Million Dollar Baby

by F. X. Toole

  Sophia said, “I was going to let Ernie have it all after your 10 percent.”

  Ernie didn’t like her telling me that, but I didn’t think he’d last, so I told her that the first thing was to find out if he had anything left. I told her I’d charge $200 a week for two hours a day, six days a week. I told her nice-like if that was too much, then she should take Ernie back to Hollywood and start him dancing aerobics at 50 a hour.

  Sophia said, “What will you teach him that he doesn’t already know?”

  “I’ll teach him how to fight, that’s what,” I said. “How to think and move in there. But there’s more that you gotta pay.”

  I explained that boxing is business. To the fight fan, whether they’re watching amateurs or pros, it’s a sport. But once a fighter goes pro, it’s business. That means the money’s got to come from someplace. I reminded her that she gets paid for teaching, that her husband gets paid for shrinking.

  I said, “So why should a promoter put a shot fighter on the card who won’t sell tickets or look good on TV?”

  “I ain’t shot,” Ernie said loud. “Damn it, I ain’t.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But it costs to find out. I’m telling you now so there’s no surprises. You’re gonna have to juice the promoters, at least to start.”

  “Does everybody have to pay?” Sophia asked.

  “One way or another. Like kickbacks on training expenses. Or you gotta wait forever for a shot and you run outta time, or your boy falls in love and gets a job. Or because somebody in a silk suit decides he’s your partner.”

  “Has that ever happened to you?”

  “Everything’s happened to me.”

  A couple of weeks go by. I didn’t see Ernie, and I forgot all about him. Then Sophia called me, said to meet her for lunch at the Polo Lounge. I showed up in a sweatshirt, like always.

  First off, I ordered a Pilsner Urquell from the waiter, who sniffs. Later on I ordered chilled mulligatawny soup and cracked Dungeness crab on ice with mustard-mayonnaise sauce. For dessert, I had a ginger soufflé. Sophia started looking at me different.

  We drew up a simple letter of agreement. For the next three years I was to be Ernie’s manager and trainer. If somebody big-time comes along and Ernie wants to sell the manager part of the contract, no problem, I get a third of the cash for the sale, simple. And I got my $200 a week, like I explained.

  Ernie started to work, and I punished him. His outfit’s wringing wet, his mouth is dry as a popcorn fart. He’s crying for water. I told him that good fighters don’t need water, that bad fighters don’t deserve water. He stopped crying.

  Truth is that I figured I’d pick up a few weeks’ work and that Ernie would fold. But he hung, the kid, God bless him, and then damned if I didn’t start to believe. Besides, I wanted to see a white fighter make it again, wanted more white boys in the gym, wanted to see white boys get their balls back from Democrats and back from thong-assed bitches who want their boyfriends to be like girls.

  I start to think a lot about Ernie, about what’s going to work for him.

  First off, with damaged goods like Ernie, you got to go at him from a angle. You got to get him to do stuff he doesn’t know you got him doing. You do that so he’s not worried that doing something new will make people laugh at him, you do it hoping he won’t go back to his old habits. Even so, all fighters can’t do all things. I got his legs up under him, and I got him to keep his hands up, but I couldn’t get him to keep his chin down all the time. And I couldn’t get him to slide in on his front toe instead of walking in heel-toe, which tends to make you a half beat behind the other guy.

  The biggest thing I couldn’t get him to do was shift his weight from his front foot back to his rear foot when he threw his left hook. I figured he didn’t want to do it. Eighty percent of his KOs had come from doing it his way, even though I proved that shifting his weight made him hit harder, that it took less energy. I knew I wasn’t getting to him on the hook, but I wanted to have it on record that I tried. The right way not only sets up the right hand, but it gives more protection to the chin.

  What I didn’t have to worry about was him boozing. He went to AA once he told me how terrified he was of falling off the wagon. He confided in me that his father had told him to stay away, that he didn’t have a son. And if he started drinking again, Sophia told him he’d have to walk the walk alone.

