by Jack Tunney
“How do you know so much about what he did or didn’t do?”
Frankie’s grin didn’t have much warmth. “Been hearing about this fight since I met you,” he said. “But it don’t take no Einstein to figure out he must’ve hit you more than a hundred times for you to get so busted up.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Got to use your speed. Got to use your skills,” he said. “You got to work at a fast pace, bob and weave, and get that jab in his face all night. That way when he hits you, the blows don’t hurt.”
“Be like Henry Armstrong,” Gold put in. “Saw him win the welterweight title against Barney Ross back in ’38. Man moved and hit faster than anybody I ever seen.”
***
Frankie had me in the ring with two different sparring partners. The first was a young Negro welterweight who could dance and hit faster than any other guy I had ever gone up against. I spent my time with him going side to side, matching him step for step and using the ring to my advantage.
The second was a big heavyweight pushing two twenty-five, if not more, with a shaved head and fists like slabs of meat. Every time one of those punches connected I felt it shake me to the soles of my feet. Fighting a couple of rounds each day against him trained me to use my jab to create distance and stay outside.
“Stick that jab,” Frankie kept yelling. He stood outside the ropes and watched. He spit a glob of phlegm in a cup, wiped a hand across his mouth, and went on. “Move! Hit! Move! Hit!”
I kept at it.
I popped three jabs to the guy’s head then pumped a short right to the ribs. He moved to cut off the ring and I slid to the side, throwing a soft combination before doubling up on my jab.
“Good movement,” Frankie yelled. “Stay on your toes.”
I counterpunched the guy towards the ropes, pummeling him with solid shots to the midsection and ribs while trying to work an uppercut between his gloves. We were still trading punches when Frankie called. “Time! That’s it. You’re done. Back to the heavy bag.”
“I can go longer,” I told him.
Frankie shook his head. “Don’t want you leaving your fight in the gym,” he said. “Got to have something left for Boyle.”
“I got plenty left for him,” I said.
“Good,” Frankie said. “Don’t know what kind of tricks this guy might have up his sleeve.”
Ray Gold wandered over. “Ain’t just him we got to worry about,” he said. “This thing goes to the scorecards, you got to worry about Tommy Domino. You never know who that guy’s got in his pocket.”
I was working the heavy bag while Gold and Frankie watched from the other side of the room. I kept my head down and fired jabs, popping my left into the same worn out spot two dozen times. With every punch, I could feel the bag giving a little bit more until the hard spot in the leather softened and started caving beneath my fist. I dropped my left, shifted my weight, and started banging my right into the bag.
I could feel my muscles ache with that good kind of hurt. The kind that told me I was doing it right as I dug my fists harder and faster into the bag.
I bobbed from the waist, throwing lefts and rights, trying to build momentum and rhythm. A left then a right into the bag. I laid that jab into the leather five times then came in with a short hook and a driving left. The bag bounced and strained against its chain, jerking against the loop that held it to the ceiling. It dropped with a clang when I hit it with another succession of jabs and hooks.
I kept up the pace, shooting lefts and right into the bag as I moved back and forth from side to side. My lungs burned and my hands ached, but I kept at it.
I slid a foot to the left, shifted my weight forward, and popped two more jabs before following with a right.
I could just see Michael Boyle’s ribs at the other end of my fists.
I liked the way it felt each time my punches connected.
ROUND TWELVE
The funny thing about boxing was that you’re alone all the time, no matter how many people were around you.
It’s not like other jobs. You dragged your butt to the gym day after day and worked the different bags alone, even when there was a guy like Frankie looking over your shoulder the whole time. It didn’t matter if you were skipping rope in the gym, sparring rounds during training, or getting it on with some punch drunk palooka in front of two hundred drunks downtown for a couple of bucks in the purse. And it didn’t matter what the reporters wrote or how good they said you were because once you climbed into the ring, you were all alone.
There was nobody else there to help you.
“You want something bad enough, you have to learn to do it yourself,” Father Tim once told me. “You can’t count on anybody else to fight your battles.”
I learned lots of lessons in that ring Father Tim had set up in the St. Vincent’s basement. One came after I caught a pounding from one of the older kids named Jimmy Wyler – a tough kid about my size who taught me a thing or two about what it meant to get the living daylights beat out of you. He hit me with punches I didn’t see coming. Hit me with a bunch more I saw but couldn’t do a thing to stop. I sat there on the side of the ring with blood streaming out of my nose and my jaw sore from all the punches he landed. I held a towel filled with ice cubes against my face and asked Father Tim why he hadn’t stepped in to stop it.
“It was a fair fight,” he said. “No reason to step in.”
“Maybe to stop him from beating my butt?”
Father Tim simply shook his head as he pulled off my gloves. “You can’t go through life hoping someone will come to your rescue every time you run into a little problem.”
“It stopped being a little problem every time he knocked me down,” I said.
“But you kept getting up. Kept going back for more,” he said.
