The Bruiser

by Jim Tully

  “Something’s happened to him.” Wild Joe Ryan shook his head. “He fought like a man in a daze.”

  “He’s been fightin’ too often,” said Silent Tim, “I’ll give him a rest.”

  “He’s not burnt out, I hope,” said Wild Joe Ryan.

  “Nope, it’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?” asked Wild Joe Ryan.

  “Nothing,” returned Silent Tim, “except Sully’s a jinx.”

  “Maybe he’s just a better man,” responded Wild Joe Ryan.

  “I’ll never believe that,” snapped Silent Tim, “there’s none better alive than Shane Rory.”

  They looked at each other with unanswered questions in their eyes.

  “Is somethin’ worryin’ him?” asked Wild Joe Ryan.

  “No—I guess not—he’s a moody boy—something like the Dublin Slasher.”

  “Wilson couldn’t of doped him?”

  “Nope—I watched his food and drink—it’s just a curtain over his mind—I’ve seen fighters like that.”

  Wild Joe Ryan cut in, “He wasn’t the lad I saw knock the Nigger out.”

  “Maybe not—we’re not always the same people all the time. Neither was the Nigger in a class with Sully. The higher a fighter climbs, the more accurate the other man’s blow, the more strength and cunning to win from them.” He sighed. “It was just an ‘off night.’”

  “He’s got to get away from ‘off nights’ and leave his moods in the dressin’ room.”

  “I know, I know.” Silent Tim looked at his comrade with an expression of despair. “It’ll be Bangor Lang and Harry Sully now—and my boy can whip ’em both.”

  “Except—he didn’t.”

  “But he will, you damn fool!” Silent Tim Haney looked scornfully at his friend.

  Shane’s head rumbled with Sully’s punches. He could not sleep.

  Thousands of men, riding horses, dashed through the room. All looked like Sully. Pain stabbed above his eyes.

  A radio in the next room boomed the result of the fight.

  His knees bent. The room circled. The men galloped faster. All now resembled Sully. His sister came quietly toward him, the horses jumping aside as they came near to her.

  Sully’s eyes were frightful. His hair stood on end, and his face was covered with huge veins of blue and purple.

  Shane shook his head fiercely—as though to drive away the effect of a hard blow. His body ached all over. He put his hands to his ears in an effort to relieve the painful throbbing. His eyes became wet.

  He threw himself across the bed. Before him waved the wheat fields of North Dakota. He had spent happy months there the year he became a fighter. The priest and the Negro boy and the lad who went away to the penitentiary, and Dilly Dally came before him. That was three or four or five years ago. He tried to think. He got up, groping. The room whirled around. He fell across the bed.

  The back of his head ached from the fury of Sully’s “rabbit punches.” A stupor came.

  Once again he was in North Dakota. The wheat waved. Birds sang above it. Though he could not put it into words, the months there had been the one oasis in the long drudgery of his life. He liked old Peter Lund—and Lyndal. She was something he had never known before. He had left to get her out of his mind.

  One of the harvesters had said, “You got a chance there, Buddy—a cat can look at a king—so why can’t a road kid look at a gal like that—”

  “Stay where you belong,” something inside of him had always said, “you’re a bum.”

  He wondered if she were married.

  Hand in hand she walked with Dilly Dally. Soon they merged together as one, and kissed his burning lips. Their bodies separated. He could feel their soft hands on his aching forehead. His throat contracted. He tried to encircle both girls. His arms went through them. They were near him again. He could feel the contour of their lovely bodies. The hand of each went through his hair and down his battered face.

  Troubled, he dozed.

  XII

  The telephone rang.

  “It’s Tim, Shane, sleep well—and don’t worry, lad.”

  A knock came to his door.

  “Come in.”

  A man entered. Shane recognized him.

  He had sad eyes, a large pug nose, small teeth, thick lips, and a warm smile. About forty, he had the hard, quick, fat body of one who might have known a rough life in earlier days. A famous writer on sports, his comments were read across the nation. An inmate of a reform school, he ran away. Starting as a boy-of-all-work about a Salt Lake City newspaper, he became a reporter. Unable to write readable English at first, he told his stories or telephoned them. In time, he acquired a racy, vivid way of handling words. At thirty, he had a New York office and his stories syndicated. Never the same for an hour, he was called Hot and Cold Daily.

