At about eleven o’clock the next morning Doc and Freddie Thomas had gone into town for tape and gauze and Eddie was lying in his room, reading the morning papers, when I came up the stairs and saw him there and stopped by the door.
“There’s nothing in the out-of-town fight results about Schaeffer’s fight,” he said.
“Those are the early editions we get up here. They come out too early to carry all the results.”
“I wish I knew how he made out. He’s a nice guy.”
“I’ll call the AP in New York.”
“It’ll be in the afternoon papers, won’t it?”
“Probably, but why wait?”
I called the AP and got the sports desk. It took the kid who answered a couple of minutes to find what I wanted, and then I went back upstairs and told Eddie.
“Schaeffer lost,” I said. “A decision.”
“He did? Gee, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think that guy he was fighting was much of a fighter.”
“Let’s be honest. Neither is Schaeffer.”
“He’s a nice guy, though. Did they say what kind of a fight it was?”
“No. All they sent out of New York was the result, and it took the kid a couple of minutes to find that.”
“Poor Polo, too.”
“He shouldn’t be in the business, either.”
“I know, but when guys are in camp with you, you get to like them. You know?”
“I know.”
I went into my room and lay down. I had brought I Cover the Waterfront to camp and I was reading it when Penna came in. It is something I do every two or three years—get it out and read it once more. I was reading that chapter about the Navy diver, the one whose wife was plaguing him for back alimony and whose buddies would hurry him into the decompression chamber every time his wife showed up at ship side. I prize that book the way you prize a great recording that you take out and play again when you feel just right for it and need it.
“Hey!” Penna said. “Your two buddies are here.”
“Who?”
“Them two aces. Them sports columnists. Fred Gardner and that little guy, Scott. He’s some writer, huh?”
“Dave? Yes, they both are. Thanks, Al.”
When I went down they were already in the dining room, at one of the small tables by the windows, and Girot was bringing them dry martinis.
“Make me one of mine, will you, Girot?”
“Yes, Mr. Hughes.”
“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” Fred said, the two of them standing up while we shook hands.
“Precisely,” I said.
“How long you in for?” Dave said, as we sat down.
“The duration. Until the fight.”
“God, you’re as loyal as—I don’t know—but I’ll say Lassie,” Dave said.
“Not a bit. She’s smarter than I am. I hang around because I can’t discover a quicker way of doing this kind of a piece.”
“Just about. Thanks for coming.”
“Don’t thank us,” Fred said. “We have to work for a living, too. You don’t suppose we could find a couple of columns around here?”
“Any number of them.”
Girot brought my drink and left.
“What’s the matter with him?” Fred said.
“Nothing. He’s just perpetually sad. On the wagon for years.”
“You see? That proves it. Let’s not get that way.”
“No chance.”
“It’s a pleasure to have you aboard, sirs,” I said. It is one of our gags out of the war.
“It’s a pleasure to be aboard, sir.”
“What have you been doing up here?”
“You heard about Jay.”
“Yes,” Dave said. “I was sorry to hear it. We were talking about it driving up.”
Fred just sat there, shaking his head slowly.
“And, talking about it, got lost?”
“Not then. We got lost later, talking about something else. About Jay, I was saying what a nice little guy he was, I’m sure, but he used to bend my ear something awful.”
“Don’t say it,” Fred said.
“Well, I don’t think I’m being irreverent. I liked him. He was a nice little guy, but half the time I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I don’t think he did, either.”
“You’ve already told me that,” Fred said, shaking his head.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Dave said to me. “He’s been complaining all morning. He also cries at movies. I remember at one boxing writers’ dinner I had to go to the boys’ room and Jay collared me there and started telling me some long story about one of his fights thirty years before. I thought I’d never get back to hear the rest of the speeches.”
“If you were wise you wouldn’t have,” Fred said. “I don’t know which boxing writers’ dinner you’re talking about, but whatever Jay was telling you, it was better than the speeches.”
“I agree.”
“Will you stop, then, and finish that drink?”
I motioned to Girot to make three more.
