The Gamble (Bareknuckle)

by Patrick Jones

  Leung looked around him. Uncle Tso, Mr. Murphy, and Sean were all smiles, but Uncle Nang’s expression remained stoic. It was hard for Leung to know what Nang was thinking. The three other men Mr. Murphy had recruited were easy to read, even from a distance: the open eyes, clenched fists, and frowns revealed their fear.

  “Who’s next?” Sean yelled, but the men sat unmoving.

  “Do you know who I’m fighting at the Woodrat?” Leung asked Sean as they waited for the next fighter to gather his courage. All Leung had been told was that he would fight in two weeks, on Saturday the second.

  “He didn’t tell you?” Sean said in a hard whisper. “You’re fighting my dad.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Are you ready?” Nang asked Leung.

  Leung nodded, took a deep breath, and bowed to his uncles. The three stood in the Woodrat’s damp basement. Despite Tso’s pride, he and Nang had agreed they’d be safest away from the rowdy crowd. They could hear the fight above, but Leung knew they wouldn’t be able to see it, which he didn’t mind. He knew he would win—but if he somehow lost, he couldn’t stand to shame himself in front of his uncles.

  As Leung walked to the fighters’ circle, he heard people yelling at him. When his name was called, Leung took his hat off, and the onlookers exploded in louder jeers. Leung couldn’t understand most of the words they were yelling at him, which he thought was for the best. Mayflower had paid one of his bouncers to act as Leung’s second. The man didn’t seem pleased.

  When Mr. Murphy came to the circle, with Sean behind him as his second, the crowd met them with the same mix of boos and cheers. Leung knew that many visitors to the Woodrat hated the Irish almost as much as the Chinese. They probably didn’t care who won; they just enjoyed watching the newcomers to their city beat each other up.

  Oakley acted as the referee. He wished both fighters good luck, stepped out of the way, and yelled, “Fight!”

  As always, Leung let his foe strike first. He’d sparred with Mr. Murphy enough to know the man’s strengths, which were many, and his weaknesses, which were fewer—but Leung only needed one. Like Sean, once Mr. Murphy got angry, he threw wild punches, looking for a knock out. In Wing Chun, nothing was wild; everything was balanced.

  The crowd cheered as Mr. Murphy threw the starting punch. When Leung countered, they jeered. But as the fight went on, the crowd grew quieter, stunned by Leung’s hybrid style.

  Leung waited patiently for an opening. An attempted left hook left Mr. Murphy off balance. Leung fought the urge to kick Murphy’s leg. Instead, he put his own legs quickly behind Murphy and pushed him backward, tripping him. The crowd booed as Mr. Murphy hit the ground.

  Oakley began to count, but only reached three before Mr. Murphy stood back up. The second round ended the same way, less than a minute later, with Leung knocking Murphy off balance and forcing him down with a palm strike.

  Mr. Murphy tried fighting close in, locking up Leung’s arms, but Leung remained centered. Murphy broke the grip and threw a short right to Leung’s nose, then a left toward his stomach. The left never landed, while the space between Murphy’s hands created an opening that seemed to Leung wider than the ocean.

  Leung struck with his palm to the jaw and a right fist to the temple. Alone, the strikes were not enough to knock a man out, no more than drops in a puddle. But thirty strikes in under a minute became a rainstorm of damage. Mr. Murphy toppled face first in front of Leung, and Oakley counted to ten.

  Leung left the fighters’ circle quickly as the crowd pelted him with garbage and slurs.

  “You won,” Nang said when Leung joined them in the closet. “I could tell.”

  Leung began describing the fight to his uncles, but Tso seemed distracted. A knock at the door interrupted their talk. It was Lew Mayflower.

  “Here you go,” Mayflower said.

  Mayflower put a single bill in Leung’s left hand, damp from his sweat and Murphy’s blood. “And here’s yours,” Mayflower added as he placed a stack of bills in Tso’s right hand.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “So, what do you think?” Lew Mayflower asked Uncle Nang. Nang glanced at the single sheet of paper that McManus had handed him and then stared hard at Mayflower. Nang crumbled the paper and tossed it at Mayflower’s feet.

