by F. X. Toole
A hand-lettered sign on one wall read, “Good Fighters Don’t Need Water and Bad Fighters Don’t Deserve Water.” Another read, “Learning’s Hard, Doing’s Easy.” A third sign, “Remember the Easter Bunny,” showed an amateurish drawing of a boxing ring scattered with faded Easter eggs. Another sign read, “The First Rule of War Is Don’t Shoot Yourself.”
The gym was located directly behind the rear of the shop. The shop faced Cole Avenue, while the gym faced narrow Wilcox Avenue, the next street west. Back to back, both buildings were part of what remained of an old Hollywood industrial/residential area. The gym could be entered directly from the back of the shop through the rear door. That’s how the few fighters still using the gym entered it.
The address and main entrance to the gym were on Wilcox; a small, hand-painted sign that read “GyM” had once been nailed to the right of the front door. Until the day Dan tore it off and hurled it to the ground, under the huge eucalyptus tree that still afforded its gentle shade and pleasantly medicinal smell.
After he had fought off the idea of burning the place down, Dan had Centcor Security install a fire-and-burglar-alarm system in the gym. Because he had boarded up the front windows and door, the building looked like it had been abandoned. Anybody who decided to break into the place and trash it would find Dan Cooley confronting them with a twelve-gauge pump shotgun long before the police turned up. Dan lived, slept, and ate mostly in a room on the second floor. And he was a very light sleeper these days, when he slept at all.
Chapter 2
Dan was first-generation Irish, the youngest of five brothers—Cathal Michael, Liam Francis, Dermot James, Finbar Joseph, and himself, Daniel Aloysius. The first three were born five floors up in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, the Irish slums west of Times Square; Fin and he were born in a converted first-floor loft on the Lower East Side. His mother told how she made the sign of the cross when she walked down the last flight of Hell’s Kitchen stairs she’d ever have to climb.
Dan’s father, Padraic Timothy, was from County Armagh; his mother, Nora Ann McGeough, from County Louth, counties whose borders touched, but they were married a few miles to the south at the massive, stone St. Pat’s “chapel” in Dundalk, County Louth—”chapel,” not church, because only the “churches” of the protestant Church of Ireland were called “churches” back then.
Ireland and its people were still scarred from the famine, the Great Hunger, which had begun in 1846. Work, good work, was hard to find and black poverty infested both town and countryside. Like thousands of others, Dan’s parents saw America as the only way out and they worked day and night to save money for their passage. Nora was pregnant before they got on the boat for New York, and sick all the way across, but she kissed the ground of Ameriky when they landed, and both hoped they had reached salvation from hunger and fear.
Padraic was mad-dog crazy for Irish football and hurling, had played both and had the scars to prove it, but he instantly fell in love with boxing and baseball—he read every inch of the sports pages every day to follow the standings and batting averages—and he used baseball to improve his reading comprehension. He knew the records of Irish fighters, starting with the great John L. Sullivan as a bare knuckler. When there was money enough, he took his older sons to the fights at the old Madison Square Garden, and to St. Nick’s in Manhattan, even took them all the way up to the Bronx Coliseum if the card was right. Nora had the kids, and thanked God from her knees, twice daily, that she hadn’t lost any—so many children had been lost back in Ireland—and for the good man who labored so hard to put food on the table every day.
It was food hard earned in the early days, which included the bread lines of the early thirties. Padraic first supported his family as a roustabout, showing up at the docks or labor sites before dawn, hoping to be picked early and to work late. Then came steady work for New York City as a garbageman. When he got promoted to driver, he was able to move his family from the raging violence of Hell’s Kitchen to their loft near the Bowery, where Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, and Italians were protective neighbors, and a decent girl could walk to school safely. Sidewalk justice was meted out to any punk who even thought of tampering with her. The loft was another step up for the Cooleys. It was where the last two boys were born, and it was in the quiet of the loft late at night that Padraic and Nora studied to become citizens.
The Cooleys would surely have stayed in New York but for the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s subsequent gearing up for all-out war. California suddenly had plenty of good-paying jobs and was short of men (and women) to fill them, so in mid-1942 the family moved by train to Los Angeles. They found a place to live in the old dock town of San Pedro, on the westerly rim of what would shortly become the massive Los Angeles Harbor. Padraic found employment on the assembly line at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach. He worked twelve-hour shifts, sometimes seven days a week, and never missed a day. With overtime, and with Nora cashing every check and marking down every penny he earned and every one she spent, they lived well enough for him to buy his first car, a used 1934 Chevy four-door sedan for $165.00, a high price because of the war. Now he could drive to work like an American, instead of wasting hours a day on the bus like some Jerk McGee green off the boat. His children always had milk, and his family ate three times a day. That was why he had come to the United States in the first place.
The two older boys, Cathal and Liam, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and though neither was wounded or won medals for valor, they hadn’t been draft dodgers, either. By the end of the war, the number of two-car families had grown, but then the war plants closed down. Money was tight and jobs were scarce. Padraic used his experience at Douglas and the money he’d saved to open his own body-and-fender shop. Dan and his brothers worked for their father, Dan after school and on Saturdays, the older boys full-time until they went on to become policemen or firemen once they were sure the old man’s business was successful.
