by Jack Tunney
Falcone stood and yelled at us. “And it there’s no fight, that scow you call a ship is mine.”
The locals cheered loudly. Falcone bowed to them, then bought a round on the house, which earned him another cheer. Luciano didn’t look so impressed, though. In fact, he looked irritated.
The cap’n made a show of kicking and cursing some more, but in the end, we had no choice other than to accept the cutman and he knew it. Falcone had deliberately boxed us.
Hernando climbed through the ropes. He was a skinny old guy in his fifties who’d seen better days. His black suit hung on him and he looked like an undertaker. Thick glasses magnified his watery eyes and made him look apologetic.
“Do not worry, senor.” He had a whispery thin voice. “I am very good at what I do. Now, por favor. I must attend to your eye. A little more protection, I think.” He set down a scarred black bag at my feet and rummaged through the contents.
“What are you going to do?”
“Apply a – how do you say?” Hernando held up what looked like a short stick of off-white wax.
I recognized what it was immediately. “Styptic pencil.”
He nodded and smiled. “Si. Styptic pencil.”
I relaxed a little as he ran the pencil over the cut. The chemicals contained in the medicine made blood vessels close off so a fighter wouldn’t bleed. I carried one in my shaving kit too. No big deal, and I thought maybe it would help. I figured I was gonna get bloody before the fight was over, but I intended to do the same to Simbari.
Hernando was just finishing up checking my laces when Simbari came downstairs. A half-dozen guys ringed him in a protective circle, making a production out of it.
I cut my gaze over Hernando’s shoulder to watch, but the old man ignored everything but me. His soft brown eyes kept searching my face, staring into my eyes.
Falcone’s toadies stood and started clapping as Simbari crossed the floor. Cheers thundered inside the room till they reached a deafening level. Simbari grinned and touched his gloves together over his head, like he’d already won the fight. One of the guys walking with him stood on the bottom ropes and raised the others, making the opening bigger so Simbari could duck through.
He was dressed in a red silk robe over red trunks. He shucked out of the robe, banged his gloves together, and posed for the crowd, throwing them into another tizzy.
The grandstanding was making me sick. I couldn’t wait to paste him one in the kisser.
Hernando was still looking at me.
I focused on the old guy. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I was simply studying your face. I need to know what it looks like so I may help after the fight.”
“Help what?”
“Put everything back where it belongs.”
I just stared at him as he leaned down, picked up his bag, and stepped out of the ring. I stood and the cap’n slipped my stool out of the ring.
The bald referee waved me to the center of the ring, then waved Simbari over. People started chanting Simbari, Simbari, and the noise level inside the basement climbed again.
Blue-gray smoke pooled and eddied under the bright lights hanging overhead. The heat washed down over me. My heart thundered in my chest and I felt like I was about to explode ’cause I was so wired. I looked up at Simbari and stared into his dead gaze.
“Okay, gentlemen.” The referee knew he wasn’t fooling nobody with the term, and I think it amused him to use it ’cause he had a little smile. “I want a relatively clean fight – ”
That was when Simbari planted a big right hand in the middle of my face.
ROUND 24
I cursed myself as my legs momentarily turned to rubber beneath me and the lights dimmed. My eyes fluttered and I struggled to keep them open. I should have been expecting Simbari to pull something like a cheap punch. I had been expecting it, in fact. And the guy still surprised me.
I stumbled back a couple steps and had to work on keeping my balance. If I hadn’t had so much practice riding out a pitching deck, I might not have managed to stay upright. But I did. My nose and mouth hurt something fierce, and I blinked through watering eyes. I set myself as Simbari came at me again, raised my arms to protect my head. I turned away a salvo of blows, but a few of them got through, not with as much zip, though.
