The Prince of the Barrio : Ex-Olympian Paul Gonzales Fights : to Win a World Title, and to Keep a Friend : He Once Called ‘Pops’

THREE YEARS ago, Paul Gonzales, the young boxer from East Los Angeles, became not only the first American to ever win an Olympic gold medal in the flyweight division (106 pounds) but also the only American gold medalist of Latino heritage in the history of Olympic competition.

Gonzales was so determined to win that, as boxing fans roared their appreciation, he literally gritted his teeth, ignored the pain and slugged his way to victory despite a broken hand. But afterward, when judges also awarded him a special trophy as outstanding athlete of the XXIII Olympiad, Paul Gonzales, one-time gang member and first-rate punk, survivor of stabbings and shootings by the time he was 12, broke down and cried as he thanked the man most responsible--Al Stankie, a Los Angeles cop.

It was Stankie who had pulled Gonzales off the streets nearly eight years earlier, bullying, badgering and finally cajoling the scrawny, mean little kid into the boxing ring at the Hollenbeck Youth Center--and who then became both his full-time trainer and surrogate father. Stankie eventually even moved the boy out of the notoriously rough Aliso housing projects, where Gonzales lived with his divorced mother and seven siblings, and into his own suburban home, far from harm’s way. In time, the pair began calling each other Pops and Son.

The media went wild. So did Hollywood. The story of “the cop and the kid” became the grist for thousands of inches of sports copy from here to Barcelona and Bombay. Hordes of screenwriters, agents and would-be producers descended, all eager to nail down exclusive rights. Coca-Cola came calling, along with hamburger chains, Chevrolet and such charities as United Way. Speaking invitations poured in by the hundreds, especially from organizations working with barrio youngsters, since Paul Gonzales had become an overnight hero, role model and living legend to practically every Latino kid in town.

Just about everybody, it seemed, wanted a piece of the action, or hoped to share at least briefly in the inspiring, heartwarming relationship between the tough, compassionate Anglo cop and the gifted Latino kid.

But that was then. Stankie, 46, is still Gonzales’ trainer, and a couple of months ago the two began a small boxing school for barrio youngsters called--what else?--The Kop & Kid Boxing Academy, with Stankie as president. Otherwise, however, the relationship that was once so touching is now tangibly strained, with pressures still rising, and any stranger can instantly see it just by walking into the Kop & Kid most any weekday afternoon after 5, where both Gonzales and Stankie can usually be found, working out with dozens of young athletes.

Although the place isn’t much to look at--just one large room, formerly part of a church complex, converted into a gym with a single boxing ring, peeling paint, and worn equipment in short supply--it represents the first step toward a dream Stankie and Gonzales once shared with mutual passion. Now, unless Gonzales himself is sparring, they rarely seem to share the same side of the room if they can help it. No more hanging around together, chatting, laughing or smiling. Gonzales, 23, moved into his own apartment long ago, and the pair seldom see each other socially anymore. No more happy hugs of greeting or frisky slaps on the tail, either, even in passing. Sometimes they quarrel openly, occasionally shouting. And they almost never call each other Pops and Son; now it’s Paul and Al.

Usually, though, especially when outsiders are around, the kids who come to the Kop & Kid studiously avoid any discussion of what’s going on, or, looking embarrassed, brush the situation aside as no big deal, minor emotional eruptions between two men, both under special pressures lately. Gonzales, for instance, is now in training for his first run at the world flyweight title, probably sometime later this summer. Meantime, his first fight in more than a year is scheduled for Tuesday at the Forum against Lucilo Nolasco of the Dominican Republic, another top contender. (Gonzales had been set to fight Nolasco last spring but had to cancel after he severely bruised his right hand, the same one he broke during the Olympics.)

“So, maybe Paul’s a little uptight right now, you know? But he’s got a lot of things on his mind,” gasped one sweaty 16-year-old with homemade tattoos on both arms as he beat the living daylights out of a punching bag suspended from the ceiling.

