Excerpt

Hey…what about my money?

The desert air was clear and crisp, at the boxing camp of former heavyweight champ Frank L. Jackson, when Roman Lefthanded Losinski appeared.

Roman had answered a help-wanted ad in the Sedona Times Courier, for a gardener’s helper. As usual, the ad promised ten dollars-an-hour for labor work, but when Roman showed up to claim the job, he was informed that there was an ‘error’ by the newspaper and the most that he would be paid was eight dollars-an-hour (before deductions). He could have Sundays off, and working hours would be from 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. with a thirty-minute lunch. He could stay in the bunkhouse if needed, but it would cost him an extra twenty dollars-a-day, to be subtracted from his first paycheck.

The first days work was easy, mostly digging holes and putting in potted plants. His supervisor, an old Japanese gardener, took an instant liking to Roman and showed him where he could get water from a hose near the action of the boxing ring.

Roman noticed the Pro boxers sneaking looks at him as he drank water, but was used to people gawking at him. And besides, he was six foot eight inches tall and over two hundred-seventy pounds. Years of work for Alaska Glacier Seafood-loading halibut, some weighing over two hundred pounds, into freezer vans and various construction jobs across Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, mostly as a laborer, had developed Roman into a fine specimen of a working man’s man.

The Professional boxers tried to show off themselves a bit, as they punched the heavy bag, lifted weights, and showed their prowess with the speed bag. A couple of them, though including the training camp manager, couldn’t seem to concentrate on their work and kept looking over at the big man from Alaska, with his shirt off and his working muscles glistening with sweat- and rippling as he punched holes in the ground with the post hole digger and then lifted the big plants up before lowering them gently into the ground. The clincher though, came when the Japanese gardener needed to go for a hydraulic jack to lift the big Ford tractor front end and put on a freshly-repaired tire and wheel.

“Wait right here,” he said before adding, “I’m going to go get a jack so we can change the wheel.”

Roman said, “Wait; I’ll lift it, you put on the new wheel,” as he locked his hands around the axle, straightened his back and proceeded to lift the left front wheel of the tractor off the ground with his massive frame.

Eyes bulged and heads shook as they, the now staring boxers, watched in disbelief at what Roman was capable of lifting.

At 4:30 after his supervisor had gone home, Roman wandered over for a closer look at the Professionals still working hard at their craft. The speed bag crashed away in a familiar rhythm as Frank L. Jackson, the owner of the training camp, hit the bag for an eternity with his fists.

“Speed, timing, and finesse are what a great fighter needs,” Roman remembered his Grandfathers’ friend from England had told him when he was a teenager in Poland. All through high school, retired boxing trainer Albert Day had patiently coached Roman on the ‘Gentlemanly Art of Boxing,’ as he called it. The lessons served Roman well in after school boxing bouts, and he later applied them once or twice while serving in the Polish army.

“Hey you,” the fight camp manager called to Roman. “Do you want to make some quick cash for half-an-hours work?”

“Yeah sure,” came the interested reply.

“Ok here’s the deal, we need a new sparring partner for our boys, you put on these here gloves, climb in the ring, remain standing for thirty minutes, and I’ll pay you thirty bucks cash. Have we got a deal?”

Roman nodded his head in agreement.

Luis Raul Guzman, two hundred-eighteen pounds of finely tuned boxing muscle, was standing ringside and quickly answered the managers call to perform a twenty minute workout and give ‘our new volunteer’ a lesson on what a Pro can do.

Guzman advanced, the volunteer stepped backward cautiously. Roman gathered his wits and began remembering back to the lessons from Albert Day ‘…Focus on what you are doing, size-up your opponent carefully, keep your guard up & make him miss when you can. When you have figured his strength and style; begin peppering him with jabs, adding in a few stingers now-and-then to assume control…’

The right-hand jabs Roman began throwing were all accomplishing their intended purpose when suddenly he applied a bit too much ‘sting’ on one of them, and connected right on the button of Guzman’s jawbone. The professionals’ eyes glazed over, his knees buckled and down he went…

Ring assistants quickly helped Guzman out of the ring before the Manager gave the nod to Angel Rodriguez, another of the camps up-and-coming heavyweights. Roman was getting warmed up now and didn’t back-up as much. But Angel wasn’t in the ring more than a couple of minutes before he failed to live up to his first name and punched the Polish ‘volunteer’ four inches below the belt. Roman answered with four quick rights in succession; all of them found their mark on “Angel’s” face with the last by far doing the most damage and leaving the pro wobbling before falling face first onto the mat.

The big man still standing in the ring now had everybody’s attention…