Among the quiet fighters changing, his uneasiness seemed silly. But even the other white men’s faces were different from his, from speaking Italian or German or whatever they spoke, were shaped different. A Negro face—American Negro, not Spanish or British West African—looked like a countryman’s. Nobody was much like Kelly. He was plain old native-born cop-Irish, without much Irish and without the cop.
He snorted at the locker room. Dirt was thick. Paint had given up peeling; flap a towel, it flittered down like snow. Jogging in place, he swung his arms up over his head and down and rocked his elbows casually. He shared a locker with another fighter who hadn’t come in yet, so Kelly had to find Peapod, the guy who kept the keys, a small colored man with a round wild face made wilder still by a wall eye. He was on a window ledge reading comics, but climbed in for Kelly quickly without grumbling, once he had been found. Hurriedly he walked, with short arthritic steps, unlocked the door and said, “Awright?” with such an upward, sidewise glance it might have been a word of treason. His eyes were full of water and shifted constantly, just as he himself did. After each time he spoke, he’d move away, as if he’d laid a bomb. He moved off now.
The wonder was that the door didn’t fall when it was unlocked, with its broken hinges. Kelly sat on the bench, taking his time. He rubbed his leg hair. It was blond compared to the hair on his head, and seemed so thin or seemed so thick, depending on the way he thought of it. Creaselessly as gloves he smoothed his workout socks on, tied the high-top shoes—perfect fit for secondhand. His trunks too had been a bargain, but now the locker looked awfully bare with only the other man’s equipment in it. Kelly had started to train again last week after a lapse of a year since he’d quit boxing the last time. He had no money and no manager supplying equipment.
“Peapod, I’m supposed to use that same stuff, ain’t I?” he shouted.
“I didn’t hear,” the key man answered from behind some lockers.
“Huh?”
“I didn’t hear about it,” the voice repeated, sure enough, farther over. He must think, once his position has been given away, you’d lob grenades at him. Kelly’s buddy had come, the one he shared the locker with, and Kelly looked disgustedly at him.
“Guess you got to go and talk,” said the guy with friendly softness, thumbing at the gym. “And if you don’t get any place you could try me, because I’m boxing today and I could probably let you use my bag stuff. You try first.”
Kelly stepped over the benches cluttered with clothes and gear. The main room was full of gabbing groups. He looked for the manager whose stuff he’d used for several sessions by promising he’d spar with one of the manager’s boys some time. The conversation in the group stopped for Kelly—for a stranger in civilian clothes it wouldn’t have—but began again once they were sure they didn’t know him. The manager Kelly wanted did a double-take and turned exasperatedly. “No, I can’t help you. My kid isn’t working out for a week. It isn’t worth it.”
“Just your gloves?” Kelly said.
“No!” He was sharp. “It’d be enough you use my gloves if you were working with my boy. I shouldn’t have let you before this. Those gloves cost money. That’s why you don’t have none of your own.” His mouth was as small as one of his eyes. Kelly tried to wheel away from him insultingly, but couldn’t finish doing it before the manager had turned his back.
So what now? Sheepish though it made him feel, he’d have to borrow from the fighter. It was embarrassing. He passed a guy who motioned at him. “No manager?”
“Not right now,” said Kelly. “I had Timmy Hannahan in Boston till he quit.”
“How many fights you had pro?”
“Thirty-three. Won twenty-three,” he added to stop the guy’s sarcastic eying.
“Must have laid off a long time. You look old enough for fifty, sixty fights to me.” The manager smiled. His large shadowy glasses sat on a large red face. His body was square and soft and his hair looked handled. His smile went through a lot of changes. “I’ll let you use a pair; I heard the disagreement. I’d like to watch you work. I’ve seen you, but I didn’t happen to watch. You seem like you could throw a heavy punch. From Boston, huh? Hey, Peapod!” he called into the locker room. “Give this boy a pair of my speed gloves.” He turned and smiled and pinched his nose and blew it out the window into Forty-Second Street.
