A Fighting Chance

      More Letters From Paradise
       This one is for Frank
         A Fighting Chance
Frank was born and raised in Philly.  Tough town, tough neighborhood.  But he never had any trouble.  He got along well enough in St. Patrick's School.  He had a few fights, but that was pretty normal.

The trouble began when he went to junior high, and met Sister Angelica. She was one mean nun. She ruled her class with a steel ruler. She applied it to those whom she felt needed discipline. And she felt that Frank needed discipline often. For his part, Frank wanted to kill Sister Angelica. But he refrained from doing so because it would put his soul in mortal danger, and he would go straight to hell. And so he suffered in silence as did the rest of his class.

Freedom from sister Angelica came when he entered the new high school. The building principal was named Father Mark. On the opening day, Frank was herded along with all the other boys into the gym. They were told to stand against the wall, while he talked to them. They had never heard such language from the mouth of a priest before.  But as he was a priest, Frank guessed it was alright. He said, "You little bastards, I don't want to have any shit from any one of you."  He went on like this for awhile, and then he called four boys, picked at random to come to him. He told the first boy to come forward, the boy did, and Father Mark knocked him down. The boy cried, and crawled away. He next pointed to Frank, who stepped forward. Again the priest also knocked him down.  Frank then quietly rose to his knees, stood upright, and, looking the priest in the face said, "Is that the best you got?" Well, that made Frank something of a hero, and Frank never again had any trouble with Father Mark. It seemed that there was some kind of a truce.

Frank's high school years had a few bumps, but he did manage to graduate. About then he decided that he would fight in some of those amateur bouts around town. He was a light heavy weight. He not only won all his fights, but he made some money too.

It was about that time he decided he would turn pro. His first bout was with a guy called "Tiny", something or other.  He was anything but tiny.  He stood over six feet tall, and had arms that reached his knees.

For the first couple of rounds, they felt  each other out.  Frank soon realized that he couldn't get inside of the tall guy's long arms to do him any harm.  And it was in the fourth round when Frank caught a right to the jaw, and kissed the canvas for a full count.

Later when Frank was healing from his loss,  he remembered an old saying, "Work smarter, not harder."  It now seemed to make sense.  Frank gave up his gloves, and became a consultant of some company.  He never again had anyone hit him in the mouth.

        Aloha
        Grant