The Manager Page 2

  Tina preferred worn-out, filthy old copies of The Ring that had been passed around by every guy in the gym and read on buses, on lunch counters and on toilets. They’d been used as place mats under chili (you could tell from the stuck-on kidney beans), folded into a tube to be used as a megaphone during training and had big holes in them where somebody had torn out ads for muscle-boosting vitamins or cures for balding. To me, every cover looked the same: some man, naked from the waist, holding up his fists and looking like you’d just insulted his mother. Tina said it was the “bible of boxing” and besides, where else could you find articles on Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and the Sugar Rays – Robinson and Leonard. I said it was no way to treat a bible.

  Part of the reason why Tina didn’t buy magazines and satisfied herself with these beat-up copies was because she was trying to save money. The pittance of an allowance our father gave us had to be used for clothes, so anything extra we had to earn ourselves. The two of us delivered newspapers, and we helped Azalea in the store whenever she asked us. I liked working for Azalea – and I wanted the money, too – but more often than not, I let Tina have the job because she needed it more than I did. And even though I strongly doubted she’d ever have enough saved, she remained firm in her conviction that one day she would be able to afford the surgery that was going to make her taller.

  It was called the Ilizarov procedure, after a Russian physician. I didn’t know who this Dr. Ilizarov was or from what school of masochism he graduated, but the whole thing sounded barbaric to me.

  The procedure wasn’t being performed in Canada yet, but in Boston, researchers had begun trials at a medical centre associated with Harvard University. It was Dan Campbell who suggested it to Tina in the first place; his uncle was working with a team of orthopedic surgeons trying to perfect the technique. But there was no way our father would pay for it, so all Tina could do was hope that one day she’d win the lottery or find buried treasure.

  My sister couldn’t be cajoled into seeing her life in a positive way – she resented being a dwarf. And hers was not a feeble little stick-out-your-tongue sort of resentment, but a deep-seated, I’ll-make-you-and-everyone-I-know-miserable-because-I’m-miserable kind of bitterness. And there was nothing I could do to change her mind.

  I tried to talk her out of the Ilizarov procedure, but trying to talk my sister out of anything was like trying to swim at the edge of a whirlpool. Probably the longest series of operations ever devised, the technique required using a saw to cut through the bone and screws that are turned every day while new tissue grows and a horrible frame worn on the limbs and an endless period of recovery. I couldn’t stand the thought of my sister’s limbs being cut like that and the excruciating pain that must be the result.

  She told me that physical pain, no matter how much agony it entailed, was only temporary. I guess what she was really trying to say was that the other kind was endless.

  “Tina?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie, go to sleep,” she snapped.

  “What was it like, drinking beer with Mickey O’Shea?” I propped myself up on my elbow.

  She rolled over to face me.

  “If I tell you, will you shut up?”

  I nodded my head.

  “It’s like this. We’re both used to being gawked at every time we walk in a restaurant, every time we cross the street – hell, we can’t even buy a pack of gum without somebody looking over their shoulder. So we agreed that it was nice, for a change, to imagine it was the other person that everyone was staring at.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  By the time June rolled around, I had long since put O’Shea and the evil Dr. Sawbones out of my mind, having no idea that the two of them would soon be back to haunt me. I passed all my final exams and even tried to get Tina to attempt a few herself, but she refused, and Tina making up her mind was a process similar to pouring cement. She said she didn’t want to. Said she didn’t want to listen to teachers berate her for missing classes. Said she didn’t want to be asked, “Where’ve you been?” and “Are you okay?” by well-meaning fellow students who, in Tina’s words, were so enchanted with themselves for being nice to her, they floated a foot off the ground and left a trail of light wherever they went. She preferred the artless, uncaring ones from smoker’s corner who laughed when she walked by. At least she could tell them to go to hell.

  School was, for me, a chance to get away from the mouthpieces, gym equipment and B.O. that turned up everywhere in our apartment. Once, when I found a protective cup in our freezer beside the waffles and asked Tina what the heck that was all about, she squinted her eyes and shook her head in disbelief at the stupidity of my question, like I had just asked her why the frozen beans were in there. (It turned out to be an old trick to get a boxer moving when he first stepped into the ring.)

