Punchdrunk

By Bill Lowenburg

Ex-welterweight contender Johnny Mullane can hook off the jab with either hand and recite Shakespeare while backpedaling from an opponent. But he can’t stop drinking. Facing a hungry Mexican slugger half his age, Mullane begins his comeback. Recalling the teachings of his venerable departed trainer, Mullane discovers new meaning in his life.

Narrator Johnny Mullane is a complex man, whose once-brilliant boxing skills have eroded. Outside of the ring, his sharp intellect is not fulfilled by his day job as a high school English teacher. Despite recent troubles from drinking, Mullane wants to make one more run at the title to honor his old trainer, who never got his chance because of racism in the era he fought.

Believing he still has more than enough talent to carry him to an easy victory, early in the match Mullane sizes up his opponent: “the difference between his awareness and mine is the difference between a rabbit grazing in a clover field and an eagle circling him a quarter of a mile above in the sky.” As the brutal battle progresses, Mullane realizes he will have to work a lot harder than he anticipated—just to survive. (Includes discussion guide)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Lowenburg
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465955227

Bill Lowenburg

For six years in the early 1980’s, Bill Lowenburg was a sparring partner and assistant to renowned boxing trainer Earnee Butler in Easton, Pennsylvania. Beginning his career in education in 1980, Bill taught history until 1996. Since then he has served as a high school librarian and taught graduate classes in photography. Bill has Master’s degrees in Social Studies and Library Science as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. He researched Norman Mailer’s relationship with boxing for the forthcoming authorized Mailer biography to be published by Simon and Schuster. Lowenburg is also the author of Crash Burn Love: Demolition Derby, a monograph of his black-and-white-photographs and essays on automobile demolition derby. Bill's articles and photographs have been published internationally. Currently, Bill is finishing a novel, The Zorki Chronicles, to be released in the summer of 2012.

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Punchdrunk

By Bill Lowenburg

Copyright 2012 Bill Lowenburg

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My old trainer, E.B., always taught me to stay ready to take a fight on two weeks notice.

Never know when you might get a call, he’d say in his deep baritone. Life’s full of opportunities if you’re ready for them.

E. B. isn’t around any more, but I’ve followed his advice—for the most part. Two weeks was all I had to get ready for the Mexican kid across the ring. For one of those weeks, anyway, I’ve laid off the booze. To come out on top tonight, I’ll have to rely on everything else I learned from E.B. over the years. As for the new guy in my corner calling himself my trainer, I’ll just do my best to block him out. He didn’t even know how to wrap my hands.

With a little luck, I’ll pick up a win in tonight’s six-rounder on the undercard. It’s my first fight since coming out of rehab and will serve as a short expedition to see what I’ve got left. I don’t have a wife, or even a girlfriend, to convince me I should have hung them up two years ago. I do have a brother, Billy, a lawyer. Billy could give a rat’s ass about boxing; the only thing he seems to care about is making money. I shouldn’t complain; he’s negotiated good contracts for my televised and pay-for-view fights. Thanks to him I have money in the bank. Thanks to me, so does he.

If tonight’s fight doesn’t produce any injuries, I’ll return to serious training for a ten-round main event. A couple of ten-round wins and I’m back in line for a title shot. If I become a contender again, Billy will undoubtedly take a renewed interest in my career. Lose at my age, and it’s over.

In the Blue Corner, originally from Dublin, fighting out of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, weighing in at one-hundred forty-seven pounds…with a record of forty-one wins, twenty-seven by knockout, eleven losses, and two draws…Irish Johnny Mullane, the Fighting Schoolteacher.

I raise my glove and take a step toward the center of the ring. The smell of dried sweat from the canvas blends with the perfume drifting up from the round card girls sitting at ringside. The tall brunette taps