Fighter's Alley

by Heather Duffy Stone

  “Remember,” Eddie said. “Never stop moving. Aim for his middle, and when he moves his hands, aim for his face.”

  Will nodded, but his ears were filled with a rushing, the excitement or the fear he wasn’t sure. Oakley stood at the center of the ring while Will and Henry moved toward each other.

  As always, the round started before Will was ready. In a haze, Henry’s fist surged forward and crashed into Will’s cheek. Will felt the blinding pain, then the burning where his skin split and the warm blood on his jawline. He jumped and punched back. His fist hit meat and bone, and Henry stumbled backward, surprised.

  Will could hear Eddie’s voice but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Henry’s fists were up, so Will aimed for the middle. The kid’s stomach was hard, but Will had grown stronger. Henry stumbled to his knees. He was down!

  Will counted to himself: One, two, three …

  He watched Henry’s bowed head and his bruised hands press on the floor. Four, five, six… Slow and unsteady, Henry rose to his feet again.

  “Round two,” Oakley said.

  Will lunged at Henry, punching in quick succession at his shoulder and bicep. Weaken the muscles, Eddie had told him. Henry was still, holding his hands in front of his chin. Suddenly, Henry’s left arm hooked toward Will’s midsection, the punch so quick and so perfect Will was on his knees, gasping for breath before he realized he had stopped punching. It was as if a heavy boot were pressed across his chest. He gasped and gasped, just reaching for air, bouncing to his feet as soon as he could breathe.

  Smash. His fist reached Henry’s jaw. He no longer knew who the blood on his knuckles belonged to. It was like that—back and forth, back and forth, until Will’s arms and chest were numb. His knuckles tingled. His face burned.

  The crowd around grew nearly silent. That’s how Will knew he had a chance. He could feel Eddie’s presence behind him, but Eddie just let him fight. He said almost nothing. Will bounced, but his legs felt like lead. When Henry’s final blow came, it knocked Will so deep in the gut that Will thought for a second that Henry’s fist had gone through him, hollowing out his insides. Will folded and fell to the floor. He pressed one hand on the ground, but there was no strength to lift him. He tried to press his feet, but he couldn’t feel them. He heard Oakley counting. He closed his eyes.

  Will was in bad shape. But once Eddie had washed him and wrapped his ribs and cleaned the cuts, once Will had dressed, the only real visible injuries were his bruised knuckles and a deep gash on his left cheek. He would have to tell his mother he’d been in a fight. He would blame the Irish stickball players, and he knew his parents would be so angry about the Irish barbarians that maybe they would forget about him.

  Eddie was proud. Will had never seen Eddie proud, but he was. “It was an even fight in skill,” Eddie said. “The boy is just bigger. He’s stronger. And even so, you nearly had him.”

  Will had almost won his first fight, and the men at the Woodrat had been speechless. He was a real contender now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Their breakfast table was long and narrow. His father sat at the head, the newspaper pyramided in front of him. He drank his coffee and rattled the cup in its saucer when he needed it to be filled. His mother sat to his left eating her egg out of its cup, one small bite at a time. As with every morning, she drank exactly one cup of tea and she watched Will eat his breakfast. She liked to use that time of day to learn everything that Will was doing. Mostly, he told her he was playing baseball. He’d make up names so his mother can’t check with anyone’s family. But he was starting to feel like she was suspicious. Finally, that morning, his father folded his paper and set it down. He rattled his cup, and Benjamin came in from the kitchen, filling it carefully, and retreating. Will’s father stared at him from under his dark eyebrows.

  “I think I’ve had enough of these children’s games you’ve been off playing in the streets,” he said.

  “William—” his mother started. But his father held his hand up to her.

  “Come now, you treat him like a child,” his father said. “He comes home covered in dirt like a child, and he is late like a child. But he is not a child. He brawls with the Irish criminals and shames me by looking like a brute. But he needs to think of his future. I’ve decided he will go to Yale and study law.” Even though Will’s father spoke to his mother, he stared at Will.

