Thieves I've Known by Tom Kealey

looking out across the way.
    It was necessary to hold on to what I still had. This is what I would’ve told that man. I wouldn’t have meant Albert or Ma, though I wanted to hold on to them. I’d have meant my head. The insides. I wanted to hold on to my insides. I wondered if there was any hope in it. I walked around in the headlights so maybe the man or Albert could take a good look at me.
    I went and checked on my brother. He was dripping wet, and in his face I could see my mom. His hair was all short, stuck to his head.
    â€œAre you going to hit me?” he said.
    â€œI’m thinking it.”
    â€œDon’t fuck up my nose,” he said. I didn’t say anything to that. I wasn’t going to hit Albert. I stood there in the rain and watched him. I was waiting on something I suppose. Though I felt like it was on me. I wiped the rain from my eyes, and I dropped his hair into his lap. We both looked down at it. We couldn’t see any colors but dark in it. He sat and I stood. In the rain we studied that hair. I was young back then. And I was hoping maybe he could help me out.

THIEVES I’VE KNOWN
    A boxer’s offense is designed to create openings in the opponent’s defense and to land blows to the vulnerable points of the head and body from the waist up. Power originates as she pushes off from her feet; its degree depends upon her ability to link the muscles of the legs, the back, the shoulders, and the arms into a chain of force. A boxer’s attack consists of such basic blows as left jab, right cross, left hook, and uppercut.
    Helen, fifteen, throws a hook from her left foot, covers her midsection, ducks, takes a hit on her padded headgear, feints with the left again, listens to her trainer’s voice, mumbled through his mouthpiece: move back and back in, keep me in the center, I’ll kill you near the ropes. Move with your feet, keep your waist straight. Next time you lean back, I’ll knock you down; and when she does lean back, he does knock her down, with a strong hook to her forehead and a sudden shove of hips. After the fall, she stares at the tubes of fluorescent lights above the gym, the glow of the streetlamp through the windows, the nightbugs outside. She presses her gloves against the canvas, feels the cold lick of sweat against her T-shirt.
    I haven’t started the count yet, he says. Not even in the corner yet. You wait till five before you get up. Think about where you are, and think about what put you there. Three. You know I’ll push hard now. I’m going to see what you’ve got left. Five.
    Helen stands, punches her gloves together, hops on her toes. He is a head taller than her, wider in the chest and waist, with longer arms and better technique. Dark hair covers his chest and shoulders. He moves in and she sidesteps, takes another jab to the head but slips in one ofher own. He chooses not to cover, tries a jab and misses. She has already turned, gives him a hard shot to the ribs and then a harder one still with the other arm. Before he can wrap her up, she steps away, covers her head as she was taught, swings to the center of the ring. She hears the slap of her punches only now, seconds after they landed. Because she holds her ground, he tries a cross and it glances off the top of her skull, but he pays with two blows to his ribs, the other side this time. He steps away and circles the ring, keeps a distance from her. He notes that she has been practicing.
    I’m going to knock you down now, he says, and again, he does. A flurry of hooks and crosses, most of them missing. She plants a strong jab in his gut, hears nothing, moves back, which was the mistake: he connects to the side of her head and then with the right square to the nose, her headgear saving the bone from cracking. It’s only after she falls, after her feet fly from the canvas, her back slapping flat against the mat, that she hears his grunt of surprise. Not now, but