  Short, officious, florid, his hair neither red nor brown, and pompadoured, he moved his heavy body slowly toward Shane and extended a bulgy hand and said, half drunkenly, ‘Put it there, Kid—I’m Hot and Cold Daily, Jim Daily to my mother, the greatest sports writer of all degenerate time—they read my stuff in nations yet unborn. I gave you a break tonight. I saw something in your eyes when you were in that ring, Shaney, my boy. I said to myself, ‘I’m goin’ to talk to that kid and keep his heart from breakin’.’ Then I met a lot of other reporters and I got a snoot full-but the will is strong, my boy, and when it was all over, it said to me, ‘Go and see Shane Rory—he’s too good a young stallion to be hamstrung like he is.’” He pulled a hip-shaped silver flask from his pocket— “Napoleon brandy—Shaney—it’s all I drink on a fight manager. Al Wilson gave it to me—but I saw that hurt look in your eyes, Kid, and I said to myself— ‘Ah—the furies are getting him—.’”

  He touched Shane’s arm, “There was mercy in your heart, Roaring Shane Rory—you’re the deadliest ring killer in the world today when you want to be. Sully fought—and Sully won all right—won by what Bismarck—or Jim Jeffries—would call one of the imponderables. He shouldn’t have won, but he did. And listen, Shane—mercy might drip like the gentle rain from heaven and the quality of it may not be strained—but it has no place in the prize-ring. You could have stopped him in the fifth when he started to crumple—you could have stopped a freight train with your fists— that was a great round—the greatest ever—you were a human bolt of lightning—and your blows were thunder.”

  Hot and Cold Daily looked at Shane, whose head was buried in his hands, his elbows on his knees.

  “Don’t sit there like a statue of ‘The Thinker,’ Kid— it’ll all pass.” He swigged at his flask again and chanted,

  “‘Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

  Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

  Let it be forgotten forever and ever,

  Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.’”

  He whirled around, “Forget it, Shane—I put you on the grease a little in my story—but you’ll understand— we writers have to live. I don’t know why—but I made you a great guy, Shane—in spite of that—you’re tops with me. I think you’re a hell of a swell guy. You’re like all us fellows who crawl through somehow—your job’s to fight, and mine’s to write the truth sometimes— as I see it. Many a guy paid enough to feed a family for a week to see you battle tonight—and you owed it to yourself to give your best—here’s something I wrote, the way I saw it:

  “‘What brought about that crumpling was a whizzing right, in the form of a hook. It nailed Sully, a little high on the jaw. It was not quite on the button. If it had been, Sully would be out yet. His knees buckled. He began to go down. Rory’s right was only twelve inches back. It shoved in again like a piston rod, and caught Sully the same way. It knocked his jaw to one side. He began to collapse. Sully, who never gave mercy to any man, who would knock his own mother out of the ring if you put her in there with him, Sully appealed with his eyes to Roaring Rory not to hit him again. And Roaring Rory for a moment had mercy— and Su
lly went down with his wild and merciful antagonist standing over him, ready to deliver blows that would have paralyzed a bull. And he did not deliver them.

  “‘Those who saw that round can never forget. I picture to you Sully, a man with shoulders three feet wide, and muscles like a rhinoceros, crumpling before the fury of Roaring Shane Rory. All credit to Rory, and pity for his mercy. No man but Sully of the powerful heart could have risen from the canvas.

  “‘It was a great brawl. You could hear the swish of their fists a dozen rows from the ring.

  “‘A condor flying was no more graceful than Roaring Rory. What will become of him? Ask me something with a happy ending—’”

  Shane stood erect.

  “Now tell me, Shane—what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Shane, “I couldn’t get going. I’d say to my body— ‘Come on now, go in and slug till his ears fall off,’ but I couldn’t get going. My body’s always been like a pal to me. It went back on me with Sully. He got so he looked like Jerry Wayne.”

