Once They Heard the Cheers

by Wilfred Charles Heinz

  They went out and down the aisle, Marino first, carrying the pail, and then the fighter and then Jack. The aisle was crowded, some of the customers still trying to get back to their seats with their containers of beer, and then the calls started from the stands.

  "Hey, Jack! How many rounds?" . . . "Good luck, Jack!" . . . "Hey, Kirkman, how about our money's worth tonight?"

  When the bell rang, Jack's fighter walked out in that Hurley style, hands low and in punching position, and he walked right to Archie Ray. Archie Ray was a straight-up fighter, with a pretty good jab and a straight right hand, and he started out to make a fight of it. He punched right with Jack's fighter, and I gave him that first round. Jack hadn't said a thing, but now he was up in the corner, bending over the fighter and lecturing him, and when he came down the steps at the start of the second round I could see he was still mad.

  "Hey, Kirkman!" some loudmouth was hollering. "You're gonna get yours tonight!"

  "His stance was too wide, and his feet are too flat," Jack said. "What's the matter with him?"

  "He's tense," I said. "He'll fight out of it."

  "Tense, hell," Jack said. "He's never been like this before."

  He didn't fight out of it. In the second round you could see he was trying to settle down and put his moves together, but he was still too anxious. The young ones, if they're really fighters, are usually that way. They know what they're supposed to do, but then they are hit with a good punch, and they widen that stance and start swinging because they want to end it with one. Jack's fighter was still throwing punches from too far out, but he was hurting Ray with right hands. You had to give him that second round and the third, too, although he came out of a mix-up he should never have been in with his nose bleeding.

  "Hey, Kirkman!" the loudmouth was hollering when he saw the blood. "How do you like it now?"

  "Isn't this terrible?" Jack was saying. "All he's got to do is jab and move up before he lets those right hands go. What's the matter with him?"

  "He's still trying too hard," I said.

  "Hell," Jack said.

  In the fourth round he had Ray against the ropes and then through them, but he couldn't finish him, and in the fifth round he dropped him with a nice inside right hand to the body and still couldn't put him away. Ray looked like he was in there just to stay now, and by the sixth round you could see Jack's fighter tiring, the way they all do until they learn pace. He would be all right for the first half of a round, but then he would flatten out and start to flounder. In the eighth round, though, he made one good Hurley move. He drew that right hand of Ray's and, when it came, he turned from it and turned back with his own. It was a little high—on the cheekbone—but it caught Ray following through and moving into it, and Ray's knees started to go as he backed off.

  "He's got him now," I said to Jack.

  "And everybody in the house knows it but him," Jack said over the roar, and by the time he said it, the chance was past. "Isn't that terrible?"

  That was the last round, and it had been enough of a war so that the crowd liked it. Jack's fighter got the unanimous decision, but when we got to the dressing room he was still disgusted, and Jack was, too.

  "I swear I can fight better than that," the fighter was saying to two of the local sportswriters. "That's the worst fight I've ever had."

  "He was in a trance," Jack said. "He couldn't even follow orders, and he always follows orders to the letter."

  "I didn't even feel like I was in a fight," the fighter said. "I can't understand that."

  "The hell with it," Jack said finally. "Let's get out of here."

  And hour later we were still sitting in the restaurant across the street from the hotel. The fighter had a milk shake, and Jack was nibbling on a ham and cheese sandwich on whole wheat and still going over the fight.

  "He comes back at the end of the first round," he said to me, "and he says, 'I'm not sick, but something's the matter with me.' "

  "That's right," the fighter said.

  "So I said, 'It's too bad, but you're here. You're having a bad night, but you'll fight out of it. You're punchin' from too far back. Jab and move up and then wing those right hands.'

  "So you've got him against the ropes," Jack said to the fighter now, "and he's lookin' for the punch, ready to duck it, and you give it to him, instead of the jab. Let him duck the jab and into the right."

  "I know," the fighter said, shaking his head.

  "Now you know what it takes to be a fighter," Jack said. "You've got to settle down and live it and sleep it and eat it."

  "But I do," the fighter said.

  "But you've got to do it more," Jack said. "You can't afford bad nights like this."

  "I know," the fighter said.

  The fighter left then to pick up a couple of the display cards with his picture on them that Al Berro had for him. That is how new he was, and Jack took another bite of the sandwich and then left the rest of it and we walked out onto the street.

  "That's the worst I've seen him," Jack said. "He knows how to do those things. Why couldn't he do them? How could he possibly be that bad?"

  "Don't get sore," I said. "When you figure it out, he's had six rounds of professional boxing before tonight. You know it takes time."

  "But I haven't got too much time," Jack said. "Hell, I think I'll walk down to Berro's and find out how much they took in tonight. Maybe I'll finally find out how good that 'pretty good' is."

  "I'll go along with you," I said.

  "No," Jack said. "You've got that early plane to grab. You've got to get some sleep."

  "I'd rather go with you."

  "I can make it alone," Jack said. "Hell, the way the eyes are now, I can see better at night than I can in that damn sunlight."

