"Did you used to dream about someday being a champion?"
"I don't think I really had a great desire to be champ," he said. "I always wanted to be a fighter. I had my ten years of fighting, and I didn't become champ, but I'm not bemoaning it."
"That's good."
"I dropped out a couple of years, and then I came back," he said. "I fought somebody—in Connecticut—and I fought somebody in the St. Nick's. The Garden was closed for the circus or something, and I forget his name, but he was an up-and-coming young middleweight who didn't make it."
"I find this interesting, even amusing," I said. "As just a spectator, an on-looker, I've always regarded every fight as a dramatic event, but you don't even recall whom you fought in those last fights."
"I really don't," he said. "The boxing is all past, and I don't live in the past. I live in the present, what I'm doing now."
"That's fine," I said. "I think it's great the way you've been able to adjust, but for your own information, your next to last fight wasn't in Connecticut. It was in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and you outpointed somebody named Eddie Andrews, and then the fighter you fought in the St. Nick was Jackie LaBua."
"That's right," he said, smiling and nodding now. "Jackie LaBua. I was ready to knock him out, and then I got butted and cut my eye, and they stopped it. They let my brother work in my corner that night, and he said, 'That's it, isn't it?' I said, 'That's it.'
"He sensed it, like the day of the fight. When the days drag on, and you start to sweat fights out, you're in the wrong business. It's a strain on you when you begin to think about fights. The first fight I had was like going to take a shower, and Vincent sensed it as soon as I did."
"I'm sure he did," I said, "because I know how he suffered right along with you, perhaps even more than you."
"I know that," he said. "He's a wonderful brother."
He said that he had eaten a late lunch and wanted to get to Burlington, so he would not stay for dinner. When I walked him to his car, he showed me his business files on the back seat. The cards were in plastic boxes, the colors of the boxes denoting the various states.
"I make notes on them," he said. "When I go in to see someone I know all about him, about his family, how many children he has, if they're in school or what they're doing. I know his hobbies, what he shoots in golf or if, like around here, he skis. Then we have something else to talk about besides business."
He was that kind of a fighter, a thinking fighter, meticulous not only in his training but in the fight itself. Watching him I used to think that I could actually see him scheming his moves as he set up his punches, and I felt that one of his problems was that he was seldom able to relax in there or, as they say, "get loose."
Several weeks later I drove to New Jersey, and that evening he and his wife, Patricia, had dinner with me at my motel. She is slim, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and she had a golfer's tan. They have three children, a daughter, Patrice, who works for a cruise line, and two sons, Vincent, named after his uncle and a University of Florida graduate who is in management training, and Gregg, then a sophomore in high school.
When we ordered drinks his wife asked for a glass of white wine and I had my usual. Walter passed.
"You don't drink?" I said.
"I never tried it," he said. "I just don't see any reason for me to take a drink, or any reason to take a smoke."
"That's my Mister Perfect," his wife said, smiling at him. "He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink and he doesn't chase other women."
Walter was smiling too, and he shrugged.
"You're so good," she said, looking at him and laughing, "that you're no good."
"I trained that way," he said. "When I first went into camp, Charley Goldman said, 'What time do you want me to wake you?' I said, 'You don't have to wake me.' He said, 'You want to loaf?' He thought I was trying to goof off, but I'd be in bed by 9:30 or 10 o'clock, and I had my own alarm clock."
"And Billy Graham told me," I said, "that he never liked to run on the road with you. He said you ran like a reindeer."
"Irving Cohen and Whitey Bimsteim," he said, "liked it when I was in camp with Billy, because then he'd be ashamed not to get up early in the morning."
"That's my Walter," his wife said. "Now he's an addict at work. He's a devoted worker."
Walter was shrugging again.
"You are, Walter," she said, and then to me, "He's sincere, and he can only sell what believes in. All these hot-shot kids today, they want to wine and dine them, and then little Walter comes in and he sells them."
"I was at one company recently," Walter said, "and there was another salesman there. The fella came out and he said to the salesman, 'For me to use you, I'd have to change everything in the place.' The salesman didn't know what to say. He should have said, 'Of course you do, but I'll tell you why.' You have to overcome objections, and to me that's a challenge, like a fight."
"And when he does well," his wife said, "it's like winning a fight."
"I'll tell you one fight that Walter didn't win," I said to her but to both of them, "and because of me."
"What one was that?" she said.
"The Gavilan fight," I said, and I went into it. I told them about Irving Cohen turning to me during that ninth round and what I said and why. Walter, listening, was nodding, and then he shook his head..
"You didn't lose me that fight," he said. "Walter Cartier lost it."
"How much time was left in the round?" his wife said.
"A minute, or a minute-and-a-half," he said.
"I thought it was just seconds," she said.
"No," he said. "I've seen the pictures, and I was a little groggy, and I said to Ruby Goldstein, 'Why didn't you give me another knockdown?' "
"And if it hadn't been for me," I said, "you'd have boxed that whole last round differently."
