Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  When the first round came and he tried that, I let him weave until he was right close in and then I took the cork off the bottle and let it hit him under the chin.

  He stopped weaving after that. When he tried it, the old uppercut always stood him up as straight as starch. He tried to box, but he couldn’t. I kept getting him with a straight left and a right cross that traveled high and dropped with a jerk on the side of the face. Once it connected with the chin, he was gone, and Digger knew it. He began to open his eyes; he was seeing his finish. I saw it, too.

  Then I started feinting with the left. When he jerked his guard up, I stepped in and socked him with a swinging right to the body. I could feel the fist sink in. I could feel it jar on his backbone. That was sweet, too!

  In the third round, he was going fast. I knew that I could finish him any minute, but I was in no hurry. All of the big sporting writers were there at the ringside watching what I did, and so I gave them a show. I mean, I showed them perfect straight lefts, heels and hip, shoulder and fist all in line. I lunged like a fencer, because I knew that I wouldn’t have to recover too fast. I pulled uppercuts from my hips. I looped hooks and crosses over his shoulders, and with each punch poor old Digger Murphy sagged.

  Still I kept walking in behind the perfect fence that Dutch Keller had taught me to build. Every time Digger Murphy socked, he hit my elbows, shoulders, and nothing else. I began to catch his punches. I caught them at the elbow and laughed at Digger, then jerked a short jab into his middle section and saw his face convulsed as though he’d had an electric shock.

  Yes, it was a good show.

  Things were going along like this when the end of the third round came. At the finish of that round, I’ll bet that every man in the house was putting the middleweight crown of the world on my head. I was, for one.

  Then, as they fanned me, one of my seconds threw half a bucket of cold water over me and changed my life.

  CHAPTER II. THE FINISH

  I SHALL NEVER forget that moment, of course. I remember that Dutch — good old fellow — was calling up from under my corner. He was like a happy boy, laughing as he looked up at me.

  “I’ve had ’em fast, and I’ve had ’em with the kick of a mule, and I’ve had ’em foxy,” he said. “But you got all three together.”

  I leaned back on the chair and felt the rubbers working on the inside muscles of my legs, and said nothing. I didn’t need that massage. My legs were as strong as iron posts. They could stand anything. Road work accounted for that.

  But I was luxuriating in things and taking everything that came my way. Then that half bucket of cold water splashed over me.

  I don’t know what happened. It seemed to freeze me all the way through. Afterward I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt as though I had been running a mile uphill, and I still felt that way when the bell rang.

  Well, I stepped out, confident, easy, in spite of that trouble with my wind. That would pass, I was sure. It was only like a catch in the side. There before me was Digger Murphy, serious, his face set and pasty white. He knew that I was going to knock him out. And wasn’t he ripe for it?

  His eyes were uneasy in his head, shifting a bit from side to side. His legs were so far apart that I knew that he was bracing himself for the shock that he expected me to give him.

  Well, I stepped in and gave him the left jab, an easy, light one, to feel him out. That jab found its mark, as though he were a man made of putty. He saw what I was going to try and blinked, but he couldn’t make his hands move fast enough to block the punch. I hit him, but what I noticed, most of all, was that there was no lead in the wallop. I had expected to daze him a bit, so that I could shoot across the right, which I was holding my hand high for. That right was to end the battle. To show them the real wallop that I carried up my sleeve, you see. To show them that I could take a man fresh out of his corner, after a whole minute of resting, and sock him cold, for keeps. That was what that right was poised and ready to do.

  But the left didn’t work. There seemed not to be a fist, but just cold mush inside of my glove.

  That punch made no opening for me. I could see the surprised look in Digger’s face. He was waiting for the sock, and it hadn’t arrived. I grinned at him, as much as to say that I was only playing. But it wasn’t playing. There was something wrong with me. You see, my breath was still gone. I was sick. I wanted to sit down on that stool again. I wanted to lie down — lie flat. I couldn’t breathe. I was out of wind. Yet at the end of the third round I had been ready to do a toe dance!

