Cinderella Man

by Marc Cerasini

  The hammer struck the bell, and the fighters retired to their corners. Braddock arrived, slumped onto the stool, took great gulps of the night air.

  As a bucket boy poured water over his head, Gould was in his fighter’s ear. “You’re doing great, Jimmy,” he cried, surprised at his own sincerity. “Run him all over the ring. He’s big, he’s going to get tired real fast.”

  Jim washed out his mouth and grinned, the expression a little less grisly than before. Gould grabbed his left glove and shook it. “You know the two jabs work. You gotta get your right in faster. You got to stop some of those left hands.”

  “You don’t see any of them getting by me, do you?”

  The bell clanged, and Jim was up. Though he moved a little better now, Jim was still on the defensive, still trying to avoid the pursuing Griffin, who was working for nothing less than a knockout. Braddock managed a few left jabs, and heard Griffin grunt at the end of one. But when Jim tried to toss Corn a right, he was clipped by an electric left that sent him reeling. Only a quick duck and dance spared him from being cornered on the ropes.

  Braddock had circled to the center of the ring and was ready to fight when the strident clang ended the second round. Jim, face swollen with scarlet knots, slumped onto his stool. Joe Gould jumped the ropes and stepped in front of him, pouring water into his fighter’s gaping mouth. Jim turned, spit the pink-stained water into the bucket, and hung his head. Chest heaving, heart pounding, Braddock only vaguely heard his manager’s words, though they were screamed into his face.

  “He’s a half step behind you,” Gould yelled. “You’re opening him up like a tomato can. If you don’t believe me, sway. Sway, see what happens. Two jabs and the big apple.” Gould’s short arms beat the smoky air to a pulp. “Pop. Pop. Bang.”

  The bell clanged.

  Jim moved out of his corner slowly, cautiously. Corn came out jabbing, aggressive. But each time Jim faded off him, and after two jabs, Jim swayed. True to Gould’s words, Corn missed the move. Jim deftly stepped into Corn as the Southerner threw the next punch.

  Jim blocked, but Corn’s uppercut threw him into the corner. On the apron, Gould clutched his head with his hands. But to the manager’s surprise, Jim swept underneath the charging Griffin, delivered two sharp left jabs that set the kid grunting—then Braddock delivered a mighty right that sent Griffin to the mat.

  The ref jumped between the fighters and started counting. Over the man’s shoulder, Jim looked down at his opponent.

  “That’s it!” screamed Gould from his corner. “Pop. Pop. Bang!” The little manager started to dance and throw windmills. A right, then a left. He stopped and stared at his left a moment, more stunned than Griffin. “Where in the hell did you get that left, Jimmy?” Gould whispered. Then he looked up in disbelief as the count continued.

  “Three…”

  Gould locked eyes with Jim, and howled. “Glory, hallelujah, where the hell you been, Jimmy Braddock?”

  But Griffin got to his feet again. As the ref checked him out, Jim moved like a hungry animal, waiting to strike. There was a dangerous look in Braddock’s eye that Joe Gould hadn’t seen before, and it was Jim who was moving with confidence now, Corn Griffin who seemed shaken, dazed.

  When the ref stepped aside, it was Braddock who charged forward. Two steps, followed by a series of punches impossible to count.

  Gould was apoplectic. “No daylight! Close the shutters! Bring down the curtains. Throw him in the slammer! Send him back to the Ozarks or wherever the hell…”

  Braddock was doing just that. The punches kept coming—like the unending rain on the soup lines, the incessant snow on the frozen docks—each blow more precise. Finally Jim delivered a hard right, and stepped away.

  The crowd shared a gasp as Griffin just stared at Braddock, as if in shock. Then Corn pitched forward toward the canvas, his head suddenly too heavy to hold up. He landed with a slam and stayed there.

  In the absolute stunned silence that followed, Jim spied Sporty Lewis on the sidelines. The reporter was frog-eyed. The next second, the mob exploded. Pandemonium swept the outdoor Garden Bowl, sending screams, hoots, and hollers into the June night, down Northern Boulevard and all the way over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Joe Gould was certain they’d shaken the entire East Side of Manhattan by the time they were through. But nobody was more surprised than the patrons of Quincy’s bar over in Jersey. The tattered, defeated men were laughing and cheering for the first time in memory as Ford Bond’s voice echoed above the din.

