The Truth Behind a Smile

“All right, Stephen, go grab your gloves and meet me in the yard.” Stephen’s father got up from the table and headed outside.

Stephen hurried to meet his father outside who had been waiting by the entrance to their shed.

“Put your gloves over on the workbench and grab the jump rope, you’re going to do five minutes of freestyle jumping as a warmup and to start digesting some of that food you just ate.”

Stephen obeyed every command as does a new recruit with a drill sergeant during hell week.

Stephen’s family didn’t have a lot of money. They lived in the sticks and had to make do with his father’s weekly paychecks from the Coors factory. His mother was a stay-at-home mom. Stephen went to school, and although he’d been a boxing prodigy, amateurs received no money.

They had a relatively large shed that came with the cabin when his parents bought it years before he was born. It’s a bit of an understatement to call it a shed as it was almost the side of a carriage house that held between four and six horses. Stephen’s father spent the first few years of Stephen’s life repurposing the old thing alongside fixing up the cabin for his family. He himself had been a promising professional boxer until he suffered an injury that had left him partially blind in his right eye. The injury scared him as well as Stephen’s mother, who was pregnant with Stephen at the time and gave his father an ultimatum: either give up boxing or give her up. He chose her, and although he never told Stephen directly, Stephen could sense that his father had wanted to quit the sport after the injury, and his mother had just given him a good enough excuse.

Stephen’s father had also played football in high school and been the star of the varsity team. He and Stephen’s mother had been high school sweethearts who’d been able to make it last in the long run. The eye injury, however, had ended his athletic career, forcing Stephen’s father to give up the sports he loved.

When they received the news of the pregnancy, Stephen’s father was as happy as he could possibly be to find out he was going to have a son, and from the moment Stephen was born, started planning how he could transfer the sports knowledge he’d accumulated to his only heir.

With a limited paycheck and a family to take care of, Stephen’s father didn’t have many choices, and he knew that if he wanted to help turn his son into a top-tier athlete he’d have to build most of the tools he’d need from scratch. So, he got to work transforming their shed into a miniature gymnasium/boxing camp for his son. He took off the original door and screwed a pipe across the entrance. They had a workbench that was littered with sawdust and old tools, which looked in more desperate need of repair than whatever they were used to fix it. A little further into the converted shed was an old, matted rug that had lost most of its roughness, that Stephen and his father used for push-ups, squats, and crunches. On the other side was a rusty bench press that his father used to stay in shape. Secretly, though, Stephen thought his father got it so that Stephen would be able to use it as soon as his mother finally allowed it—his father always said he got enough exercise at work and didn’t need to do too much more. This proved to be true since Stephen’s father would only do three sets of ten reps on the bench press and then continue along with Stephen and his training.

Next to the bench press was an old canvas bag that Stephen’s mother had made for his father and then helped him fill with old clothes and sand they got down by the creek. It had seen better days and now had more duct tape on it than actual canvas. Stephen never did use it too much since it was far too heavy for him at the time. Instead, he would either spar with his father or practice on pads that his father held in each hand.

Finally, in the corner of the shed, there was a ring made from two old mattresses that Stephen’s father had found on some curb and four posts joined by twine-like ropes. Stephen didn’t use the “ring” except on the rare occasion that a friend from school or one of his boxing matches came over and were willing to participate in a friendly sparring session.

Although his father had spent a lot of time repurposing the shed as a gym, he was adamant about training in the yard. Even during the colder months.

“All right,” his father said almost an hour into their training session, “take a break.”

Stephen collapsed onto the ground. After his five-minute jump-rope warmup, he had completed reflex training: trying to catch a coin from one of his father’s hands without knowing which one. Five rounds of shadowboxing were then followed by sprints across the yard, 40 laps around the house (which Stephen’s father had measured to be a mile), and then eight rounds of pad work.

“Dad … can I ask you a question?” Stephen asked between labored breaths.

His father sat beside him on the ground. “What is it, son?”

“Where did you go when mom kicked you out of the house?”

The expression of worry on his father’s face disappeared and was replaced with its usual scowl, which most people found intimidating.

“That’s not something that you need to worry about, son,” his father said coldly. He looked away from Stephen to the horizon of the morning sky.

“I know you don’t like to talk to me about serious stuff or feelings. I know that people don’t care about a man’s feelings so there’s no point in burdening others with your own, but I’m not people, Dad. And I know that I’m just a kid, but I want you to know that you can talk to me if you ever want to tell someone about your feelings. You know that right?”

Stephen’s father sat motionless; his gaze fixed on the mountainous range in front of them. Only his chest moved, rising and falling, as its pace quickened.

“Dad? I know you didn’t like what happened. I saw the look on your face when you left, and when you slammed the door to your truck before driving off, I could feel it in my room. Shoot, you sped off so fast you shot gravel off the ground, and it almost hit one of the kitchen windows. I saw how upset you were, and when you came back, I saw the money that you gave mom before she let you come back in the house. You guys argued a lot, but all I could see was you. It didn’t look like you. You looked like you were getting smaller and smaller until—”

His father smacked him in the face. His father’s breathing became jagged, like a bull’s before it charged. Stephen couldn’t look toward his father. He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. He’d never been hit by one of his parents before, and the blow had left him in a state of shock. He held his throbbing cheek and stared, wide-eyed, at the ground.

Stephen’s father grabbed him and brought him to his chest, squeezing him into a hug.

“I’m sorry.” His breathing calmed down, and he rubbed the back of Stephen’s head.

They sat like that for a while. His father finally let him go and said, “Grab your stuff. We’re done with training for today.”

Stephen got up slowly, walked over to the shed, and picked up the jump rope and his other belongings.

“I’m truly sorry, son.” His father stood at the door of the shed.

Stephen hadn’t realized his father had gotten up and followed him.

“I-It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to talk to me.” He put his head down and tried to walk past his father without making eye contact.