Alfred parties all Friday night and well into Saturday. It is now Saturday night. He has somehow made his way back to Aunt Pearl’s apartment, where he has passed out on the linoleum kitchen floor in a pool of his own sweat. The aggravating sound of the ringing telephone finally brings him to consciousness. It is Aunt Pearl calling to say that she won’t return until Thursday. She wants Alfred to call Dorothy the next morning, before church, to tell her that Pearl will pick up the girls Thursday night. Alfred barely hears her. He stumbles to the living room, where he passes out in front of the television. Later, Alfred passes out in the bathroom and finally ends up on the couch. On Sunday morning, he is sick and can’t remember the specifics of Aunt Pearl’s message.
Around 8:00 that morning, Major telephones to remind Alfred that they are going to Coney Island in a few minutes. Major arrives in a stolen white Cadillac convertible. Hollis, Sonny, and a younger boy named Justin are with him. Alfred reluctantly joins them, and Major drives, often recklessly, to Coney Island. While double-parked in a crowd in front of a lunch stand, Hollis notices policemen checking for drivers’ licenses and registrations. The boys abandon the car and split up, Alfred spraining his ankle in the process.
Having escaped to relative safety, Alfred realizes that he has not eaten since noon Friday, almost two full days ago. He buys spare ribs, buttered corn, and French fries, washing them down quickly with a Pepsi. He remembers but ignores Donatelli’s warning against such greasy foods. Soon, Alfred is vomiting over the boardwalk railing and onto himself. Later he rests in an air-conditioned movie theater and manages to keep down two cups of ice cream.
By early evening, Alfred has returned by subway to Harlem. He soaks the ankle but won’t try to run the next morning. He isn’t going to be a boxer anyway. He goes to work Monday and Tuesday but skips his workouts at the gym.
Tuesday night, while just wandering around Harlem, he finds himself in front of the gym and decides to go in and clean out his locker. Oddly, he feels tears in his eyes as he stuffs his gear into a paper shopping bag. Mr. Donatelli is in the gym but ignores him. Alfred finally calls to his mentor, says goodbye, and offers an apology. Donatelli says there is no need to apologize. Alfred asks if he would have been any good if he had continued. Donatellis answers that there is no way to know. Alfred asks if he could have been a contender. Donatelli tells him that only Alfred could answer that question, in time. Donatelli says that, as a manager, he would know about Alfred only after he was seriously hurt in the ring for the first time; but Alfred will know then, too. Lipsyte subtly shifts the verb tense in the conversation. Initially, the tense is conditional, with words like would, indicating that Alfred isn’t planning to follow through with boxing. But by the end of the conversation, Alfred and Donatelli speak in future tense—“Will you tell me then?”—indicating that Alfred will continue training.
