by Jack Tunney
The oxen turned to Joe, who crossed his legs again. “How do I know you won’t skip out on me after the kid’s gone?”
Ben offered a palm to each ox. Ben shrugged. “Same way you do now, I imagine.”
“I see.” Joe stroked his cleft chin. “So, you’d be willing to submit to my…hospitality, until the kid gets to wherever this place in Chicago is?”
“I’d need proof he got there, but yes.” Ben swallowed.
Joe folded his arms. “How do I know you won’t just lay down once you beat Jackson? If you beat him.”
“You don’t.” Ben held up his left palm to Joe’s scowl. “But I don’t see why I’d want to do that. I think the penalty is pretty well spelled out here.” He nodded at Joe’s narrowed eyes. “Think about it. How much money could you make with a…” Ben shook his head, “…a monster man as champion?”
The original ox nodded at Joe. “They’d come from all over, boss. Lookit him.”
Joe swiped at the air between him and the ox. “Just let me think a second.”
He thought for ten. At the stroke of the eleventh second, Joe snapped his fingers. “This could work.”
Ben stood up straight. “We have a deal?”
“No.” Joe sat back in his redder leather chair. “I think we’re going to stick with your original plan.”
Ben’s brows knit. “My original…”
“Yeah.” Joe shifted his weight over one chair arm. “The one where your ass goes down in the third.”
Ben’s body flushed. He leaned on the simple, black chair.
Joe smiled. “Only instead of collecting on me and heading out of town, my new partner is going to bet all your money, and a lot of mine, on Lance Jackson. We’re gonna take all these suckers, who I’ve told you’re the favorite, to the cleaners.”
Ben shook his head.
“And I’ll tell you what else.” Joe leaned forward. “If you don’t go down like you’re told, and fight how we tell you to forever after that, the only way that kid gets to Chicago is if the wind blows his ashes there. You tipped your hand, Harman.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on in.”
Joe had known too much about Hatton…too much about the disease.
There was only one person who knew all about his disease and about the plan for Ben to dive in the third.
There was a noise from the dining room. Ben looked up to see first his last opponent, Jake Northrop, enter the room and then Pete.
Pete smiled at Ben, a bologna sandwich in hand. “Hiya, pal.”
ROUND FOURTEEN
Joe wanted to keep Ben in his basement until the fight to make sure he showed up and did the right thing with Jackson.
Pete had known better, and told Joe Ben needed to rest. “Let him go back to the flop and recover. He needs to re-wrap that hand. Then let him train, even,” Pete said to Joe. “He knows what’ll happen if he doesn’t show.”
George, the little boy wandered in. Tiny and unsure and asking about ice cream. Ben thought he could see Vicky in every aspect of the boy’s features. Joe pulled George onto his lap, told him he’d had his last food for the night, then pointed at Ben. “You see that big monster man over there? He’s the reason your mommy won’t be coming back anymore.”
The ox behind Ben held him back from charging Joe. The little boy fled the room in hysterics. Joe laughed.
Pete just looked away, glancing around the room.
They sapped Ben again after that. When he came to, he was in a car with his head against the window, a blindfold round his eyes and his hands tied behind him. The right one throbbed horribly.
The car stopped before he could test the knots. The cold dispassion of a blade slipped between his wrists. Ben’s body tensed, but a quick tug and both the knife and his bonds were gone. The blindfold went next and, before he could react to any of it, a big body leaned past him and the car door opened. A size twelve foot pistoned into his back and Ben staggered from the back seat of the car. He turned around in time to squint through the streetlights at the receding car.
The original ox was in the backseat. The older one drove. Neither of them spared him a glance as the car peeled away.
Ben realized the car had driven down the Post Road. He stood on the sidewalk outside the harbor. Turning around, he stumbled to the flophouse, up the stairs and collapsed on his bed.
In his head he was haunted by the count of a ghostly referee, “Four. Five. Six.”
ROUND FIFTEEN
Lance Jackson was a sizable man who hit hard, which turned into a huge problem because Ben had to make the fight last into the third round.
