Pound for Pound Read Online Free

complicity, she’d kept the whole tale secret from him.
    Padraic said, “Would it not appear that the lad’s mother invaded the time-honored domain of the lad’s own father?”
    Nora placed the back of one hand to her brow in mock martyrdom. “The louts were stealin me pie.”
    “So, it’s sympathy for yerself yer afther, is it?” he said.
    “‘Tis,” she said. “Because they stole me cake, too.”
    Padraic filled his pipe with cavendish. “So the lad’s good with his mitts, is he?”
    “Och, Paddy, he’s wizard,” she said.
    Once Dan had put the bullies on their asses, he suddenly had friends who were Slavs, blacks, Mexicans, and Italians. When he began winning amateurtournaments and collecting fight trophies, those same friends invited him home to eat delicious meals prepared by their mothers, who seemed exotic to Dan. Though he was delighted by the food, and always had seconds, he was ever glad to return to the meat and
badehdahs
and the Irish bread he got at home. And pie.
    Though he’d never be big enough to play on the high school football team, he was big and tough enough to fight. He got that way working his freckled ass off and eating the best Slav and soul food, and Mexican and Italian and Irish food in San Pedro, pronounced “Peedro” by the locals. Padraic was his greatest fan, and the more the kid had to train in order to win, the less he had to work in the shop. Nora had wanted at least one priest from her litter. Her other two sons would become cops and firemen, but Dan was her fighter, and sometimes she wondered, God forgive her, if he just might be her favorite because of it, her Brian Ború.
    At eighteen, Dan was good enough to win the California Golden Gloves featherweight title at the Olympic Auditorium. Coach Gallardo turned him over to professional trainer Willie “Shortcake” Daw, Earl’s father, and Dan made the trip in from San Pedro daily to train at the old Main Street Gym on L.A.’s skid row. It was there in the stink and spit that he learned to grow the nails on his thumbs and forefingers longer than on his other fingers, to better snag and remove adhesive tape from his hand wraps after sparring.
    Shortcake Daw worked full time as a sorter in Los Angeles’s old main post office across from Union Station. He also hustled football cards for a bookie on Central Avenue, and doubled his income among his fellow postal workers. If an inspector came sniffing around, Shortcake would slip him a few cards for himself. He made a lot of friends among government inspectors, who’d go out of their way to make social calls.
    Under Shortcake, Dan developed into a slick and tireless boxer-puncher, and his black hair and handsome face reminded old-time fans of Irish Billy Conn, the great light-heavyweight out of Pittsburgh. TheIrish dubbed him “Connman” Danny Cooley to connect him to Billy Conn. “Connman” identified Dan with the cleverness of Billy Conn in the ring, but also hooked him to the “con” in the word “confetti”—Irish confetti—the old mick term for bricks.
    By the time he was twenty-two, Dan had grown into a tall and wiry lightweight at 135 with a pro record of thirty-two and two, with twenty-one knockouts. He’d never been down, and most fight fans believed he was on his way to the world lightweight title. Because he stood five-nine, it was also thought that he would grow into a welterweight, and that he was good enough to hold both world titles at the same time.
    But all those hopes turned to ashes when Dan sustained massive injuries to his right eye and the bone structure around it. The fight that was the one he needed to win to get his shot at being a champion turned out to be his last fight.
    It was like déjà vu to Dan.
    One evening, while they were washing and drying the dishes, Tim Pat said, “Grampa, I wanna start comin home for my lunch, okay?”
    Dan said, “I thought you liked the lunches I make.”
    “I do, but I like eatin at home