by Jack Tunney
“Sounds good.”
“Okay.” Pete extended a hand Ben’s way. “You think you’ll be all right? Little weird not knowing who you’re fighting at all before the night.”
“Yeah.” Ben’s big head bobbed left and right. “I’m not crazy about it, but I have a couple days. Maybe I’ll see what I can find out before then.”
Vine-patterned dress, auburn hair and the spot on his bicep.
“Yeah, good idea.” Pete nodded, jaw set. “I’d see what I can dig up, too, but I don’t want to risk tipping I even know you exist.” He shrugged, palms up. “Plus, I don’t know how I’d get word to you even if I did find anything out. You know?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” Ben shook his head, lower lip pursed. “Let’s just stick with the plan.” He grinned. “Which includes me knocking the poor bastard on his can.”
“Atta’ boy.” Pete’s voice was too loud, and they gave it a few seconds of silence once again. When there was no reaction in the library, Pete put a finger to his lips, then gave Ben a smile and a squeeze on the shoulder before slipping out of the stacks.
Ben’s gaze wandered without focusing on any particular book. He turned back to 158.1 and put a finger on the Carnegie book, but left it in place.
He went to the head of the aisle, then perused the stacks until he found section 573, endocrinology. Ben’s wide forefinger traced the spines. His search took him into a crouch and his finger settled on two books Dewey designated 573.44. He took one of them from the shelf, consulted the table of contents with his finger and flipped to a particular page.
Ben’s eyes scanned the words, narrowed on a few passages and avoided most of the photographs.
Eventually, he eased the book closed, replaced it on the shelf, and pushed up from his crouch, his knees and lower back cracking with the effort.
Ben left the stacks, had a glance around at the almost empty library and went back to work at the dock.
ROUND 6
The scruffy mope banging on the bathroom door stopped banging the second Ben opened it and blocked most of the light in the bathroom from coming through the door frame. The mope, towel and toothbrush in hand, staggered back a step.
“Hey, sorry, mac. I didn’t realize you was…”
“So big?” Ben smiled and the mope flinched. Ben smiled wider. “Forget it.” He stepped past the mope, who circled out of Ben’s path and slipped into the bathroom like there was someone still standing in the doorway.
The mope, however scruffy, had a point. Ben’s shower had been longer than any man’s in the house all week. He walked back to his room clad only in his towel, clutching his toothbrush, room key and piecemeal shaving kit in his fists.
Back in his room, Ben combed his hair into a slick arrangement. Lacking any actual cologne, he squeezed his Stopette bottle over any part of his body where he thought it would do some good. He slipped into one of two button-up shirts he owned. He opted for clean workpants and boots he’d brushed up before the shower, rather than his one pair of dress slacks and oxfords.
He slipped back into the hall, locked his door and headed for the steps to the lobby. Two longshoremen trudged up the steps as Ben descended, giving way to him at the halfway point.
Ben reached the landing when he heard, “… date with another gorilla,” or something along those lines come from the top of the steps. He stopped, but didn’t look back. He then strode past the night clerk at the front desk, who also mumbled something snide, and headed for the bar.
***
“There he is.” Joe smiled wide at Ben. “Looking forward to your debut?”
Joe threw a playful right hook at the ridge of Ben’s jaw.
Wearing a dopey grin, Ben sort of dodged, sort of rolled with the fake blow and tried to be as awkward about it as he might have been before he started fighting, but he couldn’t remember back that far and his gesture was exaggerated and embarrassing.
Joe exchanged a look with one of his companions, a skinny slickster with a face like scissors, and gave half a shrug. “Still looking forward to what you might do in there.” He looked Ben up and down.
The place was busy again. Joe and his entourage – scissor face and a ruby-lipped blonde – had one corner of the bar staked out. Ben wrapped his right hand over his left fist and rocked back on his heels a bit. “So, uh…” He glanced round the bar a bit. No sign of a vine-patterned dress or auburn hair. “Any clue about who my opponent is?” He snorted a little, stupid laugh.
