by Jack Tunney
“Rothman and Whitowski braced them, said the Tammany boys wanted me to throw the fight. If I didn’t, then they’d kill Augie and Joey and me. Then Joey must’ve done something to get under Whitowski’s skin, because he hit him. Hit him too hard. He died in the hospital the next day.”
Quinn opened his eyes. Telling it didn’t make him feel better, but he certainly felt different. He leaned against the ring ropes and looked at the gym floor. “I don’t know if I should throw the fight or if I should fight the way I know I can.”
Father Frawley swung his feet back and forth as they dangled free over the ring. “That is a conundrum, isn’t it?”
“I already knew that, Father. I was kind of hoping you could help me see my way through it is all. What do I do?”
The priest looked at him. “What does your heart tell you to do? And I don’t mean some romantic version of what your heart is. I’m not asking you to tell me how you feel. I’m talking about what’s in your heart; in your guts because for a man like you, the heart and guts are the same thing.”
Quinn understood what he meant, but it just wasn’t as simple as that. “Part of me keeps thinking there will always be other fights. I’m only twenty-five. I dive to Whitowski, fight again, then become the lead contender. Perfect records in boxing are over rated anyway.”
“True, they are. But what about your own record?” He tapped his head. “The record you keep up here? The record you live with every single day your feet hit the floor in the morning? Can you live with throwing a fight? A fight that, if you win, will take you one step closer to the pinnacle of your sport? Of any sport, for that matter? The heavyweight championship of the world?”
Quinn kept looking at the gym floor. “If it saves Augie. Like I said, there’s always other fights.”
“True, and other champions, too, which isn’t always a good thing.”
Quinn didn’t quite catch that and thought he heard him wrong. “What does that mean, Father?”
The priest hopped off the edge of the ring and walked toward Quinn. “Dempsey’s not as young as he once was, is he? Been in a lot of tough fights for a long time. He’s still got a lot of skill, but there’s a lot of mileage on him, too. He’s primed to lose and you’re just the man to beat him. Not Whitowski.” He poked Quinn in the chest. “You.”
Quinn shrugged. “There’s talk of putting Tunney in there with Whitowski instead. He’s a great fighter, too. He could…”
Father Frawley put his hand on his shoulder. “Yes he is, but like I said, he’s not you. No one in the game today has your footwork, or your speed or your power. And he can’t take a punch as well as you can. I know it.” He poked Quinn in the chest again with a bony old finger. “You know it, too. That’s not being prideful. It’s simply acknowledging the gifts that God gave you.”
Quinn didn’t deny it. He’d always known himself all too well. His strengths as well as his weaknesses. “But I don’t know if I could live with myself if I win and Augie got killed. They can do what they want to me, but…”
Father Frawley surprised Quinn by gently, but firmly slapping him in the face. “Don’t do that. Don’t justify losing before you’ve even stepped into the ring. Do you honestly think these thugs are just going to kill you after you beat Whitowski? The man next in line to fight Jack Dempsey doesn’t just up and die, you know. Neither does his trainer. Sharks like these Tammany men survive in murky water. They can’t afford the spotlight of attention that would be upon them if the man who beat their fighter suddenly wound up dead afterwards. I know the fight game has always been crooked, but murder is another story entirely.”
“So you’re saying I should risk it? Just go out and fight Whitowski the way I want to fight him?”
The old priest smiled. “I’m saying that, deep down, you’ve already made that decision, Terry. You’re just feeling guilty about what it might mean for Augie. That’s understandable. No one wants to risk their own lives, much less the lives of those closest to them. But you have to remember one thing. When you were ten years old, we gave you a choice of vocations here at St. Vincent’s. You didn’t have to lace up the gloves and step into the ring. You could’ve gone out for other sports. Probably would’ve done very well, too. But you took up boxing because it’s naturally who and what you are. For good or for ill, those are the cards you’ve been dealt and you seem to be playing those cards very well.”
Quinn didn’t argue with him. “Augie doesn’t deserve to die, though. Neither did Joey. Not over a lousy fight.”
