Champion of the World

by Chad Dundas

  When they booked him to face Whip Windham in Pittsburgh during the fall of 1916, everything fell apart on them. To prepare for the match, Pepper spent days and sometimes nights in the private gym above Blomfeld’s butcher shop. He became choosy about who he allowed around him, training only with his closest, most trusted friends. A week before the match, he called her late at night from the hospital to say his leg had been broken by Fritz Mundt during one of their regular grappling sessions. Everyone swore up and down it was an accident, but Moira felt Fritz must have betrayed them. Nothing like it had happened before, and the only way she could make sense of it was to assume someone had gotten into the big man’s ear, and into his pocketbook.

  She begged Pepper to pull out of the match, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said there wouldn’t be enough time for Blomfeld to find a replacement—that he’d have to cancel the whole show, which would only mean hard times and lost money for everybody, including the undercard wrestlers who were counting on making a payday. Real men and champions didn’t pull out of matches, he said, and that was that.

  He could barely walk from the dressing room to the ring on the night of the match, but he climbed up the stairs, limped through the ropes, and lasted nearly an hour before Windham pinned him in straight falls. The whole thing stunk to high heaven, but he wouldn’t tell her what it meant or why it happened. Not then, not now, not ever; he just kept giving her the same sad smile and telling her that Fritz hadn’t intended to do it. It had been a mix-up, that’s all.

  It was an obvious lie, and she became more convinced of it after the bout when Blomfeld refused to let Windham wait for Pepper to recover so they could have an immediate rematch. Instead, he sent the new champion on the road. A few months later, when Windham had already lost the title to someone else and it was clear Pepper’s leg wasn’t healing as fast as they’d hoped, Blomfeld released him from his contract. Moira was sure some other promoter would snap them up, but none did. Month after month they waited for a new contract offer, a comeback match. By the time they realized it wasn’t coming, it was too late. Too many bills and mortgage payments had piled up around them. To pay off their creditors, they sold the house and the car and, eventually, everything else. The day the new owners turned them out of the house was one of the saddest of her life, yet she’d still had no idea how much she’d grow to miss it all.

  When they got to the end of the long driveway carrying their suitcases in their hands, they found Boyd Markham chewing on a cigar, one shoe propped up on the bumper of a Model T Ford. The carnival barker put them up in a swanky downtown hotel for two nights while he wooed them and, once Pepper’s contract with the circus was signed, loaded them on a train back east. The finality of it didn’t hit her until she saw their new apartment at the Hotel St. Agnes in Brooklyn. It was a shabby, small space with cracking plaster walls and grit-streaked windows—the kind of place where even on the brightest summer day it was impossible to get enough light inside. The upside was, they were barely there. Even after she got used to the greasy snow-blind feeling of the road, she never forgot the view from the bay window in their big house in Chicago. She never forgot what it was like to slip under the covers of their king-sized bed and feel every muscle and joint in her body relax.

  She even missed the boredom and the awkwardness of trying to fit in with people who ultimately wanted no part of her. At the time, she’d felt belittled by it—and disturbed by the fact her gambling no longer seemed to satisfy her in the same way—but now she knew it was just the feeling of security, strange and distressing to her because she’d never felt it before. Now she understood that if trying to make friends with rich women and betting against the Cubs was what passed for trouble in your life, you had no troubles at all.

  She wanted it back. She wanted all of it back.

  Pepper went on just before intermission, the stagehands wheeling the rigging for the gallows frame out into the main ring. She watched him stand with the clowns in the dark, his chin tucked and his chest heaving as he took a few deep breaths, hands groping his stomach underneath the furls of fabric. A scratchy anticipation crept under her skin, putting a watery creak in her knees. Still, she willed herself not to look away. Maybe she imagined that simply by being there, just by watching, she could will him to survive the cruel physics of the trick, which said he was supposed to break his neck if he tried to do the drop weighing as much as he did.