“How are you doing on the story?” Fred said.
“Who knows? I’m walking around and looking and listening and living it as much as I can. How do you know until you’ve written it?”
“You’ll do all right.”
“So then Jay dies. If you’ll excuse me, Fred, I felt lousy, too, for thinking just what Dave’s been saying. Then, today, I wake up realizing I’m even worse. I’m supposed to be writing a piece about a typical, good fighter and how he lives and thinks and feels getting ready to fight for a title. In the middle of it the trainer dies. What’s typical about this? Now I regret Jay dying, first of all because he died, but also—I’ll be honest with you—because I’m going to have to find a way to handle this in the piece. How do you like that?”
“I don’t like it,” Fred said, “but I understand it.”
“It’s our business,” Dave said. “The piece has to be first.”
“It reminds me of one day during the war. After the breakthrough at St. Lo, the Germans were trying to get back to the Rhine, and we were trying to cut them off. A half dozen of us were with the Third Armored, through the rest of France and into Belgium. We’re just about to Mons and the press camp is still back in Paris, so they’re flying our copy out each afternoon in a Piper Cub.
“Late one afternoon the P.R.O. calls us all over to his halftrack. He was a nice young major out of the South, named Haynes Dugan, and the half-track was in this apple orchard behind this château, and he says: ‘Gentlemen, I have some bad news. The Piper Cub that takes the copy back was shot down.’
“Well, four or five of us said, in one voice: ‘Was he going or coming?’ So Dugan says: ‘He was coming. The copy got through.’ We said: ‘Oh.’ I felt I’d just resigned from the human race, and I still feel I did.”
“It’s the business.”
“I’ll tell you something else about the business.”
“What?”
“I’m getting tired of becoming emotionally involved with the people I have to write about. I’ve had too much of it for too long. I’ve liked Doc for years and Eddie before I came up here. Now I spend a month with them, and after all the fighters I’ve known and the fights I’ve seen—you count them—I’ve got to go to one more and die again for two nice guys to whom it means everything. I like fights where I don’t know either guy, or give a damn about them. Why do I have to get involved in this?”
“That’s what you’re getting paid for.”
“Suppose Eddie loses?”
“I don’t think he will,” Fred said.
“I don’t think he will, either, but if he does it’s the end for both of them. You know that. It took Doc two years to get this shot. They’ll never get another one. How would you like to have everything hanging for you on one hour on one Friday night?”
“I still say he’ll win,” Fred said.
“I do, too, but forgetting what happens to Doc and Eddie—which is most important—what happens to my piece if he loses?”
“Well, somebody wins and somebody loses. There’s as much of a story in a fighter losing as in a fighter winning, maybe more.”
“Sure. You get the best stories in the loser’s dressing room, but that’s not the magazine business.”
“How not?”
“I had lunch with a nice little guy works on a magazine one day—I won’t tell you who—and he was telling me about a piece some writer did for them. He had the idea to do one about a kid’s first fight, to be called ‘The Kid’s First Fight.’”
“Fine. He hung around the kid and his family for a few days. On the day of the fight he stayed with him, and the mother cooked the kid’s last meal and, when he left, she kissed him good-bye. The kid’s father went with him to the club—the Sunnyside—and there was the dressing-room scene. The kid was in the second bout—a four-rounder—and when the call came he got up and started for the door. Then he stopped. The trainer said: ‘Let’s go. Come on.’ The kid said: ‘No. I’m not going. I’m too scared. I don’t want to be a fighter.’ He never did go. He put on his clothes and went home with his old man.”
“Great. ‘The Kid’s First Fight.’”
“Absolutely. So the presiding genius on the magazine says: ‘We can’t use it.’ The guy telling me said: ‘Why not?’ The big guy said: ‘He didn’t fight. It was supposed to be his first fight, but he didn’t go through with it. We can’t use it.’”
“I don’t believe it,” Fred said.
“I do,” Dave said. “It’s unspeakable, but maybe the piece was badly done.”