But whenever a newcomer shows up at the Kop & Kid, Gonzales is promptly there, shaking hands, introducing himself, doing what he can to encourage and help out. He sometimes also spars in the ring with awe-struck amateurs barely into their teens who will probably be talking about it to their grandchildren someday.

Al Stankie is a different sort of presence, unsettling at best in the eyes of some. Consider, for example, Louie Morales, a pleasant, earnest young man who is a drug counselor by day and the Kop & Kid’s volunteer office manager in his free time. Sitting in a small office at the gym, he was wringing his hands, worrying about all the things that never seem to cross Al Stankie’s mind.

In the first place, Morales explained, the building occupied by the Kop & Kid, currently owned by Congressman Ed Roybal and others, carries with it extremely high maintainance costs, including an annual insurance bill of around $15,000. And, according to Morales, the first major bills come due this summer--but so far there is no money to pay them. Further, to formally qualify as a nonprofit, tax-deductible, charitable organization, the Kop & Kid must file a charter, appoint a board of directors and fill out half a dozen other assorted papers almost immediately. But, until these requirements are met, the Kop & Kid essentially exists in name only.

“And so far, we haven’t done any of it! We’re absolutely nowhere , we haven’t even started ,” Morales wailed. “Right now, we’ve got 20 members--twenty! That’s $2,000, it’s nothing! We gotta have at least $100,000 a year just to stay alive!” He sat down and literally held his head.

“I beg him. I plead. I follow him around, even when he’s working out with Paul. But I just can’t get Al to sit down and get his mind on it. They say he used to be a terrific fund-raiser, when he was a cop, but now . . . I dunno what’s wrong with him.” Morales smiled sadly. “Al’s always been the type of guy with a lot of natural energy, so maybe that’s it, maybe he’ll settle down before it’s too late. But, frankly, I don’t have much hope because, well . . . what can I say?” Looking the other way, Morales finished: “As you can see for yourself, Al’s very undirected lately.”

SITTING DOWN ON A sun-flooded patio of an East L.A. cafe with Paul Gonzales was a little like stepping back in time, to other, fresher days when life was just one sweet valentine, full of promise unending.

He had brought along Eileen Flores, his pretty, quiet childhood sweetheart and the girl he intends to marry as soon as he gets his career under control. Which means, he says with a broad smile, as soon as “I win at least six world titles, and buy my mom a real mansion, and get things together enough so that I know that someday I’m gonna be able to retire from boxing rich , not like some. I’m working like a dog now, but, lemme tell you, one of these days I’m gonna be laying around like a puppy. I’m gonna be sitting behind a desk in a suit with my feet up and callin’ all the shots.” He expects this to take anywhere from five to 10 years.

Gonzales hasn’t done too poorly for himself so far. Already he’s bought his mom a nice house in the suburbs, an eternity removed from the projects; and, although he has made hundreds of speeches at schools, juvenile halls and prisons for free, he can, he says, sometimes command fees of up to $20,000 for corporate motivation seminars. He is generally transported to major engagements in a white, chauffeur-driven limousine; and he drives around town on weekends in his own gold Corvette, compliments of Chevrolet.

But he regards this as only the beginning.

“Man, people think Paul Gonzales is only a boxer, but the sky’s the limit! It’s like I’m always going around tellin’ these kids, if they believe in themselves and have a dream, they can do anything! They can be ridin’ around in a limo someday too, just like Paul Gonzales! And they don’t have to do it with their fists, either,” he declared. “They got their brains, they can do it through education, just like Paul Gonzales is gonna do someday, too. Right now, I’m thinking about going to law school when I retire from boxing--and she’s gonna handle all my money,” he added, glancing proudly toward his fiancee, an accountant. She just blushed prettily and smiled.

