Fight Card Presents: Iron Head & Other Stories

by Jack Tunney

  “Was there a funeral?” Donny asked.

  “Naw. She was buried in Littleton. She had burial insurance which paid the freight. Which reminds me why I came here to see you, Donny.”

  His father reached into the inside pocket and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers with blue backing.

  “What’s that?” Donny asked.

  “I got some papers I want you to sign.”

  “What papers?”

  “Legal papers. Your mother had insurance, like I said, and left a will with some cockamamie ambulance chaser. It’s not right and I want you to give me what’s my due.”

  Delbert handed the legal documents to Donny. He continued talking.

  “Your mother left all her insurance money to you, and that ain’t fair,” Delbert said. “I took care of her up until the last couple of years and I should get half that money.”

  “How much money?” Donny asked.

  “A hunnert thousand,” his father said.

  Donny looked over the papers. His mother had left him the remainder of the insurance money after the cost of her funeral and burial. There was no mention of his father. One of the documents was a legal release form to grant Delbert one half of the insurance proceeds.

  Donny read his mother’s will and the paper his father wanted him to sign. The latter granted his father $50,000 from his mother’s inheritance.

  “I’m not signing this,” Donny said. He handed the papers back to Del. “If Mother wanted you to inherit money, she would have put it in her will.”

  “Why, you little ungrateful weasel,” his father said. “I deserve that money. I took care of the bitch. I gave her food and shelter.”

  “You gave her nothing but grief, Daddy. You broke her body and her spirit. Now, get the hell out of here.”

  “Why, you ungrateful bastard,” his father said. Then, he stuffed the documents back into his pocket and came at Donny with clenched fists.

  His father threw a punch.

  Donny ducked and the fist sailed over his head.

  Then his father’s other fist smacked into the side of Donny’s face.

  Anger flooded Donny’s being. He saw his father through blurred, stinging eyes. All the hatred he had hidden for so many years surged into his brain like wildfire.

  There was his father, standing there in front of him, less than a foot away.

  Donny’s instincts took control of his body. He balled up his fists and strode into range of his father. His arms pumped and he drove his fists into his father’s gut, then swung a left jab and a right cross combination square into Del’s face. He felt his fists collide with flesh and saw the cracks in his father’s face. He saw the blood fill the fissures.

  His father went down and crashed to the floor with a resounding thud.

  Del cried out in pain and drew up both hands to shield his face.

  “You bastard,” his father cursed. “You dirty little bastard.”

  “Get out,” Donny said, his voice calm. “Get out and stay out. I never want to see you again.”

  He helped his father to his feet and shoved him through the doorway. He watched him go up steps to ground level and disappear.

  Afterward, Donny shook with the enormity of what he had done. He had finally stood up to his father. Not only that, but he had struck back. All those years he had suffered his father’s torment and physical abuse seemed to have vanished because of what he had done a few minutes before.

  He did not hate his father. He pitied him. He saw the weakness in Del. The man could not control himself and he took out his anger on weaker people, Donny’s mother, Donny.

  It took him several minutes to stop shaking. He sat in a chair and breathed deeply, in measured sequence.

  Then, he looked at his fists.

  The power was still there. He had bested his father. His timing had been perfect. The combination punches had struck their intended target, landed true.

  He flexed both legs and pumped them. He wriggled his feet.

  He was ready, he thought.

  He was ready to go to the gym and begin training. He would go back into the ring. He would fight again.

  Adrienne drove him to the Denver Boxing Academy where Donny had arranged to meet with his trainer, Vinnie Spetaza and Mendoza.

  “Are you sure, Donny?” Mendoza asked him.

  “Dead sure,” Donny said.

  “Let’s go to work on the big bag,” Vinnie said. “I want to check your footwork and your strength.”

  “I’ll pick you up later this afternoon,” Adrienne said, and left the gym.

  Mendoza and Vinnie watched as Donny donned light gloves and punched the large bag. Then he worked on the speed bag. He made the leather bag resound with drumbeats as his fists flew at it with lightning speed.