  Hot and Cold Daily’s eyes slanted upward at the handsome, chisel-jawed bruiser.

  “Tell me, Shane—have you been doin’ much thinkin’ lately? You know a fighter’s like a newspaperman-he shouldn’t think—pimps of the emotions, that’s what I call us fellows. Now you’ve got everything—but for God’s sake don’t develop brains. That’s what kills people. Never let ’em tell you different. This world was made for the boobs, for the guy who can never get enough dough to pay for a lousy radio, who just gets his furniture half paid for when his oldest girl graduates and that sets him back half a grand.

  “So don’t develop brains—let them all go crazy trying to find the answer. You’ve got it when you don’t try to find it. It’s all a shadow on a cloudy day—two cents in a bum’s pocket when a loaf of bread is seven. For a second you weren’t a fighter … and Sully was.

  “Now, quit worryin’, Shane—or you’ll turn out to be one of us, and know everything not worth knowing. A young fighter might give you a dime when you’re through; but a kid on a newspaper won’t have one to give you.

  “Don’t lie to yourself, Shane, but to everybody else—for when life itself is a lie one more or less won’t matter before you ride the white horse of eternity into the desert. But tell yourself the truth.

  “It’s all a dish of old berries, Shane. Even freedom’s another jail, and even the hangman’s under sentence of death, thank God.

  “Nothing ever changes and nothing ever will—the boob gets socked like a preliminary fighter, and he hasn’t got brains enough to know that it’s all a goose-step to the grave; so he grabs at one cock-eyed illusion after another to keep his damn fool heart from breaking. You show me a fool without an illusion, and I’ll show you a philosopher.

  “When I was a kid in the reform school, we used to sing—

  “‘Where was Moses when

  the lights went out?

  Sitting in the window with

  his shirt tail out—’

  “Well, we’re all sitting in the window, Shane—and don’t get too many brains.”

  Shane watched the dawn streak in.

  Hot and Cold Daily reached for the phone. “Send a quart of brandy to 844.” He turned to Shane. “I’ve got to get some sleep tonight—I mean today.”

  He turned to leave, saying,

  “Put it all behind you, Kid— Even Napoleon got his—he gave a lot out and squawked like a hurt duck when they handed it back to him. See you later.”

  Shane did not move.

  Hot and Cold Daily returned to him. “Brace up, Kid. We’re both Irish—and we have traditions.” He laughed. “A kindlier race never tore a man to bits—Good night.”

  XIII

  The door closed without noise. Shane watched it for a moment; then opened it again.

  His head was light. Pain darted above his eyes.

  The echo of his footsteps could be heard in the still silent street. Why had he never thought of returning to the farm in North Dakota? The entire city became a swiftly revolving wheel.

  He walked for blocks. A dizziness came. He stumbled into a small hotel. Still early morning, the lobby was empty except for a patriarchal old man, whose white beard was so heavy it seemed to pull his scrawny shoulders downward. His skin was sallow in the broadening light. His nose was long and thin, his mouth woe-begone.

  Though he could have been no more surprised had an eagle flown into the dingy office, his alert eyes made no sign.

  “Can I do something?” the old man asked.

  “Yes, put me to bed—I’m sick.”

  The old man led him down a hallway to a room on the first floor.

  “You’ll be all right here,” he said, “I’ll come back later.” He knew who Shane was. He read all the newspapers thrown about the lobby.

  Shane fell into bed. The old man covered him.

  Locking the door, he went slowly down the hallway. Putting the key to the room in his pocket, he took a faded piece of pasteboard, with a string attached, and bearing the words, “DO NOT DISTURB.” He returned and hung it over the doorknob.

  Through his old head ran all the wisdom acquired in the sewers of life. He knew that Shane was not drunk—that he must have been hurt in the ring. If he were not heard from in time, something might be in the newspapers. He would take no chances.

  He returned to the room. Shane was in a deep sleep.

  He moved about, saying as a blind, “Let me help you take off your clothes.”

  The fighter breathed heavily, without response. His thin gold watch had fallen to the floor. The old man fingered it; then placed it on the dilapidated dresser. To pawn it would be a give-away.

