HARD ROAD (FIGHT CARD)

by Jack Tunney

  “Regular time?”

  He nodded. “Nice to see you, Virginia,” he added with a smile.

  “Thanks, Frankie,” I said.

  I took Ginny’s hand and led her down the corridor in the opposite direction, heading through the side door into an alley running behind the Philadelphia Ice Palace and Arena and out to Market Street. We walked along Market, past the studio where they filmed American Bandstand every Saturday, and headed east towards Center City.

  I wore an ear to ear grin, clutching Ginny’s hand and excitedly recounting my night, happy I could tell her about the fight and proud she could share in the victory. It wasn’t so long ago that sportswriters from The Inquirer, Daily News, and The Bulletin would come back to the locker room after my fights and ask for my take on what had happened, getting quotes to juice up their stories. But these days there were no writers anywhere near my locker.

  “We gonna’ get a cab?” she asked in the middle of my story.

  “Let’s walk a little,” I said. “It’s a nice night. I like it when it’s not too hot.”

  Ginny scrunched up her nose. “Roberto,” she said, drawing out my name the same way the nuns back at St Vincent’s would every time I did something wrong. “Do you see these shoes? Do you really think I can walk all the way back to South Philly in these?”

  I smiled. “Just a block or two, honey,” I said. “Then we’ll get us a cab. Unless we can catch the trolley.”

  Ginny’s expression soured and I watched her smile disappear.

  ***

  A little while later, we stopped by a diner. “Peggy Sue” was playing on the jukebox. I pumped a few more coins in the slots and pressed the buttons for “Jailhouse Rock” and “All Shook Up” before heading back to the booth. The late evening crowd in the joint had drifted away and there were only a handful of people left at the counter. They looked like a rock and roll kind of crowd, and I figured they could handle a faster beat with their coffee, scrapple, and eggs.

  “No more Elvis songs,” Ginny said as I slid back in the booth.

  “This is Buddy Holly.”

  “Sounds the same to me,” she said.

  “Elvis is straight ahead rock and roll,” I said. “Buddy’s got a little more of a rockabilly beat. Both pretty good, if you ask me.”

  Ginny shrugged. “Still sounds the same. I like that Pat Boone song. You know which one I mean? ‘April Love’?”

  I liked that Ginny’s tastes were a little more uptown than mine. Those were the kinds of differences that made what we had special.

  I stirred more cream in my coffee and sat back, blowing on the cup and waiting a moment for it to cool. Ginny squeezed a drop of lemon in her tea. She liked to tell me how tea was a more refined choice – the kind of thing Grace Kelly would drink. Ginny adored everything about Grace Kelly. Talked about her like they were best friends when the only thing they had in common was the city where they were born.

  The Main Line where Grace Kelly once lived was a world away from South Philly, but you would never know that listening to Ginny talk.

  “Tonight was a good night,” I said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Might open some doors.”

  “What kind of doors?”

  “The kind that lead to better fights,” I said. “Maybe turn a few heads. Work my way up the ladder.”

  Ginny wrinkled her nose. “Roberto. We’ve talked about this,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to put down roots.”

  “I got roots,” I said.

  She stared across the table at me.

  “St. Vincent’s back in Chicago,” I said. “Learned everything I need to know back there. Between that and the School of Hard Knocks, I got everything I need.”

  “I’m talking about something else,” she said. “Doing something respectable with your life. My mother says a man needs a respectable profession.”

  “What I do is respectable,” I said. “I take a lot of pride in what I do.”

  Ginny shook her head slowly. “I’m talking about the kind of job where a man gets up in the morning and goes off to work. He puts in an honest day’s work and comes home at the end of the night. The kind of job where he can support a family.”

  I could feel my smile fade, but I kept working to maintain it. “I put in an honest day’s work. Nobody gives me nothing.”

  “I’m talking about something you can be proud of. The kind of job that gets you respect.”

