GET ON THE BUS, GUS

THE LAST 'LIGHT' DAY FOR A WHILE

Which is why I was on the bus and not my 'trusty steed', a Raleigh Venture 3.0. I was thinking that I would catch a break and just ease thru the end of the week. Wednesday's are for getting over the hump, and that is what I wanted to do. Looking towards the weekend, I guess my plans have changed a little. Not like I was going out to the beer gardens anyway, but in case I wanted, I couldn't.

Since I had been in Missouri, going on 'lockdown' as far as getting ready for a fight did not had the same significance as it did back home. Been in Kansas City for three years, and still hadn't made any connections of any note. Not that the natives weren't friendly, and it wasn't that I am anti-social. It's just ... well, it's that I had my heart set and it hadn't worked out. Yet.

I sat in the second seat facing the driver. The bench seats are used by the older riders and/or the wheelchair riders (the bench seats flip up and they strap the chair in). The younger riders usually gravitate towards the back. I liked to sit up front, to see who was getting on, smiling as people passed me. People don't think much of some one who is letting a smile be his umbrella, eyes lit up. Some folks will nod and smile back, others would furrow their brow and scowl to their seat. I'd make a mental note, and get back to smiling.


My mind was a little preoccupied, and I caught my foot with someone seated, an older lady, who squenched her face. I apologized, and went to an open seat. I was sitting by myself, alone and soaring off with my thoughts. This, I kept thinking, was my CHANCE. "You don't get too many of these things, kid," I said to myself. "Some people will live a hundred years and not have something like this fall into their hands. Don't blow it."


Going back over the circumstances that brought me here, the Ringside World Championships, where I would where I would find the person who blew me away. I would look into her eyes, and I found myself anchored in them. Me and Brock Lewis, the only other amateur fighter in the United States who was older than me! He was 28 and I was 23, but it may as well been rest home age, comparing us to the other participants. The way boxing is run on the amateur level, there is no compelling reason to keep on fighting after an Olympic cycle and you have a modicum of pro level skill. If you are old enough and think you are good enough, you want to get paid to get smacked in the face.


For me and Brock, it didn't seem to matter. He was from Flint, though I was a shade taller at 5'11, he was a lightweight compared to my middleweight. He was a slick fighter, real slippery in the ring. Didn't have much of a kick in his punches, but he didn't really need it, as fast as his hand were. Amateur fighting places more of a premium on the amount of scoring punches, so he could pick at opponents, until he got to the upper rounds of tournaments. That is where his lack of punch would bite him.


We'd talk about stuff that was a little deeper than the rest of the bunch in the cars, vans, and buses as we rode to shows in Michigan and Ohio. This was the first time we made the 'travel team' to a national tournament together. On I-35, the conversation was about women and love.

"Man,' I said, I am sooo tired of fandango with women. I think I am going to have to overhaul how I do things."

"Well, let me know when you come up with something," Brock said as he adjusted himself in his seat. We were lucky this trip, riding in the veritble luxury of a Chrysler Town and Country Mini-Van, with just two other fighters and two of the team Michigan coaches. "If you talkin' about 'switching teams' and finding a white girl ..."


"You say 'white girl' like there is something wrong with that? I don't see why I shouldn't want to be with 'Molly' or a 'Jennifer'", bristling a little.


"Come on man, who do you think is going to go with you to the Palace to see Coldplay with you, a chick from Cody? Oh that's right, the Detroit chapter of their fan club is in Henry Ford High!" Brock had went to high school in the Detroit, and knew the schools on my side of town. "You think you gonna find someone off Dexter/Davison to ride with you to Cranbrook? good luck with that!"

Falling back into my seat, I was like, "Yeah kid, good luck with that." Even as women say that they are looking for one thing, the keep looking in the same places, and coming up with the same kind of 'let down' cats, as if they were moths to a light.

My thoughts turned from 'Molly Dodd' and back to coming to Kansas City, to 'do what it is I do'.