“What the fuck you think happened?” Tears ran down her face, but she kept a hard look on her face. “Michael beat the shit out of me, like always.”
“Why?” I said.
“Why—that’s what he does. He said it was for leaving him alone while I was in jail.”
“Did you call the police?”
“C’mon, Duffy, what are they going to do?” She sat back in her chair. “He will just beat me worse after they leave.”
“Why do you stay with him?” I said.
“Cause he’ll beat me if I leave. I went to a shelter one time and when I went for cigarettes he was there. He took me home and fractured my cheek.”
“I’m going to set you up in a safe house. There’s one in—”
“Fuck that—don’t even try.” Sherrie held up a hand. “The last one I was at, some lesbian women kept coming on to me and all my shit got ripped off.”
“You need to be safe,” I said. “What can you do?”
“If I try to give him what he wants and not piss him off, sometimes that works.”
“What pisses him off?”
“Everything,” she said.
It went on like this for the next hour. I learned that Michael was Michael Calabreso and that he’d made his living dealing hot merchandise, usually DVD players, car stereos, and boom boxes, though he’d hustle anything. He liked to drink and he hung out at a dance club called Cinderella’s.
Supposedly, I should have written up an incident report and alerted the Michelin Woman. Practically speaking, that was going to be a waste of time, and I would lose any trust I had built with Sherrie. Claudia would go by the book, make me refer her to the shelter and call the police. Sherrie would refuse, Michael would find out about the police, make up some story, and not get arrested. Then, Sherrie would get the beating of her life. Letting her go was risky, but it was less risky than following the goofy social work protocol. Despite the wacky dysfunction of it all, women like Sherrie knew how to survive—at least for a while.
I made her promise to call me if she needed any help. I also made her promise to get to an NA meeting and to try to get some phone numbers there so she’d have some support. It seemed like the best thing to do—the best thing, given a whole range of choices that really sucked.
This was the shit about the job that made me nuts. When Eli gets drunk and gets naked at the gas station, I can deal with that. If Martha wants to eat or fuck herself happy, I can live with that. I can even listen to the Abermans bitch at each other or Larry drone on about how his life sucks. I could sleep well on those nights. I couldn’t sleep well thinking about Sherrie.
At seventeen, she wasn’t old enough to know better. Her mother’s boyfriends beat her mom, so this craziness seemed normal. Michael was a guy with money, a city tough guy with city respect and to someone like Sherrie, that was status. It was a whirlpool of dysfunction and all the social work bullshit in the world wasn’t going to stop that seventeen-year-old girl from taking a beating.
I stopped off at the Blue to take Al for a walk and to go through the mail. There was a very official envelope from the Department of State/Athletic Commission and I got a sick feeling. I opened it up and read the first line.
“… due to inappropriate actions in clear violation of the boxing regulations set forth by the Association of Boxing Commissions and the New York State Athletic Commission, you are hereby indefinitely suspended from boxing as a professional anywhere in the United States …”
That’s just swell, I thought. I figured this was coming, but it still sent me into a bit of a shock. The term “indefinitely” didn’t sit well, and at the very least this was going to involve appeals and hearings and a bunch of other bullshit. On top of that, I’m sure I would have to feign remorse and as politically correct as things have gotten, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got sent to some sort of anger management course.
Me and the low-riding Muslim went for a walk to get some air and to give me a chance to think a bit. There comes a time, I believe, when enough shit has happened that thinking becomes worthless. Sometimes I prefer to act than to think, and though over the course of my life that philosophy has gotten me into trouble, it still seemed like the right thing to do. Pondering is the way of the social worker, and I think I’m wired to act differently, even if it too often winds up a tad self-defeating. It’s as if the waiting is so uncomfortable that action, even if it brings about negative consequences, is preferable.
Al sniffed his way up Route 9R and back and seemed to be somewhat mellowing to his new digs. He jumped back up on what was left of the couch he had mostly eaten and put his head down and closed his eyes while I hit the messages. I had begun to learn that good, long walks calmed my brother down a bit, and it was long stretches alone that tended to freak him out.