“I don’t care how badly it was done. Put a good writer on it to rewrite it. He’ll get the quotes he needs, and set the scenes. I’m talking about the business.”
“But Eddie’s not going to lose,” Fred said.
“I agree.”
“I haven’t seen enough of him,” Dave said. “In the two fights I saw him he looked good.”
“Eddie’s married, isn’t he?” Fred said.
“Yes.”
“You know his wife?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she like?”
“Yes and no.”
“You don’t like her?” Dave said.
“Not especially, but I hope I understand her.”
“What’s the matter with her? What’s she like?”
“She’s a good-looking doll with a temperature about two degrees below everyone else’s normal who gives the impression that she’s very competent and self-sufficient.”
“Is she?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, if you insist, I’ll give you the rundown.”
“Please do,” Fred said.
“Well, they’re both from the same neighborhood. I judge she was attracted to Eddie because he was the best grab on the block. I think he was attracted to her because of her looks and then because, like most fighters who are so competent in that ring, he’s a little shy and lost outside of it. He was looking for outside strength. Now—are you guys still interested, or shall we just skip it?”
“No, Doctor Hughes,” Dave said. “I want to hear this. I’m fascinated.”
“Let’s drop it,” I said.
“No, I want to hear it, too,” Fred said.
“All right. You asked for it. Now, this poor doll—and I think I feel a little sorry for her—is also a victim of the literary crime of our time. I mean cinema, slick-paper, twenty-one-inch tube portrayal of the husband-wife relationship.”
“What?” Fred said.
“Togetherness,” Dave said.
“You know what I mean. The husband comes home and divorces his work and remarries his wife every night. ‘And what did you do today, darling?’ he says, drawing her down onto his lap.”
“I see.”
“In this case, it’s particularly cruel because there’s a triangle—Eddie and his wife and Doc Carroll.”
“Ah, Pythagoras, I see the geometry now,” Dave said.
“Fighting is Eddie’s big thing and Doc’s his man and she’s just outside. This is a dame who needs to be needed.”
“Who doesn’t?” Fred said.
“Right. As far as I know, she went to three or four of Eddie’s pro fights. I’m sure that what he felt in there and what she felt outside of it and watching it were two different things. I think that’s the last try she made.”
“This is too bad,” Fred said.
“That’s right,” I said.
I decided not to tell them about the kid, because it was getting me down as it was. I had signaled Girot again, and he brought us another round and walked back to the bar.
“No matter how sad this character is,” Dave said, “he makes a good dry murder.”
“He should. He’s an expert.”
“He is?”
“Yes. When he was drinking he had enough of those to fill this lake out here.”
“He never should have stopped.”
“A doctor scared him. He used to drink them out of milk bottles.”
“Who?” Dave said. “The doctor?”
“No, Girot.”
“Please,” Fred said. “Drinking martinis out of milk bottles. Don’t spoil these.”
“Are you kidding about that?”
“No. Years ago there was a dinner here one night. The Lions Club, or something in town, was having its annual Volksfest or bonspiel or whatever, and Girot made up a batch of martinis in milk bottles beforehand. He had them in the refrigerator behind the bar, and when he came down the next morning he remembered one bottle was left. So, in the course of the day, he got to sneaking that. He told me about it once, when he was still drinking, and I used to see him nip the bottle. He got to like them that way. He always had a bottle of them in there—and banged them like that, right out of it.”
“Now I like him less than ever,” Fred said. “What a way to treat a martini.”
“I know what you mean,” Dave said. “The dry martini—to be sipped from shell-thin, prefrosted glasses in the quiet dignity of the Ritz men’s bar late of a sparkling autumn afternoon.”
“Precisely,” I said. “It has always seemed to me that the dry martini is the épée of alcoholic weapons, to be handled as such.”
“No. The épée in the armory of alcohol.”
“All right, let’s stop writing, and don’t you guys want to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Girot!” I said, and he started over.
“He has guts, though,” Dave said.
“What?” Fred said. “Out of milk bottles? It’s sacrilegious.”
“No. An ex-alcoholic tending bar. I admire it.”
