Chapter 20 of "The Knock 'em Down Boys".
Rat takes a serious risk that threatens to destroy everything that he has worked for.
Chapter 20
Sparky’s shorts
I can’t explain why I did it.
Why would I take something like that? And from Sparky too – how does that even make sense? How does what I am thinking or feeling now make sense? It doesn’t. That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m a teenager, and we’re not meant to make any sense – especially when it comes to feelings.
The problem is, I make absolute sense, most of the time. So how do I cope with this?
I’d been at the boxing gym while Sparky was training. I was splitting my time there between watching him sparring with other lads, observing the conditioning exercises, and practising some of the moves we might want to use the next time we met the Poxford nonces.
Some of the boxers were moving around the gym with tennis balls, improving their hand to eye coordination. Each bounce of a ball with a hand in time with, and connected to, the movement of a foot as they moved left to right, pivoted and shuffled over the floor in their boxing stances. The more work the lads did, the sweatier they all got. Their T-shirts darkened front and back and clung to their torsos. The best lads in the gym were ripped from months of training camp, preparing their bodies relentlessly for whatever opponent they would be facing up to.
The rhythmic thud of the tennis balls was almost hypnotic if you observed it for too long – enough maybe to put you to sleep in the warm and humid environment of a boxing gym. Fortunately, everything in a boxing gym happens to strict timing, like the rounds of a fight: three minutes on and thirty seconds off – conditioning the body and mind through constant repetition.
Snapped out of a semi-dream state by the bell that signified the end of the round, I pulled my eyes from the lads with the tennis balls and to the practice ring at the end of the gym.
A new round began, and after about twenty seconds or so, Sparky was holding the centre of the ring against a heavier and taller sparring partner. He was moving carefully, sitting into his stance with slightly bent knees and a straight back. His chin was tucked in and he was on the balls of his feet. His head was a moving target darting side to side, and his guard was up to block or catch punches that might be a little too close for comfort. Sparky was moving with skill, pivoting on the balls of his feet, sliding out of range at just the right points to make his opponent miss him, rolling underneath his opponent’s jabs, and then tagging his sparring partner with efficient counter punches to the jaw and ribs.
Sparky’s coach was prowling around the ring holding a foam stick which he used to tap Sparky on the shoulders while he barked advice at him that only someone into boxing would understand, “Slip lad – slip – bap, bap, bap – jab to the head – hook to the body. Tidy hands now, tidy hands. Head – body – head – body – bap, bap, bap.”
After four rounds, Sparky’s practice was done and he climbed down from the ring. I took his towel over, wiped his face and towelled his sweat drenched hair to a dry-ish state. Steam was drifting up from his head and torso like he’d just been warmed up in a microwave. I draped his damp towel around his shoulders and I could feel the tension in the taut muscles that had been twisting, firing out and absorbing punishment for twelve explosive minutes.
“Are you gonna help me get these off then, or what?”
I don’t know how long I had just been sort of standing there looking at him, probably not long.
“Yeah, obviously,” I said as I pulled his gloves off and passed him his water bottle.
Sparky started stretching so that he wouldn’t pick up an injury as I watched.
“You again? We don’t need observers in here. This is business – our business.”
Sparky’s coach had dropped down from the ring and within seconds had manoeuvred himself between us, using his left shoulder and the weight he generated through a pivot and the twist of his hips to shepherd me to the side without using his hands at all. He kept his arms to his sides, and his hands pointing upward in semi-fists, half on guard. I was impressed. Sparky’s coach had been a good standard pro – I knew I had to respect that.
“I’ve told you my view on spectators,” he said, talking to Sparky but looking at me.
“Leave him alone” said Sparky pushing himself between us, “he’s just helping me out, that’s all.”
“When are you in again?” Sparky’s coach took a step backwards. His stance didn’t change.
“Day after tomorrow,” said Sparky continuing to stretch off.
“Keep out of trouble,” grunted Sparky’s coach, fist bumping Sparky and glaring at me like I was his opposition in some grudge match for a major World Title.
Sparky said nothing.
He just nodded at his coach and began methodically removing his hand wraps, winding away the protective material until he was holding each two metre length of fabric in his bare hands.
It might seem a weird thing to say, but boxers often have the softest of hands. Think about it. Each time they train, their hands are carefully wrapped to protect all of those tiny but essential bones in their fists then slipped into a pair of padded gloves for hours on end, day after day. It’s like a sauna for the hands, isn’t it? So no wonder the skin on their hands feels like they moisturise regularly.
Leaning against a wall, Sparky began re-wrapping his hand wraps, turning the lengths of material into tightly wound rolls before dropping them in his gym bag.
“Your coach hates me, mate – fact.”
Sparky still said nothing and gestured for us to leave the building.
When we were in the alleyway that ran down the side of the gym, Sparky stopped. “Of course he hates you. He knows, doesn’t he? He isn’t stupid. You come here sometimes, watch a bit of the boxing, hit the bags like you know what you’re doing. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you’re handy. Once he’s worked that out, two plus two is easy, isn’t it?”
“And he thinks that I’m the bad influence on you, right?”
“That’s about the size of it. And you know what he told me.”
I knew exactly what Sparky had been told: boxing or the firm – tough choice.
Sparky put his arm around my shoulder and ushered me out of the alleyway. “Let’s go to mine so I can get a shower yeah. I’m stinking.”
