The Professional

by W. c. Heinz

  “Mr. Eddie Brown. Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.”

  Since Robinson and Gainford, I was thinking, they all try to play it the same. They’ve even got it right down to the voice inflection.

  Doc started on the right hand, the clean white gauze around the wrist and down around and around the hand and back between the fingers and around the hand. One roll of gauze and a small piece of tape to hold it, the narrow strips, pinched once in the middle, between the fingers, and then he walked away and opened a locker door and reached for one of the two long strips of tape hanging there.

  “Wait a minute,” the champion’s man said, with that big voice.

  “Are you hurting?” Doc said, one hand on one of the strips of tape and turning to look at the champion’s man.

  “Let the gentleman measure it in front of me.”

  The deputy took a tape measure from his pocket, pulled it out and measured the first strip. He could see that they were both of the same length.

  “Two feet,” he said. “Exactly.”

  “You still hurting?” Doc said.

  “I just go by the rule,” the champion’s man said.

  “What do you think I go by?”

  “All right, fellas,” the deputy said.

  Eddie shrugged at me and Doc finished that hand with the tape, Eddie opening and closing the hand, and Doc did the other. When he finished with the second he motioned to Eddie and Eddie held his hands out toward the champion’s man and turned them, the white bulks on them beautifully done, palms up and palms down.

  “All right with you?” the deputy said.

  “All right,” the champion’s man said.

  “So,” the deputy said. He had a small ink pad and stamp and he stamped the three lines of blue wording across the tape on the back of each hand. Then he took out a ballpoint pen and wrote his initials under the imprint on each hand.

  “So I’ll see you gentlemen,” the champion’s man said, affecting a bow, and then he left.

  “The SOB,” Doc said. “Dreadful. That’s amateur stuff. Get your things off.”

  Eddie slid off the table and, alternating hands, drove one fist into the palm of the other a couple of times. Then he loosened his belt and dropped his slacks. He sat down on the bench, and Joey pulled the slacks off and hung them in a locker. Then he helped Eddie out of the maroon shirt, and Eddie got out of his underwear and, walking across the room naked except for the ring shoes and socks and the bandaged hands, he hung those up. Then he walked into the toilet.

  When he came out he put on the supporter and Doc handed him the white trunks with black and he put those on. Without the cup under them they seemed too loose, and he started to move around the room, first doing deep knee bends, then rotating his arms and shoulders and then shadowboxing. In the silence of the room, disturbed only by an occasional noise from the crowd, you could hear the squeak of the ring shoes and then Eddie’s breathing starting to come in rhythm.

  Doc stood to one side, never taking his eyes off Eddie, and Freddie’s brother went out and then came back with another pail filled with a couple of chunks of ice. He waited for Eddie to move by, and then he carried it into the toilet and I could hear him cracking it against the washbowl. Then he came out and got the ice bag and went back in.

  “How are you these days?” the deputy said, coming over to me.

  “Fine. You?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, dropping his voice. “He looks good, don’t he?”

  “Eddie? Yes.”

  “You think he’ll win?”

  “Yes.”

  “Myself, I should be up at Candlewood Lake right now.”

  “Why?”

  “I got a cottage up there. We like to go up weekends, but how you can do it with the Friday night fights? We have to go up Saturdays now. These people that come here, they pay big money for ringside. I don’t get it. I’ve seen too many fights. No fight is worth it.”

  Eddie came by us now, his face set, his head down, hooking and then hooking again. Then he turned easily and started back, and I could see a little sweat just starting on his back. I looked at my watch and it was 9:46 and I walked over to where Doc stood, his arms folded in front of him, watching Eddie.

  “The sweat looks good,” I said. “He looks in perfect shape.”

  “He’s never been far off in seven years,” Doc said. “When you come to the last step it shouldn’t be any steeper than the rest.”

  “How do you feel yourself?”

  “Lousy.”

  He motioned to Eddie and Eddie stopped and walked over to him, breathing deeply. Doc took a towel off the rubbing table and wiped Eddie’s face quickly and then he wiped Eddie’s chest and back and arms and, bending down, his legs. He motioned to the rubbing table where Freddie’s brother had spread a couple of fresh white towels. Another was folded at the head, and Eddie boosted himself up and lay down on his back. Doc took still another clean towel and placed it over Eddie’s chest, and then he got the robe and spread it over Eddie.

  “Give me a towel for over my eyes,” Eddie said.

  He was lying directly under the ceiling light, his eyes shut, and Doc folded another towel and placed it over Eddie’s forehead and eyes. Eddie lay there, the robe moving up and down with his breathing.

  “How did you feel?” Doc said.

  “A little stiff, in the shoulder and thighs. Not stiff, but not loose.”

  “That’s all right,” Doc said.

  Eddie lay there for five or six minutes, the breathing quieting. Doc had come over and was sitting on the bench next to me.

  “What the hell can I tell him?” he said in a low voice, not really as a question but as a statement of fact.

  “Nothing.”

  “In seven years you tell him everything. He’s ready. The last thing I’ll remind him in the corner is just don’t let that other guy back him up. The first round he’ll get his distance, then he’ll either do it, or he won’t. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  “That’s right. Just remember that yourself.”

