by Jack Tunney
Even though both big shots missed, Ben’s effort had stirred some elements of the crowd, who cheered as he hit the ropes. One man in the third row, with a gin-blossomed nose and a fat-lipped girlfriend, shook a meaty fist at Ben. “Atta’way, Monster Man. Kill that bum.”
With a grunt and a tendril of saliva spewing into the front row, Ben wheeled from the ropes in time to catch two quick jabs to his left cheek as Masher circled back to center ring. Ben shook them off and stalked forward.
The scrawny ref appeared in the fighters’ peripheral vision, said, “Ten seconds.”
Masher danced left and right, and grinned around his mouthpiece. “Don’t like the monster stuff, huh?”
Ben’s hands and wrists stiffened, he dropped low. He then stunned the kid with a jab to the gut, and coiled his right against his hip and lunged forward.
The clang of the bell sounded and the referee stabbed his hand between Ben’s loaded right and its mark. “Time!”
Ben stumbled slightly to avoid leveling the referee. He straightened and locked eyes with Masher, who was no longer smiling. Masher turned away and trotted to his corner. Ben backed into his, his eyes never left Masher.
The burning-cigarette cutman shoved the stool between the ropes, but Ben didn’t sit. Jose climbed through the ropes with a minimum of strain, but Ben didn’t look at him.
Jose waved a hand in front of Ben’s face. “Hey. Sit down.”
Ben didn’t sit down. Or look at Jose. Or move.
Jose waved the cutman off, but grabbed the towel from over his neck. He sponged at Ben’s face, giving some scrutiny to the red left cheek. “Can’t let this monster stuff get to you. You’re way too sloppy out there.”
Across the ring, Masher glanced at Ben. Ben’s jaw pulsed. Masher looked away.
Jose scooped two fingers of Vaseline from the cutman’s tin and wiped it around the perimeter of Ben’s face. He took some care going over the left cheek.
“He called me Creeper.”
Jose wiped his fingers on his pants. “What’s that?”
The referee leaned into the corner. “Ten seconds.”
Ben licked his lips, one of the few parts of his face not coated in a thin layer of petroleum jelly. He kept his eyes on Masher, who was nodding as his trainer spoke to him. “He called me Creeper. The one thing. That’s the one thing.”
Jose glanced at the opposition corner, then took Ben’s gloves in his hands. “So, creeper. What’s that? Who cares, man? You gotta get your head in this fight.”
Ben finally looked at Jose. “I’m not doing this anymore.”
Jose’s hands fell away from Ben’s gloves and he took a step back. “Look man, it’s just a fight. Just one fight.”
Ben’s gaze slid back to Masher. All the tension around Ben’s eyes melted.
Jose stumbled back through the ropes and backed down the ring steps. His gaze never left Ben’s face.
The bell rang. The crowd’s buzz swelled into renewed glee.
Ben marched to center ring from his corner. Masher Richards danced from his.
Jose yelled something in the cutman’s ear and he dropped the Vaseline tin to the concrete.
***
TORONTO, 1953
Ben’s eyes opened. He found himself looking not across the ring at Masher Richards, but at the curved ceiling of the rhythmically rocking train car. Only a few night-lights remained lit.
He swiped the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles, but the dull, persistent ache in his hands forced him to use his forearms. He started to stretch, but remembering where he was, pulled his arms in close to his chest. He tried to lengthen his spine while staying within the invisible boundaries of his seat. The stretch felt worthless.
Ben glanced out his window, one of the few left unshaded. He saw nothing but the gentle roll of pastoral farmland in either direction. Here and there the land was blemished by a barn, silo or a little house. Ben thought about the people who lived in those houses, how they did something tangible, how they made the world a little better by their efforts. Ben thought about their money. Even if they had less of it than he did at any given time, the wages of the people who worked the land were worth so much more than the grift he got for doing what he did.