  "If you say so," I said, and we shook hands, "but take care of yourself."

  "Yeah," Jack said, "but wasn't that terrible tonight?"

  The last time I ever saw him I watched him then, old and half-blind and aching all over, start slowly down the empty Main Street of Boise, Idaho, at one o'clock in the morning, heading for the Bouquet Sportsmen's Center to find out how much money there had been in the house. Once, after that, I did see him in a way. Four-and-a-half years later, I sat in a theater and watched as George Foreman, too big and too strong for Boone Kirkman, took him apart in two rounds. It was the armored jeep against the tank again, and the old Hurley moves never got started. The old dreamer that was in the old pragmatist had dreamed too much too late, and Jack's forty-year search for another perfect tool like Billy Petrolle was over.

  When we turned off the Interstate now, my wife had the Rand McNally Road Atlas in her lap. There was a two-page spread of the Dakotas, and a street map of Fargo, and the Saturday traffic was light. We found The Forum, and I parked in a black-paved lot across the street.

  "I don't know how long I'll be," I said. "If there's no one in there who ever heard of Jack, that'll be the end of it, and I'll be right out."

  "Take your time," she said. "I'll just wander around."

  Off the lobby on the left there was a door identifying the classified advertising department, and I opened that. It was a large room, with a counter along the right and a lot of desks. Behind two of them, and facing the counter, two young women were sitting, and when I walked in they looked up.

  "Excuse me," I said, "but can you tell me where your sports department is?"

  "The sports department?" one of them said. "That's on the second floor?"

  "And I go up these stairs out here?" I said. "And then it'll be on the left or right?"

  "The left or the right?" the same young woman said, and then she stood up. While I watched, she turned her back to me and she pointed with one hand one way, and with the other hand she pointed the other, and then she turned around again. "It'll be on the left."

  "Thank you," I said. "Thank you very much."

  "You're welcome," she said.

  Jack should have watched that, I was thinking, walking up the stairs. Ou
t in Seattle that last time, before we flew down to Boise, we were sitting around the lobby of the Olympic with some of Jack's cronies one night, and Jack was expounding again on all the hazards and all the heartbreak in trying to make and move a fighter.

  "And how about women?" I said to him, playing the straight man again. "Have you explained women to this fighter?"

  "The creatures?" Jack said. "I've explained it all to him. I've told him, 'Look, marriage is for women and kids, and it's expensive. You've got to be able to afford it. Your best chance to make a lot of money is to become a good fighter, and then you'll be able to afford marriage.' He understands that point.

  "Did I ever tell you," he said, "about the fighter I had who started looking at the creatures, and one day he went to the movies? When he came back, I said, 'How was the picture?' He said, 'It was good. It was a Western.' I said, 'Any dames in it?' He said, 'Yeah, one.' I said, 'How many guys were after the dame?' He said, 'Three.' I said, 'Anybody get killed?' He said, 'Yeah, two.' I said, 'The dame one of them?' He said, 'No. Just two of the guys.' I said, 'There! Doesn't it figure? Don't you see how the odds are stacked for those creatures?' It didn't do any good.

  "Then I had another one." Jack said, "who was starting to think he was in love. You can tell when they don't have their minds on their work, so one day we're walking along the street and the light changes and I said, 'Wait a minute.' Next to us is this creature with a little creature, about three or four years old, and the little creature is all dolled up and has a little pocketbook. I nudge the fighter, and I said to the little one, 'Hello, little girl. That's a very nice pocketbook you have there. Do you have any money in it?' So she says, 'Yes, three pennies.'

  "So the light changes again and they go on their way, but I say to the fighter, 'Don't move.' Here comes another creature now with a little boy, and the light changes again, and they stop. I nudge the fighter again, and I say to the little boy, 'Say, son, that's a nice new suit you're wearing. Do you have any money in your pocket?' The little kid looks up at me, and he shakes his head, and he says, 'Nope.'

  "So I say to the fighter, 'You see that? That little creature with the pocketbook is being educated in how to handle money. This poor little mule here is being taught nothing. All he'll be taught when he grows up is to bring the paycheck home each week to the creature. Don't you see that?' You know what the fighter said to me?"

  "No," I said.

  "He said, 'But, Jack, my girl is different.' Now the light changes again, and this time I go my way. Isn't that terrible?"

  At the top of the stairs now I turned left and walked into the city room, almost somnolent now on a Saturday morning. Across the room, at the far right, a young man, bearded and in a short-sleeved sports shirt, was typing. On the left two others, older, were sitting at their desks and talking, and from the right another was walking toward them.

  "Excuse me," I said to him, "but I'm looking for your sports department."

  "Over there," he said, pointing, "where you see that young fella."

  "Thank you," I said, and I walked over between the desks. I waited until he stopped typing and looked up at me.

  "I'm sorry to bother you," I said, "but can you tell me where Jack Hurley is buried?"

  "Jack Hurley?" he said. "I don't know, but that man over there can probably tell you."