  “This is unbelievable! Corn Griffin, the number-two contender in the world, has been knocked out by Jim Braddock in the third round…”

  In the center of the utter mayhem, Mike, a tear in his eye, just shook his head and smiled. As the others yelled and clapped, he simply whispered, “That a boy, Jimmy. That a boy.”

  In the locker room, Jim gobbled up the rest of the cold, congealing hash with a spoon while a cutman tended his face. A door slammed and a whirlwind entered—a whirlwind named Joe Gould.

  “Jesus, mother and Joseph, Mary and all the saints and martyrs and Jesus—did I say Jesus?—where in the hell did that left come from?”

  Jim swallowed, licked his swollen lips, then set the empty bowl on the bench. “Yeah, you did…say Jesus.”

  Gould rolled his eyes as Jim held up the spoon. “Good they invented these.”

  “The left, Jimmy,” Gould shot back, hands on hips. “I’m talking about that left of yours.”

  Jim looked down at his left hand, turned it to examine the bruised knuckles. “When my hand was broke. On the docks. I had to use my left to work.” He opened and closed the fist. “Got lucky, I guess.”

  Gould clapped his hands together. “That’s something you ain’t been in a long time.”

  Jim offered his manager a half smile. “Everybody’s due.”

  “Due or not, I’ll take it.”

  Braddock shrugged. “That was on hash. Imagine what I could have done on a couple of steaks.”

  Gould tossed him a towel. “Wipe your mouth. You still remember how to satisfy the baying hounds?” He turned and walked to the door. But as he touched the doorknob, he turned. When he spoke again, his words were soft, for Jim only. “That was one hell of a good-bye.”

  The two shared a smile, then Gould yanked the door open. Outside was a mass of shouting reporters.

  “Here, boys!”

  The reporters swept in like an ocean wave, almost knocking the stout manager to the dirty concrete floor.

  “Braddock! Hey Braddock!”

  A dozen frenzied voices called as they swarmed the battered boxer.

  Braddock met Gould’s eyes. Yeah, he thought, one hell of a good-bye.

  Later, as Gould and Braddock departed the Garden Bowl, the two paused at ringside to watch the closing round of the main event.

  Max Baer, the young Apollo of the boxing world, was swinging at the skull of Primo Carnera with all the ruthless gusto he’d once used to swing his sledgehammer at slaughterhouse steers. In a pounding hailstorm of nonstop blows, he smashed Carnera to the mat with his fists.

  “Imagine that hitting you,” Gould said, awe in his voice.

  Braddock grinned. “How about that guy we bought the cab company from?”

  “That’s an idea.”

  Baer was six three, two hundred and ten pounds to Carnera’s six foot seven, two hundred and seventy. Carnera had the longer reach, but Baer was faster. All night he’d ducked and swayed, easily evading the Italian giant’s frantic swings and returning them in spades.

  In the ring, Carnera was bloody and beaten as he staggered to his feet, glove clutching the rope. Max Baer taunted the defending champ arrogantly. Carnera threw a few ineffectual punches, which Baer easily knocked aside.

  Over the cheers, the voice of Ford Bond filled the arena.

  “Primo Carnera has been knocked down for what has to be a record eleven times! And Max Baer struts around the ring in utter contempt of the heavyweight champion of t
he world!”

  Carnera’s massive bulk was heaving with fatigue and shock. With a barely audible growl, he thrust the referee aside and staggered toward Baer. The challenger waited patiently, a smirk on his handsome, unmarked face, until Carnera made it to the center of the ring. Then Baer stepped out of his corner and blasted the champ again and again. It was a massacre so terrible that even Joe Gould averted his eyes.

  Jim touched his manager’s shoulder, and they headed toward the exit without another glance back at the ring. Among the throng of reporters, Sporty Lewis watched them go.

  ROUND NINE

  You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

  —Eleanor Roosevelt

  The car door opened, and Jim stepped onto the cracked pavement in front of his apartment house.

