The Contender: Chapters 1–6

He waited on the stoop until twilight, pretending to watch the sun melt into the dirty gray Harlem sky.

Up and down the street transistor radios clicked on and hummed into the sour air.

"I see you now, boy, old and stooped," said Major, shuffling to the center of the room.

Henry limped down into the clubroom, dragging his crippled left leg, the perpetual grin spread across his skinny face.

The stench of wine and garbage still hung in the moist June air.

The Epsteins would be in their synagogue now, wearing skull caps and praying.

Aunt Pearl would be sitting on the stoop, waving the fan the undertaker gave away at summer funerals.

He dropped his hands when he saw Alfred, and the big grin turned sheepish.

The crowd surged forward, sweeping Alfred along.

There was a soft, scampering sound, then quiet again.

And James was there three years later when Alfred's mother died of pneumonia in the city hospital, sitting with him all night, whispering, "Gonna be all right, Alfred.

He swallowed back his nausea as a rat scurried over his arm, squealing.

He felt her calloused hand move gently over his swollen jaw long before he saw her red-rimmed eyes peering down at him.

Aunt Pearl waited until they had clattered out of the apartment and down the tenement stairs before she turned back to Alfred.

He burrowed deeper into the bed.

An occasional peal of drunken laughter drowned out the hoarse yells of tired children and the stoop chatter and the muted noise of a dozen transistors on different stations.

A quivering chill ran up his legs, and his teeth began to grind and a ball of ice formed in the pit of his stomach and he took a breath and plunged through the door, into the darkness, a choking, musty darkness that stank of stale wine and antiseptic and sweat and urine and liniment.

Put one after another, Alfred, panting, huffing, low steps but hundreds of them, thousands of them in the darkness, the stairs so steep he sometimes fell to all fours, scrambling higher, past the sign, DR. COREY, past the sign, GYM - THIRD FLOOR, faster until his breath tangled in his ribs, higher until his throat was dry, faster, higher, until a door loomed before him.

A faint light leaked through a crack, and he hurled himself up at it, paused, took another breath, and plunged into a large, murky room.

Donatelli stood up and marched across the room, his square, boxlike body erect.

He had a thick sheaf of leaflets under his arm.

The serene look on Aunt Pearl's face calmed him at first, then made him angrier.

The little store-front church was only half filled when they walked in, but Reverend Price was already behind the lectern, thumbing through his Bible.

Alfred looked away first, wishing something would happen, the train would get stuck between stations, the girl would fall down and need help, anything so he could walk over, suave and sophisticated, "I'm Alfred Brooks, may I be of service?"—just like in the movies.

Uncle Wilson, tall and bony, too, loped across the front room and dropped a big hand on Alfred's shoulder.

They lapsed into silence, Wilson comparing his pipe clouds, Alfred slouching in the porch chair.

The last time he looked at the clock it was quarter to four, and the faintest tinge of pink was brushing the window.

The spring was out of his step, and suddenly the stitch seemed unbearable, and he could hear cars moving through the park.

That's enough for today, he thought, knowing it wasn't, and he slowed down again and started trudging back to the apartment.

We ain't on welfare, the rent's paid up, we got nice Sunday clothes.

He swept his way into the back room, jamming the straw broom into nooks and crannies he had already swept clean.

The heavy bag was swinging wildly on its chain as the boy with the enormous belly battered it with fists as big as cantaloupes.

The scrawny body came up very slowly, quivering with the strain, folding over until the face and the knees were almost touching.

Up close, Alfred could see Bud Martin's ribs pushing through his tattered T-shirt.

But the bony hands were sure and quick as the old man stuffed small jars and rolls of tape into the valise.