Don't Read in the Closet volume one (12 page)

“What, did I
have cat hair on my chest? He won’t sleep on the little cat couch I bought him.
It’s even made out of fake fur. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“You want to go
to a match with me? This kid from my gym, he’s got a match. I was gonna stop
by. Moral support.”

“I’ve never
been to a boxing match. Yeah, I’ll come. Thanks. We can go to my place after.
I’ll play you a song on my guitar.”

Jesse wrapped
another arm around his waist, held him close, felt the damp ends of Evan’s hair
against his cheek. What was he doing? This was so much more complicated for him
than it was for the rest of the world. So many things could go wrong. So many
things involving YouTube and reporters with cameras. “Okay.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

They grabbed a
bite at the café on the corner, a salad for Jesse, since he was back on his
regular diet, the pizza fest of the night before a fond memory. “Let’s run by
my place, okay? I need to put on some fancy duds for the fight.”

“What, is it
formal?”

“No, I just get
a lot of cameras shoved at me. I’m going to give this kid a boost, so I might
as well do the job right.”

Evan looked
around at his condo, his mouth open. “Man, this is wild!” He walked over to the
glass windows that looked out on the foothills, and the mountains beyond. “This
place is unbelievable!”

“It’s paid for,
so I won’t lose it if I lose my title.”

Evan looked
shocked for a moment,
then
he kicked off his sneakers
and slid across the bamboo floor in his socks. “This is a serious boy playground.”

“Get a beer if
you want one.”

Jesse pulled
open the closet door, picked out a pair of black trousers, a white button down
shirt and a skinny purple tie. He ducked into the shower, ran a shaver over his
chin,
then
got dressed. Evan gave him a wolf whistle
when he came out of his bedroom. “Now I feel like a bum. Shouldn’t I dress up,
too?”

“Maybe you
better not. You look good in jeans. Besides, you don’t want to look too hot,
the camera boys will be all over you.”

“I’m starting
to get the idea that you’re a bigger deal than I realized.”

Jesse leaned
back against the kitchen counter, took Evan’s beer and tipped it up to his
mouth. “I’m a very big deal.”

Evan was
looking at him with a quizzical smile, the twinkle back in his blue eyes. “If
the paparazzi storm you, I’ll just fade into the background.”

He was so very
cute, with the dimples and the blue eyes and the twinkle and the pretty mouth,
curving into a smile. Jesse moved across the kitchen, almost against his will,
took a handful of Evan’s shirt and pulled him close.
What are you doing?
Stop
it,
you’re acting like a fool….

Evan was
smiling, and he tasted like beer, with a hint of cinnamon gum. Jesse snuggled
him close, felt something warm and sweet in his chest, like his heart was
turning to taffy. Evan’s mouth was like a piece of summer fruit. “You have a
beautiful face,” he said, running his hands over Evan’s hair, feeling the silk
of it slide through his fingers. “I like the way your eyes are always smiling.”
He bent over, tasted the damp skin along Evan’s neck, felt the heart beating
wildly under his lips. “Me and you, it’s going to be magic, baby.”

They climbed
into Jesse’s car, drove downtown to the match. It was a small venue, but the
crowd was the typical fight crowd, noisy, jammed in close together, already
drinking. The weigh-in was done, and both boxers were in the ring. Bo looked
good, he thought, loose, holding it in. The people standing near the ring moved
aside when they saw him, and he felt hands on his shoulders, little slaps on
the back,
Hey, champ, that your boy in the ring?

He let Evan
fall back. It wouldn’t do for them to get too much attention together. This was
Bo’s night, and he was here for moral support. He swung up to the ring, nodded
to the referee, and let the noise wash over him, shouts of
Hey, Triple J!
He slung an arm around Bo’s shoulder, looked into his eyes. “Be tough, kid.
We’re all real proud of you. Now go beat this shit-bird into a bloody pulp.”
They punched fists,
then
he swung down, moved toward
their seats. He jerked his head to Evan, showed him where they were going, and
Evan followed behind him, staring around at everything like a kid on his first
trip to the circus.

It was slow
moving through the crowd. Everybody wanted to put a hand on him, rub off a
little of his shiny champ mojo. The cameras flashed in his eyes until he had to
blink back the stars. The bells had rung for the fight to begin when they found
their seats. Evan leaned toward him and shouted in his ear. “Wow, it’s loud in
here! How was he? Was he scared?”

Jesse gave him
a withering look. “Please. Boxers don’t get scared. And if they do, they
swallow it down so deep nobody will ever see it.”

Evan rolled his
eyes a bit, and the twinkle was back in full force.

Bo was a little
heavier, weight he carried in his shoulders and chest, and the other guy was
two inches taller. The reach was gonna be a problem, Jesse thought again,
watching the fighters duck away from each other. Bo was fearless, putting his
head down and bulling his way in, where the height didn’t matter, but
eventually he had to move into the reach of the other fighter’s right hook.
Evan winced visibly when Bo took a mean punch to his left cheek, then another
blow to the right eye. “Good God, did you see that?”

“Hush.”

Evan gave him a
look that Jesse thought meant he would have more to say about this later.

Bo lasted two
and a half rounds before the referee called the match. Corry walked him back to
the treatment room, both eyes swollen nearly shut, purple on his jaw, blood dripping
from the cut on his cheek. “Let me go check in with them. You want to meet me
at the car?”

“Yeah, sure. Is
he gonna be okay?”

“We’ll see.”

