by Rod Serling
He moved toward Thomas again, Mizell hanging on him trying to whisper, cajole, placate, anything to prevent Bolie from letting himself out. Bolie’s voice drowned him out.
“Thomas,” Bolie said, “I may be a bum upstairs in another ten minutes...but I’m gonna fight a beautiful first round right here.”
Thomas squirmed against the wall. He raised a shaking finger, pointing it at Bolie. “Bolie,” he squealed, “you touch me and I’ll have you up for ten years. I swear to you, Bolie—I’ll fix your wagon good—”
He felt himself lifted up by Bolie’s bandaged hands and flung against the wall. His body crawled with sweat and he couldn’t bring himself to look into the deep-set eyes, so full of hatred, in the black, scarred face before him.
Again Mizell stepped between them. “Bolie,” he urged gently. “He’s right. He’s a dirty blood sucker and he’s a sonofabitch but if you touch him, Bolie—you’ve had it.”
“Listen to him, Bolie,” Thomas screeched. “You listen to him, you crummy tanker you—”
Bolie saw only the fat sweating face, the piggish eyes, the creature who jobbed off flesh by the pound. Bolie didn’t care about consequences. He swung from the floor and it was only when he felt the agonizing bolt of pain shoot up his right arm that he realized he had hit something stronger and much more unyielding than bone or flesh. Thomas had moved aside and Bolie Jackson’s right fist had connected with the concrete wall.
Thomas scrambled for the doorknob and rushed out. Mizell grabbed Bolie’s bandaged right hand and studied it. He felt it in a few places, and Bolie winced at the touch, He looked up with wise, old eyes, the eyes of the expert on pain and human damage, and shook his head slowly.
“It wasn’t enough you had to spot him all those years,” he said. “It wasn’t enough was it, Bolie? Now you’ve got to walk upstairs with four busted knuckles.”
There was another knock on the door “Okay, Jackson,” the voice said from the corridor. “You’re on.”
Mizell let Bolie’s hand drop. “Well?” he asked.
Bolie took a deep breath, held up his right hand and looked over toward Mizell. “Well, nothing,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Mizell’s lips were a thin line. He took the gloves hanging on the end of the rubbing table and very carefully started to put them on Bolie’s hands. The knuckles under the bandage were beginning to swell and it was only with effort that he could even get the glove laced on that hand. He said softly, “You know what I’d do if I was you? I’d rent me a bicycle and I’d pedal the hell out of here.” He pointed to the right glove. “That ain’t gonna do a Goddamn thing for you up there. Not a Goddamn thing.”
Bolie smiled and felt the tension ease off. He was dead and he knew it and with that knowledge came a resignation. “Poor little Henry Temple,” Bolie said as he suddenly remembered. “Poor Little old Henry Temple. I’m putting two strikes on all his magic. Two strikes.”
“Who?” Mizell asked as he draped Bolie’s bathrobe over his shoulder. “What are you talking about, Bolie?”
“Nothin’,” Bolie answered softly. “Nothin’ at all, Joe. There ain’t no such thing as magic.”
Mizell opened the door for him. They went into the corridor, going toward the ramp that led to the arena above. A hunchbacked little handler, who felt like crying, and a man of thirty-three, who was the oldest of the old and who let his steps take him toward the sound of the stomping feet and the catcalls, to the big, smelly, smoke-filled room where men had paid on the average two dollars and eighty-five cents to see more scars get cut into his face for this, the last time.
Frances Temple made a pretense of sewing on buttons as she sat across the room from the television set. Her little son’s face was pressed against the screen, his eyes tightly closed, his fists clenched, half obliterating the picture of carnage. The tired voice of a bored announcer feigned excitement and rattled inanely the clichés of fifty years of fighting.
“Another left and right. Another left and right. A smashing right to Jackson’s head. Then a left that catches him high above the cheek and we see the blood again. But he’s a gamester, this boy. He’s a real gamester. Yes siree, this Bolie Jackson is a real gamester. Three rounds it is and he’s still on his feet. Yes sir, this Bolie Jackson is a real gamester. Now Corrigan comes in stalking, flat-footed. He comes in stalking. He leads with a left. Another left. A smashing right that crosses over and connects with Bolie Jackson’s nose. Jackson folds into a clinch...” The voice went on, the drumfire of an antique machine gun, firing dud ammunition.
