Learning to Box

So, Gene Horne is having a birthday today... Ah Gene, I remember ye well. Those winter evenings in the Christ The King basement under your watchful eye, wearing boxing gloves and sweatslippery headgear and paired off against a much quicker and more muscular Tommy Hemphill '62', as I shuffled and jabbed and flinched and blocked and punched and missed and punched and hit, and then GOT hit—really hard, right in my snout—and then stood over in the corner gasping for breath while you wiped the blood off my snout with a towel you'd brought along for that very purpose and kept draped over one of the top ropes for whenever you might need it. Mine was not the only blood on that towel, and I remember I always jerked away from the crusty feel of it when you wiped it across my nose and upper lip.

Lordy... I can feel it, even now.

I think one of the reasons I got pretty good pretty quick back then was because I couldn't stand your nastya*ss towel.

Shame on you, Gene. You lied to me and you lied to my mother when you promised us my nose would not get bent, because it GOT bent and it HURT getting it bent, and you'd told me I wouldn't get hurt, either.

So that's two lies, right off the bat.

But this letter is supposed to be celebratory in nature, so I'll stop with the reprimands...

Except to remind you of this one last lie you told:

I got my nose broken for me—really broken—in the Spokane Golden Gloves finals in 1965. I'd won the battle but lost the war, so to speak. I looked a lot worse than the guy I beat. My nose was swollen double its normal size and made a slight clicking sound when I prodded it with my forefinger.

We were in the locker room and I was sitting on a bench, still in my boxing trunks, and you were cutting off my handwraps with a pair of scissors.

"Hey Gene," I said.

"What?" you muttered. You were bent over my hands and snipping with the scissors.

"It's broken, isn't it?"

"What is?" You kept snipping.

"My nose, dammit. My nose is broken."

You didn't answer.

"Isn't it?" I insisted. "My damn nose is broken."

You stood up and tossed the wad of used handwraps over into the trashcan. Then you looked at me.

"Is my nose broken?"

You waited a long moment before you answered.

"No. No, it's not broken. It's puffed up pretty bad, but that'll go down in a couple days. Now... you're gonna have a couple black eyes because of getting poked in the snout the way you did, but those'll go away in about a week. So...now, go take a shower. We gotta go out and pick up your trophy."

"So my nose is NOT broken?" I just wanted to hear you say it one more time.

"No, your nose isn't broken."

Dear Gene Horne, wherever you are...

It is 55 years since that night in Spokane, and it's your birthday and I'm standing here in front of my mirror and wishing you a happy one and thanking you for the many wonderful times we shared together.

And I mean that. But Gene...

That thing you told me about my nose not being broken...

That was a lie.

But thank you for not telling me the truth at the time.

TDK '65'

• Last Time Around
  
• Charlie Nevins
  
• Young Men And Fire
  
• Austin Healy
  
• Cathy
  
• David River's Birthday
  
• Han's Pavilion
  
• Muscles, Our Neighbor
  
• John Browne, Learning to Dance
  
• Your Brother Mark Browne
  
• Buster
  
• Celluloid Lies
  
• Nuked
  
• Learning to Box
  
• Dog and Goose
  
• Buses and Such
  
• Stealing
  
• Hookybobbing
  
• Stiles Old Upstairs Apartment
  
• Sign Of The Time
  
• Learning to Drive