  “I don’t want to study law,” Will said.

  “You don’t want to study law,” his father echoed. “This is not a question of want. It is a question of responsibility.”

  Will knew that would be his father’s answer. His grandfather had come to New York and learned the law. His father had learned the law. They were politicians. And this was what Will is supposed to do. He had known all of this for as long as he could remember. But he also knew that he wouldn’t do it. It didn’t feel right. The only time he felt right was when he boxed.

  “We will win the election in the fall,” his father went on. “And we will move in to the mayor’s mansion. You will finish school, and you will go on to Yale next year. I’ve already spoken to them.”

  Will stared at the plate in front of him, at the crumbs of toast, and he thought about his fight with Henry Cartwright. He remembered the shock on Henry’s face when he’d knocked him down and the hush of the crowd. Will could not go to Yale, and he would not study law or be mayor, but he knew better than to tell his father any of this.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Will heard the voices before he turned down Eddie’s alley. Deep, loud voices that sounded almost as if they were singing. High and low, angry and sad. When he came close enough, he saw Eddie and another man face-to-face, their arms flying. The other man was even smaller than Eddie, dressed all in white with an apron wrapped around his middle.

  The man in white was waving his finger close to Eddie’s face. He looked so angry that as Will got closer, he could see the veins in the man’s neck. The small man waved his arms behind him, Eddie waved back, and finally the small man disappeared inside the bakery. A moment later, a small bag came sailing out of the door and landed at Eddie’s feet.

  “Basta! Finito!” the man called out.

  Will heard the door slam. Eddie bowed his head. The alleyway was nearly silent.

  “Hi, Eddie,” Will said, coming closer.

  Eddie raised his head. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Is everything okay?” Will asked.

  Eddie took a deep breath, picked up the bag at his feet, and swung it over his shoulder. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he said. “Let’s go to the church.”

  Since Will had nearly won his fight against Henry, Eddie had started to push him more, make him move faster.

  “Where is your foot pointing?” Eddie asked. “Hit in that direction. Quickly! Without thinking!”

  “Out and up, out and up,” he called, knocking Will’s hand each time Will’s punches were sloppy and bounced off Eddie’s shoulders and arms.

  “Harder!” Eddie yelled. “You have to hit harder. You have to hit with the force of all of your weight.”

  And Will did. He looked at his foot, he pulled his arm back, he turned his fist slightly, and he punched. His fist made contact with Eddie’s jaw, and Eddie’s head seemed to bounce on his shoulders. Eddie fell into a seated position, holding his jaw in his hand.

  Will stood frozen in place, his arms at his side.

  “Are you okay? Eddie?”

  Eddie looked up and nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. That is what I’ve been asking from you. That is what you need to do in the fighters’ circle.”

  Will nodded. But he still didn’t move. I knocked Eddie down, he thought. I knocked down the best fighter in the history of New York.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Will woke up on the morning of the qualifying fight, he knew something was different. He placed his hand on his rib cage, still tender with bruises. He clenched and unclenched his hands, still sor
e and cracking. He even flexed his feet. His body was stronger. It was bruised and battered. But he’d nearly won a fight. He’d knocked Eddie to the ground. He’d stopped being the laughingstock at the Woodrat. He’d gone from watching and dreaming to fighting. And he knew he’d been right. He was good at it. Today he would win a spot in the Coney Island tournament, and that would just be the beginning.

  But first, he had to lie to his mom again. And that made him feel a little bit sick.

  The sun shone strong into Will’s room. The first thing he did was get up and go to the window. He pressed his forehead and his cheeks against the hot glass for as long as he could. Then, when he heard his mother’s footsteps, he ran back to the bed. He held his breath until his ears felt like they would explode. And when his mother opened the door, slipping inside his room, he was red and breathless, hot and sweaty from the warm window. She sat gently on his bed and put her palm on his forehead.

  “You don’t look well.”

  He nodded, trying to look as miserable as he could. His mother pushed his hair back on his forehead.