  “Good,” Vinnie said. “Maybe next week, I’ll get you a sparring partner. What about your head? Does it hurt?”

  “No. I feel fine.” Donny danced in place, his feet landing up and down on the gym floor as if he was at a track meet, running in place.

  “I don’t know,” Mendoza said. “He’s got that plate in his skull. Any blow to the head might kill him.”

  “No, it won’t,” Donny said. “I don’t even know it’s there.”

  “He’s got an iron head,” Vinnie said. “I think he’ll be okay.”

  Mendoza looked at Donny.

  “You know, Vinnie may be right. You have an iron head now. And you know what?”

  “What?” Donny asked as he stopped jumping up and down.

  “Even your name. The Spanish word for iron is ferro. Your name, Farrow, is pronounced the same. Only, in Spanish, you roll the r’s.”

  Vinnie grinned. “He is right. Farrow and ferro.”

  “Then, that’s the name I’ll use in the ring when I take on Reynolds again,” Donny said. “Iron Head Farrow.”

  “Not Reynolds,” Mendoza said. “I’ll get you a fighter you can beat. But, not that brute.”

  Donny’s eyes turned to dark slits.

  “I want to fight Bushwhacker,” he said. “I know how to beat him now. I’ve had months to replay our fight in my mind and I know how to beat him.”

  “How?” Vinnie asked.

  Donny grinned. “Footwork and combinations,” he said, and went over to the wall, where he took down a jump rope and began to skip in place with perfect precision and timing.

  Donny’s legs strengthened as he ran two miles a day at the Cherry Hills golf course. Mendoza picked him up each morning after the run and drove him to the gym. There, Donny trained hard to build up his shoulder and arm muscles and work tirelessly on his footwork.

  “I’m ready,” Donny told Vinnie and Mendoza one day. “I want a rematch with Bushwhacker.”

  Vinnie nodded. “I’m amazed at your progress. I still worry about the plate in your head, though.”

  “So do I,” Mendoza said.

  Donny looked at both men with an air of confidence.

  “I know how to beat Reynolds,” he said. “He won’t get to my head. He won’t ever get the chance.”

  Vinnie and Mendoza were both skeptical, but Mendoza agreed to set up the return match at the Denver Coliseum.

  Later in that same week, Donny took his sweetheart out to dinner at Boggio’s. It was a swanky restaurant, which impressed her with its quiet elegance and superb cuisine.

  After supper, Donny took a small box from his pocket, set it on the table, and opened it.

  “What is it, Donny?” she asked.

  “Adrienne, will you marry me? After my fight next month.”

  He offered her the ring.

  Adrienne didn’t take it. Instead, she looked up at Donny with tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I’ve thought about you asking me to marry you, Donny. I just can’t.”

  “Can’t? Why?”

  “When you were in that coma, you looked like you were in a coffin. With your head all bandaged up. I’m afraid you’ll get killed in the ring.”

  “Adr
ienne, I won’t get killed. I promise.”

  “You can’t promise. With that metal plate in your head…”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  She shook her head.

  Then she pushed away his hand that held the engagement ring, a small diamond surrounded by a ring of emeralds.

  “I won’t marry you,” she said. “And that’s that. I was an orphan and I won’t be a widow.”

  “I’m an orphan, too,” he said. “My mother’s dead and my father is as good as dead to me. I’m all alone and I want to share my life with you.”

  “A short life, maybe,” she said.

  The night before the return fight with Reynolds, Donny made a decision.

  He spoke to Mendoza about it as Vinnie slipped the gloves over his hands in the dressing room.

  “This will be my last fight,” he said. “Then I’m going to open my own gym and become a trainer.”

  “What?” Mendoza said.

  “Adrienne won’t marry me as long as I’m boxing. So, I’m going to train boxers.”

  “You could do it,” Ruiz said.

  “I’m going to do it,” Donny said and his jaw hardened with inner determination.

  When Donny stepped into the ring, he saw the scornful look on Bushwhacker’s face. He smiled at his opponent and jogged in place, working his fists like pistons.

  The ring announcer bellowed out the details of the card.

