by Jack Tunney
I got thirty days in the jug for slugging the cop – with five days’ time served for knocking out the inventor.
MARK FINN
Mark Finn is an author, actor, essayist, and playwright. His biography, Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, was nominated for a World Fantasy award in 2007 and is now available in an updated and expanded second edition. His articles, essays, and introductions about Robert E. Howard and his works have appeared in publications for the Robert E. Howard Foundation, Dark Horse Comics, Boom! Comics, The Cimmerian, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, The Howard Review, Wildside Press, Centipede Press, The University of Texas Press, Greenwood Press, Scarecrow Press, and elsewhere. As a noted authority on the Texas author, Finn has presented several papers about Robert E. Howard to the PCA/ACA National conference, the AWC, and he lectures and performs readings regularly.
Finn is the author of two books of fiction, Gods New and Used and Year of the Hare, as well as hundreds of articles, essays, reviews, and short stories for Playboy.com, RevolutionSF.com, Dark Horse Comics, Monkeybrain Books, Sky Warrior Books, F.A.C.T. Publications, Tachyon Press and others. Current projects include Dr. Zombie for Monkeybrain Comics with long-time friend and collaborator John Lucas, and Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey – a collection of weird boxing stories. He lives in North Texas with his long-suffering wife, too many books, and an affable pit bull named Sonya.
ON THE WEB:
www.marktheaginghipster.blogspot.com
ROUND 7
THE BROKEN MAN
MICHAEL ZIMMER
Cameron Reed was awake when the door to his fifth-floor apartment swung quietly inward that morning. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand, surprised by how swiftly the hours had flown past. Three a.m., yet it felt like he’d gone to bed only moments before.
He tried not to make too much noise as he swung his legs out from under the blankets, but the old springs squealed like snitches as he planted his feet on the cold hardwood. He pulled his trousers on first, quickly, so that his scarred legs were covered when Margie switched the light on in the kitchen, its illumination spilling boldly into the small, door-less bedroom.
“Cam?” she called softly. “Are you up?”
“Just about.” He slid his feet into slippers starting to come apart at the seams, then stood and paused until his balance caught up. When he felt steady enough, he shuffled over to where his shirt hung from a peg on the wall beside the door and pulled it on over his undershirt. Pausing in the shadows, he stared into the kitchen where Margie Dunford was bent over in front of the fridge, sorting through the packages of vegetables she’d left there the day before.
“How does an omelet sound?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow from inside the Frigidaire’s massive box.
“You don’t have to make me anything fancy. Just scramble an egg and put some ham in it.”
She pulled back, straightening, staring into the bedroom as if she could see him in the dark. “Cam, we’ve been over this before.”
“Every day,” he agreed, struggling to keep his bitterness in check.
Margie’s voice softened. “Come on into the kitchen. You can keep me company while I fix breakfast. How about a Denver omelet and some fried potatoes?”
Chastened, he said: “That sounds good. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He tucked his shirt into his trousers, ran fingers through his thick black hair, then glanced speculatively at the cane hanging off the back of the chair next to his bed. The chair’s seat was stacked with fight magazines and sports publications, on the very top a copy of “The Ring” with Sugar Ray Robinson on the cover. His gaze lingered a moment, then slid away. He told himself he ought to throw it all away, the magazines and posters and other memorabilia. Put the memories of sweat-splattered canvas and the smack of gloves on flesh behind him for good. But to pitch them now would be like giving up a part of his soul. Leaving the cane hooked over the back of the chair, hidden in the darkness of his bedroom, Cam hobbled into the kitchen.
Margie smiled when he entered. She was an attractive woman, a slim brunette with a tiny waist and a beautiful smile that hid its own deep anguish -- a husband dead in the South Pacific, a young daughter to raise on her own.