  The stagehands brought out the torches and planted them in the dirt on either side of the gallows, a somber silence filling the tent as people saw the noose. She was vaguely aware of Markham going through his normal spiel, but didn’t catch the words. When the ringmaster reached his cue, Pepper and the clowns shuffled through the curtain, blinking out of the darkness as the band blasted out his entrance music. He threw up his arms and the clowns all did their pratfalls. Smiling as he came to the center of the ring, he whipped off his robe and did a slow turn. A couple of the women in the audience whistled at him as the stagehands came out and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Make a run for it!” somebody yelled, and Pepper shrugged in the direction of the man’s voice, as if to say, You’re telling me! They hustled him up the steps to the gallows and stood him on his mark as Markham appeared underneath.

  “Mr. Van Dean, any final words?”

  “Well,” Pepper said, voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’d just like to say”—taking some time to think it over—“I’d like to thank the people of the great state of Oregon for their hospitality. If by the end of tonight I somehow find myself having an audience with the man upstairs, you know, I’ll be sure to put in a good word. See if I can do something about all that rain.”

  “Is that all?” Markham asked through the crowd’s guffaws.

  Pepper swallowed hard. “Anybody got a drink?”

  Then the stagehands put the hood on him. Moira made fists, willing herself not to look away.

  “Well, folks,” Markham announced. “Shall we put this man out of his misery?”

  The platform creaked as the stagehands approached the lever. She held her breath, then felt the lurch in her chest as the trapdoor opened and his body took the sickening plunge, the crack of the rope as loud as a gunshot when it yanked him up short.

  They stretched it out as long as they could, and Pepper started to worry that Markham might let him strangle just to teach him a lesson. Finally, he felt the cold metal of the doctor’s stethoscope as the stagehand they dressed up in a white smock made a show of checking his chest. He could hear the audience grumbling with impatience, few of them seeming overly concerned for him. “On with the show!” somebody called from the bleachers as Markham yanked the hood off his head. Pepper waited and waited, neck muscles cramping, breathing as shallowly as he could, trying to make subtle changes in the positioning of his body as the rope twisted and groaned. Each time it felt like the rope was on the verge of completely cutting off the blood to his brain, he would shift into the pressure, find a little space and survive. It seemed like hours, it seemed like forever, but finally the “doctor” gave him the high sign: a short, stiff pull on one heel that the audience wouldn’t notice in all the fuss.

  Pepper’s head snapped up, eyes wide and bright, grinning out at the crowd. Everyone else did another round of pratfalls, and the uncertain silence was broken by laughter and applause.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” he announced, but stopped, his voice weak. Using one finger, he pulled at the rope like a man feeling hot under the collar. The crowd chuckled, going with it now.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” and again he stopped. He cleared his throat and, as the horn players tooted another fanfare, climbed hand over hand up the rope. He pulled himself back through the hatch in the floor of the gallows frame and sat with his legs hanging over the edge of the platform. As he slipped off the noose, giving the rope a good snap so the crowd could see it was the real deal, he could make out a couple of
guys in the front row smiling at each other, embarrassed at being suckered. He winked at them like they’d all been in on the joke the whole time.

  “That’s better,” he said, rubbing his neck a bit. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now enjoy a short intermission, during which we invite you to sample the offerings in our refreshment pavilion. Who knows, maybe a game of chance or one of our tremendous prizes will catch your eye? But don’t forget, be back in your seats in thirty minutes, as the second half of our show includes such acts as the human projectile, Hedgeweg the Colossus and Jupiter the Educated Elephant. You won’t want to miss it.”

  Two hours later the performance in the big tent ended with the elephant dancing on its hind legs to “America, I Love You” as the roustabouts pulled open the rear exit to let the crowd spill onto the midway. Suddenly free of the cramped bleachers and out in the open air, the people buzzed with giddy energy. Part of the crowd veered right, heading for the gaming pavilion and midway. The rest went left, padding across a short stretch of dead grass into a tent draped with the streaming banners of the athletic show.