“Yes?” Girot said.
“They’d like to eat.”
“And those were fine martinis, Girot,” Dave said. “This other little bum won’t admit it, but they were.”
They ordered cold roast-beef sandwiches and coffee and then Dave remembered it was Friday and ordered a toasted cheese sandwich instead. They were just starting to eat when Doc and Freddie Thomas came in and shook hands and sat down. I was glad of all this then, too, for Doc.
“We’re sorry about Jay,” Dave said.
“Thanks,” Doc said. “I know. I’m putting that away now. There’s a fight.”
“That’s good,” Fred said. “How’s your tiger?”
“He’s fine. Fine. I’ve been in New York for two days, but he’ll be ready. There’ll be a fight.”
“Good. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for this one.”
“It’s about time.”
“Yes. It’s a pleasure to be writing about a fight somebody cares about for a change.”
“What do you think of the other guy, Doc?”
“He’s a good fighter. He’s the champion, isn’t he?”
“You’ve worked against him, haven’t you, Freddie?”
“Yes,” Freddie Thomas said. “A couple of times. He’s got a lot of ability.”
“For some reason he doesn’t excite me like he should,” Dave said.
“I don’t go with all the raves about him,” Fred said. “I’d rather watch your fighter any day.”
“Thank you.”
“How many fighters have you had, Doc?”
“How many have I had? The Pro is the tenth.”
“Ten fighters in over forty years?”
“That’s right, and when I started in the business there were managers who had that many fighters at one time. They were chain-store operators. They had somebody fighting for them somewhere almost every night in the week. They managed by telephone. Dreadful.”
“And often used someone’s else’s phone,” Fred said.
“What could they give a fighter?” Doc said. “Two round-trip tickets, somebody along to carry the pail and a fast count on the finances.”
“Did you ever go for a title before, Doc?”
“No.”
“You could have had it with Rusty Ryan,” Fred said.
“I never saw him fight,” Dave said. “I was in St. Louis then, covering loft fires and businessmen’s luncheons, but I used to read about him. Really how good was he?”
“The best lightweight in the world for four or five years,” I said.
“That’s right,” Fred said, nodding.
“Why didn’t you get him the title, Doc?”
“I offered it to him one day. I sat down with him and I said: ‘Rusty, you’ve done everything I’ve asked you to do, and I owe you this. If you want the title I can get you the match and you know you can lick the guy. Do you want it?’ So he said: ‘Doc, it’s up to you. What do you think?’ I said: ‘Forget it. You’re better off as you are.’ He was, too.”
“Why?”
“I explained it to him. I said: ‘If you win that title do you know who’ll be managing you?’ He said: ‘Why, you will, Doc.’ I said: ‘No. I’ll still be taking my cut, but those politicians down at the boxing commission will be managing you. They’ll tell you who to fight and when and where. They’ll force you in with every slob who’s got an in up at Albany—all the grabbers and runners and guys who’ll make you look bad—and you’ll have one lousy fight after the other. You’ll be the champion, though. On the other hand, if you want to go along the way we’re going, we’ll move around the country and make more money fighting guys looking to get strong trying to lick you and you’ll be a better fighter because of it. It’s up to you.’
“He said: ‘Doc, I’m for doing it the way we’re doing it right now.’ He was wise. After ten years he walked out of it with a hundred and fifty grand, clear. That was money in those days. Those three guys who held the title while Rusty was around, what happened to them? One of them has been on the bum for the last five years. Another one works on the docks, and I don’t know what happened to the third. Don’t put that in the paper about them, though.”
“What’s Rusty doing?” Dave said.
“He got a partner and they own that summer resort for years. They do very well.”
“Do you ever go up there?” Fred said.
“Me? No. What would I do up there? Go out on the lake and paddle a canoe? Take a walk in the woods? That’s not my stuff. I see him whenever he comes to New York. We have dinner. He’ll be at this fight.”
“Good. I’d like to see him again.”
“He’ll be there, but if Eddie wins this title I’ll wonder about Rusty. He knows he did the right thing, but take that place he owns. The people that come up there, they probably know he was some kind of a fighter once.”