Gonzales often refers to himself in the third person, a bit of pretentiousness he probably picked up from Stankie, who does the same thing. But as even the most jaded sportswriters agree, Paul Gonzales is one of the friendliest, most instantly likable young men around, utterly spontaneous and unaffected, with a quick, easy laugh and a smile that’s downright dazzling.

In fact, just watching him as he sat there, a picture of youthful exuberance, eagerly grabbing at his listener’s hand to punctuate his points, a large gold medallion depicting Jesus and the Virgin Mary hanging from a chain around his neck, it was hard to imagine Gonzales ever being so caught up in the macho violence of gangs--including that deadliest of all barrio adventures, the drive-by shooting--that, without Al Stankie, he might today be dead. On the other hand, it was equally difficult, just then, to envision Gonzales knocking out some guy’s teeth in a boxing ring, which, of course, he is more than prepared to do.

Likewise, what might sound like arrogance coming from a different man only translates, in Gonzales’ case, into something akin to innocent confidence, bordering at times on the naive. Assessing his own grace and artistry in the boxing ring, for example, he compares himself variously to Baryshnikov, Picasso and “Fred Astaire in boxing trunks.” When it comes to other boxers, Gonzales doesn’t mind saying, with the usual disarming smile, that he can really only compare himself to one: Alex Arguello, retired Nicaraguan junior welterweight, his idol and “a real gentleman” who also “moves like a dancer.” Arguello called Gonzales on his 21st birthday “and I was so thrilled I almost peed my pants.”

Not only does Gonzales see himself as one of the finest “entertainers” of our time, but he also regards himself as both a social innovator and public educator whose special mission it is to “teach the public that boxing isn’t just a physical sport, some kind of bloody competition in pure strength--it’s an art , a mind game, just like chess, a test of who can out think the other in the ring. Most people think boxers are so dumb they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but, hey! I’m chewing gum.” Pause, for his happy laugh, her admiring smile.

“Americans in particular have never liked the little guys. They only care about the heavyweights, because they think we can’t hit as hard. It’s the exact opposite in most other countries, so it’s my goal to bring the same recognition to lightweight classes here. I want to turn every American housewife into a fan who’ll switch to boxing every afternoon, instead of the soap operas.”

And, as Gonzales is quick to point out, he’s already on his way. With more than 165 fights under his belt before he even turned professional, he lost only five, all amateur bouts--and sports experts generally agree that most of those were unfair, not to say outrageous, decisions. Consequently, thanks to the blend of his boxing record and his barrio background, Gonzales is the first flyweight in history to have had not just one but three of his fights nationally televised, plus once winning a purse of more than $65,000. Which may not sound like much, compared to the multimillion-dollar deals struck by the likes of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, but it amounts to a fortune when you consider that the average professional flyweight still earns little more than $600 to $800 for a 10-round bout.

As for critics who complain that Gonzales is boring, a boxer who may be quick and graceful but has never scored a knock-out, always winning by decision instead, Gonzales only chuckles. Would they also have asked Fred Astaire for a five-minute soft-shoe, Picasso for a quick sketch? “Besides, if you knock a guy out right away,” he added lightly, “it’s no fun, nobody even gets time to go buy a hot dog. I give people something they can take home with them, something they’ll remember.”

And, no doubt about it, Paul Gonzales’ fans are a long way from forgetting, at least in East L.A. Within a single hour, sitting at one restaurant table, six people shyly approached asking for autographs; one wanted to take a picture of Gonzales with her son. He not only kissed the baby for the camera, but also spent several minutes writing what amounted to brief letters in Spanish on each napkin.

“One time when I was about 13,” he explained, eyes clouding, “they were out here filming an episode of ‘Baretta’ and I went up and asked Robert Blake for his autograph. But he just walked off, without saying a single word. I’ll never forget it. I remember thinking to myself then that if I was ever famous like him, I’d never treat people that way.” Then another sunny smile, wiping the memory away. “So, now I write all these long messages, especially for kids, telling them that if they work hard, and believe in themselves enough, in 10 years I’ll be asking them for their autographs, too. And I guess I overdo it sometimes. Once a kid actually told me to hurry up.”

