by F. X. Toole
Mookie returned to his room, but his faction met with the commissioner and the African’s faction in a meeting room at their hotel. All manner of fouls were discussed, including head butts, low blows, and knockdowns, but low blows were stressed. In the list of rules that were handed out, it was written that after two low-blow warnings, a point would automatically be deducted for the third infraction. The commissioner was a little guy, handsome, and Con saw him for either Italian or maybe Jewish. The guy was proud of his job and crazy for boxing, particularly the fights in Philly, and let everyone know that a first-class fight was expected, adding that he didn’t care whether it was a four-rounder or a twelve-round title-fight main event. Everyone understood.
Back in his room Con tried to nap, but he couldn’t, even though he had slept fitfully the night before. He got nervous lying there, and hungry for something sweet. He went down to the busy convenience store across from the hotel for a small container of skim milk, an apple and a coconut Tastykake. Part of one ear had been bitten off in a street fight when he caught someone trying to break into his car, and he didn’t hear well on that side. So as he stood in line to pay, he didn’t hear the up-tempo soul music that was piped into the store—Patti LaBelle high and jamming above the bass and drums, improvising lyrics and playing hide-and-seek with the melody. Con noticed the music when someone standing somewhere behind him began singing along, matching Patti’s black sound word for word and inflection for inflection. Con looked back expecting to see a black teenaged boy but instead saw what looked like a Jewish college boy, his yarmulke pinned to his curly brown hair with bobby pins. He was accompanied by three gum-chewing coeds, their arms full of books, and as he hit the high notes, snapping his fingers and matching the singer’s style exactly, Con decided he was showing off in hopes of getting laid. The way the girls eyed each other, Con thought the guy might nail at least one of them if he kept working at it. Con’s mind went back to his kid resting in his hot, dark room, to his baby boy, to his fighting man.
“Excuse me, sir. Sir? What is that?” Con only half heard the question, his mind now on his Tastykake. “Sir, excuse me? You with the tattoo?”
Con turned and saw the yarmulke guy, noticed that the girls had vacant eyes. “That’s a tattoo on your wrist, isn’t it?” the guy asked rhetorically.
Con looked down. As usual, his heavy Timex wristwatch had slipped down to reveal a blurred tattoo that resembled jailhouse art. Close to fifty years before, in the throes of his second steady piece of tail, and just before signing himself into the navy during the Korean War, it had been legible. It wasn’t anymore.
“You did it yourself, right?” the singing guy asked excitedly.
There was wonder rather than disrespect in his voice, so Con answered him. “No, I had it done.”
“Where?”
“On Skid Row in L.A., if it matters.”
The boy looked disappointed; Con could see that he’d hoped to hear the tattoo was from Sing Sing or Alcatraz, or maybe Devil’s Island. “What, were a bunch of you out drunk or something?”
“It was two in the afternoon,” said Con, but what came to mind, as they often did, were lines from García Lorca:
At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
“You got it so early, the tattoo? Really?”
“I was sober, alone, and it cost me my last two dollars.”
“What does it say, the tattoo?” the guy asked, and one of the girls giggled. The guy squeezed her shoulders, and she leaned back into him.
“Well,” said Con. He waited a moment and wondered if he should go ahead and tell. “It says, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.”
“Says what?” the singing guy asked, thinking he was familiar with the sound of Rubáiyát, but he wasn’t sure. “You mean the, what?, is it a book or something?”
“Something like that.”
“What, that book inspired you or something?”
“It did when I was twenty.”
“What was it got to you?”
“Got what to me?”
By now the girls were staring at Con, and the rest of the people in line were interested, too. The girls’ heads were tilted, and the guy wasn’t as sure of himself as he was when he was doing his soul sing-along. “You know. What about this Rooba-thing was what inspired you?”
Con looked at him dead on. He spoke slowly and the girls began to nod.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
The girls and the yarmulke guy’s mouths were wide open.
“Ask a question,” said Con, paying for his stuff, “you get an answer.”
“The answer was vast!” the guy said, twisting and jerking and shaking his head. “Man, that’s the best answer in the history of questions!”
Con collected his change, nodded to the cashier, and headed back to his room. He slowly ate his Tastykake and drank his milk before peeling and eating his apple. At 3:00 P.M. they were to meet and feed Mookie the last time before the scheduled ten o’clock fight. After that he could drink water, but that was all. In the interim, he’d gain three to five pounds. If or when fighters starve themselves or take piss pills and laxatives to make weight, they will gain more. When the weigh-in is held on the day before the fight, many will gain eight to ten pounds, sometimes more.
Con had an hour, so he went over all the gear he would need before, during, and after the fight. It was in his gear bag just where he’d stowed it before leaving Vegas—the sponges, the stop-swell, the ice bags. He had backups for everything, including the adrenaline, cocoa butter, Vaseline, swabs and sterile pads, and even Murray’s pomade, the thick yellow gunk some blacks used in their hair but that he would sometimes use to lay down a slippery base in the eyebrows or across the nose or to plug up a wound over a cheekbone. Some blacks were offended by the Murray’s, but white and Hispanic fighters didn’t give a damn as long as it worked. His medicine kit was as organized as an operating room. Having rechecked it, he set aside two rolls of gauze and rolls of one-inch and half-inch tape, the half-inch to use between the fingers to keep the layers of gauze protecting the knuckles in place. Then he placed his kit back into his gear bag, including the fanny pack he wore into the ring. He used the same care here in the quiet of his room that he would use in the clang and clamor of the dressing room before the fight.
