“What the feckin’ hell are you two little shites doin’?” the owner asked us.
“We want to train here,” I told him. “We ain’t got money but we both hit good and we work hard. We can sweep up and do jobs and stuff to pay our way,” I told him in one great big rush, trying to spit it all out before he stopped me.
“I don’t train kids. You’ve got to be sixteen to fight here,” he said and walked past us, through the doors.
“Can we go home now?” Kier asked. “I’m starving.” Kier’s ma cooked like nobody I ever met. She let me eat with them almost every night and I think she must have known how things were at home. She never said anything but she came to parent teacher meetings for me or, if the school ever called, backing up my story that Ma was really sick. Never one to turn down a meal, I went with him but dragged him back every day for a week until the owner, Danny, gave in and let us train there once. After that he couldn’t get rid of us. One night there and I was totally addicted. After a couple of months, John was scheduled to fight one of the boys from a gym across Canning Town. The night before the fight, Danny told all of us to grab our coats, and he dragged us to church. We knew some of the other kids had to go to church before a fight, but he’d never asked us to go before.
“What’re we doing here?” I asked.
“He goes to church to clear his head and get ready for the fight. You want to be part of this gym, then you go too or you don’t get to train. That’s the way this family works.”
It was clear that Danny wasn’t messing around. So I sat on the bench with my hands in my pockets looking bored, and Kieran sat next to me the same way. Finally Father Pat came out to get me.
“So, Cormac, Danny tells me that you like to fight,” he said as he showed me to my seat.
I wanted to tell him that of course I liked it, why else would I hang around at Danny’s, but I didn’t think Danny would appreciate me being sarcastic to Father Pat and I couldn’t afford to piss him off.
“You can call me Con, Father. Everyone else does,” I answered. “And yes. Makes me feel better.”
“About what, son?” he asked.
“About everything,” I answered.
“I understand that it’s getting you into a bit of trouble at school though,” he added. I shifted about on my seat wondering how he could have known that.
“I don’t need school anyway. Me and Kier are going to leave as soon as we can. Get a job in construction before I become a boxer full-time.”
“I see,” he said with a smile. “You have it all worked out then.” I nodded in answer. “Being a professional boxer requires a great deal of discipline you know,” he told me.
“I ain’t afraid of hard work. I can train as hard as the other boys do,” I argued.
“I’m sure Con. But that’s not what I meant.”
I frowned at him, pissed off that he thought I wouldn’t be as dedicated as the older kids. I could kick half their arses now.
“You know, there’s a story of an old Cherokee man who told his grandsons, ‘There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It’s anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.’ The boy thought about it and asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’ The old man quietly replied, ‘The one you feed.’ I don’t know who said it, but it’s a good story.”
“I don’t get it,” I answered, confused. “What does it mean?”
“It means, Con, that you’ve been dealt a bad hand in life. But one day, you have to decide what kind of man you want to be. You have to choose which wolf you feed.”
Chapter 1
It never occurred to me that mail was something to fear. Not until the day I came home and found Em sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, and a ripped open white envelope on the bed behind her.
“Sunshine, what’s wrong?” I asked. She swallowed hard and sniffed a few times like she was trying to hold back tears long enough to talk to me. I reached for the envelope, thinking it would give me some clue as to why she was so clearly freaked out.
“Don’t,” Em croaked. “Please,” she added pleadingly. I knew then, as a tear rolled down her cheek, that whatever was inside had to be bad. Contained within a folded sheet of plain white paper were about a dozen or so photos. They were different sizes and all taken at different times, but Em was in every one of them. The earliest photo was of a smiling, happy nine-year-old. Just a normal kid out riding her bike. When the next one showed the same kid, fast asleep in her bed, I felt sick to my fucking stomach. The older that Em was in the pictures, the more invasive they became and none of them looked like they were taken with her knowledge. The last photo was really grainy, like it had been through a window maybe, or with a really bad camera, but it showed, in intimate detail, her frail, bruised body taking a shower.
“Motherfucker,” I yelled, wanting to fucking hit something. Anything. I grabbed the envelope looking for some clue who’d sent it, like I didn’t fucking know. Frank was still in prison, pending trial, so someone on the outside must have sent this for him. The postmark on the envelope read London, which didn’t tell me much. The knuckles on Em’s hand were white where she gripping hold of her legs so hard.
“Shit, love. You okay?” I said, hating that she looked so fucking scared. She nodded unconvincingly, but didn’t answer. I gathered up the pictures and stuffed them back into the envelope, not wanting her to see them anymore, but I knew we’d need to give them to police as evidence. The idea of her being on display like that to the police and the prosecution lawyers was as bad as knowing what she’d been through. Sitting down next to her, I wrapped my arm around her tiny body and pulled her into my chest. She was stiff as a board and shaking slightly. Rubbing up and down her arms, trying to get her warm I waited for her to talk to me. That was the way of it sometimes with Sunshine. She needed to think shit over before she could get it off her chest.
“I didn’t know about any of them. He’s been taking pictures of me for years. How could I not know? How could I let that happen?” she asked me.
“You didn’t let anything happen. He’s a violent, abusive rapist who’s sick in the fucking head. He did what he did because he’s a fucking whack job. Nothing you said or did gave him permission to do this.” I could see by her face that the pictures shamed her. Fuck that. There wasn’t a single fucking thing for her to be ashamed of.