It wouldn’t be so bad maybe, but Johnny Sylva is the present middleweight champ and a bad guy to boot. In short Lefty don’t like him or the set-up one bit, and he blames me for the whole thing.
“You could’ve got me that prelim shot in Spokane,” he muttered accusingly, as I tied the big twelve ounce sparring pillows onto his ham-like hands. “Being a sparring partner like this ain’t dignified. It’s like a piano player gettin’ a job movin’ pianos instead of playing ’em.”
“Look, Lefty,” I said patiently. “You’ve still got a few marbles left, and I’m trying to see that you keep ’em. At your age you can’t afford to let these salty young punks use your head for a punching bag. You’ll bust open at the seams if you do.”
“I ain’t old,” Lefty mumbled belligerently. “Thirty two—”
“Thirty four,” I corrected. “Awright,” he grumbled. “But thirty four ain’t too old in the middle division. I still got my wind, and my legs are better than they ever were.”
“They were never very good,” I said brutally. “Seriously, Lefty, I’m thinkin’ of you and Ellen now. That swell gal is dumb enough to want to marry you, and you ought to thank your lucky stars, instead of trying to collect a whole head full of them to carry with you all your life. You got enough saved to buy a gas station and live happily ever after, so why don’t you forget the fight game? I only got you this sparring job cause you wouldn’t’ve been happy if you weren’t fighting someone. Now I’m tellin’ you to quit, to get out while you’re still in one piece.”
“You’ve been listening to Ellen,” Lefty accused moodily. “You’d think from the way you two talk that I was some slap-silly ham-and-egger. I’m still Lefty O’Rourke, whether you know it or not. My name means something in the fight game.”
“Five years ago,” I said, “you were a pretty good scrapper. Now, unless you get smart, you’re goin’ to wind up with a few pencils and a tin cup.”
I slipped his head gear on and rammed the mouth protector between his teeth before he could reply. He spluttered something at me as he climbed through the ropes, but then he did a few squats to limber up his legs. That was one thing about Lefty. He took everything about the fight game with deadly seriousness.
IN A few minutes, the champ, Johnny Sylva, swaggered out of his cabin and trotted to the ring. There must’ve been five or six hundred spectators waitin’ to see him go through his paces, and when he climbed through the ropes he got a nice hand.
He tossed off his bathrobe and strutted around the ring giving everyone a chance to admire his big chest and shoulders, then he went back to his corner, where his manager, Morry Kling, gave him his instructions.
“Use that right of yours,” Morry said in a loud voice. “Just keep it cocked under your chin, and every time you get a chance let it go. Understand? Let it go!”
“I got’cha,” Sylva said carelessly. “I’ll put Grandpa O’Rourke away inside of two rounds. Just watch me.”
I felt a slow burn around the region of my collar. I climbed up on the apron of the ring and pulled Lefty close to me.
“Don’t be a chump, you chump,” I hissed at him. “Box this guy now and don’t let him kick you around with that right of his like he’s planning to. You can’t stand much of that, and you know it.”
“Don’t be crazy,” Lefty said cockily. “I can take anything he can send.” That’s the trouble with Lefty. When he smells the resin of the ring, and gets his mitts into a pair of gloves he gets a world-beater complex. Right now, I knew he was thinking that he was in the Garden, and that he and Sylva were meeting for the title. What can you do with a guy like that?
When Kling gave the signal the two boys moved into the center of the ring, touched gloves and went to work. Lefty had, at one time, been a pretty classy boxer, and for a few rounds he could still keep out of trouble.
He circled around Sylva shooting his long left into his face and keeping the champ off balance. It is impossible to throw a right unless you’re solidly set on both pins, and for that reason Sylva’s attempts to connect with haymakers were more than futile.
There were several laughs from the crowd as he swung wildly and Lefty slipped away, spearing him with fast lefts. Sylva didn’t like this a bit. His heavy, dark face flushed a shade blacker, and his puffy lips hardened over his mouth protector.
He moved in more slowly now, crouching a bit, trying to drive Lefty into a corner where he could hammer him with heavy blows.