“I’ll say he was,” Fred said.
“What do the people know? He may think now that if he’d held the title it would mean something big today.”
“Not Rusty. I doubt that he thinks of that.”
“Is that why you’re going for the title with Eddie?”
“Ah. It’s conditions. That television has closed down the country. Where are you going to take a fighter? I’ve taken the Pro everywhere you can still go, and we’ve fought everybody he can fight and he’s learned everything I or anybody else can teach him. I’ll tell you something else, but don’t put this in, either. Eddie Brown is a better Rusty Ryan. For two reasons. He had it in him—the gift, even more than Rusty—and I’ve got twenty more years at it. Things I was just getting to try with Rusty when he started to slow up I picked right up later with this kid. Any good fighter a teacher has grows right out of the others.”
“That makes sense.”
“So what have I got? I’ve got a guy can do everything now. No commission can louse him up. No fighter can louse him up.”
“I’ve never seen him in a bad fight.”
“Because he goes to the other guy’s strength. He licks him at that, and it’s a good fight. Even the clutchers can’t grab him, because when they spread their arms to grab he drops down and unloads two hands into the body. That’s the last time they try it that way. With that kind of a fighter going for me I’m not afraid of any commissions. Besides, what can you make without a title today?”
“Not much.”
“When we get that title I can go to the Garden with this kind of a fighter and say: ‘Listen. Tell those razor-blade people it’ll cost them an extra ninety Gs.’ You can get it with this kind of a champion. Robinson got it.”
“That’s right.”
“You want to talk to him? He’s in his room, and I’ll get him down.”
“I’d rather talk to him up there,” Fred said.
“Finish your coffee. I’ll go up and see what he’s doing.”
Doc and Freddie Thomas went out.
“What a man,” Dave said.
“Now you see?” Fred said, nodding.
“I think I’ll write about that, about why you don’t go for a title or why you do.”
“Good. Then you’ll leave your column-pickin’ paws off Eddie.”
“But I want to go along and listen. Please?”
“I’ll permit it.”
“There’s something he didn’t tell you,” I said.
“What?”
“He wants that title for himself, too.”
“Why not?”
“That’s the shame of it. He’s getting old. Years ago he wouldn’t have given a damn. You know that, Fred. All this time, over forty years, he had one philosophy—do it right and let the spoils fall where they may, mostly into the laps of the amateurs. In those days there were a few guys around who could appreciate it. Today, in Stillman’s, what do they know? Did you ever have a champion? It’s a crime, and a defeat, but Doc wants it for that, too. He’s human, and I’m complaining.”
“Let’s hope he gets it.”
“He’ll get it,” Fred said.
“He’ll have to,” I said. “I told you I’m involved. I am. It’s a cause. The other guy’s not a fighter, compared with Eddie. He’s all show and no meaning, but who knows the difference? Eddie’s our standard bearer. He’s just a fighter, but this is a fight against all the shoddy they sell and celebrate today in boxing and on TV and in the bookstores and in our newspapers and magazines and everywhere else. You see that, don’t you?”
“I agree,” Dave said.
“Please,” Fred said. “Two guys are going to have at each other in a contest with gloves.”
“He’s a stubborn little bum, isn’t he?” Dave said, nodding at Fred.
“He is. He has no causes to talk about because he lives them all his life. If there is such a thing, he’s a purer Doc.”
“Please.”
“He can’t see himself. For twenty-five years he’s been writing the purest prose ever to appear in a newspaper, and the purest dialogue to appear anywhere, Poppa and O’Hara notwithstanding. Do the lights turn red on all sides when he wants to cross Fifth Avenue, though?”
“Are you finished?” Fred said. “Do you mind if we go up and see Eddie?”
Eddie was lying on the bed reading a paperback, and when we came in he put it aside and got up and shook hands. Then he sat down at the head of the bed again, with the pillow at his back, and Doc came in, bringing a couple of straight-back chairs.
“How do you feel?” Fred said.