The first message was from Smitty. As my manager, he had gotten a similar letter, and he was anxious to start a strategy to get my boxing license back. I wasn’t terribly interested in thinking about that tonight. The second one was from Lisa, and I felt my gut tighten when I heard her voice.
“Duff … uh … it’s me.” She sniffed back tears. “Um … I’m afraid I made a mistake … uh … I know this isn’t fair, but I’d really like to see you. Can you call me?” she said.
That was just swell too. I was dying to see her, but inside I knew what was happening. I’d go see her, she’d cry and hug me and probably want to go to bed, where she’d ravage me. Trust me, I wasn’t above that, but within seventy-two hours she’d get weird again and become distant and cold. As much as I wanted to go over there, especially with the type of week I’d been having, I didn’t want to sign up for pain on the delayed-payment schedule. Still, I could use the company.
The third call was from Rudy.
“Look, Duff,” he exhaled heavily into the receiver. “I hate to keep piling on with the bad news, but I figured you’d want to know. During tests on Eli they found a cancerous mass in his lung. Gabbibb wants to go after it aggressively just like Mikey’s. Call me if you want some more information. I’m sorry.”
What the fuck was going on? You couldn’t make this shit up. This felt like God had some sort of Job-like vendetta, and trust me, I didn’t have Job’s faith. My brains were fried, and I decided against even thinking about Lisa, or dealing with the suspension or anything else. I felt like drinking.
My usual routine would’ve been to hit the gym and work everything out physically, but I just didn’t want to get involved with Smitty yet. I had a pain in my chest from where the stress had tightened me all up. I looked down at my hands and they were balled up into fists like they were before the Suggs fight. I couldn’t think straight and I could feel my heart race. AJ’s seemed like a good choice.
The beauty of AJ’s was that whether it was early or late, it didn’t matter. The Foursome would be there before I got there and after I left, and there was a good chance that Kelley would be there early.
“You know, if she won’t use birth control,” Rocco said, “just get her to douche with Coca-Cola after sex.”
“She gets grossed out by the thought of me in a rubber,” Jerry Number One said. “But she’s going to warm up to the idea of sticking a Coke bottle up there? That makes a lot of sense.”
“Talk about ‘the pause that refreshes’!” TC chimed in.
“I once got high drinking five Cokes and taking a half a bottle of aspirin,” Jerry Number Two added, sipping his Cosmo and looking nostalgic for the old days.
“Did that work?” Rocco asked.
“Hell yeah,” Jerry Number Two said.
“C’mon!” TC said. “Really?”
“Sure,” Jerry Number Two said. “Though I guess I had done quite a bit of acid that day, before the Coke.”
I wasn’t in a good mood and I ordered a sidecar of bourbon to accompany my Schlitz. Kelley was there and picked up on the bourbon.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “That’s not a good sign.”
“Shitty day, Kel,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I told him about it, and the more I spoke, the more pissed off I got. The thing is, if you talk about this shit in the office with all the social-work types, everybody has a clinical name for the bullshit. Instead of being an asshole, a guy has “poor impulse control.” Instead of a poor kid getting beat, you have a woman with “boundary issues.” It made me nuts.
The crowd at AJ’s didn’t burden themselves with political correctness.
“Duff,” Kelley said. “These people live like this and it sucks, but that’s the way it is and that’s how it’s always going to be. Let it go and help when you can.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re right.” I didn’t feel like hearing it. Right or wrong, it made me crazy knowing there was a good chance Sherrie was going to take a beating tonight. The fact that that was the way of the world didn’t help. It didn’t help even a little. I ran this through my head while the Schlitzes kept going down, one after the other.
“Look, I’m outta here for tonight,” I finally said to everyone and threw some cash on the bar. “I’ll catch ya later.”