But Lefty was still feeling pretty good, and he skipped around the champ, stabbing his sharp left again and again into the champ’s whiskers.
That was the way the round ended. The champ breathing hard and looking about as pleasant as a bear with a thorn in his foot, and Lefty still skipping about like a dancing master, well in control of things.
THE next round started the same way, only it was obvious from the ugly scowl on the champ’s face that he meant business this time.
He went right to work on Lefty, crowding him with lefts and rights, trying to open up a path over which his dynamite right could travel.
I was a little surprised at the fight Lefty was putting up. He was at a bad disadvantage because he had no punch to speak of, and his jaw was strictly glass. On top of that he was ten years older than the champ, and already the bounce was going out of his legs. He was finding it harder and harder to avoid the champ’s gorilla-like rushes, and it was only a matter of time before he’d find himself stretched flatter than a rug.
The crowd at the camp sensed that the champ was out for a K.O. and they were beginning to yell for the kill. A crowd is a pretty savage thing, and when the blood-spilling starts they start acting like African aboriginals.
Lefty was in a corner now taking a lot of punishment in the body that would slow him up even more. The champ was snarling now, really beginning to enjoy himself. There was nothing he liked better than mauling sparring partners, who had to be careful not to hurt him.
It looked like the beginning of the end, but just then something occurred to delay things. It was about dusk, although there was still enough light to fight by, and the sky was white and clear. The sun was about ready to call it a day and pull the covers of night up under its chin, when suddenly the whole sky seemed to explode into a thousand rainbows.
Honest, I’ve never seen nothin’ like it in my life. It was like a thousand colored beacons that started flashing through the sky all at once. The white sky was stained with every color you could imagine, and some you couldn’t.
Everybody in the camp was watching Nature’s exhibit, even the two fighters were staring up at the sky.
“Aurora borealis,” I heard someone behind me say. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”
The flashing, colored beams of lights were really something to see. They even looked as if some of them were spearing right down to Earth, scattering and breaking all around us.
One big red shaft seemed to shoot right down into the ring, and that’s what turned my attention back that way.
And when I saw what was about to happen in the ring I forgot all about the aurora whatchamacallit.
“Lefty!” I screamed. “Duck!”
BUT I was too late. Johnny Sylva’s roundhouse right was already steaming for Lefty’s chops. And Lefty was still looking up at the sky like a yokel on Forty-second street.
He didn’t see the punch, and he probably didn’t even feel it. It crashed into his jaw just the same instant the big red bolt of light from the sky splashed over him.
He fell like a pole-axed steer. The board floor of the ring shuddered and groaned under his limp weight. I scrambled into the ring and helped haul him to the corner. One of the champ’s handlers tossed a dipperful of water into his face, and I shook his head back and forth until his cheeks shook like two mounds of jelly.
The champ, I noticed from the corner of my eye, was strutting around the ring as if he’d done something to be very proud of. The spectators were cheering and he was shaking hands with himself, very pleased, ver
y cocky.
It took us another twenty seconds to get Lefty around, and when he came to, he blinked up at me in surprise.
“What happened?” he sputtered.
“You not only forgot to duck,” I said bitterly. “You also forgot to look. The champ dusted you off while you was watching the fireworks in the sky.”
Lefty looked at me blankly for a few seconds, then a frown settled over his face.
“He slugged me while I wasn’t looking,” he said angrily. “I ought to stop his clock for that.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “He’ll just send you on another trip to slumber land. You got another round to go with him, and for Pete’s sake, keep away from him.”
Kling came over to our corner then. “If your boy can’t finish out his stint,” he said, “I’ll have to dock him. I like to be fair, but I ain’t made of money. I gotta think of myself, too.”
“You always do,” I said. “But it ain’t up to me. If Lefty wants to go another round, okay.”
“I’m ready to go,” Lefty said grimly. As he moved out to meet Sylva for the third round, I happened to glance up and I noticed that the big fireworks show that Nature had stagged was all over. The sky was white and clear again.
Then I got my attention back on the scrap.