  I would have liked to cut that round short, but I couldn’t. Every move of it hangs in my mind. I was the winner. Digger Murphy was finished. I had only to hit him once, yet I couldn’t hit.

  He was a game one. When that left of mine didn’t faze him, I hauled off and socked at him. No, he wasn’t ready to lie down. He socked at me, and I put up my right to block the swing. I had the arm there in plenty of time. I should have stopped that punch. I should have been ready to step in and poke him with my left. But the arm I put up seemed to be made of feathers. His sock went straight through it, and he hammered me on the side of the jaw.

  I back-stepped, a little groggy, grinned and nodded, as though to invite him to step in and try the thing again. Only I wasn’t inviting. I knew that something was wrong. I tried a glance at my corner and could see Dutch looking puzzled and shaking his head. Still he was smiling. He was so sure of that fight!

  So was I. I was only waiting for the change, waiting for the wind to come back, waiting for the thing that wouldn’t happen.

  My legs were bad. My knees had turned to dough. There, where the mainspring of a boxer’s action is centered, I had nothing but pulp! In boxing, you do your feinting, your hitting, all with the legs. The arms don’t count so much. The feet are what get you out of danger and bring you back into position to hit, throwing the vital weight behind the punch. But my feet were dead under me!

  Digger was coming in.

  I flashed a left at him. It hit his forehead and bounced! There was nothing to it. He came right on through that feeble barrage and socked me. My perfect fence was full of holes!

  His blows went home now and how they came! My body, mind you, was ringed with cushions of hard fighting muscles that were guaranteed to soak up all sorts of shocks and punishment. But the cushions were gone. He seemed to be hitting right into the core of my being. I felt the blows sink through to the backbone. I was jarred; I was sick.

  Then I backed away and I saw on Digger’s face a look of dull astonishment, almost as though he had received the blows. In the preceding rounds I had been sliding away from or shedding those punches like water.

  He was amazed one moment, the next, he was at me, hammer and tongs. He knew the taste of that pleasure of old. He knew how it felt to sink your fists into a pulpy, weak, fading body. I was learning for the first time.

  He came at me and he hit hard and with growing confidence — that confidence I was speaking about, which puts a lump of lead in each boxing glove. The lead hit me. It hit me in the sick body and made me sicker. I was thinking yards ahead of anything that my hands could do. They were helpless. And there was no strength in my elbows, where a man needs it for blocking. They were like my knees, just pulpy.

  I knew that I was going. I knew that I was sliding. I’ll never forget the roar of the house, when I backed away from Digger and the people could see that the smile on my face was frozen. I’ll never forget Digger’s manager — he’d been silent up to now — jumping up and down and screeching to him to stop me — to knock me for a row of loops! And I knew that he could do it!

  I still tried to smile — the foolish lesson that I had learned. And the words of Dutch came drilling into my mind. He was telling me to back away and cover up; that I was all right; that nothing would happen; that Digger was pie for me!

  Well, Digger was pie, all right, such pie that I had cut the slice already, so to speak, and could have eaten it at any time during the three roun
ds before.

  But now the case was different. He picked me up and carried me before him like dead leaves before the wind. He hit me in my perishing body. He slammed me on the head.

  The I went down. I felt a blow between my shoulders. It was my own head, jerked back before his smashing fist!

  And I went down, sinking, crumpling. I seemed to be made of sand. There were no legs under me, to hold me up. I just went on falling, and telling myself that this was ridiculous, and that such a punch never could hurt me in the world. Ten thousand harder ones had glanced from me like water when I was stepping on the sweat and blood-spattered canvas of the gym.

  But down I went.

  I got up again, but I had to fight to get up. I laughed at myself. I was maddened, because there was no breath in me. But I got up somehow. I put my will power under my knees and pushed myself up, rose and met the shrieking of that crowd. I was the favorite, five to one. They had bet that way on me. I heard them calling me a dirty dog, a yellow traitor, and a lot of names that look even worse in print.

  I could still feel my face stretching in the same foolish, idiotic grin, the pretense of not being hurt.