"Only Walter Cartier lost that fight," he said. "It's what I tell our sons. Our son Vincent was a miler. In high school he broke Jim Ryun's high school record for the mile. At the University of Florida he pulled his Achilles tendon as a freshman and then he had mono, but I used to tell him if something went wrong in a race, that it's no good putting the blame on other people. You have to take the responsibility yourself.
"I learned that," he said, "when I was selling real estate. We sold home sites for second homes and retirement homes in a recreational project. There were several salesmen, and we moved with groups of customers. Weekends they'd stay in hotels, and they'd have their free rooms and breakfast, and you had to sell them that day. You'd have them in your jeep because the roads were not in yet, and you had to put the pressure on, but not so they'd be offended.
"When we went through a dry spell, we'd tape the presentations, the whole tour. We'd play it, and they'd put a critique on you, and we developed a philosophy that we had to blame ourselves. The only fella who lost the Gavilan fight was Walter Cartier himself."
"That's fine," I said, "but, anyway, I'm going to straighten it out with Vincent too."
"Vincent will feel the same way," he said.
"I'm not sure," I said, and then I turned to his wife. "You see, I feel that Vincent, as an identical twin, was going through experiences during Walter's fights that were totally different from those that Walter was experiencing in the ring. Vincent was seeing his own face, in a very real way for him, being assaulted by blows while he could do nothing about it."
"After one fight," Walter said, "I had to have ninety-five stitches."
"Ninety-five stitches?" I said. "In one fight?"
"When I fought Joey Giardello in Brooklyn," he said. "In the tenth round I got cut over one eye, and in the last few seconds it was so bad that Giardello wouldn't hit me and they stopped it. They put ninety-five stitches in to close it."
"That must have been terrible," I said, "not only for you but for Vincent."
"Vincent is a wonderful person," his wife said.
"I know," I said, "but I've wondered about something else. The bond between identical
twins is so strong that, it seems to me that a wife, marrying one, may find that relationship, at least at first, sometimes difficult to accept."
"Not with Vincent," she said. "As I said, he's a wonderful person, a wonderful husband, and a wonderful father. Other lawyers play golf. He's in his office working on cases."
"Like Walter," I said.
"Like Walter," she said.
The next morning he picked me up at the motel and we drove the twenty-five miles or so down to Middletown. Vincent Cartier lives in a white-shingled ranch house in a community of well-kept homes set on well-tended lawns, and in the driveway Mike, his sixteen-year-old son, was washing a car.
When Vincent came out of a back door and greeted us he looked as I had expected. From the first day that I had met them it had not been really difficult to distinguish one from the other, for by then Walter had been fighting for three years, developing his body for the demands of the ring, while over the same period, Vincent had been developing his mind for the exactions inherent in the practice of law. He still appeared the slimmer of the two, his facial features slightly less rugged, and he was wearing black-rimmed glasses.
He led us into a sun room at the rear of the house, and introduced me to his wife, Frances. In the room beyond, there was a billiard table, and two of the walls were almost covered with photographs of ballplayers and fighters of the late thirties and early forties. There were pictures of Walter, posing with some of his contemporaries, and with his opponents at weigh-ins.
"There we are up in Connecticut," Vincent said, pointing to a picture that had taken on a brown tint by now, "when we used to box each other."
In the picture there are two small boys and a referee in an outdoor ring, caught by the camera as the two were about to initiate an exchange of punches. Their boxing trunks reach to their knees, and the gloves are big on their hands.
"That's our older brother, Charley, refereeing," Vincent said, "and that's Walter on the left. You can see that he's looking to punch, and I'm just looking to jab. He was always the more aggressive."
"That's a marvelous picture," I said. "It tells so much."
"That's right," he said. "It does."
We went back to the sun room and we sat down.
"I've forgotten now," I said, "which of you was Bluey and which was Pinky."
"I was Bluey," Walter said. "It started in the hospital."
"It started with ribbons they put on us," Vincent said.
"And how old were you when the boxing started?"
"About two or three years old," Vincent said. "Our dad was a fight fan, and he'd fought as a youth. That's how we got to going to the country fans. We were very soft-faced, angelic-looking boys. During the Depression we moved, and we'd come into a school and we looked like sissies. We were always challenged, and somehow Walter would come forth first. He'd say, 'All right, let's fight.' He seemed to have that anxiety to be a fighter, even when we boxed in New England at those country fairs, and one season we were at six or seven of them."
"And what were the fights like?" I said.
"They were fixed fights," Vincent said. "Our brother was the referee, and in the first round one would get knocked down. In the second round the other would get knocked down. The third round was a slug fest, and then Charley would call it a draw. We also boxed in the Navy. We went in together and stayed together."
"Where were you in the Navy?"
"Just in California," Walter said. "That's all."
