by Jack Tunney
FIGHT CARD:
SWAMP WALLOPER
ANOTHER TWO-FISTED
FIGHT CARD STORY
JACK TUNNEY
FIGHT CARD: SWAMP WALLOPER
e-Book Edition – First Published October 2013
Copyright © 2013 Paul Bishop
Cover by Keith Birdsong
This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organizations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher.
ROUND ONE
LOS ANGELES, 1955
I was stalking Willy Stevenson around the ring as if he were a bull elephant and I was a great white hunter. We were five rounds into a scheduled ten rounder, but I knew the longer we fought the more the odds were on a decision going Stevenson’s way.
This was Madison Square Garden – a far cry from the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium, where I’d once appeared in off the card amateur bouts. The arena was heaving with fans. They’d waited all night for this fight and were getting restless with the lack of action – let alone blood.
Willy had two inches on me in height and a couple of years in age. The biggest difference, however, was his pro light-heavyweight record of twenty-six wins and one loss. Twenty of those wins were by knockout. His one loss was to the light-heavyweight champion of the world, Archie Moore.
My biggest fight as a pro had been my first – a knockout of top light-heavyweight contender Solomon King. It was a fight for which Willy Stevenson had helped me prepare. Since then, I’d also punched out a couple of pro tomato cans catching the last train to Palookaville. Those fights hadn’t been fixed, but they had still been cosmetic.
I’d been expected to win.
Boxing tradition needed to be observed. I couldn’t go straight from my first pro fight defeating Solomon King to a shot at Willy. There were too many other contenders and their managers who would have howled bloody murder. The way I defeated Solomon King might have earned me a shot at Willy – and if I got past him, a shot at Archie Moore – but I’d also had to earn a few more stripes to make the match up with Willy legit.
At this point, I was wishing there had been a couple more preparation bouts. Willy was the real deal – smart, in shape, proud, and determined. He had never gone down easy and wasn’t about to lay down for a young pup like me.
Since the start of the fight, I’d been trying to move in on Willy – force him to back-pedal and lose his reach advantage. But instead of moving back, he kept moving smoothly to the side, letting loose with iron-fisted jabs. I slipped most of the shots with my forearms, but the heavy punches were taking their toll. Willy was scoring points, and I was getting nothing but frustrated.
My previous fight against Solomon King had been a crowd pleaser. However, there had been a lot more riding on the outcome than the punch jockey standings. When I wasn’t slinging punches in the ring, I was trading them with hoods in the back alley’s of Los Angeles’ toughest neighborhoods. My career as a pro fighter had started as the result of my profession as a newly minted detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Because of my boxing history while assigned to the U.S. Navy’s Shore Patrol – which had taken me through every dive bar in the South Pacific – LAPD’s Chief Parker had picked me to stop organized crime gangster Mickey Cohen from getting his hooks into the fight game. By taking down Cohen’s fighter, Solomon King, I’d not only secured my detective promotion to Chief Parker’s handpicked Hat Squad, but also earned a shot at fighting Willy Stevenson – who was a policeman of a different type.
In the boxing world a policeman is a fighter who protects the current champion from having to face every contender who thinks he deserves a shot. Willy Stevenson had gone down to a monstrous right cross in the final round in his loss to Archie Moore. Now, he was the man every serious up-and-coming fighter had to go through before they could get a shot at Moore’s title belt. In the past year, nobody had gotten past Willy, while Moore had punched out a couple of set-ups to keep his hand in.
I’d been promised a legitimate shot at Moore if I could get past Willy, but that was proving to be a huge obstacle.
When the timekeeper rang the bell to end the round, Willy immediately disengaged and moved to his corner. He didn’t make eye contact or even acknowledge I was in the ring with him.
Back in my own corner, I plopped down on the low stool and spat my mouthpiece into Pop Hawks’ waiting hand.
Pops had been my trainer while I was an amateur and now as a pro. He was a retired L.A. cop who owned Ten Hawks Gym. Named for Pops’ extended brood of ten natural and adopted kids, it was located a block away from LAPD’s Central station where I’d once been assigned. The gym was still where I hung up my gloves at night, living in two rooms on the second floor.
“You ain’t getting it done out there,” Pops said. He poured water into my mouth. I swirled it around and spat it into a bucket held by Tina Hawks, Pops’ teenage tomboy daughter.
“Ain’t no judges going to give you a decision,” Pops continued, rubbing Vaseline over my eyebrows and the skin above.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said in-between rasping breaths. I stood up. “He knows everything I’m going to do.”
“Then do something he doesn’t know,” Pops said. He slipped my mouthpiece back in and climbed out of the ring, taking my stool with him just as the bell sounded to start the next round.
Willy came out to meet me as he had done every round, confident and unhurried. We traded a couple of desultory jabs and the crowd began to boo and catcall.
I suddenly realized what my problem was. I liked Willy. In past fights, both in the ring and out, I’d had no connection to my opponent. Against Solomon King, I’d had a deep burning anger and a job to do. Against Willy, I had none of those things.
