Fight Card Presents: Iron Head & Other Stories

by Jack Tunney

  Tammy smelt the blood, and she regrouped, licking her lips. I was in trouble. She circled me, slowly, and I tried to keep facing her while holding my cuts together with one hand. That wasn’t going to work real well. One more leap and I was done for. So, I abandoned the defensive posture, which was never my style, anyway, and squared off. Tammy made a hissing sound in her throat. She gathered herself up on her haunches and launched at me like an orange striped cannonball.

  I had my fists up and cocked, and I met her in mid-air with a swing that had every ounce of my beef behind it. My whole arm went numb, but I also felt and heard a deep thump. Tammy gave a most peculiar yowl, stopped in her tracks, went dizzy on her feet and finally dropped to the floor out for the count. I felt a little sorry for her. I mean, she was just doing what came natural, after all. And would it have been so bad if she’d eaten a couple of the orphans?

  Duffy and Seamus ran up around this time, and while Seamus dragged me off the stage and away from the cat, Duffy wept and howled bloody murder that he was gonna kill me. I stood up and told him to bring his lunch, and also his rifle, because he was gonna need it. Then the blood loss sorta got to me, along with all the beer I’d drunk, and I sorta passed out.

  And that was pretty much that. They moved me to Father Gilligan’s office and I laid there, bleeding out, until the sawbones arrived and proceeded to stitch me back together again. Duffy and Seamus doped up the tiger and took her to the zoo, where she became as docile as a kitten.

  Naturally, Murphy blamed me for the whole thing, like it was my idea to introduce a tiger to a bunch of feckless orphans. He demanded I pay for the tiger, and I told him to go pound salt and pay for my medical bills, instead. And so I ended my association, if there ever really was one, with Tammany Hall. What Murphy did to me later, I’m sure had everything to do with me breaking his prize tiger. But that’s another story for another time.

  Father Gilligan wrote some very nice things about me the following Sunday, and the whole church prayed for my speedy recovery. I sent him an autographed picture, and he replied by bringing around little Mary Alice, who was suddenly my biggest fan. I showed her my scars, and she showed me the scab on her knee she’d received when she tripped and fell, running out of the church. She thanked me, gave me a hug around the neck, and read to me the card the kids made. It was a hand-drawn picture of Santa Claus holding a tiger over his head. I kept it in the bar, stuck in the corner of the big mirror, for years. I don’t know if it was a mistake or someone was trying to be clever, but underneath the little drawing on the front was the name, “Santa Tom Sharkey.”

  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 longtime friend and collaborator John Lucas, and a collection of his weird historical boxing stories featuring real-life Golden Age boxing legend Sailor Tom Sharkey. He lives in North Texas with his long-suffering wife, too many books, and an affable pit bull named Sonya.

  www.marktheaginghipster.blogspot.com

  ROUND 4: GO FOR BROKE

  TROY D. SMITH

  The rain came down misty and slow. It made no puddles, only applied a slick sheen to the dark pavement so that it sparkled in the moonlight. The wind off Lake Michigan made the air chilly even in early autumn –Joe hated to think what it must be like in winter. His Southern California hometown could never have prepared him for the climes his burgeoning fighting career had taken him –but the wintry forests of Germany had done so, and then some.

  He stood now on the streets of Chicago, looking down the block at an imposing building. Imposing, and dark, and lonely-looking. The sign out front clearly identified it as St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys.

  So this was the place.

  He didn’t know what had brought him here, as though to some shrine, in a city he had never seen before. Well, he did know, really, he just didn’t completely understand the hold it had on him. Maybe he just wanted to tell Lieutenant Murphy that he’d made it, and had made good. Joe snapped to attention, and slowly raised his hand in a sharp salute to the orphanage. He stood there long moments, while the rain dripped slowly from his hat-brim and his coat flapped gently in the wind.

  Two guys came stumbling past. They’d been drinking, probably for hours from the looks of them. They halted before Joe, staring at him quizzically, then looked in the direction he saluted.