China was the name of the colored fighter who shared Kelly’s locker—he’d been to China, maybe fought there. “I know how it is,” he nodded, seeing Kelly chipper. “You feel like you own yourself again when somebody takes an interest. Then when they start paying your bills you know you do.” China was comforting for Kelly to be with because he was older, one of the few who didn’t make him feel far past his prime. China was over thirty and getting flabby, but, turtling into the shell he made of his arms and his shoulders, he did okay, even got some TV. Sharing a locker meant he could stash money for the future. He was wise.
• • •
The first people started hitting the bags—thunderous, playful bursts in passing just to announce their arrival. When the sound came into the locker room everybody moved more slowly, since they’d have to wait their turn. Kelly liked to listen and be lulled, like a connoisseur.
“All right, you got ’em! Don’t ask me again!” crazy Peapod hollered in his small voice, glaring murder at the wall when he brought the gloves. China grinned with Kelly, scrubbing street sweat off his thighs before he put on his trunks. China’s mask-like fighter’s face was puffed up as from poison ivy or a month of crying. It looked sympathetic naturally.
A fly buzzed too long near Kelly and he brought his left hand from the bench and grabbed it in the air. Hand-speed was a talent. He slapped his mitten gloves together happily.
Better Champions was divided, half for the rings and half for the bags and tables and skip-rope space. In the middle was a huge, old desk with a big sign, “James DeJesus,” and a littler sign, “Pay Me.” A cushioned swivel chair went with the desk and a square was roped around them with the red-velvet-brass-post paraphernalia of a movie house. Kelly put his things on a radiator near a back window, where he would be out of the way, and began to fix his hands. He liked the job, did it carefully. The first of the strip of bandaging he put between his last two fingers and, holding it there, made four folds across the top of his knuckles. Then he began to wrap the strip around and around the punch of his hand, smooth and tight and supporting, and made an occasional excursion around the heel or around the wrist. He could have done the pattern in his sleep. It always ended the same. Each fold lay perfectly flat on the ones it overlapped, even when it went diagonally, and when the last of the strip was reached he tucked it under the front wind. From the second joint of his fingers to the wrist his hand was firmly sheathed. Tape he didn’t bother with for working on the bags.
The wad of bandage for the other hand took a lot of shaking. It was twisted and getting grey with dirt, but would fit his hand ideally. Everybody used handwraps over and over, like old shoes. Along each wall boxers were doing the same as Kelly wherever they could find a space to sit their stuff, a bench or a candy-soda pop machine. Most had hotel towels, easily recognized from the next guy’s, and were wearing shirts and robes; Kelly only had the towel. And exuberant ones were blasting a speed bag just for the roar, naked-fisted, till some Old Mother Trainer fussbudgeted over and put on their gloves.
With the bandaging done, Kelly felt like a fighter, hands like disciplined weapons. He flexed them, testing the play, and limbered his shoulders. He slipped on his gloves and gently tried them out against the wall. Rising up on his toes he started to shuffle. His muscles heated and blocked together so that he felt their power. They bunched easily, nor too gracefully, with the catch that carried extra power. He felt tough, as tough as any middleweight he saw.
There was a guy over there who could sledge in a punch. He was steadily smashing a heavy bag with punches that would bring on internal bleeding. At the next bag was a straight-out high-pun
cher, two equal fists and nothing in his inventory aimed below the neck. Straight rights, straight lefts—all his moves were the same and carried higher than his own head if they missed. Kelly wouldn’t want to be that specialized, but he could match the type, he reassured himself. In one of his best fights his opponent had lost his mouthpiece and Kelly had slaughtered the mouth so badly for the rest of the round that nothing could be done to patch it up. Next bell, it still was dribbling. The ref had stopped the fight. Spot-target hitting and plenty high.
