by Jack Tunney
"Come now, ladies and gents! Surely there is a man among you who is not afraid to try. I heard tell that San Berdoo was where the rough are ready! Isn't there someone out there who can prove the salience of that particular observation?"
Then a voice right behind me shouted, “I'll go!”
It was that same skinny fellow from the milk bottle throw!
"Well, there's a noble lad!" the barker said. “Step right into the ring, take off your coat and shirt and show your lady fair what you're made of!”
“Don't worry, Mabel,” the skinny little fellow said as he took off his coat. “I know a few tricks.”
“Are you sure, Johnny?” his girl said.
He winked at her, handed her his coat and then his tie and then his shirt. His skin was as smooth and flat as an ice skating rink. It was so white you could almost see through to the bones. Maybe he could get a lucky throw at the milk bottles, but to fight a seasoned boxer? I feared for his life.
But there he was, stepping into the ring. He gave the barker a five dollar bill. The barker motioned to some old cuss who climbed in and gave Johnny a pair of boxing gloves and helped him lace them up.
The crowd was starting to swell. Had to be because this Christian was about to go to a lion. Nothing to gather a crowd like the smell of fresh meat in the air!
The barker huddled a moment with Johnny.
The other boxer was still sitting in the same position, almost like he didn't care what was going on, and wouldn't until the bell rang.
Then the barker announced, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, introducing to you, weighing in at 110 pounds, the terror of San Bernardino, Mr. John C. Francis! Let's hear it ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it!”
The crowd cheered as wispy little Johnny Francis raised his gloves over his head and shook 'em like he was Rocky Marciano his own self.
“And now let me introduce to you his opponent, weighing 240 pounds, a veteran of more than 800 bouts in the ring, a true champion of champions, known far and wide as King Crush!"
The other fella finally stood up. My chin almost dropped on Steve's head. "Hit me with a jab and leave me reelin'," I said. "I know that man!"
Ruby said, "You do?"
"Big Bill Wannamaker. We mixed it up once, down in the Solomons, aboard the Peter Charlie."
"Peter Charlie?"
"That's what we called the patrol craft I swabbed in the war. We had a shipboard championship fight, and I won it. But let me tell you, it was the hardest fight I ever had, before or since."
"He looks so...beaten."
Big Bill's face was indeed weathered. He had so many wrinkles on his forehead he coulda held three days of rain. His body was starting to run to fat. But he still cut a formidable figure for a man his age, which was forty-five, because he was ten years older than me, and was when I decked him for the championship of the PC 477 back in 1944. The thick swatch of hair on his chest, once as black as coal, showed mostly white now. But it was a forest of snow covered pines compared to his baby-skinned opponent. I really was hoping the young man wouldn't get crippled. I once saw a carny fighter break the neck of a farm boy with one mighty blow. But this is America. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
The bell rang and out the two fighters came, looking like a bear and a lizard on hind legs getting ready to dance.
That's exactly what the lizard did—danced. He flitted, he skipped, he ran around. It was clear what his strategy was. He wasn’t going to mix it up with Bill. He was just going to try to stay on his feet for the two rounds and pick up an easy five bucks. And maybe be able to brag to his girl that he survived a fight with a bruiser named King Crush.
Bill regarded him like a bored fisherman would a fly buzzing around his head. Not slapping at it wildly, but waiting for his chance to snatch it out of the air and smash it on the deck.
The crowd shouted for action. Mabel started in, too. "Hit him, Johnny!"
Johnny looked at her, his face saying, I can't believe you're telling me that!
Ah, the sweet bloom of young love. All freshness and light and daisies and fluffy clouds, until a man is put in the ring in front of his girl and she wants to see him draw blood!
But I have to hand it to Johnny. He made the attempt. He pirouetted like a ballerina and then tried a left hook that had all the force and menace of a summer butterfly. It landed on Bill's jaw like a woman's powder puff. It seemed to me Bill was stifling a laugh.