  “Maybe your brother might think differently,” Mayflower said. He bent over to pick up the paper, but Nang put his foot over it.

  “This will sell tickets,” Mayflower said. Nang ground the paper with the heel of his sandal.

  “What are you talking about?” Leung asked. His uncles, Sean and his father, and Mayflower stood in the backroom of the Woodrat. It was the first day of summer, hours before the club opened.

  “I want you to fight Douglas Truman on the Fourth of July fight card,” Mayflower explained.

  “You’ve got to do it, Leung. It’s a perfect chance,” Mr. Murphy said.

  “I’ll pay double what I paid you last time,” Mayflower said.

  “Does my nephew get paid as much as Truman?” Nang asked.

  Mayflower shook his head.

  “Then why should he fight at all?” Nang asked.

  Before he could answer, Uncle Tso began asking Nang questions. Nang explained what Mayflower had proposed. Tso laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Mayflower asked.

  “My brother doesn’t agree that Leung’s pay should double,” Nang answered.

  Leung frowned. Tso had made more on Leung’s fight with Mr. Murphy than anyone else, and without taking a punch. This was probably some sort of lesson in humility.

  “A wise man!” Mayflower said and then bowed, as if mocking Tso.

  “Triple,” Tso said, in English.

  Leung and Nang appeared stunned by Tso’s use of English. Maybe the man knew just enough to place bets. Money was a common language.

  Tso motioned for Nang to come closer and then whispered in his ear. Leung couldn’t hear them, but while they spoke, the hard look on Nang’s face began to soften.

  Nang faced Mayflower. “My brother says Leung gets paid as much as the other fighter, and—”

  “Out of the question,” Mayflower said. “If people found out that I paid a Chinaman as much as a white man, they’d never come back to the Woodrat. I’ll give him double what he got last time. And if he should win, I’ll give triple—but only we know about it. Agreed?”

  Nang explained the terms to Tso, who nodded in agreement. Even head down under a hat, Leung saw his uncle’s smile.

  “Those were my brother’s conditions, now here are mine,” Nang said.

  Mayflower huffed like a steam engine. “What now?”

  “We want our people to be able to see the fight, up front,” Nang said. “If Leung is good enough to fight at Woodrats, then we are good enough to watch him. Guarantee our safety.”

  Mayflower looked at Mr. Murphy, who shrugged. “Okay, but I have a condition too,” Mayflower said.

  “What’s that?” Nang asked.

  Mayflower motioned for Nang to lift his foot, then picked up the sheet of paper.

  “You have to help promote the fight and sell tickets,” Mayflower said. He smoothed out the paper and handed it back to Uncle Nang. Nang touched it like it was diseased.

  Leung ripped the paper from his uncle’s hands. “Let me see!”

  While Leung continued to improve speaking English, he still couldn’t read the poster’s words. But the pictures on the paper said it all. There was Truman under an American flag, and Leung, or someone like him, but drawn to look evil, with horns coming out of his head and a pointed tail hanging down his back.

  “The devil from the East meets the savior of the West on the Fourth of July!” McManus said. “What can I say? It’ll pack ’em in.”

  The white men all laughed. Uncle Tso even joined in, but not Nang, and not Leung. Like the drawing, Uncle Nang’s expression was easy to read: fear.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Who’s first?” Mr. Murphy asked the sta
ble of groggy looking men he’d recruited to spar with Leung at the Kung Wa Theater. Leung had been in the theater only a few times before, and certainly never on the stage where Murphy and Mayflower had put together a makeshift boxing ring.

  None of the men stood up, which was fine with Leung. With the match against Truman one week away, Leung didn’t think he needed to do these fights. And he wanted time to rest his hands. Even so, Mayflower had insisted that letting people watch him train would create more interest in the July match.

  While Murphy poured coffee into a small man with heavily tattooed arms, Uncle Nang took the stage. Nang had refused to distribute the paper with the picture of Leung as a devil, but he kept his word and promoted the fight, letting Tso sell tickets. Nang commanded attention as he explained the rules to the mostly Chinese crowd. Leung watched the crowd react in surprise at all the things that were not allowed: strikes below the waist, tearing of the flesh, kicking, eye gouging, or striking a man when down. Many in the crowd began to laugh.

