The Professional

by W. c. Heinz

  “He was lickin’ him, Mr. Hughes.”

  “He was, Memphis.”

  “He couldn’t lose. That was an accident.”

  “I know.”

  “Why do the others always get the luck?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think he’s all right? There was somethin’ wrong with him when he got up the first time.”

  “I think he’ll be all right.”

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I can’t get in there. I’ll wait to hear. When you come out, will you tell me how he is?”

  “Sure, Memphis.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hughes. I’ll wait right over there.”

  Tom White walked toward me and then stopped and gave me that authoritative, over-the-shoulder motion with his head. I walked over to him.

  “The ceiling fell on the plasterer’s son,” he said. “I told you.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not letting us in?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll get in.”

  He pushed through the crowd around the door. I saw him talking to the guard, and then getting excited, but the guard still stood shielding the door with his body and shaking his head. Then Tom White was pushing back out to me.

  “A fine goddamn thing,” he said. “I’ll fix them. They don’t do that to me.”

  With that the door opened and the doctor came out. He stood on the step, the door slightly ajar behind him, an AP man and a morning paper man and Louie in the front, and three of them trying to look around the doctor and into the room.

  “How is he?” someone down front said, and the crowd hushed.

  “He’ll be all right,” the doctor said. “He’s still bothered by what I’ll call jarred vision. There isn’t any exact term for it.”

  “Any term for what?”

  “Jarred vision.”

  “His eyes are jarred? How do you know his eyes are jarred?”

  “I didn’t say his eyes are jarred. I said his vision is jarred, and just temporarily.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We don’t get this.”

  “Well, that first punch that hit him, that knocked him down the first time—either that or when his head hit the floor—was the cause. The result is, he’s experiencing trouble focusing. Maybe you noticed that when he got up the first time and couldn’t regain his direction.”

  “Is that what was wrong with him?”

  “Yes. You very rarely see this, but that’s what happened to him. It may be caused by any one or more of three things. The ocular muscles may be out of kilter. The balancing mechanism in his ear may be disturbed. There may be an injury to the brain, cerebral, but I doubt that here.”

  “Is there any chance he’ll be blind?”

  “Definitely none.”

  “Has he got a concussion?”

  “Certainly. A slight one. Every fighter who gets knocked out suffers a concussion. He’ll be all right.”

  “But what about his eyes—or the vision?”

  “It’ll be all right. It’ll straighten out.”

  “How soon?”

  “Any time. When he relaxes.”

  “Is he going to the hospital?”

  “No. I think he’ll be all right just to go back to his hotel room.”

  “So let us in, then,” Tom White said.

  “In a few minutes. Not right now.”

  “What do you mean, not right now?”

  “In a few minutes. All the press will get in.”

  “What are you doing, giving that Carroll time to come up with an excuse? Send Carroll out here.”

  “He’s with the fighter.”

  “I don’t care who he’s with. Send him out here.”

  “Just be patient,” the doctor said. “You’ll all get in.”

  He went back into the room and closed the door and the guard moved back in front of it. The AP man pushed out and past us and ran down the aisle toward ringside.

  “A fine goddamn thing,” Tom White said, announcing it. “That big phony Carroll. Before the fight they can’t get enough publicity. They want you to write about them. Now he doesn’t want to talk, but I’ll write about him. I’ll write plenty.”

  “Why don’t you shut up?” someone said.

  It was Frankie, from Eddie’s old neighborhood. He was looking right at White.

  “What?”

  “You make too much noise. Why don’t you shut up?”

  “Take it easy, Frankie,” I said.

  “I don’t care about this bum,” Frankie said. “Who does he think he is, with that stinking column? Just keep your mouth shut around here, mister.”

  Tom White turned his back on Frankie. He took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “You going out to Ebbets Field this weekend?” he said to me.

  “No.”

  “The Braves are in town.”

  “I know it.”

  “Sure he’s a yella bum,” I could hear Frankie saying to someone.

  “I’m not going to be stood up out here any longer,” Tom White said to me. “For what?”