Sparky’s house was a fifteen minute walk from the boxing gym. Walking back and forth had become part of Sparky’s warm up and warm down routine. Sometimes he gently jogged the distance – today we walked. I talked about the upcoming games we would be going to, and the answer to some homework that I knew Sparky probably hadn’t got round to yet, so I would help him out.
Sparky nodded and occasionally acknowledged what I was saying with a feedback noise intended to let me know that he was listening while he fired out measured jabs and hooks and rolled his neck and shoulders side to side as we walked in order to improve his muscle memory.
Sparky was still blocking and catching the punches of imaginary opponents when we arrived at his house. I wondered which shadows he was boxing in the locked depths of his mind as he repeated move after move in order to ensure his motions became second nature.
He must have caught me watching him again as he stopped and said, “Repetition creates reaction. That’s what Danny says. Increased reaction time means that you successfully connect your punch, or avoid your opponent’s punch, more quickly.”
I nodded to show that I understood, because what he said was true. And the idea of this constant repetition and drilling was infectious. Sitting in class, or on a train, I had often seen Sparky practising evasion. It might have looked like twitching or fidgeting to someone else, but I knew better. Slip to the left, slip to the right: left, left, right – trying to avoid the predictable. His head constantly moving from side to side, up and down, to make it more difficult for his opponent to connect cleanly.
Sparky opened the front door and we went straight in, heading up the stairs and into his bedroom without asking if anyone else was in the house.
Sparky dropped his gym bag on his bed and began to strip off his still damp training gear. The feint, musty smell of boxing gloves, wraps, and a head guard that had absorbed years of sweat began to make itself known in the room. Sparky seemed used to it, like he didn’t notice it anymore.
Sparky’s hoodie and T-shirt were already on his bed as he pulled his trackies down and threw them on top of the sweaty pile. He stood there in his shorts as I sat on his bed, stretching himself out to avoid any final chance of injury. His damp skin stretched over a sinewy and muscular physical frame of only 5% fat. We didn’t talk as he concentrated and breathed into the final set of exercises, holding each pose for thirty seconds as he systematically took care of each muscle.
His body was perfect. He was ready to be the best. Sparky knew it too – as a fact, not in an arrogant way. He had worked for it and day after day deprived himself of anything that might not contribute to the conditioning of an immediately responsive, stamina injected, pain tolerating fighter’s physique.
When the stretches were complete, he peeled off his shorts and dropped them onto the pile of clothes on his bed, standing in his underwear and exhaling deep breaths.
After a few moments he spoke, “I’ll sort that lot in a bit. Just gonna get a quick shower. Use what you want.”
He turned around then and left the room.
That’s when I did it.
That’s when I took his shorts. His still damp pair of training shorts.
It’s not something that I can explain entirely.
At least not in a way that makes clear sense – even now.
I just had this urge. A strong feeling, not something sent from the rational processor of my logical brain. A powerful urge to have something. Something of his. Something that had been close to him, that smelled like him, that reminded me of him when he wasn’t there.
Perhaps you think this is obvious? It wasn’t then, even if I understand it a bit better now.
I didn’t plan it. I was overwhelmed by the strength of the urge. That’s biological impulse I suppose. I would never have planned to take any of Sparky’s stuff. Why would I? He let me use whatever I wanted. We were close like that. If I had wanted to borrow something, I just had to ask.
But a pair of shorts still damp from his efforts at the gym, how would I explain that?
I couldn’t, and I didn’t. I just reached out and grabbed them, scrunching them into a ball and shoving them into my jacket pocket.
Except, that’s not exactly how it happened.
This act of theft didn’t happen quite as quickly as I might want to remember it. There was time between my taking the shorts and trying to secret them in my pocket.
Time enough for Sparky to finish his shower – and come back.
If I really concentrate, I can remember how I held my hands over the shorts at first, not sure what I was doing and feeling the material smooth and still wet with sweat under my hand. I probably looked at the bedroom door too, wondering if Sparky might come back.
I can’t remember exactly.
Before the attempt to hide the shorts in my pocket, I brought them near to me. Near enough to recognise his smell. And for a minute it just sort of felt right, and it felt good.
And I might have smiled.
Or I might not.
I know I am not explaining this well – even now, which is part of the problem really. I’m used to being able to explain everything – to compartmentalise and classify – but not this time.
Without further rational thought, and with a stab of panic, I scrunched Sparky’s shorts up and went to stuff them in my jacket pocket.
Just as Sparky came through his bedroom door, towelling the back of his head dry, and looking straight at me as I did it.
Taking a few steps forward, and still staring at me, Sparky could see that his used gym shorts were in my hand – and half in my jacket pocket.
Time seemed to stop.
Sparky said nothing.
I said nothing.
We just looked at each other.
A few more moments passed.
Sparky let the towel he had been using to dry the back of his head drop onto his shoulders.
I slowly moved my hand away from my pocket and let go of his shorts back onto the bed.
The next thing I knew, I had bolted.
I was up in a flash and past Sparky before he could say anything. Down his stairs, out the door, and into the street at a run.
Not that he did say anything – or at least I don’t remember hearing him say anything. What could he say? His best mate was trying to steal his sweaty, dirty gym shorts. How confusing was that? What was wrong with me? It was messed up.
I had messed up and I was messed up.
I was confused. I was hurt.
I was hurt? What about Sparky?
And I had lost control.
I was so confused and full of conflict right at that moment that I simply couldn’t see anything straight.
If only confusion, and hurt, and losing control had been the worst of it.
There was so much more that I was about to lose.
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