I COULD see from the way that Sylva was stalking Lefty that he was after another knockout. And Lefty, the big fool, instead of boxing him, was standing flatfooted like he was going to swing.
If Lefty had a punch left it would’ve been okay, but he couldn’t break a pane of glass with either hand, and that made it just plain suicide.
Sylva moved in behind a nice left and let a booming right fly at Lefty’s head. Lefty stepped back and let the punch fly past him. Sylva’s momentum carried him off balance, exposing the whole left side of his jaw.
Lefty swung.
It was a right cross and its sheer perfection brought a lump to my throat. I’ve knocked around the fight game for twenty years and I’ve seen all the great leather tossers in action. I’ve seen Dempsey dump a man for a somersault with a six-inch hook, and I’ve seen the Brown Bomber lift a man over the ropes with a lightning left, but I’ve never seen anything, anywhere, to equal that right cross that Lefty O’Rourke, the wash-up bum, poured into the champ, Johnny Sylva.
Like all great punches, it was smooth as oil and fast as lightning. And the funny thing was that Lefty didn’t seem to have much to do with it. It was as if some powerful, invisible force got behind his fist and threw it out there with the force of a pile driver.
What it did to Johnny Sylva was a sin and a crime.
It lifted him right off the canvas and knocked him backward over the top strand of the ring ropes and dropped him with a splintering crash into the sixth row of seats.
Out as cold as a mackerel!
Everybody in the whole camp was going crazy, but Lefty was still standing flat-footed in the ring, looking at his right fist as if he’d never seen it before.
Morry Kling was yelling at the top of his voice, a half dozen handlers were carting the champ to a rub-down table, spectators were shouting themselves hoarse, reporters were racing for the camp phones and I couldn’t believe it.
Lucky punches happen, but not punches like that one. I knew I had seen the perfect punch and I was ready to die happy.
Morry Kling came rushing over to me then, looking as if he was just about to explode out of his expensive, pinstriped suit.
“He killed him, he killed him!” he screamed in my ear. “He’s a murderer, that’s what he is, a murderer.
“Take it easy,” I said, attempting to calm him.
I don’t think he even heard me.
“Get him out of my camp,” he raved.
“If he’s here ten minutes from now, I’ll call the cops. You too, Flynn. You were probably in on this. I’ll bet Perosi’s manager put you up to this, sent you and your ape over here to kill my boy. A pair of murderers, both of you.”
The spectators who had crowded around us, were treated to another good punch then. I hauled off and busted Kling right on the nose. He fell back on the seat of his pants, grabbing his nose with both hands.
“Ow!” he screamed. “New he’s trying to kill me.”
“Come on, Lefty,” I said disgustedly. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay, Boss,” he said obediently. “It was a nifty of a punch you threw then.”
“Yours wasn’t bad either,” I said. I looked at Kling sitting on the ground moaning, and then I looked over and saw the handlers still working frantically over the recumbent figure of the champ.
And a funny thing. I felt swell.
THE next day Lefty and I presented ourselves at the Ace gym where “Bull” Perosi, the middleweight challenger, was training for his coming bout with Johnny Sylva.
It was my idea. I figured that Perosi’s manager would be glad to hire the guy who had knocked out the champ. My angle was that Lefty might be able to show Perosi just how he’d done it, and then Perosi could use the same punch and technique.
The morning papers had been full of the story. All the writers had built it up big, and the odds on the champ were tumbling down. The smart money figured that if Lefty O’Rourke could knock out the champ, a tough young guy like “Bull” Perosi would have a snap of it.
So when I stepped up to Perosi’s manager, a shifty-eyed little guy with a toothpick in his mouth, I was expecting a warm reception.
“I’m Flynn,” I said, “and this is my boy, Lefty O’Rourke. I guess you read what we did to the champ yesterday.”
“Yeah, I read about it,” he said without moving the toothpick in his lips. “Whadda you want?”
“I just thought,” I said, “that you might want to use Lefty here to work with your boy. Might be a good thing for your kid.”
