by W. c. Heinz
“That’s right.”
“You want to talk to him? He’s in his room, and I’ll get him down.”
“I’d rather talk to him up there,” Fred said.
“Finish your coffee. I’ll go up and see what he’s doing.”
Doc and Freddie Thomas went out.
“What a man,” Dave said.
“Now you see?” Fred said, nodding.
“I think I’ll write about that, about why you don’t go for a title or why you do.”
“Good. Then you’ll leave your column-pickin’ paws off Eddie.”
“But I want to go along and listen. Please?”
“I’ll permit it.”
“There’s something he didn’t tell you,” I said.
“What?”
“He wants that title for himself, too.”
“Why not?”
“That’s the shame of it. He’s getting old. Years ago he wouldn’t have given a damn. You know that, Fred. All this time, over forty years, he had one philosophy—do it right and let the spoils fall where they may, mostly into the laps of the amateurs. In those days there were a few guys around who could appreciate it. Today, in Stillman’s, what do they know? Did you ever have a champion? It’s a crime, and a defeat, but Doc wants it for that, too. He’s human, and I’m complaining.”
“Let’s hope he gets it.”
“He’ll get it,” Fred said.
“He’ll have to,” I said. “I told you I’m involved. I am. It’s a cause. The other guy’s not a fighter, compared with Eddie. He’s all show and no meaning, but who knows the difference? Eddie’s our standard bearer. He’s just a fighter, but this is a fight against all the shoddy they sell and celebrate today in boxing and on TV and in the bookstores and in our newspapers and magazines and everywhere else. You see that, don’t you?”
“I agree,” Dave said.
“Please,” Fred said. “Two guys are going to have at each other in a contest with gloves.”
“He’s a stubborn little bum, isn’t he?” Dave said, nodding at Fred.
“He is. He has no causes to talk about because he lives them all his life. If there is such a thing, he’s a purer Doc.”
“Please.”
“He can’t see himself. For twenty-five years he’s been writing the purest prose ever to appear in a newspaper, and the purest dialogue to appear anywhere, Poppa and O’Hara notwithstanding. Do the lights turn red on all sides when he wants to cross Fifth Avenue, though?”
“Are you finished?” Fred said. “Do you mind if we go up and see Eddie?”
Eddie was lying on the bed reading a paperback, and when we came in he put it aside and got up and shook hands. Then he sat down at the head of the bed again, with the pillow at his back, and Doc came in, bringing a couple of straight-back chairs.
“How do you feel?” Fred said.
“Fine. All right.”
“He asked you that,” Dave said, “because we asked Marciano in camp once how he felt, and he said: ‘Great, but I have to laugh. Everybody asks me how I feel. I’m up here, getting up early, running on the road, training, eating, and sleeping right. How else could I feel?’”
“He was right,” Eddie said, smiling.
“What were you reading?”
“Just a western. I like to read them once in a while in camp.”
“What else do you read?”
“Mostly magazines. I like to read magazines.”
“The articles, or the short stories?”
“Both. I like some of those stories, not all of them.”
“You mean, not the fight stories?”
“That’s right. They usually have the fighter, during the fight, thinking about his girl or his mother or some mobster. Believe me, when you’re in there you don’t have much chance to think about anything else. Of course, I never had any mobster threaten me. Maybe if I did I’d think about that, hey?”
“What do you think about? I mean, specifically what kind of thing?”
“Well, I’m thinking of what the other guy is doing, that I can use. You know? I mean, Doc has always studied the guys I fight and we’ve pretty much worked it out, but you actually have to fight the guy to find out.”
“They all have patterns,” Doc said. “I don’t care who they are.”
“Then fighters are like writers,” Dave said.
“The good ones have more patterns than the others,” Doc said. “That’s all.”
“So that’s what you’re thinking about, Eddie?”
“A lot of things, but that’s it. The way Doc has taught me—I don’t know whether it’s all right to say this or not.”
He looked at Doc.
“It’s all right. The good fighters you fought knew what you were doing to them, but they couldn’t help themselves. What the other guy discovers in the newspapers isn’t going to help him.”
“Well, what I mean is that the way Doc has taught me, you give the other guy the impression that he’s in charge. That’s so he’ll fight his fight, and follow his patterns. I mean, as Doc says: ‘Let him perform.’ For example, when I’m pressing a guy a certain way he may jab me a couple of times, and then hook off it. Well, he does this a few times in the first couple of rounds and then, when I see it’s the pattern, I’m thinking whether I’ll try to beat the hook with a straight right hand or if I’ll drop down and slip the hook and counter with a hook in the belly. I mean that’s what you’re thinking about.”
“I like that,” Dave said. “Cite us another one. I don’t mean to pry into your secrets, but I’ve never heard a fighter talk like this before.”
“That’s all right,” Doc said.
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “There’s so many. Say, like I can’t get the guy to open up. He’ll throw a few punches, but nothing that you can go off. Maybe the only pattern will be a double jab. He’ll jab twice and move. So I take those—one-two, on the forehead, one-two. He gets real confident now, because I lean into them a little to help him think he’s going good. Then, when I’m ready, I take the first one, but on the second one I lean over to my right so I slip it over my left shoulder and I cross a right over it. It’s a good punch because, leaning to the right, I’ve got my weight on that side and behind it.”