  “Don’t see no flag,” one of them said.

  The other squinted at Joe, who had ended his salute. The drunk shuffled closer and peered into his face, then let out a hoot of surprise.

  “I be damn,” he said to his friend. “I be damn, Charlie, it’s him!”

  “Who’s him?” Charlie asked, and Joe sighed inwardly.

  “It’s that damn Jap from California, come here to fight our boy Tommy!”

  Charlie’s eyes widened. “It’s a Jap, sure enough, Hank,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s the boxing’ Jap. Hard to tell, though, they all look the same to me.”

  “Oh, it’s him,” Hank said. “Ain’t it, mister? Ain’t you the one they call Tokyo Joe?”

  Joe looked at them sadly. “I’m Joe Murakami,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m fighting Tommy Brennan. I’ve never been to Tokyo, though, I’m from San Diego. I wish people would stop calling me that.”

  “All Japs is from Tokyo,” Hank said with a snort. “Look here, buddy, Tommy Brennan’s the best welterweight in the Midwest, maybe in the whole country –and he’s gonna clean your clock for ya, same as he cleaned up you Hirohito-lovin’ Nips in the war. Just you see if he don’t.”

  “I told you, friend, I’m from San Diego.”

  Charlie’s face was twisted in rage. “My brother’s boy Harvey bought it at Iwo Jima,” he announced. “So I oughtta take you on right here and now. But Tommy’s a gen-u-wine war hero, he’ll fix you good enough. Goddamn Nip.”

  Joe almost opened his mouth. He almost told them he hadn’t been to Iwo Jima, either, but he had been to Italy, and France, and Germany. He almost offered to show them his purple heart, his silver star, the puckered scar in the flesh of his thigh. Or tell them about the stink of the bodies when the snow thaws, of the blood dripping off cobblestones in a dozen towns on the way to Rome.

  But he didn’t. Drunk Hank and Drunk Charlie wouldn’t hear a word he said, and they weren’t worth the trouble.

  “I’ll see you fellas tomorrow, I guess,” he told them, and turned and walked away. He had done what he came here for, no sense hanging around and letting it be turned into something ugly. Hank mumbled under his breath, but Charlie broke suddenly into sobs and started calling for his dead nephew Harvey. Joe felt sorry for him then, but did not turn back around. He kept walking.

  “Hey, Joe! Joe Murakami –is that you?”

  It wasn’t the drunks. It was some guy across the street, waving his hat. Joe was chilled for an instant –at first he thought it was Lieutenant Murphy. It looked a lot like him, from a distance. Joe crossed the street. As he drew closer he saw that he had been mistaken –as he would’ve had to have been –and
it was not Ryan Murphy at all.

  “It is you,” the other man said. “You’re the last person I’d expect to see here –what, are ya followin’ me or somethin’?”

  Now Joe recognized the other man. “You’re Tommy Brennan,” he said.

  “Sure, I’m me and you’re you,” the Irish fighter said. “I’m glad we got that straight. But what are you doin’ out here in the rain?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Joe said. “Besides, it’s a free country.”

  “You got that right, Mac,” Brennan said. “Well, then, I’ll clue ya in. See that big orphanage over there? That’s where I grew up. The priest what runs the place, see –Father Brophy –he’s the one taught me the sweet science. Me, and a lot of boys who passed through them doors. So every time I have a fight here in Chi-town, I come over here and visit the place. Sort of a good luck charm.”

  “Father Brophy must have had quite an influence on you.”

  “You can say that again. He always believed in me, no matter what. But that ain’t why you’re here. I guess I’d remember a Jap kid. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Joe said.

  “So give.”

  “I didn’t take up the gloves till I was in the service,” Joe said. “My lieutenant was a top-notch fighter, and he trained several of us. He always said I was a natural –but most of my technique I got from him. He was from Chicago, and grew up in this orphanage too.”

  “What was his name?” Brennan said.