Joe and scissor face shared a smile, which made Ben want to smash their heads together. The ruby-lipped blonde sipped her Manhattan.
Joe reached out and tapped Ben’s forearm. “Tell you what. You seen that picture...I think it was Thomas Mitchell or one of those guys in it. Anyway, that picture D.O.A. You seen that?”
“Yeah.” Ben nodded slowly. “I think I saw it.”
“Well…” Joe gave Ben’s forearm a backhanded tap. “That’s your clue. That picture.”
Ben’s brow creased. Combined with its slope, it looked like a little fleshy staircase. “Not sure what that could mean other than you think I’m gonna be dead on arrival.”
“What?” Joe cocked an eyebrow. “Why would you…oh. No.” He waved a hand near his own face, giggling. Scissor face giggled, too. The blonde sipped.
Joe laid his hand on Ben’s forearm. “No, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to give that impression at all. Sorry. But that picture is your clue.”
Ben glanced down at the gaudy class ring on Joe’s weathered finger. He shrugged. “Okay.”
Joe twisted on his stool to grab his half-empty beer. He downed it in three gulps and wiped is mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced at his companions. “That’s it for this place for tonight.” He offered Ben his hand. “See you Friday midnight if I don’t see you before. What was your name again?”
He’d never asked in the first place.
“Ben.”
“Right. Ben. That’s right.” Joe clapped Ben on the shoulder. “All right, g’night, Ben. See you Friday.” He gave his entourage a quick look each. “Yous ready?”
The ruby-lipped blonde snuggled up Joe’s arm. “’Course, baby.”
Scissor face polished off his own beer. “Let’s go.”
Joe gave Ben a smiley look. “Okay, let’s be off.”
They left, and Ben took Joe’s seat at the bar.
***
“You’re here.”
Ben’s spine snapped straight. Then it hurt. Then pain lanced down his right arm. He felt none of it. “Hey, er, hi, ya. Hi.”
Vicky smiled. “This seat taken?”
No one had bothered to sit on scissor face or the ruby-lipped blonde’s stools in the three beers since they left. Others entered the bar, but all of them had one reason or another for leaving Ben looking like a one-stool demilitarized zone.
All but one.
“Please,” Ben indicated the stool on his left a bit too hard. “Have a seat. And a drink.” He signaled Roy.
“All righty.” She lifted a hip and slid onto the stool. “I feel like maybe you’re a few ahead of me.”
“I…yeah.” Ben smiled at the bar.
Roy materialized, took Ben’s empty mug and looked at Vicky. “What ya have, Vic?”
“Gin and tonic.”
Roy nodded and moved away.
Vicky shrugged at Ben. “I’d order a label, but what would be the point in this place?”
“Right,” Ben said far too emphatically with a far too happy looping fist gesture.
“Oh dear.” She giggled, hand to her lips. “You’re well on your way, huh?”
“I’m sorry.” Ben shook his head, waved a big hand at her. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t mind me.”
His hand was on her knee. How on Earth had his hand landed on her knee? Ben had no idea, but there it was, on her knee, and she wasn’t wearing stockings so his hand felt her real knee.
His hand.
She wasn’t wearing stockings, but sh
e was wearing a maroon dress.
Maroon with little blue flowers on it. Little blue flowers so small it would be difficult to tell they were flowers unless you were close enough to have your hand on her knee.
Her hair, her hair was doing that thing again where it fell over one side of her face so he couldn’t see what was beyond it even if he had his hand on her knee, and why was his hand on her knee?
He pulled his hand from her knee. Sobered. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. I absolutely did not mean to…”
Her hand was on his knee.
“Now we’re even.” A wink and a nod and her hand returned to her lap.
Ben gulped, accepted his new beer from Roy without looking at it or him.
Vicky sipped her generic gin and tonic. “Found any work?”
Ben sat with one hand on his thigh and the other curled round the handle of his mug to keep from floating away. “Yes.” He managed to lift the mug to his lips. “Both kinds.”
