"Stay here and watch the fight," said De Gracy. He'd led Stone to his usual spot, by the window. Stone seemed not to notice where he was. "I'll go back to the bell."
The boxing match continued on for one and a half round before Stone noticed that something was wrong. When Stone watched Messenger fight, he would often imagine his own movement possess the boxer's, and so Stone could feel the satisfaction of a dodge, a parry, or a perfectly placed blow himself, but during the last round, Messenger's body was constantly waning away from the ghost that Stone was projecting up on the ring. When it seemed obvious to dodge, Messenger didn't, and when an opening presented itself, Messenger ignored it. The discordance made Stone for once look at Messenger's face.
He noticed that the young boxer was smiling; and it wasn't a smile of joy, but one imbued with the slyness of a fox, and when Stone noticed that Messenger's gaze darted away from the match and down on him, he stepped away from the cold window, immediately casting aside his usual careless certainty that Messenger would win. Graham put in another punch, and Messenger was looking at Stone the moment the fist hit his jaw.
He was still smiling.
Stone stepped closer and closer to the ring, Messenger's vile smile becoming clearer. Stone looked at De Gracy, who couldn't but shake his head at what was happening in the ring. Messenger lowered his parades entirely, still looking at Stone. Graham positioned himself a bit closer and he started punching Messenger in the face and along his stomach line. Messenger took all the punches, letting his body be shaken by the incoming force, letting his inner organs be devastated, and he was still looking at Stone and smiling.
"Paul!" yelled Stone. "Paul!"
Stone came in closer, but he couldn't get through the crowd. The men were pushing him away, ecstatic by the sudden change of the fight.
"Frank, stop the fight!" yelled Stone.
"You can't do that!" said someone.
"Still a minute left of the round," said another.
"Frank, you hear me?" yelled Stone, still trying to push in through the wall of people. De Gracy shook his head in hopelessness.
Messenger looked down on Stone, still absorbing all the punches that incessantly rained upon his body. He was still smiling, keeping his eyes locked with Stone's.
"Stop this, Paul!" screamed Stone. He was wrestling some of the men in the crowd, but they held him back.
"You can't stop the fight now,” they said.
"Paul!"
Messenger's face was crimson with blood, his old wounds reopened. He was looking so unwaveringly at Stone, his gaze so immensely fixed that there was no line of doubt to what he was trying to convey; his conviction had turned against his own body, and in that moment, even the sacrifice of a few pounds of flesh seemed to lie within the grasp of mortal reach.
"Paul, god damn it!" Stone's hoarse scream was followed by a final push at the crowd, but the many men pushed him back with such force that he landed straight on his back. And when he cast his gaze to catch the final seconds before the bell rang, he saw how Messenger let himself collapse to the floor, giving his body permission to fall down and accept his unrightful defeat. De Gracy jumped into the ring and crouched next to Messenger. The triumphant Graham was walking in circles once more, but this time all over the ring, his hands held high, collecting praise from the bellowing crowds.
Stone banged his fist into the wall, breaking off some of the brittle tile, De Gracy looking at him from under his fedora. Messenger sat in his own corner of the locker room. He was carefully watching Stone pace back and forth. His face was almost unrecognizable, and there was a gash across his stomach. He was holding one hand under his ribs, as if to keep his insides from falling straight out on the white floor.
“I swear, Paul,” said Stone. “If you ever do something like that again, I swear by everything good and holy that I’ll throw you straight back to the streets where I found you, you understand?”
Messenger raised his head a bit. “Eckleburg swore by everything good and holy.”
Stone turned to Messenger, marched past all the benches of the locker room, and slapped him. He looked at him for a while without speaking.
“You hit me because you knew I wouldn’t flinch?” asked Messenger.
“I hit you for my own sake, not yours.”
“And I’m supposed to turn the other cheek?”
“You’re not Jesus,” said Stone.
“And you ain’t God!” screamed Messenger. He stood up from the bench. “I say the name of someone who killed his own wife and kids, and you defend him? You’re not supposed to forgive something like that.”
“I never forgave Eckleburg, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then why the hell are you visiting his shit stain of a grave?”
“To pay my respects to the man that lived. That’s not necessarily the same as respecting the man that died. The man I saw die.”
“And that makes you great?” asked Messenger. “That you saw Eckleburg die? That makes you greater than anyone here?”
Stone stepped away and turned his head. He saw a mop in the corner of the room, stained with Messenger’s blood. “You’re an idiot for what you did to yourself out there.”
“May be, but I got your attention, didn’t I?”
“My attention, yes. But I still won’t let you fight Holden.”
“I think you will, because if I do this again and again and again, then guess what? One day Grundy’ll be carrying me out to the bins out there, and not some mop or gloves, but me. My body, Stone. So if you don’t give me Holden in a fight, you’ll get the satisfaction of standing by my body too, now won’t you?”
“I don’t want that.”
“Yeah, well guess what, you won’t have to. Ever. I can promise you that. If there’s anything I can give as a promise to you, it’s that you’ll never grieve over my dead body. You know how I know that? Because I know you. You won’t let it happen, and that’s why I know you’ll give me my fight with Holden.”