But God makes boxers and God makes gentlemen, and sometimes the two meet as one. Bill was a gent. He did not immediately dispatch the dancing gladiator, perhaps wanting to let the lad have a little taste of manliness in front of his girl before the inevitable ending blow. So, Bill rocked his head back and put his glove up to his chin. “Ow,” he said. “You're going to pay for that one, Laddie.”
And then he growled some and stalked Johnny, who went dancing as far away as he could.
But as the great Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber himself, once said of Billy Conn, You can run but you can't hide.
Especially in a small carny ring.
Bill slowly started cutting off the territory.
Mabel yelled, “Hit him again, Johnny!”
The crowd screamed for a knockout.
So, Bill gave it to them.
I don't know if you've ever been in the forest when the logger fells a mighty redwood. If you haven't seen a majestic tree fall stiffly to the ground and hit nothing but dirt, then you cannot imagine the little birch of a man named Johnny who took it on the chin and pounded the canvas as straight and pure as one of those downed arboreal splendors.
Mabel cried, “Oh, Johnny!”
I wanted to go over to Mabel and tell her to marry Johnny and make him go to law school, and to keep him out of fighting the rest of his life. But I figured she got that message already, in one way or another.
The barker finished the ten count, then raised Bill's hand over his head. “And so, ladies and gentlemen, another challenger falls to the great King Crush! Let's give him a short rest, and then we'll see if there be any others to test courage and strength in the arena of combat!”
And then commenced the cleaning up of Johnny from the mat as the crowd dispersed. Bill headed for a tent.
"Wait for me, honey," I said, and gave Ruby Steve's leash.
I went over and stuck my head in the tent. Bill was pouring some bourbon into a glass when he saw me. He hesitated a moment, then broke into a big smile. He was missing a front tooth.
"Well I'll be King Kong's uncle. Jimmy Gallagher!"
"How are ya, shipmate?" I said.
Bill spread his arms. "As you can see, I didn't make it to Madison Square Garden. Come in! Fancy a drink?"
"Don't mind if I do."
He found another glass and poured me some hooch and we sat on a couple of stools.
"You look great, Jimmy. You been fighting any?"
"Here and there," I said. "Smokers, mostly. I'm hoping to line up something at the Olympic, though."
Bill nodded, looking a little sad. I knew he'd wanted to be a legit fighter at one time.
"If you don't mind my sayin' so, Bill, it sure does look like you picked a hard way to make buck. I did some time on the circuit, you know, but I got out of it before I went stir."
He took in deep breath, reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a cigar. He bit the end off, spit out the stub, grabbed a wooden match and lit up.
After a mournful puff he said, "Jimmy, there's no place for me in this world other than the ring. For better or worse."
"There ain't much worse, for a man who's getting' on in years. And you're a might grayer than when we duked it on the Peter Charlie."
"That's true, Jimmy, but I'm not ready to sit on a back porch in a rocking chair."
I wondered then if old Bill was on the run from something, maybe the law. But as this was the first time we'd seen each other in many a year, I decided to forego the subject any further.
And then we heard th
e sound of the barker again, calling for a challenger.
"That's my cue," Bill said. "Maybe we can bend an elbow after the show."
"I'm with my girl, Bill. But look me up in LA. I'm in the book."
***
Back outside, another challenger had indeed come forward, and this one was no Johnny. He was young and strong and mean looking. But that never fazed me before, and I knew it wouldn't faze Bill. The kids who try to look mean are usually covering up that they're scared.
I was about to take Ruby's arm and walk on.
But then I saw Bill's face.
He looked scared! I'd never seen that look on his face before. When we were patrolling the Solomons and a mess of kelp got tangled up in our propeller, Bill stripped down to his skivvies and took a buck knife and dove into the shark infested waters and cut us loose. He was absolutely without fear of anything.
