve seen her. I’m careful, at night on this road for sure. Over there,” he nodded toward the mountain, “it’s suicide. A couple kids almost went over the road last week, up high, past where it’s supposed to be closed.”

“The
Slios,
” Lauchlin said.

“Drunk, that’s what saved them. They tried to turn around and backed halfway over the edge. Car’s hanging on by the undercarriage, you know? Scared the hell out of them.”

“It’s a long fall on that stretch,” Malcolm said.

“Lauch, could you spare me a couple Aspirin?”

“Bathroom, over the sink.”

From the backroom came the smack of leather, a pause, then more, rapidly.

“Shane, he can’t pass that thing without giving it a lick,” Malcolm said, “I think the boy’s up for training.”

The heavy bag hung where Lauchlin could see it when he was behind the counter, like a side of meat in the recesses of the backroom, its maroon hide scuffed and stained from the sweaty pummellings it had taken in the gym, shoved and shouldered and butted. He never worked the bag unless he was alone in the store. He had bought it for ten bucks when a gym shut down, when boxers just weren’t coming up the way they had been when young men all over the towns were training or waiting for a fight. For Lauchlin, the bag was all that was left of that time, his time, and when he was in a certain mood, he’d pull on the old pair of gloves and knead his hands for a couple minutes to get the blood into them, punch his palms. Then he would crouch slightly at the bag, bobbing his head, feinting before he delivered a few soft jabs,
pap pap pap,
just to get the bag swinging, wake it up, then punch harder with both hands until he felt the pop and sting in his knuckles. He would try a hard right as the bag swung lazily toward him,
fump,
stop it dead, he’d wanted that to be his best punch, a clean right cross like Blair Richardson’s, his legs behind it, it had some juice, he could rock you, snap your head back, see the flash of hurt in your eyes. But when the man was too quick or clever, could slip punches well, Lauchlin had no big weapon to fall back on, his left hook was just getting good toward the end, and maybe he’d watched too many British boxers on TV, he liked that stand-up style, crisp and orthodox, efficient, if you were good. He had never cared for the brawlers, winging wild hooks, messy fighters, pawing and wrestling, he had preferred clean distance, the classic stance where the skill of your punching, feinting, countering, fending off was fluid and sharp, where it all came
together—footwork, movement, rhythm, detecting your opponent’s weaknesses, exploiting them. It took intelligence to marshal your skills, and to disguise what you lacked. Take a punch to return a better one, harder, sharper, the economy of the good boxer, no wasted punches, score, sting, hurt, and suddenly an opening,
wham.
Stagger him, then follow up, not wild but carefully, cleanly, on target. Like chopping down a tree, blow by blow, each cut weakens until it falls. He’d met fighters who would not let him box that way, of course, who forced him to fight as crudely as they did. But sometimes just moving around with the bag, sliding his feet with a touch of that old nimbleness, dancing with it, seemed to break him free for a little while, to lift him beyond the confines of the store until he could feel the sweat gathering under his shirt, the heat of his exertion, hear his breath saying you’re alive, you’re alive.

Malcolm raised himself slowly out of the chair and peered into the backroom.

“You’re just arm punching, Shane. You won’t put much hurt on a man like that.”

“What am I supposed to punch with, my legs?”

“Exactly right. Look at him, Lauchie, he’s winded already. You couldn’t last one round in a gym, young as you are, you’d suck all the air out.”

“I need some serious time at it, that’s all. I’d like to box.”

“You need to get seriously in shape, that’s what you need,” Lauchlin said. “You can’t work out with hangovers, a waste of time. Your reflexes are shot.”

“I’ll be okay. It’s not like I’m a boozer.”

“Burn it off first. Then we’ll see how serious you are.”

“Come on, Lauch, give me a couple minutes. Nobody’s around. I know there’s tricks to it, you don’t just bash away.”

“You need to learn the right way to hit that. No tricks. Concentration, hard work.” He tapped his temple. “Some smarts don’t hurt
either. Here, slip on these gloves.” Under the ceiling bulb, Lauchlin called up what teacher he had left in him and gave the bag a shove. “Like this.” The chain squealed and he dropped into the stance, fists up, head slightly bobbing. Just taking this posture brought so much back, put him where he was when it all ended, thinking what the next step might have been. Foolish, so easy to get lost in it, to shut out everything else. “Go to it.”

Shane went at the bag in a determined crouch, jaw set. He followed instructions for a couple minutes, then, as it swung toward him, gleefully attacked it with wild hooks.

“Shane, you just love to wing it, don’t you? That the way you fight at dances?”

“Afraid it is, Lauch.” He stood grinning, breathing hard. “I decked him.”

“You’re wide open. A half-decent boxer would’ve hit you three times before you laid a knuckle on him. Try it again. And don’t let the bag box
you,
slide toward it and back, slide and glide, don’t stomp around like Frankenstein, and don’t nail your feet to the floor, move. You’re going to punch your opponent into submission, cleanly, bit by bit, you’re not going to cleave him in two with a claymore. Okay, that’s better. Yeah, I know the dances. That’s how it was in my day, there were fellas sometimes who’d go after our fiddler, so we had to protect him, hang around in front of him while he played. I got suckerpunched too one night just standing there, someone just hauled off on my blind side. God, was my jaw sore the next day, swollen like a melon. He paid for it though.”

“You ever get knocked out, Lauch?”

“In the ring? I got knocked down, I…”

A horn sounded. “Gas customer, Lauchie!” Malcolm yelled.

“Okay, Shane, let’s go to work, you’re winded anyway. If they don’t want diesel, tell them we’re out of gasoline.”

When Lauchlin returned to the counter, Clement’s fish van was
gone. Did he talk to Johanna about his wife? She never mentioned that he did.

THE STORE WAS RARELY BUSY
by city standards, but there were spurts of afternoon customers, if no angry drivers spewing smoke. There wasn’t much to a small store like this. You put stuff on the shelves and waited. Johanna could have expanded its merchandise but over the years she seemed to let it fall back, and the store had less stock than it did when her husband ran it. Lauchlin told her once, Ma, you don’t have a store down there so much as an idea of a store, are you keeping it up in Dad’s memory or what? It’s a living, she said.