And in the ring Bolie Jackson had long ago stopped feeling fear. Through the red gauze of pain that surrounded him, he would see the fists of the other fighter probing at him and then landing. A left to the side of his head shook him down to his arches and he felt his knees go wobbly. He partially blocked a right and tried to get inside, but the other fighter, smart and ring-wise, stepped back and kept measuring him.
Bolie lumbered in, head down, both hands up in front of his face and then felt the raw, slicing agony of a six-ounce glove buried to the wrist in his stomach.
His breath went out of him, he choked, and then, from nowhere, lightning hit him between the eyes and he met the bruising shock of the canvas against his face. He was dimly aware that he was down. He heard the crowd roar and scream. The giant ring light beat down on him, revealing his agony in sharp relief.
“Please, Bolie...please, Bolie,” Henry Temple whispered into the television screen. “Please. Bolie, Bolie, Bolie... I wish you wouldn’t be hurt...I wish, Bolie, I wish.”
The tiny voice was an obbligato to the crowd roar that came from the set. It was a tiny, frail oboe set against the enormous brass section of human voices that cried out for murder and bloodshed.
“Bolie, I wish... Bolie, I wish.. .”
It was a chant. It was the beckoning to magic that was nothing more than the anguish of a little boy.
But suddenly something happened. The referee, swinging his arm down in measured arcs, froze, his face static, his right hand pointed toward the canvas and the sprawled figure of the fighter.
The crowd of people became mannequins. There was no motion, no sound. Everything had stopped as if captured on a photograph. Clapping hands were suspended in air. Jaws chewing popcorn were wide open. Beer cans stopped on the way to stationary mouths. Time had stopped moving. And then there was noise again. There were screams and shouts and catcalls and stamping feet. Smoke, that in that brief fragment of an instant had floated like a motionless cloud, again began to drift through the arena. In the ring the referee resumed counting.
“Seven,” he shouted. “Eight. Nine. Ten.”
His flat palms crossed one another in the traditional signal of the knockout.
Then he pointed toward Bolie Jackson who danced in a neutral corner, reached for the right arm and held it aloft as the crowd screamed its approval.
On the canvas a youngster named Corrigan, with a split jaw, a closed right eye, lay like the dead, as if his brains had departed without leaving a message. His somber-faced manager and handler scrambled through the ring ropes to lift him and drag him back to his corner. Little Joe Mizell hugged Bolie and kissed him on the cheek, as Bolie smiled happily and waved his right arm. No one noticed the look of absolute bewilderment in Bolie’s eyes.
Mizell put the bathrobe over Bolie’s shoulders and led him out of the ring. People slapped his back and cheered him again, then turned toward the ring, checking their program for what would be the next sacrifice!
In the dressing room Bolie was putting on his clothes. Occasionally he would look down it his right hand, flexing the fingers, folding it into a fist and striking his other hand. Mizell was cleaning up the room.
“Joe,” Bolie said. He held up his right hand. “You were wrong. Just bruised, I guess, huh? Hurt like anything, but somebody said I got him with it. Couldn’t have been broken after all.”
“Who said it was?”
Bolie gave him an odd look. �
��You said. It felt like it, too. I could feel the knuckles coming up through the bandages. I could have sworn it was busted. And when he knocked me down—”
There was a silence. “What? Mizell asked. “He did what?”
Bolie pushed his shirt into his trousers. “Knocked me down, Joe. When he knocked me down. I don’t even remember getting up. Next thing I knew, there he was at my feet.”
Bolie was waiting, his eyes asking questions. Mizell grinned and shook his head. “We was in different arenas tonight,” he said with a soft chuckle. “You didn’t get knocked down, Bolie. You was never off your feet.”
Bolie’s head cocked to one side. “I wasn’t?”
Mizell said, “No. You sure wasn’t. This one you carried all the way, baby”
Bolie put his coat on, stared at the floor for a long moment, then looked up at Mizell. “I wasn’t off my feet?” he asked intensely. “I didn’t go down?”