On Friday, during the first round of their fight, Jackson physically explained how difficult Ben’s goal would be by delivering a three-punch combo to Ben’s ribs and liver. Ben dropped to a knee and it was only halfway through the first round.
Pain snaked around his guts and chest, swallowing whatever air he could suck in. Ben put his left glove on his left knee and pushed to his feet with a grimace and a grunt.
Terry, the same skinny referee, got in his face. “You all right, Harman.”
“Yeah.” He kept Terry back with a waved glove. “Yeah, let’s go.”
“All right.” Terry stepped back and waved the fighters to each other. “Box.”
Lance Jackson led with sweat dripping from his right glove. He charged in with flared nostrils and a tucked chin. He tried for Ben’s ribs again, but Ben pulled his elbows close, got low and went up the middle with a right hand uppercut to Jackson’s chin. The punch sent the harbor champ back to the outside with something to think about.
Ben threw his first right in the bout.
His hand wasn’t broken, or at least he didn’t think so. In the four days since Joe’s boys deposited him on the sidewalk, Ben gave his right all the attention someone with no medical training, and no way to see a doctor, could.
By Wednesday, he felt pretty sure he was dealing with a bone bruise, not a fracture, but there was no way to be positive about it. Since all he could do was wrap it whether it was a bruise or a break, that’s what he did. By fight night, he decided he had a few shots yet to deliver with his right, if only to help get him to the third.
He thought about doing more. He thought about the other thing Father Tim always told his boys. The thing Ben always remembered even though it seemed Pete never did. The one thing that made Ben want to fight back, fight past the third, maybe even win, was the one thing keeping him from not wanting to do any of those things and follow the plan.
What Father Tim used to say turned over and over in Ben’s mind. “A St. Vincent’s boy always does the right thing.”
Round one ended with Lance Jackson slinging hooks at Ben’s ribs against the ropes and Ben fending most of them off.
His corner man met him at the turnbuckle. “Little sluggish out there, aren’t you?”
Ben dropped onto the stool without responding.
His corner guy plied his trade. “Something wrong?”
“No.” Ben stared at his shoes, Father Tim’s voice turning over and over again in his head.
“Well, I’m sure you realize, this guy’s a bull.” The corner man squeezed a sponge over Ben’s head. “Gotta pick it up.”
“Yeah.”
Terry leaned in to give the ten-second warning. The corner man gathered his things.
Ben stood and the corner man grabbed the stool. Ben looked his way. “Hey.”
The guy stopped on the apron. “Yeah?”
“What’s your name, by the way?”
“Heh, ‘bout time.” The guy smiled. “Tim. My name’s Tim.”
Ben stood in his corner, staring through the ropes, until the bell rang. Then he turned to face Lance Jackson, who immediately cracked him across the jaw with a right hook.
Ben spun into the ropes, covered up, then danced away on wobbly legs. He looked over Jackson’s shoulder to his own corner.
Tim. The guy’s name was Tim.
Jackson ducked in, got inside and we
nt to the body again. Ben took the first two shots flush on the ribs, but blocked the next two and then pounded Jackson’s cheeks with a three-punch combo.
Jackson stumbled back and most of the crowd, presumably the most who had its money on Ben, woke up for the first time in the fight and cheered.
Riding the wave, Ben charged and drove a left to Jackson’s gut, which was solid, but undefined. The harbor champ took the shot in stride and looked to answer, but Ben cut him off with two jabs to the right eye and a right hook that forced Jackson back against the ropes.
It also sent raw, jagged-edged pain in arcs up Ben’s arm, but he came at Jackson again.
With his back to the ropes, Jackson covered up. Ben dug hooks into the champ’s flanks to drop his guard, then battered his head with straight shots from both gloves.
The crowd’s noise flowed against Ben’s back. Jackson’s eyes were partly cloudy with a chance of closing. Ben stepped back and measured his shot.
Joe and Pete, with little George between them, appeared in the aisle between two sections of the front row.
