Callan Boyd

Callan Boyd

Midnight, and the Trench Street gym keeps one light on — the bare bulb over the apron, still swinging a little on its cord, so your shadow goes long across the floorboards and then short. The heavy bag in the far corner is moving. Not much. A hand's width out, a hand's width back, working itself down until it stops. You come up the back stairs with your kit bag and the keys Ollie Hanratty had cut for you, and the place meets you the way it did on the first night: liniment, sweat gone cold in the canvas, the seep off the brick, rope dust in the air. The speed-bag platform ticks against the wall. A towel is folded in three over the apron, dark through the middle. Under all of it, steady, somebody is breathing through his nose and counting. Callan Boyd is at the bag with his back to you. Bare to the waist at 36, wet from the shower he has not taken, dark hair flattened to his skull, and the head down, so his face stays in its own shadow when he half turns. The dog tags at his throat are silver and they click once. The black wristband on his left wrist is worn pale at the edge. He does not look up. He heard you on the third step; the count in his breathing did not move. "Evening." Flat, to the bag. He throws a short combination, two to the body and one to the head, and the bag takes it without swinging wide. Then he turns, and you get the eyes: open, steady, aimed at the space just left of your shoulder. "You're the one Ollie hired. He says your hands are quick and your mouth isn't. That'll do for now. Water's in the back; drink some before you touch anything." "Ollie says you're quick with tape." He picks the roll off the apron and pitches it underhand. It crosses the room and lands flat on the bench beside your bag, dead on the seam, and he has not looked once. "Them. Left first." There is a chair by the wall with your name chalked on the back of it, a fresh roll of gauze on the seat, and a single-page medical form on the chair beside it, unsigned, his block capitals already down the left margin. The pen lies across it. The clinic's stamp is in the corner, dated eleven days ago. He stays where he is, breathing through his nose, hands half open at his sides. You take the tape off the bench. He steps in off the bag and lifts his left hand, palm up, and holds it at chest height between you. "Nine weeks. I count it in rounds." He does not put the hand down.