Lunch at Gleason's Gym

Lunch at Gleasons’s Gym

It’s first across Seventh Avenue.
Pick-up a capicola and swiss on white
Mayo and lettuce—tomatoes make it too soggy
Oh’ and a Dr. Browns Crème Soda
Then back across Seventh Avenue
Waiting for no lights
Watching for Kamicazi cabs
Dodging torpedo bicycle messengers.
It’s midway to Eighth Avenue.
On Thirtieth Street
Just four blocks below Madison Square Gardens,
New Yorkers just call it “The Gardens”.
New Yorkers disdain out-of-towners
Those people standing on the curb
When the light says, “Don’t Walk”
Gleason’s is not one of your
Stainless steel
Glitter lighted
Muszac playing,
Deodorized,
Suburban gyms where
Shapely women work out
In loose fitting
Color coordinated
Designer exercise suits
And not so shapely women
Parade around
In tight,
Non-cellulite containing
Spandex leotards.
No, Gleason’s is an old time fight gym
With photos of past pugilists
Like Jake “The Bronx Bull” LaMotta
And Joe Frazier and
some even unknown to Ring Magazine
Covering the walls
But not hiding the peeling paint
Where men go to learn to beat up other men.
And, when they know how to inflict pain
By the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury
They go to up the street to “The Gardens”
To help fill the pre-fight card
Bringing the ticket payers to a
Bloodlust, adrenalin, crescendo
Before the main event.
Gleason’s is about escape
For the would be
Macho Camochos,
Sugar Rays,
and Muhammad Alis
A way out of some shithole in
the south Bronx,
Bed Sty,
Jersey city.
Puerto Rican, Black, Italian, Polish
Hardworking office cleaning
Mothers give crumpled up dollars
Each week
To help future
Rocky Marcianos,
Hector De la Hoyas,
Cassias Clays
Down the road to the Big Time
All the while the old men sit at ringside
Wearing brown 1950’s fedoras
And smoke chew big cigars
Talking about the old days
“If I could just find one kid
With hands like Sugar Ray Robinson
And feet like Sugar Ray Leonard.”
Gleason’s is about
Sweating men,
Cigar smoke,
Cheap disinfectant
The pop and rhythm of leather on leather
And leather on flesh.
It’s about watching young men
Spar, punch, duck, dance
Perfect skill as old as man
It’s about learning the feel of real pain
Of a well placed left job.
It’s about the taste of
Capacola and swiss on white
With mayo and lettuce,
Tomatoes make it too soggy.
Oh, and a Dr. Brown’s Crème Soda
Then back to work