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Kevin Rooney, who had won the 147-pound Golden Gloves in New York four months earlier. Like me, Kevin came from a dysfunctional family, and he’d had several run-ins with the law. In those days the cops tried to get problem kids involved in boxing in the Police Athletic League, which is where Kevin and I first got close. We were boxing in an old laundry room in a rough project called Park Hill under the tutelage of this guy Ray Rivera. It was a no-frills setup. We’d pick our rubber mouthpieces out of a glass jar by the door and then put ’em back in the same jar when we were finished. Very sanitary. But it was a good program in lots ofways. It helped kids. I mean, when you think about the fact that Kevin and I are still involved in boxing, that says a lot.
    Anyway, Kevin went on to fight in the New York Golden Gloves, and during the tournament, the Hamill brothers, Pete, Brian, and Dennis, who knew Kevin’s brother, introduced him to Cus D’Amato, a well-known fight manager and trainer. Cus thought Kevin could turn pro eventually, and Jim Jacobs, who was Cus’s friend and business partner, offered to pay Kevin’s expenses so Kevin could live with Cus in Catskill, New York, and train at his gym. It was an offer that Kevin jumped at. Now, four months later, right after I got out of Rikers, Kevin called me up. He knew there was a good chance I’d get into trouble again hanging around Staten Island, and he was trying to help me out.
    â€œCome up here, Teddy. I’ll ask Cus, but I’m sure it’ll be okay with him. You can live here, train for the Gloves, and stay out of trouble while you’re waiting for trial.”
    I could see it was a good idea. I knew myself well enough at that point to see that he was right. I brought it up with my father, and my father, to his credit, agreed to foot the bill. Fifty bucks a week for my room and board.
    Sunday morning. October 1975. I’m in a train pulling into the town of Hudson, New York. Rikers seems a thousand miles away, though in reality I only got out a week ago.
    The train slows and stops with a hiss. I grab my bag and get off. Kevin Rooney is standing by an old white Dodge station wagon.
    â€œCus is back at the house,” Kevin says. We drive across the bridge through Catskill, New York, a small, blue-collar town of nineteen thousand that has seen more prosperous days. “You’ll see what I’m talking about, Teddy. Every day I learn something new from him.”
    Kevin explains that Cus shares the house with Camille Ewald, a Ukrainian woman, who has been his companion for many years. We pull up a long driveway outside a sprawling white Victorian mansion. Cus comes out on the porch. He’s heavyset, balding, wearing a red-and-white flannel shirt. He’s got a wide, flat face, piercing blue eyes, and eyebrows that arch up like triangles.
    â€œYou must be Teddy,” he says. “I been hearing good things about you from Rooney.”
    W HEN I FIRST GOT TO C ATSKILL, THE ONLY PEOPLE STAY ing at the house were Cus, Camille, Kevin, and a kid named Jay Bright. All I knew about Cus at that point was that he had managed former heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson and former light heavyweight champ Jose Torres in the ’50s and ’60s, and that Kevin considered him to be a wise and great man. Approaching seventy, Cus had been out of the mainstream of the boxing world for years. As much as he could bring his knowledge and wisdom to bear on a couple of young guys like me and Kevin, it became clear to me that we brought something to him, too: purpose.
    You have to understand, Cus, when I met him, was a little bit like one of those gunfighters who’s hung up his guns and retreated from the fray to live in peace and quiet. Cus’s reasons for leaving New York and the big time were complicated, dating back to when he had managed Patterson and Torres and had taken on what was then the ruling body in the boxing