  “Murphy. Ryan Murphy.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Brennan said. “Ryan Murphy, as I live and breathe. I looked up to him like a big brother, tagged along behind him like a lost puppy. And you knew him?

  Joe nodded. “He saved my life. Twice.”

  A shadow passed over Brennan’s face. “Was you with him when he bought it?”

  Joe nodded, awaiting the inevitable follow-up questions. Did he suffer? Did he take it good?

  But the questions didn’t come. Tommy Brennan just stared at the orphanage, lost in thought, and the rain kept making his face wetter.

  That’s when Joe knew his opponent was the Real McCoy. He had been in the heat of it, and knew what it was like. He didn’t have to ask those stupid questions, because he knew. He knew that everybody suffers, and nobody takes it good.

  Finally Brennan turned back to him, and thrust out his hand. Joe took it, and they shook firmly.

  “Don’t pay no attention to them bums over there,” Brennan said. “They don’t know shit. And there’ll be bums just like ‘em ringside tomorrow. They’ll be there to cheer me on, ‘cause they’re my people and they’re loyal and proud, and I’m glad of it. But they’ll probably throw a bunch of that ‘dirty Nip’ talk around, too. It’ll just be me and you in the ring, and that’s all that matters. Try not to take any of that other stuff personal.”

  Joe smiled. “So long as you don’t take it personal when I knock your block off.”

  Brennan laughed. “I won’t take it personal when you try.”

  They stood in silence a moment, then they each went their separate way.

  It was a long train ride back to his hotel room. Joe stared out the window into darkness the whole time, watching the ghosts float past.

  ***

  “I don’t get it, Joe,” Billy had said. It was 1943, and they were sitting on the stoop of the tiny house they and their folks had to share with two other families. They’d had a house three times this size, all to themselves, before Pearl Harbor. Joe’s little brother tossed a piece of gravel angrily toward the road, and the soldier on watch glared at them.

  “What’s not to get?” Joe replied. “I joined up, that’s all. Lots of guys are.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re all nuts.”

  “If this war is still going on in a couple of years, you can join up too. But it probably won’t be.”

  Billy started to toss another rock, and thought better of it. “If this war is still going on in two more years,” he said bitterly, “we’ll still be locked in this lousy place. But I’d rather be in here than outside, wearing the same uniform as these bozos standing guard over us.”

  “We’re Americans, little brother, same as they are. They just haven’t figured it out yet.” Joe cast a glance at the guard. “Natural born American citizens, same as mom and dad. Private Wojohowicz over there, I bet his family hasn’t been here as long as ours.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re Nisei,” Billy said. “But they don’t know what that means. Or care. Japs are Japs, that’s all they know. Even President Roosevelt. I can’t believe Dad voted for that fake three times in a row.”

  Joe sighed. “It doesn’t matter what party is in office, either way we’d be in the same boat right now. Or maybe worse, for all we know.”

  Billy looked up at his big brother. His eyes shone wet, and his face was screwed up in fury. “I don’t get it, I tell ya!” he said, nearly shouting. “This is wrong, and it makes me mad! Why ain’t you made, Joe?”

  Private Wojohowicz was staring intently at them, all the more since Billy started raising his voice. Joe ignored the soldier. He let some of the steel show in his own face when he stared back at his kid brother.

  “I’m mad as hell, Billy. I stay mad all day long, every day. But I aim to do more than sit around and be mad, I aim to do somethin’ about it. I aim to fight, and show ‘em all that I’m as patriotic and true blue as anybody, and there’s thousands more guys just like me on the West Coast and Hawaii.”

  Billy snorted. “A hell of a lot more from Hawaii than from California, from what I hear. They don’t put Japanese in these damn camps in Hawaii, on account of there’s too many of ‘em, they’d have to lock up half the people on the island. I don’t see a bunch of guys from around here knockin’ down the recruiters’ doors.”

  “There’s a few of us,” Joe said. “And there’ll be a lot more.”

  “Stupid, is what it is,” Billy yelled. “Stupid!”