  “I’m proud of what I do,” I said. “Boxing is an honorable profession. It’s not pretty, but guys like Dempsey and Joe Louis and Joe Walcott are honorable men. People respect them.”

  “I’m talking about hard work.”

  “I work hard,” I said. “I’m proud of that.”

  Ginny picked up her cup of tea and pursed her lips, blowing away the steam that curled from the cup. “My Uncle Manny needs help,” she said. “He can get you a job in his butchers shop. Not as a butcher. But you can start as an apprentice and work your way up. A couple of years and you can be a butcher yourself.”

  I put my cup down, hard enough that it rattled against the saucer and turned a few heads at the counter. I got a couple of looks before the other customers turned back to their own plates. This was a familiar conversation. At least once or twice a month it worked its way into our night, and now I could feel it hanging over my head all the time.

  This job with Uncle Manny was something new.

  I could feel the fight draining out of me.

  “Damn it, Ginny,” I said. “Can’t I just enjoy my victory?”

  “I’m just saying, it’s time to start planning your future,” Ginny replied. “You’re not getting any younger. It’s time to start thinking about the future.”

  “I am thinking about our future,” I said. “Thinking about working hard enough, so maybe in a year or two I can move up the ladder. Maybe get a shot at Sugar Ray’s title if things fall the right way.”

  “You and every other middleweight,” she said. “You really think he’s going to give you a shot at his title? That somehow, somewhere, some little bird is whispering in his ear that he should check out Roberto Varga in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and choose him as his next opponent?”

  “Why not?” I said. “You keep working hard, who knows what can happen?”

  Ginny shook her head. “I know that’s not going to happen,” she said. “You and I both know that is just a dream.”

  “So what,” I said. “A man’s got to have dreams. If you don’t have dreams, all you got is nightmares.”

  “My mother says a man who spends too much time dreaming can’t ever make something of himself,” she said with a little bit of an edge. “He needs to have his feet planted firmly on the ground. And a good job working as a butcher is a great way to get your feet planted on the ground.”

  “I don’t recall ever saying I wanted to be a butcher,” I said.

  Ginny grabbed both of my hands in hers and pulled them to her chest. “You need to start planning for our future,” she said. “You need to think about where you’re going to be in five or six years. A man like you, with your background and education, doesn’t have a lot of options.”

  “That supposed to mean I’m not like those college graduates you got running around your office?” I grumbled. “Nerds and squares in suits and ties? That I don’t measure up to them?”

  Ginny shook her head and softened her voice. “This isn’t just about you. All it means is that you got to think about me. And us. If you want a future together, we need to start making a commitment together. That means doing something where you can be somebody.”

  I held her hands quietly in mine. I looked out the window at the cars passing back and forth on Two Street. I didn’t have to be some butcher’s apprentice to be somebody. I was somebody. I had a dream – even if it was a long shot, it was still my dream.

  “Just promise me you’re going to think about it,” Ginny said.

  I squeezed her hand and forced a
smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  ROUND FOUR

  July in South Philly was the hottest time of the year. It felt like hell.

  You spent hours every night trying to find a cool spot on the bed as you tossed and turned but you never found it. During the day the heat rose off the concrete and asphalt in waves. Nobody had patience and tempers were short.

  Kids splashed in the spray of fire hydrants before the cops sent them home. Mothers and grandmothers sat on the steps of their buildings to escape the heat while talking with neighbors. Your shirt stuck to your skin as soon as you left the house, and you killed time on the street corner while you waited for any kind of breeze strong enough to dry the sweat.

  Inside the Blue Star Gym it was worse. The air was heavy and lifeless and the haze of cigarette smoke burned your eyes. The sound of skin and flesh smacking leather, the grunts, groans, and chatter from fighters waiting to take their turn in the ring filled the gym. The smell of sweat was so thick you could barely take a breath without gagging. The only thing worse than the heat were the old timers who complained about it. The rest of the guys just went about their business without saying too much.

  This was the center of my world.

