by Jack Tunney
“I thought it went just fine.” He smacked his gum and held up the tie over the one he had on. Ugly on top of ugly.
“I appreciate you making the gesture toward our new partnership. You got class, Jim.”
“About that . . .”
Whit put the tie back in the box, started chewing more slowly. “You see, the thing is I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.” I did my best to look him in the eye. “And you’re the rock.”
“Spit it out, Jim.”
“I was hoping we could come to an agreement. Like I said, this weekend’s fight is just not a good one for me. But if we could do it another time–”
“Jimmy.”
“No, just listen. I’d gladly do you a freebie. No charge. Just if it isn’t this weekend–”
“Jimmy.” He held up a hand and I obeyed like a dog. I chewed a hard lump of anger and wondered how much more I could swallow before I got full. After all, talking wasn’t usually how I solved a dispute. “Is it Cardone?” Whit asked.
How the hell did he know that?
“I can see by your face that it is.” He shook his head like he was exhausted already at the lesson he was about to give me. “Jimmy, Cardone is small time. A hood. I represent a large, interstate organization that can – and will, mind you – eat Cardone for lunch. Trust me, Jim. You do not want to hitch your wagon to him.”
“It’s just that I already promised–”
“So unpromise.” I noticed the men watching us drifting closer.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Jim, let me explain. I don’t like Mr. Cardone. He stands between me and what I want. And anyone who stands between me and what I want, well, that ain’t a good place to stand.” Whit spat out his wad of gum onto the bleachers, reached into his pocket for another. He grew more agitated. “Treats me like a child, that meatball. Thinks he can push me around and no one will notice. Joke’s on him because I got a lot of guys noticing me. Big time guys. Bigger fish than Cardone. He’s a freakin’ sardine next to the guys got my back.”
Whit chomped on his gum as if he was angry at it.
“I don’t know anything about that–”
“Well, now you do. If that greasy eye-tie wants to disrespect me and stand in the way of my upward mobility, he’s got another thing coming.” The peanut gallery chuckled and one of the bigger guys put a finger gun to his head and mimed pulling the trigger. The moment of dark levity seemed to calm Whit.
Whit leaned back, putting his elbows on the bleacher seat behind him. “What do you want me to do, Jimmy? I already have investment in this fight. I have money coming in based on a certain outcome. An outcome that those big fish I was telling you about are curious to see if I can deliver. This is a test, Jimmy. And I need to get an A. And now you tell me you can’t provide the outcome I promised them? What am I supposed to do?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” I really didn’t. No sense lying. I’d been thinking three days about it and I didn’t have a solution other than him letting me off the hook.
“Tell you what.” Whit stood, leaving the tie box behind. “You’re obviously lousy at negotiating.” That got another chuckle from the peanut gallery. “So I’m gonna let you do what it is that you do.”
Whit stepped down off the bleachers.
“I got a guy,” he said. “You go, oh let’s say . . . four rounds with him. You put him on the floor, I let you walk. What do you say?”
What could I say? “You mean it?”
“I’ll still take you up on that freebie.” He winked and open-mouth chomped his gum.
“Yeah, okay.” I regretted nearly punching my arms to rubber at the gym the day before. I really regretted it when I saw my opponent.
Whit nodded and a guy whistled. That dark locker room door opened and it held just the sort of monster I thought it would.
***
He was approximately the size and shape of a boxcar on the Santa Fe line. Tall, head shaved, and broad shoulders. His chest stuck out square and firm like a bank safe. At the end of his steel beam arms were a pair of anvils for hands.
He must have noticed the look on my face because he smiled. His two front teeth were missing. Guess I knew what he wanted for Christmas.
“Jimmy, meet Vic,” Whit said. He spat his gum out on the floor and unwrapped a new stick, folded it into his mouth while one of the lackeys he kept around picked up the spent wad and put it in a trash can.
“I don’t have gloves,” I said.
“Sure you do.” Whit snapped his fingers and a pair of bag gloves, thinner than regulation, sailed into the ring. They landed hard on the deck the way I figured I would in short order.
