“Since I sat down with you,” I says. “Harry, we know each other too long to fart around. I am not one of these shyster managers who would rather make a crooked dime than an honest dollar. When you talk to Rocky Evans you know you are talking with a man of his word,” I says.
“Put it to music and send it to me on a record,” he says. But I know I’ve got him going. “Even the dopes will know he ain’t the champeen of Italy,” he says.
Then I give him the convincer, I says, “Do you know who the champeen of Italy is?” I says.
“Nah,” he says.
“Then how do you know it ain’t Tony Colucci?” I says. I got him on the ropes now. He’s weakening fast. “And if you, a smart guy in the business, don’t know,” I says, “how in Christ’s sweet sake do you expect the dopes in K.C. to know the difference?”
So we do business. Two-fifty for the fight and a G on the side to splash in the third round. I run right over to the gym to tell Tony the good news. Tony was stretched out on a rubbing table with his eyes closed. There was an egg over one eye and his kidneys looked like a rare cut of roast beef. “That new fella from Chicago was tryin’ out his left hook,” says the jig rubber. “From the way Tony drops, it looks like the fella is back workin’ in the slaughter-house.”
“Tony’ll feel better when he gets a load of the match I just made for him,” I says, and I tell the rubber to park his fat ass somewhere else. Then I pull Tony up to a sitting position and rub the back of his neck to bring him around. He lets his legs dangle over the side of the table and holds his head in his hands.
“Jesus,” he says. “That sonofabitch can bang.”
“Cheer up, kid,” I says. “We hit the jackpot again. Twelve hundred and fifty smackeroos to box Chief Firebird in K.C.”
“Twelve-fifty?” He raised his head slowly and looked up at me. I’m a sentimental bastard, I guess, but I couldn’t help thinking how different he looked from the first time I seen him, back in the amateurs. He was a pretty good-looking kid then, high, straight nose, shiny, black eyes, always kind of, well, kind of proud-looking. Kind of cocky, the way he carried himself, only not the kind to annoy you, cocky and quiet at the same time, like he was saying, Look, I don’t want to sound like I’m boasting, it simply happens to be a fact that I am the next champeen of the world. And I guess the dope really believed that too, before I brought him into town and he started kissing the canvas like it was his only girl. That Roman schnoz with the high bridge is fallen down now, he’s got an ear on him that would look like a cauliflower even to a cauliflower and his eyes is sunken in and pulled back kind of Chink style the way most the boys’ eyes get after they been in the business awhile. He is something to scare babies with if I ever seen one. Only the inside of his eyes is the same, the eyeballs, big and kind of moist-looking, and he’s got a way of looking at you too long with them, sort of proud-like and melancholy that makes you want to look away. That’s the way he was looking at me now when he says, “Twelve-fifty?” he says. “For twelve-fifty I gotta do tricks. What tricks I gotta do for twelve-fifty?”
“A trick that is already second nature to you,” I says. “All you got to do is look for a nice soft place to fall and take a little nap in the third,” I says.
Tony don’t say nothing. “Twelve hundred and fifty bucks,” I says. “A shyster manager would take two-thirds, but with Rocky Evans we split it down the middle. Twelve-fifty divided by two goes six, two into five is two and one over, two into ten is five even, leaves you six hundred and twenty-five fish,” I says.
Tony pulls off his trunks, his jock and his cup and throws them in the corner like he’s sore.
“Money talks,” I says. “Even if you don’t. Six hundred and twenty-five talkers.”
Tony picks a towel up off the floor and slings it over his shoulder. “Tell ’em to go stick it up,” he says.
“Tony,” I says to him, “you remember me. This is Rocky Evans, your manager. That fella must of shook you up pretty bad.”
“He’s got nothing to do with it,” Tony says. “Go back and tell ’em they can shove it. Chief Firebird ain’t going to knock me out,” he says.
He goes into the showers and I stand outside, yelling in, trying to put some sense into him. I says to him, I says, “Since when have you become a primy donna, you big bum? What record do you think you’re protecting, for Christ’s sweet sake? To hear you talk you never took a dive before. Why, you been in the tank so long you’re starting to grow fins,” I says.