“That’s because you told us to never quit.”
Father Tim smiled. “Glad that lesson sunk in,” he said.
“You know why you never quit?” he asked later.
I shrugged.
“Because quitters never win,” he told me. “Don’t be a quitter. No matter how hard it is to keep going.”
I thought about that as I ran up the street and turned onto the boardwalk. Frankie wanted five miles and that was what I was going to give him – not a step less. That was the way I was taught. I had come up against other fighters who took the easy way out and found short cuts, but not me. No matter how far away from Chicago I traveled or how many years passed, it all came back to those lessons we learned every afternoon in the basement with Father Tim.
“Got to have the lungs and the legs to go the distance,” Frankie told me.
“I can go the distance,” I said. “No quit in me.”
“Saying it and doing it are two different things,” he replied.
That was his way of saying I had to run. Every morning. Like it or not.
It was early and the sun hadn’t come up. I had the boardwalk all to myself. I could smell the peanuts cooking in the Planter’s store and catch a whiff of the salt water taffy as I ran. Every once in a while, I’d see a homeless bum lurking in the doorway or hanging out beneath the store front awnings. Shadows that moved back and forth. But other than the sea gulls and pigeons circling around me, there was no life at that hour. Most of the world was still in bed, getting those last hours of sleep before their alarm clocks went off.
It was hard putting one foot in front of the other, pushing forward with each step despite the pain in my legs and the burning in my lungs. Hard to stay focused when there were distractions all around me. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that it would all pay off when I got in the ring with Michael Boyle.
Knowing that I’d get another chance.
For seven years I’d been carrying around a memory I couldn’t shake, no matter how hard I tried. Didn’t matter if it was in the middle of the night or sitting in church holding Ginny’s hand while the priest went on about lakes of fire and eternal dam
nation. I’d close my eyes to say a prayer and it would return.
Like always, it was there, just out of sight, but ready to jump out at me and there was nothing to do about it. I saw Michael Boyle standing in the center of the ring with the referee holding his gloves over his head. Arms raised in victory. Smiling with the kind of grin that said he was better than me, and that we both knew it.
That there was nothing I could do about it.
This was my chance.
I knew the nightmare wouldn’t go away until I got my chance to even that score.
ROUND THIRTEEN
Back at the YMCA gym, it was two minutes into the round when I drove a hard right to the body, and I knew I had the kid beat. It was only a moment. A brief flash that passed in an instant. But I saw the welterweight’s expression change and his eyes soften, then the desire to keep going disappeared.
All I had to do was wait for the right moment to strike.
Frankie’s voice rolled through the gym, but I didn’t hear a word. I studied the kid and measured the distance between us. He tried a left-right combination but I snapped a right to the head that had him backing up. The kid tried coming up with a left, but I blocked it with my gloves and countered with four jabs to the head.
The speedy welterweight wasn’t moving so fast anymore.
“Close that gap!” Frankie yelled.
I ducked under a right and slid closer. I popped a left to the head then buried a right in his gut. Some times in a fight you found that moment where everything came together and it felt like nothing can stop you. It didn’t matter if it was in front of an audience or sparring in the gym against some kid who was getting ten bucks a day to get in the ring. It was like your instincts took over and you almost felt unbeatable.
“Work that body!” Frankie hollered.
I hammered a left to the head and angled across the ring to keep him from getting away. Got him again with a jab. It ripped through his gloves and snapped back his head. Two steps closed the distance between us, three hard straight rights connected on his head, and a left back to the breadbasket left him sagging against the ropes.
Before I could finish him off, Frankie called, “Time!”
The kid leaned against the ropes, gasping for breath and holding on. I gave him a quick pat on the shoulder and moved towards Frankie while I pulled off my head gear.
“Good job,” Frankie said. “Like the way you’re using your jab.”
I sucked in a deep breath and took a look around the gym. Gold was leaning back in a chair, reading one of the local papers. The kid stationed at the door pulled a couple of bills from the cigar box along with the coins and put them in an envelope for Gold. It was early in the week – only a couple of days before the fight. Training camp was winding down.
My girl Ginny sat on a small folding chair near the corner of the gym, reading Gone With The Wind and fanning away the heat as she flipped pages. I was happy to see her. She took a personal day off and had taken the bus down to surprise me, and I couldn’t wait to finish. Every once in a while she would tear herself away from the book and look over at me. Our eyes would meet and I could feel my heart skip a beat.
I wanted to get out of there fast. Shower, change, and spend some time with her. Hopefully it wouldn’t be wasted time spent talking about Uncle Manny’s job offer. I’d take her out to a nice dinner and maybe a walk on the boardwalk before getting her back to the bus station.
I was still thinking about holding hands and long strolls under the stars when the gym door opened with a bang. Everything slowed down as heads turned at the noise. I looked over to see Michael Boyle walk in wearing a three piece suit, bowler hat, and a wide smile. He looked like a thousand bucks and he didn’t even have to try hard to do it.
