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at—”
    â€œI’m going with you, Starkey.” She was already climbing into the front seat.
    â€œI’m going to Las Vegas.”
    â€œCool.”

7
    S ONNY WAS PICKING at a room service hamburger and watching a baseball game with Malik and Boyd when Hubbard marched in with a stranger and announced, “Meet the top jock doc from the university, Dr. Gould.”
    Sonny looked up at a round-faced man with a bushy mustache. “What’s this about?”
    â€œThink we should talk to a professional,” said Hubbard. “The new mot-to in sports: You gotta get shrunk to get bigger.”
    Sonny started to shake his head, tell them all to take a hike, when Malik said, “You think Sonny needs a psychiatrist?” and Boyd said, “That’s crazy,” and they laughed their stupid laugh.
    Sonny stood up. Talk to the man just to get away from the fools.
    The doctor motioned Sonny to follow him into the bedroom.
    â€œThe first time,” said Hubbard, “should bea family affair. We are all—”
    â€œMy patient is Sonny, not the family.” He closed the bedroom door and dragged two upholstered chairs to face each other.
    â€œNo couch?” asked Sonny sarcastically.
    â€œYou can use the bed if you like.” He sat down.
    Sonny sat in the other chair. He looked the doctor in the eyes with the cold glare he used to psych opponents during the ring instructions and was surprised to find him looking right back, friendly, interested. Not intimidated.
    â€œHave you been in therapy before?” asked the doctor.
    â€œPhysical therapy,” said Sonny.
    â€œThere are similarities. We start with the premise that the pain you are feeling is a symptom of something that’s wrong, at least out of balance. We work on it, sometimes causing more pain but moving toward the cause and hopefully…”
    â€œI couldn’t get started,” said Sonny. “Couldn’t get combinations going.”
    â€œWhat were you feeling?”
    â€œFrustrated.”
    â€œAt what?”
    â€œI been through all this. Read it in the papers.”
    â€œWhy’d you come in here with me if you don’t want to talk to me?” It was an honest question, Sonny thought, no nasty edge to it.
    Tell him the truth, see what he does with it. “Get away from them.”
    Doc was cool, didn’t try to use that to make friends with Sonny. He just nodded. “Okay, you said you were frustrated. What were you thinking?”
    â€œThat I didn’t know why I felt like that.”
    â€œLike what?”
    He could hear Hubbard and his donkeys braying outside. Might as well talk to this man a little. “Everything was heavy, slowed down. I pulled a muscle once, and Henry Johnson had me punch underwater while it healed. It felt like that.”
    â€œDid you think of anything else then?”
    â€œIn the middle of a fight?”
    â€œOther places, people, feelings you had? Pictures in your head?”
    Sonny remembered the floating faces in the crowd, Mom and Doll and Robin, Alfred and Marty and Jake. This wasn’t going to work. Hedidn’t want to talk about them.
    â€œWe don’t need to talk about this right now,” said Dr. Gould, as if he read Sonny’s mind. “Take me through the fight, as much detail as you can remember.”
    That was easy. He did it by himself all the time anyway. The fight was stored like a videotape on a shelf in his brain with all his fights. He let it unwind slowly. Dr. Gould stopped him from time to time, trying to get him to remember a feeling, a flash of memory, but he had none he wanted to share. He plowed on, boring himself, punch by punch. It must have been a boring fight to watch, he thought.
    When he finished, Dr. Gould leaned back in his chair, raked his mustache with his fingers, and said, “You know, if this were purely a mechanical problem, you could go back to the gym and work it out with