Read Online Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole - Free Book Online

patients waiting to die, would see it in the astonished eyes of stroke victims at the hospital where Brigid had been treated. Tim’s broken and bleeding body was the image he’d see in every red sunset, in every blood moon.
    Earl saw Dan’s eyes. Nothing was in there. Earl thought of Brendan, of Terrance, of Mary Cat, of Brigid, and now Tim Pat. He looked into Dan’s eyes again. The brightness of life, the flame of the human pilot light, was burning dangerously low.
    Earl said, “C’mon, Dan, c’mon, baby, here, lemme help you up.”
    “I’m fine here.”
    Earl saw Lupe clutching her cell phone. “You call 911?” he asked.
    She nodded, then looked over at Dan. She saw the blood on him. “Is this little boy his?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry. I was going slowly. I can’t even say how sorry I am. I haven’t words in English or Spanish, but I am dead inside. Please ask him to forgive me.”
    One siren first, then two more, the high sounds coming from two directions. The police units came down Wilcox, the ambulance headed up from Melrose. Jesse’s face had gone gray. He began, soundlessly, to cry again. Lupe hadn’t stopped. She signed to her brother as Dan glanced over.
    It was an accident. The police will help.
    Dan saw Lupe and Jesse clearly for the first time, saw their dark skin and realized they were Latinos. That didn’t register, neither plus nor minus. But when he saw them signing, he thought they were throwing gang signs, and he went wild.
    Dan looked up to Earl and wiggled his fingers. “What’s this all about?”
    Earl said, “I don’t know.”
    “I do know,” Dan said.
    As the paramedics and police officers came up, Dan lowered Tim Pat and got to his feet. An officer said, “Sir?,” but Dan didn’t notice. He shoved past the officer, then swooped in on Lupe and began to choke her, lifted her in the air by her throat before the police could react. Earl pulled Dan off and wrapped his arms around him. Dan didn’t struggle, but his body trembled with rage. He hissed.
    “I’ll kill her, Earl, I’ll kill the little spic, and fuck the Fifth Commandment in the ass.”
    “Naw, baby,” said Earl. “Don’t be talkin that killin business.” “Christ is Satan, the son of a kike whore.”
    Dan gagged, nausea rising, pain flooding his chest. His hand went to his battered eye. He tried to die, but couldn’t.

CHICKY
Chapter 6
    E duardo “Chicky” Garza y Duffy was five-ten, and, by the time he was seventeen, weighed in at 149, two pounds over his fighting weight. He was tall for a welter, and was sure to grow at least into a junior middleweight at 154, maybe even a solid middleweight at 160. Only a few Mexican fighters were that tall, and nearly all of those were raised in the U.S. From his mother, Rafaela, Chicky had inherited a light complexion, so you couldn’t see the Mexican in him straight off.
    Chicky was a nickname that had developed first from
chico,
and then
chiquito,
words meaning small and smaller still. The name stuck because he was small and sickly as a child. Because of his light complexion and green eyes, he was often taken for white, despite his dark hair. Even Mexicans would sometimes call him
güero,
a word used to describe light-skinned, or blond, people. Once he started fighting as a boy, some of the other kids called him Zurdito, Lefty, but that nickname never stuck. Being a southpaw had helped in the amateurs, confused other fighters when he boxed in ways they were unused to, but he preferred Chicky.
    Garza y Duffy came from his grandpa Eloy’s side of the family. The Duffy handle stemmed from way back, when immigrant Irish soldiers, abused under General Zachary Taylor’s command during the Mexican-AmericanWars, deserted to fight for Mexico. An annual parade is held in San Antonio to celebrate them. Many Mexicans proudly carry Irish blood.
    Chicky didn’t know who his father was. His mother wasn’t sure, so she gave him her family name when he was born. All the kid