Ben’s shot was his overhand right. It had all the power needed to make Lance Jackson forget what boxing was, but Ben sailed it past the champ’s stationary head. Instead of a knockout, Ben fell into a clinch with Jackson against the ropes.
The crowd, along with Ben, deflated.
Terry pulled the fighters apart and reset them. Jackson staggered forward, his guard halfway between his face and his gut, protecting neither.
Ben danced left and threw some jabs into Jackson’s gloves.
The bell rang without further incident. Ben returned to his corner as Jackson looked for his.
“What the hell, man?” Tim the corner man dropped the stool to the canvas. “You had him.”
Ben slumped onto the little wooden disc. “Wasn’t sure. Thought he might be suckering me in.”
“I don’t know, man.” Tim offered the water bottle. “Looked like you had him from over here.”
Ben spat in the bucket. “I’ll tell him that when I go back out there.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.” Tim worked the sponge. “It’s working. Have faith in it.”
Terry gave his warning. Ben just stared at Tim.
What am I doing? Have faith in what?
Father Tim’s words. Corner Tim’s words. Father Tim’s words. Corner Tim’s words.
Third round. The round.
The end.
I’m sorry, George. I hope you’ll never have to see me again.
Ben stood up.
I’m sorry, Vicky. I’m never going to see you again.
He met Terry and Lance Jackson at center ring.
I’m sorry, Father Tim. I can’t ever see you again.
Terry called for the bell.
Jackson had recovered. He moved out strong, on springy legs, and peppered Ben’s guard with jabs.
Ben moved left, keeping his distance. He only jabbed back when Jackson got close.
The fighters moved along the ropes to the corner closest to Joe, Pete and little George. Ben blocked a straight right ticketed for his chin and wrapped Jackson up in a clinch. Terry moved in and Ben risked a look outside the ring.
Joe looked up at him, tension etched in his face. He had George by the strap of his overalls. The little boy looking up at Joe, squirming.
Pete looked everywhere, anywhere but at Ben.
Joe gave Ben the slightest nod.
Terry moved Jackson back to the center and called Ben away from the ropes.
Ben put his guard up and bit down on his mouthpiece.
No reason to prolong this now.
He met Jackson at the center and threw a wild right hook. Jackson ducked it and fed a little combo into Ben’s abs. Ben retreated. Jackson followed him.
Ben landed a straight left as the champ came in, but only threw it from his shoulder and Jackson walked through it. The champ went to the body again and Ben grunted and huffed his way back toward the corner.
Jackson’s portion of the betting crowd rose to support him. Maybe that was enough, or maybe it was not enough, but the champ erupted.
Jackson bellowed and struck with an arcing right hook to the jaw that knocked Ben into a spinning sprawl across the canvas. Ben landed hard on his chest. His mouthpiece, and a stream of blood, blasted through his lips.
The mouthpiece landed in front of Pete’s shoes and spun to rest between them.
The blood landed in a thin slash across little George’s overalls.
The crowded exploded, mostly in shocked gasps. Terry herded Jackson into a neutral corner and dashed back across the ring to stand over Ben.
“One. Two.”
Ben pulled his face from the mat and stared under the whirling bottom rope at the spinning figures beyond it.
“Three.”
He shook his head and, drooling, squinted at the little boy’s chest.
“Four.”
Little George stood there, in his overalls, crying, with Ben’s blood and saliva smeared across his chest and palms. He looked up to somewhere in the lights and, although Ben couldn’t hear him over the rest of the crowd, the word his mouth formed as his tears reached its corners was unmistakable.
Mommy.
Father Tim’s voice was a cacophonous boom in Ben’s swimming head.
A St. Vincent’s boy always does the right thing.
And this is not the right thing.
“Six.”
Ben threw his left glove over the bottom rope.
“Seven.”
He pushed up to one knee.
“Eight.”
Left glove over the top rope.
“Nine.”
Ben stood up.
He slammed his gloves together and charged before Terry could ask him if he was all right.