“What did we say?” Whit said. “Four rounds?” The guy to his left silently nodded. “Well then, ding ding.”
“I don’t have shorts,” I said.
“Look, you wanna do this or not?”
I couldn’t walk away from the opportunity to get out of the deal, no matter how slim my chances were. I might land a lucky punch. Yeah, and Ava Gardener might waltz in here and ask me to make love to her.
I climbed between the ropes and stripped off my shirt. My trousers and shoes couldn’t have been worse to fight in, but they would have to do.
Vic pounded his meaty fists together, slapping the leather of his gloves with fierce whaps that made me jump. He looked up and me and smiled his toothless grin again, then beckoned me forward with come on wave of his hand.
I once saw a guy box a grizzly bear at the Kansas State Fair, and as I took the long walk across the ring to where Vic waited for me, I felt downright jealous of that bear-fighting man. He’d had it easy.
No sense waiting for the fight to come to me, so I barreled in the last two steps and came at his head hard. Body shots were not going to get the job done, not with that solid iron gut of his.
He covered up and let my punches ricochet off him like bullets in a Superman comic book. I didn’t want to punch myself out, so I eased off and braced myself for what he had in store for me.
Vic opened up like a deadly flower and came at me. I saw a newsreel once about the men who operated the howitzer’s on Omaha beach. This guy carried one of those guns on each shoulder. Twin barrels of destruction aimed my way.
My hands went up and then immediately came crashing back into my own face. Once, twice, left, right, until he had me backed all the way across the ring and pinned against the ropes. You’d think I’d never been in a fight before in my life.
I bent side to side, doing a decent job of avoiding his tree trunk arms. I had speed on him. It took him a lot longer to move the steel heft of his body or to reset his punches. It was my only hope. I struck out with a wasp-like stinger at his chin, caught him off center, but enough to make him notice me again.
I got low, a move I hadn’t used in years. When a guy towered over you, dip as low as you can. His punches had no steam when they go straight down to the floor.
Trouble with this bout – no referee. Vic smashed a hand down on top of my head like he was cracking walnuts. I started looking around for the bowling ball I thought must have been dropped on me. I sunk one in his gut, right on his belt line. I’d punched parked cars with more give.
I snuck out under his arms and got myself away from the ropes. My foot speed might be able to save me, for a little while anyhow.
Vic came thundering across the canvas chasing me. The crowd around us hung on the ropes jeering and cat calling like a Roman coliseum. As I ran away, I heard a few unsavory assessments of my skills in the ring.
I set my feet again a safe distance away from the ropes. Vic continued his charge. I dodged first, then came up fast and planted a glove in his ear. The thin bag gloves bruised my knuckles on the thick bone of his skull, but I knew how much a good shot to the ear hole hurt. I could tell he’d been stung. He spun to chase me again as I shuffled my feet around to his left.
He swung a wild arcing right that I outran. This was no textbook lecture on boxing.
Maybe on pure survival. That I was still standing should have won me the decision by itself.
I put two more in his ear, trying like hell to make it ring as loud as Sal’s. I realized then I had two things on my side. My speed and my anger. Now that I didn’t have to worry about making nice with Whit, I could let that tiger out of its cage.
I swung hard for the bad decisions I’d made. I swung again for letting down Father Tim. I swung again for not being the man Lola expected me to be. I jabbed to his gut for each dollar with which I let myself get suckered. My loafers slipped across the floor, my knuckles aching from the too thin gloves, but I kept punching. The shouts from the sidelines grew louder. The old familiar sound of a sold out fight night. I let it take me away to that different mindset.
Anger drove my fists. Anger at Whit. Anger at myself.
The anger wasn’t enough.
At some point shortly into my barrage of angry punches, Vic decided he’d had enough. He dropped his defenses, let two blows bounce off him like nothing more than mosquitos, then threw a left jab at my nose, stopping me dead in my tracks. The right hook I never saw coming.