“Fine. All right.”
“He asked you that,” Dave said, “because we asked Marciano in camp once how he felt, and he said: ‘Great, but I have to laugh. Everybody asks me how I feel. I’m up here, getting up early, running on the road, training, eating, and sleeping right. How else could I feel?’”
“He was right,” Eddie said, smiling.
“What were you reading?”
“Just a western. I like to read them once in a while in camp.”
“What else do you read?”
“Mostly magazines. I like to read magazines.”
“The articles, or the short stories?”
“Both. I like some of those stories, not all of them.”
“You mean, not the fight stories?”
“That’s right. They usually have the fighter, during the fight, thinking about his girl or his mother or some mobster. Believe me, when you’re in there you don’t have much chance to think about anything else. Of course, I never had any mobster threaten me. Maybe if I did I’d think about that, hey?”
“What do you think about? I mean, specifically what kind of thing?”
“Well, I’m thinking of what the other guy is doing, that I can use. You know? I mean, Doc has always studied the guys I fight and we’ve pretty much worked it out, but you actually have to fight the guy to find out.”
“They all have patterns,” Doc said. “I don’t care who they are.”
“Then fighters are like writers,” Dave said.
“The good ones have more patterns than the others,” Doc said. “That’s all.”
“So that’s what you’re thinking about, Eddie?”
“A lot of things, but that’s it. The way Doc has taught me—I don’t know whether it’s all right to say this or not.”
He looked at Doc.
“It’s all right. The good fighters you fought knew what you were doing to them, but they couldn’t help themselves. What the other guy discovers in the newspapers isn’t going to help him.”
“Well, what I mean is that the way Doc has taught me, you give the other guy the impression that he’s in charge. That’s so he’ll fight his fight, and follow his patterns. I mean, as Doc says: ‘Let him perform.’ For example, when I’m pressing a guy a certain way he may jab me a couple of times, and then hook off it. Well, he does this a few times in the first couple of rounds and then, when I see it’s the pattern, I’m thinking whether I’ll try to beat the hook with a straight right hand or if I’ll drop down and slip the hook and counter with a hook in the belly. I mean that’s what you’re thinking about.”
“I like that,” Dave said. “Cite us another one. I don’t mean to pry into your secrets, but I’ve never heard a fighter talk like this before.”
“That’s all right,” Doc said.
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “There’s so many. Say, like I can’t get the guy to open up. He’ll throw a few punches, but nothing that you can go off. Maybe the only pattern will be a double jab. He’ll jab twice and move. So I take those—one-two, on the forehead, one-two. He gets real confident now, because I lean into them a little to help him think he’s going good. Then, when I’m ready, I take the first one, but on the second one I lean over to my right so I slip it over my left shoulder and I cross a right over it. It’s a good punch because, leaning to the right, I’ve got my weight on that side and behind it.”
“The punch is standard,” Doc said. “The big thing is the trap. There’s only so many punches. Everybody knows what they are. You’ve got to con the other guy into walking into them. It’s thinking, first of all. Then, when he’s committed, it’s timing and placement. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I’ve been at it for nine years and I’m still learning.”
“You’ll still be learning the day you quit,” Doc said.
“What about the other guy?” Fred said. “Have you seen him fight much?”
“I’ve seen him a couple of times and once on TV. Doc and I went to his last fight in the Garden.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He’s a good fighter. Lots of natural ability. He’s got fast hands, and he moves good.”
“While you’re up here,” Dave said, “how much do you think about him? You’re in camp, working every day toward just one thing. Do you ever dream about the fight?”
“Here we go,” I said. “Dave Scott’s Dream Book.”
“We’re laughing,” Fred said to Doc and Eddie, “because, sooner or later, one of us asks this of all of them—Marciano, LaStarza, Charles, Saxton, Patterson. You can’t escape.”
“Amateur psychology,” Dave said. “I mean, do you ever see the other guy in your mind, like when you’re boxing up here?”
“No,” Eddie said. “I mean, not when I’m boxing. I’ve got Memphis Kid up here—”
“He’s here?”
