Hard City

by Clark Howard

  Richie told him the location of the South Side athletic club to which his opponent, Willie Wakefield, belonged, and at which the match between the two undefeated fighters would be held. “I’ll leave a pass for you at the door,” Richie said.

  “You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind paying,” Mack said.

  “No, I want to,” Richie insisted. All the club fighters got two passes for their parents to use. Richie had always given his away, explaining to Myron that his mother and father were too nervous to stand the excitement of attending the fights. This would be the first time Richie had used a pass. It made him feel good to tell Mack a pass would be waiting for him, feel good that someone would be coming just for him, just to see him fight.

  Richie left the garage to go back to the West Side feeling good. Only after he had been riding the streetcar a few minutes did he see an old drunk woman staggering along the sidewalk, and remember his mother. His mood immediately turned black again.

  The first thing Myron said to him when Richie got to the gym that afternoon was, “What happened yesterday? You was supposed to be here for some extra training.”

  The other club fighters changing in the locker room all looked at them. Embarrassed, Richie said, “I’m sorry, Myron. My mother got sick and I had to stay with her while my dad went to get some medicine for her.”

  “What, you don’t know how to use the telephone?” Myron asked, raising his hands in mock amazement. There were a few laughs. “I wasted two hours here,” Myron asserted, “when I coulda been listening to the Cubs game. I hope you ain’t getting to be some kind of prima donna just because you ain’t been beat yet.”

  “We don’t have a phone,” Richie told him, blushing, “and I couldn’t get out to a booth.” What the hell was Myron chewing him out in front of the others for, he wondered resentfully. It was the first time, ever, that he had missed a workout.

  “Go on, get changed,” the sad-faced trainer ordered brusquely. “We’ll try to make up the lost time.”

  When Richie got on his training gear and went out to the corner of the gym reserved for club fighters, Myron was showing Georgie Miller, the hundred-fourteen pounder, how to rotate his right cross for more effective impact on an opponent. Richie started shadow boxing in front of one of the full-length training mirrors. He was just working up a good sweat a few minutes later when Myron came over to him.

  “All right, do you remember anything I told you about this Wakefield kid, or is that asking too much?” the trainer inquired glumly.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Richie said. “Tall, skinny, fast. Look, Myron, I’m really sorry about yesterday. I just couldn’t get here and I couldn’t call.” Richie did not have the fiber at the moment to try to explain the real situation to Myron. Maybe at a later time. “I won’t do it again,” he promised.

  “Okay, okay,” Myron absolved, “forget it. I shouldn’t have got upset about it. It’s just that I brung a couple of my friends from the rooming house over to show you off to them yesterday. I been telling ’em about you, you know, how you’d come in here and train by yourself over in the corner, an’ how the club kinda took you on as a mascot, sort of, an’ then how now yez is going into a undefeated main event.” Myron shrugged. “It just made me look foolish when you din’ show yesterday.”

  Richie felt wretched. “Jeez, Myron, I really am sorry. I don’t know what to say.” Then an idea struck him. “Listen, why don’t you invite your friends to the fight Saturday night? They can see me beat Wakefield. That’ll be even better than watching me train. You can even give them one of my passes.”

  “One of them?” Myron’s eyebrows went up. “You mean you’re actually gonna be using a pass yourself?”

  “Yeah. A friend of my dad’s is coming to see me. Guy named Mack. He owns a garage. I’ll innerduce you.” Richie made a mental note to tell Mack not to mention to Myron that Richie did not live with his father. Mack, in fact, did not even know that Richie did not live with his mother, Richie had never told him that he was a runaway sleeping in a bowling alley and living out of lockers.

  “Okay, let’s get going,” Myron said. “You’re gonna be punching up in this bout, instead of punching straight over or down, so I wanna change your stance just a little . . . .”

  Richie tried to concentrate, he tried to rivet his mind on the instructions Myron gave, but his usual intensity of attention was not there, and Myron noticed it. Richie knew that Myron was aware that something was missing, even though the trainer said nothing about it following the Monday afternoon workout. All he said was, “Get here as early as you can tomorrow, Richie.”