“No one ever wound up in the fight game by accident,” Father Frawley said. “People don’t just wake up one day and find themselves a boxer or a promoter or a manager. You have to fight to be in the fight game and keep on fighting once you get into it. We knew what we were doing. All of us. You, me. Your friend Joey. Augie too. If they get killed doing what you were born to do, that’s tragic. But it’s the price they pay for the life they’ve led. The dead are gone and nothing can bring them back. And trading the promise of youth for an old man’s comfort is a poor bargain indeed.”
“I know Augie’s made his choices, but…”
Father Frawley laid a cold hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “All of our choices cost us something, Terry. Nothing in this life comes free. You just have to decide what you can live with. And the Terry Quinn I know can live with a bullet in his body before dishonor stains his soul. Throw that fight and it’ll gnaw at you for the rest of your life. Maybe not right away, but it will eat at you like a cancer, even if you ultimately wind up winning the belt. I’ve seen what regret can do to a man’s soul. I have a few myself. And I’d hate to see it happen to a good man like you.”
Quinn wasn’t surprised the priest was able to make him see what he’d been feeling all along. Talking to him somehow always made him feel better, even when he’d known what he’d have to do all along. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
“Comes with the collar,” the old priest said. “And the white hair, too. Now get yourself out there and start training, man. Train like your life depends on it, Terry Quinn, because in one way or another, it most likely does.”
ROUND TEN
Two Months Later
Fight Night.
Quinn had always been able to ignore the roar of the crowd, but that night it was impossible. Even all the way down in the locker room, the cheering was deafening.
Every fight on the undercard had been a slugfest and the crowd was whipped up into a frenzy. They were bloodthirsty and looking for the main event to be even better.
He had no intention of disappointing them.
Augie kept massaging his shoulders, keeping him loose. Quinn was normally tight for a fight, but not this time. He was more relaxed than he’d ever been, almost passive. He had resigned himself to what he had to do and what he was going to do. What he had to do. No sense in getting all worked up over the inevitable.
“Feel good?” Augie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Ribs good?”
“You know they are. Quit making small talk and say what you want to say or don’t say anything at all.”
All training camp had been like that. Choppy sentences between them. No small talk. Just getting the work in at an accelerated pace for the abbreviated time between fights.
Quinn felt Augie’s hand begin to shake as they moved up to his neck. “You trained good, champ. Better than good. The best I’ve ever seen you.”
He felt himself getting tight again and jerked away. “Quit nibbling around the edges, Augie. Ask me what you want to ask me. We haven’t talked about Joey since it happened. Fine. But it’s still been there the whole time, hasn’t it? You want to know if I’m going to take the dive.”
Augie dropped his hands to his sides. He looked even smaller than normal in the green silk fight shirt he wore. Older. He had fewer strands of hair pushed across the top of his head than ever. His eyes were dark and sunken and his face was thin and drawn. He looked tired. Maybe beyond tired. More hollow
.
“I’m afraid, kid. I’m afraid to ask you what you’re going to do. Because if you throw the fight, you’re killing everything you’ve ever worked for. Everything inside you. And if you don’t throw the fight, you’re killing the both of us for good and for all.”
Quinn kept quiet while Augie kept spilling. “The money Doyle offered was good. This morning, he upped his offer to five thousand dollars. Five grand goes a long way for guys like us, Terry and God knows there’s been enough death around this fight already. Joey, I mean. And I keep hopin’ tonight’ll take some of the sadness out of it for us. Make it better somehow. But I know it won’t because there’s more death comin’ either way. Inside or out don’t matter now. Death’s death and there ain’t no good to be found in that. Ever.”
Quinn had never felt sorry for Augie before. Not when he was drunk. Not even when he was down after Joey died. But he felt sorry for him now because he was up against the same thing Quinn had been carrying around with him before his talk to Father Frawley.