He allowed the cold brew to slide through his lips and ease down his throat. Elsewhere on his body, things tensed.
Vicky sat up straight. “Really?” She put her glass on the bar. “Does a girl get to know more?”
“Well…” Ben put his glass down closer to hers than would be natural. “The foreman who hired me is named Thad…”
More giggling and she pushed off against his forearm. “C’mon. You know what work I meant.”
His cheeks flushed. “All right.” He put an elbow on the bar and turned his entire body toward her. “I have a fight this Friday.”
“Great.” She turned her entire body to face his and coiled her legs into a cross between his.
Ben swallowed. “I’m sure you can guess I met Joe.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t nod. Or move at all.
“Joe thought I’d be good for the fights, like most people I’ve met around here. He offered me fifty bucks. Hundred if I win.”
“Very nice.” She sipped gin and tonic. “Who’re you fighting?”
“That’s the thing.” Ben straightened. “I don’t know. Joe wouldn’t tell me.”
“Ah.” Another sip, then she stared at what was left. “That’s one of Joe’s little games.” Her eye flashed at him, then looked back at her glass. “He likes to hold out sometimes.”
“Something he does with the new guys, I guess?” Ben tried to catch her eye, but nothing doing.
“Yeah. Sometimes.” The smile returned to her face and her eyes flashed to his. “Did he tell you anything about the guy you’re fightin,’ or is it a total mystery?”
Ben snatched up his beer. “He did give me what he said was a clue, but, I dunno, could have just been bunk.”
The one emerald eye blinked at him over her glass. “What was the clue?”
“He wanted to know,” Ben finished off his suds, “if I’d seen the movie D.O.A. I told him I had, and he said that was the clue – D.O.A. with Thomas Mitchell.”
“Edmund O’Brien.”
“What?”
Vicky swallowed the last of her generic gin. “It’s Edmund O’Brien in D.O.A., not Thomas Mitchell.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Ben remembered nothing additional about the movie. “He said the title wasn’t the clue.”
“I get it.” Vicky smiled nice and wide. Her teeth were just a bit crooked here and there. Her green eye got all shiny with her smile. “I know who you’re gonna fight.” She stared off at nothing.
Ben looked where she was looking, saw only a sign for Lucky Strikes and turned up his palms. “So, are you going to tell me?”
“No.” She put both hands on his legs and he nearly passed out. “I’m not going to tell you. We’re going to keep it a mystery.”
Ben tried to find someplace for his hands that wasn’t on top of hers. “Why?”
She pulled her hands from his legs and swiveled to face the bar. “Because it’ll be more fun this way.” She looked at him sidelong round the curtain of hair. “I’ll tell you this, though …”
He swiveled to face the bar, too. “What?”
“You’re gonna win.”
“I am?”
“You are.” She signaled Roy and stared at Ben’s nearest arm. “Jeez, poor guy.
Roy the bartender came back. Frustrated, Ben ordered a soda.
ROUND 7
On Friday there were just enough lights to make it plain the arena was a warehouse with a ring in the middle.
Ben’s fight was the first of three on the card. Even though it was his initial fight, Ben was supposed to enter the ring second. His opponent was supposed to have been in the arena before midnight, but he hadn’t shown. Calling it anticlimactic, Joe sent Ben to the ring first.
The locker room was just a draped-off corner of the warehouse. As soon as Ben passed through the curtain, he made his way down the aisle, which was nothing more than a gap between two sections of the hundred or so folding chairs surrounding the ring.
People in the crowd, mostly men, popped up from their seats and scurried to the card table at the edge of the arena lights. Two of Joe’s guys took their bets while two bigger guys stood behind them and watched.
In the ring, Ben danced a bit on the balls of his feet, trying to stay loose. He didn’t worry about staying warm. The floodlights around the ring and those overhead had him sweating even without the presence of his robe, which he’d left back in the rooming house.
Pete always told him it was good to give the crowd a long look at who they were putting their money on as early as possible.