Jesse was
worried, but he wasn’t gonna say anything to Evan, who looked like he was about
to start a letter-writing campaign to get boxing banned as cruel and unusual
sport. He walked down the hall to the treatment room. Bo was leaning back on a
table, a couple of ice packs on his face. “Hey, kid.
You
doing
okay?”

“Yeah.” His
voice was dispirited. “Thanks for showing up. It meant a lot to me.”

“No problem.”

The worry was
sitting a little heavier on Corry’s old
face ,
but he
just waved him off, opened up the first aid box. “Ready for a stitch, kid?
You’re gonna look like a boxer now, not a pretty girl with big eyes.”

Jesse reached
down and squeezed Bo’s thigh, felt his skin flushed and sweaty. “I’ll see you
tomorrow at the gym.”

“Okay.”

He made his way
outside, found Evan leaning up against his car, arms crossed. The night was so
quiet after the noise inside it felt like bliss on his ears. “It’s always loud
like that,” he said. “It’s something you can use in the ring, the power of it.
Like the Qi energy.”

“Have you ever
beat
somebody in the face like that?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said have
you ever hit somebody in the face and head so many times they looked like your
friend Bo?”

“Yes. Many
times. Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you. I’m a boxer.”

“I know you’re
a boxer. I didn’t understand….”

“Maybe you
didn’t.”

“And I’m
helping you get your balance back, so you can go into the ring and do that to
somebody else?”

“No, you’re
helping me get my balance back because I’m paying you for physical therapy
services.”

They stared at
each other for a long moment. Evan’s face looked helpless, pale and sick, but
Jesse was Zen-calm, his mind still. He knew what he did. He knew the
consequences. And this was the life he had chosen. “I’ll drive you home.”

Evan shook his
head. “No, I’ll walk, Jesse. I need a walk, clear my head a bit. Look, I’m
sorry, I’m not… I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Jesse didn’t
answer, watched him turn and walk away, head down, hands in his pockets.

He stayed mad
for the time it took him to find his car and drive home, eat some scrambled
eggs and get into bed. What the hell was wrong with that guy? Jesse couldn’t
get his head around the idea that Evan seemed less than impressed with him.
Even disapproved of him, or what he did. What the hell was wrong with that guy?
Who did he think he was?

His feelings
were hurt, he decided. He was used to people liking him, admiring him, lusting
after his big muscles, power,
flash
. He was a world
champion, for Christ’s sake! He couldn’t remember the last time somebody had
looked at him with disappointment in their pretty blue eyes, turned away from
the hand he was holding out.

Maybe he could
show Evan his belt? He’d liked the condo. He wasn’t a
fool,
he could see the life that boxing had bought. But none of it seemed to impress
Evan much. Not enough to ignore how Jesse had earned this money. He disapproved
of boxing. Not because of some bullshit abstract notion of brutality, but
because he worked with people with damaged brains every day. He didn’t approve
of guys on blood pressure medicine getting into the bourbon or eating Mickey
D’s fries. He didn’t approve of boxers being hit on the head until they had
brain damage. He wasn’t being an asshole. He was just being himself. He
probably hadn’t thought about it much until Jesse had stood right in front of
him, shoved his face in the reality of what he did.

He thought
about Bo’s face, both eyes purple and so swollen he could barely see, his cheek
cut open, swaying on his feet. What would the MRI of his brain look like? Was
there a tear? Was something bleeding in his head, something that would steal
his balance, steal his eyesight? Jesse could see their faces, a line of boxers,
with bruised, cut faces, spinning away from his fists, the fat thump of a vicious
right hook connecting with a chin, or an eye. He’d had nine KO’s in his career.
How many of those men could walk straight today? Was this his gift to the
world? Would he be willing to give another man brain damage? For the title? For
money?

And there was
more. He dragged it out, forced himself to face it, his worst fear. He’d always
known he could give up the boxing, do something else. He boxed with the door
open, free to walk through and into another life. If he got hit too many more
times, if the damage to his brain became permanent, he’d lose the possibility
of a different future. If he damaged his brain, his chances to do anything else
besides box would disappear. And then he’d be boxing with the door slammed
shut, no other future, no choice but to continue until he was too punch drunk
to fight, until they took everything away from him. He’d seen it a hundred
times with other boxers who couldn’t walk away. Would he feel the same way
about it, when he couldn’t choose another path?

Jesse dug
through his wallet, pulled out the card Evan had given him with the cell phone
number scrawled on the back. When Evan picked up, he said, “You didn’t name
that cat something asinine like Pink Patty-Pants, did you? If you did, I’m not
coming back to therapy.”

“Pink
Patty-Pants? No, his name is George.”

“You named your
cat after George Foreman?”

“Who?”

“Forget it.”

“Jesse, I’m
sorry. I don’t have any business turning away from you like that. I mean,
you’re a patient. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I’m not just a
patient. You’re allowed to disapprove of a friend. You can even act like an
asshole to a friend, but not all the time. You get one free pass.”

“I’m happy
you’re not just a patient. I’m actually thinking of moving you from the friend
category to the hot boyfriend slot.”

“Really. You
have just one hot boyfriend slot, right?”

“Right. So, you
aren’t mad at me anymore? You want to have phone sex?”

“No thanks.
I’ll hold out for the real thing.”

“Are you coming
to PT tomorrow?”

“I’m going to
swing by, and I want you to go for a drive with me. I want to show you
something.”

“Okay. Listen,
thanks for calling me. I was trying to figure out how to call you without
getting into your medical records to find your phone number.”