  So when classes finished for the year, and the best respite I could hope for was the occasional moment of peace at Azalea’s, the prospect of two long months of nothing but boxers and boxing was a sobering one. Which explains why I didn’t put up much of an argument when presented with a golden ticket out of the Pier.

  It was early in July when everything was set into motion. I’d put our supper in the oven and gone down to the gym to see if my sister would come to the store with me for a soda. But it was one of those rare occasions when my father was busy with the amateurs, so Tina had a chance to try coaching Flyin’ Ryan, and nothing – fire, flood or earthquake – would get her to move.

  “Byrne!” she hollered. “Keep your toes in. And you’re forgetting what I told you – as a southpaw, it’s got to work for you, not against you. I don’t care what Sandy said. You’ve got to keep your strong arm for defence right from the get-go. And you’ve got to stay inside for the uppercut. An uppercut from outside loses its power. You know that.”

  “Yeah.” He ignored my sister, jumped back into the ring and continued sparring with the other boxer.

  “What do you want?” Tina asked me, but her eyes were on Byrne. “No, no, no,” she said. “You keep letting your right shoulder drop every time, Byrne. And when you’re out there with a real contender, that’s the opening he’ll be looking for, believe me. Do you want to be drinking your meals out of a straw for six weeks? You drop that shoulder to throw an uppercut, and you’ll be taking a left hook to the jaw.”

  “Do you want to go to Azalea’s for a pop?”

  “Not now, Ellie,” she said through gritted teeth. “Byrne, I’m telling you, if you stay on the outside, he will see that uppercut coming. Your straight right jab can come from a distance, but—”

  “What the hell are you telling him now?” My father stormed over to Tina and blew his whistle so loud he stopped every boxer in the gym and every car in the city. “I’ve warned you already about giving Byrne advice. He only needs one trainer and that is not you.”

  “You’re teaching him the fancy moves, but you’re forgetting the obvious,” blurted Tina, her eyes raging and her face red with anger. “This business about waiting until the second round to reveal he’s a lefty is crap, Sandy. It’s a gimmick. And if you don’t get Byrne to keep on the inside, he’ll never make it to a national title. Never.”

  “And how many rounds have you gone in the ring?”

  I’d hoped that Ryan Byrne would have stood up for Tina. Said something – anything. But as usual, he left my sister in the dust. I don’t know why she wanted to be bothered with him, and I wasn’t going to hang around and watch her be dismissed like that, so I headed across the road, leaving my father and Tina to duke it out, as usual.

  “Hi, Azalea,” I muttered, closing the door behind me. She had her radio tuned to a jazz station and turned it down when I came in.

  “What’s wrong? The two of them at it again?”

  I took a cola from the refrigerator and checked my pocket for change.

  “It’s on the house,” said Azalea. “That is if you
’ll sit a spell and tell me what’s going on.”

  She opened two pops, and we sat down outside on the step. The skinny ash trees that grew up on each side of the store cast long shadows in the late afternoon sun, but the concrete felt warm under my legs. Cars passed by us, leaving dusty clouds that lazily drifted past.

  “We could use some rain,” said Azalea, looking up at the pale blue sky like she was waiting for it to start any time.

  I realized I hadn’t answered her question.

  “My father and Tina can’t agree about Ryan Byrne.”

  “Oh, I see.” She took several sips of pop. “Well, I won’t take sides, that’s for sure, but your daddy, now he was quite a boxer himself back in the day. Must know something.”

  “Ever see him fight?”

  “I sure did. Many times. I didn’t get down to the matches in Halifax, but when my boys were young, I took them to every fight around here. And this was the place to be for boxing twenty years ago. Your daddy fought at the old Venetian Gardens, before it burned down, and in New Waterford and right here in the Pier.”

  “That must have been soon after he moved up from Springhill, with my mother.”

