The Kook
The phone call came at just after midnight. I answered it on the first ring, sitting in bed reading with the TV on. I heard Walter on the other end but we didn’t have a conversation, not as such. I listened in stunned silence while he berated me for the interview I’d given on Lenny Davis.
“I’d just like to disabuse you of this notion you seem to have that I was a coward in the ring. You of all people should know why I lost that fight. You know what it was like for me. Why the hell are you going on TV, and on the Lenny Davis show? I mean of all the lame things you’ve done this one’s earned you first prize.”
Walter was on a rant. I didn’t get an opportunity to respond he was talking so fast. Eventually, after what must have been a full five minutes he hung up. I lay there with my book in my lap and the TV on mute. I must have sat like that for the whole night. In the morning I rang Maria.
“He said that?” she gasped.
“That’s what I’m telling you. He was livid. He said my performance on the TV last night made him seem pusillanimous.”
“Look, I didn’t see Davis last night. What exactly did you say? You didn’t mention the Kook did you?”
“Of course I didn’t mention the Kook. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Then why is Walt so peeved? You must have said something.”
“You know what he’s like, he’s so temperamental. All it takes is the suggestion of a smear. I just happened to say that the welterweight division is for a certain kind of fighter, Walter’s type.”
“Well what does that mean, ‘Walter’s type’?”
“He was never serious about boxing. You remember how hard it was to get him to look after himself. He’d drink too much, smoke those cheap foreign cigarettes. He kept MacDonald’s in the black for a decade. He was a kid, resistant to my influence.”
“He was talented. Sure, he was immature but for God’s sake he was eighteen when he joined your place. And there was that ligament he tore. He really struggled with the pain. That’s what kept him stuck in welterweight. Gaining weight made the pain worse, more pressure on that tear. Have you forgotten all this?”
I listened to Maria and knew she was right. I was afraid that Walt’s failure would be seen as mine so I tried to distance myself from it, make it seem like it was all him, his own inadequacy. But really it was both of us or maybe even just me. I wanted to ring him, apologise.
“Don’t. Let me talk to him,” said Maria, “he’s always looked up to you. Besides, this whole sports fitness thing he’s got going down at Doyle’s is an extra pressure that you probably don’t know about. Do you know what the worst thing is, while we’re on the subject?”
“No, tell me.”
“Davis is a client of his. He thought they were friends. Then you go on the show and insult him.”
“I didn’t insult him Maria, I just said…”
“You said he was limited. You said he should have done better. But you know as well as I do about the kook. There was pressure to perform. The kook got everybody all excited about him, put it out that he was a born winner, couldn’t lose, a sure bet. All that shit. Then this injury business. The kook lost a lot of money.”
I knew the Kook was into covert stuff, organised and lucrative. He was involved with a lot of fighters. I thought his interest in Walt was just casual. Maria was giving me the impression it was more than that. I hadn’t thought about the Maria angle before now. She was bound to know more about that since she was still good friends with Walt. I hadn’t had a drink with him or seen him face to face in months.
The last time I saw him was at his apartment. He took this spanspek melon from the fridge and flung it at me.
“Toss it in the air and I’ll show you how good I am.” I lobbed it up. He punched the fruit and it split apart five feet about the carpet. Bits of it were flung everywhere.
“Jesus Walt, no-one’s saying you haven’t got power. That’s not what you lack. It’s your attitude, your eating habits, your fitness regime. And then there’s Maria.”
“What about Maria?” he asked accusingly, “why d’you want to go involving her in this. If I’m not fighting as good as I can it’s not her fault. She’s the only reason I don’t kill any of those guys.”
“She’s a distraction, that’s all. I know she’s a great girl. But you need to focus on your fighting now, not on girls.”
“She isn’t ‘girls’, she’s what keeps my head on straight.”
A week after the Davis show interview I was at the gym with a new fighter I’d taken on. His name was Dave Feltz. In many ways he was similar to Walt but he did everything faster. However, his punch needed a lot of work because he threw from the shoulder and rarely got a surprise jab in. I was about to work on a few routines when Maria rang.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“About Walt?”
“No, what’s happened. Tell me.”
“He assaulted Davis yesterday. Davis is pressing charges. Walt broke one of his teeth.”
“I don’t believe this. Didn’t you talk to him? I thought you were going to talk to him Maria.”
“I did. He seemed okay, told me he was alright about everything. He even said that you were right.”
“I don’t understand. If that was his mood, why this assault?”
“You got me.”
“I’m going to talk with him.”
When I called to Walt’s place I could see him inside on the couch. He was watching TV. I rapped on the window but he ignored me. I walked round the side to the door and knocked.
“C’mon Walt, open the door. Walt, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done the stupid interview. You were right. I gave the wrong impression of you.” But Walt wasn’t hearing any of this. It was only hours later, after I had reluctantly left and gone home that I discovered he didn’t answer me because he’d swallowed manganese. Apparently he got it in the place where they make those alloy wheels. Maria was inconsolable. She didn’t blame me but she complained about the Kook and told me that he’d been extorting money out of Walt at the gym, protection money. I realised I’d known very little about him or the kind of life he had.
Walt was eighteen when I met him. Three years later he was dead. He never won a title.
R.H.