“Not once,” Mizell answered. “Good night,” he said softly. “Good night, old timer. I’m proud of you!”
He shuffled out. Bolie Jackson stood looking at his hands and then, with wonderment, at his reflection in the cracked, dirty mirror. Exultation surged through him and he wanted to shout and jump around and sing. He’d won!
A crazy conglomeration of half-remembered, disjointed, kaleidoscope visions ended on a giant question mark. But he had won. The smile stayed on his face as he walked out into the corridor and happy excitement cloaked him in goose pimples as he headed toward the exit. Bolie Jackson had won. He’d made his comeback. Everything might change now. Everything. This was the road back and tonight he had taken a giant step along it.
He went out into the summer darkness and the night smelled sweet to him. He didn’t even feel tired. He didn’t feel old. All he wanted now was to see the little boy Because this night had to be shared.
The neighbors were waiting for him on the steps even though it was one in the morning. He walked among them responding to the back slaps and handshakes with a kind of joyous numbness. When he got inside, Frances was waiting for him at the apartment door. She hugged him.
“You should have seen him, Bolie. He’d like to go out of his mind, he was so happy! Whole building was shaking—you’d never believe it!”
Bolie looked questioningly over her shoulder into the living room.
“He’s up on the roof,” Frances said, “waiting for you.”
Bolie nodded and started to take the steps two at a time.
“Bolie,” Frances called up to him.
Bolie stopped.
“Send him down real soon. It’s real late.”
Bolie winked, grinned agreement, and continued up the steps. Henry Temple stood at the edge of the roof. The last neon of the late night, flashing on and off, sent sporadic light against the little boy’s profile. Bolie hurried over to the boy, knelt by him and grabbed his little shoulders.
“What do you say, Henry Temple?”
“You were a tiger, Bolie. You were a real tiger.”
Bolie grinned. “Look okay?”
“Sharp,” Henry answered in a serious little voice. “Sharp like a champ. You was Louis and Armstrong and everybody all wrapped up into one.”
Bolie laughed, warm, rich laughter that rolled out of him in waves, so filled up was he with the joy of it and the wonder of it. It had been so long, so very long. He pounded a fist into his palm.
“Hey,” he said, “you know something? That boy musta hit me so hard he knocked the hurt right outa me.” He laughed again, then shook his head with bewilderment. “I don’t remember a doggone thing, Henry. I must have really been punchy for a second, because I thought he had me down and there I was with the old ref wavin’ his arm down on me. It must have been some kind of dream or somethin’.”
A strange look passed fleetingly across Henry’s face. The little boy turned away. Bolie followed him.
“Henry,” Bolie asked in a different voice. “I was never off my feet. I never got knocked down.”
The little boy didn’t answer. Bolie grabbed him firmly, turned him around and stared intently into his face.
“Henry!” Bolie gripped him hard. “Henry, I was never off my feet.” It was a pronouncement. It was a final judgment designed to end the gnawing disquiet that Bolie had felt deep down since he found himself standing in the wing with his arm raised. He saw the little boy’s lips quiver.
Bolie’s voice was still. “Henry, was I? Was I lying on my back and on the way out?”
Henry nodded very slowly. Bolie stood up and looked off toward the darkened city.
“But nobody remembers it,” he whispered. “Nobody at all. ‘Cept me. I thought it happened...but it didn’t. I thought I was lying there on my back gettin’ counted out, but everybody tells me—”
Henry Temple moved very close to the fighter and stared up at him.
“Bolie,” he said simply, “I made a wish then. I made the big wish. I had to. I wished you was never knocked down. I just shut my eyes and I...I wished real hard. It was magic, Bolie. We had to have magic then.”
Bolie shook his head, his voice whispering, “No, no, no,” his eyes closing tight against the words, against the intensity, against the belief of the little boy in front of him.
“Had to, Bolie,” Henry said. “Had to. Nothing left for us then. Had to make a wish. Had to...”
Bolie’s head kept going back and forth in disbelief, in rejection, in denial.
The little boy’s words kept coming out like a chant. “Had to, Bolie. Had to. Had to.”