  Just before the first fighter stood up, a commotion came from the back of the theater. Heads turned, and some people begin to head for the exits. Leung could see why: it was Douglas Truman, surrounded by a dozen policemen. The policemen waved their clubs, moving people out of the way so Truman could reach the stage.

  Once onstage, Truman ripped off his shirt, flexed his muscles, and assumed a fighter’s pose. At the foot of the stage, along with the police, were two men with a camera.

  “Where’s that Chinese boy who thinks he can defeat me?” Truman bellowed.

  Leung refused to move. He’d meet Truman soon enough at the Woodrat, and then Leung knew he would be standing over the fallen fighter. That would deserve a photograph.

  With Leung centered in place, Truman stomped toward him. Both of Leung’s uncles stood in front of their nephew, while police stood behind Truman. Nang and Tso’s instinct to protect Leung—to protect family—trumped reason or caution.

  “Come on, boy. Give the press something. That’s the Police Gazette boxing reporter!” Truman pointed at a small man with glasses who wrote in a small notebook. “Come Fourth of July, I will tame the devil!”

  Truman shouted so loud, even people who’d fled the theater were likely to hear him. Next, he pushed Nang and Tso to the floor. Before Leung could strike at the man, a group of policeman jumped between them.

  Truman backed away, picked up his shirt, and made his way for the exit, tailed by the reporter, photographers, and policemen. Along the way, the police managed to do more that wave their clubs in the air; they connected against any Chinese onlookers in their path. The dull thud of clubs hitting skulls echoed not only in the theater but in Leung’s memory.

  Leung closed his eyes and recalled the night of the riot. The screams and the shouts as the mob, with the help of the police, ran down the Chinese. Homes burned, hundreds hurt, and a dozen dead. It was a massacre brought on by hatred and fear, the same emotions that Truman had shown on stage.

  Once again, Leung had to find the center of the situation. If he lost, he proved that a white man was stronger than he was, and Tso would be in worse debt with the gamblers. If he won, he knew the end result: another riot, another massacre.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Gentlemen, you know the rules. The fight ends when one of you cannot stand up before the ten count, if your second surrenders for you, or if you agree to a draw. Understood?” Leung struggled to hear Lew Mayflower over the roar of the massive crowd.

  Leung’s uncles were the only Chinese that he could see, even though he was told that all the tickets had been sold. Had the bouncers refused to allow them in? Did Mayflower go back on his word? Or did they stay away, fearing for their safety if Leung should win?

  With Uncle Tso as his second and Nang has his bottle holder, Leung returned to his corner. Nang set down the bottle of water and tied a handkerchief to a pillar, as Mayflower had instructed.

  “Don’t bother to tie it tight,” Leung told his uncle. “He won’t be taking it. I will win this fight—for me, for all of us.”

  “Fight!” Mayflower yelled. The crowd roared in approval. Spectators seemed to push closer to the fighters’ circle as one mass. The smell of alcohol, tobacco, and sweat filled the Woodrat. American flags hung around the circle as Leung, stripped of his shirt, relaxed his arms into perfect position.

  Unlike Mr. Murphy or Leung’s sparring partners, Truman didn’t throw wild punches. Instead, he fought through Leung’s defensive strikes and easily wrestled him to the ground. Although it was against the rules, Truman jammed a knee into Leung’s side.

  For the first time since he had started training with Sean’s father, Leung took the thirty seconds allotted between rounds to find his balance. After the rest, both fighters returned to the circle. Once again, Truman muscled his way pass Leung’s lightning-quick strikes, tied up Leung’s arms, and then threw him to the floor. This time the knee landed harder, catching Leung in the ribs. He gasped for breath.

  The next five rounds ended the same way: a throw, an illegal blow, but with Leung standing before the ten count. After fighting both Truman and his own anger at Truman’s dirty tricks, Leung was tired.

  As round six began, Truman used his long reach to grab Leung’s hair with his left hand and punch at him with his right. Leung blocked the punches with palm blows and waited for the older man to tire. The second Truman paused, Leung attacked. With his right hand, Leung chopped hard on Truman’s left wrist, breaking the man’s grip on his hair—and Truman’s wrist. With his left palm, Leung fired blows across Truman’s eyes.

