Chapter 10: Ray

Cal climbed through the ropes.

Ray followed him in, slow and square, and went to the center of the ring.

I stayed on the apron with my hands on the top rope.

Nobody had asked me to stay, and nobody had asked me to go.

"Hold the pad," Ray said.

He nodded at the red focus mitt on the corner post.

Cal picked it up, and Ray said, "Right hand only. I've only got the one."

Cal slid it on and held it up at chest height, as I'd taught him, with his elbow in.

Ray set his feet.

He threw the first punch, and it was a good one, short and straight, and the leather boomed.

Cal's shoulder jerked back, and he held his ground.

"Don't say you're sorry," Ray said.

"I wasn't going to-"

"You were."

"I could see it come up your throat the second you walked in."

"You've said it on the news."

"You've said it in the paper."

"You said it in court, to a judge, with a lawyer's hand on your arm."

Boom.

"I've heard it, Mister Ellender. I don't need it again."

"What do you need?"

"Hold the pad."

He threw four more, and each one rocked Cal back an inch.

On the fifth Cal grunted and braced and took it, and Ray nodded once, a small private nod.

"It was a Tuesday," Ray said. "Eleven days before Christmas. We were running thirty-one percent over, and there were trucks stacked to the road."

Boom.

"The lock on belt six had a sensor on it."

"If the sensor flagged a jam, it killed the belt."

"It had been tripping all week."

"We were losing four minutes every time."

Boom.

"Somebody upstairs said to put a bypass on it."

"I don't know who."

"I figured it was a supervisor, some floor manager."

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