Then Bolie grabbed the boy His voice was cold fury, “You crazy kid. You crazy, kookie kid.” He shook him. “Don’t you know there ain’t no magic? There ain’t no magic or wishing or nothin’ like that. You’re too big to have nutsy thoughts like that. You’re too big to believe in fairy tales.’’
Tears rolled down Henry Temple’s face. “If you wish hard enough, Bolie!” he said, “it’ll come true. If you wish hard enough...”
Bolie had stood up and moved across the roof. Henry held out his hands to him.
“Bolie, if you wish and then believe. The whole thing is believing because if you believe it’ll stay that way.”
Bolie stood with his back to the boy and shook his head again.
“Somebody got to knock it out of you, don’t they? Somebody got to take you by the hair and rub your face in the world and give you a taste and a smell of the way things are, don’t they? He turned toward Henry. “Listen, boy,” he said, his voice crusted with misery “I’ve been wishing all my life. You understand, Henry? All my life. I got a gut ache from wishing. And all I got to show for it is a faceful of scars and a headful of memories of the hurt and the misery I’ve had to eat with and sleep with all my miserable life.”
His voice broke as he heard the sobbing intake of Henry’s breath. “You crazy kid, you,” Bolie said, his voice breaking. “Crazy, crazy, kookie kid. You tellin’ me you wished me into a knockout? You tellin’ me it was magic that got me off my back? He took a step toward Henry. “Well now you listen, boy. There ain’t no magic. No magic, Henry. I had that fight coming and going. I had it in my pocket. I was the number one out there and there ain’t no such thing as magic.”
“Bolie,” the little boy sobbed, “Bolie, if you believe, understand? You’ve got to believe. If you don’t believe, Bolie, it won’t be true. That’s the way magic works.” He took a stumbling run over to the fighter and grabbed him around the waist, burying his face against him. “Bolie, you got to believe. Please, please believe.”
“Little kook,” Bolie said to the tiny, kinky head. “Little kook, that’s what you are. How come I got mixed up with you? Ain’t I got enough trouble without getting mixed up with some dopey kid who—”
He stopped and looked down at the little boy and then he was on his knees and had suddenly swept the boy into his arms, holding him tightly, pressing his cheek against his.
“Henry,” he said softly, “I can’t believe. I’m too old and I’m t
oo hurt to believe. I can’t, boy. I just can’t!” He held the little boy’s face in both hands and wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “Henry, there ain’t no such thing as magic. God help us both, I wish there was.”
“Bolie, you got to believe.”
“I can’t.”
“You got to, Bolie. You got to believe, or else—”
“I can’t.”
They stood there close together. Henry’s voice, a plaintive, hopeful prayer; the fighter’s, a hollow, empty rejection. The sick, thin yellow light from the bulb over the roof door held them briefly in a weak illumination and then time froze again. The light gradually changed until it was no longer on the roof. It was the white-hot orb of the ring light bathing the canvas of the roped-off area of a fight arena where a dark and bleeding fighter lay on his stomach, his face against the canvas and rosin of the ring floor. Above him a referee brought down his arm in measured sweeps.
“Eight, nine, ten.”
He swiped his hands out in opposite directions like a baseball umpire judging someone safe, then pointed to the stocky white man in purple trunks, who stood nonchalantly in the neutral corner, waiting for the victory that he knew was his to be made official. The referee came to him, raised his right arm, and he was then engulfed by handlers, his manager, and other people who swarmed in over the ropes.
Mizell walked tiredly to Bolie, who had just risen to his hands and knees like a blind, groping animal. Bolie allowed Mizell to help him to his feet and took the traditional, beaten, stiff-legged walk back to his corner.
He did not hear the crowd nor see the light. He did not hear the voice on the loudspeaker announce, “The winner by a knock out, one minute, thirteen seconds of the fourth round, Jerry Corrigan.”
Another cascade of cheers rippled over the room and next thing Bolie knew he was standing on his feet in street clothes with Joe Mizell opening the door for him. He looked down at the misshapen little handler and forced a grin.
“How many of them was there?” he said, with a crooked smile.