  The crowd jeered as Truman fell like an old tree. Leung returned to his corner and watched as Truman crawled to his. At the end of the rest period, Truman pulled himself to his feet. He bled and breathed heavily.

  “Fight!” Mayflower shouted.

  And Leung did, blocking every punch, pushing back every attempt to tie him up, and using the growing time between Truman’s attacks to launch his own strikes. He pounded not just at Truman’s face but at the man’s kidneys, time and time again. Blood soon oozed through the man’s no-longer-smiling mouth.

  While Truman had won the first six rounds, Leung dominated the next six. He threw accurate strikes that were too fast for the older man to counter. Truman was slow and getting slower. The crowd had grown quiet as Leung punished his beaten foe, but as the thirteenth round began, onlookers surged forward as if they were trying to prop Truman up. Truman made it up at the seven count. To Leung, it seemed as though Mayflower counted very slowly.

  Three more times, Leung ended the round by knocking Truman down but not out. These rounds lasted longer than the earlier ones, as Truman had stopped punching. Leung sensed Truman had figured out Leung’s strategy. Truman lunged at Leung, butting him in the stomach like a ram. As Leung fell backwards, he landed a hard palm blow to Truman’s chin. The man’s knees buckled. The round ended with both men down.

  Leung bounced back to his feet, but Truman remained face down. Mayflower began the ten count. With each number, Leung sensed the count growing slower and the crowd getting closer, growing louder, preparing for outrage.

  Leung could barely hear the count of “nine”—as the noise around him was louder than most any he’d heard before. Only once had he heard louder—at the riot that caused his family to flee California.

  Mayflower opened his mouth, ready to count Truman out. Leung knew he must be like bamboo—firm by flexible. He stepped out of the fighters’ circle, signaling his willingness to quit. Mayflower grabbed him. “That’s against the rules. I could disqualify you.”

  Leung shook his head to indicate that he didn’t understand.

  “You’ll lose for breaking the rules,” Mayflower said. Leung looked over Mayflower’s shoulder. Truman was on his knees, nowhere close to standing. The crowd inched in. Once more, the odds were against Leung’s family.

  Pushing past Mayflower, Leung used all his weapons against the cheating bully. Fist, elbow, and knee knocked Truman o
ut. The crowd booed and pushed into the fighters’ circle until Mayflower raised the hand of the fallen fighter. Truman’s second took the colors from Leung’s corner. It was official—Leung had been disqualified. In the chaos, Leung, Tso, and Nang escaped out the Woodrat’s back exit.

  “I’m sorry I lost,” Leung said as they sprinted into the night, toward Mott Street. They ran so fast that Leung didn’t take time to stop and ask, “Uncle Tso, why are you smiling?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Do it again,” Uncle Tso instructed Leung. They worked in the alley with the wooden dummy. “Stay balanced!”

  Leung nodded in agreement and delighted in showing off his form, the perfect kicks in particular. Uncle Tso said nothing. He sat, hands in his pockets, smiling.

  It had been two days since Leung lost the fight. Once Leung and Uncle Nang made it back to Chinatown, Tso had disappeared.

  Lew Mayflower wanted Leung to fight Truman again, but Leung had refused. He had nothing to prove. The Woodrat had its rules, but Leung had his honor. Honor was better to have and easier to understand.

  When Uncle Tso had returned to Chinatown after his disappearance, Leung whispered to him, “I’m sorry.” He avoided looking at Tso. His uncle kept his hands in his pockets, and Leung feared the worst. “I’ve shamed us,” Leung continued. “I won’t fight again. I’m sorry you lost—”

  “Quiet!” Uncle Tso said, then slowly took his hands from his pockets. On every finger was a gold ring. “I lost nothing, nor did you. Once you’d proven you were better, there was nothing else to prove. You lost to protect us, am I right?”

  Leung nodded in agreement.

  “I took the money I won off your first fight and used it to buy the tickets Mayflower gave us to sell,” Tso said. “Then I resold those tickets at twice their value to all the people who wanted to see you lose. I don’t know the language, but I understand money.”