I started falling to my right, my knees not responding to my commands to stay locked. Vic wasn’t through. He threw a left hook, catching me on the way down and lifting my body up again, and sent me falling to the left. I hit the ropes, but still didn’t fall.
I was being held up.
Two guys who had been shadow boxing in the corner before and one of Whit’s right hand men held me upright. A punching bag for Vic. Where was the damn bell? Oh, right. This was Whit’s fight in Whit’s place with Whit’s rules. No bell was going to save me.
Vic came charging in and went to work on my gut. I thought back to the grizzly bear. The guy punched the sad looking bear for a round and a half, making a show of it for the crowd, the bear on a thick chain. Three shows a night at state fairs all across the Midwest. The night I watched, the bear had had enough. The guy got cocky, stepped too close. The bear grabbed him.
It would have been over in seconds, but then we all realized the bear had all its teeth and claws removed. Still a bear though. Just using powerful slaps of its huge paws the bear pounded that guy silly. Took four guys with baseball bats to pull the bear off.
The vivid image of the bear blurred in my brain as Vic’s hairy chest came at me again and again. If not for the bald head, I would swear the bear had retired to this gym and had been brought out of that dark locker room just to knock me into next week.
“That’s enough!” Whit shouted.
Vic stood down obediently.
“Kid’s still gotta fight for me Friday night.”
I figured it was why Vic had been working over my midsection instead of my face. Not sure what difference it would make, I’d gone to pudding inside.
The hands let me go and I sank to the canvas. There was back slapping congratulations to Vic. Yeah, well done. You beat a guy half your size. What a hero.
Whit threw me my shirt. It landed a few feet away, but I stayed where I was, trying to keep my insides where they were – inside.
He said, “See you Friday night.” Then everyone ignored me, going back to their business like I didn’t exist.
ROUND 8
I waited over four hours for Lola to get home. I huddled half a block down from her rooming house in a doorway, like a bum. My ribs ached, my hands hurt. My pride hurt worst of all.
Lola got off work like a normal person at five p.m.. She did secretarial work for an office downtown. They built bridges or something, I’d never known exactly. I knew the risk in coming to see her, but I had nowhere else to go.
A cable car rang its bell as it pulled away and Lola walked up the street with two other women who had gotten off. I pushed my back into the hard stone of the building, trying to make myself invisible. The two other women peeled off and went their own way. Lola walked up the steps to her place. When she reached the third step, I came out of the shadows.
“Lola.”
She jumped, then smiled when she saw it was me. “Jimmy, my God, you scared me.” She noticed I wasn’t right. “What’s the matter?”
Lola was used to seeing me banged up. It was my job after all. In our time together she’d practically become a part-time nurse looking after me.
“Just a little knocked around is all. Can I come inside?”
She swung her head to see if Mrs. Lovell was watching from her window. The curtain remained in place, but that didn’t mean the old bat’s all-seeing eyes weren’t on us from some other place.
“You know I can’t, Jimmy.”
“And you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.”
“We can go to your place.”
“I’ve been out here for four hours. I don’t think I can make it to my place. You might as well dump me at county general. Or go ahead and dump me in the Missouri River.”
“Jimmy . . .” She huffed, exasperated.
I gave her my best puppy dog eyes strained through a gut full of pain.
She threw another look at Mrs. Lovell’s curtains and then whispered. “Come on, be quick.”
***
Lola put antiseptic on my wounds, though they weren’t much to see. The kind of scrapes you get picking apples, not much more than that. I knew the worst of the damage was on the inside. I wanted to ask what a broken rib felt like, but figured Lola wouldn’t know any better than I would.
I sat on her couch in the single room, her bed all of two feet away, a washroom, and that was about it. The kitchen was down the hall and all the girls in the rooming house took turns cooking. Lola had the curtains drawn. I felt like a real fugitive, hiding out from Johnny Law. I also felt like a fool for getting in Dutch.
“So what was it? Some hot shot kid? Or were you the hot shot trying to prove a point?”