  I knew that the sham was no good. I knew that I was a fool to keep on wasting effort on that smile. But it wasn’t really effort. It was only the effect of the old gymnasium habit — to sneer at the other fellow when he has hurt you the most!

  I saw Digger, with his head cocked wisely to one side, thinking, preparing himself, ready for a great effort. Still, there was an air of amazement about him. He was still feeling the work of my hands. He still felt me right into the core of him. But now he came, side-stepping, sliding, glimmering before my eyes.

  I knew what he was doing. I read his mind, miles away. A feint of a low, swinging left to the body, and then a smashing right-hander to the head. I tried to forestall the blows, but it was no use. I was made of paper, wet pulpy paper.

  I saw the feint start and end, hanging in the air.

  I saw the right begin and the high, sudden arching of the arm to get over my sagging shoulder, then the sudden drop of the clenched fist. But the guard that I put up was no good. The sock came home. I felt it like a hammer stroke in the back of my brain. All the yelling in the house became nothing. I dropped into nothingness.

  CHAPTER III. RECOVERY

  WHEN I CAME to, a voice was saying dryly, with only a slight sneer: “I had half a grand on this bird. I stood to win a hundred. That was all!”

  Then I opened my eyes and saw a doctor leaning over me, with what looked like a trumpet pressed against my breast.

  He stood up, straightened, looked down at me hard.

  “Auricular fibrillation,” said he. “Why did you ever let this fellow step into a ring?”

  The last part of his speech was addressed to Dutch.

  Poor Dutch! He was standing by with a set smile, like a fighter’s when he’s gone, waiting for the knock-out, as I had waited for it in that last, fourth round.

  “Auricular — what you say?” asked Dutch, wrinkling his fleshy forehead.

  “His heart’s no good. It never could’ve been much good. Never for years,” said the doctor. “You knew that. Don’t lie to me!”

  “His heart’s got something wrong with it, eh?” said Dutch quietly.

  “Of course it has. Listen to it yourself, jumping like a rabbit with the hounds at its heels!”

  I felt it myself then, the flutter and the failing of it.

  The pulsation seemed to be in the center of my lungs, thrusting out all of the life-giving air.

  “His heart’s gone!” said Dutch, whispering to himself.

  I pushed myself up on my elbow. There was an ache under my right eye. I could see the swelling, the discoloration of it. But the pain didn’t bother me any.

  “Dutch,” said I, “I’ve been knocked out!”

  He came over, hurrying. He put his arms under my shoulders.

  “Aw, that’s nothing,” said he. “You slipped. That was all. You give your head a rap on the canvas. Just an accident. You’re going to be better than ever. All you needed was a lesson. Now you got it. I always told you that only fools took chances.”

  I started square up into his face and saw the frown of reproval fade away. An empty, bewildered look came into his eyes.

  “All right, Dutch,” said I. “I didn’t take any chances. You know that. I played the game, but the game beat me. I don’t know what happened.”

  He looked away from me suddenly, like a scared child. He looked at the doctor, as though asking for an explanation. And the doctor was biting his lip and glowering thoughtfully at me.

  “The heart’s like the mainspring of a watch,” he said sourly. “Sometimes it just gives way. The watch begins to tick out of tune. That’s all! You understand that? Just begins to flutter.”

  “What cures this?” asked Dutch, grabbing at me and holding hard.

  “Nothing,” said the doctor. “This boy will never wear the gloves again.”

  “You lie!” screamed Dutch, while that had heart of mine froze and was still.

  The doctor took a step and put the gloved forefinger of his hand on the chest of Dutch. “Listen to me,” he said. “I’ve seen every fight he’s fought. I’ve backed him every time — after the first. I’m not taking you for a ride. I’m telling you. That’s all. Quinidine might bump his heart over the hill and put the rhythm straight again. Nothing else will turn the trick. The poor kid!”

  He looked at me, as he said that, then frowned suddenly and left the room.

  “All right,” Dutch said. “That’s easy. Quinidine. That’s the thing that fixes you, kid.”

  It didn’t though.

