“Yeah, well, if you say so, pal. All I can say is there’s more than one story, ain’t there? Next time there won’t be anything damn near about it.”
London’s eyes brightened. “Next time? You mean Johnson? You’re going to fight him again?”
“If I have my way. Only thing is, beating him the next time won’t be much to crow about after Jeff gets done with him today.”
“Oh yes, no question Jeff’ll do for him, but it’ll still be a hell of a feat if…when you cool him too. Hell, I was worried the coon wouldn’t go through with it with Jeffries. He’s got a yellow streak, you know. I’m sure we’ll see it today. I say Jeff cools him in less than five.”
“Oh, Jeff’ll cool him, all right,” Ketchel said. “But you can take it from me, bo, Johnson ain’t yellow.”
“Well…We’ll see soon enough, won’t we?”
THEY SHARED A hack to the arena. On their way there, London took the flask from his coat and tucked it down the front of his pants. “Like to see them search me there,” he said. The fight had raised such fear of racial turmoil that police were posted at the entrances to ensure that neither alcohol nor firearms passed through the gates. Ketchel had read the newspaper report about this precaution and left his revolver in the care of the hotel barman. But he’d grown accustomed to carrying the weapon whenever he ventured among strangers and he missed its comforting weight under his coat.
They entered the clamorous arena and shouldered their way through the jammed aisles down to ringside. Looming over one side of the arena was a huge banner, its top line extolling JAMES E. PEPPER WHISKY and the lower proclaiming BORN WITH THE REPUBLIC. They agreed to meet back at the hotel bar after the fight and take supper together, then London went to his seat in the press row and Ketchel to his reserved seat among a variety of other boxing celebrities, all of whom would be presented in the ring before the start of the match. Among these heroes were Bob Fitzsimmons, Tom Sharkey, Tommy Burns, Tom McCarey, and none other than John L. Sullivan.
Sullivan was in the aisle, talking with ring announcer Billy Jordan when Ketchel walked up, and Jordan introduced them to each other. “Ah yes, Ketchel!” Sullivan boomed as he tucked away the flask he’d been nipping from. “The little Polack powerhouse himself! Say, but didn’t you land a good one on this big buck in your mill with him! Fucking shame it lacked the weight behind it or he wouldn’t be coming out of the woodpile today, now would he!”
Sullivan was nearly six feet tall and carried a belly the size of a sow. Ketchel guessed his weight at above three hundred pounds. Under his golf cap his hair was white, so too his mustaches. His teeth were the color of old dice and his eyes baggy and bloodshot, his bulbous nose netted with veins, his breath fumed with whiskey. Nevertheless, this was the Great John L., champion of champions, and Ketchel was entirely sincere when he put out his hand and said, “I’m honored to meet you, Mr. Sullivan.”
John L. pumped Ketchel’s hand with his enormous own. “Well of course you are, lad, of course you are!”
Shortly afterward, when the famous fighters were all up in the ring and Billy Jordan introduced each in turn, the greatest cheering was for Sullivan, and John L. clasped his hands above his head and grinned like a merry walrus.
The loudest ovation of the day, however, came when James J. Jeffries entered the ring as a combatant for the first time in five years. He wore light purple trunks and his hair was closely cropped and he was a far sight from the corpulent figure he’d presented when Ketchel had last seen him. A year of intense training had burned more than seventy pounds of fat from his frame and re-sculpted the superb physique of his championship days. He weighed 227 and was the betting favorite at two to one. Johnson was already in his corner and said, “Howdy, Mr. Jeff.” At the morning weigh-in Jeffries had told reporters that Johnson had made him work like a dog for almost a year to get in shape for this fight and he intended to give him the licking of his life. Johnson said he hoped Mr. Jeff didn’t mean to lick him for real, as he didn’t like any tongue to touch him but a woman’s. Few of the reporters smiled, and much of what they scribbled in their notebooks could not have been printed in a public newspaper.