Meantime, Paul Gonzales goes right on predicting ever greater things for himself. First, the world title. “I promise you, if Paul Gonzales says he’s gonna win the championship for his people, then he will. The only way I’ll ever lose is if they kill me.”

In truth, however, for all his confidence, drive and public appeal, Paul Gonzales’ future is far from certain, mainly because of his own unpredictable physique. At 5-foot-9 and now 112 pounds, he’s so fragile-boned that every time he steps into the ring he runs the risk of serious injury. His right hand seems especially determined to do him in, so far disabling him three times during his brief career. Since he went pro two years ago, he has had only five fights (all wins) and spent the rest of his time recuperating from one injury or another.

Consequently, some sportswriters have taken to calling him the boxer who doesn’t box, while his less charitable critics sometimes call him a coward. He is now also nearly a year overdue to defend his North American Boxing Federation title.

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been jinxed. And it’s so frustrating. I want to get back into that ring! I’ve already been out too long. To keep my face going, I gotta be out there, showing people Paul Gonzales is still a winner. I only hope my friends will keep the faith and pray for me,” he finished with a sigh. It was the first time Gonzales had shown an even remotely gloomy face all day, since the subject of his trainer, who worries him nearly as much as his hand, hadn’t come up once.

AL STANKIE WAS A surprise, certainly, from the first minute he appeared at the Kop & Kid, screeching up to the curb in his brown van around 5 p.m., leaping onto the sidewalk, pausing a moment to get his bearings, staring around like a man who wasn’t quite sure where he was, then taking off almost at a run toward the gym door, demanding in a harsh, angry bark to know “where’s that damned kid?”

A few youngsters milling about seemed prepared to offer some sort of answer, but Stankie had already turned on his heel, without even entering the gym, and was sprinting back toward his car.

He didn’t look anything like a Los Angeles police officer who retired from the force only last year. Instead of the manicured, regulation mustache, his face was covered with graying stubble; his hazel eyes darted everywhere; his color was pasty approaching gray. His body, clad in a blue sweat suit, looked to be in good shape, tall and slender, though there was no way to tell if it was also tough enough to call wiry.

“Uh, oh, yeah, fine, uh-huh, honey, sure, OK, get in,” he muttered, as he threw open a door and practically shoved a visitor into his van. Inside was a chaotic overflow of assorted sports equipment and dirty sweat suits, of rumpled shirts, pants, dress shoes and paper bags stuffed with toiletries, underwear and socks. Plus empty cans, fast-food containers and a ratty carpet caked with miscellaneous particles of uncertain origins.

Two other passengers were also inside. One was a big, friendly woman with a head full of cornrows hanging halfway down her back. Asked to make introductions, Stankie blinked in momentary stupefaction, then, crowing with pride, declared her to be his girlfriend, “Cheeks--the most beautiful damned broad in the world.”

The other passenger was an exquisite little girl, maybe 2, who remained sound asleep on the van floor, a minor miracle since, as he lunged into the busy stream of rush-hour traffic, leaving rubber, Stankie turned up the stereo so loud that the entire van reverberated with the pounding of some heavy metal band howling about love and betrayal. Cheeks, sitting in the front seat, pleaded with Stankie to turn the volume down.

“Hey, baby, no way ! This is where it’s at, this is what it’s all about!” Stankie shouted, turning it even louder as he skidded around a corner, nearly running over a pedestrian, heading for one of the housing projects.

It never was clear who the baby belonged to, but Cheeks managed to shout out the reason for the child’s eerie slumber. She was somebody’s cocaine baby.

Two stops later and an eighth-grader and a high school senior, one black and one Latino, both carrying their boxing equipment, were among the entourage tearing through the streets and alleyways of East L.A. with Stankie. Both politely shouted their names, but otherwise had the good sense to fall silent, since no coherent conversation was possible under the circumstances.

