by Tom Schreck
He owned car dealerships and I’m convinced he joined the board to network business opportunities out of the other board members, who, by my estimation, were there for the exact same reasons. There were financial guys and lawyers hoping to find new businesses, there were doctors’ wives, and there were a few others who I am sure were angling for something. There was one exception.
The one exception was the chairman of the board and my unofficial Jewish grandfather, Hymie Zuckerman. Hymie started the agency to help people and he remained committed to that mission. With a chain of Crawford’s most successful dry cleaners, Hymie had made a fortune by working his ass off and he wanted to help some of the people who weren’t as lucky as he was. I never got the impression that Hymie felt that because he worked his ass off he deserved any more than anyone else. It was like he saw his work ethic as something he was lucky to have, like it was a tool that he had that others didn’t.
He didn’t have much use for Claudia, but he knew the agency needed to follow regulations and so he viewed her as a necessary evil. He gave her the respect her title warranted but he never, ever warmed up to her. He did, however, treat me like I was his adopted grandson.
I heard some noise in the lobby and I knew it was him. Hymie’s entrances were never quiet.
“Where is he?” he announced, coming in with his thick old-world Jew accent. “Where’s that Harp-Polack pug of mine? Where is he?”
I stood to greet him, and he reached up and pinched me on the cheek and shook my face until it felt like I was getting a blood blister. He was about five foot two and mostly bald with brown liver spots over his scalp. He had black glasses, polyester pants, white shoes, and a matching white belt. He was over eighty and his eyes were a little cloudy, but they shined when he smiled.
“Big shot, fighting in the Garden like Barney Ross,” he said. He was a big fight fan from the days when Jews like Barney Ross dominated the sport.
“That’s right, but no one’s mistaking me for Barney, I’m afraid.”
“What’s this, son? Have confidence-it’s your time!”
“I’ll do my best,” I said when Claudia appeared.
She greeted Hymie and ushered him into the boardroom to have her high-level, ultra-important meeting. I rolled my desk chair to talk with Monique.
“This sucks, having to hang around so the Michelin Woman can do her grandstanding,” I said.
“Karen and I are supposed to have dinner with another couple,” Monique said. “I just wish she’d give us an idea about when we could leave,” she said.
“You have any guesses on why Howard has picked me to be his confidant?” I asked.
She thought for a second, gazing down at the carpet with the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen.
“Yeah, I think I do,” she looked right at me. “There’s something about you, Duff. When you’re for someone, you exude a sort of unconditional positive regard.”
“What?”
“I’m serious. You’ll joke it off, but you connect with people and when they’re the hopeless type, you do it very strongly.”
“Isn’t it just the handsome good looks and my strikingly handsome lanternlike jaw?”
“I knew you wouldn’t take the compliment,” she said, and she rolled back up to her desk. She wasn’t pissed or doing anything for drama. If she identified that you were about to communicate in a disingenuous way, she moved on. That was Monique.
The afternoon snailed on and I was starting to get pissed because I had to keep calling Smitty to push back our departure. I didn’t really care what time we hit the city but he was all about schedules and uniformity and he’d get wacky if we varied from it. He was already getting a little perturbed on the phone.
At five thirty the boardroom door opened and they all started to file out. My desk phone rang and I went to get it to hopefully tell Smitty I’d be on my way soon.
It was Howard.
“Duffy, it’s me.”
“Howard, slow down and talk to me. Tell me where you are and what’s going on.”
“I can’t stay on, Duff. I know they’ll have the phones traced and I don’t blame that on you at all.”
“Howard, look-”
“Duffy, you need to know it wasn’t me. It’s them and they’re afraid of what I know. It’s real big and it will ruin their lives. Don’t believe I did it.”
“How-” He hung up.
Claudia was busy talking to the board members and Monique had gone to the lesbian’s room, so no one heard my conversation. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night with Morris and Larry Bird’s mustache, nor did I want to listen to Claudia go on and on about, well, anything.
I didn’t say anything. I waited for Claudia to tell us we could go, and then I called Smitty and he picked me and Rudy up at the Blue.
It was fight time.
9
Madison Square Fuckin’ Garden.
The ring that was home to Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, Ali, and my idol, Willie Pep, was soon to be home, at least for a short while, to Duffy Dombrowski.
Smitty and I got to the Garden two hours before my bout, and we went in the special entrance on Seventh Avenue for fighters and officials. They checked our IDs and directed us to the fifth-floor dressing rooms. I didn’t quite get how an arena could be on a fifth floor, but that’s New York for you. We went up this industrial elevator and got out in a gray loading area with huge walls filled with dollies and wire. It smelled like old garbage and faintly like urine. The shiny Garden you see on your pay-per-view and touted as the world’s most famous arena has a different feel in its bowels.
We snaked around a couple of corners until we saw a sign that said “Dressing Rooms.” A security guard checked our passes and showed us through a narrow corridor with a dozen rooms. I guess if you’re going to have the Ice Capades every year, you’re going to need a lot of rooms. As I walked through the corridor I passed the framed photos of the Knicks and Rangers and then there were framed photos of some of the performers who had played the Garden. I went past photos of the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Sinatra, and Paul McCartney.