The referee stepped in between us to break it up, but I knew that was all show. I believed he’d known Simbari was gonna pop me one while he was talking to us. The referee finished his spiel at the same time he was pointing me to return to my corner. I thought about ripping the guy out of the way and going for Simbari, but knew that was stupid. I wasn’t ready to make that kind of play, and I didn’t want to give Falcone any reason to call foul later.
Walking sideways, keeping an eye on Simbari, I retreated back to my corner. Hernando held out my mouthpiece. I opened my mouth and he fit the hard rubber into place. I clamped my teeth down on it, already tasting salty blood. My upper lip was swelling.
The cap’n stood nearby and looked tense. “Mick, you shoulda known he was gonna do that.”
“I did.” It was hard talking around the mouthpiece with the puffy lip. “He’s fast.”
“Then you’re gonna have to be faster.”
I nodded and pounded my gloves together, waiting for the bell to start the round while I ignored the clamor screaming inside my skull. Simbari had a better punch than I’d thought, and he’d hit me a pretty good lick. A lot of the crowd was cheering Simbari for his cheap shot. It looked like all of them wanted him to take my head off.
The bell rang and I went out into the center of the ring, hunting Simbari and wanting to hurt him. I went at him hard, throwing everything I had, trying to beat my way through his defenses. He let me do that for a time, confident that I was gonna run out of gas. Then, when I was drawing back, he launched a left jab that exploded on my right cheekbone and twisted my head. God, he was fast. I never saw that glove coming, and I thought I’d been covered up.
The overhead lights kaleidoscoped as I went backward, getting small and big and spinning all around me. I tried to get my feet under me and couldn’t quite do it. Before I knew it, I was flat on my back on the canvas. I couldn’t believe it.
I rolled over, head spinning and arms feeling like lead, and got to my knees. Getting to my feet was hard and seemed like it took all day. By the time I stood, Simbari was already there, ignoring the referee’s orders to return to his corner in between counting me down. He reached seven by the time I got to my feet. Simbari came at me immediately, shaking off the referee and steeping into his next combination.
Simbari hit me with a right, then a left, then another right, taking advantage of the dazed state I was in. I barely kept my feet under me, and I kept stumbling backward to stay upright. I stepped sideways and managed to throw an arm over the ropes. Simbari was supposed to clear off at that point, but he didn’t. He pounded me a couple more times, driving me backward. Although he was putting on a good show of yelling at Simbari, the referee was no help at all.
I ducked under a roundhouse that would have cleaned my clock, got off the ropes, and got my hands up in front of me. Simbari didn’t cut me no slack, pounding and punching relentlessly, like he wasn’t no man at all but some kind of diesel powered machine. My arms and shoulders took the worst of it.
I circled, managing to keep my legs and feet working, figuring out my left from my right over and over as I went along. I knew I’d been in tougher fights, but those had always been against more than one opponent.
That fight I’d seen Simbari have with the German hadn’t showed me everything Simbari could do. The guy had no backup in him, and his only mission was to beat me to a pulp. I kept my hands up, protected my face and head as much as I could, but Simbari didn’t sweat it. He just hammered away, trying to knock chunks of me away with every punch.
I only felt some of the punishment he was dealing out, which was a good thing and a bad thing all at once. Good because there was a lot of pain, but bad because I knew I was
halfway in the bag. I couldn’t get my rhythm going. I threw punches, trying to keep him honest, but every time I let one fly, he slid away like a ghost and connected with one of his own.
Staggering, listening to the crowd yelling for my blood, I stayed in the center of the ring and off the ropes. I knew that if I got on the ropes Simbari would make mincemeat outta me. That referee wasn’t gonna be no help, and the rules didn’t matter.
Finally, the bell rang to end the round. I kept covered up because I knew Simbari was gonna try to cheap shot me again, and he did. I caught the piledriver on my gloves, but they just made a cushion that popped back into my face and rocked my head back. I took a step to catch my balance, breathing like a bellows and sucking air like a man just escaped drowning.
