Monster Man (Fight Card)

by Jack Tunney

  FIGHT CARD:

  MONSTER MAN

  ANOTHER TWO-FISTED

  FIGHT CARD STORY

  JACK TUNNEY

  FIGHT CARD: MONSTER MAN

  e-Book Edition – First Published May 2014

  Copyright © 2014 Jason Chirevas

  Cover by Carl Yonder © 2014

  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 1

  TORONTO, 1953

  In the boxing ring, Ben’s right glove connected flush with Ray Mulligan’s cheek. The big Texan’s head spun, his woolly handlebar mustache whipped out like two little windsocks. Mulligan stumbled back a step from Ben, dropped a knee to the canvas, then fell on his face.

  Ben moved forward. In distress, he slapped a glove to his own head, not noticing the pain arcing up his right arm. “Oh, no,” he mumbled through his mouth guard.

  The round-bellied referee put a sweaty palm to the wiry mesh of hair covering Ben’s sweaty chest. “Get to a neutral corner.”

  Ben went where he was told. Once there, he put his gloves over the top rope and tried not to shake his head. “Oh, hell.”

  The ref flung tiny flecks of cologne-laced sweat across Mulligan’s pink back as he counted. “Three. Four. Five.”

  Ben risked a glance at Pete, his manager, sitting in the fourth row. Short, thin and sallow, he didn’t look happy, but he did offer a steadying gesture with both hands. Ben avoided nodding and drew a deep breath. Only then did he notice the pain in his right hand, which had settled to a low sizzle.

  “Seven. Eight…”

  Mulligan managed to stand, but his legs were unsteady. The ref beckoned him to the center of the ring. “You okay? What do you say, Ray?”

  Mulligan’s nods and grunts appeared persuasive enough, and the ref motioned to Ben. “Let’s fight.”

  Ben slapped his gloves together, the pain inside his right hand down to a dull throb. He moved forward, his head consumed with only one thought.

  Thank God.

  ***

  After the bout, Ben pushed through the heavy boiler room exit door with his elbow. He found himself below street level in a little concrete box with stairs heading up. He slogged up the steps, half turned to keep his wide shoulders from scraping the narrow brick sides, which led up to a dim alley behind the fight club.

  An iron rail bordered the top of the sunken staircase. A chubby guy in a worn black suit leaned against it.

  Ben wore his cheap boxing robe over his clothes. He pulled the hood up and over one side of his face with his aching right hand, then crossed in front of the guy, heading down the alley toward the street. But as much as the robe might be a disguise from most people, to some, it was a dead giveaway.

  “Hey! That you, Harman?” The guy called out, his voice laced with boozy bravery.

  Ben walked faster.

  “Yeah, it’s you, you big piece a trash. I lost a bundle on you tonight, Harman. You ugly bum, you.”

  The guy’s voice followed him tauntingly. Ben slid the hood further over his big, angled skull, walking a little quicker to get out of the alley.

  The street was largely deserted, understandable given the hour, which suited Ben just fine. He was content to walk back to the hotel, but spotted a cab rumbling its way from a block or so up the street. He stepped into the dirty water of the gutter, raising two fingers into the air.

  Another voice rang clear. “What am I going to do? I lost everything tonight.”

  Ben froze mid-hail. He risked a look toward the speaker.

  A young, nice-looking blond kid sat on the sidewalk. He held his head in his hands, his back to a newsstand, hat on the concrete in front of him.

  Another guy stood angled between Ben and the kid, but Ben could still see the kid look up at his friend with big, glassy eyes.

  The kid’s voice was pathetic and imploring. “I was finally gonna buy her a ring. How could Harman lose? How?”

  Ben hopped the gutter, crossed the street at a jog and ran for the hotel.

  ***

  When Ben got to the room, he found Pete lying on the single bed furthest away from the door. Pete was wearing nothing but his undershirt, briefs and sock garters, and had his hands under his head. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t snoring. A big-band ballad wandered through the room from the torn speaker of the battered radio against one wall.