  This time he did let go with another piece of gravel. It sailed toward the street just as a jeep was turning the corner, and bounced off the vehicle’s fender. The driver hardly seemed to notice, but Private Wojohowicz did. He rushed over to the stoop where the Murakami brothers sat.

  “Hey, you damn little Nip, you did that on purpose!” the soldier said. “I saw ya!”

  The brothers leapt to their feet. “He didn’t mean any harm,” Joe said. “It was just an innocent accident.”

  “Nobody asked you, buster,” the private replied. “This squirt’s been givin’ me the evil eye all day, he’s a troublemaker.”

  “Apologize to the man, Billy,” Joe said.

  “Go to hell, soldier boy!” Billy shouted, and Joe wasn’t sure if his brother meant him or the guard. The guard wasted no time deciding who the insult was intended for, though.

  “That does it,” Wojohowicz said, and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sixteen-year-old’s belly.

  Joe immediately jumped to his brother’s defense, punching the soldier in the jaw. He heard the frantic blowing of a whistle from across the street, and before he knew it he was being pushed to the ground by the weight of several responding guards. Their fists and clubs slammed into him. Through the chaos, he could see that his little brother was taking a far worse beating than he was.

  “Damn Japs, ya gotta watch ‘em like hawks,” Joe heard one of the soldiers saying.

  “Well, that’s why they’re here, after all,” another responded.

  Joe’s anger faded to black, but he could still feel it pulsing in his veins.

  ***

  Joe was still mad months later, when he met Ryan Murphy. Mad all day, every day –and he focused it into his training. A lot of the guys did.

  Murphy was a fresh Second Lieutenant. He’d started off as an enlisted man, and had distinguished himself during the hellish slog at Guadalcanal, showing enough promise to be sent to Officer Candidate School stateside. He’d been disappointed when he got assigned to a unit heading to Italy; he�
�d expected to go back to his old outfit. He didn’t seem too keen at commanding Japanese American GIs in the 442nd, either, at least at first –but they got used to each other.

  Lieutenant Murphy saw Joe Murakami’s promise one afternoon when he walked into the middle of a fight between Joe and a Nisei from Hawaii. Murphy waded into the fray and broke it up; Joe barely stopped himself from punching the guy, pulling short when he saw his rank.

  “What’s going on here?” Murphy demanded. “What’s this about?”

  “A soldier’s disagreement, sir,” Joe said.

  “Well I figured that much. That doesn’t answer my question.”

  The other combatant spoke, a little sheepishly. He was a buck private named Saito.

  “This katonk was makin’ wise about buddhaheads, sir, and it got under my skin.”

  “What?” Murphy said. “Could you repeat that, maybe in English this time?”

  “Buddhaheads is what they call us Hawaiians, sir,” Saito said. “And katonks is what we call them.”

  “Them who?”

  “Californians,” Saito said. “We call ‘em katonks.”

  “Katonks…?”

  Saito grinned. “Yes sir. On account of that’s the sound their heads make when they bounce off the ground.”

  “Well, maybe you butt-heads and kathunks need to ease off, and save it up for the Germans.”

  “Yes sir,” they both said.

  “I take it there’s a lot of this –bad feeling between Hawaiians and Californians in this outfit,” Murphy said.

  “Yes sir,” Saito said. “On account of the katonks have bad attitudes, they got chips on their shoulders.”

  “Buddhaheads have had it too easy, sir,” Joe countered. “Where they come from they make up a big chunk of the population. They don’t know what it’s like to be locked up in camps, like the rest of us.”

  “Well,” Murphy said, “you’re both about to find out what’s it’s like to be locked up, at least for tonight. But before you report to the stockade, here’s something to think about. You’ve both got spirit, and plenty of mad to play with –especially you, Kathunk,” he said, indicating Joe. “But you can’t fight for spit. If there’s any more fighting done among you dogfaces, it’s gonna be the official variety –starting tomorrow I’m giving you all lessons in the sweet science, and you can get it outta your systems and save the real rough stuff for Uncle Adolf.”