  “Sure you won’t come in and say hello?” Jim asked.

  Gould poked his head out the door. “You still married to the same girl?”

  Jim nodded at the familiar routine. “Last time I looked.”

  Gould grinned. “Good night, Jimmy-boy.”

  Braddock watched the roadster roll to the next intersection and, then make a U-turn to head back to Manhattan.

  Jim stood facing the front door to his basement apartment. The Braddocks no longer owned a radio—they’d hocked it along with everything else—so Mae and the kids didn’t know, couldn’t know, the outcome of tonight’s fight.

  Before he could touch the doorknob, the door swung open. Jay, Howard, and Rosy looked up expectantly. Mae stood silently, staring at her husband, her own face pale in the lamplight.

  Jim presented a picture of defeat—battered head, shoulders slumped, a big frown on his swollen lips. But before the children’s faces fell, before Mae could register joy or disappointment, Jim offered his family a triumphant grin.

  “I won.”

  The kids shrieked and lunged, squeezing his waist, strangling his leg. Mae just stood there, speechless.

  Jim felt a tug on his arm. “Daddy, Daddy,” cried Rosy, “you have to see what I got you!”

  “What’s that, honey?” asked Jim.

  Rosy tugged harder, drawing her father into the apartment. She ran to the icebox, pulled out an amazing sight, and brought it to him.

  “Put it on your eyes,” Rosy said, thrusting the thick red slab of meat into her father’s hands.

  Jim gaped at the raw beef. “Where did you get this?”

  “They snuck off,” said Mae, throwing her oldest boy a stern look. “Which we had a long talk about.” Then she raised an eyebrow at her stubborn daughter. “I tried to take it back, but the butcher says he gave it to her.”

  “It’s a porter’s house,” explained Rosy. “For your face.” Then she attempted to tilt her head like her mama. “It’s fix you right up.”

  Jim dangled the steak from his fingers, admiring the thickness, the marbling of succulent fat. He could almost hear the sizzle, smell the hot, juicy drippings. He licked his lips and hunkered down to speak to his daughter—fighter to fighter. “Darling, we have to eat this.”

  His two sons whooped. “Hoo-ray!”

  But Rosy wouldn’t hear it. “No!” Tiny hands went to little hips. “You have to put it on your face.”

  Jim offered the boys a helpless shrug, then tilted his head back and lay the cool slab across his swollen eyes. He sighed in mock relief, waited a moment, then lifted the edge of the meat to peek out.

  “Okay, Rosy, how long do I leave it on?”

  The little girl shrugged and shook her head.

  “Did he fall hard, Dad?” Jay asked.

  Jim grinned. “You should have seen the way he dropped.”

  “Timmm-berrr!” cried Howard. He raced around. “Timber! Timber! Timber!”

  Jay turned excitedly to his mother. “Do the ’nouncer, Ma. Like when we was little kids.”

  Mae shook her head, surprised he remembered, but pleased too. “Well, what a memory,” she told him. “Aren’t you my little elephant.”

  Jay beamed, his gaze expectant.

  Mae glanced at her husband, surprised to see the same little-boy expression on his face. He sat down at the table, continued to gaze expectantly.

  “Yeah, Mae…Come on,” Jim teased. “Do the ’nouncer.”

  “It’s announcer, Jay,” said Mae. Her eyes held her husband’s. She moved to the table, touched Jim’s shoulders, ran her fingers down his arm.

  “Loud, Ma!” cried Jay, clapping.

  Mae climbed onto her husband’s thick legs, eyes locked with his. “Introducing two-time state Golden Gloves titleholder…” her voice rose “…in both the light heavyweight and heavyweight division…” As she spoke, something awakened in her. The old passion. “The Bulldog of Bergen, the pride of New Jersey…And the hope of the Irish as the future champion of the world…James J. Braddock!”

  Her final words were spoken loud enough to echo from the walls of the dingy tenement room. The kids went wild, hopping and cheering and laughing. But Jim and Mae didn’t notice.

  He touched her cheek, as if in thanks for her blessing, and she secretly wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake. Then Jim lifted his wife by her slim waist and set her on the floor. He rose and removed the steak from his forehead.