When we met for the championship of the Peter Charlie, and I was in the best shape of my life, Bill didn't flinch or frighten. He sneered. He smiled.
But he wasn't smiling now.
And when the bell sounded, the kid was all over him. This wasn't about fifty bucks. The kid had some sort of rage you can't teach. If every fighter had that, there'd be a lot more deaths in the ring.
Bill covered up as best he could. I figured he'd let the kid spend himself and then really give it to him.
But he didn't fight back.
Was he hurt? Had the kid gotten in the first punch and broken his rib or something? I couldn't believe it. It was like Bill was yellow all of a sudden.
Punch after punch, to the jaw, the gut, the heart, Bill took it all, barely defending himself.
Blood starting pouring from a cut over his right eye.
The crowd was screaming for more of the same. A local boy was beating the carny champ!
***
Bill took a haymaker flush to the jaw. I winced at the sound and force of it. A man of lesser stature would have gone down for sure. Out of pure cussed instinct Bill stayed on his feet. But he had to put his hands up over his face and lean back against the ropes.
The kid slapped Bill's hands down with his left and unleashed another right to Bill's face.
Down on one knee goes Bill.
The kid does not stop. I scream at the barker to stop the fight! But he ignores me or can't hear me over the crowd.
Bill is helpless and the kid is pounding him like a railroad pile driver.
Which I can't take.
"I'm sorry, Ruby," I say and jump up into the ring.
The moment I do Bill falls over, down and out.
The kid was readying a killer blow, so I body blocked him and sent him flying to the other side of the ring.
He goes bouncing off the ropes and springs back my way. I see flames in his eyes, like a southern California wildfire. His first right is wild and I duck it, and send my own right fist into his midsection.
"Belay that, ya cheat!" I yell. "You want some fight, I'll give it to you!"
The kid spits on the canvas. "Out of my way, old man."
Old man! And me a strapping lad of thirty-five! My pride was wounded.
I looked out at Ruby, but she wasn't there. She'd taken Steve and taken off.
"You want to fight me?" I said.
"Come on!" he said, and motioned for me to approach him.
"Done!" I said. I called to the barker. I told him to get someone to help Bill out of the ring and see to him.
The barker, knowing he had a rich vein of excitement on his hands, happily complied. As he and another gent from the crowd started with Bill, I went and unlaced Bill's gloves. I took off my shirt and put on the gloves.
Then I turned around and faced the kid.
The crowd was cheering like nobody's business.
But by this time the barker is not announcing a fight. He's taking bets. Money is changing hands faster than verses in an Irish drinking song. We've drawn even more of a crowd. It seems like it's double, maybe triple. People are running up to us to see what's happening.
The kid is pounding his gloves together, waiting for his chance to get at me. I have an old duffer at the edge of the ring tie up my gloves. "Watch his right," the duffer tells me. "It's got lightning."
"I've got thunder," I say, but the duffer seems not to believe me.
And then I'm up and in my corner. The barker climbs into the ring and raises his hands for quiet. He's holding a wad of paper currency in his left, with bills popping out of his coat pockets, too.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Never before in the history of the Bolton Brothers Carnival and Road Show has there been a moment like this! Two contenders from the crowd! One of them has knocked out our champeen. The other a knight errant set to do battle over the purity of the art of boxing! Let us all stand now and watch as these two gladiators battle it out. There will be no limit on rounds. I will act as referee and do the counting. Gentlemen, are you ready?"
"Get going!" the kid yelled.
I nodded.
The barker gave a signal to a young man on the bell, and it clanged.
The crowd started cheering right away.
I came out slow, as is my practice, sizing up what kind of fighter my opponent is. I thought, because of his vicious attack on Bill, that this kid was a bull and would rush in and start punching.
But he surprised me. He came out slow, too, in a good boxer's stance. He had done this before.
That put me on double notice. This one wanted a real fight.
I went into my own boxer's stance, bent a little forward, my left out front, my right at my chin.