Perosi’s manager took the toothpick out of his mouth and put his hands on his hips.
“Oh you did, did you?” he said very nastily. “Well lemme tell you this, Brother; I don’t want any dummy around my kid who doesn’t know enough not to throw wild punches in a sparring bout. Your boy is just crazy for a little publicity, and you too. After that dumb stunt he pulled yesterday with the champ I wouldn’t want him within a hundred yards of my boy. He might butt him in the stomach just to get his name in the paper. Now that’s final. Clear out of here, both of you. I don’t want any cheap ham-and-eggers who’re trying to build a rep on lucky punches around my camp. Go on now, clear out of here.”
I counted ten to myself very slowly. Then I stuck both hands in my pockets and swore to myself I’d keep ’em there.
“Goodbye,” I said carefully. “And I hope that when Sylva knocks your bum out of the ring, he knocks him into your lap and breaks both of your legs.” I turned and headed for the door, but before I’d covered three feet a big hand caught my shoulder and jerked me around. I found myself looking right into the mean black eyes of “Bull” Perosi.
THE Bull is a squarely built powerhouse, with wide sloping shoulders and no neck at all. His arms and fists are thick and hairy, and his flat battered face has only the vaguest resemblance to a human countenance.
“I hoid that,” he rumbled, “and I didn’t like it. Now get out of here and stay out!”
He grabbed me by the lapels of my coat and shoved me backward. I flew through the air as if I’d been shot out of a cannon and hit the wall with a dizzying smack and fell to my knees.
I shook my head to get rid of the bells and birdies, and when my eyes cleared I saw that Lefty was walking toward the Bull, very slowly, but very determinedly.
“You wouldn’t try that on anybody your size, would you?” Lefty said grimly.
The Bull looked Lefty up and down, then he laughed sneeringly.
“Listen you bum,” he said nastily. “Pick up that cheap manager of yours and get movin’ or I’ll hit you so hard you’ll be eatin’ out of the back of your head.”
“You and who else?” Lefty snarled.
I tried to
yell to the big baboon, but it was too late. The Bull was already starting for him. His first swing, a murderous right, missed Lefty by the length of a whisker. Then he charged into Lefty, throwing rights and lefts furiously, driving him back by sheer bull strength.
I knew that Lefty was going to take a terrific shellacking, and it was all my fault. If I’d kept my big mouth shut this wouldn’t have happened.
I scrambled to my feet, still dizzy, and started for the two fighters. I don’t know just what I had in mind, but I was determined to stop this slaughter.
I grabbed Perosi’s manager by the arm.
“Call your boy off,” I pleaded. “He’s liable to kill Lefty.”
Perosi’s manager shook my hand off his arm, and kept his eyes riveted avidly on the fight.
“That’s fine,” he snapped. “He’s got it coming to him, and he’s sure goin’ to get it.”
By now a half dozen rubbers and handlers had flocked around, forming a ragged ring about the Bull and Lefty. They were all cheering for the Bull to flatten Lefty.
The Bull grinned wickedly and bored in, pumping hard blows into Lefty’s body. Then he set himself and tossed a vicious right at his chops, but he missed by a full inch and left himself open.
And Lefty did it again.
He threw a right cross that traveled so fast that I hardly saw it. It was a smoking, sizzling punch that landed with the force of a baseball bat across the flat nose of Bull Perosi.
And the Bull went down and out without so much as the twitch of a muscle to show that he was still alive.
HIS manager screamed frantically in my ear and, a second later the Bull’s handlers charged for Lefty, and from their swinging fists it wasn’t hard to imagine what they intended doing.
The next minute the gym was a bedlam of flying fists and shouting voices, and, in the middle of the noise and confusion stood Lefty, cocking and firing his right cross at the jaws of the Bull’s handlers.
And every time that punch landed a man went flying backward from the battle to land on his back, out cold. I watched fascinated.
Lefty had never had a punch, even in his best days. But now with six rights he had laid away Bull Perosi and five of his handlers for the count and then some. The men who went down were not getting back up and the Bull was still colder than yesterday’s gravy.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 71