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was strong. He even talked tough and he was dead serious; there wasn’t a happy muscle in his face.
    “How you doin’, I’m Cus,” he introduced himself. He had a strong Bronx accent. He was with a younger trainer named Teddy Atlas.
    Bobby and I got in the ring and started sparring. I started out strong, really knocking Bobby around the ring. We would usually do three rounds, but in the middle of the second round Bobby hit me in the nose with a couple of rights and I started bleeding. It didn’t really hurt but the blood was all over my face.
    “That’s enough,” Atlas said.
    “But, sir, please let me finish this round and go one more round. That’s what we normally do,” I pleaded. I wanted to impress Cus.
    I guess I had. When we got out of the ring, Cus’s first words to Bobby were, “That’s the heavyweight champion of the world.”
    Right after that sparring session, we went to Cus’s house for lunch. He lived in a big white Victorian house on ten acres. You could see the Hudson River from the porch. There were towering maple trees and large rosebushes on the side of the house. I had never seen a house like that in my life.
    We sat down and Cus told me he couldn’t believe I was only thirteen years old. And then he told me what my future would be. He had seen me spar for not even six minutes, but he said it in a way that was like law.
    “You looked splendid,” he said. “You’re a great fighter.” It was compliment after compliment. “If you listen to me, I can make you the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.”
    Fuck, how could he know that shit? I thought he was a pervert. In the world I came from, people do shit like that when they want to perv out on you. I didn’t know what to say. I had never heard anyone say nice things about me before. I wanted to stay around this old guy because I liked the way he made me feel. I’d later realize that this was Cus’s psychology. You give a weak man some strength and he becomes addicted.
    I was excited on the ride back to Tryon. I was sitting with a bunch of Cus’s roses in my lap. I had never seen roses in person before, only on television, but I wanted some because they looked so exquisite. I wanted to have something nice to take back with me so I asked him if I could take some. Between the smell of the roses and Cus’s words ringing in my ears, I felt good, like my whole world had changed. In that one moment, I knew I was going to be somebody.
    “I think he likes you,” Bobby said. “If you’re not a prick and an asshole, this will go well.” I could tell Bobby was happy for me.
    I got back to my cottage and put the roses in water. Cus had given me a huge boxing encyclopedia to look at and I didn’t sleep that whole night, I just read the whole book. I read about Benny Leonard and Harry Greb and Jack Johnson. I got turned out real bad. I wanted to be like those guys; they looked like they had no rules. They worked hard, but on their downtime they just lounged and people came to them like they were gods.
    I started going out to Cus’s house every weekend to work out. I’d work with Teddy in the gym and then I’d stay over at Cus’s house. There were a few other fighters living there with Cus and his companion, a sweet Ukrainian lady named Camille Ewald. When I first got to the house, I would steal money from Teddy’s wallet. Hey, that shit doesn’t go away just because you got some good shit going on. I had to get money for weed. I would hear Teddy tell Cus, “It has to be him.”
    “It’s not him,” Cus said.
    I was excited about the boxing, but I became certain that boxing was what I wanted to do with my life after I watched the first Leonard-Duran fight on TV at Cus’s house one weekend. Wow, that fight turned me out, it was so exciting. They were both so stylish and deadly, throwing punches so fast. It looked choreographed, like the two of them were acting. I was just amazed. I’ve never felt that feeling again.
    When I