He just goes on taking his shower. Then when he steps out and starts to dry himself, he says, “I don’t care what I done. I ain’t going to take no dive for that overrated sonofabitch,” he says.
And you ask me why I got ulcers. That is the kind of aggravation you got to put up with from the punchy stumblebums in my business. “Look who’s talking about what he is or ain’t doing,” I says. “Why, you big schlemozzel, you’re lucky you got to eat. You was all washed up three years ago. If it wasn’t you was tied up with a smart guy like me you wouldn’t make six hundred and twenty-five dollars the rest of your life,” I says.
“I ain’t going to let no overrated bum like this Chief Firebird knock me out,” Tony says.
Well there I was, up piss creek without a paddle. Of course there were other ways of handling it, I could slip Tony a mickey the day of the fight, but that’s not the kind of fella I am. I been in this business almost twenny years and nobody ever tabbed me as a wrongo yet.
So in mortification I go back to Bad News Harry Hoffman. “Listen,” I says to Harry, I says, “my bum, that Tony Colucci, I always thought he was slightly punchy, but now he has gone a hundred per cent off his nut. He don’t want any part of that extra G,” I says. “He won’t lay down,” I says.
Harry just yawns like he’s bored. “Listen, Rocky,” he says, “I’m a busy man. Chief Firebird ain’t a fighter, he’s a million-dollar corporation, and he’s in my lap. All you gotta do is handle one punchy spar-boy. Go handle him,” he says, like that’s all there was to it.
“But Harry,” I says. “Believe me all of a sudden the boy’s got a screw loose somewhere. Like a mule he’s so stubborn, I never seen him like this before,” I says.
But Harry is not what I would call an understanding individual. “They are already putting up the billboards in K.C.,” he says. “If that friggin’ champeen of Italy of yours don’t fold in three, this will not be a very healthy business for you,” he says.
So that’s the way it is when we go into training and when I take Tony out to K.C. and Harry has the drums beat like I never seen them beat before, and all the papers is talking about how Tony Colucci, the Champeen of Italy, is the one remaining hurdle in the path of Chief Firebird, the Apache Assassin who threatens to do with his fists what his ancestors failed to do with bow and arrow, establish supremacy over the white race. You know, the jive. All this time I can feel my ulcers multiplying like rabbits because I do not know what is going on in the mind of the Champeen of Italy, and I think maybe this p.a. jive about his being the one remaining hurdle etcetera may be going to his head. And all the time we are in training nothing has been settled between he and I because I think maybe I will work a little of this here psychology on Tony, so I don’t say nothing to Tony until the day before the fight, and then, when we are taking a little walk around the block after supper, I says to him quick-like, “Now look Tony, stay in close to him for two rounds and around the middle of the third stick your chin out a little and let him tag you with one, and, remember, don’t go down before he tags you like you done that time in Scranton, when they had to call the cops,” I says.
Tony just looks at me with them sad eyes of his and says, “I ain’t going to take no dive for that overrated bum,” he says.
“Tony,” I says, “for Christ’s sweet sake, the fix is already in. You got to take this dive. If you don’t take this dive you might as well hang up your gloves. You’ll never eat again. I promise you, you’ll starve to death,” I says, “if Ba
d News Harry Hoffman don’t find a quicker way,” I says.
“I don’t care what they do to me,” Tony says. “I ain’t going to take no dive for that overrated bum.”
“You dirty double-crossing no-good mother-lovin’ bastard,” I says. “So that’s the gratitude I get for putting you in touch with a good thing. I could of got plenty other bums. I didn’t have to pick you. I thought I was doing you a favor,” I says.
“Up your favors,” Tony says. “I tell you I ain’t going to take no dive.”
I am so mad I feel like I am busting a blood vessel. “And just what is so special about this dive, may I ask?” I says.
“That Chief is a bum,” Tony says. “I seen him work in the gym. He can’t punch his way outa a paper bag,” he says.
“And just what has that got to do with our twelve-fifty?” I says.
“He’s a bum,” Tony says. “He’s a bigger bum ’n me. I’d feel like a God-damn fairy going in three. I wouldn’t like for my girl to have to read about it,” he says.