And then he hit me.
Hard – rocking my head back.
The shots we’d traded up to this point in the fight were taps by comparison. My body turned instinctively to ride the power from the punch and rolled into another bomb from Willy’s right hand.
I staggered back, but Willy gave me no reprieve. He crowded in, forcing me back against the ropes. As I moved my hands up to cover my head, Willy let loose on my body. I tucked my elbows in, trying to protect my ribs, but the move opened my jaw to an uppercut that should have torn my head off.
As Willy threw the punch, I got lucky. I’d turned my right knee slightly to keep balance, which also had the effect of moving my head out of the direct line of fire. Willy’s uppercut glanced off my left cheek, scuffing the skin, but also throwing Willy off balance.
It had been a knockout blow. All of Willy’s impressive power had been behind the punch. If it had landed, I wouldn’t have woken up for a week.
In that split second, the fight changed for me. I tucked my head into my shoulders and banged my way off the ropes. Willy was as unprepared for my onslaught as I had been for his. He thought he was going to finish me, but his chance had come and he’d missed it.
The roar of the crowd suddenly registered in my ears. They had come alive and were screaming their approval of the action. Willy had been circling away to his right the whole fight, slipping my left jabs and not letting me get set to throw anything with my right hand. Abruptly, I switched to hooking my left, stopping his natural movement to the right.
I hooked once, twice, and then t
hrew a straight right. Willy slipped it with his forearm, but I could tell he was unsettled. As a veteran fighter, he’d thought he had me. Instead, I finally had my head in the fight, and Willy could sense the shift.
I was also aware of something new inside me, a cold determination not to give up, back down, or let another fighter have his way with me. The hate and anger that had fueled my fighting for so long, just hadn’t been there against Willy. But this new sensation was just as powerful, if not more so.
It was as if a switch had been thrown, transforming me from a talented slugger to a seasoned professional. Things I had only sensed before – angles for punches, openings in an opponent’s defenses – I could now see clearly. Willy was a great fighter, but I knew I was better.
I suddenly remembered who I was – Patrick Felony Flynn the giant killer – and I was not going to lose this fight.
I’d been a fighter all my life. Even before being taken in by St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys. My older brother Mickey and I had survived with our fists on the streets of Chicago. In the orphanage, under the direction of Father Tim, we’d learned to use our fists for the right reasons.
The man who Mickey and I knew as Father Tim The Battling Priest, had once been known as Golden Gloves champion Tim Tornado Brophy. He used the sweet science to teach me and Mickey, and so many other boys, how to be men – how to accept responsibility, how to believe in ourselves, how to protect those who were weaker, how to never, ever, give anything but our best.
Father Tim’s lessons had kept me and Mickey alive on many occasions. Mickey had made a career of the Merchant Marine – champion of his ship, Wide Bertha, and every makeshift ring from Shanghai to Havana. As for me, Father Tim’s lessons had helped keep the ball of anger I always carried inside me in check until I needed to unleash it.
There were three things in life that had never let me down – my brother Mickey, Father Tim, and the power in my fists.
I hadn’t seen him, but I knew Archie Moore was in the audience. He was a great champion, and I had to punch my way through Willy to get a shot at him. I wanted that shot ... I’d fought for that shot ... And Willy wasn’t going to keep me from it.
I hit Willy with another straight right. I’d put my shoulder and hips behind it and the blow was telling. Willy staggered back, covering up, but I didn’t give him any time to regroup. I dropped any pretense of defense and raged into an all out attack.
I threw combination after combination up and down Willy’s body. I blasted his arms out of the way and went after his chin and face. This was a new rage to me. It was not the hot rage of anger, but the ice cold clinical rage of the professional boxer.
Willy wasn’t going to go down easy. He fought back desperately, but I didn’t even feel his punches as they connected. He tried to clinch, but I battered him back. The clock in my head said there was maybe thirty seconds left in the round. I had to put Willy down now.
I threw two rapid left jabs giving Willy the space to circle back to the right, but even as he did, he saw the trap I’d laid. My right was already in motion with all the torque in my body behind it. It was the knockout blow and Willy knew it.
There was no time, but Willy still tried to get out of the way. He pulled his chin in, moving it out of the path of my punch, and lowered his forehead. My punch swept past his chin, landing solid and square on the hard ridge of skull above Willy’s eyes.
I felt the force from the blow run from my fist all the way to my shoulder. Willy dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. The crowd surged to their feet.
The thud of the punch landing had been loud enough to be heard all the way back to the cheap seats – completely obliterating the sharp crack of my wrist breaking ...
ROUND TWO
THREE MONTHS LATER
The heyday of hobos riding the rails had come and gone in the late ‘40s. However, even deep into the ‘50s, the area around the tracks of L.A.’s Union Station still harbored many men still living the stark hobo existence.
Tombstone was driving our black detective sedan, pulling it to the curb a block short of the Midnight Mission soup kitchen. The eatery was favored by travelling men who didn’t have the price of a meal, let alone the cost of a train ticket.