  “Wow,” he told his daughter, “this really worked great. I feel fantastic. Let’s eat!”

  He crossed to the stove, dropped the steak onto a cast iron frying pan and turned up the fire. The sizzling sound and the delicious smell soon filled the tiny apartment. The children jumped and danced joyously. In the middle of the commotion, Mae slipped into her husband’s arms, leaned into his broad chest.

  “Jim? Is it like you said before, just the one fight?” she whispered. “Or are they letting you back in?”

  Jim shook his head, buried his nose and lips in her hair. “No, babe. It was just the one fight.”

  Mae sighed with relief, gave him a squeeze, then stepped away to tend the steak, thanking God she’d never have to endure her husband stepping into the ring again.

  Dawn came early in June. By the time Jim rose, dressed, and started his walk to the Newark docks, straw-blond rays were already drenching the world with warmth. He walked east, toward the rising star, taking the same course he always took, through the city’s poorest residential districts, across the landfill and industrial section. Yet something was different today. His limbs were sore, his face one giant bruise, but his steps were quicker than they’d been in months, his mood light.

  With new eyes, he looked at the old dumping ground by the freight tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the plot that needy families had taken over with junk-pile huts. He noticed for the first time how neat the garden patches were, how lovingly they were tended. He admired the flowers, the colorful flags, the patched-together latticework.

  As he moved toward Port Newark’s complex of warehouses and docks, striding across the gravel lot and toward the familiar locked gate, he became aware of the warmth on his face, appreciated how good it felt, noticed how the light transformed the murky blue chop of Newark Bay into a shimmering dance that dazzled the eye.

  When he arrived at the fence, he joined the cluster of men for the long wait, his eyes glazed over, his mind replaying the Griffin fight, the knockout punch, the exploding roar of the capacity crowd. An hour flew like a minute.

  Finally Jake, the middle-aged dock foreman, appeared, as he did every morning, and immediately began pointing out men. Jim straightened his boxer’s shoulders.

  “Six, seven, eight…”

  The foreman’s gaze moved over the crowd too quickly. By the looks of things, Jim figured he wasn’t getting picked today. His mind had already begun working out alternate strategies. Leave here and hitch up to Union City, then walk to Weehawken, West New York, North Bergen.

  The foreman’s eyes skimmed over Jim, but darted back again. Jim took a half step closer, and Jake’s finger moved
that magical half inch. He said Jim’s name and everyone turned to look.

  “Nine.”

  Jim closed his eyes in relief. As fifty other men dispersed, Jim joined the chosen eight. Together they walked through the gate and moved toward the waterfront. Some of the men pointed at Jim and nodded. They reached the work area. A docked steamer’s massive loading net held hundreds of bags of rice. Empty shipping pallets were lined up along the dirty, damp length of the wharf, waiting to be filled.

  Jim noticed Jake approach him. “Listened in last night.”

  “Hey, Braddock,” called one of the other men, “that really you?”

  “Way to go,” called another.

  Jake took his folded newspaper from under his arm, held it open, and met Jim’s gaze. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you back here again.”

  Jim blinked at the headline—

  AMAZING!

  BRADDOCK

  KO’S GRIFFIN IN 3

  He shook his head in disbelief. A few men crowded around to hear what he had to say.

  “One night only,” Jim explained with a shrug. “Purse was two fifty. My take’s half. We owed a hundred twenty. Left me five bucks.”

  Jake laughed. “Makes you a rich man.” Then his expression turned serious. “Good fight.”

  The men around Jim nodded in agreement.

  “Sure was.”

  “You bet.”

  “And how.”

  Jim could see he’d stirred something in these men, standing there in their tattered clothes and patched-up shoes. He could see it in their weary, weathered faces. The yearning to come against what you can see—it was what they all wished for. Something real to stand toe to toe with and fight. The chance to see it coming for once and beat it back with your own fists.

  Jim moved forward through a round of backslapping, and then took his place beside his partner. Mike Wilson nodded, a wordless greeting. The two grabbed their bale hooks and began their unloading work.

  Hook, haul, drop…hook haul drop.