Johnson’s arrival at the ring had roused an expected deluge of odium and derision. He smiled his golden smile and bowed to the crowd like a ballroom dancer, the mocking gesture raising the volume of insults and curses. His announced weight was 218 pounds, a dozen more than he’d weighed against Ketchel, but he looked to Ketchel as hard and lean as ever. He wore his usual butternut trunks with a colorful rolled bandanna tied to a belt loop. Ketchel did not see George Little among the seconds in Johnson’s corner. He asked those sitting nearest him if they knew anything of his absence and was told that Johnson had fired Little, though none knew the reason.
And so the fight.
By the end of the third round it was evident to every man in the place that for all his impressive physical appearance the Boilermaker was not the man who’d retired unbeaten five years before. Though he yet had the muscle, a powerful punch called for more than sinew; it entailed a mysterious body mechanic he no longer possessed. Nor did his fists have the quickness of his championship years. He threw scores of punches in the early rounds but few of them struck where they were meant to and those that did seemed not to hurt Johnson at all. Some who saw the fight and many who did not would later insist that in his prime Jeffries would have destroyed Johnson, but Ketchel knew better. He was in awe of Johnson’s art, of the magical way he anticipated Jeffries’ every move, caught body blows on his arms rather than the ribs, deflected punches with his gloves, rolled his head from punches so expertly that Jeffries must’ve felt like he was hitting a hat dangling on a string. Even as the crowd cheered every Jeffries swing, Ketchel knew he was doing no damage, and knew that Jeffries knew it too. In contrast, Johnson’s punches consistently breached Jeffries’ defense to raise another welt or inflict another cut. By the end of the tenth, Jeffries’s aspect was a battered distortion, one eye almost closed and the other fast getting that way, his mouth torn. His ears were crushed plums. Back in his corner, Johnson said to ringsiders, “I sees Mr. Jeff’s plan now. He gonna get me all tired from hitting him and then he just gonna push me over and let Mr. Tex count me out.” The ringsiders roared with invective. Ketchel could see that Johnson was protracting Jeffries’ punishment for his own amusement as well as to torment every white soul in the place. He easily dodged Jeff’s desperate swings and landed ripping counterpunches that sent Jeffries stumbling rearward. Jeffries more and more took to clinching and holding on till Rickard separated them. Johnson at one point reacted by holding Jeffries as if he were a dance partner and swayed like they were waltzing, prompting the crowd to scream for Jeff to kill him, kill him. With Jeffries clinching him repeatedly in the fourteenth round, Jack Johnson bawled, “Oh, Mr. Jeff, don’t love me so!” and rolled his eyes over Jeffries’ shoulder. The crowd’s rage was exceeded only by its swelling pity for Jeffries, who was enduring on sheer will. In the fifteenth Jeffries clinched again, but before referee Rickard could step in, Johnson wrenched free and landed a perfect hook to the jaw that dropped Jim Jeffries to the canvas for the first time in his life. But the man never lacked for courage, and he was back on his feet by the count of nine, swaying like a drunk. Bloody sweat jumped off his head from a Johnson overhand and down he went again, rolling to the edge of the ring. An agonized chorus of voices now pleading with him to stay down, his own cornermen beseeching him. Jeffries strained to rise as Rickard began the count. Johnson stood ready. It seemed Jeffries might make it. Rickard looked to Jeff’s corner even as he counted. And then a bloodstained white towel fluttered out over the ring and fell like failed wings.
SLUMPED ON HIS stool with an ice pack being held to his eye when Johnson came over to shake his hand and tell him he’d fought a square fight and no hard feelings, James Jeffries said: “I ought have got you.”
Johnson shrugged and left for his dressing room.
And then, enrobed and about
to depart the ring, James Jeffries said: “Six years ago it might’ve been another story, but I sure didn’t have it today.”
And then, stripped naked and shuffling toward the shower room, James Jeffries said: “Christ, I couldn’t hit him. I couldn’t have hit him in a thousand years. I couldn’t have beat the bastard on my best day. How I let myself get talked into this jackpot I’ll never know. Damn the money and God save me from my friends. Now maybe everyone will leave me the hell alone.”