  All New Featured Performers! the largest one said. The Best of Everything and Nothing but the Best! A run of smaller signs bore the names of the performers: Pepper Van Dean! Hedgeweg the Colossus! Gun Boat Walters! and below that a wide banner that proclaimed: Masters of Physical Culture!

  In this tent there were no seats. People gathered around a small riser where the massive strongman Phineas Hedgeweg hooked them with a simple patter and fifteen minutes of bar bending and keg hoisting. Pepper waited behind the tent, standing in the weeds beside Gun Boat Walters, a giant black prizefighter whose promising career had been cut short after he went blind in one eye. They didn’t talk but did jumping jacks, deep knee bends and pummeling drills to keep warm as the stars winked above them.

  When the strongman was done with his show, the horn players blew a short tune to draw attention to the opposite end of the tent, where a sagging boxing ring stood under a circle of lights. Pepper spit out his plug of tobacco as he and Gun Boat Walters climbed up the steps. They leaned in opposite corners, the prizefighter strapping thin gloves over his massive fists. A roustabout dressed in white pants and a referee’s shirt stood behind the ring, resting his forearms on the apron. As the spectators drifted over, Markham appeared from a side entrance and riffed a bit about both fighters, going on about their physical gifts, their mental acumen and their boundless heart. Pepper could feel eyes moving over his body, sizing him up. On their cue, he and Gun Boat began to work through some demonstrations. He caught a series of the boxer’s crushing blows with handheld pads, each punch pushing him back, the impact strumming through his arms and shoulders. The crowd gasped and shrunk back a couple of steps. People were always afraid of Gun Boat, because for his size and power he was very fast. It helped that he smiled a lot and called out friendly things like “Watch me now!” and “Look here!” as he cracked his fists against the pads.

  They switched places and Pepper performed a short routine of tackles and throws. The crowd loved this part, enthralled with the way he tossed Gun Boat around, shooting a quick single leg, flopping him over with a fireman’s carry or hoisting him high in the air for a belly-to-back slam. After every throw, Pepper stopped to pose for a splatter of applause. He flexed and stretched while the boxer, still grinning, picked himself up off the old, stained mat.

  Behind them were two large banners announcing the rules for the nickel challenge matches. The boxing rules were simple: Any man who survived three minutes in the ring with Gun Boat without being knocked out or quitting won fifty cents. Things were a little more complicated for the scientific wrestling bouts. Pepper’s banner was painted in the same garish script as the sign bearing his name on the outside of the tent. Across the top it said: Wrestle the Unbeatable Pepper Van Dean! Former World’s Lightweight Champion! and underneath: Catch-as-Catch-Can Bouts! Many Ways to Win!

  Any man who battled him to a ten-minute draw without being thrown, pinned or submitted got his nickel back. If a local boy managed to throw Pepper, he would win a quarter. A concession was worth a dollar. At the bottom, written in gold script, it said: Pinfall Victory Worth $10.00! This had never happened. In his nearly five years working for Markham & Markham, the only money paid out from Pepper’s matches was for time-limit draws, and those were few and far between. Near the side of the ring was a large caged gymnasium clock so the crowd could keep track of the time during each match.

  Just as Markham stepped forward to announce that the great Gun Boat Walters and the unbeatable Pepper Van Dean would be taking on all comers, he saw Moira step through the door at the back of the tent. She smiled at him a little, the look saying she was happy he was alive but maybe wasn’t fully done being mad at him yet.

  It took a few minutes for the first man to get the proper courage to challenge one of them. While they waited, Pepper busied himself doing stretches inside the ring—bending over to touch his toes, then reaching toward the ceiling and side to side. He jogged in place a bit to work out the kinks in his legs and lower back. He didn’t need to do this, but knew the crowd liked to see him warm up. Any man who worried about cramps and muscle pulls couldn’t be as unbeatable as the carnival barker claimed.