The workout started with warm-ups, went to the big bag and the speed bag, and finished with rope-skipping, shadow-boxing, table calisthenics. Kelly was going to be third on one of the heavy bags and in the meantime occupied himself toe-touching and with setups and trying all his punches, both as he threw them and in the classic style. He figured little situations, punched accordingly. He feinted, sliding into his crouch and out and poising himself. He stretched from the waist in a circle, touching the floor, and in a shuffle pushed his fists up beside his head like horns. He galloped high knee-action spurts; back-pedaled, poking the tips of his hands down at the places where his feet had been; and limply stomped from side to side as in a comedy routine to use the muscles on his ribs; and bounced and bounced, scissoring his legs, twisting on them with deliberate wrenches; and simply stood idly and snapped his head in each direction to build resilient muscles in his neck. Then when the bell rang he walked around and loosened like everybody else. Three minutes and a minute rest. No matter what he did, how easy or how hard, it was organized like that.
“Where you been keeping yourself? Do you expect everybody to spot you?” he heard at his ear. It was the manager whose gloves he wore. “Yeah, I found a fellow who heard of you, but he wouldn’t have known just seeing you. What do you think, you’re famous? Maybe if they’ve heard of you in Boston still I could fight you some up there. No manager, you’re sure?”
Kelly shook his head, formed his lips for “no.” He crossed his feet with nervousness and rubbed his head. He wished he had his towel with him; he ought to use it between rounds.
“I don’t know, I seem to have a skill, I don’t let nothing by me, opportunities, I mean. The other fellow doesn’t see it and I grab it up. Like you, I spoke to you. Nobody else even noticed you. I’m smart, I don’t go sleeping, I’m watching all the time. And here you might be worth some money and I’m the only one who saw it. How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight—twenty-nine,” Kelly said without pleasure.
“What’sat mean?” The manager leered. “Don’t you know?”
“No, I know, I got to be twenty-nine a week ago.”
The manager looked at the floor in sudden seriousness. “Well that might not be too old. Let’s see you.”
So he watched. Kelly wasn’t doing anything; the new round hadn’t started. But he watched. It was silly. Kelly was confused and didn’t like him. His glasses had black frames which hid his eyes almost as much as dark lenses would. He handled them continually as if with pride, so that it seemed he thought the glasses made him better than somebody who didn’t wear them. And his mouth was always moving, and he handled it and pulled the lip to show inside. When he breathed out loudly his face would redden. The bell set Kelly going again, but in the middle of the round the manager interrupted, “I’ll let you have my card.” It read, “Howard Straws, Manager of Fighters,” and gave his phone number. “If I’m away the fellow next door answers, and I answer his, and we don’t steal nobody’s fighters. I can trust him.”
The rhythm of the round was spoiled. Kelly fumbled through the last two minutes. Ordinarily he was confident. He had a solid, balanced crouch and moved without committing himself foolishly. He knew his shadow-boxing showed experience.
Ten guys bobbed and weaved near Kelly and each took up the same amount of space. Except for their styles only the names on their robes told the ranked contenders from the kids. The trainers treated them all the same. They spent more time with the people they were paid for by the managers, naturally, and more time went to big names, but they were nice to everybody and never deferential. The fighter they scolded might be anyone and would deserve it, but they didn’t do it often. Little sad sacks the trainers looked like: they didn’t change their faces or their posture, couldn’t be excited. They’d trained the old-time greats and no one seemed as good to them as fighters of twenty years ago. Another reason was they’d fought themselves and had their faces bashed lopsidedly expressionless. Grave and pitying a badly beaten boy, they looked almost the same as when posing for an arm-up victory picture. They stood around and watched, a towel across the shoulder and a leather skip rope looped around the waist. As much as the managers talked, the trainers watched. It was their job.
Kelly started swatting a speed bag; the owner didn’t mind. Stared up at, it was like a black bull’s eye in a slicked circle worn by its contact with the wooden frame. He played with it expertly: tapped it into motion and its swing into the proper line, then pasted it smartly with the various surfaces of his fist and bashed it with a straight, life lopping punch or an action like shotput-throwing. It was as tempting as a hanging pear. He tippy-tapped and got it swinging crazily, and then tick-tocked it. And all the time he pranced his feet, high-kneeling to the rhythm of his hands like a baton twirler. These were the bags that let the whole gym know what was being done with them. The groups of managers moved away, not liking the competition, but the trainers listened and chewed out loafers if they were concerns of theirs, or, if they weren’t, told them to give the bag to somebody who’d use it.