  He walked off. The AP man came back, Ernie Gordon with him. I saw Charley Keener, with Cardone trailing him, hurrying toward us, calling to Gordon, but when he saw me he stopped.

  “Too bad about Eddie,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think it would be like that. Something must have happened to him.”

  “Something did.”

  “What did you think of Vic last Friday?”

  “He was all right. You were all right, Vic.”

  “Thanks,” Cardone said, nodding to me.

  “It’s like I told you. He’ll be the next welterweight champion. You want to do that article about him, you let me know. All right?”

  “All right.”

  He took Cardone by one arm and he was trying to get through the crowd to Ernie Gordon when I saw Helen. She was standing at the edge of the crowd, with another woman of about the same age, and she was wearing a long, loose red coat, open, and I could see a black dress under it, and they were both watching the door.

  “Helen,” I said, when I had walked up to her, “I’m sorry.”

  She had just turned to look at me when the door opened and the crowd quieted and we saw the doctor come out. The crowd pushed forward.

  “Only the press,” the doctor said. “Just the newspapermen.”

  “Show your stubs,” the uniformed guard was saying.

  “You want to get in, don’t you?” I said to Helen.

  “Yes, but I don’t suppose they’ll let me.”

  “Follow me.”

  “Will you wait for me?” she said to her friend.

  “Certainly,” her friend said. “Of course.”

  We pushed through the crowd, the guard weeding the others out, a photographer, his camera held high, ahead of me, Helen being pushed against my back. When we got to the door I showed my ticket stub and moved aside to let Helen in ahead of me.

  “Just the press, lady,” the guard said, putting his arm across the door in front of her.

  “This is Eddie Brown’s wife,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” the guard said, shaking his head, his arm still there. “Just the press.”

  “Look. This is Eddie Brown’s wife.”

  “You heard me, Mac. I got my orders. Just the press. I’m sorry.”

  I turned back to say something to Helen but she had turned and was pushing back out through the crowd. Another photographer was trying to get by me, now, and I turned and almost stumbled over the step and I was in.

  Eddie was sitting on the bench, naked and with just a towel across his lap, his head down. Doc was sitting on one side of him and Freddie Thomas was on the other, and when Doc saw me he got up and pushed through them. It was hot in the room.

  “How is he?” I said.

  “He’ll be all right.”

  Doc looked like h
e did the night he came back from Jay’s funeral.

  “How about you?”

  “All right. He tried for too much too early.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “He keeps doing what he’s doing he’s got to win it.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “He had the guy stopped all along the line. Then he hit him those two punches in the belly and proved it to him.”

  “Even that punch that toppled him, that was nothing. The guy threw it out of desperation. He shook that off, but why does that have to happen to his eyes? He couldn’t focus. He still can’t.”

  “It has to happen,” I said, “because it’s the only way you can lose. Don’t ask me why you have to lose, but you do.”

  “I guess we do.”

  “The shame is that we all lose, Doc, including that champion who right now is being slapped on the back and told again that he’s a great champion. For a second there Eddie made him an honest man, but now he’ll believe this because the honest winners are so few. Everybody in this place lost tonight, Doc, but they don’t know it.”

  I have just said it all, I was thinking. I—

  “What’s the use of talking about it?” Doc said. “I want to get back to him.”

  Doc pushed through and sat down next to Eddie again. The reporters were clustered in front of Eddie, the two in front on their knees, the two photographers taking turns up on the rubbing table and shooting their pictures over the heads of the reporters.

  “He still can’t focus,” Doctor Martin was saying, standing amid the reporters. “We call it past-pointing, but he’ll come out of it.”

  “But he doesn’t know where he is,” one of the reporters kneeling in front said, looking back over his shoulder at the doctor. It was Ernie Gordon.

  “Let me get in there,” the doctor said.

  The two in front shifted apart and the doctor knelt down between them and directly in front of Eddie.

  “Eddie?” he said. “Look at me.”

  “Huh?” Eddie said.

  He raised his head and stared with those blue eyes through the doctor. His hair was wet and so was his face, a red welt beside his left eye, and there was moisture on his body.