The referee wrapped himself around Simbari, and this time Simbari allowed the bald guy to force him to his corner. But he was snarling and pointing at me like a madman. “I’m gonna pound you, Irish! They’re gonna scrape what’s left of you from the floor!”
Warily, I walked back to my corner and sat down on the stool as the cap’n slid it through the ropes.
Round One belonged to Simbari and I knew it.
ROUND 25
“It’s okay, Mick. You’re doing great.” The cap’n massaged my arms and shoulders, working quick. Hernando got out his styptic pencil and started working on my face, which was beginning to feel like I’d walked into a beehive.
I didn’t have the breath to argue with the cap’n, but I knew I’d made a poor showing. Having my bell rung before the round had started had put me behind. I sat there and worked on getting my breath back, trying to figure out how I was gonna get on top of this fight.
Memories swam in my head, washing over me like breakers. All those long, hot afternoons down in the basement at St. Vincent’s working with Father Tim. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, I knew I’d never get far from that little room. Them bouts with other boys, including my brother Pat when he got big enough, and all that teaching from Father Tim had formed me into the man I was today.
He’d taught me how to center myself, how to slip a punch, how to dig into the canvas and bring more power and snap to a punch. He’d taught me how to care about myself – and Pat – and how to be the man I took pride in being. I wasn’t never gonna be respectable the way Pat was gonna be, at least, probably not respectable in the way my brother was with his job with the cops, but I didn’t have no fear of looking at myself in the mirror.
I was my own man.
I took another deep breath.
“You still with me, Mick?” The cap’n was peering into my eyes.
“Yeah, yeah.” I nodded, still working on breathing, and that was difficult because my nose was full of blood.
Hernando finished up with the pencil, then swapped blood outta my nose, bringing out strings of it that fell across my chest. I snuffled and tasted more blood, but my nose was clearer. The old cutman squirted water into my mouth.
“Don’t swallow.”
I didn’t. I just swished it through my teeth.
Hernando held up the spit bucket and I spit pink-tinted water into it. He put the bucket away and grabbed a towel to wipe the blood off my chest. I had to give it to the old man, he knew what he was doing and I appreciated having him there.
“You are doing good with the eye, senor. Keeping it protected, yes?”
“Yeah.” Actually, I hadn’t even thought about the eye. Everything was hurting.
In the opposite corner, Simbari just sat watching me, like he was some kind of predatory bird just waiting to swoop down on me. He didn’t look like he was breathin hard at all, and there wasn’t a mark on him.
“Okay, go get him, champ.” The cap’n took the stool away when I stood, and I noticed my legs felt a little more solid. I banged my gloves together, more for show than anything.
The bell rang and I went out to meet Simbari. This time I wasn’t so eager, but he was, and he crossed the floor in long strides.
ROUND 26
I set up better this time, and I stayed moving. My knees and legs held up better, and I was moving quicker, coming off the floor with better speed and strength. Simbari was overconfident, thinking maybe he already had me in the bag.
I let him pound on my gloves and shoulders, felt the impact rattle down along my arms and torque my elbows, and I gave ground before him. The crowd booed and hissed, and I heard several of them calling me a coward.
I didn’t let any of that touch me. Father Tim had taught me to concentrate on my opponent, and what I could do. A fight was all about learning on the fly, making adjustments and battle plans in a heartbeat, seeing openings that no one else could see.
Simbari was big and powerful, and he was as cold-blooded as any fighter I’d ever faced. He wanted to destroy me, not just beat me. That desire was written on his face. I didn’t know if it was his own or something Falcone had put there, and I didn’t care. That made him a dangerous man.
Shuffling and bobbing, I stayed ahead of Simbari, but he jabbed and punched, still taking everything I left open, whittling away at me. For the first half of the round, I fought defensively. If this had been a point fight, I would have been way behind on points. The judges would have had no problem scoring the round.