  “Okay,” she said. But she didn’t move. “I’ll tell your father you’re ill.”

  Will nodded into his pillow, hoping his speechlessness would only make him seem sicker.

  “Will, I know your father is harder on you,” his mom went on. He closed his eyes. He hoped she would stop talking if she thought he was sleeping. It only made him feel worse. “But he sees himself in you. He sees that you could lose your way, and he doesn’t want that. He is proud of who you are. He wants you to be proud of him too, you know.”

  Will felt sad for his mother. He knew she wanted peace between them. She did her best to make sure everyone was taken care of. But she didn’t know how his father felt—that much was clear. Will’s father hated him, and Will knew it. And the feeling was starting to be sort of mutual. Will had the impression his mother might actually not mind his boxing, aside from the violent part, of course. She had some adventure to her. He’d never seen it; he just had the feeling. He opened his eyes and smiled weakly at her. “I think I’ll feel better if I can just sleep some,” he said.

  When Will arrived, the men inside the Woodrat were raising their arms in the air, some with mugs of beer, some with fists of crumpled dollars, some just cheering. Lew Mayflower had gone all out: two rings were set up on either side of the bar, so there was less space than ever for people.

  Eddie shouldered his way through the crowd, and Will followed in the space that Eddie had cleared. He hadn’t been able to eat anything, and now he felt a hollow rumbling in his stomach. He couldn’t tell if it was nerves or hunger. They made their way to one of the new rings, where Mayflower was standing on a stool gesturing wildly and yelling.

  “We have forty qualifying fights today,” he announced. “The winner of each fight wins a spot in our Coney Island tournament. Win or lose, get out of the ring, because we’ll be moving on to the next fight. Lightest weights first; then we move up. Place your bets at the bar. Now let’s go …”

  “Come on,” Eddie said. He hustled Will to a back corner, and Mayflower’s voice became a hum. “Now stay here,” Eddie said, pressing Will’s back to the wall. “I’m going to go find out about your fight. It will be soon. Try to close your eyes, shut out what’s happening around you. Think about the fight. Make your mind as strong as your body. Don’t let anyone stir you up.”

  His hands held firm to Will’s shoulders as he talked. Although the crowd pushed in around Will, he nodded. After focusing on Eddie’s words, he tried to turn inward. He took deep breaths as Eddie moved away. All of this would be different after he won. They’d respect him. They’d leave him alone.

  Eddie was back before he knew it. “Come on, kid. We’re the first fight.”

  “The first fight?”

  That meant Will was the smallest fighter there. And it meant he had no time. They shouldered past the other ring, where Paddy Dohrring, though another lightweight, seemed to tower over his shaking opponent. Paddy winked over his shoulder at Will, one eye swollen and black. There was no one in Will’s ring as he climbed up.

  The light over the ring’s center was hot and blinding, and Will was already sweating. He hopped from one foot to the other, comforted by the presence of Eddie on the ground at the ring’s corner. Through the bright light, Will saw an arm flop over the ropes. A body followed, hauling itself into the opposite corner of the ring.

  Will had only ever fought someone his own age. He’d always figured his opponents would be like him. But looking across the ring, he was reminded again how little he knew about fighting. It was about weight and nothing else. The man who faced Will was old. Older than Eddie, even. His hair was thin, nearly gone. He shook his arms and grinned. His teeth were gone too. His body was pale and stringy. Will couldn’t tell whether he was seeing veins or muscles. He turned and crouched down near Eddie.

  “He’s a fighter just like you,” Eddie said.

  “I can’t hit him; he’s old.”

  “Of course you can hit him. That’s why he’s here, and that’s why you’re here.”

  “I might kill him.”

  Eddie laughed. “He’s stronger than you think. Remember what you’ve learned. He’s all that stands between you and the tournament.”

  A bell rang, and Oakley was there, standing in the ring, thick and looming.

  “Okay, boys. Let’s go,” he said. “You know the rules: fight till a knockout or till I say it’s over. Ready? Kid?”

  Will nodded.

  “Benny?”