De Gracy got up, and after lingering a while, like a dead tree in a still desert, he walked to the door of the locker room and opened it. The main hall on the other side was empty.
“Then go out and fight him,” said De Gracy, waving his head out the open door. “If you want to fight the kid so bad, then find him and beat him up… kill him for all I care. Making such a god damn fuss over something you could go ahead and just do.” De Gracy grabbed the bloody mop by the door. He looked at Stone and made the face of a spoiled child. “Hey Stone,” he said with a shrill, childlike voice. “Can I get this mop and smear it all over? Please? Please? I want it sooo bad, and if I can’t, then I’ll just go and kill myself.” De Gracy pulled his face back together. “It’s like watching a god damned child.”. He lifted up the mop and smeared Messenger’s blood all over the white tiles of the wall. When finished, he threw the mop back into the corner, pulled out a cigarette and shoved it between his lips. Stone and Messenger looked at the banner of blood that De Gracy had made.
“You don’t die with dignity just because you do it in a ring,” said De Gracy. He pointed at the big stain of blood. “That's how we all look in god's eyes anyway.”
Messenger bowed his head, and for the first time in his life he let out a little humility. He grabbed the edge of the bench that he was sitting on, his voice heavy and screeching like a rusty grinder. “I could fight Holden right now, that’s true. I could find him out there, in some dirty alley… back of a bar maybe… and I could smash his face in with an iron pipe or a baseball bat, or I could hold him down and keep kicking the life out of him, but if I don’t beat him like…” Messenger’s face cringed for a second. A thin streak of blood poured down from the red mural and down the wall. “If I don’t beat him like I’m supposed to, then there ain’t no point in moving on. David had one Goliath, but I have plenty more than that, and they’re all in a row… like fucking pearls.” Messenger turned to Stone, and another streak of blood ran down the wall.
“You should let
yourself heal now, you listen?” said Stone. “We’ll let all this settle, and then I’ll make up my mind.”
Messenger nodded. He looked at where the poster of the Bull had hung earlier, and even though it wasn't there anymore, Messenger could still see the man on it, and he felt the loop of anger that he had to break to move on, and the longer he felt the loop the more uncertain he was of when or how it had started.
Another trickle of blood ran down the wall.
De Gracy and Stone had been sitting in their office for a while, and the sound of Grundy’s cleaning had died out long ago. The sun was hanging low, and the shadows cast inside from the alley were crooked and unaligned.
“I can’t have him hurting himself like that again,” said Stone.
De Gracy grabbed a cigarette from the inside of his jacket. He exhaled.
“You think you’re the one to control that?”
“He could have died.”
“Nah, not against Graham; that kid’s a wimp. If I was throwing, I’d done it against him too.”
“That’s beyond the point, Frank. Stop acting like a moron.”
“Hey, I’m no moron, and I don’t think the kid is either, but if he wants to put his head out there, then there’s nothing we can do about it.” De Gracy’s cigarette danced on his lower lip while he talked.
“Maybe if I give him Holden, then he’ll--”
“Then he’ll want another opponent bigger than that, and then one bigger than that and then – wham! Either he kills himself, or some other guy does it for him. If he wasn’t such a big source of income, I’d dump his ass back on the streets where we found him.”
“Why do you think he chose us of all the people there?”
De Gracy was silent for a moment. Then he smirked.
“Chose our wallets, you mean? I don’t know. Maybe he saw you there, in your big coat and your…” De Gracy looked for a moment at Stone’s naked head of hair. “Your hat…” he whispered, without Stone noticing.
“Well, we weren’t that obvious. I mean it was a train station. A lot of rich people there, and he chose to sneak his little dirty hands into my pocket.”
“And it was you who put those dirty little hands into a pair of gloves, Noah. You put those gloves on him.”
“No, I didn’t, not me. I don’t know who, but from that sock’em he gave me when I grabbed his hand, it was obvious that he’d been punching before.”
“You ever asked him about that?”
“No,” said Stone, shaking his head slowly from side to side. He was still looking out, imagining the scene from the train station before his eyes, but the picture in his head quickly disappeared. “I wouldn’t want someone asking me about something like that, either.”
“You’ve had a particular past, though,” whispered De Gracy. “Maybe Messenger’s wasn’t quite the same.”
Stone looked at his friend and nodded solemnly.
“I don’t need to explain you something you already understand. I’m grateful for that.”
“It’s not just me,” said De Gracy. “The others know it, too.”
“Still, you’re not many… and now one of you are dead.”
There was a long pause between the two friends, De Gracy growing more and more jittery. He couldn’t help himself.
“Where’s your hat, anyway?” he finally asked.
Stone felt the top of his head, and even though he knew that he had lost his fedora, he was still surprised to feel that it wasn’t there. He smiled at De Gracy.
“Where my heart is, I suppose.”
CHAPTER 13
There were two men in front of Noah Stone in the hat store. The shop was very small, but every crook of it, every little cranny, was filled with either some sort of hat or another finely chosen piece of adornment. The hats were all shapes and sizes, and some of them hung down from the ceiling as if invisible angels were soaring around the room.