  “Eddie?” the doctor said. “Who am I?”

  It was quiet now in the room, just the flashing of a photographer’s bulb.

  “Huh?”

  “We can’t hear in the back, here!” somebody shouted.

  “Quiet,” somebody else said.

  “You know me, Eddie. Who am I?”

  “Johnny,” Eddie said, staring through the doctor. Then he dropped his head again.

  “Johnny?” Ernie Gordon said. “Johnny who?”

  “Look at me, Eddie,” the doctor said. “Who am I? I’m a doctor. You saw me today. Doctor who?”

  “Huh?”

  “He wants to stand up,” the doctor said. “Let him stand up. He’s all right, except for the eyes.”

  Eddie stood up slowly, Doc and Freddie Thomas supporting him. As he did the towel started slipping from his lap but, still staring ahead, he reached down and caught it.

  “Eddie?” the doctor said.

  Eddie turned slowly. He held the towel out in his left hand and turned slowly to his left. Freddie Thomas backed away and Eddie, staring, placed the towel carefully against the side of the end locker, as if he were hanging it up, and then let it go. It dropped to the floor, but he didn’t see it and he turned back slowly and they helped him to sit down again.

  “You see he can’t focus,” the doctor said, still kneeling. “This happens sometimes. I’ve seen it once or twice before. That’s why he walked the way he did when he got up the first time.”

  “Who am I, Eddie?” Ernie Gordon, kneeling, was saying. “You know me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Who am I?”

  Eddie stared at Ernie Gordon. He stared directly into his face.

  “Huh?”

  “What’s my name? You know me.”

  “Johnny,” Eddie said, staring at him.

  “Why is he saying ‘Johnny’?” someone said.

  “Look, Eddie,” the doctor said. “Where are you? Do you know where you are?”

  “Got to go,” Eddie said, starting to get up.

  “No, stay there,” the doctor said, and Doc and Freddie held Eddie. “Where are you?”

  “Got to go.”

  “Go. Go where? Go where, Eddie?”

  “Go? Go to the Garden. Fight.”

  “You have to go to the Garden, Eddie? Where are you now?”

  “Time,” Eddie said.

  “Time? What time?”

  “Time,” Eddie said, and then he pointed, staring. He pointed over the heads of the kneeling and standing. He pointed with his right arm, his hand wavering a little. As he did we all turned in the hot, silent room, and looked where he was pointing, high on the opposite wall.

  There was no clock on the wall. There was nothing on the wall. The wall was bare.

  It was late winter and the wind was blowing off the Palisades and across the Hudson, gusty and raw and cutting through the last light of the day. It was recongealing the gray-brown slush in the gutters and embroidering the dampness to the sidewalk, and I was glad to get inside and out of it.

  I walked across the lobby and picked up my mail at the table. Old Jules was sitting on his chair by the elevator.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hughes,” he said, getting up and following me into the elevator. “Gettin’ cold out again?”

  “Yes, it is, Jules.”

  I was sorting through the mail, a couple of letters and some bills. Jules closed the gate and then the door.

  “A man come to see you this afternoon, Mr. Hughes.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir, and right now I don’t think of his name. He come here only about a half hour ago and he tell me to tell you. I make a mental notation, and right this moment I don’t think of his name.”

  “That’s all right, Jules. If he wants me he’ll call me or come back again.”

  “The man, he had one of them odd names.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Well, he look like a workin’ man.”

  “We’re all working men, Jules.”

  “I mean this man, he look like he work outdoors, like on some building or something, the clothes he wears.”

  “Oh?”

  The elevator had stopped and Jules opened the door. He was starting to slide the gate back.

  “Now I think of it,” he said, suddenly. “All of a sudden I think of it now. He say his name was Eddie Brown. He say tell Mr. Hughes that Eddie Brown come by to say hello.”

  “Why, sure,” I said. “Eddie Brown.”

  Jules held the gate back and I got off.

  “Jules?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You said he had an odd name?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Hughes. I remember it seem to me to be one of them odd names, like Jones and Smith and Brown.”