  “Here’s your watch,” he kept saying, “It fell on the floor.”

  He touched Shane’s trouser pocket. It bulged. Lightly and greedily his ancient fingers went into it. A stack of paper money, folded carelessly, came out.

  Hastily the old man counted some bills of smaller denomination and put them back in Shane’s pocket, along with the watch. “Anyone robbin’ him would take his watch,” he thought.

  His hand went into Shane’s inside coat pocket and removed a soft leather billfold. It contained many fifty and hundred dollar bills. He started to leave four bills. His avarice predominated. He left two fifty dollar bills and replaced the folder.

  Putting the key in the lock on the inside of the room, he left.

  The cellar had a loose stone in the foundation. Avidly the old man counted the money—nearly two thousand dollars. He put the stone in place, and returned to the desk.

  Shane regained consciousness on the morning of the next day.

  He went to the dingy lobby and gazed for a few moments into the street; then started to open the door.

  “Are you leaving?” the old man asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Two dollars, please.”

  Shane paid the money, and walked without sense of direction about the city, and stopped in a saloon, where he ordered several strong drinks and again wandered aimlessly about the city.

  When Silent Tim learned that Shane had gone, he shook his head dolefully. “I’ve never seen a great fighter yet that wasn’t wild as the wind.” Nonplused, he looked around the lobby, and seated himself in a large leather chair.

  “I wonder where he’ll show up next—he’s wild as the wind—the poor boy—wild as the wind.” He rubbed his eyes with a knuckle-cracked hand. “He’s still a better man than Sully— Him and Jerry Wayne and the Dublin Slasher,” he said, “aces to draw from,” he sighed, “and that black Torpedo Jones—if he only was white.” A smile crossed his weather-beaten face. He pictured Shane Rory and Torpedo Jones in the ring.

  “It’s seldom that two such great men get in the ring at their peak together. It may be just as well. They’d shake the world with their punches.”

  He mused for a moment, “I’ll say nothing to the papers.”

  His eyes were dim.

  “I’m catchin’ cold—damn
it!”

  XIV

  A girl looked at him as he staggered into a night club.

  “Good-looking, isn’t he?” she asked the man with her.

  He turned. “Yes, if you like ’em rough.”

  She went to Shane’s table, and said, “Gee, I’ve always wanted to meet you— I knew you when I was a little kid.”

  “That so? Who’s the fellow with you?”

  “Just a friend,” she answered.

  “He’s liable to come over and beat up on me.” He laughed deliriously.

  The girl smiled. “I’d like to see anybody beat up on you.”

  He called a waiter. “Give us a drink.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not drinkin’ on you— I’ve got a live one over there.” She nodded.

  “You wouldn’t kid me, would you?” Shane reached for the drink smiling.

  “I’m not the kidding kind,” she answered. “I could of cried when you lost. Hot and Cold Daily told me something was wrong.”

  Shane looked at her earnestly.

  “I’m not what you think.” Her tone was whimsical and mocking. She nodded toward her companion. “I keep men like him under control.”

  Shane looked at his glass.

  “Are you sure you don’t need me?” she asked.

  “Not me, Kid.”

  “I work here. Don’t get me wrong.”

  “You’re all alike.”

  “Your manager’s been telling you things—I’ve heard about him.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere—he’s better know than the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  “And just as safe,” returned Shane.

  “And as blind—a bridge can’t tell sick people from well—it carries them all the same.”

  His eyes became glazed.

  She called a waiter.

  “Get a cab. He’s sick.”

  She returned to her companion. “See you later.” To the waiter, “Look after him.”

  She entered the cab with Shane. “Imperial—Central Park West.”

  Shane was mumbling, “Come on, stumble bum—it’s the last round—let’s throw some leather—you couldn’t knock me out if you had the moon in your glove—eh— Tim—see that little girl over there—that’s Lyndal Lund—she lives in Grainville, that’s North Dakota—you know her—ho! ho! ho!—the glory road—the glory road— ‘I’se goin’ to push leather down the glory road.’”