“Your girl,” I says, “is that all that’s stopping you, your girl? You call that fugitive from a notch-joint your girl?”
“Evelyn is okay,” he says. “Don’t you go making no remarks about Evelyn.”
“Sure Evelyn is okay,” I says. “But if I know Evelyn, and you come back with six hundred and twenty-five fish, she’ll be able to stand the disgrace of how it looks in the papers.”
Then Tony says, “What’s this bum got that I ain’t got? If you’d a took me along slow and fed me a bunch of setups like they’re doing with him, instead of letting them belt me out before I got started, maybe I could of made money like this for winning my fights instead of throwing them.”
That’s what you’re up against in this business, some back-knifing sonofabitch of a shyster manager always filling your boy full of wrong ideas. So I have all I can do to keep my patience, and I says to him, I says, “Listen, deadhead, let’s not open up that can of tomato juice again. The question is, are you going to go in three tomorrow night or ain’t you?” I says.
“I ain’t,” Tony says. “I got my pride.”
Is that not but funny enough to be held over another week? “Your what?” I says. “You ought to get down on your knees and thank Christ you get your three squares and a mattress under you and you have to have pride yet?” I says.
But the dope won’t listen to reason. He won’t lay down. It is enough to drive a nervous man to the laughing academy. Twenty-four hours before the fight and the fix is in and my bum won’t co-operate. There is nothing to do but to go back to Harry Hoffman. He has the best layout in the place on the top floor. The room is full of expensive cigar smoke coming from reporters and hot air coming from Bad News Harry.
“Hello, Harry,” I says. “I gotta talk to you.”
He looks at me like we are not even doing business together. “Listen, Evans,” he says, “if you came up to bet your man against mine, my price is still the same, nine to five.”
I think maybe everyone in the world is going crazy except me. Only maybe Harry is not so crazy. After the boys from the paper see that they have drunk all the amber and smoked all the Havana they are getting from Harry, they disappear, and Harry says to me, “For Christ’s sake, Rocky, you ought to know better than that. Don’t come in here and talk like we was brothers or sleeping together or something. You might as well come right out and tell them Tony Colucci is doing a swan in the third round tomorrow night.”
“But that’s just the trouble,” I says. “He ain’t.”
Anybody else but Harry would of blown up, I guess. Maybe that’s why Harry is a big shot and I got nothing out of the game but my bellyful of ulcers. I could see Harry was steamed, but he didn’t throw a punch, he didn’t even raise his voice at me. Getting sore is a luxury he didn’t have time for, he says to me later, something fancy like that. All he says to me now is, “Send the boy to me,” just, “Send the boy to me,” like Lionel Barrymore playing the boss of a college or something.
So I finally get Tony up to see him, and God knows what the hell they said to each other because Harry told me to go down to the bar and have myself a powder. About half an hour later Tony comes downstairs and I say, “What happened?” and he says, “He told me not to say,” and I says, “Everything all right?” and he says, “That Mr. Hoffman is a pretty sharp fella.”
So I am as much in the dark as the paying customers until we get into the dressing room and Tony starts to get ready. Then he takes me aside and says, “Rocky, I want you to go out and get me a little piece of chicken wire,” he says.
“What in hell do you want with chicken wire?” I says.
“Get it,” he says, like he was the manager and I was the bum.
So a couple of minutes later I come back with the chicken wire. The semi-windup is on and they tell us to get ready to go in.
“Now come into the can with me,” Tony says, “and bring a pair of pliers.”
We crowd into the John together. “Now cut off a little piece,” Tony says.
“How small?” I says.
“Small enough to fit into my mouth,” Tony says.
“What the hell?” I says.
“Now slip the wire into something that will keep it from sliding out,” Tony says. “A piece of rubber …”
“Rubber,” I says. “Wait a minute.” I pull out my wallet. I always carry a couple along, just in case. “How’s this?” I says.
“Okay,” he says, “now put the rubber up against my teeth, under the mouthpiece.”