Using the tapes and rolls of gauze he’d set aside, he wrapped his left hand just as if he were preparing it for battle. It was rare that one of Con’s fighter’s hurt his hand during a fight. By now, wrapping hands was an instinct with Con, having wrapped hundreds of them. But he had to be sure for these kids who put their flesh and bone and futures in his hands. So to best protect them from any mistake or oversight, he always took time to wrap his own left hand, to practice before going to the arena. He would often wrap his hand while watching fights at home on television. He figured his left hand was the most wrapped hand in boxing. When the inspector from the Boxing Commission wrote his initials on Mookie’s wraps just before the fight, he said, “Yeah, these is real.”
At three o’clock Con went with the faction to an Irish pub a few blocks from the hotel. Mookie had broiled breast of chicken, seafood chowder, and several pieces of chewy rye bread. He drank two glasses of grapefruit juice, wincing after each swallow. Con had chowder as well but didn’t feel much like eating. Nobody did except for Mookie, whose body was yelling at him for nourishment and fluid, a baby bird piping for bugs and worms.
“After the fight I want me a whole pizza and a gallon a Coke.”
There’s always some choke in everyone before a fight, especially one on which so much was riding, and as they walked back to the hotel, nobody was talking. It was ten after four when they got to the hotel.
“Meet down here at six forty-five,” said Mookie’s black manager. �
�A driver’ll be here to take us to the fight at seven sharp.”
As the others went up to their rooms, Con told the manager that he wanted to check on something personal but that he’d be back no later than six. “I’m set.”
The manager nodded, knowing that Con would be on time and ready. As the manager went to check for messages at the desk, Con went out to the front of the hotel, where he climbed into a cab driven by a courtly black man with long white chin whiskers.
“The art museum, please.”
“It will be my pleasure, sir,” the driver said in a singsong accent that Con figured for West Indian.
The cabby left him off at the base of the stairs. The fare for the short ride was $2.30. Con handed the driver a five and said, “Keep it.”
“You are kind, sir.”
The sky was blue, and young lovers strolled hand in hand in the bright sunlight. A couple of winos hustled change. Con ran up the same stairs Rocky had, but Con was running to see the stuff of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
The long hallway leading to the exhibition was to the left and just inside the main entrance. A sign indicated the exhibition closed at five o’clock. As Con started down the hallway, he was intercepted by one of the guards, all of whom were black.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the guard. “The exhibition is closed.”
“But the sign says five.”
“I know,” said the guard. “But everyone has to be out by five, so we stop admitting at four. You’d only have another thirty minutes, anyway.”
“That’s okay with me,” said Con, reaching for his money clip. “How much is it?”
The guard smiled politely. “The cashier goes off at four, I’m sorry, because to charge for less than an hour wouldn’t be fair.” The guard saw Con’s face go from young to sad and was touched by the sadness. “We’ll be open tomorrow, though. You could stay all day.”
“I won’t be here tomorrow.” Con sighed, and his mind went back to the fight. “Oh, well, I did my best.”
“Wait,” said the guard. Like the others, he wore a navy blazer and gray pants. He stood six feet six inches and weighed close to 320 pounds. He had a shaved head and the face of a kindly genie. He had a gold eyetooth, but he spoke with no trace of a black accent. “Come with me.” He led Con a third of the way down the hall. “See the lady guard down at the end? Tell her the lieutenant said it’s okay to let you in.”
“Thank you. Damn. Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Inside the exhibit, Con was touched by the works of Rodin, the oversized studies of hands and feet, the tortured dark forms. But it was Michelangelo that stunned him, even though several of the works were plaster casts or small sketches done in pen and ink and colored chalk. He walked from piece to piece, sketch to sketch, and he was transported to Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and his breath began to catch. He clasped a hand over his mouth so no one could hear. A short, thin guard noticed and silently crossed to Con.
“You like these?” he asked, suspicion in his voice.
“They are miracles.”
The guard smiled, nodded, and slipped back into the shadows.
Con gulped in as much beauty as he could before the guards quietly informed people individually that the exhibition was closing. Con photographed the exhibit with his heart, then headed down the long hallway. On the way, he palmed a five-dollar bill and then approached the lieutenant, who stood near the exit.
Con held out his hand to the lieutenant’s, who extended his to shake hands. His hand swallowed Con’s, but when he felt the palmed bill, he said, “Oh, no, sir, I can’t. I wouldn’t, anyway.”
“It’s my only way to thank you. Because of you I saw God’s hand.”
“Your eyes thank me plenty.”
“God bless you, my friend.”
The lieutenant blinked, stepped slightly back. “And may God bless you.”