  The Blue Star was on the corner of Passyunk and West Moore Street in a turn of the century brick and concrete building that housed a deli and a pawnshop on the ground floor. It was in the heart of the neighborhood. Across the street a crowd of teenagers were usually hanging on the corner in front of Marathon Liquors, gathered in a tight circle as they shared cigarettes and sipped from a small bottle of store brand whiskey. Whistling at the girls and trying to act tough.

  The gym’s entrance was under a small sign reading: “Blue Star,” and in smaller letters, “Boxing.” The Blue Star took up the top floor of the building, up two flights of stairs usually home to at least one drunk trying to sleep it off before somebody chased him away.

  Inside the entrance two torn and tattered couches were arranged on a strip of carpeting – the carpeting was brown, dirty, and sticky, with cigarette holes burned in the fabric and frayed at the edges. The windows in the Blue Star were caked with so much grime they were impossible to open. A large sign read “No Spitting,” but nobody paid much attention to it.

  The gym was filled with dozens of punching bags, assorted exercise mats in different sizes and shapes that had seen better days, a few splintered chairs, and heavy medicine balls. At the far end of the gym, past the rows of pay phones and the columns of numbers scratched into the faded paint on the walls, and away from the floor to ceiling mirrors, a roped off boxing ring took up the remaining space. Even with the windows shut, the noise from the car horns and police sirens still found a way inside.

  Behind the wall of mirrors there were two small rooms. One was a locker room, with a single shower, some metal lockers we could rent by the week, and a basket overflowing with wet, dirty towels. Towel rental cost us fifty cents a week and most of the towels had barely enough threads to dry you off after a shower.

  Next to the locker room was Ray Gold’s office. Sunlight came in through a dirty window and a small fan on his desk blew stale air around the office. Most times he was behind the desk with a mountain of papers spread everywhere.

  He kept a stack of clean towels on a shelf behind the desk that he handed out when you asked, but only if you had paid that week’s rental fee. No exceptions.

  I worked the body bag in the shadows of the ring a couple of days after my fight. My hair was soaked and sweat poured from my face and neck, streaming down my chest where it collected in the waistband of my trunks. My arms were heavy. Every muscle hurt and it took all my strength to keep going instead of letting them drop to my sides. I kept punching the heavy leather bag as hard as possible, shrugging off the dull ache that spread up my arms to my chest and shoulders.

  The Blue Star was filling up slowly. Guys pounded bags, shadow-boxed in front of the mirrors, skipped rope, and shuffled quickly in and out of the ring. Everybody thought they should have been a contender. Each guy was hoping and waiting for one big fight that was going to put them over the top. All of them wanted a shot, just like me. Like a punch drunk fighter in the last round, each of us wanted that chance. An opportunity to show what we could do.

  My fight against Krupa was already old news. One or two guys grunted congratulations and I got a couple of “way to go’s,” but most fighters ignored me. In the Blue Star Gym success wasn’t always shared by others.

  I kept working the heavy bag, digging my punches into the leather while Frankie braced it against a shoulder so it wouldn’t sway too far in any direction.

  Ray came out of his office with that unlit cigar still stuck in the corner of his mouth.

  I watched him approach, but kept my focus on the bag.

  “Come see me when you’re done,” Gold said.

  I stopped for a moment and turned to face him.

  “What’s up?”

  “Just want you to stick around after you finish,” he said. “Might have something in the works. Want to talk to you about it.”

  Even Frankie paused – it was news to him.

  “Another fight?” I asked.

  Gold shot me a look as he returned to his office. Somebody yelled out that they needed a towel, but he kept on going.

  “You owe me three weeks for the towels,” he said to the guy. “Ain’t getting no towels until I get my money.”

  I kept at the bag, wondering what Gold had cooking.

  Anything to take my mind off calling Ginny’s uncle was good news, I was thinking.

  We had spent the weekend arguing about that – it wasn’t really much of an argument. It takes two people talking to have an argument and by Sunday afternoon Ginny had stopped speaking to me.