He folded his arms over his chest, arranging his hands in the least painful position he could find, and let his head rest against the window. A glance into the aisle showed him everyone in the surrounding seats appeared to be asleep save for the old man next to Ben, who had been asleep before. He had little spectacles at the end of his nose, a flashlight in one hand, and a magazine, front cover folded against the back, in the other. Ben twisted in his seat as subtly as he could to get a look at what the old man was reading.
Above the columns of text was a photo of Rocky Marciano standing over a fallen Jersey Joe Walcott.
A months-old copy of The Ring.
Ben closed his eyes and let sleep retake him.
ROUND 3
The days before the first fight were always difficult. In a big city like Toronto, there were enough hotels, and enough different routes to get to each one. Ben and Pete could stay in the same room and no one would be any the wiser about their association until it was much too late, if anyone ever realized what was happening at all.
Smaller towns were harder to manage, but it was still relatively easy to maintain the scam. Most places still had a decent-sized hotel or two. If they felt they might have some eyes on them, Ben and Pete could retire to their separate rooms at the end of each night and still have places to meet and plan their scam as needed.
Then there were places like the Village of Mamaroneck along the north shore of the Long Island Sound.
No big hotel, no small hotel, just a handful of bed-and-breakfasts in and around the business district and two rooming houses. One house was in a nicer residential area west of the main drag. The other, near the harbor, had a bar attached. That way, transient longshoremen didn’t have far to go to fill their pockets or empty them out again.
That’s where Ben would spend his time in Mamaroneck. Even getting there was an ordeal, but all part of the plan.
The village was small enough Pete didn’t want to risk being seen arriving together on the same day. So, when the train from Toronto arrived at Penn Station, Pete proceeded directly to the northbound busses and the trip to Mamaroneck.
For his part, Ben wandered through Penn Station and the surrounding streets with his little suitcase. He had lunch in a little place with a counter, then treated himself to an Indian Summer ice cream. Wandering west, he considered going to see the Statue of Liberty, but thought better of it and circled back toward Penn Station.
He did all of this while being very careful to never look even in the general direction of Madison Square Garden.
At some point, he realized Pete had all the loot from Toronto and he was walking around with only enough for a hotel room, or a train. Not both.
Ben returned to Penn as the sun kissed the horizon beyond the Hudson River. He found an out of the way bench and curled up for the night with his suitcase under his head. He hands still ached, but the throbbing had subsided. That was enough progress for one day and allowed him to sleep deeper than he had on the train.
No one on either side of the law disturbed him as he slept.
***
“You gonna be here a while,” was the first thing Ben heard the next morning. It came from a smudge-faced man with a long neck and stooped shoulders sitting at the end of the bench beyond Ben’s feet.
Ben twisted his neck to see the man and put his elbow on his suitcase to push himself up. Something cracked between his shoulder blades, painfully, but pleasurable too. “No. I’m just here for the night.”
“Oh.” A frayed suit for which clean was a distant memory hung off the man’s limbs. He sat with his knees up, arms encircling them. “Hadn’t seen you here before. Thought you might be new.”
“Nope.” Ben pushed himself up to sit on the bench, his case between him and
the other man. “Just missed my train is all.”
The man nodded. “That explains it.”
“Yeah.” Ben’s hands were up to the task of rubbing his eyes this time. “I’m just going to wash up and be on my way.” He felt the man’s gaze and turned to meet it. “To my train. On my way to my train.”
“OK.” Another nod. “I just meant...” His head bobbed a bit. “That explains why you were specifically here.” The man tapped the end of the bench.
“Well, yeah.” Ben’s hands dropped into his lap. “I just told you…oh...” He looked from the man to the bench and back. “Oh. Okay. I get it.” He pointed at the bench, felt heat bloom on both cheeks, though it was tough to tell with the left one, which felt slightly bruised. “You’re saying this is where you usually sleep. This is your bench.”
The man shook his head, showing his dirty palms. “Never mind. Happens all the time.” He pushed to his feet, revealing he’d been sitting on a dirty knapsack. “Anyway, if you’re going to be on your way, you mind if I stretch out?”