Cam could never figure out what she wanted from him, why she was so kind when he made every effort to keep her at bay. He knew she would claim it was because of Lori, because the seven-year-old liked him more than she liked anyone else who lived in the old tenement on the city’s south side, but Cam sensed there was more to it than that. What frightened him, kept him almost always on guard, was the fear that what Margie felt for him was pity. Sorrow for the gimp in the apartment below hers, a man barely a year older than she, yet already broken and used up.
He slid into his chair at the table and breathed easier with the weight lifted from his knees. He could feel the morning dampness creeping through the closed window at his side, could see the lights of State Street half a block to the east, mostly deserted at this early hour, the Gas Lamp Theater closed, the Blue Hen Café, where Margie waitressed twelve-hour shifts six days a week, not yet open for the breakfast trade. He could see her reflection in the glass, the deep blue of her uniform and the perky white cap like cheerful smudges in the otherwise gloomy atmosphere of his apartment.
His own image was less appealing. Stubbled jaw and brooding eyes, tiny scars above his brows like pale question marks, the shallow lump of his nose, slightly askew but honorably earned -- in the ring, where for four years after his discharge from the army, he had dominated the canvas.
He pulled his gaze away from the window to stare at the table top, as if seeking refuge in the smooth Formica, the pleasant chatter of coffee coming to a boil in the percolator. Keeping her back to him, Margie said: “There’s going to be a dance at the Starlight on Saturday.”
“New Year?”
“New Years’ Eve.” She turned, studying him quietly for a moment. “Come with me, Cam. I’ve already talked to Mrs. Gunderson, and she’ll look after Lori.”
His head came up sharply, lips parted but silent.
“No, I know you can’t dance, but … there’ll be music and people, and there’s supposed to be fireworks over the river at midnight.”
“And what do you want me to do?” he asked resentfully. “Walk down to the river, or skip?”
“Come on, Cam, it’s almost 1950. The century’s half over. Don’t you want to celebrate?”
“No.” His rejection came out hard and flat, and he saw it reflected in Margie’s expression, saw the hurt and disappointment, and felt an immediate pang of guilt. He shook his head and looked away. “I’d ….”
“You’d what?” she prodded gently, when he didn’t continue.
“I can’t go, Margie. You know that. But I can look after Lori if you’d like.”
“Lori’s going to stay with Alice Gunderson,” she replied curtly. “They’ll meet us at Riverside Park for the fireworks after the dance, at the statue.”
Cam kept his gaze on the table. His cheeks felt warm and his ears roared with … what? Shame? Fear?
“Think about it, won’t you?” She turned back to the stove, running the spatula’s sharp edge roughly across the bottom of the cast-iron skillet, peeling away blackened slices of potatoes. “Heck,” she said, her voice grating. “I’ve burned them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he automatically replied, then jerked his head up when Margie slammed the spatula to the stove top.
“Yes, Cam, it does matter. Breakfast matters, and so does supper, and…and so does getting out and being part of the world again, instead of...” She made a vague motion with her hand, and her words abruptly trailed off. She turned away, continued working on the potatoes that were still stuck to the bottom of the skillet, mumbling under her breath.
Cam sat quietly for a moment, not knowing how to respond. Then he stood, intending to fetch their plates and cups from the cabinet, but with his thoughts scattered and distracted, he
forgot his balance and tipped unexpectedly forward. His right knee gave out first, then the left. He cried out as he fell, but managed to grab the counter on his way to the floor, stopping himself from going all the way down. He hung there a moment, mortified, then doggedly hauled himself back to his feet, using the strength of his arms and shoulders, still hard as steel. He stood a moment, staring silently at the countertop while Margie fussed with their breakfast, ignoring his near collapse. Then he brought the plates and cups down and carefully walked them to the table. He was sweating by the time he sank into his chair, the pain in his knees like knives carving deep into the tendons. Continuing her charade of indifference, Margie poured coffee for both of them, then dished up the potatoes and their omelets and sat down opposite him.
“What are you going to do today?” she asked, reaching for her coffee.
“Same as always, I suppose.”
“Are you going to the gym?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” he lied.
She looked up, meeting his eyes above the rim of her cup. “What about that boy you were telling me about? Tony, wasn’t it?”