  “Wearing white trunks, Eddie Bushwhacker Reynolds, and in the blue trunks, the challenger, Donny Iron Head Farrow.”

  The two boxers touched gloves as the referee went over the rules and his role in enforcing them. The two boxers touched gloves again and returned to their corners.

  Then, the bell rang.

  Reynolds was not prepared for Donny’s attack. Donny dashed across the ring and peppered Reynolds with a series of left jabs that mashed Bushwhacker’s mouth and knocked his head backwards.

  Reynolds dropped his left shoulder and cocked his right hand.

  The crowd roared.

  Adrienne and Mendoza sat a ringside, frozen with fascination at the way the fight started. Sister Luisa sat next to Adrienne again, her fingers on her rosary, her lips pursed.

  When Donny saw the shoulder drop, he waded in close and pummelled Bushwhacker with a series of body blows, pumping both hands into Reynolds’ gut.

  When Bushwhacker doubled up from the blows to his stomach, Donny lowered his right hand and shot it upward in a vicious uppercut. His fist collided with Bushwhacker’s chin with tremendous force.

  Reynolds staggered backward, dazed. Donny followed up his advantage with combination punches until Reynolds fell backward into the ropes, then crumpled to the canvas.

  Donny bounced in place after the referee waved him to a neutral corner.

  Reynolds sprawled out flat as the ref counted him out.

  After the referee shouted “Ten,” the crowd got to its feet and cheered. Among the cheers were a few boos from Reynolds fans.

  The referee held up Donny’s arm as a sign of victory as Mendoza rushed into the ring to embrace his fighter.

  Moments later, the microphone descended and the ring announcer grabbed it.

  “The winner by a knockout in one minute and twenty seconds of the first round is Donny Iron Head Farrow.”

  And, the announcer rolled the r’s in Donny’s last name.

  “Iron Head, Iron Head, Iron Head,” the crowd chanted as Donny waved both arms above his head.

  Donny walked to the ropes and looked down at Adrienne.

  He shouted at her so his voice rose above the tumult of the crowd.

  “My last fight,” he said. “I’m going to be a trainer and open my own gym. Will you marry me?”

  Caught off guard, Adrienne’s eyes filled with tears.

  “No more fights?” she shouted.

  “No more. And, I still have the ring. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, yes,” Adrienne shouted. Sister Luisa hugged her.

  Mendoza grinned.

  Reynolds slowly got to his feet. He walked over to Donny and grabbed a glove with both hands. He shook it.

  “You got me,” he said to Donny.

  Donny smiled and pumped Reynolds’ hand.

  Then he looked around at the cheering crowd and raised both arms in a gesture of triumph.

  It was a moment he and Adrienne would long remember.

  And so would everyone else in the arena that night.

  Donny Iron Head Farrow had redeemed himself. He had the makings of a champion.

  But, he knew – as he’d promised – he would never again fight in the ring.

  With Adrienne in his corner, there were no worlds he couldn’t conquer.

  JORY SHERMAN

  Jory Sherman began his literary career as a poet in San Francisco's famed North Beach in the late 1950s, during the heyday of the Beat Generation.

  Widely published in literary journals, he has won numerous awards for his poetry and prose and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Letters for his novel, Grass Kingdom. He won a Spur Award from Western Writers of America for The Medicine Horn. He has also won a number of awards from the Missouri Writers Guild, and other organizations.

  His Chill series of mysteries, published by Pinnacle, appeared in fourteen countries. He has published more than 350 books since 1965, more than 1000 articles, and 500 short stories. In 1995, Sherman was inducted into the National Writer's Hall of Fame.

  www.tinyurl.com/jw2rsqe

  ROUND 2: FIGHT NIGHT

  RYAN MCFADDEN

  Jack Dempsey daydreamed of the Moulin Rouge, which was odd because he'd only seen it from the outside when on war leave. Chandeliers dangled from pressed-tin ceilings while men in sharp suits danced with women in skirts far too short.

  Eleanor?

  A sharp slap across his cheek brought his focus back to where it belonged.