  We heard the door open and the clang of the ring bell and the crowd.

  “Last round of the semifinal!” the guard said, sticking his head in and announcing it. “Main event next!”

  Eddie sat up, the robe sliding to his legs, and Doc got up. Eddie slid off the table and Doc wiped him again with a towel. Then he helped Eddie out of the trunks and Eddie went into the bathroom.

  “You got everything?” Doc said to Freddie’s brother. “All my stuff and Freddie’s?”

  “I got it.”

  He had on his white coat sweater and Doc went to the locker and put on his and buttoned it. Eddie came out and Freddie’s brother handed him his cup and Eddie stepped into it and pulled it up. Then Doc helped him into the trunks and he moved around, swinging his head on that fine neck and rotating his shoulders, until he saw Doc holding the robe and he put his arms back and Doc lifted the robe up onto him and, walking around him, tied it in the front.

  “All right! Main event! Eddie Brown!” the guard said, holding the door open, and we could hear the rising expectant mumble of the crowd.

  “That’s us,” the deputy said.

  “The best, Eddie,” I said as he went by.

  “Thanks, Frank,” he said, looking at me quickly, his face very serious.

  I followed them out and down the aisle behind the cop, the crowd noise high now and the cries for Eddie, and when they passed my seat I took one more look at Doc’s back and climbed over the back of the seat. Tom White was sitting on my left.

  “Hello,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “All right. I suppose you still like your guy to win.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I read your piece today.”

  “I think he’ll get licked good.”

  The crowd was still noisy for Eddie when the champion came into the ring to our left, vaulting the held m
iddle rope with a flourish, his head towel-hooded and his robe flying, then his arms out to the crowd, the noise swelling then for him. One of the deputies was bringing the gloves to Eddie’s corner to our right and I saw Doc, leaning on the rope and squinting through those rimless glasses at the other guy. Then he was bending over Eddie, who was on the stool, and then Eddie was standing up and putting his weight down into one glove, as Doc held it, and then the other. Then he sat down for the lacing.

  “You see that?” Tom White said. “Look what he’s got there on his shoe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A ring. He’s got a ring on the lace of his right shoe.”

  “I know.”

  “He doesn’t even trust that great Doc Carroll with his jewelry while he’s in the ring.”

  “I was there when he put it on. Do you want to know what it’s about?”

  “Don’t tell me. You can have your Doc if you want him. I don’t have to buy him.”

  It will be enough if you knock him out, Eddie, I was thinking, but it will be more if you can pull it off the way Doc said and drop him face to face with Tom White. I know it’s impossible, but do it.

  “—and a former middleweight champion of the world!” Johnny Addie was announcing.

  By the time they were through with the introductions the gloves were on. I saw Freddie Thomas leave the other corner and walk across to Eddie’s. Now he was on one knee in front of Eddie and Eddie had first one foot up and then the other and Freddie was scarring the soles of the shoes with the points of his scissors. Then the lights went out and we stood forever and I watched Eddie standing forever in the semi-darkness while Gladys Goodding played it with that glissade introduction on the organ and Bill Ferrell sang the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “Fifteen rounds for the middleweight championship of the world. In this corner, wearing white trunks with black stripes, from New York City, weighing one-hundred-fifty-nine and three-quarter pounds, Eddie Brown!”

  “... and weighing one-hundred-fifty-eight and a half pounds, the middleweight champion of the world ...”

  The referee was making his little speech for television now, and then they touched gloves and turned and Freddie Thomas slid the robe off Eddie’s shoulders as they walked back to the corner and Doc had one leg outside the ropes and one still inside them and you could hardly hear the buzzer above the crowd. Doc was slipping the mouthpiece into Eddie’s mouth, saying one last thing, shouting it at Eddie to be heard in the noise, and Eddie’s face was stony, looking across at the other guy, and then the bell rang and Doc slapped Eddie on the back and Eddie walked out of that corner.

  26

  It was all over in one minute and forty-eight seconds.

  Eddie walked out slowly, hands low, the gloves poised and rotating slightly, his head down and looking at the other out of the tops of his eyes, and he was beautiful. He never wasted a motion and the champion met him in mid-ring, high on his toes, head-feinting, hand feinting, the feints ignored, and then snapping out the jab once, twice.

  The first one Eddie took high on his forehead and the second one he slipped over his right shoulder and, in the same move, he brought his own jab up and in. It reached the champion, perfectly placed, between the eyes, but the champion was moving away, jabbing twice, lithe, still high on his toes, Eddie following him and taking the jabs high, and then, as the champion hooked behind the next jab, Eddie slipped under it and threw his own hook, hard from the low-hand position, to the body.

  The champion dropped his right arm across his body and managed to get a piece of it on his elbow. Then, in too close, he reached to tie Eddie up, but Eddie got both hands up inside, high on the champion’s chest, and he pushed the champion off.