  Pete opened his eyes and focused on Ben. “You change cabs?”

  “Yeah.” Ben shucked his robe and tossed it on his bed. He went to work on his belt buckle.

  Pete closed his eyes again. “How many times?”

  “Once.” Ben tossed his pants on a skeletal chair and sat on his bed. He fiddled with the buttons of this dress shirt with his less swollen, less aching, left hand.

  “Twice.” Pete sat up, facing Ben’s broad back. “C’mon, man. How many times we got to do this? You gotta change cabs at least twice after the big ones.”

  Ben stopped unbuttoning with two to go. He stared at a crack in the wall opposite his bed. “You ever think about what we’re doing to people?”

  “No.” Pete said. Then the implications of Ben’s question hit him. “Wait, what? Doing what to which people?”

  “The people who bet.” Ben sat hunched, forearms on his thighs. His bed frame creaked its protest. “People lose a lot of money when we do this.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Pete sprang to his feet. He switched the radio off and stood over Ben, who was staring at a matted stain on the carpet. “You’re worried about the slobs gettin’ cleaned out? What brought this on?”

  “Nothing.” Ben looked at Pete, shame heavy in his gaze. “Just something I thought about. What we do doesn’t just affect the guy running the show?”

  “So what?” Pete put his hands on his hips. “The whole thing’s a cheat, right? Nothing, and no one, about this is on the level, including those bums what get cleaned out.”

  Ben’s gaze returned to the floor. He drew his left hand over his generous, ridged jaw. “You don’t have to remind me what this is.”

  “Good.” Pete’s hands dusted the issue away. “No more worrying about the losers. The losers pay our way.” He flipped a thumb over his shoulder at the worn chair on his side of the radio. A battered suitcase sat on it. “I already got your bag packed, so we’ll chop the loot and get on our way.” He turned to grab Ben’s little suitcase. “Just remember to change cabs more than once next time.”

  “I didn’t change cabs at all.” Ben jumped to his feet, ripping the dress shirt from his body, the last two buttons ricocheted around the room. Ben threw the shirt at Pete, who flinched like it was Ben’s overhand right. “I ran here. Happy? I ran here.”

  Pete pulled Ben’s shirt from his face and chest and dropped it on the open suitcase. “Yeah, okay. Okay.” He patted the air. “Listen, let’s just chop the loot and get going, okay? Maybe we can talk on the road.”

  “Yeah, whatever you want, Pete.” Ben crossed to his suitcase, Pete gave him a wide berth. Ben flipped the discarded dress shirt over his shoulder, grabbed the small suitcase with his swollen hand and tossed it onto his bed. “So, we’ll just get on to the next town and do this all over again. That it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Pete’s voice was shaky, but there was steel in his stare. “For right now, that’s it.”


  Ben mumbled something as he spiked the dress shirt into his suitcase.

  Pete busied himself with his own suitcase, which sat atop a wobbly dresser, his back to Ben. “What was that?”

  “I said I hope Father Tim has no idea where we are or what we’re doing.” Ben squeezed his suitcase shut and straightened. He stared at the varnish-stripped door. “He’d be ashamed of us if he does.”

  Ben grabbed his luggage and, without looking back at Pete, he left the room and headed for the train station.

  Alone, Pete opened the bottom drawer of the wobbly dresser, tugged out a worn leather case holding all their ill-gotten gains, and added the fresh loot to it.

  ROUND 2

  For this train ride, it was Pete’s turn for the sleeper berth, but Ben didn’t care. He preferred a window. That way he could watch the world go by without the world having enough time to watch him back. He sat with his head against the window, the rickety-rock of the train lulling him to sleep.

  However every time his eyelids drooped far enough to allow him to slip away, Ben’s thoughts would turn to the poor sap and the engagement ring he was never going to buy. He also thought about Mulligan’s last uppercut, which missed Ben’s jaw by half an inch, but still put him down for the count to complete the scam.