So that’s the way it is when the fight begins. I don’t see what’s cooking right away, but it’s a little clearer the first time the Chief holds his left in Tony’s face. The blood starts right away. It begins to trickle out of one corner of Tony’s mouth. But it don’t seem to bother Tony and he fights back. He is holding his own. He always had a punch in his left hand and he lets it go a couple of times, spinning the Chief around. The customers stand up and yell. It looks like Tony can take him. The only trouble is that every time the Chief gets that left in Tony’s face, there’s more blood. By the end of the round he looks like he’s been hit in the mush with a ripe tomato. It is dripping down his chin and onto his chest. The Chief don’t even have to hit him. All he has to do is press that left glove against Tony’s mouth and the chicken wire takes care of the rest.
I do what I can to stop the cuts between rounds, but they are up on the gums and tough to get at. The first jab starts them going again. Tony makes the Chief grunt with that left to the belly but the blood is beginning to bother him now. It pours out of his mouth like a faucet and it begins to look like he’s ducked his head in it because the Chief’s gloves smear his mouth across his face. After a while his mouth and the Chief’s glove are so soggy it makes a squashy sound when they come together. But Tony keeps boring in, spraying the ref and the press-row seats with blood every time he swings.
When he comes back to his corner I says, “How you feel, Tony boy?” and he just shakes his head, he can’t say nothing, he’s swallowed so much blood. There’s nothing much we can do for him now, and when the boys come up for round three Tony is bleeding so bad some of the ringsiders start to yell, “Stop the fight, stop the fight.” I find out later Harry has them planted there for that, but he could of saved his dough, for them people don’t need nobody to start them yelling, the referee’s white shirt looked like it was dyed red, Tony was slowing up a little and the Chief was whipping hard lefts and rights to the mouth until it was flowing like a bloody fountain. Pretty soon everybody in the house was up on their feet yelling “Stop the fight, stop the fight,” and finally the ref stepped in between them and raised the Chief’s arm.
Tony was pretty sick from swallowing all that blood, but the crowd gave him a better hand when he left the ring than the Chief himself and he mitted them and grinned and I guess he felt pretty good until the excitement wore off. I had the doc take a hinge at that mouth when we got back to the dressing room and I never saw
anything like it in my life, the gums was all ripped to shreds like it was so much hamburger.
Well we had to have the doc come back about three o’clock in the morning, superficial hemorrhage I guess you call it, and next morning when Tony woke up his kisser was out like one of these Ubangis. He sounds like he’s talking with a sponge in his mouth and it looks like he’ll be eating out of a straw the rest of his life, but right away he wants to see the papers. He reads the first write-up and starts to grin and sends me for a razor so he can save it for his scrapbook.
“For Christ’s sweet sake,” I says, “if you ain’t got no scruples about throwing the fight, why you should let him cut your mouth to ribbons for three rounds when you could just sink down to the canvas without even scraping an elbow is a mystery to me.”
Tony just went on cutting out the clipping. “For three rounds last night,” this here article says,
Tony Colucci absorbed a terrible beating from Chief Firebird, the heavyweight contender. But Tony carried the fight to the winner all the way and was still gamely on his feet when the referee stepped between them to save the gallant Colucci from further punishment.
“You don’t understand,” Tony says to me.
“Understand,” I says. “You’d have to be crazy in the head to understand a choice like that.”
And you ask me why I got ulcers? A punchy stumble-bum almost getting me run outa the business and then letting them tear his mouth to shreds when he could stretch out on that canvas nice and comfortable like he was home in bed. All I can say is, if you can figure that one out, you’re a better man than I am. Well, thanks boys, now that I got the milk down, I guess a little one won’t hurt me. …
A NOTE ON THE LITERARY LIFE
KENNETH CHANNING BAXTER STUDIED the young man who had answered his ad in The Saturday Review. He not only studied him but was conscious of doing so, for as readers of Kenneth Channing Baxter’s famous novels knew, KCB was a great student of human nature. An adulatory profile in a national magazine had quoted the great man as saying that his vocation was also his avocation, for “I have a passion for studying people—reading their faces, their gestures, their silences; my fellow-man never ceases to fascinate, challenge and amuse me.”
Some Faces in the Crowd Page 11