I wasn’t drunk, but I wasn’t sober either. I thought it might be a good idea to take a ride past Cinderella’s and eyeball Calabreso. I wasn’t dressed to impress the Cinderella’s crowd, but that didn’t bother me too much. The Eldorado’s V-8 hummed and I threw in the original
Elvis as Recorded at Madison Square Garden
from ’72. The eight-track was queued on “Suspicious Minds,” the live version of which always got me pumped. Along the way, the vision of Sherrie being full of fear every moment, the physical pain she must’ve experienced, and the corresponding humiliation she’d feel played over and over in my mind. I could feel my hands tighten around the steering wheel ’til my knuckles were white.
Cinderella’s was very dark with lots of mirrors, chrome, and neon. The speakers blasted that obnoxious bass that went along with today’s house music. It was only ten thirty, pretty early by club standards, but there were twenty or so people around. The barmaid had on a belly shirt that showed the piercing in her navel. She wore those tight, form-fitting black pants that young women wear today, and she filled them out very well. Her long, straight blonde hair came midway down her back. She was hot and she knew it, which made her an awful bartender.
I sat without a drink for a full five minutes while the belly shirt checked her hair, smoothed the fabric covering her ass, and checked the nails. She approached me without saying anything and just lifted her head and eyebrows slightly in what I gathered was a substitute for asking me if I wanted a drink.
“Jim Beam on the rocks.”
She served it without a smile, took the ten that I’d thrown on the bar and I got two dollars change. I loved these places. I could still feel the blood pumping through me, but I contained it and hid it the best I could.
A few sips in, I got talkative with Belly Shirt.
“Hey, where can I get a DVD player around here?” I said. “Know anyone who gets them?”
Belly Shirt went to the other end of the bar, motioned to a guy talking in a circle of women, and sent him over. She said something to him and he nodded. He took a sip of his Jägermeister and came over. He had three gold chains around his neck and he wore one of those tight, black silk T-shirts along with black pants. His hair was greased back and he had a big head with a prominent nose and dark eyes. He was a weight lifter and he wore the T-shirt to show off the biceps and chest.
“You lookin’ for somethin’?” Calabreso said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was hoping to get some DVD players.”
“Some?”
“As many as you got,” I looked him straight in the eyes. “Can we deal?”
“What you want with a lot of ’em?”
“What’s this?” I said. “What do you care?”
“Just curious.” He sipped his drink and broke the eye contact. “You got money on you?”
“Yep.”
“Follow me.”
We walked out of the front of the club and around the corner. His white Lexus SUV gleamed in the moonlight. He had custom gold trim all over the obnoxious thing. He walked ahead of me with an arrogant street swagger that I’m sure he had honed over the course of his life.
Calabreso was my height, about six foot one, and he was ripped from the weights. He put the key in the back of the car and lifted the door. There were boxes neatly stacked with all sorts of electronic stuff, like DVD players and boom boxes, all the way up to the front seat. It was like a rolling RadioShack.
He looked at me closely.
“You’re the fighter, ain’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I recognized the old-school flattop. You’re not real big for heavyweight—what you go, about two ten?”
“Yeah, just about.”
“I got a question for you,” he said with a half smile. “How come you keep fighting even though you hardly ever win?”
The thing people don’t understand about boxing is that it’s a whole lot harder to do then it looks. The pitty-pat you see on TV is actually guys getting punched in the face really hard. Assholes like Calabreso who thought they were tough didn’t have any respect for it. He figured I was a bum.
“I like it, I guess,” I said.
“Well,” he laughed, “maybe you could get a collection of your losses on DVD and watch ’em over and over before you go to bed every night.”
“Or maybe I could get a 115-pound girlfriend,” I said, “and beat the shit out of her to make me feel like a man.”
“Hey, fuck you, asshole.” A prominent vein in his neck throbbed. “Mind your business or you’re bound to get hurt.”
Calabreso straightened up and took a step toward me with his chest out and his eyes glaring. It probably scared the hell out of street guys, but stepping forward was a bad idea.
I threw a good straight jab with my right hand and it landed squarely on his nose. Fighters know the sound; it’s not a big “whack” like you hear in the movies. It’s more of a low, muffled crack, like when you crack your knuckles really good. The best part is, it really fuckin’ hurts and it makes your eyes tear up so you can’t see.