The guy had a way of attracting attention without even trying.
He pushed past the kid and his cigar box like he wasn’t even there.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he said. “Just wanted to come over and say hello.”
Gold jumped out of his chair in a flash and hurried over to greet him like a long lost son. Frankie and I eyed him from the ring while Ginny put down her book and slowly got to her feet for a closer look.
“Everything okay down here?” Boyle asked with a huge grin.
Gold nodded, although it was a little too enthusiastically for me. “Couldn’t be better,” he said. “Is everything okay with you? Your camp going well?”
Boyle’s smile never faded. “Everything is great,” he replied. He looked over at me and added, “Too bad it won’t be so great for you when we get in the ring.”
I forced my own smile. I couldn’t figure out what I had ever done to turn him against me. Back in Chicago, I would have said we were friends – maybe not buddies, but we had been stuck in the same place at the same time and came out of it okay. That had to count for something, although everything had changed by the time we met in the ring. I was never sure what that was.
Maybe Michael Boyle had been so focused on climbing to the top he forgot everything we had been taught.
Forgot all the things that were supposed to be important.
Forgot about the people he had grown up with.
“Guess we’re just gonna have to wait until Saturday night to see how it turns out this time,” I said.
“Not gonna be any different,” he said.
“We’ll just have to wait to see,” I said.
Boyle tipped the hat down over one eye. “Guess you’re right. Too bad we got to wait.”
“Too bad,” I agreed.
“Got a little advice for you, pally,” he said.
I moved a little closer, shortening the distance between us. “What’s that?”
“Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Don’t let your emotions do your talking. Don’t let those emotions get the best of you with this little thing we got going on.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means sometimes you get caught up in all the stuff that goes on before a fight and you forget the important things. Forget the way things really are,” he said. “Start reading what people say and listening to what they think. Treating their opinions like they’re something important. Start believing that maybe you’re somebody you’re not.
“Know what I mean?”
I just stared back at him.
“You got to remember who you are and what you are. You’re a pug. Nothing more than that,” he said. “Just because somebody says you’re a good fighter doesn’t mean you are. It don’t make you a contender. You may think you can win but you can’t. You got no shot.” His smile never disappeared. “It ain’t gonna happen for you.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means that maybe this life ain’t for you,” Boyle said. “Maybe it’s time you moved on. Walk away while you can still walk away.”
Ginny had crept closer to hear what he was saying until she was almost right next to him. She nodded and looked first at Boyle and then at me. “I’ve been saying that,” she said.
She turned to me and said, “I’ve been telling you that for a long time, Roberto.”
“Not now, Ginny,” I said.
Michael Boyle’s smile widened as he looked her up and down.
“Who’s this little firecracker?” he asked.
“My girl, Ginny,” I said.
Boyle tipped his hat and in that instant I saw Ginny buy everything he had to say hook, line, and sinker. That smile of his stretched from ear to ear, and as she blushed I could see her falling for his charm.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You and I both chose this life. It’s what we do.”
“Don’t mean we’re both cut out for it,” Boyle said. “It’s never gonna be as good for you as it was in that first fight, and we both know how that turned out. You need to save yourself the trouble. Throw in the towel after a couple of rounds. Take the money and go home. Take the money and walk away while you still can.”
“That’s what I’ve b
een saying,” Ginny said.
“Smart girl,” Boyle said.
“Roberto needs to put down roots,” she said. “Find a job where he doesn’t put himself in danger all the time. A job where he can make something of himself. Make a living. Raise a family. Start a new life.”
Boyle shook his head. “She’s a talker, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
“You should listen to your girl,” Boyle said.
“I’m not throwing in nothing,” I said. “I’ve got just as much of a reason to be in that ring as you do. Got as much of a chance to win. The only difference is that I do things on the up and up.”
Boyle stepped forward. “What’s that mean?”
“Means I don’t have to cheat to win.”
At that moment Frankie put his shoulder into me and pushed me backwards, getting between us before we could take any more steps towards each other. Boyle’s smile had lost its warmth and his eyes narrowed. His hands hung at his side where he had squeezed them into fists.
Gold took a couple of steps towards us, saying, “Think cooler heads need to prevail here, boys.”
“Just because you say something doesn’t make it true,” Boyle said. “You’re just finding excuses to hide the fact that I whipped your ass the last time we fought. I’m gonna beat your ass again this time.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time to even the score,” I told him.
“Too bad you wasted all that time,” Boyle said.
In that moment, I felt the rage that had been simmering all these years boil to the surface. I wanted to drive my fist into Michael Boyle’s face. Forget all the rules about good sportsmanship and doing the right things Father Tim had taught me. I wanted to hurt him. Make him pay for everything anybody had ever done to me. I tightened my hand into a fist but before I could draw it back, I felt Frankie clamp a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Gonna have to wait a couple more days,” he said. “Have to wait until you get in the ring to settle all those old scores.”