“The punch is standard,” Doc said. “The big thing is the trap. There’s only so many punches. Everybody knows what they are. You’ve got to con the other guy into walking into them. It’s thinking, first of all. Then, when he’s committed, it’s timing and placement. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I’ve been at it for nine years and I’m still learning.”
“You’ll still be learning the day you quit,” Doc said.
“What about the other guy?” Fred said. “Have you seen him fight much?”
“I’ve seen him a couple of times and once on TV. Doc and I went to his last fight in the Garden.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He’s a good fighter. Lots of natural ability. He’s got fast hands, and he moves good.”
“While you’re up here,” Dave said, “how much do you think about him? You’re in camp, working every day toward just one thing. Do you ever dream about the fight?”
“Here we go,” I said. “Dave Scott’s Dream Book.”
“We’re laughing,” Fred said to Doc and Eddie, “because, sooner or later, one of us asks this of all of them—Marciano, LaStarza, Charles, Saxton, Patterson. You can’t escape.”
“Amateur psychology,” Dave said. “I mean, do you ever see the other guy in your mind, like when you’re boxing up here?”
“No,” Eddie said. “I mean, not when I’m boxing. I’ve got Memphis Kid up here—”
“He’s here?”
“Sure, and he does a real good imitation of the other guy. When you’re boxing, though, you’re thinking of what’s going on, like I said, so I don’t see the other guy then.”
“When do you see him, if you do?”
; “You see?” Fred said. “You can’t get away.”
“I know what you mean. I’d say I think of him when I’m running on the road in the morning, and when I’m punching the big bag. That stuff gets kind of monotonous, and I think of him then.”
“What do you think? Do you see the fight?”
“That’s right. You guys must be psychologists. I keep making up the fight. Sometimes when I’m falling asleep, too. I mean, I see the guy make a move and I make a move. We fight like that.”
“How long does it last? The fight.”
“Oh, I don’t see the whole fight. I just see a part of it. Maybe it’s something that happened in boxing in the gym that day. I see that happening in the fight.”
“Do you see the fight end?”
“Oh, sure. Especially at night. No matter what moves I’m thinking about, when I see the two of us I can’t stop thinking about it until the fight ends in my mind.”
“How does it end?”
“He’s flat on his back,” Eddie said smiling.
“I like that,” Fred said, laughing. “You knock him out.”
“Sure. Then I can get to sleep.”
“You see?” Dave said. “Don’t knock the Dream Book.”
“Eddie,” Fred said, “I don’t think you’ve ever been knocked down, have you?”
“Once,” Eddie said, looking at Doc. “About four years ago. Doc’ll tell you about that.”
“Dreadful,” Doc said, that pained expression on his face. “He’s fighting that Art Matso in Cleveland. I don’t know what he was thinking about. All of a sudden he’s got his feet too close together, and all his weight on his left foot. That Matso hits him a hook high on the head that wouldn’t topple a tenpin. Down he goes on his left side. Dreadful.”
“I got right up. I knocked the guy out two rounds later.”
“Never mind that. Tell them what I made you do, Edward.”
“Well,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “For a week after that Doc made me wear a slipper—one of those bedroom slippers—on my right foot. Everywhere I went I had to wear it for a week, one shoe and one slipper. I was embarrassed.”
“You should have been,” Doc said, still disgusted. “You embarrassed me. It taught you that you have a right foot, though. It taught you to keep your weight on both feet, though, didn’t it?”
“I’ll say. Every place I went, up in the gym and every place, people asked me: ‘What’s the matter with your foot?’ For a whole week.”
“What did you say?”
“I lied. I told them I sprained my big toe.”
“I love this,” Dave said.
“Yes,” Fred said, “but remember, it’s mine.”
“I know.”
“So let’s leave him alone now,” Fred said, standing up. “He’s got to work soon.”
“All right.”
“You writers amaze me,” Eddie said.
“How?”
“You two. You never take any notes, and when I read it in the paper it’s just what I said.”
“That’s what you think,” Fred said.
“I don’t understand how you do it.”
“We don’t understand how you do what you do either, Eddie,” Dave said.
After they watched Eddie work, Fred and Dave wrote their copy. Dave phoned his in, and then we drove into town and filed Fred’s at the Western Union. After dinner we had a couple of drinks, sitting in the dining room with Eddie and Doc and swapping baseball stories for Eddie’s benefit until it was ten o’clock.
“So I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Eddie said, getting up.
“You’re not going to watch the warriors on TV?” Dave said.
“No. I need my sleep.”
The rest of us watched the fight, and it was just about what it had promised to be. For the first six rounds Cardone moved around, picking at the other guy and, when he saw a safe opening, taking potshots. Cardone’s claque seemed to like it anyway, if you could tell anything from the screams on the TV.
“The little guy has no chance,” Dave said. “He can’t reach him.”