An imposing six-foot-five, Cornel Tombstone Jones was L.A.P.D.’s first black detective. He’d been my partner on Chief Parker’s Hat Squad for the past year, and we’d managed to work well together. Any built in prejudices I might have developed based on a man’s skin color had long ago been driven out of me by Father Tim. Boxing had also helped me lose any racial prejudices thrust at me by society – in the ring, the color of a man’s skin made not the slightest difference to the power in his fists or the determination in his heart.
Getting out of the sedan, Tombstone opened the back door and retrieved his gray Borsalino. He placed it just so on his head, covering the distinct comma of white falling across his forehead from his otherwise tar black hair. He ran his fingers around the brim of his hat and looked over at me with a smile.
“What are you grinning at?” I asked.
“I liked what I saw in the gym today. You’re starting to work your right again.”
I retrieved my own black Fedora, set it on my head at an angle, and shrugged. “Still doesn’t feel strong.”
“You saying Archie Moore has nothing to worry about?”
I was used to Tombstone’s style of gentle teasing, but this was a sore subject for me. “I’m saying it still doesn’t feel strong.”
The break in my wrist from punching Willy Stevenson had been a clean fracture. It had healed quickly, but I was tentative about using it. Pops had been on me for several weeks to get back into rhythm with my combinations, but I wasn’t ready yet. I didn’t know if I ever would be.
“You hear anything from Moore’s manager?” Tombstone asked, walking over to join me on the sidewalk.
I shook my head. “I haven’t been medically cleared to fight yet. Once that happens, we’ll have to see if the bout is still on.”
Archie Moore was one of the classiest light-heavyweight champions ever. He would have given me a shot at the title after I kayoed Willy, but my broken wrist had set circumstances on end. There were many other fighters clamoring for their own shot.
Moore was a smart fighter. He didn’t need to put his title on the line to a relative newcomer like me, especially as I’d put down the man who had been blocking everyone else’s path to the championship. Moore’s camp would have to put him up against somebody other than me, soon.
I realized I’d unconsciously made a fist with my right hand. I wiggled the wrist back and forth. There was a slight stiffness. Tombstone had been holding the heavy bag for me to punch earlier in the day. He wasn’t saying anything, but I suspected he knew I wasn’t hitting with real power.
We walked down the sidewalk to the soup kitchen entrance and turned in. There were three dozen men gathered in the large main hall either sitting on benches or standing in the food line. Conversation and eating stopped when we appeared. Nobody looked at us directly, but they were all aware of our presence.
Father Pedro Cruz, surrendered the soup ladle he was wielding to one of his acolytes and came to meet us. “Detectives, welcome. Thank you for coming.” He spoke loudly, his smile as broad as his Hispanic accent. His obvious comfort with us put everyone else at ease, conversation and eating starting up again.
“A full house as usual, Father Cruz,” I said, looking around.
The priest shrugged. “They say times are prosperous for many, but not for all.” The simple, rough cloth hassock he wore did little to hide the thinness of his tall frame. The lines of his face told the story of his compassion and empathy.
“Hopefully, this will help,” I said, taking an envelope from the pocket of my dark suit.
Father Cruz smiled and took the proffered donation. “Thank you.”
It was a small thing on my part. I had no family and my needs were few and simple. My police salary more than covered my c
osts, and the purse from the Stevenson fight was still untouched in my bank account. Father Cruz was a good man and a good cause.
He waggled the envelope at me. “You do know this is not why I called you?”
“We didn’t think it was,” I said. “But I know you will put it to good use.”
Father Cruz nodded. “Please, come to my office.” He turned and led the way.
We walked past the rows of men on simple wooden benches pulled up to scarred wooden tables. They studiously avoided looking at us. Their clothes were shabby, but most had taken some care at cleanliness. These were men clearly down on their luck, but still with vestiges of pride. No doubt some struggled with alcohol and other addictions. Some had been in an out of the state mental hospital up the coast in Camarillo. Some would eventually be taken back there. Some were simply addicted to the nomadic life, riding the rails from town to town, taking odd jobs until the fever to travel on gripped them again.
None of them wanted to interact with the police.
There were no women or children here. There were other sanctuaries for them. Father Cruz’s personal mission was with these men. They trusted him, talked to him, confessed to him. Cops or anyone in authority made them nervous, mostly with good cause. But if Father Cruz accepted us, they trusted his judgment we were not an immediate threat.
Like the rest of the Midnight Mission, Father Cruz’s office was Spartan in its furnishings. There was a simple cross on one wall, two chairs, a small desk, an iron cot with a thin mattress, and a three drawer chest, all of which were beyond second hand. The rug on the floor was brightly woven and added a touch of warmth, but I knew Father Cruz had done the looming himself.
A man was sitting uncomfortably in one of the straight-backed chairs. His suit was as shabby as those worn by the men in the main hall, the trilby in his hand battered and frayed. He wore no tie, but his once white shirt was buttoned at the neck. He startled as we entered, which surprised me as he was a big man and was clearly waiting for us.