Stankie himself periodically launched into a stream of chatter, his words, laced with truly creative and crude vulgarities, tumbling out in staccato, jumbled bursts, sometimes colliding in hopelessly garbled snarls, or, just as often, simply trailing off.

“Paul’s just one of my kids . . . got hundreds of them . . . gonna get hundreds outta these projects!” Then something about “. . . snot-nosed kid when I found him . . . prima donna . . . doesn’t care about anybody but himself . . . eats the publicity up, loves it. . . . I’ve been his barker for years . .. needs me, I’m the best!” He seemed to be talking about Gonzales.

Next, something about his philosophy of success that sounded reminiscent of Jesse Jackson in the days before Jackson decided to become President. “The ABCs backwards . . . is what I tell ‘em . . . conceive it, believe it, achieve it!”

Then, apropos of nothing, he launched into a discourse on the way he rates his young boxers. “Bulls! A lotta them are bulls, they got no talent, they get killed! Most of ‘em are Mexicans-- beaners , I call ‘em . . . and the gladiators. They have the potential . . . to learn. But the matador, he’s the best . . . got the grace, the skill . . . slips and slides . . . kills the bulls!”

Seconds later, Stankie glanced into the back of the van, saw that the eighth-grader was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Put that ---- thing down! You’re in training, you little sonofabitch! You wanna be a matador or not?”

The kid ignored him and sullenly finished his sandwich without a word.

The senior, however, shouted that he had a few videos he would like to return to the rental store before going to the gym. Whereupon Stankie flipped an illegal U-turn, raced through an alley to one of the busiest streets in the area and, in a maneuver hair-raising enough to cause even the eighth-grader to suck in his breath, cut straight across the boulevard without looking, bringing four lanes of traffic to a screeching halt. Most motorists seemed too stunned at what they had just seen to even honk their horns.

Next Stankie was peering into the back seat, fumbling through a bag, asking the senior to find his “leg holster.” After some rummaging through the mess, he finally produced it. In the next minute, Stankie was driving with one hand and waving a small black revolver in the air with the other. What motivated this sudden display of gun power was never really clear. Stankie mumbled something about “video stores . . . on Friday night,” but even he sounded bored with that. His two young boxing students, meantime, only stared silently out the windows, without expression. Cheeks giggled, eyes shining with excited admiration, then cried in mock alarm, “Al, put that thing away!”

Finally, Stankie was heading back to the Kop & Kid, by now around an hour late. (Training is supposed to begin at 5 sharp each day.) Along the way, he dribbled out a few other snatches of information--all about himself. Stankie is his own favorite subject, right down to the most trivial details of his childhood. He turned off the stereo, and even his voice was quieter, oddly mellow--something akin to a half-sad soliloquy.

Among the scattered tidbits: Stankie is a shortened version of his real name, Stankiewicz; he was born in Erie, Pa.; he came to California as a young man to “do some fightin’, drinkin’ and bangin’ ”; wound up working for a time as a Leeds shoe salesman, where he met his wife of 25 years, then decided for the hell of it to become a cop. Along the way, while working vice and narcotics, he had three children (now all grown), and also began moonlighting as a fair-to-middling middleweight boxer. When he got caught, the department suspended him briefly, then sent him back to the dreary routine of street patrol. He quit, sold insurance for a couple of years, then went back to his LAPD job, “mainly because I missed the camaraderie,” and was assigned in 1972 to the Hollenbeck station, where he became a community worker, developed an interest in barrio kids and was finally able to combine his love for kids and boxing through a permanent assignment to the Hollenbeck Youth Center. Which is where he met Gonzales, who was initially so afraid of being called a snitch by his street chums that he used to sneak into the building through a basement window. And the rest is history.

And that’s about where Al Stankie’s soliloquy stops--at least insofar as it involves Paul Gonzales. Nowadays, it’s virtually impossible to get him to discuss his young protege. At times, he sounds the part of an aging, one-time middleweight, motivated by simple jealousy; other times, he’s more reminiscent of an overly possessive parent who sees his most cherished child growing up and threatening to leave home, and him, alone.