“Tony Santoro. He’ll find somebody.”
“Pug wants you to coach him.”
“What Pug wants and what Pug gets are two different things.”
“You said yourself he has potential.”
Cam’s features began to tighten. “Yeah, he’s got potential, but he’s going to have to find someone else to handle his training.”
Margie didn’t push it after that, for which Cam was grateful. They finished their breakfast in silence, and when they were done, she slipped into her ankle-length wool coat. Hesitating at the door, she said: “You’ll look after Lori this afternoon?”
“I always do.”
She smiled. “Yes. I don’t know what I’d do without your help, Cam.”
He shrugged self-consciously and looked at the coffee left in his mug. Alice Gunderson would see to it that Lori was pried out of bed in time for school. She’d fix the child some oatmeal and toast and make sure she was properly dressed for the weather, then walk her down to the corner where the bus would take her away for the day. Cam wouldn’t be needed until she arrived home that afternoon. He’d take the elevator down to the first floor and wait for her in the outer lobby, then escort her to her apartment, where he’d sit and listen to whatever stations Margie’s old Philco could pull in -- Cincinnati and Louisville for sure, maybe Pittsburgh if the weather cooperated. Margie wouldn’t be home until four, exhausted from a twelve-hour shift, but still sunny for Lori’s sake. Cam would leave as soon as she arrived. Despite Margie’s invitation or Lori’s pleading that he stay for supper, he knew they needed their privacy, time alone without a cripple cluttering up their evening routine.
Margie’s lips thinned wistfully. “Don’t be so glum all the time, Cam. You’ll be okay. You just need to … start.”
“Start?”
“You know what I mean. Talk to Pug. Talk to Tony. The kid needs a coach, and you’d be a good one. Pug wouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t think you could handle the job.”
Cam shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“All right. Well, goodbye. I’ll see you tonight.”
He didn’t walk her to the door. He never did. Instead, he sat at the table with his coffee, waiting until she came into view on the street below. He watched her walk across the street, then down to State, where she disappeared around the corner. He couldn’t see the Blue Hen Café from his apartment, but he could see the glow of its lights above the law offices on the corner, and waited until she was inside, the lights of the main dining room turned on -- safe at work -- before hobbling across the kitchen to dump his coffee down the drain.
**********
A brisk wind blew along Bismarck Street, two blocks south of Cam’s apartment on Chandler. He could feel it coming straight off the river, whipping the gray clouds of his breath away from his face, poking like a hound’s nose for any gap in his clothing. Cam hated the long, slow hike to Pug’s, the clumsy, shuffling gait that took him nearly thirty minutes to complete. He had to hang onto the rail to climb the steps to the front entrance, then lean his weight into the door to push it open.
The temperature inside the gym was only a modest improvement over the street, although the wind was no longer a factor. Pug’s wife, Sue, sat on a stool behind the counter wearing a heavy sweater and earmuffs. She greeted Cam with a warm smile and a tip of her head.
“Go on back,” she said. “Pug’s getting the kid into his gloves now.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Tony? He’s doing pretty well. Pug’s got him scheduled to fight Lew Barnes on the tenth.”
Cam hesitated. “Barnes? He’s not ready to fight Barnes.”
Sue shrugged. “Talk to Pug. He thinks he is.”
Keeping his coat and gloves on, his watch cap pulled down over his ears, Cam made his way into the smaller, private gym where the boxers gathered to work out. It was eight o’clock, but the room was already filled with men jumping rope, lifting weights, or working out on the bags. Lew Barnes stood in a far corner with a medicine ball held straight out from his body, his elbows stiff as rods, biceps bulging.
“Cammy!”