  He was strong and quicker than I’d remembered. I put him in to spar with a 10-round fighter who I told to go easy on him. Ernie barely made it through three rounds, but he wouldn’t have made it at all if he was dirty. There were still big conditioning problems, but what he could do was hit, and he had good hand-eye reflexes. Maybe he wasn’t the fastest with his hands, but timing will beat speed if you know what you’re doing.

  Ernie’s heart still bothered me some, but as long as I was getting paid, I could wait and see. Besides, the better the condition a fighter’s in, the bigger his heart. Once he was running right, and once he had a few wins, he’d be king of the hill again. A good white fighter is a draw. Maybe I could get him the right fights and we could go someplace.

  The trick was to make Ernie the best at what he was already good at, power. But the biggest trick of all was to make his opponents think that Ernie would be the same old Ernie—walking in throwing bombs and lunging with his chin stuck out behind that wide hook of his. So once I knew I couldn’t fix his hook, I knew I had a problem, right? But once I knew my problem, I knew my answer. Switch him. Not from orthodox to southpaw. Not from banger to boxer. The switch would be from lead slugger to counterpuncher.

  It went slick and sweet as unsalted butter. We worked on the footwork first, Ernie walking in same as always. But instead of getting off first, I had him wait a split second before unloading—that or I’d have him fake a shot. That forces the other guy to run, or to go first … and at that point Ernie would know that one of only two things can happen. Either a left hand is coming, or a right. I taught Ernie to block and counter. To catch the shot and counter. To slip and counter. I taught him to shoot combinations from inside, showed him he could do damage no matter where his shots landed.

  That’s the key. Hurt the man. Make him back up, make him fight on his heels. Go to his kidneys, make him know his piss’ll be red in the bowl. Damage the eyeballs, make the white a pool of blood. Separate his ribs, cause spasm to the liver. Cripple the joints where the arms and the shoulders come together. Break him down. Take his heart and squeeze it. That’s the game we play. That’s how awful it is. But surviving that, and winning, that’s what gives you the kick. It’s called getting respect.

  To get Ernie sharp, I put it on him a little at a time, had him catch my punches on his arms, on his gloves, on his shoulders. If the other guy throws a right to the body, you catch it with your left elbow and counter with a left—a hook, a uppercut or a jab. The same on the other side. It works because the other guy is open when he punches, just like you. The difference is that you’re not trying to stay away, you’re staying close, and he can’t counter as good as you can, because you’re so close you can suck on his tittie.

  Or I’d have Ernie slip to his left under a right hand and drive his own right into the gut, come back to the head with a hook, because the other guy’s got his hands down at his waist from the body shot. Think about it. Some bitch slaps your face. What happens first? Your hand goes straight to the sting. It’s after that when you rap her back, right? Except if Ernie catches you flush, you ain’t dealing with a slap. It’s all logical, only you got to be good or you’re the guy looking for the place to go to sleep.

  We went from footwork to the punch mitts and to the big bag, where he learned to grab his balance in a wink off a pivot and to drill up-and-down combinations of five and six punches. Now his dick was hard again. What he liked about working this way was that it put him in position to always bang with power. Was it pretty, like Ali? Not if you didn’t know what you were looking at. But to the old-time fight guys, it was like watch
ing Charley Burley again, who you couldn’t hit from three paces with a handful of rice. Joe Louis was maybe the best counterpuncher of all, those short little shots of his broke hearts and bones. And in the ’70s, there was Albert Davila at 115 pounds, who put a kid in the grave.

  People in the gym began to shy away from Ernie once they saw what he could do. Usually you don’t have to pay for sparring in the gym unless you’re getting ready for a big fight and you’re getting training money. The other guys will help you, you help them. But some of the time I had to pay for work. Forty dollars for four rounds, maybe more. I did it because Ernie’s not getting any younger. Sophia understood. There would also be fighters who wanted to try Ernie out, so we obliged. He’d make them miss, and he’d make them pay. His pride came back, and he didn’t need to go to AA so much.

  Sophia called me often to tell me how happy she was with the way things were going. She always thanked me, always asked me if I needed anything.

  “I need a champion.”

