The Violet Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

room with sunlight, drawing every head toward him in the collective hope, at least among the twenty or thirty young men scattered about the room, that a shot, any kind of shot, was walking into their lives.
    The one thing all boxing gyms in the world have in common is a Resident Superstar, that one kid on the fast track up. This PAL, on the day that Nicky Stella first learned of John Angelino’s death, had Terry Jackson. Black Lightning, he called himself. Nineteen, a body cut from stone. Nicky had seen a lot of fights, had retired as an amateur welter-weight with a record of twelve and five, and had never seen anyone as fast as Terry Jackson.
    Nicky changed into his sweats, warmed up a bit, then worked the heavy bag for a full three minutes, feeling every cigarette, every Hot Sauce Williams short-rib dinner, every ounce of Jameson he had ever ingested in his thirty-five years. But he did the full three, working hard from buzzer to buzzer – that shrill, omnipresent timepiece that keeps all boxing gyms on their rigorous three-minute-one-minute-three-minute schedules.
    Nicky felt he was in fairly good shape for a guy his age, no more than ten pounds overweight, but the truth of the matter was that he didn’t want to be anything for a guy his age. He just wanted to be it, whatever it was, no qualifiers. He was going to fight this middle-age thing as hard as he could.
    The buzzer buzzed.
    Out of the corner of his eye, Nicky watched a Hispanic kid to his left work the heavy bag – sixteen, short and wiry, Floyd Mayweather kind of build. Smooth. Bap-bap-bap. The kid was hardly breathing. But something happened when he began to pick up the pace, as it often does when heavy bags are lined up in a row, as they often are. Two fighters falling into the same rhythm. The kid started shooting quick combinations, and for some reason, Nicky was able to keep up. Jab, jab, jab, straight right hand, left hook to the body. Repeat. Nicky no longer felt the impact in his hands and wrists and arms. It was as if he were in someone else’s body, a world champion’s body. He continued to punch, faster and faster, each impact resonating loudly through the gym – bob, weave, duck, slip, counter. Bam!
    Awesome.
    Then, at the exact moment he realized he could go on forever, at the precise instant he seriously considered being the oldest guy in history to try out for the Cleveland Golden Gloves competition, the buzzer sounded. He’d done the full three. And then some.
    Nicky staggered back, triumphant and spent, heavily lathered, absolutely certain that the entire gym had seen and heard his violent demolition of the heavy bag. No longer would he be just the lone, crazy white boy who dared walk into this building.
    He was Rocky Fucking Marciano.
    As it turned out, someone had noticed. As Nicky tried to catch his breath – his muscles shrieking their discontent, his lungs a pair of raging lava floes – he felt a gloved hand land on his shoulder. He spun around. It was Terry Jackson.
    ‘You’re pretty good, man,’ Terry said. He handed Nicky some headgear. ‘Let’s get it on.’
    ‘Erique. What up?’ Nicky tried to sound hip-hop and it immediately made him wince. The gym always had that effect on him. He was standing in a phone booth on St Clair, across the pitted parking next to the PAL gym, having given Black Lightning Jackson a very tentative rain check on the sparring session, a chit the lithe and dangerous Mr Jackson actually seemed to think Nicky would one day cash in.
    Right, Nicky thought. Only if you spot me a grenade launcher.
    Over the past year or so Nicky had been moving from prepaid cell to prepaid cell. He was currently between payments, and thus had to use the ever decreasing number of pay phones around the city.
    ‘Hello, Nicholas,’ Erique said. Erique Mars was second generation Somali, thirtyish, the managing editor of the Cleveland Chronicle , the city’s big alternative weekly newspaper. ‘How are things?’
    ‘Got a