We circled like that for a few seconds.
"Kill 'im!" somebody shouted, but I did not know who they wanted killed. Maybe it didn't matter as long as there was killing of some kind. That's the way it is with fight crowds sometimes.
The kid moved in and jabbed with his left. It glanced off my glove but I could feel the power behind it. He was strong all right, and then I found out for sure.
From out of nowhere came a right cross, fast as any I'd ever seen, and it got me flush on the temple. My head snapped to the side. A roar went up from the spectators. A smile came to the kid's mouth.
He backed away, like he was saying to me he could take his time to finish me off.
That was his first mistake.
I started shaking my head like I was dazed more than I was. I come from a long line of Gallaghers who were actors. I had a grandfather who was chased out of London right in the middle of playing Hamlet, when he changed one of Shakespeare's lines from "We will have no more marriages!" to "We will have no more Englishmen!"
So acting was part of my strategy in the ring, and the kid thought he could move in for more.
Second mistake.
I plowed him in the gut.
He doubled over and I gave him a left uppercut. Blood spurted from his lip as he staggered backwards.
"That's for hittin' a man when he's down," I said.
The kid shook his own head and came at me again.
I did a jig to the left, keeping him from firing off another right. I peppered his face with three quick jabs, then gave him another right to the bread basket.
He started cursing at me, loud and unrelenting.
I jabbed him again and popped him on the snout with my right. "Shut yer trap!" I said. "There's women and children out there!"
Then we were in the center of the ring, toe-to-toe, giving all we got. This is where a fighter proves if he's in shape or not, and me running up and down the concrete stairs of Bunker Hill has improved the good set of lungs the Lord gave me. Even though I was fighting a young tiger in his twenties, I knew I could last with him. So I wasn't gonna give him no quarter. I had an anger in me, because of his no good cheatin' on Bill. But he had an anger, too, that came from some other place, a place I'd wager was in spitting distance of hell.
Crazy, is what I'm sayin', and that's when I knew I'd finish him. A crazy fighter don't think straight.
"That all
you got, boy?" I said between flurries. This made him madder and he started little squeaky cries with each punch.
Third mistake.
I dodged, weaved, countered. Then I blasted him one on the chin with my thundering right and down he went.
The crowd, oh that crowd, they screamed and hollered and told me to keep on hittin'. But I'm a rule man, even if it's with a dirty cheat, so I went to a neutral corner as the barker commenced the count.
One.
Two.
Three.
The kid rolled onto his stomach.
Four.
Five.
Got to his knees.
Six.
Seven.
He pushed himself to his feet. The barker backed off and we came at each other again.
Or I should say, the kid came at me like Bronko Nagurski chasing a halfback.
He put his shoulder into me and tackled me into the ropes,
Another foul!
I started pounding on his kidneys.
And then felt a sting on my side. The kid had bit me!
Now if we'd had a regulation referee this fight woulda been stopped right there. But this was no holds barred and the barker was loving the spectacle.
I uppercut the kid to keep him from dining on me further. And just as I was about to finish him the bell rang.
But the kid didn't go to his corner.
Instead, with his teeth, he untied his gloves—first the left, then the right. Then he put them under his arms and pulled 'em off.
He was going to go bare knuckle on me!
So I did the same with my gloves, and there we were, like John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain, the last of the no-glove fighters.
I took two punches to my body that would have knocked over a horse. But I'm no horse. I'm a bit of Americanized Irish steel. My knuckles are rivets and I drove those rivets into the face of this kid. Three jabs, bap bap bap, then a right to his eye causing a burst of red. A left cross tore skin off the side of his chin.
The animal power of it got to me, and I unloaded all I had on his nose. He was out on his feet but still I punched with furious and retributive justice.
As he went to his knees, the Irish Jimmy Gallagher of old would have stopped, as per the rules. But I found myself raising my right fist, ready to finish him once and for all.