  The next stage was to test him under the lights, dump fight noise on him. I got the Commission to let us start off at six rounds instead of at 10 because of Ernie’s long layoff. They’d heard how hard he was working and said okay. I began with club fights in Bakersfield and Santa Maria, Indio, down in Pedro. I paid the promoters under the table to put Ernie on the card, and same way had to pay the opponents’ purse as well.

  The first fight’s pure panic. Ernie’s so afraid he’s going to lose the fight that he left three rounds in the dressing room from nerves. I always carry in my medicine kit a flat sterling-silver half-pint flask that I bought in Madrid. I fill it with Hennessy X.O and sometimes give a snort mixed with orange juice to a scared kid for his nerves. I knew better with Ernie.

  In the ring, he forgot everything and reverted to his old style. It didn’t surprise me, that’s what the lights and the noise’ll do to you. We were winning rounds the hard way, when in the fourth round Ernie’s legs go and he’s staggering tired. We got lucky when the other guy butted us. Ernie’s cut was so deep above his eyebrow that he couldn’t see from the blood. I could have stopped the flow, but I played a hunch and on purpose I let it bleed. In the fifth, blood everywhere, they stopped the fight in the first minute and gave it to Ernie because he was ahead on points. So that’s a good cornerman for you. If I’d stopped the blood, the other guy would have stopped Ernie.

  Back in the dressing room, Ernie slumped over while I took care of the cut. I soaked two towels in ice water and wrapped one on his head, one across his chest and shoulders. He didn’t even flinch when they hit him. It was 20 minutes before Ernie was on his feet again. It was a tough fight with a bad stink to the win. But scared as he was to start, Ernie didn’t go dog on me, and we did what we went there to do. We won.

  The cut meant 45 days before we could fight again. That was good. It gave me time to work on Ernie’s mind some more.

  His next fight was six rounds again, and then I moved him up to eight. Then I tried him at 10 rounds against a solid Mexican opponent. KO win in five.

  Every time, he’d get so spooked before a fight that he’d piss himself in the ring. I had to spill water on the canvas so nobody’d know, had to keep him in black shorts so nobody’d see. Don’t misunderstand. All fighters are spooky before a fight, even the ones who go to sleep on you in the dressing room. It’s a natural thing. So I’d tell him that he wasn’t scared at all, that it was just his system putting itself in high gear. I told him how fighting bulls shit and piss during a bullfight and how they’d still tear ass. That made Ernie laugh.

  “Yeah, like a raging bull, that’s me, like Jake LaMotta.”

  The story worked every time. Now that he was back fighting 10-round fights again, he won six in a row, all with good fighters, four by KO. Ernie was countering like a champion from bell to bell. Now my dick was hard.

  Ernie took out a couple more opponents. He worked his way inside behind his jab just like in the gym, waited for the guys to commit, and then he took them out with body shots. Busted the ribs of one boy. Hit the other in the heart. Boy went stiff, arms and legs went all shaky like he’s electrocuted, and then he pitches face-first onto the canvas.

  “Peachy! Peachy! Peachy!”

  There was no more us paying out the money. Hadn’t done that since after the first eight fights. The purses coming in were not that big. They never are, unless they come from big-time title fights on pay-per-view. Even some title fights are for short money. I was hustling to make another good fight for Ernie, but the problem was that nobody wanted him.

  We hung around almost six months, no fight. That’s no good for a fighter, specially one Ernie’s age. When we were offered a shot at the NABO belt, I took it.

  It was for short money with Abdul Rashad Mohammed, a Black Muslim boy out of Chicago. NABO’s a second-level title the WBO runs to generate excitement with the fans, a stepping-stone fight for a real title. I had always stayed away from Abdul because he’s got a bad mouth on him. But winning the NABO would set us in line for the WBO title. WBO ain’t like WBC or WBA or even the IBF, but if you’re a knockout puncher like Ernie, it gives you leverage towards a unification bout.

  The deal was the fight’s in LA. That’s our hometown, and we figure to get lucky with the judges if it goes to a decision. Money’s only 8,000, and Ernie don’t like that, but I explain if we don’t take the fight, they could move us down in the rankings. “And we ain’t getting any younger.”