That talk had been on Quinn’s mind a lot lately. It made him remember how much he’d dreamed of this night since he was a ten year old kid pawing at a heavybag back at the orphanage. Tonight was supposed to be special; a night of beginnings. A path to a title shot and all that went with it.
But somewhere along the way, it had become something else. Something ugly and crooked and wrong. Tonight was the end of something and both of them knew it.
He wouldn’t tell Augie if he would take the dive or not because it didn’t really matter. They knew their lives would end that night whether they kept on breathing or not. Father Frawley had said it best: the dead were gone and there was no way back from it. Even dreams died, too.
Quinn slowly tucked his gloved hand under Augie’s chin and nodded toward the door. The crowd was stomping their feet now and it sounded like thunder was rolling through the Garden. Rival chants of ‘Wild’ and ‘Quinn’ melded into a blur of deafening noise. “Hear that, Augie? They’re playing our song. Time to give the customers their money’s worth.”
ROUND ELEVEN
The fight started how Quinn knew it would.
Whitowski came right at him at the bell. Hands high, shoulders tight. Charging like a bull let out of its pen.
Whitowski threw a left hook meant to stop Quinn in his tracks.
But the punch was too hard and the arc too shallow. Quinn easily dodged it as the punch missed well short. But Witowski’s clumsy following right was an express train right down Broadway, splitting Quinn’s gloves before connecting flush with his jaw.
The world tilted as Quinn fell back onto the ropes. He managed to keep his gloves high to protect his face from the fury of lefts and rights Whitowski was hammering.
Instinct and muscle memory got Quinn off the ropes as he attempted to smother his opponent’s punches. Whitowski wasn’t about to lose his advantage remaining quick on his feet as the two men pushed against each other like bears in a clearing.
Quinn didn’t want to give Witowski the satisfaction of clinching, but he wasn’t strong enough to risk another lucky shot knocking him out.
The crowd began to get restless and boo as the spectacle began to resemble a slow dance more than a prize fight. The referee – a pale, red headed kraut named Kunkel – stepped between them and pushed both of them back a few steps. “Come on, fellas. These people paid to see a brawl, so brawl!”
Off the break, Quinn saw Whitowski come right back in, gloves high. He led with a weak, probing jab to the body that exposed the left side of his head. Quinn threw a right cross that landed hard just below Whitowski’s ear.
The impact sent Whitowski spilling into the ropes. Down, but far from out. Quinn knew Whitowski might not have a lot of boxing skills, but he had a hell of a jaw and had never been knocked down in a fight. He thought he might’ve broken Whitowski’s jaw, but he’d never know for sure. The big Pole was tough enough to keep on fighting even if he had.
Quinn knew if he pounced now, he might end the fight with a few shots to the head. But Quinn didn’t want to just end the fight. He wanted to break Whitowski – break him for what Whitowski had done to Joey. Break him for how Whitowski had scared Augie and broke his heart, for being one of the men who’d made this night as ugly and corrupt as they were – for being one of the men who’d taken Quinn’s dream away from him.
No, Quinn didn’t want to kill Whitowski, because the dead were dead and nothing could reach them. He simply wanted to hurt Whitowski so bad he’d have to live the rest of his life knowing he’d never be able to box again.
Stumbling off the ropes, Whitowski found his footing. He awkwardly brought his hands up, trying to protect his head and body at the same time.
But Quinn didn’t throw a punch.
He stood in the center of the ring and waited for the big Pole to come to him.
And come he did.
Not charging like before, but shuffling slow and methodically, as was his natural style. Quinn notice Witowski’smouth was flopping open and closed like a busted screen door. And there were still two minutes to go in the round.
Quinn faked another right to the head, forcing Whitowski to cover up and turn away. Quinn then struck with a ferocious left hook to Whitowski’s right shoulder, following it with a right cross and another hook to the same place. All three punches were hard shots, knocking the big Pole off balance.
Quinn fired another three punch combination, sending Whitowski back against the ropes. Quinn didn’t go after him, though. He merely circled away, letting Whitowski recover. He didn’t think he’d broken the shoulder, but he’d certainly deadened it some.