“Oh, sure.” Ben pulled his suitcase from the bench and stood up. He gave the man a lame wave. “Well, so long.”
He got five steps before the man’s voice stabbed him in the back. “Hey.”
Ben turned.
The man jammed a thumb in the air sidelong. “Trains are that way.”
“Right.” Ben’s mouth hung open as he searched for an alternative path for his lie, then he just gave the guy a shrug and a smirk. “Sorry, pal.”
The man, now situated on the bench, waved it away. “Think nothing of it.”
***
He’d had fights in little nooks, cracks and crevices spotted around the city before, so Ben knew his way around Manhattan pretty well. That knowledge was all part of the plan.
Having Pete go directly to the nicest bed-and-breakfast in Mamaroneck was also part of the plan, but Ben chose not to focus on that part.
After a cramped, awkward change to his road sweats in a Penn Station bathroom stall, Ben stowed his suitcase in a locker and got his roadwork in. He ran to Madison Square Park, around the park, and back three times.
Back at Penn Station, he claimed his suitcase, changed back into the clothes he wore out of Toronto, then walked 34th Street to Third Avenue. He turned north and walked until he hit 47th Street.
There, Ben made a right and ducked into the Vanderbilt YMCA for a quick shower. The sluicing, hot water ended the thirty-six hours of regret he’d felt, and made him forget about all the money he and Pete had skimmed from Toronto.
Feeling as refreshed as a Y shower allows, Ben made his way to Grand Central at a leisurely pace and bought a ticket on the New Haven line for Mamaroneck. He found the track and the train sitting on it.
He walked half the train’s length before slipping into a car and sliding into a seat. It was an early afternoon Monday train, so the passengers who would use the train were mostly still at work. That being the case, Ben felt comfortable letting his suitcase occupy the seat next to him. He even put his feet up on the seat opposite. There wasn’t another passenger or a conductor in the car.
With his sore hands folded over his middle, Ben put his head back and closed his eyes. He thought of all the odd looks, stares and cruel comments he hadn’t received on his walk from Penn Station to the Y, and then on to Grand Central and the train.
Sure, it was a workday during work hours, but it was still Manhattan. There were plenty of people on the street. Despite their numbers, Ben didn’t notice a single glare or hear a single chuckle. As different as Hatton’s disease made him by deforming his features, in Manhattan everyone was as different from each other as he was from any of them.
Manhattan could have been home in another life. Maybe it could still be home in this one, if there was room between all the skyscrapers and banks for a crooked ex-might’ve-been fighter who was only slightly uglier than if he’d never taken a punch.
The train gave a quick jolt forward and got on its way north. There were now two other passengers in the car, both seated in front of Ben. The back of one head had slicked-back hair, close-cropped at the base. A cheap, flowery hat sat atop the other head.
The hat got off at 125th Street. The slickster got off in New Rochelle. Ben never saw either face.
Manhattan got further and further away.
***
Pete’s information was usually good. In the course of running the scam, one of Pete’s main jobs was to keep his ear to the ground. He’d work the characters in whatever place he and Ben landed, trying to find out about other places ripe for the con. Pete had heard about the scene in Mamaroneck while Ben worked his second fight in Niagara, which had been the stop before Toronto.
Pete didn’t like working too far west because he wanted to stay away from anyone who might know about Albuquerque and what had happened there. Pete was willing to only go as far west as Indianapolis. He even talked once or twice about trying someplace like Bloomington or Peoria, but Ben refused to even discuss such places.
Much too close to Father Tim.
And so, Mamaroneck it was, for now. Pete heard good things about the underground boxing scene in Mamaroneck. Small outfit, definitely very small, but, from what Pete heard, the action was pretty regular. Because it was out of the way, the quality of fighters was not what it would be in a larger town or city.
That played into the scam perfectly.
