"Punish!"

I am frantically taking all this down in my notebook.

"Fuck!"

I am scared and my soul is filled with loathing.

"Shit! Kill that son of a bitch!"

"Punish him! Knock him through the fuckin' ropes. Blood!"

He is becoming quite exercised. He has no previous attachment to Roach but Roach is clearly winning, and that is enough.

"I got $500 on the guy in blue. $500 on blue." He is looming over me.

"How about 1 to 5?" someone near me asks.

"Tell you what," the boohoo says. "I give you 1 to 5."

"Tell you what," the guy behind me says. "Get out of my way or you're over the fuckin' railing."

The boohoo is chastened. I am secretly pleased. At the end of the featherweight fight he leaves. He will go toe to toe with a urinal.

It is past nine o'clock. The guys next to me are smoking sensamilla. "Here we go. Here we fuckin' go." This makes no sense to me at all.

"Is that Sugar Ray Leonard? I knew I'd spot him."

"Is that Howard Cosell?"