“A man with a trade is worth two men,” Padraic would counsel his sons at the dinner table, “and a man with a trade won’t go hungry, not in this great land.”
Nora would bump him with her hip to let him know who was the real boss, the one with the real trade. “Eejit, ya didn’t like yer dinner, didja, nor the one yer not gettin tomorrow?”
Padraic would answer, his face solemn, “Och, there’s nothin worse than a Dundalk biddy,” but he’d always put his arm around Nora’s waist and pull her back to him.
Dan learned that family meant you fought for and protected one another. As a little boy in a rough neighborhood in New York, he’d been insulated from harm by his big brothers. But in San Pedro, at St. Jude’s school, there were no big brothers on duty—and he was a small freckle-faced kid who talked funny, weighed too much, and looked soft. Bigger and tougher boys knew a mark when they saw one, and Dan was frequently bullied. He watched others tear into his lunch bag, take the pie or cake, and scatter the rest in the street. In the beginning he tried to fight back, but he was chubby and slow, and he quickly realized that he didn’t know how to fight. Dan finally quit fighting back, but never told the sisters at school or anyone at home because he was ashamed of being fat and weak. He withdrew into himself and began to play at home alone.
Nora was no fool; she knew something had gone wrong and followed Dan to school one day. From down the block, she watched as two older kids pushed him down and ran off with his brown bag. She wanted to rush and comfort him, and then to spank the asses off the kids who had abused her son, but she also wanted Dan to be the one to teach these bullies a lesson. And seeing her good food scattered on the street made her even more furious.
The next Saturday she took Dan to the Police Athletic League gym near the waterfront. There Dan met his destiny—a part-time boxing coach, Sal Gallardo, who had been a professional fighter in his youth, but like nearly all ex-fighters, he was kind and courteous, and wanted most of all to be known as a gentleman. When he heard Nora out, he suggested boxing to her as a soluti
on to the problem and pointed to the other little kids he was training. She wasn’t sure what to make of him, what with his dark skin and his mashed-in nose. Gallardo added that boxing might be best for Dan because the boys competed with others in the same weight class. He explained how Dan’s size wouldn’t necessarily be a disadvantage, and that he’d be able to build himself up at the same time he learned boxing, the manly art of self-defense.
Nora was wary, but she liked the “manly” part, and sat with Dan to observe how gentle Coach Gallardo was with his charges. Gallardo’s little guys were lean and quick, and had learned how to fight—a glass cabinet full of Police Athletic League and Golden Gloves trophies testified to that. Nora had never thought of boxing, had no idea how fighters became fighters, had assumed that the strongest fighter was the fighter who always won.
Coach Gallardo explained that Dan would wear big gloves, head and body protection, and train to get into proper condition before he could box with other boys. “The worst that can happen, Mrs. Cooley, is that he’ll lose weight.”
Nora started Dan as a spectator, but nudged him gently into Coach Gallardo’s care every Saturday before school was out for summer vacation. It wasn’t long before Dan lost weight, and once that happened, he realized he was fast and strong for his size. Coach Gallardo was careful to make sure Dan understood and could execute fundamentals before he put him in with a suitable opponent—to see if Dan had heart. He did, he did indeed, and was he thrilled with his showing, thrilled with himself, and soon he was strutting to the gym alone.
Opening day of school the next September, he kicked the shit out of the first bully who came for his lunch. He had to fight three more days and got some lumps for it, but each day he was the one who ate his mother’s pie or cake, and after the third fight, he no longer had to fight to eat. He’d earned the respect of his schoolmates, but most important, he’d earned the respect of his mother, and it was only after the semester began that Nora told Padraic how, with Dan’s willing complicity, she’d kept the whole tale secret from him.
Padraic said, “Would it not appear that the lad’s mother invaded the time-honored domain of the lad’s own father?”
Nora placed the back of one hand to her brow in mock martyrdom. “The louts were stealin me pie.”
“So, it’s sympathy for yerself yer afther, is it?” he said.
“‘Tis,” she said. “Because they stole me cake, too.”
Padraic filled his pipe with cavendish. “So the lad’s good with his mitts, is he?”
“Och, Paddy, he’s wizard,” she said.
Once Dan had put the bullies on their asses, he suddenly had friends who were Slavs, blacks, Mexicans, and Italians. When he began winning amateur tournaments and collecting fight trophies, those same friends invited him home to eat delicious meals prepared by their mothers, who seemed exotic to Dan. Though he was delighted by the food, and always had seconds, he was ever glad to return to the meat and badehdahs and the Irish bread he got at home. And pie.
Though he’d never be big enough to play on the high school football team, he was big and tough enough to fight. He got that way working his freckled ass off and eating the best Slav and soul food, and Mexican and Italian and Irish food in San Pedro, pronounced “Peedro” by the locals. Padraic was his greatest fan, and the more the kid had to train in order to win, the less he had to work in the shop. Nora had wanted at least one priest from her litter. Her other two sons would become cops and firemen, but Dan was her fighter, and sometimes she wondered, God forgive her, if he just might be her favorite because of it, her Brian Ború.