  No, it only made me sicker, for a while. I spent six days lying flat, and for six days, they shot the pills into me. Then the doctor gave it up, when the heartbeat had been shoved to a hundred and sixty.

  I tried it a second time, and a third time. Three times, they say, quinidine is worth trying. Each time I was beaten!

  You know what it meant. I was only a kid of twenty-one. I had been on tiptoe. I was going to be a champion. Suddenly they told me that I was an old man. I had to go slowly upstairs. I’d better eat only one meal of meat a day. Better lie down an hour after every meal. A sedentary life, that was preferable, so they told me.

  Me! I’d never pushed a pen across ten pages of paper in all my days! Well, I thought it over for months. I saw doctors all the time. I got so that I was willing to trade the rest of my existence for one year of real life, the sort of life that I had known, the life of a champion, knocking them out.

  Digger Murphy came to see me. He was straight. He gave my hand a squeeze. That old has-been had met the champion, on the strength of his win over me, and he’d landed a lucky punch in the second round and now he wore the crown himself!

  Digger Murphy!

  “You were taking me, kid,” he said. “I never got such a slamming. I thought you were all dynamite. What happened anyway? Were you doped? Did the stuff quit on you cold?”

  I told him. I told him word by word, no word more than one syllable. He kept listening and he kept nodding. He couldn’t look me in the face. It made me sick to see how he took it, like a slam in the chin.

  Then he said: “Look here. I’ve made fifty grand through that scrap. I’m going to make more, too. Any part or all of that is yours.”

  That was pretty good, I’d say. He meant what he said. He was white.

  Finally I said: “Digger, you take and salt the coin away. I’m going to be all right. Don’t you think about me.”

  Digger grinned. “You mean that I won’t be champ long?”

  I shook my head. “You never can tell, Digger. You’re a good old sport and a grand fighter, but you take care of your coin so it can take care of you, one of these days.”

  He kept on grinning and looking at me askance.

  “I know,” said he. “I’m not much good. I’ve only happened on some luck. You could’ve beaten me in the third. I know t
hat. I’m only a ham, when it comes to the real class. Only I’ve just had some luck. Kid, let me give you a hand.”

  I said “no.” He got up and left. For three months, I got a hundred dollars in cash mailed to me every week. The sender’s name was not given, but I mailed all of that money back to Digger, and finally the coin stopped coming. He was a good fellow, as Irish as they make ’em. Then up came that fellow “Tug” Whaley and knocked Digger for a row of loops, took the crown, and wore it fair and square for five years.

  Anyway I got no more money sent to me from old Digger!

  By that time I was ready to look around at the new life and the rotten world that I found to live it in.

  What a world! An hour in bed after every meal; one feed of meat every day; no running upstairs — I couldn’t do anything fast and hard; no running uphill, or running upstairs. Everything must be slow and easy; no emotion. Keep your heart locked up. Smile at everything. Play poker all your life.

  That was what I had to learn to do. And that was just how I happened to go wrong. Rather, you can’t say that it happened. It was inevitable. What else was there for me to do? I couldn’t be a clerk, somehow. That wasn’t in me. I couldn’t join a profession because I didn’t know enough. And I couldn’t sponge on my old pals, because I wasn’t that cheap.

  It wasn’t fun. The doctors told me to live like a snail inside a shell. But then along came a physician with a new hunch. He said that the heart was a muscle and, even though it was a damaged muscle, it ought to be worked regularly. He gave me graded exercises, and I was thankful that I had met him when I began to build up — a step at a time. Pretty soon I could ride a horse all day. I could climb a mountain. I could dance, if I didn’t speed up, for half an hour at a time. I could even go into the gym and lug around a little at the fixings there.

  I had to get rid of nerves; that was all. Every time I got a nerve shock, my heart went smash. But at the end of three months, you could let off a blast of dynamite in my room while I was sound asleep, and I wouldn’t be shocked. You could snap your fingers under my nose, curse me, threaten me, pull a gun on me. It made no difference. I kept those nerves as steady as a ticking clock. I had to. It was that, or die.