Quinn circled away because he didn’t want the ref to break up the action. He didn’t want Whitowski to get that kind of a rest. He’d hurt Whitowski and he wanted to keep on hurting him, slowly destroying his defenses bit by bit until he was primed for the final blow that would end both their careers.
The shot to the head had been just the beginning. The six hard blows to the shoulder were designed to weaken his defenses, to make him feel every bit as defenseless as he’d made little Joey feel in that alley that night at Lefty’s.
Father Frawley had been right about something else, too – Whitowski had received the same training as Quinn. He knew Whitowski would never admit he was hurt, not even to his corner. He’d never quit no matter how bad he was injured.
Just like Quinn would never quit.
And that’s how Quinn was going to break him.
Whitowski did his best to shake off his injuries, getting right back into the fight. He started firing off jabs three at a time. Quinn dodged all of them. He countered the last one by burying a right hook into the left side of Whitowski’s rib cage, before circling away again.
Whitowski staggered, unsteady on his feet. He didn’t know whether to favor the sore right shoulder, protect the sore ribs on his left, or protect his head.
Quinn hadn’t left him with much, but he’d left him enough so he’d be able to answer the bell for the second round. Still, Kunkel the referee didn’t have to separate them when the bell sounded, ending the first round.
Augie began toweling Quinn off as soon as he got back to the corner. “You sure hit him with some heavy shots. Think you hurt him?”
Quinn didn’t say anything. He was too busy watching Whitowski’s corner scrambling to put their fighter back together.
***
The second and third rounds went the same as the first, with Quinn belting Whitowski when and where he could. Two three-minute episodes of the worst, most brutal legal violence anyone sitting in the Garden could remember witnessing. Hooks and crosses, blinding jabs, and punishing right hands all landed on Whitowski's arms, shoulders, ribs, and gut. Everywhere and anywhere legal.
Except for his head.
Whitowski’s mouth hung open more now than it had before, almost mocking Quinn, daring him to hit it and end the fight.
But Quinn didn’t hit it. Not yet.
The crowd b
egan to cheer louder with every blow that landed. Shouts for him to “knock the bum out” began to spread from restless spectators at ringside.
Even Kunkel, the referee, urged him to, “Just knock the poor sap out and get it over with.”
But Quinnwasn’t ready for it to be over with. Not yet, anyway. And besides,Whitowski kept coming.
Quinn kept taking apart Whitowski’s defenses. He wanted to hurt him just enough to weaken him without the corner throwing in the towel, or the ref stopping it. Because to stop a fight like this on anything short of a knockout might cause a riot. A lot of money was riding on this fight, and a lot of it was against Quinn. A man with Whitowski’s power could turn a fight around with one punch, so the fight would go on for as long as Quinn wanted.
***
Quinn decided the fourth would be the round.
Whitowski came lumbering out of his corner. His mouth was open even more as he struggled to breathe. Quinn had broken one of Whitowski’s ribs in the middle of the third round. It could puncture a lung if it hadn’t already.
Whitowski’s shoulders and arms had taken so many heavy shots, he could barely keep his hand up. He hadn't landed a clean blow on Quinn since the second round and that had only been a glancing impact.
In between rounds, Quinn heard Whitowski’s corner beg him to let them stop the fight. Even the ref threatened to stop it if Whitowski didn't start landing some punches.
However, Whitowski threatened to kill whoever even thought of stopping it, including the ref. Quinn was punching himself out, Whitowski had shouted, telling anyone who would listen it was only a matter of time before the lousy pug slipped up.
And now, with Whitowski’s defenses weakened and his pride gone, Quinn decided it was time to close the door.
He feinted a left hook to Whitowski's head. When his opponent raised his hands to block the blow, Quinn buried a hard right into the broken rib. He reset and brought an uppercut up through Whitowski’s gloves, connecting solidly with the open jaw, driving it back and up toward the skull. The blow sent Whitowski rigid, his hands dropping, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he bounced off the ropes.