  He tried not to think about the makeshift boxing ring in the basement of St. Vincent’s in Chicago, and how simple and wonderful things had been when he lived there.

  Ben leaned back and licked his dry lips. His eyes fluttered closed once again, but this time a giggle from somewhere brought him back.

  Across the aisle sat a boy, no more than six or seven, watching the sleeping man sitting next to Ben. The thin old man had fallen asleep as soon the train rolled out of Poughkeepsie station. He whistled through his dentures as he slept. A messy broom of long whiskers over his lip flapped and parted as he snored.

  Ben hadn’t given the old man so much as a glance when he boarded the train. As always, he was more concerned with claiming a window seat and keeping his size and looks out of other people’s faces. He’d spent every moment before the old man sat down hoping no one would sit next to him at all.

  It seemed to him, he’d spent most of his life hoping and wishing not to be noticed. Even in the ring.

  Especially in the ring. Especially now.

  He gazed across the aisle at the little boy, watched him eyeing the old man. Something happened in the man’s sleep and he whistled, coughed and snorted all at once. That got a throaty cackle from the boy, and a deep, louder-than-he’d-have-liked chuckle from Ben.

  The boy’s gaze shot to him for the first time – the laughter and smiles stopped. Ben could feel the boy’s stare as it wandered over his disfigured, thick slope of a brow, along his unnaturally wide, low-slung, jutting jaw. When the boy’s eyes found his wide mouth and big ears, he didn’t look afraid, just confused.

  Ben looked away as the boy squirmed in his seat and pushed up against his mother’s ample hip in the seat next to him. Ben stared at the floor, but felt the mother’s stare from across the aisle. He glanced her way, but her head whipped round to face her window, her arm encircling the boy’s back.

  Ben let his head loll against his own window.

  The train had trouble with a warped bit of track, sending a jolt through the car. Ben’s brow rapped the window’s oily glass with a loud bump most people in the car could probably hear.

  Ten years ago, his brow wouldn’t have been thick enough or sloped enough to hit the window. But this was now, and Ben just sat with his hand on his forehead.

  He thought about the time before the war, when everything was just starting to make sense.

  He thought about the war, when only one thing made sense.

  And he thought about the time since, when everything, especially his own body, stopped making any sense at all.

  ***

  ALBUQUERQUE, 1947

  “And in the blue corner…weighing in at an even two hundred and thirty pounds…fighting out of Chicago, Illinois…Ben Monster Harman!”

  Ben’s gaze darted to the ring apron, then to Pete. “What? Did he say monster?”

  Pete shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a little thing I told him. Y’know? Jazz you up a bit.”

  “Jazz me?” Ben’s eyes and nostrils flared. “You told the guy to call me a monster?”

  “Not a monster.” Pete’s hands framed the next word. “The monster. It’s good for your image.”

  The house lights dimmed and darkness swallowed the sizeable crowd, though its hum of anticipation could still be heard. Ben’s trainer for the night, a rotund Mexican with graying black hair called Jose, smeared petroleum jelly over Ben’s brow and around his eyes. Ben’s gaze remained fixed on Pete.

  “All right, time to fight. Knock this bum out,” Pete said, making for the ring steps.

  Ben called out after him. “I’m not a monster.”

  Pete just waved and headed to his seat.

  Ben turned to face Jose. “I hate this.”

  Jose tossed the jelly to the cutman, who looked like a thin cigarette left untapped for ten minutes, then grabbed Ben’s face. “Be a monster for me tonight. This guy drops his left before he comes over the top.”

  “I hate this,” Ben said again. “I hate all of this.”

  Jose stumbled through the ropes and Ben stepped to the center of the ring, feeling it was more circus ring than boxing. He faced his opponent. The bony, balding, steely-eyed referee stood between them.

  Matt Masher Richards was younger than Ben and a good bit smaller, but he was lean with defined muscles. Ben was a step up in competition for Masher, who had so far in his career only faced palookas with losing records. At 11-2-1, Ben was the most accomplished fighter to share the ring with Mrs. Richards’ baby boy.