  “Yes, I guess it was. He was working in the Glace Bay mine then, and boxing every chance he could get.” She smiled. “Oh, your father was exciting to watch. Most of his opponents couldn’t last three rounds with him. Everyone thought he’d go straight to the top, but then….” Her expression changed.

  “Yeah, I know. He injured his hand somehow.”

  “Shattered every bone. Never fought again.” Azalea looked across the road to the gym. Then back up at the sky. “In 1963, it was. Just after your mother—”

  “After she died?”

  “Yes, Ellie.” She took another sip of her cola, then poured a few drops out for a tiny ant that crawled over the step beside her. “You know, you look more like her every day.”

  “That’s what my father told me,” I said, and she put her arm around my back. I loved talking to Azalea, and I think she liked having me around, especially since her daughter didn’t live in Sydney.

  “Is Bonita coming home for the summer?” I asked. Azalea had four children, and Bonita, the only girl, was the eldest in the family. She taught school in Truro, and I was hoping to ask her about becoming a teacher myself.

  “She’ll be here tomorrow. She’s going to spend a few days with me, then she’s driving down through the New England states. Wants to visit the historical sights. You know Bonita.”

  “Are you going with her?”

  “No, Ellie,” replied Azalea. “I’d like to, but I can’t leave the store for that long of a time.” She pointed across the road at Tina who was heading our way. “Here comes your sister now.”

  Azalea went inside to fetch her a pop.

  “Don’t say a word, Ellie, I’m not in the mood.” Tina plunked herself down beside me and buried her face in her hands. “God, this step is hot.” She rubbed the underside of her thighs.

  “Here you go,” said Azalea, handing her the soda as the screen door closed behind her. “That’ll cool you off.”

  Tina reached for the bottle and was about to thank Azalea when Dan Campbell pulled up beside the gas pump, just a few yards away from where we sat.

  Tina jumped when she saw him. She looked like a kid who had been caught with a cigarette burning between her fingers. She started shoving her hair behind her ears. Then she tried to stretch her top down over her knees.

  “Hey, Tina,” said Dan. “And Ellie and Mrs. Lester. How are you ladies doing today?”

  While Azalea and I chatted with him, I watched Tina from the corner of my eye. Without getting up, she slowly pulled a newspaper out of the stand next to her, then (when she thought nobody was looking) draped it over her lap.

  I knew why. She wasn’t expecting Dan to be around that afternoon, and she was wearing shorts. She didn’t want him to see her legs.

  “Tina,” said Dan, leaning against the side of his car, “I have got the most unbelievable news. Unbelievable.”

  “Going to fight in the amateur bout in New Glasgow?” She looked up at him, shading her eyes with the back of one hand while holding the newspaper down with the other.

  “No. It’s better than that.”

  “Well, what is it?” I asked.

  He turned to Tina.

  “I told my Uncle Seamus all about you and he wants to meet you. If you fit the criteria for the study – and he thinks you will – he and his team will perform the operation. Gratis. Even the months you have to stay in the hospital will be free of charge. Free of charge!”

  He sounded like he was trying to sell her a Veg-o-matic or sign her up for a correspondence course.

  Tina said nothing.

  I said nothing.

  Azalea asked him what the devil he was talking about.

  “The Ilizarov procedure. For limb lengthening. They’re going to make Tina … well, you know, they can increase her height. Fix her proportions. All she has to do is get herself to Boston.” He looked at Tina again. “You can get to Boston, can’t you?”

  My sister had a glassy stare. It appeared to be a weird blend of embarrassment, indignation and fear.

  I had a million thoughts in my head and couldn’t get my lips around any one of them. Thank God for Azalea.

  “Oh,” she said, horrified at the suggestion, “that’s ridiculous. Nobody goes under the knife that doesn’t have to.” She picked up the empty bottles and stood up. For a minute, I thought she was going to start throwing them at him. “Tina’s a beautiful and healthy young woman. She doesn’t need no fancy doctors changing her around.”