  "The one in the white shirt?" I said, thinking that well, at least he had heard of Jack.

  "Right."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Okay," he said, and as I turned he went back to his typing.

  The one in the white shirt was still talking with the other at the next desk when I walked up. He stopped and turned toward me.

  "Excuse me," I said, "but can you tell me where Jack Hurley is buried?"

  "Jack?" he said. "Gosh, I don't know. It's in one of the cemeteries around here, but I forget which one."

  "There are several?"

  "Three," he said, and he reached into a drawer of his desk and brought out a telephone directory. He started to turn through the yellow pages, and then he said, "Wait a minute. His brother Hank is still around town."

  "He is?" I said.

  I had known that Jack was the oldest of five children, but he had talked little about the others. It had been as if it would have detracted from his pose as an opponent of all domesticity.

  "Sure," the one in the white shirt said now. "He's got a religious goods store. Here it is. It's at 622 Second Avenue, only a few blocks from here."

  He gave me the directions and I thanked him and I went out and walked over. At the address he had given me, the store was vacant.

  "Excuse me," I said, "but I'm looking for Hurley's religious goods store."

  He was standing in a doorway. He needed a shave, and he looked as if he were coming off a bad night, or several of them.

  "It ain't here any more," he said. "They moved around the corner there to Broadway, just up there."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Yeah," he said.

  The sign outside made clear that it was a gift shop and religious goods store, and the shelves and the counters displayed dishes and glassware and household ornaments. When I walked in, a woman, smiling, came forward to meet me.

  "May I help you?" she said.

  "Is Mr. Hank Hurley in?" I said.

  "Hank Hurley?" she said. "No, he's not. He doesn't own this store any more. Mr. Donald McAllister owns it now."

  "Oh?" I said. "Do you know where I might find Hank Hurley?"

  "I don't," she said, "but maybe Mr. McAllister can help you. He's back there in the office."

  He was coming out of the office as I walked toward it. I introduced myself, and told him I was trying to find Hank Hurley.

  "Hank?" he said. "He lives in the hotel right around the corner here. The college has taken it over, but they're letting him keep his room for a while. Maybe I can get him on the phone."

  He picked up the phone and he dialed and he asked for Hank Hurley. He waited, and then he put the phone down.

  "He's not in his room," he said. "He's probably at the Elks Club, having his lunch. He always eats early, and we could try him there."

  "That's all right," I said. "I can try him at the hotel later, but I'd like to know where his brother Jack is buried."

  "Jack?" he said. "I think it's the Holy Cross Cemetery. It'll be right here in the book from the funeral."

  From a drawer of the desk he took out the book with its light gray watered-silk cover. He opened it on the desk.

  "This is Hank's desk," he said. "A year and a half ago he sold the business to me, but I've still got the desk and Jack's trunk down in the basement. It's full of scrap books and I don't know what."

  "I can imagine," I said.

  I remembered the trunk from room 679 at the Olympic Hotel. The room was just big enough to contain the bed, the steamer trunk, the footlocker for Jack's files and the desk where, on the thirty-year-old Corona portable, Jack pounded out the publicity. While he was making Harry "Kid" Matthews into a leading contender and starting that Congressional investigation, he was spending $10,000 a year for stationery, stamps, and the newspapers that carried stories about him and the fighter that he used to clip and send to sportswriters throughout this country.

  "Don't write about me on Sundays," he used to tell his friends on the sports pages. "Sunday papers cost more, and you're running up my overhead."

  "Here it is," McAllister said now, reading from the book, " 'Holy Cross Cemetery, West one-half, lot 35, block 7, old section. Laid to rest, November 21, 1972, 12:15 p.m.' Say, you almost made it!"

  "Made it?" I said. "Made what?"

  "You almost made 12:15 p.m. It's 12:45 now."

  "How about that?" I said.

  '"Born December 9, 1897,'" he said, reading from the book again.

  '"Died November 15, 1972.' Then here's all the relatives and friends who came and signed their names."

  "May I look through those?" I said.

  "Sure," he said. "I
've looked at this before. These two sisters have died since, but here's Billy Petrolle's signature. He was here."

  "Good," I said, "and I'm glad to see that so many came."

  "Well," he said, "let's count the pages here. There are, let's see, nine pages of signatures. Now let's count how many signatures there are on a page. Eighteen. Just a second."

  He reached over to the adding machine. He punched some numbers on it, and looked at the tape. He went back to punching numbers again.

  "I'm not doing something right," he said, "but there must have been about 160-75 attended."

  "I make it 162," I said.

  "Right," he said. "You know, Hank goes out to the grave twice a week to water and put flowers on it. It's been so dry that he's been doing it every night. In case you don't find Hank, I'll draw you a map of how to get there."

  On a page from a desk memo pad, he drew the map showing how we should go north to the airport and then turn left. The page bore the imprint of the Muench-Kreuzer Candle Co., Inc., of 4577 Buckely Road, Liverpool, N.Y., 13088.