Blood Relations

Sam approached the boxing ring. Inside the ropes stood a black man two years older, five inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than he, cannonball shoulders throwing thunder at a sparring partner. Trainer Alexander Newbold, a strapping man from Harlem better known as Ness, suddenly turned to the newcomer. "Got your mouthpiece?" he barked.

Sam froze. "Why?"

"You boxin' him next."

"No way! Man, that guy can punch!"

Yes, he could punch--James Butler had just won the first of two Golden Gloves titles. He could kick, too. The first time Ness laid eyes on him, James was kicking in the glass door at a fast-food joint at 155th Street and 8th Avenue whose owner had just given him the heave. He was a teenager from the Harlem projects--absent father, party-loving mom--who had served time for petty larceny. "Kid, you should be boxing," Ness told James. "You got a lot of anger in you."

James showed up at the gym. He looked as if somebody had just stolen something from him, and it might've been you. That's what trainer Bob Jackson said.

"You think I could hit like the Hammer?" Sam asked Ness.

"People are born with that pop," said Ness, "but I'll teach you balance and defense. You won't get hurt ... unless you're chicken."

"I ain't chicken!"

Sam joined Ness's boxers and, like the Hammer, basked in the nickname he got from the trainer: the Baby-Faced Assassin.