The owner—one of those godawful wild men a manager had dug up from some ferocious slum—wanted the bag. He had a head like a pineapple—spiky hair and a brain that narrow. In the ring he set himself flat-footed and shoved stuff out. So he swung wild? So he had plenty left. An opening was blocked? There’d be another. He pawed as if he were swimming, as primitive as that, and even on the speed bag shouted “Bam” and “Boom” and puckered his lips in concentration till they sweated. Speed bags were supposed to help develop speed and aim and certain sorts of stamina. The big bag built up power and taught you stance and how to set the feet and get off the punch. It was thicker than a man and larger than the target on him you could hit and, like the speed bag, working it was fun. Kelly’s turn came and he nuzzled the bag between his head and shoulder, then rocked it away with a punch from the hand on that side and followed up with one from the other. On its return swing he caught the bag on his opposite shoulder and repeated the game. He hit the bag a couple of punches as fast as he could, and raised the number to three, six, always using just one hand, until both arms were weak. He hit it freely then, however way he felt, so that it swung in high lurches, and whop! he’d snap down, fists pressed ready on his chest, and let it swing over him, be up and lacing it when it had passed. He ran combinations—strings of lefts and rights in a certain order—or dug rapid-fire with one hand until he couldn’t hold it up, it got so tired.
The last minute he lazed: nuzzled the bag with his shoulder and pushed it around like that, or openhanded it to get it swinging, and took his time, punching irregularly so it dipsy-doodled. He practiced twisting aside and guarding himself and crouching. He put his head in its path and dodged and ducked. After the bell he walked around to keep from stiffening and toweled himself all over roughly for the pleasure. Everybody did, except celebrity fighters who had a trainer dry them. But in spite of the crowdedness of the floor and the number of other fighters he had to change direction for, everybody was absorbed in their own training and trying to be as serious as if they were alone. Rope-skippers had a corner of their own where endlessly they flicked their hands—it would be training for a poker dealer—and skipped the strip of leather frontwards, backwards, right-foot, left-foot, slow- and triple-time. “You don’t train for him, he take your head off,” said a trainer, sprinkling water on the floor to make a circle for his boy to shuffle in. “He punch outside; you punch inside.” And where are the hands when the f
eet go here? And learn the trick of falling forward to grab the crooks of an opponent’s arms.
A heavy stepped under a frame and with a continuous roar blurred the speed bag to invisibility, an ideal-build heavy just growing out of the lighter weight, each pound put on to fill real needs. The noise got so great the trainers relied on signs. The bag didn’t burst because the speed he hit it with distributed pressure evenly. Fighters usually killed the speed bag’s rhythm with a Sunday punch once in a while to rest their arms until they started it going again, but this bozo batted it steadily for the three minutes, varying only the ratio of his hards to his softs—the pulse, the beat of his hands crissing and crossing stayed always the same. He controlled how hard he hit without the help of taking longer for a stronger blow, and his arms, at a peak of condition, needed no rest. Because of the varying force, he hit the bag at all points in its arch—it didn’t go at the same speed, but was chopped into spurts which only a dead-eye could follow. Yet the noise he made was one noise without parts, a swelling and sinking thunder. His head led a charmed, miraculous life in the midst of his flying fists, and during the biggest racket Kelly was scared. This kind of a guy could send a hundred at you as fast as they could follow one another, all rocks heavy as your body was; sure, stoppable, one or five, but not a hundred!
• • •
“Hey.” Howard Straws turned Kelly to face him, taking his chin. “You haven’t done much yet, so I want you to quit and box two rounds instead. This fellow needs a sixty-pounder for his boy. I can look you over, and be better for you. How much you weigh?”
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