At eighteen, Dan was good enough to win the California Golden Gloves featherweight title at the Olympic Auditorium. Coach Gallardo turned him over to professional trainer Willie “Shortcake” Daw, Earl’s father, and Dan made the trip in from San Pedro daily to train at the old Main Street Gym on L.A.’s skid row. It was there in the stink and spit that he learned to grow the nails on his thumbs and forefingers longer than on his other fingers, to better snag and remove adhesive tape from his hand wraps after sparring.
Shortcake Daw worked full time as a sorter in Los Angeles’s old main post office across from Union Station. He also hustled football cards for a bookie on Central Avenue, and doubled his income among his fellow postal workers. If an inspector came sniffing around, Shortcake would slip him a few cards for himself. He made a lot of friends among government inspectors, who’d go out of their way to make social calls.
Under Shortcake, Dan developed into a slick and tireless boxer-puncher, and his black hair and handsome face reminded old-time fans of Irish Billy Conn, the great light-heavyweight out of Pittsburgh. The Irish dubbed him “Connman” Danny Cooley to connect him to Billy Conn. “Connman” identified Dan with the cleverness of Billy Conn in the ring, but also hooked him to the “con” in the word “confetti”—Irish confetti—the old mick term for bricks.
By the time he was twenty-two, Dan had grown into a tall and wiry lightweight at 135 with a pro record of thirty-two and two, with twenty-one knockouts. He’d never been down, and most fight fans believed he was on his way to the world lightweight title. Because he stood five-nine, it was also thought that he would grow into a welterweight, and that he was good enough to hold both world titles at the same time.
But all those hopes turned to ashes when Dan sustained massive injuries to his right eye and the bone structure around it. The fight that was the one he needed to win to get his shot at being a champion turned out to be his last fight.
It was like déjà vu to Dan.
One evening, while they were washing and drying the dishes, Tim Pat said, “Grampa, I wanna start comin home for my lunch, okay?”
Dan said, “I thought you liked the lunches I make.”
“I do, but I like eatin at home better.”
Tim Pat had been brown-bagging for three years. Dan said, “Why do you want to eat lunch at home?”
Tim Pat said, “I just wanna.”
Dan said, “Son, the shop’s always busy at lunchtime. When my guys are all at lunch, and people come in for their cars and stuff, I have to be there.”
Tim Pat said, “You could take my lunch to the shop and I could walk over there to eat.”
Dan said, “Walkin would take time, and maybe I wouldn’t be able to get you back to school for class. Besides, you couldn’t play noon games with the kids, right?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Dan didn’t understand. Tim Pat had grieved following his parents’ death, and after Brigid’s. That was normal enough, but like most kids he was resilient, especially when he found abundant love from his grandfather, comfort from the nuns, and playful attention from Earl and the guys at the shop. All served to compensate for much of the boy’s loss. He began to grow, to flourish, to break through the sadness and reserve of silence. He was particularly secure in his grandfather’s love. He’d had his scuffles at school, like every other little boy, but no one had ever preyed upon him. He still walked to Christ the King School the way Brigid and Dan had taught him. Dan picked him up at school and usually took him to the shop, where Tim Pat would do homework or tinker with junk cars until closing time. The boy was good at team sports and liked to compete, but had never shown an interest in boxing, which was fine with Dan. Boxing was something you wanted, or you didn’t, and Dan would never have pushed it on a son of his own, much less Tim Pat. Tim Pat liked baseball, was a good hitter, seldom struck out. Dan went to every game. Now things had changed. Tim Pat no longer seemed interested in baseball and Dan didn’t understand why.
Earl said, “Watch the boy close, it could be his hurt comin back on him.”
A week later, Dan noticed that Tim Pat had dark circles under his eyes. As a fight trainer, Dan was attuned to shifts. Tim Pat looked like he’d lost weight. A loss of a pound or two is nothing to an adult, but for a nine-year-old weighing sixty-four pounds at four foot six, it’s a significant amount. Two pounds can be significant in boxing, as well. Should a 135-pound f
ighter come in at 137 at the weigh-in for a 135 -pound fight, he’d have to make weight by sweating off the two pounds in the steam room or by doing roadwork. Having to lose weight so close to a fight would give the other guy the edge. Only the dummies showed up overweight. But this was about something more than weight.
Dan said, “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what’s wrong, son?” Dan asked.
“Nothin.”
Dan didn’t buy it, waited a few days. The kid withdrew even more, looked cold all the time, went to his room.
Sister Mary Virginia called from school. “Is there something wrong with Tim Pat, Mr. Cooley?”
“Is he skipping classes, or something?”
Sister said, “It’s not that. It’s his schoolwork.”
“Is he eating at lunchtime?”
Sister said, “I’m sure he is. No one has said otherwise.”
Dan hung up. He could have kicked himself. “No one said otherwise” back in his own school days either—least of all him.