Leaving the museum feeling refreshed and alert, Con took the pathway that curved along the turn in the parkway. Traffic was heavy, and Con was curious about what was on the side streets. Walking beneath a wide stretch of trees, he breathed deeply of the cool air and wondered if he’d ever feel old. Beyond a wide stretch of grass and up a small rise, he saw what appeared to be the shingled steeple of an old Catholic church, its weathered cross high and unashamed in the air. Con had time, so he strolled up Green Street and found the Church of Saint Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies. The great Christian missionary of the midsixteenth century, Francis Xavier was one of the original members of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuitas, and though he died in his early forties, Con recalled that it was he who had brought Catholicism to India and Japan. His church in Philly was old and rather spare, but it was traditionally Catholic, and Con felt at peace.
Near the altar, Con went to his knees. “I am not worthy to receive you, Lord,” he prayed, as if he were about to receive Communion, “but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
He prayed for those he loved, living and dead, and for those who had no one to pray for them. He prayed that he might always do his best, especially when serving God, but now he prayed for strength in the corner during Mookie’s fight, that he would function with grace under pressure. He also prayed for Mr. Ernest Hemingway. There on his knees he remembered what Spanish existentialist philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote about boxers. To make a point about believing in God with one’s whole being, Unamuno described fighters as being capable of throwing punches with such economy of effort that they are able to focus the force they unleash and thereby knock out their opponent by using only those muscles necessary. Unamuno was right about fighters: instead of using strength to win, they deliver force. Unamuno added that a blow delivered by a nonprofessional may not have as much effect on an opponent as would a blow by a professional, but that it would have more effect on the nonpro who threw the punch, since it caused him to bring into play almost his entire body and energy. Con smiled at the insight of the austere Spaniard and remembered that Unamuno’s point was that one blow was that of a professional, the other of a man of flesh and bone—and that when a man of flesh and bone believed, he did so with his whole being. Since the pro only uses what he needs when he needs it, this explains how one fighter will run out of gas in the second or the sixth round, while another can fight all night. As Con loved the Africans, he also loved the Spaniards—men like Cortéz, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Manolete, and Pedro Romero; men such as Loyola and Francis Xavier, Unamuno and Federico García Lorca—and he loved Santa Teresa de Avila, that mystical lady doctor of the church, that powerhouse little Catholic nun whose grandfather on her father’s side was a converso Jew from Córdoba.
All of this ran through Con’s mind, a tapestry before which Mookie’s fight at the Blue Horizon would be played, and again he prayed that he and Odell would be able to help their fighter to prevail.
“We go to win, not just to fight, Lord,” Con reminded God. “And we ask your blessing that we might be victorious. We know that only one corner can win, and that you love both, so if it is your will that the African wins …” Con hated to lose, despised it, but he also knew that how you lost was as important as how you won. He whispered Christ’s words in the garden of Gethsemane: But let be as You would have it, not as I.
Con crossed himself at the end of his prayers and then again with holy water when he backed out of the church. He walked up Green Street to Twenty-second, crossed himself again in front of the Roman Catholic Chapel of Divine Love, and then turned down the hill toward the hotel. While crossing the street at Spring Garden, Con and several other pedestrians had to pull up short because of a car that illegally pulled through the intersection. They had the green light, but the driver yelled at them to hurry up. A female pedestrian yelled back, “Asshole! I got the right of way, you colon breath!”
The car continued on, and the yeller strutted across the street on dumpy legs, a bitter woman with a face like a lawn dart, who acted as if she had just done something gr
and. Con wondered how she’d handle a broken nose, or maybe a few shots to the liver.
They were driven through parched neighborhoods to get to the Blue Horizon, which was already packed to standing room only.
“You got pizza in Philly?” Mookie asked the driver.
“You want pizza before the fight?”
“No, but after I’m buyin everybody a big pizza, the whole-thang special. You one, too.”
“You like anchovies, too?”
“Hell no!”
Parking was forget it, and cars were jammed along North Broad Street, parked down the middle of the street. The crowd was milling out front of the old building, boxing’s remora feeding on what was available—a free ticket, a pocket to be picked, lies. Mookie and his corner ran up the stairs of what appeared to have been a theater or maybe a dance hall. Fights were already in progress, and Con noticed how small the arena was, that there were balconies on three sides of the ring. The ring was lit brightly for the TV cameras, and the light carried out into the crowd, which was packed in closely to the ring. The crowd was eight out of ten white. Almost all of the fighters and their fight guys were black or Puerto Rican.
The arena reminded Con of New York’s old St. Nick’s Arena before TV took over the fights, there where Lincoln Center is now, when neighborhoods had their heroes and backed them with money they earned with their hands. In those days, most of St. Nick’s fighters were Italian, and there were hard-eyed Italian guys in bib overalls carrying lunch pails—men who paid to see fights, Irish guys, too, who stopped on the way to work or on their way home from work, wearing caps and with cigar stubs stuck in their teeth. The Irish and Italian fighters were the tough ones, fighters who would take shots to land shots, the bangers who could take you out with one shot from either hand. The black fighters were quick and slick and pretty and didn’t like getting hit, but would hurt you like the Inquisition. The Puerto Ricans were still coming up, but the great Jewish fighters like Benny Leonard and Barney Ross were from another day and time.