  The old man nodded. They came together at the center of the ring. Will put his hands up. The bell rang again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Old Man Benny got one or two punches in early. He hit harder than Will expected—Eddie had been right about that. But Will had knocked him out in one round. Will waited, he bounced, then sent the old man sailing backward with one punch. Benny didn’t move once he hit the ground, Will was afraid he’d killed him for a moment. When Old Man Benny’s head rolled to the side, Oakley bent over to proclaim him breathing.

  There was no time for glory as Will and Benny were pushed out of the ring so the next fight could start. Paddy Dohrring’s opponent was slumped and bleeding from the nose in his ring, and Paddy had not even broken a sweat. He caught Will’s arm as they moved past.

  “You’re a dead man, Mayor,” he said.

  Paddy Dohrring was the last person Will wanted to fight. Paddy was built like Eddie, small with solid muscle. But the worst part was that he wasn’t afraid of anything. Not anything at all. That made him more dangerous than any of the other fighters.

  But Will wanted to celebrate. He wanted to find a way to thank Eddie. He knew things were bad with him, that Eddie had been sleeping at the church and deep purple circles had come in under his eyes. Will had been working with Eddie for weeks, and he felt like Eddie could read everything about him. Eddie was making every dream Will had come true, and still Will knew nothing about Eddie, had no real way to thank him.

  “We should celebrate!” Will said hopefully as he and Eddie pushed out of the bar into the sticky summer night.

  “We’re not celebrating yet,” Eddie said. But he was smiling.

  “Maybe just a steak dinner and a pint,” Will offered.

  Eddie laughed. Will wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Eddie laugh. And he knew then that Eddie was proud. That Eddie felt the same excitement he did. That they’d done something important.

  “I don’t believe you should be having a pint of anything,” Eddie said.

  “A steak then?”

  “Now where could you and I have a steak without drawing more attention than either one of us needs?” Eddie asked. Will thought about it. At every place he could think of, people would know his father, and so they would know him. And he’d have to charge the dinner to his father. And any place where they didn’t know his father wouldn’t let an Italian in.

  The pair walked slowly down Delancey Street, and Will felt hi
s stomach settling. He’d won. He was fighting in Coney Island. A real tournament. A real fight.

  They’d only been walking a few minutes when Will heard the footsteps behind him. His stomach sank. He didn’t know how, but he knew this was bad. And Eddie’s footsteps slowed—he knew too.

  “Get out of here, kid,” Eddie whispered.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Will said. They both turned. Three shadows walked toward them. It was just like the day the boys followed Will from the Woodrat, the day Eddie had agreed to help him. But this time it was the shadows of hulking, grown men coming toward them. As the men got closer, Will could see beards and bruises. At the center stood the man who had spit at Eddie.

  “Tancredi, I told you. You lost me all the money I had. Now you owe me,” the man growled.

  “I didn’t ask you to bet against me,” Eddie said evenly.

  “You were supposed to lose that fight, and you know it,” the Spitting Man said. Will’s skin grew cold. The legends were true. The Spitting Man turned to Will.

  “You should tell your scrawny kid to get outta here.”

  Filled with adrenaline or maybe just something crazy, Will lunged at the man, punching at the man’s neck with all of his force. The street around him blurred. His knuckles cracked against the round rock of the man’s Adam’s apple. He felt the man stumble and then an arm hurled him back into a doorway.

  Pain tore through Will’s shoulder. He blinked and straightened himself, and he saw the men surrounding Eddie. The now-familiar echoes of bone and skin filled the alley. Burning waves coursed through Will’s shoulder, but he had to help Eddie. As he started to move in, he saw something he would never forget. Eddie seemed to rise up out of the circle of men, seemed to double his size and width. He moved with impossible speed and grace, turning and punching one-two, one-two, one-two, at each man. First, a crack to the face, splitting skin, breaking blood, then a hollow thud to the body, sending each man doubled over to the ground. The blows came so fast and so fierce, not one man had time to defend the other before they were all in a heap at Eddie’s feet.