Smitty had walked ahead and called to me.
“Here it is, Duff. Let’s get wrapped,” he said.
“Hang on, Smitty,” I said.
I kept on down the corridor, looking for it. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t have it, but then, just past Springsteen, I saw it.
Elvis at the Garden, June 12, 1972. It was a great shot of him wowing the Garden fans. It was cool to see.
Just down the hallway was a fat old security guard, and I walked down to talk with him. Smitty was getting impatient.
“Duff, what the hell are you doin’?” he said.
“Hang on, just a second, Smit,” I said.
I went up to the guard.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Fighters names are on the doors to their rooms,” he said, barely looking at me.
“Yeah, I know, thanks,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“How long have you worked at the Garden?”
“Since ’70, why?”
“Any chance you worked the night Elvis played?”
“Yeah, I did. So?”
“Did you get to talk to him?”
“We all did. He gave us watches.”
“Really?”
“Yeah-I was never a fan, but I’ll tell you something,” he said, looking me in the eye for the first time. “You’ll never hear me say anything bad about Elvis Presley.”
“Do you remember which room he dressed in?”
“I’ll never forget-second one to the end. It’s where we got the watches,” he said.
I looked down the corridor to see a pissed-off Smitty, standing in front of the second dressing room to the end.
“Sir, thank you, thank you very much,” I said.
Special things happened in this place. You could tell.
Smitty wrapped
my hands and went through his routine. He didn’t mention anything about how this kid was the best fighter that I had ever been in with by far. He didn’t mention the Garden, he just said all the things he always said and he said them in the exact same way. I don’t think any of that was a coincidence.
I was the fifth bout on a ten-bout card and there was one more bout after mine before the live television started. Mulrooney was the main event and he brought in the Irish, both of the Irish-American and the recent immigrant variety. In Mulrooney, they had something to get behind, an event right here in New York that they could come out to, where they could get drunk and be Irish. Most of them would be in the upper deck, and at $75 a pop you can’t rightfully call them cheap seats.
A guy in a blue blazer with a New York Athletic Commission badge on poked his head in my dressing room and said “Time.” I felt that weird feeling in my throat and a flushing in my face like I do before any bout, but tonight it was a little more intense. My legs felt funny underneath me like I had rented them. It was a little more than a little more intense.
I came out first for my bout because Marquason insisted on it in the contract. It’s customary for the champion to enter the ring last, and that’s kind of been adopted by whoever is the favorite to win. I walked through the hallway leading to the main floor and walked through the tunnel with the small scoreboard on top of it that you see on TV at about midcourt during basketball games. I got my first look at the immensity of the arena, which was now three-quarters filled. It was, in the true sense of the word, awesome. The crowd did their best to be indifferent to my entrance.
Marquason came in to some rap song with an entourage of about eight guys. His corner was worked by two of the game’s most famous cornermen, so you know that his manager thought a lot of him. The one guy was that fat old guy who looked liked Fred Flintsone’s uglier brother. Marquason was decked out in brand-new gear with paid endorsements all over, and when he came through the ropes he ignored me and floated around the ring in a choreographed warm-up. I got the impression that this guy hadn’t fought in a union hall or a high-school gym-at least not in a long time.
Anticipating some Irish folks there for the main event, I wore my green robe and my green, orange, and white shorts with the shamrock in the middle. The ring announcer introduced us and when he said my name a roar went up from an upper-deck section waving Irish flags. I guess they heard “Duffy” and the “Dombrowski” didn’t throw them. I looked up and it was a large section of people in green.
Marquason got applause but it was more subdued, like the crowd was being introduced to some sort of boy prince. The referee called us to the center of the ring for the ceremonial instructions, and then we went back to our corners to get ready for the bell. Smitty slipped in my mouthpiece and the bell rang. I tried to focus on boxing.
I couldn’t feel my legs.
Marquason didn’t move-he floated. The guy looked beautiful, like he was a body made just for this. My admiration was interrupted by his first jab, which hit me just under my right eye. It felt like someone hit me with a screwdriver. The kid was fast, he had power, and his punches were sharp.
I heard the ringside announcers say something about my knees buckling, which I wasn’t aware of. I was aware of the loud “oooh” that came from the crowd. It was what came after that really startled me.
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
The Irish were in the house and they were pulling for their boy. I got chills and I began to feel my legs and enter that state of mind where I’m just boxing.
The chills didn’t last long because Marquason stabbed me with his screwdriver again, only this time he followed it with a right and I found myself on the seat of my pants. It hurt but I was all right, and I sprang back up just in time to hear the bell ring. Well, I made it through one round, albeit by getting totally dominated and knocked down.
I sat on the stool that Rudy slid through the ropes and sipped the water Smitty offered. Smitty spoke to me in his usual steady and measured pace, but I wasn’t focused. My head was ringing and my heart was beating fast.
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
It was getting louder.