  The first contestant to drop a nickel in the pot and climb into the ring got a nice ovation from his friends. He was a big redheaded sawyer with sweat rings on his overalls and nine toes on his bare feet. Pepper could smell the sap and dust in his clothes as they shook hands and the timekeeper tolled the bell. The man looked strong, but from the way he lumbered around the ring, Pepper could see there was no science to it. Soon after they began circling each other the guy tried to grab him for a tie-up and Pepper dropped low into a double leg tackle. The speed of it caught the sawyer by surprise. Locking his hands behind the man’s hips, he turned like the rudder on a boat and drove forward. The sawyer grunted as they hit the rough canvas, his eyes wide. He tried to pull himself back to his feet, but Pepper latched onto his legs and yanked him down. From there it was simple. He hopped forward, caught the sawyer in a cradle and leveraged his shoulders down. The referee slapped the mat once and Pepper jumped back to his feet, jogging in place to keep his blood up.

  The sawyer sat up, red-faced and blinking, unable to believe it. The match had taken less than thirty seconds. Pepper didn’t look at him, acting like the man wasn’t even there as the sawyer shuffled out of the ring and down the steps, past where several others were now lining up with nickels in their fists.

  The second man was slight and wiry, quicker than the sawyer, but just as green. His balance was all over the place. Right off, Pepper clinched with him, slipped his grip under the man’s armpits and sent him flying ass over everything with a lateral drop. It was a good throw, clean and true, and the referee stepped in to wave things off as the man tumbled across the ring. That was that. It had taken five seconds.

  As the night went on he beat more and more men, for a time forgetting about his anger at Boyd Markham and his worries about his weight. This was the thing he lived for, the thing that drove him night after night. When done right, there was beauty in it, a clean triumph in each victory. He loved the focus it demanded, the particular single-mindedness, the ability to block out the things that had happened that day and the things that might happen tomorrow. When he was having a match, everything beside himself and the man across from him faded away, as if they were the only two people in the world. The one thing that mattered, the entire point of life, was to win. The moment his opponent’s shoulders touched down and the referee’s hand slapped the rough canvas, it was as if he’d emerged from a tunnel on a speeding train. The world would burst wide-open around him, sounds and smells now brighter than before, the rush of winning jittery in his arms and legs.

  That was good. That never got old.

  The trick to the nickel challenge matches was to win as fast as possible while using the least amount of energy. In certa
in matches, though, he couldn’t help himself. As a small man, one of his strengths as a wrestler was his wind. He got better the longer things went on and liked drawn-out matches best. He loved letting his opponent have the upper hand, allowing the man to believe he had a chance, before battling back to win. This technique was particularly useful if he felt the audience’s attention starting to wane. He might let a guy take him down, force a near fall or climb on his back. Once he heard the cheers start to build for the local boy and was sure the crowd was caught up again in the action, he would take control and fight his way back for the win.

  His favorite part was the moment he felt other men break—the instant men who’d climbed into the ring feeling tough and ready realized that they were beaten. He could feel their spirits collapse as the matches went on, first little by little, then all at once, like a dam giving way. Their own foolishness always seemed to shock them, but when they finally realized it, the men would let themselves be thrown or pinned or tap the mat in concession to save themselves a broken arm or leg, or the indignity of being choked unconscious in front of their family, friends and the people they had to go to work with the next day.

  It fascinated him to think of a man’s will as a physical thing, to know that determination and the desire to win were not unlimited. Even a man who believed he was fighting for his life didn’t fight forever. Eventually his muscles cramped and his wind gave out. Pepper remembered that feeling from a long time ago, the knowledge that your own courage was rapidly draining from your body. There was something animal in it, a message passed between the two wrestlers. He would feel it moving in his body like blood. Better than the actual winning. Better than any feeling he knew.