  Masher. That must have been where Pete got the idea for Monster.

  “All right.” The referee pointed at both men. “I want a clean fight according to the rules. Let’s be gentlemen out there, but not too gentle. We got a lotta people here tonight.”

  Masher thought the ref’s comment was giggle worthy. He pointed a glove at Ben. “Good thing we got Beauty and the Beast for them then, huh?”

  “All right, Richards.” The referee shook his head. “Save that stuff for the press after the fight. You ready?”

  “I’m ready.” Masher bounced on the balls of his feet, grinning at Ben around his mouthpiece. “You ready, Monster Man? Heh?”

  Ben stared at the kid’s skull, imagined cracking it open.

  The referee stepped back. “All right, back to your corners. Good luck, boys.”

  The crowd’s murmurs swelled to claps and whistles as Ben returned to his corner. Jose said something, but Ben couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing through his ears. His hands pulsed in his gloves, which made them ache a little bit.

  The referee pointed to the timekeeper. “Ring it.”

  The bell rang. Ben strode to the center of the ring.

  Masher bounced and giggled around his mouthpiece. He pawed at Ben with his jab. Ben let the light taps bounce off his gloves and shoulders. He stepped into Masher every time the kid drew his jab back, but Masher stayed on the balls of his feet, circling left, away from Ben’s right.

  This continued until Masher faked a jab and drilled Ben in the nose with a straight left hand when Ben stepped in.

  The punch stood Ben up straight. Masher kept him there with two quick jabs, then sent a left cross that caught enough of Ben’s angled jaw to make a difference.

  Ben staggered back. The crowd whooped and whistled its approval.

  Masher stepped into Ben now, driving two rights to the ribs. He fired a wild left uppercut from his hip, which Ben saw in time to roll his forearm and shoulder between Masher’s glove and his jaw.

  Still seeing a red blur from the two solid punches, Ben tangled his right arm with Masher’s left and wrapped his left arm around Masher’s back.

  The fighters were ear-to-ear, chi
ns on each other’s shoulder. The Masher twisted his lips to Ben’s earlobe. “You’re going down, Monster Man. That’s what they want to see.”

  “Break.” The referee forced his veiny hands between the fighters’ already slick bodies and moved them arms’ width apart. “Box.” He stepped back.

  Ben’s fantasized again about cracking Masher’s skull.

  The kid must have read the look on his face. “You mad now? You want to fight now?” Masher danced left as Ben advanced. “Not going to matter, Creeper. You’re going down.”

  Creeper. The kid said it. The Creeper.

  Ben knew all about Rondo Hatton – known as The Creeper, an ugly thug, in a string of B-movies – and his physical condition, which Ben came to think of as Hatton’s disease. Ben even knew the big words…Gigantism…Acromegaly…out of control pituitary glands producing excessive growth hormones…malformed features, hands, joints. He knew them all personally – just like Primo Carnera.

  Buy the disease hadn’t stopped Carnera, the Ambling Alp, from becoming heavyweight champ, and it wasn’t going to stop Ben tonight.

  Ben feinted forward, then slide to his left, cutting Masher off at the pass. He trapped him near the corner, swinging a huge overhead right from his hip pocket.

  The blow was loaded with dynamite, but it had the arc of a grenade and Masher, despite being brought up short by Ben’s footwork, saw it coming. He put his guard up and twisted away just enough so Ben’s glove found nothing but leather.

  But Ben’s blow did succeed in knocking the kid’s guard aside.

  Off balance, Ben tried to capitalize on the opening with a left uppercut. But Masher had already moved to his right and saw the follow-up shot coming in plenty of time.

  The momentum of Masher’s dodge carried him to the ropes, where he came to rest as Ben’s uppercut sailed by with almost a foot of air between it and Masher’s jaw.

  The force behind the two errant shots carried Ben forward and he lurched at the ropes, throwing his left arm over the top strand in order to stay on his feet.