  “Tina wants to be made taller,” said Dan. “Don’t you, Tina?”

  Tina nodded her head, sort of. But it was not up and down, nor was it from side to side. It was on a diagonal.

  “Is it dangerous?” Azalea asked Dan.

  He thought about it for a minute and then, with all the warmth of a Victorian spinster, replied, “There are risks with any operation. It’s worth it for her to feel better about herself.”

  You mean you’ll feel better about her, I thought.

  “We’ll talk later,” he said, looking at Tina. He opened his car door and climbed in. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you know how many people are trying to get a place in this trial?” He sped off in his two-seater like it was a white stallion. It’s a wonder he didn’t shout, “Hi-ho, Silver! Away!”

  And Tina? She said nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  When I tried to get her to respond, she just sat there, so pale and lifeless she looked like I’d just helped her out of a coffin.

  Azalea put a hand on her shoulder, then went inside.

  The newspaper dropped off Tina’s knees.

  “Well,” I muttered, “Dan certainly cares about you. That’s for sure.”

  God, I thought, that sounded bad. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Tina took a chunk of broken concrete and smashed it into a million pieces.

  “Cares about me?” she snarled. “I’m so glad he ‘cares’ about me.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing wrong with being cared for, Ellie. Nothing wrong at all.” She reached for another piece of stone. “If you’re a pet lizard or a great aunt.” She stood up and started across the street.

  And then I got it. I understood. Tina wasn’t interested in Dan’s concern.

  Tina wanted to be loved.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tina didn’t mention Boston again and neither did I. I kept to myself for a couple of days, spending the long hours reading and looking out the window to see if Bonita Lester was around. Tina did what she always does: she boiled mouthpieces to fit the amateurs (pros like Ryan Byrne had theirs custom made by a dentist), brewed up her secret special sa
lve (supposed to be a miracle styptic that stops bleeding instantly) and stood on top of a crate with two huge red training mitts on her hands, hollering at the young trainees to hit the bull’s eye or she’d hit them.

  I didn’t care if she wanted to wear those big stupid gloves (even if, with her diminutive stature, she resembled a lobster) and I didn’t care if she cooked mouthpieces (although I wished she wouldn’t use our spaghetti pot to do so). But whenever it came time to whip up a batch of her miracle styptic, I prepared myself not only for the huge cleanup of the kitchen that would follow, but also for her cloak-and-dagger antics. Upon returning from the drug store with a brown paper bag full of unmarked tinctures, she would proceed to push two or three chairs against the kitchen door and draw the curtains before beginning her work.

  I often listened from the hall and could hear her dragging the stepladder from one side of the room to the other so she could reach the cupboards, occasionally swearing when she burned herself on the stove and counting out one quarter teaspoon of this and two droppers full of that. What this and that were, I never did find out, although it wasn’t from lack of trying. Once I even resorted to putting on sunglasses and a big hat and hiding in the pharmacy, in an attempt to hear what mysterious ingredients she was procuring from the druggist. (I was promptly taken aside by a clerk with crusty eyes who, in a low throbbing voice, filled me in on the various kinds of contraceptives they had in stock and how they should be used.)

  To this day, Tina refuses to give up her recipe, and just like any 15th-century alchemist worth his salt, she’s committed the constituents, the amounts and the cooking time to memory so that it won’t be until she’s been read the last rites that she will reveal what’s in this magic styptic. Which explains why, when she had finally perfected her formula – when this mixture of herbal tinctures was able to stop the blood gushing from even the most stubborn laceration – she expected my father to jump for joy. A boxer with blood running into his eyes isn’t going to last long in the ring, for three reasons: he won’t be able to see a thing, the ringside physician will likely make him stop fighting (and his opponent will win by a technical knockout) and, since boxers aren’t too far off vampires when it comes to their thirst for blood, the other guy is going to do everything he can to reopen the wound. This is why the cut man, who cleans up the bloody mess between rounds, is so crucial to the sport. And this is why Tina was so excited to unveil her elixir and test it out in the gym.