  "Got your attention?" Christian hovered inches from him, poised to deliver another slap.

  "I..."

  "Stay away from the overhand right, Jack. You hear me?"

  "He hits hard."

  "Then hit him harder," Christian said.

  Jack gazed through the ropes. The Polo Grounds thrummed with the excitement of forty-thousand fans, each having paid upwards of $10 to see the two heavyweights slug it out for the championship. He searched past the reporters clacking away on typewriters, his eyes stinging as flashbulbs popped.

  "Where's Eleanor?" he asked.

  "Forget about her, Jack. She ain't important. That guy on the other stool – he's important. He wants to knock you back to Tuesday. You understand?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I understand." But still he searched through the haze, hoping to see Eleanor’s blue velvet hat.

  The bell rang, the sound sending shocks down his spine as if he'd touched a live copper wire. He didn't want to get off his stool, but stood when it was pulled out from under him.

  Jack's gloves were heavy from two rounds of hard fighting, but he knew he had to keep his hands high or the Magnificent Mauler was going to knock his block off.

  Sam The Magnificent Mauler Madison, heavyweight challenger, was advancing toward him. Magnificent indeed. A great slab of a man who moved with the grace of a dancer. Rumor had it he built all those rippling muscles by beating on colored folk down in the Bible Belt.

  "Just another tree to fell," Christian had told him when they'd signed the fight agreement. But after two rounds, Jack was thinking this was more than just another tomato can brought in to inflate his record.

  Or maybe Christian had misled him.

  Why would he do that?

  A right jab flashed. Jack covered, willing to absorb a shot or two to get inside, but the Mauler attacked sharply from a southpaw stance. His body blows were hard enough to send shockwaves through Jack, like a rock thrown into a pond.

  Jack knew the Mauler hit hard, but not that hard. Once the horsehair gloves became sweat logged, it always felt like being whacked with a bag of sand, but
the last shot felt more like a lead pipe.

  Jack stumbled, flash bulbs temporarily brightening the night sky, the photographers no doubt hoping to catch him pirouetting to the canvas. He refused to oblige, keeping upright on rubbery legs.

  "Jack!"

  Eleanor's voice. He changed focus, just for a second, searching for her. The Mauler only needed a second. That right, cocked and generating power for the last half round, launched. Jack didn't see it coming. His head snapped sideways and the world flashed white.

  The rain hadn't stopped for months, filling the trenches with water almost as fast as the brigades could pump them clear. God, he hated the mud. Jack sat on a makeshift chair under an overhang, water dripping in sheets around them. He ripped paper from the care package and tore into the box. It contained the usual necessities – foot powder, toothpaste, shaving cream, chewing gum. More importantly, it held four pairs of socks, and a scarf he wrapped around his neck.

  Christian stood next to him, adjusting his over-sized steel helmet. "Who's that from?" he asked.

  "Eleanor."

  Christian clucked his tongue. "I didn't get nothing."

  "Here," Jack said, handing him the gum.

  "Thanks." Christian unwrapped a stick and pushed it into his mouth with slender fingers.

  Christian didn't get packages from home, but Jack never asked why. Instead, he began splitting the contents of his own packages as best he could. He grabbed the socks and discovered the real prize at the bottom of the box.

  An American-issue Colt Automatic pistol – far superior to the Canadian-issue Webley he currently carried.

  "Wow," Christian said. "She must really love you. I wish I had someone like her.”

  The ground heaved and mud sprayed down on their helmets. Jack shielded the care package with his body.

  "Gas!" someone yelled from further down the line.

  "Masks!" came an echoing cry.

  Hell broke loose.

  The next blow wasn't from the Mauler. It was from Jack's head bouncing against the canvas, snapping him awake. The Mauler stood over him, right hand ready to fire off another blow if he dared raise his head.

  Nobody hits that hard.

  The referee yelled at the Mauler, but Jack couldn't hear what he was saying. Such a little man trying to push the Mauler to a neutral corner. Grudgingly, the Mauler backed away and the referee turned and began the count, hurling numbers at him, each one feeling like another jab.