  Abdul shot his mouth off at the weigh-in. He acted like he was going to throw a punch at Ernie, and Ernie stepped back. Abdul and all the other blacks were slapping, touching hands, the usual.

  I told Ernie, “You gotta get respect, son. You don’t, these fucks’ll run a train on you.”

  “Peachy! Peachy!” screeched Abdul through the loudspeaker. “Peachy be a punk name!”

  Ernie stepped forward, talked like he was black into the microphone. “Abdool-dool, he a fool-fool!”

  Now the whites were laughing. Abdul started forward and so did Ernie. Commission guys got between them. I was feeling better.

  When we got to the arena, right away I smelled something was off. We went down the steep ramp into the belly of the old Forum and were clearing with security when I noticed that all the black guards were smiling and looking at us sideways. Just after we swung into the long, narrow corridor leading to the dressing rooms, we saw blood-red gang shit scrawled across the pale-blue walls: DAGO PIG DIE DIE DIE.

  On the dressing-room door was a photo of some dead white man, part of his face blown away. Ernie went stiff, tried to back away. I shoved him through the door.

  He was greener than I’d ever seen him. In the two hours we had to wait, he threw up twice. I couldn’t give him the Hennessy, so I got a can of Pepsi, which lifted him a little. He couldn’t stand still or sit still. I had to get somebody to hold him down so I could wrap his hands. Piss was all over the place.

  The fight went off on time. On the trip to the ring, there was a trail of water behind us. Sooner or later, everybody loses, so I figured this was it I took losing as part of the game. It’s how you lose that counts.

  Abdul was quicker than anyone Ernie’d fought and jumped all over him the first round. Ernie was shook, reverted to his old style. His head was sticking up like a cabbage. I was yelling at him to bob and weave, when Abdul caught him with an overhand right that knocked him down and broke his nose. Blood is running like coffee from a spout. A bloody nose and a broken nose ain’t the same. I worked on it in the corner. Coagulant stopped it for a minute, but once you break that bone up in there, most of the time there’s no way to stop the blood unless you pack it, and in a fight there ain’t no packing.

  Second round’s the same. Abdul jabs to the broken beak, and Ernie’s eyes fill with water from the sting. The jagged bone is slicing the meat up there inside, and the nose starts squirting again. Blood’s down all over Ernie’s belly and smeared across his face. As long as I can stop it between rounds, the ref’s not
going to stop a title fight. So forget blood. But Ernie can’t forget it, keeps wiping at it, and Abdul keeps whacking him. For the first time since I been with him, Ernie just backs away.

  Three chiseling rounds, and we’re dead meat. Even the Italians are booing. I hit him with a ice-cold towel on his back, stick ice cubes down his balls. I got swabs up both holes of his nose. It’s illegal, but I swab adrenaline inside his mouth to try to jack some life into him. He stays slumped in the corner. His eyes are wide as a rabbit’s. There goes my Kewpie doll.

  Ernie whined, “When he hits me I can’t see, for Chrissakes! It’s like somebody’s throwing boiling water in my face.”

  I say, “Keep your hands up, he won’t hit you. Get inside and bang like you’re supposed. This guy ain’t nothin’ but mouth.”

  “Bullshit, he ain’t nothin’! I can’t breathe, and I can’t fuckin’ see!”

  I’m thinking, Punk, now you know what the guys you been whipping on all this time been feeling. “Breathe deep for me, Ernie. But through your mouth, not your nose, so your face don’t blow up on us. Here, take some water.” I tried to grease him.

  “Fuck water and fuck grease. I can’t fight like this. Stop the fight.”

  “Ernie, look, all you gotta do is get inside and work.”

  “Fuck you, man. Throw in the towel. Stop the fight or I will!”

  He says fuck me? Me, who’s been changing his fucking diapers? I take out my scissors and I stick one blade up each of his nostrils. I squeezed the scissors so they pinched on the nose gristle there above his upper lip. He tried to pull back, but the ring ropes in the corner held his head in place.

  I talked to the boy colder than a cheated-on wife. “You go out there and fight like you know how, mothafucker! You fight, or I cut you up to your eyebrows and I pull your nose back over the top a you fuckin’ head!”