  With this, the crowd noise rose to a quick roar and the champion, now, took his time. He was moving, using the center of the ring. He jabbed twice and, still head-feinting, he faked the move to his left and circled to his right. Eddie made the one step to his own left, and he had the champion in front of him again. The champion faked the move to his left again, feinting the jab, but this time he made the move. For that one part of a moment he had the position on Eddie, but Eddie dropped lower and made the one step to his own right and they were even once more.

  I looked at the champion’s face and I could see him thinking. Look at this, all of you, I was thinking. See it. Eddie Brown is building beautifully. He is building slowly, perfectly, the firm foundation. Please see this.

  The champion put out two jabs, still backing off, the first one short but the second one going in. Eddie stalked him and they exchanged jabs, the champion’s snapping out straight, Eddie’s coming up and in again. Now the champion was almost in a fencing position, his stance more narrow, with the line of the right foot closer to the line of the left, but suddenly, as Eddie jabbed, the champion stepped to his right with the right foot and threw the right hand over the jab. Eddie turned under it and, as he took the punch back above the ear, he fired his own right return into the body and, as it carried his weight onto the left foot, he came back with everything on a hook to the same place.

  This was the moment. Now it came. The punches drove the champion back, and I saw the hurt, bewildered look on his face that they all have in the face of truth, and Eddie threw the overhand right to the head. This was the moment and I heard the roar of the crowd and as suddenly I realized that all the excitement, all the desire so long controlled came out in that right hand, and that Eddie was too far out.

  The punch missed. Whether it missed by an eighth of an inch or by slightly more or less does not matter. It missed by Eddie’s nine years in it and by Doc’s forty-three years and by all of the years all of us have lived. When it missed, it carried all of Eddie’s weight to his left foot and now, off balance because, finally and just once, he tried too soon for too much, he started to bring himself back to his right. As he did, the champion, coming off the ropes, that same look on his face, let the right hand go because this was not the place of his choosing or the time, either, and he knew it and he knew of nothing else to do.

  The punch hit Eddie while his left foot was off the floor. It hit him on the left temple and he went back on his rump and the back of his head hit the canvas. The crowd was up behind me, with a roar, and he fell right in front of me and of Tom White. He rolled over onto his left side, brought his legs around behind him and raised himself onto his knees, both gloves pressed to the canvas in front of him. He shook his head. He was all right, but he was shaking his head.

  The referee was on one knee beside him, his arm dropping. Again Eddie shook his head, snapping it violently. He was all right. He was strong.

  “... four ... five ...”

  He was getting up now, reaching for the rope just above us. I saw the champion in the neutral corner across the ring, and now Eddie was up and seemed to be searching the ring, the arena in the roar, then shaking his head again. Now the referee was wiping the gloves on his shirt, looking into Eddie’s face, and then he stepped back to one side.

  In the roar Eddie moved forward, but uncertainly, his hands low again and his head tucked behind the left shoulder, but as the champion moved out to meet him, the right hand cocked, Eddie veered to his own right and started away from him, now strongly but strangely, now searching again. When he did the champion moved around in front of him. Eddie’s head was still searching when the champion let the right hand go.

  This time Eddie went forward on his face, and I and everyone else knew that it was all over. The referee was kneeling, tolling, and I saw that fine body lying there, writhing, trying to get up, just the very first sweat on it, just the beginning of the quest. There was so much that mind and body could do together, better than all others. Why couldn’t it have had its chance?

  “... nine ... out!”

  “I told you,” Tom White said, hollering it at me above the cheering and the booing of the crowd. “He’s a bum.”

  Doc was the first one to him, and now the referee was back to h
im and the doctor was there with Freddie Thomas. They had him sitting up, and now standing up, holding him under the arms. He was trying to shake them off, but they held him, the head still searching, and, when it turned toward me, I saw the stare of a sleep-walker.

  “He doesn’t even know where he is,” Tom White said, above the booing that was stronger now than the cheers for the champion, who was dancing now around the ring, his gloves above his head, his people trying to grab him and pound him.

  They walked Eddie to the corner and he sat there a minute, his robe over him, the group around him, the boos still coming from upstairs while Johnny Addie made his announcement and held the champion’s hand high for the photographers. Then Freddie Thomas held the middle rope down with one foot and the top rope up with both hands and Doc and the doctor helped Eddie slowly through them. I climbed over the back of my chair and pushed through the crowd and saw Eddie, the robe loosely draped over him, unable to find the first step, stumble. They held him, though, and I pushed behind them through the crowd.

  “Hey, Carroll!” someone in the crowd close to them was shouting. “He’s a bum! You’re both bums!”

  27

  We stood, almost silently, about two dozen of us, outside the dressing-room door. I saw Louie talking to the uniformed guard and the guard shaking his head, and I saw Frankie and the rest of them from the neighborhood and I scanned their faces and turned away. As I did, Memphis Kid saw me and walked over. He had on that gray suit and a clean white T-shirt under it, and he was carrying his zipper bag.

  “Is he all right?” he said and there seemed to me to be even fear in his eyes.

  “I don’t know. I can’t get in right now.”

  “He was gonna lick him, Mr. Hughes.”

  “I know.”

  Memphis dropped his head, and half turned away.

  “Are you all right, Memphis?”

  He was crying. He took a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Good.”