Some underground circuits still featured bare-knuckle fights, either as specials attractions or, in particularly nasty places, the norm. A lot of money could change hands quickly in those situations due to the brevity of most of the fights.
Ben avoided bare-knuckle at all costs. He told Pete it was not the way Father Tim taught him how to fight. While that was true, what he didn’t tell Pete was his disease wouldn’t allow him to fight bare-knuckle, even if he’d wanted.
He banged his six-ounce gloves together as he danced. Even that hurt a bit, especially inside the right one. Ben had to ignore the pain – ignore the disease which was actively malforming his whole body.
The ring in the warehouse was better than the one in the storefront gym, but not by much. Even over the hum of the still-building crowd, Ben heard squeaks coming from somewhere under him as he danced. The ropes weren’t uniformly stretched and there were patches of tape dotted across the mat. Still, the ring felt mostly solid.
A good place to do some work.
Two men in t-shirts and work pants jogged down the aisle. One was the man who’d wrapped Ben’s hands in the locker room, the other he didn’t recognize. Each man carried a bucket and had a towel hanging around his neck. One took position in the corner opposite Ben. The other, the one who’d wrapped his hands, settled in the corner behind Ben. He and Ben exchanged a nod.
Another man, this one underfed with thinning hair and wearing a collared shirt, jogged down the aisle. The buzz in the arena grew louder as people noticed him. Ben had seen this guy in the back acting chummy with Joe.
The underfed guy climbed into the ring and pointed at Ben. A bell clanged, startling Ben and grabbing the attention of the crowd, who bubbled with yelps and applause.
The skinny guy cupped his hands over his mouth. “All right, everybody. We’re about the get started.”
The audience swelled a bit and Ben felt it in his chest. He put a glove to his brow and scanned the crowd. Rough, sea-going group of men with a lot of the women from the bar sandwiched between them.
Ben glanced at the table in the back. Pete stood to one side of it, watching him with his arms folded over his chest. Ben didn’t gaze that way again, but looked the rest of the crowd over.
No vine-patterned dress or auburn hair in sight.
The underfed cross between announcer and ref motioned Ben back into his corner. He obeyed with a nod.
The man brought his hands to his mouth again. “Ladies and gentlemen
, here we go. It’s time for another round of midnight fights.”
This got a genuine cheer from the assembled. Ben smiled. It was almost like a real arena.
“Our first fight of the evening features a newcomer to our ranks.” The announcer looked Ben up and down. “But he looks like he’s ready for it. Get your bets in before the bell for Big Ben Harman.
Ben had no idea how the beanpole or Joe would have known his last name, but he stepped from his corner and raised a glove. Pretty good reaction from the crowd. Some more people ran over to bet.
The drapes hiding the locker room parted and another man started down the aisle, this one in a robe and gloves. This fighter drew a reaction too, but not one a boxer wants to hear – all giggling and smatters of laughter. More people went for the betting table.
The announcer drew a deep breath. “And his opponent, coming down the aisle. You’ve seen him before. He’s first in your hearts if not in the record books. With a record of zero-and-five in midnight fights and nowhere to go but back to the canvas, here’s Johnny O’Hara.”
Ben squinted across the ring as O’Hara climbed through the ropes.
The kid from outside the gym.
He was all lip-licking and nervous bouncing. The kid banged his gloves together, then into his head a few times. He glanced across the ring here and there, but he never looked Ben in the eye.
The beanpole motioned the fighters to the center of the ring. They obliged.
“All right, fellas,” The beanpole, now acting as referee, said. “You know the number one rule here, give these people a reason to keep betting.”
He grinned at both fighters. The kid nodded. Ben didn’t. The kid still had his robe on. He never moved his eyes higher than Ben’s chest.
The ref shrugged. “All right. Back to your corners. Let’s do this.” Ben turned back to his corner, but the ref wasn’t done. “Hey, Harman.”
Ben glanced back.
“Joe says you’re welcome.”
Ben returned to his corner and waited.
From below and behind came another voice, his corner man. “I got one piece of advice for you, Harman, but, if you need it, you ain’t a fighter.”