“Sure, and he does a real good imitation of the other guy. When you’re boxing, though, you’re thinking of what’s going on, like I said, so I don’t see the other guy then.”
“When do you see him, if you do?”
“You see?” Fred said. “You can’t get away.”
“I know what you mean. I’d say I think of him when I’m running on the road in the morning, and when I’m punching the big bag. That stuff gets kind of monotonous, and I think of him then.”
“What do you think? Do you see the fight?”
“That’s right. You guys must be psychologists. I keep making up the fight. Sometimes when I’m falling asleep, too. I mean, I see the guy make a move and I make a move. We fight like that.”
“How long does it last? The fight.”
“Oh, I don’t see the whole fight. I just see a part of it. Maybe it’s something that happened in boxing in the gym that day. I see that happening in the fight.”
“Do you see the fight end?”
“Oh, sure. Especially at night. No matter what moves I’m thinking about, when I see the two of us I can’t stop thinking about it until the fight ends in my mind.”
“How does it end?”
“He’s flat on his back,” Eddie said smiling.
“I like that,” Fred said, laughing. “You knock him out.”
“Sure. Then I can get to sleep.”
“You see?” Dave said. “Don’t knock the Dream Book.”
“Eddie,” Fred said, “I don’t think you’ve ever been knocked down, have you?”
“Once,” Eddie said, looking at Doc. “About four years ago. Doc’ll tell you about that.”
“Dreadful,” Doc said, that pained expression on his face. “He’s fighting that Art Matso in Cleveland. I don’t know what he was thinking about. All of a sudden he’s got his feet too close together, and all his weight on his left foot. That Matso hits him a hook high on the head that wouldn’t topple a tenpin. Down he goes on his left side. Dreadful.”
“I got right up. I knocked the guy out two rounds later.”
“Never mind that. Tell them what I made you do, Edward.”
“Well,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “For a week after that Doc made me wear a slipper—one of those bedroom slippers—on my right foot. Everywhere I went I had to wear it for a week, one shoe and one slipper. I was embarrassed.”
“You should have been,” Doc said, still disgusted. “You embarrassed me. It taught you that you have a right foot, though. It taught you to keep your weight on both feet, though, didn’t it?”
“I’ll say. Every place I went, up in the gym and every place, people asked me: ‘What’s the matter with your foot?’ For a whole week.”
“What did you say?”
“I lied. I told them I sprained my big toe.”
“I love this,” Dave said.
“Yes,” Fred said, “but remember, it’s mine.”
“I know.”
“So let’s leave him alone now,” Fred said, standing up. “He’s got to work soon.”
“All right.”
“You writers amaze me,” Eddie said.
“How?”
“You two. You never take any notes, and when I read it in the paper it’s just what I said.”
“That’s what you think,” Fred said.
“I don’t understand how you do it.”
“We don’t understand how you do what you do either, Eddie,” Dave said.
After they watched Eddie work, Fred and Dave wrote their copy. Dave phoned his in, and then we drove into town and filed Fred’s at the Western Union. After dinner we had a couple of drinks, sitting in the dining room with Eddie and Doc and swapping baseball stories for Eddie’s benefit until it was ten o’clock.
“So I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Eddie said, getting up.
“You’re not going to watch the warriors on TV?” Dave said.
“No. I need my sleep.”
The rest of us watched the fight, and it was just about what it had promised to be. For the first six rounds Cardone moved around, picking at the other guy and, when he saw a safe opening, taking potshots. Cardone’s claque seemed to like it anyway, if you could tell anything from the screams on the TV.
“The little guy has no chance,” Dave said. “He can’t reach him.”
“Dreadful,” Doc said.
“He’ll do a little better from now on,” I said. “Cardone will start to run out of gas.”
“I know what you mean,” Doc said.
He did, and by the ninth round the other guy was getting inside and hitting Cardone in the body. When he did, Cardone would grab, his head back and out of the way, but, as it was, he won it big on all cards.
“After that, I’m the one needs a drink,” Doc said.