In the San Francisco Chronicle Jack London would write:
Johnson has sent down to defeat the chosen representative of the white race, and this time the greatest of them all…From the opening to the closing round he never ceased his witty sallies, his exchange of repartee with his opponent’s seconds and with the spectators…The golden smile was as much in evidence as ever…The greatest battle of the century was a monologue delivered to twenty thousand spectators by a smiling Negro who was never in doubt…. No blow Jeff ever landed hurt his dusky opponent…. Jeff today disposed of one question. He could not come back. Johnson, in turn, answered another question. He has not the yellow streak…let it be said here and beyond the shadow of any doubt. Not for a second did he show the flicker of fear at the Goliath against him….
Headlines around the country wailing of Johnson’s victory would be followed by headlines of racial violence in more than a dozen cities, the worst of the rioting incited by the motion picture of the fight.
Pair of Jacks
He went to Jeffries’ dressing room and pushed through the clamoring pack of reporters to get up close to him. He leaned down to Jeffries’ raw ear so he would not be overheard and told him he’d fought bravely and had not a damn thing to apologize for to anybody. Jeffries nodded but said nothing.
Ketchel then went to see Johnson. The police guards at the dressing room door recognized him and let him pass.
Johnson was knotting his tie in a mirror. His cornermen, one white and two Negroes, were there too.
“Well now, lookee here,” Johnson said, smiling at Ketchel in the mirror. “My, my, what a splendiferous surprise to see you, Mr. Stanley. Say, now, that’s a fine-looking set of teeth.”
“Came to say congratulations.”
“Well thank you, sir. Some of them reporters was here a minute ago but I don’t recollect anybody telling me no congratulations. Just want to know do I respect Mr. Jeffries. Do I believe I coulda beat him when he was champ. Ask me would I give him a rematch. I say that be fine with me but I ain’t so sure about Mr. Jeff. He big but he not dumb. I say, ‘Do he look like he want a rematch?’”
The seconds chuckled.
“He’s not the man he used to be,” Ketchel said.
Johnson finished with the knot and carefully attached a gold stick pin to the tie. Then cut his eyes at Ketchel in the mirror and said, “Ain’t nobody is.”
He turned and gestured at the seconds. “This here’s my crew. The buckra’s Eddie Joe and them two shiftless coons’re Red and Pogo. I guess you boys know who this fella is.”
The cornermen and Ketchel exchanged nods.
Ketchel asked about George Little, and Johnson said he’d fired him for trying to steal his woman. “He musta figured since they both white she just naturally gonna drop me for him. Man don’t know diddly about women, specially about Etta.”
“I thought her name was Sheila,” Ketchel said.
“Oh man, Sheila long gone. This one Etta. Fine woman. High society. She ingesticates tea. Like this.” He demonstrated Etta’s tea-drinking technique, pinky finger high.
“Where’s she at?”
“Waiting on me in Frisco. But look here what she did.” He indicated a vase of geraniums on a table. “Sent a wire to the hotel and had them deliver these while I was entertaining with Mister Jeff. Didn’t want me to see them till the fight all done.” He broke off a flower and inserted it in his lapel, then checked himself in the mirror. “Say now, ain’t that fine.”
There was not a mark on him but for a slight cut on his lower lip. He noted Ketchel’s glance at it. “Got that in training a coupla days ago. Mr. Jeff accidentally bumped it with his head or he wouldn’ta got no blood from me noways.”
“He couldn’t hit you, that’s for sure.”
“Man didn’t stand no chance, did he?”
“Didn’t look like it to me.”
“You know, I believe you mighta taken Mr. Jeffries today. What you think?”
Ketchel did believe that. “I don’t know. All I know is he couldn’t hit you.”
“Not many can. But you did, huh?”
“Not hard enough.”
“And you like to try it again. That’s why you here.” Johnson turned to his seconds. “I believe this little man wanna ask for a rematch, what yall think?”
Ketchel was the only one in the room not smiling. He had not expected Johnson to beat him to the point. “That’s right,” he said.
“Do tell,” Johnson said. “Well now, I must say you got some sizable testicular baggage, Mr. Stanley, seeing how we had us an arrangement and you tried to sucker me. Now here you is, wanting Papa Jack to do you a good turn.”
“But I didn’t sucker you, did I?”
“Not cause you didn’t try.” Johnson’s grin widened, Ketchel’s smile small and wry, his ears warm.
