“Well, I guess you’ve got an excuse this time — you fought real well.”
“Where’s the next one on at?”
“Ashfield, I think, then Helensburgh.”
“Rube?”
“What now?”
“Why haven’t y’ moved into Steve’s room?”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Why hasn’t Sarah?”
“I think Mum wants to turn it into like an office, for doin’ paperwork and that kind of thing. That’s what she said, anyway.”
I say, “And it wouldn’t feel right, I don’t reckon.”
The basement is Steve’s room and it always will be. He’s moved on but the rest of the Wolfe family stay as they are. They need to. I feel it in the dusty night air, and I taste it.
I also have another question.
I don’t ask it.
I can’t bring myself.
It’s that girl.
I think about it but I don’t ask it.
There are some things you just don’t ask.
CHAPTER 10
We train and fight and keep training, and I get my first win up. It’s down in Helensburgh, against some lowlife yobbo who keeps calling me cowboy.
“That all y’ got, cowboy, huh?”
“You hit like my mother, cowboy.”
All that kind of thing.
I put him down once in the third and twice in the fifth. I win it on points. Fifty dollars, but more importantly, a win. A sniff of victory for the Underdog. It feels gr
eat, especially at the end, when Rube smiles at me and I smile back.
“I’m proud a’ you.”
That’s what he says afterward, in the dressing room, before concentrating again. Later, he worries me. He … I don’t know.
I notice a deliberate change in my brother. He’s harder. He has a switch, and once a fight comes near, he flicks it and he is no longer my brother Rube. He’s a machine. He’s a Steve, but different. More violent. Steve’s a winner because he’s always been a winner. Rube’s a winner because he wants to beat the loser out of himself. Steve knows he’s a winner, but I think Rube’s still trying to prove it to himself. He’s fiercer, more fiery, ready to beat all loss from his vision.
He’s Fighting Ruben Wolfe.
Or is he actually fighting Ruben Wolfe?
Insid
Proving himself.
To himself.
I don’t know.
It’s in each eye.
The question.
Each breath.
Who’s fighting who?
Each hope.
In the ring tonight, he leaves his opponent in pieces. The other guy is barely there, from the very beginning. Rube has something over all of them. His desire is severe, and his fists are fast. Every time the guy goes down, Rube stands over him tonight, and he tells him.
“Get up.”
Again.
“Get up.”
By the third one, he can’t. This time, Rube screams at him. “Get up, boy!”
He lays into the padding in the corner and kicks it before climbing back out.
In the dressing room Rube doesn’t look at me. He speaks words that are not directed at anyone. He says, “Another one, ay. Two rounds and he’s on the deck.”
More women like him.
I see them watching him.
They’re young and trashy and good-looking. They like tough fellas, even though guys like that are likely to treat them poorly. I guess women are only human too. They’re as stupid as us sometimes. They seem to like the bad ones a bit.
But is Rube bad? I ask myself.
It’s a good question.
He’s my brother.
Maybe that’s all I know.
As weeks edge past us, he fights and wins and he doesn’t bother shaving. He turns up and wins. Turns up and wins. He only smiles when I fight well.
At school, there’s a new air about him. People know him. They recognize him. They know he’s tough, and people have heard. They know he does fight nights, though none of them know that I do. It’s for the best, I s’pose. If they saw me fight, it would only make them laugh. I would be Rube’s sidekick. They’d say, Go watch them Wolfes fight, ay. The younger one, what’s his name, he’s a joke, but Ruben can fight like there’s no tomorrow.
“It’s all rumors,” is what Rube tells people. “I don’t fight anywhere except in my backyard.” He lies well. “Look at the bruises on my brother. We fight all the time at home, but that’s it. No more than that.”
O morning, a colder one than normal, but clear, we go out for a run. The sun’s barely coming up, and as we run, we see some fellas just coming home. They’ve been out all night.
“Hey Rubey!” one yells.
It’s an old mate of Rube’s named Cheese. (Well, at least, his nickname’s Cheese, anyway. I don’t think anyone knows his real name.) He’s standing on the walkway up to Central Station with a giant pumpkin