  At Cascade that night, working his usual double alley, Richie lingered in one of the pits too long, the next bowler delivered, and Richie barely got up on the partition before eight of the ten pins came flying into the pit.

  “Ain’t no place to be daydreaming,” a pinboy next to him said. “You ain’t careful you’ll get your legs broke.”

  It was not daydreaming that caused him almost to be hit; it was torment. Richie could not get his mother off his mind. His concern for her, for the fact that her stay in the drug hospital at Lexington had not left her permanently cured, fermented into distress, then anguish, then a chaos of mental turmoil so compelling that it took charge of his mind completely. And Grace Menefee’s words haunted him: I couldn’t be with her day and night, Richie. Would she, he had to wonder, have stayed cured if he had been there to be with her, to help her? Chloe had quit taking her “medicine” twice before, he remembered. But that, he mentally qualified, had been paregoric; this was heroin. “Bad shit,” Vernie called it. A hundred times worse than paregoric or the weed that George Zangara introduced into his mother’s life. Could Richie, only thirteen years old, have made any kind of difference for her, if he had been around? Could he have helped her at all? The question hounded his mind, intruded on his thoughts, plagued every effort he made to focus on other, more immediate matters—such as preparing for the Wakefield fight and staying out of range of flying bowling pins.

  On Tuesday, when his training exhibited the same absence of sharpness that Richie had shown the previous day, Myron said something about it. “Your timing’s way off, Richie. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” Richie lied. “I just can’t seem to get the rhythm.”

  Wednesday, when Richie was sparring with Nick Bolly, the club’s 120-pounder, who was two inches taller than him, Myron kept calling out from the ring apron, “You’re lagging your punches, Richie! Put some snap into them!”

  On Thursday, beside himself with frustration, Myron lambasted Richie as he had never done—never had to do—previously. “Come on, come on, come on! Pick it up, Richie!” When the session ended, Myron came into the locker room where Richie was changing and demanded, “What’s the matter with you? You stunk in your workout today!”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” Richie snapped. And before he could check himself, added, “This ain’t the most important thing in the world, you know!”

  “You might change your mind about that when you’re in the ring Saturday night!” Myron instantly retorted.

  They fell silent then, looking at each other, Richie knowing that Myron did not, could not, understand what the problem was, because Richie had not told him, and Myron suddenly becoming aware that what was happening was not merely lackadaisical training but actually rooted in something much more acute, much graver. His sad face seeming to have an even more forlorn look than usual, Myron asked, “Can you tell me what’s the matter?”

  Looking down, Richie could only shake his head.

  “Well, then,” Myron said, patting Richie’s shoulder, “you’ll do the best you can, like you just said. Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Richie, feeling a catch in his chest, watched Myron walk dejectedly out of the locker room. He was letting Myron down, he thought. Just like he let his mother down. Just like he let Miss Menefee down. Just like he let Stan down.

  Maybe, he told hims
elf, he should just take off. Run away. Get out of Chicago for good. If he did not have to worry about his mother and her habit, worry about dodging the authorities, worry about finding his father, training to fight, stealing books to read, sleeping in a bowling alley, feeling responsible for this, guilty about that, scared of something else—maybe he could find some way to lead a normal life.

  After Saturday night, that’s what he would do. He would get away from all of it.

  Get away from this hard fucking city.

  For good.

  37

  In the dressing room of the Stony Island Athletic Club that Saturday night, Richie had just finished having his hands taped by Myron, when he glanced over at the door and saw Mack standing there grinning at him.

  “Hey, Mack!” Richie yelled exuberantly, hopping off the rubdown table he was sitting on, working his way through the other club fighters milling about. Several of them looked over at Mack and it made Richie feel good for them to know that someone had come to see him fight.

  “Hiya, kid,” Mack said sheepishly when Richie got to him. “Say, you look pretty good in them fighter’s duds. Listen, thanks for the pass.”

