“You worried?”
“Hell yeah. I killed enough for one man already. Don’t wanna have to kill no more, ‘less I do the choosin’.”
Bane followed the King into the gym where the air was stale and thick with sweat. There were two boxing rings, a host of heavy and speed bags, and what could easily have been a thousand barbells. No fancy machines or devices, just cold hard steel dominating the floor. Free weights were the only way to go, Bane knew. The modern stuff didn’t even come close. Watchful eyes followed him across the floor. Few acknowledged him, but no one questioned his presence. There was a code in the King’s gym that superseded race. When someone needed a spotter, Bane was quick to respond and the favor was always returned. Nonetheless, no other white man was afforded such courtesy mainly because no other white man trained here.
He followed the King into the surprisingly clean locker room.
“So what you plannin’ tonight, Josh boy?”
“Some time on the heavy bag, maybe two hours on the upper body.”
“You been workin’ those legs enough?”
“The usual.”
“Gotta work ’em more. That’s where quickness comes from. You lose them, just say good-bye.” The King made sure the locker room was deserted before continuing. “Like tonight. I’m a fuckin’ old man, Josh boy. I got more aches in me than you shot loads, and some days it takes a whole team of horses to pull me outta bed. But I caught ya on the street out there. I had ya.” There was no sense of triumph in the King’s voice.
“Just a game, King.”
“So why don’t you fuckin’ tell me what isn’t? That ain’t the point and it don’t mean diddley shit. What matters is that back there on the street you was only ready for someone not as good as you. An equal or better coulda fucked ya sideways.” Bane shrugged, opened his locker.
“Don’t go spacey on me, Josh boy. It’s me that taught ya how to stay alive so some mornin’ if I open the paper and read that you got yourself shot or somethin’ on a dark street, I’d feel awful bad. Kinda like it was my fault for not teachin’ ya good enough. You still got the magic, but that don’t mean you rightly remembers how to make it work for ya.” King Cong sat down on a bench and turned his mouth into a tooth-filled grin. “Maybe I best give ya some more lessons.”
Twenty-three years before as a high school sophomore, Joshua Bane had found himself totally disinterested in traditional sports. Playing basketball and football and all the glory that went with them meant nothing to him. Growing up in the Bronx had taught him to be tough inside but it was time to learn how to be tough outside as well. So Josh threw a fair chunk of his savings into a set of weights and began rising every morning at five A.M. to begin the day with a strenuous one-hour workout. He pushed himself until his muscles throbbed and pounded, and then he pushed himself even harder. He pushed himself unmercifully in a musty cellar scorched by summer heat and unguarded against winter cold, and still looked for more.
Josh knew a number of boys who boxed and a lesser number who had gotten involved with something called Karate. He knew nothing about the latter, other than it was taught mostly by slippery, lithe Japanese men who could move like the wind. He listened almost daily to arguments between boxers and Karate students over which made you a better fighter. These arguments formed the basis of his decision: instead of studying one, he would study both.
He went right from school to a boxing gym for a workout that on alternate days featured calisthenics, running, heavy bag work, speed bag work, shadow boxing, sparring, and always jumping rope. Then he’d rush home for dinner, which on lucky nights he was able to gobble down in time to make the ninety-minute Karate workout at a dojo just down the street from his tenement. His arduous training schedule left him no time for after-school jobs. So instead of paying dues at either the gym or the dojo, he worked an hour at one or the other every day to cover his time.
As his senior year began, Josh was near black belt level and a solid golden gloves contender. What’s more, following his after-dinner Karate workout, he religiously returned home to study for three hours before going to bed. He had taught himself very early in life to exist on small amounts of sleep, an ability which would become a godsend in later years. His parents had both come from the old country, and his father had learned enough about America quickly to know that if you wanted to get somewhere, specifically out of the Bronx, you had to go to college. He had steered Josh in that direction since birth.
George Bane had married late and come to America with modest dreams that became a candy store, one of five in a two-block radius, but the only one that extended credit to kids. George Bane seldom collected on all his monthly debts but the good will that credit generated was enough to assure him of a reasonably comfortable livelihood and to help him come home with a smile every night at six o’clock.
Then one night the smile disappeared.
Josh couldn’t pinpoint exactly when his father’s character had changed, though generally it seemed to start near the end of his junior year in high school. For months he heard his parents whispering late into the night in their native language, a language Bane had never bothered to learn. So he lay awake nights trying to pick out vaguely familiar words and string them into something that made sense, failing always to even come close.
Josh spent Saturday afternoons at the candy store, helping his father out. It was the busiest time of the week, a make-or-break period so far as profits were concerned. Rainy days were the worst and it was while cleaning up after one that George Bane finally told his son what was going on.
“There are men who come here wanting money from me, Joshey.”
Bane’s hands tightened into fists. He had heard enough stories around town to know his father was speaking of a protection racket.
“Did you pay them?”
“At first, no. Then other merchants came to me and said they were approached too, threatened even, and I got to thinking that maybe a little money wasn’t so bad to buy a little piece of mind. So I paid … for a while.”
“You stopped,” Josh said proudly, feeling deep love for the man with thin arms and worn features who was standing up to the biggest thugs in the Bronx.
“Yes, Joshey, I stopped. I got to thinking how could I live with myself if I gave even a dollar of my hard-earned money to these crooks? I met with the other merchants and we agreed we would all stick together and refuse to make any more payments.”
“And?”
The old man shrugged.
At once Bane knew. “You’re the only one holding out.”
His father shrugged, managed a slight nod.
“Dad, you’ve got to go to the police, you’ve—”
“Achhhhh, you know better than me, Joshey, that the police can do nothing. Calling them will only make things worse. But I can’t pay anymore. I came to this country to get away from scoundrels like this. I spent most of my life living in fear and submission. I can’t have that again.”
“You’ve told the collectors?”
“I’ve told them.”
“But they still come by.”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” The old man shifted his weary shoulders. “Maybe someday they’ll give up.”
It was the beginning of a cold fall on another rainy Saturday when two men in overcoats came in at the store’s busiest time and asked to see George Bane outside. Before Josh could object, his father had grabbed his arm, surprising him with a strong grip.
“I can’t run away, Joshey. They’ll ask me for money like always and I’ll refuse and they’ll leave.”