But I was in learning mode now, but every minute of that education was costing me in wear and tear. Simbari pounded again and again, lulling me into a rhythm that I went for one time too many. Then his right hand detonated against the left side of my face. Before I could cover up, he hit me again in the same spot.
Blood trickled down the side of my face and ran into my eye, blinding me, cutting my vision to less than half of what it had been. He grinned at me then, but he’d wanted me to see that grin, and that was his mistake. I went for it – stepping forward and landing a left that popped his head back, then followed up with a piledriving right that I brought up from my toes.
Simbari backpedaled, getting away quick. He deflected my follow-up left jabs as I tried to feel the distance between us. Having only one eye threw off my depth perception. I thought maybe I had him scared then, but I was wrong.
He led me into the ropes before I knew they was there, then he came around me on my blind side and used his body to push me into where he wanted me. I collided with the ropes, flailing to keep my balance and got tangled up.
My right arm slid between the ropes and Simbari was on me before I could pull free. He drove jab after jab into my face and head. Warm blood ran down my face and dripped across the floor. I saw the crimson splashes against the concrete, heard the roar of the crowd sitting just beyond the ropes, and fought to keep my head clear as my thoughts crawled all over themselves.
I concentrated on my arm, got it loose, and felt my head rocked again as Simbari hit me with another powerful right. Desperate, I threw a couple left jabs at his face that he easily blocked, then rammed a right with everything I had into his gut. It was like punching cement, but I heard the wind rush out of him and I knew I’d hurt him. I might even have fractured a couple small ribs.
Simbari backed off at once. He was still smiling, but he wasn’t smiling so broad now and he was sucking air like a landed fish. I considered going after him, but I knew my eye wasn’t in any shape to make that a good idea, and my head was floating and filled with pain. Even with one eye it seemed like I had double vision.
I waited on the bell to ring as I circled with Simbari, and I knew he was waiting too. I’d surprised him, maybe by not going down so easy, and maybe with that big right hand. Either way, he knew he had a fight on his hands.
The bell rang to end the round and I walked back to my corner.
ROUND 27
I felt like I was hurt all over, but Hernando went to work on my eye first. He flushed the blood out of it with water from a squirt bottle, but that didn’t do a whole lotta good because I had double vision for sure then. My head ached something fierce and it felt like somebody had set fire to my face. Gently, he tilted my head back to ke
ep the blood from running down into my eye again and started in with the styptic pencil.
Having my head tilted back gave me vertigo, and I tasted all the blood pouring down my throat from my nose. That almost made me sick, but I choked it down.
“How you feeling, Mick?” The cap’n sponged me down to cool me off. Water ran down my chest and back, but it was mixed with blood.
“Like I been hit by a truck.” I barely got that out.
The cap’n laughed. “Well, you look worse.” He kept sponging. “What you got left in the tank?”
“Enough.” I said that, but I didn’t know for sure.
“Can you handle another round with this mook?”
“I was thinking maybe I’d just put him down, be done with it.” I gave him a lopsided grin.
“Well, you can’t do that. Not yet. Tu Li and his boys just got here. They haven’t placed their bets yet.”
“They putting money on Simbari?”
“Nope, you. But they wanna get the odds right. So you gotta go another round, see how the line moves.”
“Where’s the line now?”
“Last I heard, it was four to one.”
“I suppose I ain’t the one favored?”
“Lotta guys are reluctant to risk the one.”
I smiled. “Well, we got them fooled, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” The cap’n kept wiping. “I gotta admit, Mick, this guy is better than I thought. And it if looks like the fight is gonna go south, I’ma throw the towel in. I ain’t gonna have your blood on my hands.”
“Just gimme a minute, cap’n. I’m still figuring him out. Gimme a little time.”
“You’re a bloody mess, Mick. You ain’t got much time left.”
“O ye of little faith. It ain’t a fight unless you’re wearing your own blood.”
“Yeah, well you start wearing more of it on the outside than you got on the inside, you’re doing it wrong.”