Stone moved his head to see behind the counter, and there stood Julia Sedgewick. She hadn’t noticed Stone yet. She was helping the first man in line, who, as Stone was able to hear, needed a hat adorned with a certain flower, but it seemed that Julia Sedgewick was unable to procure said flower, and it was ultimately agreed between the two that the man should buy a hat here in the store, but find a matching flower at the nearby florist; Julia Sedgewick would then help him adorn the hat properly. The man was very grateful and he left the store.
The next man stepped forward, presenting Julia Sedgewick with a ring. He spoke of it as being his wife’s favorite, and he wanted to find a suitable hat to go with it. Apparently, he had taken the ring from his wife under the cover that he would repair the crack that had formed in one of the “diamond’s” sides. Now, he was practically presenting it to another woman. Julia Sedgewick stepped in front of the counter and showed the man her different assortment of hats. She presented each hat with much detail, the man nodding at every other word she said. Stone casually moved around the store now, too; he didn’t want Julia Sedgewick’s attention with another man in there with them, but then, as the customer moved towards one of the display windows, Julia’s eyes slipped for a second and noticed him. She sent a quick smile, and Stone nodded politely. The customer had seen a hat that he thought would be a good addition to the ring, and after Julia Sedgewick had offered him many an affirmation, he ended up buying it. Julia Sedgewick packed it neatly and sent the man on his way. The little bell above the door chimed, and Stone’s eyes locked with Julia Sedgewick’s once more. He walked to the counter.
“What can I help you with?” she asked almost ironically, as if she didn’t know if they were supposed to ignore their mutual acquaintance.
Stone pointed at the top of his head.
“I… I lost my hat the other day. Remember? My fedora? The Stetson?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, I dropped it outside the other day… the wind took it, and--”
“And you didn’t run after it? What a terrible man you are,” she said, smiling.
“I did, though. I did try to run, but then it flew over some buildings, and there… there was no point in going after it anymore.”
“You got it from a friend, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, kind of.”
“Well, then let’s see if we can find anything that’ll live up to him, now that he obviously won’t buy you another one.”
“Oh, he would, he would… It’s just that I haven’t really given him a chance.”
Stone’s gaze slipped to the top of the counter, but here he saw the reflection of Julia Sedgewick’s bosom, and his gaze darted back up as quickly as it had descended. She looked at him, and he felt all words drop out of him like coins out of a wallet.
“Mr. Stone, I think I can find precisely the hat you want.”
“Erhm… you do?”
“I do,” she said, her gaze escaping into the distance. “Most customers here are women, and they always know what they want. The men that come here are either the plainest men in the world, or… on rare occasion… they are men like you. Now, if you were anyone else, I’d show you to that section of the store,” she said and pointed. “I’d pick something that fitted the man’s forehead, his jaw line, or his eyes, but for you, Mr. Stone?”
“For me?”
“Yes, for you, none of those hats would really fit, you know?”
“I… I’m sure they would, Ms. Sedgewick. I don’t need anything fancy. I just need another fedora.”
“Yes, of course, but none of those ordinary ones. For you, we need to look upstairs. Come with me.”
Julia Sedgewick turned to the stairs behind her and walked up. Stone followed her into her workshop. Materials were arranged all along the walls of the spacious room, and different machines rested heavily in the middle of it. He noticed dead candles along the windowsill.
“Do you make the hats?”
“I do, yes, ever since my father died. I practically grew up back here,” she said, walking among the machinery, touching a
knob here, twisting a gear there. “But don’t tell anyone, or they might just not buy anything in the store.”
“Well I’ll be,” said Stone, letting his gaze flutter around the room one more time.
“Does that impress you, Mr. Stone?”
“Should it?”
“No, no it really shouldn’t, but I can tell from your face that it does. The big tools, they speak to you. Even though most of these aren’t even specifically made for hatting, they still impress you, don’t they?”
“I guess they do.”
“And seeing little me among them impresses you even more, doesn’t it?”
“Even though it shouldn’t?”
“Even though it shouldn’t.” Her smile lifted her eyes, and she walked closer to Stone. “There’s a reason my father’s name is still on the sign out there, you know.”
“It’s your name as well.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.” She moved away from Stone, touching every piece of equipment on her way among the tools and the fabric. “My name’s only borrowed 'till another man gives me his, and that name’s what’ll sentence me for the rest of my life.”
“Maybe it would be a strong name,” said Stone. “One you’d be proud off.”
“I’m proud of my name now,” said Julia Sedgewick. “I don’t need someone else’s.” She moved on to a heavy roll of elephant grey fabric. “Now, this is what I imagined for you, Mr. Stone.” She rolled some of the fabric out for Stone to see. He pulled out his hand and matched the fabric to the color suit he was wearing.
“It looks nice,” he said.
“And just wait till you see the hat I’ll make of it.” She dragged the heavy roll on to a nearby table. Stone watched her arms tighten underneath her thin blouse as she carried the roll of fabric, imagining the lines of her body leading under it. “If there aren’t many customers during the week, I’m sure I can get it done over the weekend. Would that be swell?”
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