We were talking about punches, about how men hit one another, pick fights verbally and then agree to meet in the parking lot behind the bowling alley or the creamery to settle things once and for all. Think of all the hits Ali took, one of us says. Another one of us believes our era as children was the golden age of boxing, when Friday night fights were shown on black-and-white TV, sponsored by an aftershave company, with fighters named Carmen Basilio, Kid Gavilan, and Sugar Ray Robinson.
It was the time before we knew what we were doing to the world. Two of us were fighters, but one of us was the one who started the fight, the one who then watched it as if he was the innocent one.