Recognized by John Updike as the best essayist of his generation, Edward Hoagland is especially well known for his nature and travel writing. This passage, however, is drawn from an essay on boxing--a "waning sport," says Hoagland, and one of the most "poignant ways to earn a living." Here he describes the old Gramercy Gym on East 14th Street in Manhattan.
The Gramercy Gym
from "Heart's Desire," by Edward Hoagland*
The Gramercy Gym is two flights up some littered, lightless stairs that look like a mugger's paradise, though undoubtedly they are the safest stairs in New York. Inside, two dozen bodies are chopping up and down, self-clocked, each fellow cottoned in his dreams. Some are skipping rope, turbaned in towels, wrapped in robes in order to sweat. These are white-looking figures, whereas the men who are about to spar have on dark headguards that close grimly around the face like an executioner's hood. There are floor-length mirrors and mattresses for exercising and rubdowns, and two speedbags banging like drums, and three heavy bags swingling even between the rounds with the momentum of nore than a decade of punches. The bell is loud, the fighters jerk like eating and walking birds, hissing through their teeth as they punch, their feet sneakering the floor with shuffly sounds. They wear red shoelaces in white shoes, and peanut-colored gloves, or if they're Irish they're in green. They are learning to move their feet to the left and right, to move in and out, punching over, then under an opponent's guard, and other repetitive skills without which a man in the ring becomes a man of straw. The speedbags teach head-punching, the heavy bags teach body work, and one bag pinned to the wall has both a head and a torso diagrammed, complete with numbers, so that the trainer can shout out what punches his fighter should throw. "Bounce, bounce!" the trainers yell.
Selected Works by Edward Hoagland
- Cat Man, novel (1956)
- The Courage of Turtles: Fifteen Essays about Compassion, Pain, and Love, essays (1971)
- Walking the Dead Diamond River, essays (1973)
- The Tugman's Passage, essays (1982)
- Seven Rivers West, novel (1986)
- The Final Fate of the Alligators, short stories (1992)
- Tigers and Ice: Reflections on Nature and Life, essays (1999)
- Compass Points: How I Lived, memoir (2002)
- Early in the Season: A British Columbia Journal, nonfiction (2009)
* "Heart's Desire" by Edward Hoagland first appeared in the magazine Audience and was reprinted in the collection Walking the Dead Diamond River, Random House, 1973.