Lance Jackson, breath labored from his last big shot, barely got his guard up before Ben’s first two shots, a left and right hook, arrived. Jackson staggered back. Ben’s next two shots battered Jackson’s guard aside and Ben had a clean path to the champ’s head. He came over the top with a left, drove a hook to Jackson’s ribs, then he threw a low-angled left hook that snapped the champ’s head back on his shoulders.
Jackson retreated to the ropes. Ben followed.
Hooks and straight shots turned Jackson’s gut into a sack of gravel. He wrapped his arms around his middle. Ben measured his chin with two jabs to keep him in place, then blasted a straight right across the jaw that dropped Jackson to a knee.
The crowd shouted its approval. Terry stepped in to move Ben back. Ben threw him to the mat with his right arm and went back to work as Jackson got to his feet.
The crowd gasped as one.
Jackson circled to his right. Ben cut off his only escape route and, with the champ cornered, sent three left uppercuts rapid fire to Jackson’s stomach and liver.
Jackson caved in on himself and dropped his guard.
Ben threw three more punches, a straight left, a left hook, and his overhand right. It shattered Jackson’s jaw.
He was across the ring before the champ crumpled to the mat.
Ben dropped to the canvas and rolled under the bottom rope as the crowd began to collapse on itself.
Joe pulled George by the overalls closer to him with one hand and shoved Pete at Ben with the other.
Ben charged at Joe. People in the first two rows to either side of the aisle leaped from their seats and scattered.
Pete stumbled forward into Ben’s wet, heaving chest. He clawed at it with both hands. “C’mon, man. Let’s just get out of here. I was scared. I didn’t mean it to happen this way!”
Ben shoved him back and Pete tumbled into three empty seats in the first row, which tipped over backward in unison and deposited him to the floor. People fleeing the second row stepped on Pete’s legs, back and face. He screamed.
The aisle filled with people looking for an exit. Ben pushed past a half dozen of them before he saw Joe with George on his hip, maneuvering thr
ough the crowd. He was almost to the pillar where Ben had his confrontation with Vicky.
A beefy, hairless, man in a worn suit grabbed Ben’s arm and spat the words Harman and bum at him several times in no particular order. Keeping his gloves as close to his body as he could, Ben lowered his shoulder and powered the rotund guy into the seventh row, where he flattened a slender woman. The woman’s male companion stomped the fat guy’s shoulders and chest.
Ben pressed on. He saw Joe reach the side door. He still had George. Joe grabbed the cop near the door, who was yelling into his walkie-talkie, and pointed at Ben. Ben grunted and put his left shoulder into some guy’s broad back to shove him out of the way.
Both of Ben hand’s burned and throbbed in his gloves.
He reached the door. Joe was already outside. The cop stepped from between two screaming women and gripped Ben wrist. “Just a second, Harman.” He reached for his belt. “You’re under arrest.”
Ben wrenched his arm free and split the cop’s nose open with an elbow.
The cop went down, holding his face. Ben filled the open doorframe. He looked down at the cop, shook his head and loped through the door into the night.
Most people who had spilled from the warehouse headed directly for the sidewalk up along the Boston Post Road. Glancing around, Ben saw one man, whose silhouette in the shadows made him look as if he carried a sack of groceries, running across the harbor yard for the docks.
Joe.
Ben ran along the side of the warehouse as sirens whined closer from both sides of the Post Road as well as Mamaroneck Avenue.
He reached the harbor yard just in time for Joe’s oxen to tackle him to the ground. Ben fell on his hands and screamed.
One of them, the original ox, grabbed Ben’s shoulder and turned him over. Ben drove his heel into the man’s groin. The original ox fell over screaming in pain. The older ox made a grab for Ben, who rolled to his feet and avoided contact.
The older ox pulled a stiletto from somewhere near his ankle. “We’ve had enough of you, ugly.” He lunged at Ben blade-first.
Ben dodged the thrust, but the swipe that followed caught him across the abs and split them open a quarter-inch deep. Ben howled and recoiled.