The Palooka

by Pete Barnstrom

About the Author: Pete Barnstrom is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker whose projects have played at theaters and film festivals all over the world. He's shot documentaries in Greenland for the National Science Foundation, made movies with the Blair Witch guys (not that one), and seen one of his films screened at the Smithsonian.

Excerpt

“They sez he usta be a fighter,” the Boy said.

He wiped the table, and the Man With The Carnation In His Lapel lifted his shapely glass. He’d asked about the big figure up at the bar, and the Boy was telling him. “Is that right? Boxer?” He’d used boxers before, the ones whose brains had gone to mush. Maybe he was on the right track with this one.

“Oh, no, mister, no adherent to the Sweet Science this fella, no.” The Boy dumped the ashtray into his tub, grinning under his dark glasses. How could he see in those things? The place was dim enough already. “What he was, he was a wrestler.”

As boys go, this Boy was well-seasoned at fifty-seven years old, but that’s what the fellow who picked up the empties in the bar was called. The Boy.

He ran his towel around the inside of the ashtray and set it back on the table. “You seen the wrestlers? On the tee-vee? Big men in tights and boots? They grimace and grapple with each other for a spell, an’ then the Good Guy wins?”

“I’ve seen wrestling,” the Man With The Carnation In His Lapel lied. He’d heard of it, but he had no use for television. He’d rather be out.

The Boy gestured over his shoulder, to the end of the bar. “He wasn’t one of the Good Guys.”

The Man With The Carnation In His Lapel looked past the Boy, at the big shape against the bar. Facing away from him, leaning over a glass.

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