  “Come on in,” Richie said. “I’ll innerduce you to Myron, my trainer.”

  “No, I’d rather not,” Mack held back. Leaning close to Richie, he whispered, “I don’t wanna limp across a room full of strangers. Maybe after the fight if there ain’t as many people around.” Smiling, he felt Richie’s muscle. “You gonna win tonight?”

  “I always win.”

  “You looked just like your dad when you said that,” Mack told him, nodding, smiling. Then his expression became serious. “Listen, speaking of that, I found out something about Ava for you. It ain’t gonna be much help, I’m afraid. She went back to Italy before the war. Nobody’s heard from her or any of the family over there since the war started. Now that Italy’s whipped, Mamma Teresa, who’s living down in Florida like I told you, is trying to locate relatives through the Red Cross, but she ain’t had no luck yet. It don’t sound to me like there’s much chance Ava and your dad got together.”

  “No,” Richie quietly agreed. “Probably not.”

  “You know, kid,” Mack said candidly, “you may never find him.”

  “Maybe I won’t,” Richie said resignedly.

  Mack gave him a friendly punch for luck and went on into the gym to find a seat, and Richie returned to the corner of the locker room where the Midwest fighters were getting ready.

  An hour and a half later, Richie was in the ring, Midwest A. C. jacket draped around his shoulders, listening to Willie Wakefield’s introduction. Richie himself had already been introduced; he had taken a few steps out of the corner and raised one gloved hand to acknowledge the smattering of applause from the Midwest fans who had crossed the city to a black neighborhood to watch their fighters. Myron always held their jackets when they took their bows, then, as he had just done with Richie, put them back on their shoulders until the bell rang. When Willie Wakefield’s introduction was complete, Richie heard a resounding roar from the partisan crowd, about eighty percent of which formed a sea of dark faces.

  “Relax, relax,” Myron purred, his hand at the back of Richie’s neck, feeling him become tense.

  They were called to the center of the ring for final instructions from the referee. Richie’s mouth became very dry when he got close to Willie Wakefield for the first time. Although the same weight, Willie loomed over him like an adult over a child. He was a full head taller, his narrow, bony shoulders even with Richie’s forehead. His gloved hands, held together at his waist, as Richie’s were, made his elbows lower than Richie’s. Holy Christ, who put this guy together? Richie wondered, paying no attention to the referee’s words. When they touched gloves, Willie Wakefield smiled at him. Richie felt sick.

  Back in the corner, Myron said, “Try to remember as much as you can from last week: get inside, punch up, dig to the body, clinch. Main thing is dig to the body. You rip to the body enough, you can break this boy in half.” The bell sounded. Myron snatched the jacket away and slapped him on the shoulder. “Go on, tear him up!”

  It seemed to Richie that Willie Wakefield hit him the instant he took a step out of the corner. His customary stance, which usually protected his face from too many blows, was penetrated at once, from several different angles, and he felt the leather of Willie’s gloves slapping against his cheeks, chin, and nose. They were light punches, smarting rather than hurting, but Richie knew they scored points for the fighter throwing them. To counter them, Richie began moving his own gloves away from his face, trying to pick off Willie’s jabs several inches before they could land. It was a good defensive tactic; Willie Wakefield smiled at Richie for being able to modify his style so early. “Not bad, baby,” Richie heard him say around his mouthpiece. Toward the end of the round, Richie was finding ways to move inside the long arms, and was getting in some shots of his own to the body. When the round was over, he thought maybe it had been even.

  In the second, Willie Wakefield began to move faster, forcing Richie to increase his own speed to follow him around the ring. For the first time, Richie experienced what it was to be the slower fighter, to have to step up the pace and perform faster than was natural and normal. Before, it had been Richie who made the opponent do that, Richie who worked to tire out the other kid in the ring; now it was the other way around. Halfway through the two-minute round, he realized that in addition to increasing fatigue, it also disrupted his timing. On his toes, moving in a wide circle, snapping his long jab into Richie’s face with apparent ease, Willie Wakefield was a clear winner of the second round.

