How I Came to Write This Story: Thomas Pluck
"Of Gluttons and Punishment"
by Thomas Pluck www.pluckyoutoo.com
My story "A Glutton for Punishment" at Beat to a Pulp came about when I was thinking of my friends at the gym getting ready for mixed martial arts fights. The teacher talked about the "Green room jitters," and the guys spoke of how it felt like a forgone conclusion once you made it to the fight. Kind of like the green mile to the gas chamber, if you thought about it, they'd have to drag you there.
So I thought about a guy who had the opposite problem. He wasn't going to back down, even when he knew better. What could drive a man like that? There are fighters who take a lot of fights. Cream puffs, punching bags. They get in there and fight for a pittance. I wanted to
know how you could do that to yourself.
This story comes from a very personal place. The story of little kids boxing is a true one. The girl in it is my grandmother. My great-grandfather used to make her and her brother, my great-uncle,fight for his amusement. They grew up to be very close. It's a storyyou hear as a kid and think of as a fable, it can't be real. But it stays with you. For the record, my father never laid a hand on me ormy mother, but he died when I was still a young man. So that sense of
loss is always going to be there.
Sometimes we hold the key to the shackles of the past, and sometimes we don't. That theme is central to this story and many of mine. You can't always fix something just because you know it's broken, but you try, and see what happens.
The story is here, and if you haven't read it yet, it's about 800 words. And I'd like to thank David Cranmer at Beat to a Pulp for taking it, and Patti for asking me why I wrote it. Next Bouchercon,
Patti, I hope we have more time to talk. It was a pleasure meeting you and your family.
http://beattoapulp.com/stor/2011/0710_tp_AGluttonForPunishment.cfm
7 comments:
I almost got involved in a youth boxing league when I was in junior high. Turned out the guy was a scam artist and took our money and ran.
GLUTTON has been one of our biggest hits at BTAP and even gained a comment from Lawrence Block!
Thank you, Tom. I appreciate you trusting us with your story.
A beaut of a story.
Professional palookas are interesting. Guys who take on fight after fight to build up the career records of other boxers.
This was talked about during a Bouchercon panel. Tom Schreck talked about the guys who work all day at Home Depot, drive 2-4 hours to another town, suit up, get knocked around for $500 (probably for much, much less) and then drive back home.
I was at that panel, Gerard! Tom Schreck and Andrew Vachss could probably talk for hours about boxers with records like those.
I read The Collected Boxing Stories of Robert E Howard in 2007. Howard's frequent character was Sailor Costigan, an Iron Man fighter with an iron jaw.
After reading those stories I started reading more about guys like Joe Grim. The amount of punishment they willfully took is amazing.
Really enjoyed GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT (and a great title). Kind of fiction that makes BTAP the top zine to be in. Thanks and carry on, as I'm sure you will.
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