I was up off the stool at the sound of the bell for the second. Marquason started to screw around and treat me like a prop. It was as if I were a piece of equipment for him to use to get his win, and even more than that, I was something to embarrass and show dominance over.
I threw some jabs that he caught with his gloves and I missed wildly with some hooks. He mugged at me, stuck his tongue out, and did the Ali shuffle. I didn’t mind getting beat but I did mind getting disrespected. Okay, so the kid was near great and going to be great, but he didn’t have to make me into an asshole.
He kept doing this one move where he’d drop his guard, stick his head out, and then lean in, begging me to hit him. Then when I’d move, he’d lean toward me and flash a jab that would stab me on the way in. Those jabs hurt, but it was actually something I’d hoped he’d do after seeing him do it on tape.
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
Man, you got to love the Irish. I felt my fist inside the satiny Mexican glove and it was time to give it a shot-probably my only shot. I knew my jab was good but I didn’t know if I could pull off what I wanted to do. Who was I kidding-it was my only shot.
Marquason started the hands-down-leaning-in routine again. I tightened my fist and waited. He leapt, I stepped slightly to my left and threw the hardest, stiff-armed jab I had, just slightly off-center to his right eyebrow. It caught and I dragged it across his eyebrow and forehead as hard as I could.
It would take a second to see if it worked.
He backed up and circled abruptly, abandoning his showboat style. He stopped throwing punches and looked preoccupied. Then I got my first sign of success. Marquason rubbed his eyebrow and looked down at his glove. There was blood and there was a lot of it.
The expression on his face changed a bit. Blood dripped into his eye and little by little his fancy satin trunks were getting stained. I threw a regular jab that he blocked, but it was hard enough to force his own gloves into the cut. When he pulled back, the cut had spread. It was now almost two inches long and it was a quarter inch deep.
But was it enough?
The bell rang to end the second and there was a surge of activity around his corner. Back in my corner, Rudy iced my shoulders and Smitty was saying something I wasn’t paying any attention to because I was trying to see around him into Marquason’s corner. I saw the New York Athletic Commission doc come through the ropes.
Oh please, please.
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
It was more than a minute between rounds, which meant the doctor was concerned. He looked at Marquason, turned, and whispered something to the ref. And then it happened-it fuckin’ happened.
The ref waved his hands over Marquason’s corner wildly and I watched. I couldn’t breathe. Fred Flintstone was throwing a fit, Marquason pushed the ref and was yelling, and the ref approached the scorer’s table. I pushed Smitty out of the way to hear what he told the Commission table.
“TKO on doctor’s recommendation,” he said.
I froze. Smitty froze.
The handsome ring announcer climbed in the ring.
“On advice of the ringside physician, referee Peter Conboy stops the contest. The winner by TKO, Duffy Dombrowski!”
I jumped in the air and Smitty and Rudy caught me.
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
“DUFFY, DUFFY.”
Oh, how you have to love the Irish.
10
Rudy hugged me so tight it hurt, and he wouldn’t let go. Smitty smiled his crooked smile and laughed, shaking his head like a guy who just saw a dog riding a bicycle at the circus. He slapped me on the back and left it there as we headed for the dressing room.
Just before I left the Garden floor, there
was a group of pasty-faced guys with turtlenecks, wool caps, and bad teeth. They had had more than a few and were hootin’ and hollerin’ for me behind some security guards.
“’Ere’s to ya, Mr. Duff-you done all of us proud tonight, ya know,” said the fattest one with the sweater that didn’t quite cover the circumference of his belly.
“To Mr. Duffy!” he screamed, and his four friends yelled, “Hear, hear!”
The little guy at the end reached over the Garden security guard and handed me a full beer.
“You could use a pint, Duff,” he said.
I couldn’t remember smiling harder in my life, and I raised my glass to my new friends.
“To the Irish!” I said, and I headed into the locker room with the impatient inspector from the Commission, who had to take my gloves.
This was by far the biggest win and moment in my boxing career.
I didn’t feel real, and although I beat Marquason by exploiting his tendency to cut and by throwing a somewhat questionable punch that utilized the construction of the glove, I wasn’t besieged with guilt. See, inside the ropes, there are rules and then there are the real rules.
Fighters operate on a certain code, and I didn’t violate that code. The code is you do anything you can with what you have at your disposal as long as your opponent has that same opportunity. We wore the same gloves and I hit him with a legal punch. I didn’t lace him in the eye, I didn’t kick him, and I didn’t bite him in the ear. I didn’t hold him and hit him, I didn’t hit him on the break, and I didn’t put any illegal substance on my gloves. I did hit him in a way that would bust his face open, and that may seem gross, but hey, this is the sport we both chose.
Marquason and his entourage weren’t happy but they knew my win was on the up and up. Still, there would be complaints, protests, and undoubtedly a lot said. All of this came with upsetting a prospect and it didn’t bother me in the least. It was a great moment and I wasn’t in any hurry to get home.
“So, this punch looked an awful lot like that shit you’ve been doin’ on the bags this week,” Smitty said.