Likewise, it only seems to inflame Stankie to be asked about his responsibilities to the Kop & Kid Boxing Academy--now in desperate, immediate need of financial support if it is even to get off the ground. As president of the would-be organization, Stankie should logically be capitalizing on the most powerful public relations tool he’s got--Paul Gonzales himself.

“I don’t give a ---- about publicity,” he snarled, pulling up in front of the gym. “And Paul’s too busy training to be bothered with a buncha reporters. Al Stankie’s in charge here, and if he has to, he’ll take out a damn mortgage on his house to pay the bills!”

Flying into the gym, where kids were furiously pounding away at assorted bags, jumping rope, doing sit-ups and sparring in the ring, Stankie’s whirling-dervish energy, for once, didn’t seem out of place, blurring into the general racket, sweat and noise. Gonzales was already there and, for a brief moment, watching Stankie massage his shoulders, gently wrap his bruised and swollen hand, and lace up his gloves, it was easy to feel the special bond between these two, a tie that may now be tattered but still clearly holds, at least when they’re near the boxing ring.

“YOU KNOW, ALL MY LIFEI’ve been hearing people say that I was a guy who had to have a cop to turn me around. But that never really was completely true. I was boxing before I ever even met Al. I always knew what I wanted, and if I have anybody to thank for what I am today, it’s my mom because she’s the one who really taught me discipline and respect and the meaning of strength, and how it’s possible, if you’re really determined, to win against the odds. I watched her raise eight kids all by herself, on welfare and food stamps, and she was always cheerful, she never complained, and she was always there for us, no matter what. Even our littlest accomplishments seemed to be enough to make her happy.”

It was Paul Gonzales, on the telephone, calling past midnight, sounding sometimes angry or frustrated, but mostly like he might cry. It would be another three hours before he was through talking, able to sleep.

“Even before, people were always complaining about how possessive and jealous of me Al was. And I knew it. He’s always wanted me all to himself. He never wants anybody else around. But I love the guy, and I always have, and when you love somebody, you accept them for all their faults.

“Now, people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Paul, don’t you see what’s going on?’ Hell, sure I do, I grew up in the streets. . . . I know that ain’t no natural energy! Al’s always been the kind of guy who’d get vulgar and loud when he wanted attention, but, before, he was better able to at least cooperate. Now he always acts like he’s coked up, but that’s not it--he’s freaked out on diet pills. That’s why he’s so skinny, he’s lost 50 pounds in a couple of months. And he’s supposed to be a role model for kids ? They’re supposed to respect him when he tells them what to do?”

Gonzales took a deep breath, and, for a few seconds, the phone line was silent. “This is so different. I want to help him, but I don’t know what to do. I mean, he’s digging a hole for himself big enough to bury us all in. He’s hurting me in every way--professionally, socially, my family. He’s got a beautiful wife and family, and he’s throwing that away, too. And I just can’t let him go on the way he is at the Kop & Kid. It’s not fair to anybody, especially the kids. . . . “I’ve always called the people closest to me, the people who love and support me, Team Gonzales, and Al’s always been one of the most important people in it to me. But I’ve already told him that if he doesn’t shape up, he’s gonna have to ship out, that he’s no longer going to be associated with Paul Gonzales. I’ve already cut him out of my contract negotiations. Now everything I do is handled strictly by me, with the advice of my lawyers. I just tell him what’s going on as a courtesy.”

Another pause, then another deep breath, then:

“A while back, when I first confronted him with this, I tried to talk him into going into the Betty Ford Center. And he was so freaked out he actually grabbed me and threw me up against the wall. He told me I was crazy, that he didn’t have any problem, that he was just taking a few diet pills to lose a little weight. . . .” Gonzales laughed, a small, dry sound.