  I picked her up after church the morning after the fight. We had taken a walk back to her house and everywhere we turned people came up to me with congratulations and handshakes. I was the neighborhood hero. It made me feel important – like I was somebody special. And every time somebody called my name or yelled out congratulations, I could feel Ginny’s shoulders stiffen. By the time we got to her place she wore a sour puss and had an attitude to match it.

  I knew how important it was to call her Uncle Manny and how much it meant to her.

  But I don’t think she understood how important it was to me that people in my neighborhood treated me like I mattered. When you grow up around strangers you just want to be around people who like you.

  Ever since I left Chicago I had drifted from city to city, looking for a place I could call home. Chicago was still a part of my life – it would always be the city I came from, but I knew it was also the place I had to put behind me. I went from town to town, but none of them ever felt right and I never felt like I belonged. It wasn’t until I wound up in my South Philly neighborhood that I knew I had found a home.

  Everybody knew each other’s names and where they worked and what they did at their jobs. People on the block watched out for each other. Nobody was a stranger and everybody was welcome at your house. The guy at the corner bakery would save me a buttered roll in the morning if I got there too late and the lady behind the deli counter knew how to make my pork roll and egg sandwich just the way I liked it. The guy at the newsstand made sure to tell me when there was an article in The Inquirer or a line in Ring Magazine that mentioned my name.

  Without really trying, I had found the closest thing to a family outside of St. Vincent’s.

  But instead of being able to enjoy the attention I got from beating Krupa, I had to listen to Ginny harping about calling her Uncle Manny. She sure knew how to take the fun out of things.

  “You have to give him a call,” she told me. “That job won’t be there forever.”

  “Can’t I just enjoy this weekend?” I had asked. “I can always talk to him later.”

  “It’s a great job,” she said. “Uncle Manny told me so.”

  I wanted to tell her that if it was such a great job she
should take it herself but I kept my mouth shut. I knew nothing good would come out of that kind of comment. Still, the thought of seeing her expression if I said that was enough to bring a smile.

  “What do you think he’s got going on?” I asked Frankie.

  Frankie just shrugged and dug his shoulder into the bag. “Let’s finish up here,” he said. “You hold your horses and you’ll find out about it soon enough.”

  I swallowed a grin and went back to work.

  ROUND FIVE

  “Got a phone call,” Gold told me after my workout.

  I was sitting on the couch in his office with a dirty white towel wrapped around my shoulders to mop off the sweat. Frankie sat on one of the chairs by the desk.

  “I’m trying to set something up,” Gold said.

  “Who you trying to get for me?”

  Gold took the cigar out of his mouth and leaned back in his chair. “Ain’t nothing definite, but if it happens, it could be a good fight. Good pay day.”

  “Who’s it with?”

  “This guy I know up in New York gave me a call. He’s a pal from the Catskills,” Gold said. “We take this fight, we’re gonna have to go inside two weeks. It’s in Atlantic City. That’s a good thing because it’s so close. But coming off a fight a couple of nights ago don’t give us a lot of time to prepare.”

  Frankie took a deep breath. “Two weeks?” he said. “That ain’t nothing. No time to prepare. No time for strategy.”

  “The good thing is you came out of this last fight in good shape. No cuts. Nothing that’ll linger,” Gold said.

  “Who’s the fight against?”

  “Be easy to get back in the ring,” Gold said. “Ain’t no problem with ring rust.”

  “More worried he ain’t got nothing left in the tank,” Frankie said.

  “I still got something in the tank,” I said. “Who we fighting?”

  “You know who Tommy Domino is?”

  I nodded. I knew. “He’s Michael Boyle’s manager,” I said.

  Gold nodded. “Well, Tommy Domino’s got a problem,” he said. “His meal ticket’s got a fight down in Atlantic City in about ten days. Against some tomato can named Boloboo Rivera. You ever hear of him?”