“I guess I was trying to prove something.” Sweet Lola. Assuming my ego had gotten me in trouble, not my greed. I weighed my options to tell her or not. She would be understanding, sympathetic. She’d hold me and tell me it would all be okay. Maybe.
She might be angry, disappointed in me. Disgusted by my actions, getting involved with mobsters and fight fixers. Would she care that I did it for her?
No, I couldn’t say that. None of the blame for this could fall on her. It certainly wasn’t her fault I couldn’t afford an engagement ring on my regular purse money.
I had to lie. I could see now how easy itwas to go from one bad decision to another like a chain reaction. This one led to the next one, which led to something worse coming down the road. I stopped myself from speculating what something worse might be.
“Don’t you have a fight in two days?
“Yeah,” I said, and left it at that.
She watched me gingerly trying to sit up. She furrowed her brow at me. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I’ve had much worse.” Lies on lies on lies. Father Tim would tan my hide if he could hear me now.
“It’s my night to make dinner, so we’ve got to think about how to get you out of here.”
“Can’t I stay?”
“For the whole night? Do you want me to get kicked out?”
“I can be quiet.”
“Can you be a girl? Because if not, you can’t stay here. You know Mrs. Lovell’s rules. She kicked out Cindy last year for having her brother in her room after hours. Her brother.”
Her emphasis pointed out I was, in fact, a much worse offense. Just as well. If I stayed the night it would mean a whole night of lying to Lola, of not telling her the truth eating me inside worse than Vic’s gut punches.
***
Thursday came and I still didn’t know what to do.
My workout was lackluster to say the least. I tiptoed around the ring, trying hard not to rotate my midsection because every time I did my ribs exploded with pain. I covered it okay, I think. But there was no fire behind my punches, no speed in my steps. Yesterday’s single round with Vic had me boxing like I still had training whe
els on.
I wasn’t supposed to be swinging for the fences or anything, nothing to tire me out the day before a fight. Just a refresher to make sure my footwork and hand placement were forefront in my brain come fight time. I’d always told Sal from the get-go that I knew that stuff in my sleep. What I needed was to lift more weights, build some bulk in my arms. I could dance around doing Swan Lake all day, but if some big lug hit me with cannon balls for fists, I was sunk.
In private, before I even laced on my gloves, I asked him what the point was, given that Cardone was paying me to take the fall. I conveniently left out the other half of the equation.
Sal was insistent.
The young gun he put in to spar with me must have thought he was hot stuff. He landed more punches than he had a right. He popped me a good one in the nose and he saw my stunned expression. He left that ring like he’d just beaten Rocky Marciano.
Sal stared me down, disappointed as the nuns at St. Vincent’s. I knew that look well. I’d been seeing it in the mirror for the last week.
“What’s with you, Jimmy? You have a fight with Lola or something?” I always thought Sal wanted Lola for his daughter. He never did have any kids. I’d have to do in a pinch. Great. Another father figure I’d let down. Of course, this one was in on the take. Well, like father like son.
“No, Sal. Nothing like that. I’m just . . . preoccupied, that’s all.”
“Well, you’d better focus or you’ll have another scare like last time.”
“There won’t be any scare.”
“If you get into the ring like you just did, a guy could knock you out with a broken arm and a stiff wind.”
“Aw, leave it alone, will ya, Sal.”
He tossed me the towel from around his shoulders. “Hit the showers.”
I stood under the water, letting it run hot as I could stand, and thought of ways out of the mess I was in. Running away came up over and over. Maybe Cardone would let Sal keep the money if he knew Sal had nothing to do with it. Sal could claim I was an impetuous, hotheaded kid, and who knew why I’d taken off?
Then again, Sal could be left behind to pay for my mistakes. If I did hit the rails west for Los Angeles, or maybe back up to Chicago, Sal would be the only one behind to make up for Cardone’s losses. And who knows what Whit would do when he came calling. Just because he’d bypassed Sal to get to me, didn’t mean he wouldn’t look him up when I split town.