“So I backed off for a few weeks and waited, hoping he’d get it together himself. Of course he didn’t. He’s just getting worse. Hell, before this last fight, before I hurt my hand again, he was so out of it that I didn’t even have a trainer for the last three weeks. He was never on time, or he just didn’t show up. So I talked to him about it again. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Don’t love me, Son, just leave me. You don’t need me. You’re already a champion.’ ”

Gonzales cleared his throat before he could go on. “And I said, ‘Hey, man! I love you, you got a problem, please let me help you. . . . And I do need you, please stick with me.’

“And all he said was, ‘I can’t, Son. I just can’t.’ ”

Over the distance of a telephone line at 3:30 in the morning, Paul Gonzales, the normally buoyant, contagiously happy young boxer, tried to steady his voice, and failed, as he grappled with the tragedy of the loving father who once rescued the son, who may now be powerless to extend the same loving hand in return.

“I’m just afraid it’s too late, that he doesn’t even want my help. I think maybe he’s just too burnt out to care anymore, to even try. It’s sad, man. Really sad,” Gonzales said, and hung up.

IT WAS A WEEK LATER. Al Stankie was the scheduled speaker at the Boyle Heights Kiwanis Club breakfast meeting, which began at 7:30. He was an hour late. But nobody seemed to mind--this is an especially friendly, undemanding crowd of businessmen. Most of them seemed to have known, and liked, Stankie for years. Besides, they knew he wasn’t the type to launch into a long, boring speech, making them all late to work.

And he didn’t. First he showed an eight-minute United Way film, produced shortly after Gonzales’ Olympic victory. It was called “Road to Glory” and dramatically captured the relationship between “the cop and the kid,” complete with American flags and all the properly moving musical scores.

It was hard to believe that the rosy-cheeked, clean-shaven, clear-eyed, level-voiced, solidly built man on the screen was the same thin, still unshaven, still pallid, still hyper Al Stankie who now stood in front of the room.

But this morning he at least spoke in a reasonable tone of voice and didn’t once utter a word much nastier than damn. And this morning his mind was focused enough on the Kop & Kid Boxing Academy to make a brief, but effective, pitch for Kiwanis memberships.

Afterward, sitting at a table smoking, he managed to maintain a level gaze and a civil manner:

“Aw, hell, Paul’s just overreacting. Sure, I needed to lose some weight, so a lady friend of mine gave me a few diet pills. But I only took them for a couple of weeks . . . maybe off and on for a month, I can’t remember, really. And, damn right, I got mad when he started making a big deal out of it, talking about Betty Ford. . . . I mean, my God, it was no big deal. It wasn’t like I was taking something illegal, after all. Those pills were a legal prescription. And I didn’t lose 50 pounds, I lost around 35, which was enough. So I decided to throw them away, it was last Tuesday, I think.”

Last Tuesday?

“Well, maybe it was Wednesday, I can’t remember exactly,” he said, an edge of irritability creeping into his tone.

Nor did Stankie feel that he owed the kids at the boxing school any particular explanation.

“Hell, no,” he snapped. “Why should I explain anything to anybody? I’ve always been an extremely hyper person. I doubt that anybody there thought I was even acting odd.” Except, of course, for Paul Gonzales.

“Paul’s a prima donna,” Stankie finished. “I’ve seen dozens of them, and they’re all alike. They all cry like babies if they don’t get all the special attention from the trainer that they think they deserve. He’s jealous every time I even wrap some other kid’s hands. So don’t buy all this stuff about how much he loves me. He’s out for himself and nobody else. Nooooobody. Remember it.”

BUT PAUL Gonzales refuses to let go. “Until maybe two or three years ago, he was such a beautiful guy, and he helped so many people besides me,” he recalls. “He was everything to me, I worshiped him. He made me believe I could make it out there, in the world, outside the barrio. He pushed me, he wouldn’t let me give up. He motivated me to become what I always wanted. And everybody needs someone who’ll do that for them.”