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thing. Hooks is a bitch.”
    Tim Pat said, “You cussed.”
    Earl said, “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. Jab.”
    Tim Pat jabbed until his left arm began to droop. He looked quizzically at his glove, then moved off to the side before dropping it. Earl liked seeing Tim Pat move out of range before dropping his guard.
    Earl said, “Don’t worry about it, even small gloves are heavy for your size.”
    Tim Pat said, “How about me throwin a lead hook, Earl?”
    “Too soon. Lead hook comes once you got the regular hook right. When you get it, the lead hook’ll be easy.”
    “Hooks’re hard, Earl.”
    “Jab.”
    Earl would stay away from the hook, let Tim Pat forget about it, would slip it in when Tim Pat wasn’t ready for it. He kept the kid jabbing and throwing the right.
    “Jab, jab, one-two!” Earl stopped at the bell and said, “Like your granddaddy says, be slick. Set the man up. Make him think right, then you go left.”
    Tim Pat said, “I got all that in my head, but I still can’t throw the hook.”
    Earl said, “Watch. Bring the hook off the one-two, or off the jab, like this.”
    “That’s pretty, Earl.”
    Earl had Tim Pat demonstrate the move in front of the mirror in slow motion. He got it right, and Earl had him do it faster. Tim Pat got it right again.
    “Was I pretty?”
    “Like a hummin bird,” Earl said. “Now be pretty on the mitts for me. Set your guy up. Jab or throw one-twos, or mix your punches up, go to the body until he starts droppin his hands, or he oversteers on your head shots and brings both gloves in tight to protect that nose you been workin on. Let him think he’s safe behind his hands and keep firin your shots into his gloves. He’ll blink from the noise, if nothin else, okay? But once you got him thinking he’s safe from the one-two, and he peeks out, that’s when you throw it again quick as you can,
bing-bing,
and right then’s when you unload that hook. You got to think it right to get it right, okay?”
    “I got it.”
    Earl knew that Tim Pat would be in buzz-saw fights where the little guys flurried in one-minute rounds bell to bell. There were few knockdowns, and except for a rare nosebleed, nobody got hurt. He didn’t expect a boxing match out of Tim Pat, but he hoped that the kid could get off a few properly thrown punches in the upcoming competition.
    Earl went back to the jab. “Let’s go. Jab. Jab. Double up on him. Do it again. Jab, jab to the body. Jab to the head. Double up. Double up. One-
two-hook
!”
    Tim Pat fired the one-two,
bing-bang!,
rocked back for balance and leverage, and
BOOM!
    Earl plopped to the floor as if knocked out, as so many had been, by the Brown Bomber himself, Joe Louis. Tim Pat threw both arms in the air.
    “Yeow!” Earl whooped. “My baby boy!”

Chapter 4
    I t was six-fifteen on Saturday morning. Tim Pat had won his first fight the night before, in Carson.
    Dan and Tim Pat were headed back to Carson. They made it in five minutes from home to the on-ramp at Melrose and Normandie, where they picked up the Hollywood Freeway heading downtown, then onto the 110 Freeway, and headed south. Dan was still sleepy, and had been so excited by Tim Pat’s win that he’d been unable to sleep until three a.m. Tim Pat had already been out when Dan kissed him good night, but now the kid was wide awake. Every few minutes he proudly touched the slight abrasion at the side of his neck.
    The 110 Freeway was nearly empty. Grandfather and grandson quickly moved past the coliseum, built as the Olympic Auditorium for the 1932 Olympics. Soon they went through South Central, and were heading to the 110-405 Interchange south of Gardena. Dan would swing the pickup east on the 405, and head for the industrial town of Carson. A three-day Silver Gloves Tournament for kids eight through fifteen was being held at the Carson American Legion Hall. The weigh-in was at seven a.m., and Tim Pat was scheduled to fight his second fight of the tournament