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And always from the gut of Toole, based on the findings of Boyd. Jerry Boyd, who worked the corners and learned to see through the eyes of trainers and cut men and wannabes. Jerry Boyd, who learned to see through the duplicitous promoters’ verbiage of con – the verbiage that shapes the business and everyone's rock hard shell. And all with sentences that are crisp combinations of honesty, respect, and brimming affection for those he came to respect. The quick phrases describe the irony of a fighter's soft handshake as "gentle as a nun." The words come first person in boxing's ebonics with an Irish guy, white as they come, making you believe that he sees that deeply into the black experience, language and vernacular without any sense of contrivance. Toole’s references might make some pause, yet every allusion redefines respect in a world that's a globule of mercury. You can never put your thumb on it. Don't understand it too fast. "In their dreams all men are great," Freud said. Now here's Toole, with his close-cropped white hair and beard and round, thick framed, black glasses. On sight, he could be Freud's bastard nephew. The fighters, the corner guys, even the hustlers and bloodsuckers, they were all Jerry Boyd's patients. He saw inside them, saw their fear, saw their guts, saw the dreams. And boxing is all dreams. Fulfillment and collapse, fulfillment again, and the toughest part, knowing when to wake up. Go with Toole and you'll never watch another fight without feeling it – feeling the shots, swallowing the blood, trying to think through the most desperate moments, smelling it, soaring with the winners and crashing back to earth with the gallant losers. I don't trust Pound For Pound, his novel published after Toole was gone. He had no hand in the book's final edit. The read strikes me the same way those Hendrix albums released after Jimi had crossed the rainbow bridge. His hand wasn't on them, and his soul wasn't in them. Nor was Toole's voice in that final published work. Rope Burns is Toole's purest essence. He subtitled his collection Stories From The Corner. Indeed. Move close enough to a boxing ring and cock an ear toward the fighter on his stool. There can never be another corner without the whispered words of Jerry Boyd. Nor can there ever be a ring, a beer scented venue, or a fight gym filled with desperate, determined men and their blood pounding dreams without the ghost of F.X. Toole. Steven Robert Wollenberg is an actor and free-lance writer living in Los Angeles who has also worked for ESPN and CBS Radio Sports. He co-stars in the British-French co-produced film "The Pet" due for release in November 2006. Wollenberg is currently appearing in Ray Bradbury's play "Autumn People" in Los Angeles.
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