“Dreadful,” Doc said.
“He’ll do a little better from now on,” I said. “Cardone will start to run out of gas.”
“I know what you mean,” Doc said.
He did, and by the ninth round the other guy was getting inside and hitting Cardone in the body. When he did, Cardone would grab, his head back and out of the way, but, as it was, he won it big on all cards.
“After that, I’m the one needs a drink,” Doc said.
22
That night Fred and Dave stayed in one of the cabins down the road. They came up the next morning for breakfast and then said good-bye to Eddie and Doc and Freddie Thomas and left for the other camp.
“We’ll see you when you get sprung,” Dave said, when I walked them to Dave’s car.
“Don’t worry about it,” Fred said. “He’ll win.”
“Good.”
“Whatever happens,” Dave said, “you’ll get a good piece. I never knew the guy was such a good talker.”
“He’s great on boxing. On the rest he’s thin, but I don’t press him. With a month to give to it I try to let him emerge as if I’m almost not here. It’s not the easiest thing to do.”
“Stop weeping. Do you think the boys in the Tombs have it better?”
“All right. Take your eighty papers and your eight million readers and get out of here.”
That afternoon Doc sent Eddie eight rounds. Enough had been in the papers about the fight by now so that there were a couple of dozen men and women and a half-dozen kids sitting on the chairs and watching while Freddie Thomas kept after the sparring partners to press more and Doc leaned on the top rope watching Eddie turn it on. Now and then one of the men would say something in a low voice to the woman next to him and the woman, stony-faced and watching the fighters, would nod or shrug.
“Excuse me,” one of them said, walking up to me, when Eddie climbed out of the ring and walked over to the big bag.
“Yes?”
He was about thirty years old, with a mop of blond hair, and he needed a shave. He had on a red-and-black-checkered woolen shirt, the tails worn outside of his brown corduroy trousers, and he had a boy about three by the hand.
“I’m a boxing fan.”
“Good.”
“Is the fight going to be on television? Eddie Brown’s fight?”
“Not around here.”
“Not around here? We get the fights here.”
“Not this one. They’re blacking it out north to Albany and south through Philadelphia.”
“How come? We seen it the last time Eddie Brown fought.”
“Not this one. This is for the title.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to go to the fight.”
“Them tickets cost a lot of money, don’t they?”
“Thirty dollars ringside, but you can get up in the gallery for five dollars.”
“Who’s got that much money for a fight? You pay a lot of money for a television set, you should get all the fights.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better, you can watch that fella in the ring now box on television on Monday night.”
Penna and Booker Boyd were moving around the ring, Boyd stalking Penna.
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The white boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Al Penna.”
“Is he good?”
“You can see for yourself. He fights the semifinal at the St. Nick, and the semifinal goes on around nine-thirty on Channel 5.”
“Yeah? Good. Thanks a lot.”
Eddie was lying face down on the rubbing table in the dressing room, naked except for a towel brought up like a loin cloth, Freddie Thomas working on him and the air in the small room sharp but, at the same time heavy, with the smell of the oil of wintergreen. Freddie had finished with the thighs and calves, and was starting on the
shoulders.
“This is one of those times I envy fighters,” I said.
“I’ll give you a rub,” Freddie said.
“No. I’d be ashamed, an impostor. A fighter earns it.”
“Phew!” Penna said, coming in and closing the door behind him. “That stinks.”
“You don’t know what’s good,” Freddie said.
Penna’s face, above the white terrycloth robe and the towel around his neck, was running with sweat.
“‘Our love is forever—’” he started to sing, standing there and throwing his arms out. “‘No—’”
“That isn’t so good, either,” Eddie said, turning his head to look back at Penna. “How about getting another station?”
“What’s the matter? You gettin’ touchy?”
“No.”
“Listen. If I wasn’t such a good fighter, you know what I’d be.”
“No.”
“One of them airline Charlies. One of them pilots. You go to all them foreign countries and you have a broad in every one.”
“Listen, Penna,” I said. “I just met a fan of yours.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“A guy out there in a red-and-black shirt. He thinks you’re a great fighter.”
“Yeah? Tell him to be at the St. Nicholas Monday night. One-two. Bam-bam. Raise me hand, ref. I’m your boy.”
“He’ll be there.”
“Yeah? I’ll give him my autograph. Cheap. For a buck.”
After breakfast the next morning Booker Boyd and Barnum and Penna left, in an old Ford. A friend of Barnum’s—a Negro kid about eighteen and a Golden Glover—had driven it up the night before, and they were going to drop Penna off at the Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge so that he could get a bus into New York while they went on to Philadelphia.
“You just fight your fight,” Barnum said to Eddie, when they shook hands at the car. “You’ll take that boy.”
“Thanks. Good luck to you guys.”
“Fight that fight you been workin’ on. You’ll show the people.”
“Thanks.”
“Tune in tomorrow night and watch this boy go,” Penna said. “I’ll see you Friday at the weigh-in, anyway.”
“Good,” Eddie said. “Good luck, Al.”
“You guys will miss me around here. You’ll be sorry I’m gone.”