  “You gotta find a way to get in there, to get to him,” Myron urged between rounds. “Otherwise he’ll jab you raw.”

  “Everytime I try, he peppers me,” Richie said, “and I lose my timing. When I get it back, he’s gone.”

  “Keep trying,” Myron encouraged.

  In Round Three, Willie Wakefield danced around Richie like a matador teasing a bull, except that Willie was not teasing: his jabs were like cracks of a long whip, splitting the air and licking at Richie’s face, sharply and stingingly, black-gloved giant mosquitos landing and leaving angry red swellings in their wake. Richie began to hurt; his eyes were puffing up, his cheeks numbing, his temples throbbing from the blows he tried to duck but was not quick enough to. It was the same pain, he realized, that he had inflicted on the twelve kids he himself had beaten, and Willie Wakefield was delivering it to him with the same precision and purpose with which Richie had administered it to others. No matter what Richie did, which tactic he tried, which maneuver, which ploy he used, which strategy, Willie Wakefield refashioned his style to suit it, aligned himself to deal with it, instantly reestablished the finesse necessary to keep from relinquishing control of the fight.

  Richie returned to his corner after the third round perplexed and bewildered. “I can’t seem to do anything,” he said in frustration. “I’m losing, ain’t I?”

  “Every round,” Myron confirmed, “except maybe the first—that one was close. You wanna win it, you better knock him out, or at least knock him down a couple times. I notice he’s starting to show off a little, playing to the crowd; his balance ain’t so perfect when he’s doing that fancy stuff. You tag him when he’s off-balance, he’ll go down. I guarantee it.”

  “I can’t get close enough to tag him,” Richie said.

  “That’s ’cause you stop when he lays his jab on you three or four times.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Richie demanded. “Keep moving in and let him use his right?”

  “That’s exactly what you’ll have to do,” Myron declared. “You’re gonna have to take three or four in order to get in one of your own. There’s no other way; he’s just too fast for anything else to work.”

  Before Richie could respond, the bell sounded for Round Four and he was up and moving instinctively. Myron’s words reverberated in his head: Take three or four . . .
to get in one of your own. His face already felt like heavy equipment had been driven over it; even his teeth and gums were hurting, despite the hard-rubber mouthpiece. His shoulders and neck muscles were pulled to the point of burning from all the punches he had thrown and missed. He started forward, determined not to stop no matter how many shots Willie got in. The jab came—once, twice, three times, like a triphammer. Richie kept going. A right cross came out of nowhere, thudding against his temple. It wobbled him one step to the side. Afraid of another, he backed into his crouch and let Willie dance away. The crowd cheered Willie’s right cross and Richie’s wobble.

  Richie decided to try again. Take three or four. . . . Moving grimly forward, he felt Willie’s pop-pop-pop in his face again, but he refused to let it deter him. Knowing the right would be coming, he kept his left high to try to take it on the glove, feinting with the right jab to try at the same time to neutralize Willie’s tattooing left. When Willie threw the right, Richie moved in close enough to take it on the upper arm. Willie’s jab came immediately after it, curving and twisting past Richie’s defense, popping his face as if it were a speed bag. But Richie was in close, and that was what he had been trying for. He dug blow after blow to Willie’s body, and was still pounding him when the bell sounded, ending the fourth round.

  “You hurt him,” Myron said when Richie dropped onto the stool, chest heaving.

  “I—know—” Richie panted as soon as Myron got his mouthpiece out. “I—heard him—groan once—”

  “If you can catch him like that again, you might be able to put him down. That’s what you need to shoot for.”

  “Can I still win?” Richie asked. Myron gave him some water; Richie rinsed his mouth and spat it into the bucket.

  “Not on points. He’s too far ahead. If you drop him, they might give you a draw so the two of yez can fight again.”

  “I’ll knock him out,” Richie said determinedly. “I’ll get him—back on the ropes—and I’ll flatten him.”