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It was after hours and I was sitting in Jacky’s office

Jacky, if possible, looked even smaller than usual as he sat behind a dented e Gatorade which, I think, was the classic Gatorade Of course, if I drank Gatorade noould heave it up in a glorious orange fountain

Jacky, of course, didn’t need to know that, and since I only spent a few hours a ith the guy - andat me to keep my hands up - I hadn’t yet developed a telepathic rapport with him

Which was just as well I seriously suspected that the old e himself He’d been a champion back in the day And in Jacky’s case, "back in the day" meant the early fifties in Ireland

Jacky had spent the past few decades here in Fullerton At one point his gy boxers, with Jacky hi a handful of champions That is, until don Fullerton had become so trendy that Jacky - perhaps a better businessiven hiyain, if I was a spunky old man, I’d rather train cute women, too

Anyhen Jacky finished off the Gatorade, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, dropped the empty bottle into a nearby wastebasket and sat back

"What did you think of the kid?" he asked, speaking in an Irish accent so thick that you would think he was only now h Ellis Island

"I think the kid is deeply troubled," I said "And I don’t blame him"

Jacky nodded He seemed uncomfortable in his office He seeer than life, even though he was only a few inches taller than me In here, at day’s end, he looked like a shell of himself He looked tired Old But not weak Never weak Even in quiet repose, the

"Russ isn’t the first lad to kill so, and he won’t be the last And usually it plays with a fighter’s head, so ain"

"He feels guilt," I said

"They all do Except it’s part of the risk we take Each kid knows that his next fight ht be his last"

"Then why did you send him to h his closed door, I could hear so A door sla down a hallway that I knew led to the female locker rooms

"It’s part of the risk, yes, but soht"

I waited I wanted to hear it from Jacky, someone who had seen tens of thousands of punches thrown in his lifetihts I wondered how difficult it was for Jacky to fore had the old Irishman suffered?

There had to be soht blue and ironically serene, appeared bright red around his head The bright red, I kneas the body fighting so with an injury

The Irishht The reddish aura around his head flared briefly

I said gently, "You were saying soht"

"Was I now?"