"And when you boxed each other," I said, "didn't the exchanges of punches ever get so hot that it turned into a real fight? Didn't you ever really try to belt each other?"
"We never had a fight," Vincent said.
"Never," Walter said, shaking his head.
"I can vouch for that," Vincent said. "In the Navy there was a comment in the paper, 'Never pick on one Cartier because you're picking on two.' "
"And you never wanted to be a fighter?" I said.
"Never," Vincent said. "I was always inclined to be a professional man, and so I'm a trial lawyer."
"And I presume that in school you were in the same classes together. Did you do your homework together?"
"As I recall we did," Walter said.
"We did it together," Vincent said, nodding.
"And we got the same marks in everything," Walter said.
"I think Walter's were a little better," Vincent said.
"I don't think so," Walter said.
"In class, who would answer a question first?"
"I think he did," Vincent said. "I thought he was smarter."
"I don't think so," Walter said.
"You see," Vincent said, "when Walter wanted to be a prize fighter, nobody in the family wanted him to be. My father was opposed. He took him to Bobby Ruffin. Do you remember Bobby Ruffin?"
"Yes," I said. "The lightweight."
"I used to see him fight," Walter said. "I was a fan of his."
"My father decided to see what Bobby Ruffin could do to discourage my brother," Vincent said, "but Walter boxed with him, and it encouraged him."
We were getting now to why I was there, why I had wanted to see them both again and together.
"And every time Walter fought," I said to Vincent, "I thought of you. It's difficult for a mother when her son fights. Billy Graham's mother wouldn't watch on television or listen on the radio. She'd wait for his phone call after the fight was over. On the nights when Rocky Marciano fought, a doctor used to drive his mother around in his car. It just seems to me that, for an identical twin, the affinity would be even greater, and it would be even more difficult to watch the fight."
"It's awful," Vincent said, shaking his head at the thought of it. "It's the greatest torture you can imagine. I don't know if it's a greater affinity, but I think the world of my brother."
"I used to see Bobby Ruffin fight," Walter said, looking at Vincent, "and I was ducking punches. Imagine what you were doing for me."
"And I must confess to you," I said to Vincent, "something that I did for Walter. In the ninth round of the Gavilan fight, Irving Cohen asked me how I had it, and I said I had Walter ahead, but I thought he should go out and win the last round."
"I didn't know it was Bill," Walter said. "All I remembered was that Irving said he'd asked one of the newspaper men."
"I heard it was Bill Heinz," Vincent said, nodding.
"Walter Cartier lost it," Walter said.
"There's a sidelight to that," Vincent said. "It dates back to one time when Walter was in Stillman's Gym, and Gavilan was looking for a sparring partner and Walter was looking for someone to spar with. I guess Walter hit Gavilan with more punches in three rounds than he did in the fight, and Gavilan's trainer never let Gavilan spar in the gym with Walter or fight him.
"It came about that Gavilan needed a fight and took Walter. Walter was sick in bed in Greenwood Lake, and the Boxing Commission came up, but I only let Walter punch the bag. He went and rested, but he was not physically strong."
He paused.
"Now I knew I conveyed my nervousness to Walter," he said,
"so I tried to stay in the background. My nervousness was too visible. When he fought Gavilan I was sitting in the back, bobbing and weaving with every punch. At the start of the tenth, I was going to yell at Walter that he had the fight by a large margin."
He turned to his brother.
"You were way ahead, Walter," he said.
"But how can I blame anybody but myself?" Walter said.
"Excuse me," Vincent said, standing up, "but I've got to get a drink of water. I'm getting nervous just thinking about that fight."
"And that fight," I said to Walter, after Vincent had left, "was twenty-six years ago."
"I know," he said. "I have a wonderful brother."
"Irving and Charley," I said, "used to hate to see him come into camp."
"I know," he said.
"You were a tense fighter anyway," I said. "You didn't relax between moves."
"That cou
ld be," Walter said.
"What's that?" Vincent said, coming back into the sun room.
"I was just saying," I said, "that Walter was a tense fighter. Between moves—exchanges of punches—he didn't relax. He was never able to coast, and in the course of a fight that mounted up to a physical burden."
"That's true," Vincent said, "and I felt, in a lot of ways, responsible. The emotion and tension I felt, I probably conveyed it. If I had to go through it again, I would move to California and he'd be a better fighter."
"No you wouldn't," Walter said.
"I'm serious," Vincent said to me. "I did it out of thinking he needed me. He didn't need me, and I was harming him."
"But you weren't," Walter said.
"You feel you're losing part of yourself if you're not involved," Vincent said. "Relatives don't belong in there."
For lunch he suggested that we drive down to Sea Bright, on the Jersey shore. I got into Vincent's car, Walter following us in his, and he led us to a large, rambling restaurant with rooms on several levels, one of those establishments that has the look of having been there for many years and having a local reputation for good fare. The waitress led us to a table in the bar and Vincent and I ordered drinks.
Once They Heard the Cheers Page 54