“I want another go, Johnson.”
“Man, another fight with you wouldn’t draw flies, not after how I done you already.”
“To hell with the gate.”
“Easy for you to say, little mister, kinda jack you make. Not so easy for us niggerboys got to hustle to make a dime.”
“Goddamnit, you’re the greatest fighter I ever saw. What you did today—”
“And you wants to be the greatest fighter you ever saw. Therefore and henceforth, you gots to beat me. You can’t never do it but you got to try on account of it eating you up, ain’t it, Mr. Stanley? Ain’t that the lowdown truth?”
Ketchel’s ears burned. “Look you…I don’t give a damn what you think, all I want’s—”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, man. I know what all you want. Think I don’t know how it is?”
“Goddamnit, give me a rematch.”
Johnson cocked his head and smirked. “I sure hope you ain’t gonna demeanify yourself and say pretty please.”
The seconds sniggered.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Johnson and his seconds whooped. “That’s-a-way, Mr. Stanley!” he said. “Don’t be taking no shit.”
“Come on, man, give me a—”
“No,” Johnson said, pointing a finger at him.
“…rematch,” Ketchel said. And smiled.
Johnson sighed and looked at his seconds. “I believe somebody gonna have to shoot this fucker to make him quit.”
“Woooooo,” the Pogo one said, “it getting too damn in-tense round here. We heading on, Jack.”
“Awright. I see you boys in Frisco and I don’t wanta hafta bail nobody out, yall hear?”
Jostling each other as they made for the door, the seconds waved so long and left.
Johnson consulted his pocket watch. Then gave Ketchel a look he couldn’t read. Then said: “Look here, little man, I been told there’s a niggertown down the road got a place with pretty good barbecue and a loud piano and some fine high yella gals. Calls itself a roadhouse but it’s a cathouse with a kitchen, what it is. What say we go have us a mess of ribs and a drink or two, do some high-kicking with them yellas?”
“Niggertown?”
“What’s the matter, Stanbo? Never heard of the place?”
The idea of sporting in a Negro whorehouse struck Ketchel’s fancy. He’d never had a colored girl but had always wanted to.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “But I’m supposed to meet a fella back at the hotel, so I better stop by and—”
“Who that?”
“Man named London. Jack London.”
“The writer fella? I know him. Met him in Australia after I
put down Tommy Burns. Man looked about to cry, he was so sorry to see a nigger champ. Tell you what, ask him to come along. Dollar to a doughnut he says no. He’s scared of niggers.”
JOHNSON DROVE A yellow Packard touring model with the convertible top down. He and his crew had come from San Francisco by train, but on his first night in Reno he’d finagled his way into a crap game in a back room of the Hotel Golden and won the car from the lieutenant governor of Oklahoma or Arkansas or Kansas, he couldn’t remember which.
“Man was down to his last dollar after I made about seven passes in a row,” Johnson told Ketchel, “so he wagers this here car against five hundred dollars. And damn if I don’t roll a seven. Real sore loser, that fella, the sorta man shouldn’t never gamble, know the kind I mean? Couldn’t stop cussing me. Said after Jeffries got done beating the shit outta me there wouldn’t be nothing left but my gold teeth. I ask you, that any way for a lieutenant governor to talk? Say, what the hell a lieutenant governor do, anyhow?”
Because the car was known to almost everyone in Reno, he thought it wise to approach the hotel by way of backstreets. “Some drunk peckerwoods spot this car, they’re like to be all over it like flies on a picnic basket,” Johnson said. “I might have to bust me some heads and maybe get all sweaty, muss up my new clothes. Ruther stay neat and allurifying for them gals.” He waited in the alley with the motor running while Ketchel went in to see London.
He found him at the far end of the bar and told him of Johnson’s invitation.
“Niggertown?” London said.
“He said you won’t come. Says you’re scared of niggers.”
“He did, did he?” London tossed off the rest of his drink. “Let’s go.”
Ketchel gestured to the bartender, who brought him his revolver wrapped in newspaper. Ketchel held the package down low and slipped the gun out of the paper and under his coat.
The Killings of Stanley Ketchel Page 19
