Читать книгу Sporting Blood. Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing онлайн

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This was not the kind of habit that led to a few weeks in the Betty Ford clinic or could be overcome by an intervention. It was Do the Right Thing, J Is for Junkie, Night of the Living Baseheads deterioration. For loose change, a shambolic Pryor shadowboxed on street corners. Occasionally, he even sparred against neighborhood toughs in alleys and backyards. He shuffled from one crack house to another, took beatings from conscienceless thugs, suffered sexual degradation, and slept on curbsides under harsh lamppost light. Every urban wasteland was a mirror image of another during that era. Crack vials shattered beneath feet, abandoned buildings were repurposed for shooting galleries and smoking dens, crosswalks were ruled by vicious sentinels wearing Timberlands and waving Glocks. All blue hours were splintered by the pop-pop-pop of gunshots, the nonstop wail of sirens, and the falling, booming bass beat of Jeeps cruising the risky streets. Then the sun would rise again on chalk outlines, spent shells, sidewalks caked in flaking blood. But you would never think to find someone as accomplished as Aaron Pryor in that netherworld.