The main drag between the train station and the harbor, aptly named Mamaroneck Avenue, was exactly what Ben expected to find in a village such as this. All the shops, little restaurants and service storefronts stood exactly where they should be. All the people ambling between those places, or just standing around for a smoke or a breath of fresh air, were exactly the sort Ben expected to see.
There were enough of them along the avenue to suggest Mamaroneck had its share of people who weren’t caught up in the rat race, certainly not as much as the people behind the counters in all those shops, little restaurants and service storefronts.
One thing Ben did not expect from a village like this, be they the faces on the street or those beyond the glass of the storefronts, not all of them were white.
As he walked the avenue, there was the odd stare, maybe a whispered comment or two passed between bystanders. They seemed to Ben more about his unfamiliarity rather than his ears, brow, jaw, size, bruised cheek, rumpled clothes or too-small suitcase.
Or maybe they just hid all of those things better than other places.
As Ben got closer to the harbor, the little stores gave way to a pair of bars, a smoke shop, and, conveniently, a gymnasium.
The gym was basically another storefront, with a plain wood door on the left and a picture window stretching to the right until the next store front, a stationary store, began.
Ben’s pace slowed as he approached the gym. He stopped when he saw the ring on the other side of the picture window.
It was small, the ropes hung lose and the movement of the men on the canvas made the too-thin corner posts wobble, but it was definitely a ring with an attempt at boxing going on inside it.
The boxers were too ancient and too paunchy to be in the ring, but they were still sweaty and swinging hard. Not a lot of solid contact, but enough to keep both geezers aware of each other. No corner men, no referee, just two guys who were probably north of fifty trying to pound each other out in undershirts, street shorts and work boots. A few other figures stood deeper in the gym, but Ben could only see them in silhouette.
“You headed in here?”
Ben realized the question was for him.
He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his suitcase on the ground and his hands held at his waist.
The questioner, a kid about twenty, measured almost a foot shorter than Ben with a mop of blond hair. He wore a tattered jacket and dungarees. Ben shook his head at the kid. “I…no, I, I’m not…”
The kid mumbled something but Ben wasn’t sure what it was.
“Okay,”
the kid said. “Just wondering. Haven’t seen you before is all and you looked like…uh…” He glanced from Ben’s face to his suitcase. “Where’re you headed?”
Ben grabbed up his suitcase and poked his chin at the harbor. “Down that way. Heard there might be work…place to stay for a while.”
The kid looked over his shoulder at the water, then back to Ben. “Guy like you, that’d be the place for it, I expect.”
“I hope so.” Ben started past the kid as a roly-poly woman and her little girl edged around them. “So long.”
“Hey,” the kid’s voice turned Ben around. The kid nodded at the gym. “You don’t box?”
“I…” Ben puckered his lower lip. “I dunno. It’s crossed my mind to maybe try, but…”
“Well.” The kid gave another nod at the harbor, this one slower. “You ever find yourself of a mind to try, you might find that down there, too.”
“That right?” Ben gave the harbor his best quizzical look, which the kid couldn’t see, and shrugged. “I guess we’ll see how the work goes first.”
“Yeah.” The kid ran a red-knuckled hand through his sloppy hair. “I guess so.”
***
Set between a waterfront warehouse and a set of slips, the rooming house with the adjoining bar was what Ben expected.
The unpainted walls in his room weren’t faded or yellowed, but each one had cracks. Some ran floor to ceiling, or wall to wall across the ceiling. The bed would have been uncomfortable for a man half Ben’s weight.
When he tested it, the bed agreed to host Ben only after the skinny posts drew closer together at the tops, whining about it as they moved.
The room did have a tiny table next to the bed with a lamp and a spot for his alarm clock. That was something. No radio in the room, of course, though there was one in the bathroom at the end of the hall, a pleasant surprise.
The room did have a little square sink, a little square counter with a hot plate on it, and a cabinet underneath. A tiny square window above the bed overlooked the side of a warehouse. This was going to be Ben’s home for the next three fights.