repost

That's Joe Frazier's Gym.  Joe Frazier's Gym is for sale.

Who is Joe Frazier?  An old prize fighter.  I think he was famous back in the early 1970's.  Whenever Muhammad Ali was around.  And George Foreman.  I don't know much about fighting, prize or otherwise, but I know that Joe and Geo and Muhammad were enemies.  Or rivals.  Or maybe friends who fought.  I don't know.  What do I know about that sort of thing?

Anyway.  That's Joe Frazier's Gym.  Or was.  Or is but won't be when it's sold.

It's up there on North Broad.  And Glenwood.  Most people like you and me have no business up there.  It's north of Temple U and sits amongst storefront churches and windowless mosques and sketchy funeral parlors and homeless shelters that smell like bleach and rehab clinics that smell like ammonia and I wonder if you left the clinic and went into the shelter without properly clearing your lungs you could die from the mix of fumes so I never risk it and always go once around the block before switching venues.

Then again, once around that block and I might get shot.  Or stolen.
Do you know how much you can get for a cute white chick in those parts?
I don't know either.  Mad cash, I'll bet.

***

About fifteen years ago I walked into Joe Frazier's Gym.  I was twenty.  Fresh faced.  Armed with a case file and a bus pass and determination to make the world a little safer.

It was there I took on my first bad guy.  My very own rapist and murderer.
A big black rapist and murderer.
Who boxed.
Professionally.
And taught boxing.
To professionals.
At Joe Frasier's Gym.

He didn't kill the girl he raped or anything.
He wasn't that sort of bad guy.
He was accused of raping a girl after he got her pregnant.  A girl he later married.
And spent the rest of her life with.
It was some sort of statutory offense.  She was almost 17 he was barely 18.  He was sentenced to ten years in jail.  Her daddy was a lawyer.  A white lawyer.  It was the early sixties.

Stuff like that happened back then.
I think there is a song about that or something.

Or something.

So, he got out of jail six years later on account of good behavior and being young and he married that girl and raised some babies.  The baby they made together years before didn't survive.  Her big shot daddy made her get an abortion.
He learned to box in prison and when he got out he was better than a lot of the guys who didn't spend their formative years in jail so he made a job of it and took his cute wife and kids all around the country and won some money and a little bit of fame and then when he got tired of that he moved back here and made a little life for himself.

And late one night after the kids were asleep and he and the wife went to bed, there was something going on in the neighborhood and he came outside to take a look around and decided to get involved and ended up punching out two people when they started walking up his front step and those two people never got up.  On account of him being a prize fighter and them just being petty street thugs who didn't have time to pull their guns out of their waistband.

Because those dead guys were menaces and because they were on his steps and because they had unregistered guns the sentence was mitigated, but a murder sentence was a murder sentence and murderers go to jail.

So, off to jail.  Again.
And in jail.  Again.
And out.  Again.

And by then his babies weren't babies anymore and they spent the time he was away growing up and having babies of their own.
And his wife, who got sick while he was in jail, died.  Shortly after he got out.
Shortly before his name came across my desk.
The name of my very first bad guy.  My very own rapist and murderer.

A big black rapist and murderer.
Who boxed.
Professionally.
Once upon a time.

So there I was, walking  into Joe Frasier's Gym.  I was twenty.  And armed with a case file and a bus pass and determination to make the world a little safer.  And Joe Frazier himself.  And Joe asked me if I was ready, if I wanted him to stay with me, and I said, "no thank you Mr. Frazier, I think I'll be okay from here.  I'll holler if I need you."

And I walked up to my very first bad guy and said, "hello there.  Can we take a walk?" and we went once around that block.
And after the formalities and after the case assignment paperwork and parole agreement was filled out and after we shook hands my very first bad guy said something like this to me: "thank you, Miss Arrowsmith.  Thank you for not talking about this stuff in front of everyone at the gym.  Especially in front of those little boys playing in the ring.  See, those're my grandsons and they don't know about my past.  My kids are giving me the chance to watch them little boys grow up.  To spend some time with them and let them see me do what I do best.  Teaching people.  To fight.  Teaching people to fight... responsibly.  Thank you for letting me be a Good Strong Guy in their eyes, even if just for one more day.  Word'll get out sometime, I'm sure.  But thank you for not making today be that day.  Thank you for treating me so kindly."

And that's how I knew that no matter what, I'd be okay at this sort of work.  That I'd be good at this sort of job.  That I'd be good with people.  Even if they were big and black and strong with a rape and a couple murders under their big old shiny gold prizebelts.

I'm sure a lot of people realized a lot of stuff there, at Joe Frazier's Gym.  I'm sure a lot of people realized who they are and what they are capable of and how strong they are and where those strengths come from, at Joe Frazier's Gym.

I'm sure I did.

(originally posted 11/11/10)
Rest well, Old Joe.