Cam turned to see Pug making his way toward him through the crowd, a grin like a billboard plastered across the Irishman’s broad face. Pug Mahoney was short and stocky, with hair like fine copper strands and ham-like fists that had seen their share of fights, not all of them in the ring. He’d handled fighters all across the country in his younger days -- mid- and welterweights, mostly. There had been some good fighters, too, but none that had taken him to the top. He’d bought the old warehouse on Bismarck in ’38, after marrying a ring girl named Sweet Sue O’Farrell, and turned it into a first-rate gym. A place where young men could come in off the streets to work out and have some fun, away from the crippling poverty of the Great Depression, and the crime that had rocked the nation throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Cam had been one of those young men, an orphan living with his grandmother in a dilapidated old apartment on South State, until he went into the Army right after Pearl Harbor. His grandmother had died while he was overseas, leaving him all she’d managed to save through the Depression -- a battered suitcase containing his prewar clothes, a pair of George Reach boxing gloves, and two hundred dollars in cash.
After his discharge in ’46, Cam had come back to the old neighborhood and taken up boxing again, becoming serious about it for the first time and quietly rising through the ranks. Until he got too cocky and lost his knees to a heavy steel pipe and a short-tempered bookie who wanted the money Cam owed him. Six thousand dollars, and growing daily at six percent interest. The bookie had offered to wipe the slate clean if Cam was willing to throw a few matches, but he’d been young and proud and in his prime, and he’d told the bookie to take a powder. Later that week, a pair of goons had showed up to settle the debt on their own, after making sure Cam knew who’d hired them.
“Ya should’a took the offer, dumbass,” a beefy thug had told him, standing over Cam’s writhing form in the parking lot of one of the city’s classier nightclubs, a platinum-blond in a sequined evening dress standing on the sidelines screaming her oversized lungs out.
But Cam never regretted turning down the bookie’s offer, staying true to the sport he loved. He regretted a lot in life, but never that.
Pug’s voice, loud, draped with shamrock, cut through Cam’s thoughts.
“Hell, boy, but I ain’t seen yer hide in a month of Sundays. I was afraid you’d give up on us.”
Cam smiled past the pain in his legs and told the older man that he’d been busy.
“Yeah? With that Margie Dunford broad, I’ll bet.”
Cam’s expression clamped shut.
“Aw, don’t get yer feathers ruffled, boy. Margie’s a class dame, it just don’t hurt that she’s easy on the eyes. She was in here a few days ago, too, asking about you.”
&nb
sp; “And you told her about Tony Santoro?”
“Yeah, I told her. What of it?”
Cam shrugged and looked past Pug to where the kid was working out on a bag. “How’s he doing?”
“Not as good as he could, if he had the right coach.”
“Nobody’s better than you.”
Pug laughed. “Like hell. Besides, I’m too busy. The kid needs someone who can spend some real time with him.”
“Sue says you’re going to throw him against Lew Barnes.”
“On the tenth.”
Cam brought his eyes back to the old coach. “Barnes is going to hammer him into the mat, Pug, and you know it.”
“Santoro’s tougher than you think. Quick, too. I ain’t lyin’, Cam. That kid’s got potential like you ain’t never seen.”
“But he doesn’t have the experience. Not for someone like Lew Barnes.”
“Not yet, he don’t, but there’s only one way he’s gonna get it.”
“You let Barnes at him in a ring, and Santoro’s going down.”
Pug fixed him with a steady gaze. “Then coach him. Show him how it’s done.”
“You son of a bitch,” Cam said softly.
“You don’t have to get in the ring to show him what to do. You can tell him, coach him from outside the ropes.”
“No.”
“You said it yerself, Cammy. Barnes is gonna hammer that kid hard if someone don’t help him, and there ain’t no one more qualified than you.”
“No,” Cam said again, his voice taut. He turned and started to shuffle away.
“Turn yer back on me, but don’t turn it on the kid.”
“No,” Cam repeated, and kept walking.
***
Lori got home at twenty after three that afternoon. Cam, waiting in the outer lobby, smiled when he saw her leave the bus, jumping wide over a puddle of gray slush, then darting across the street and up the steps with enviable and unbounded energy. He opened the door and she grinned and held her hand up as she passed. He smacked it lightly, playfully, with his own.
