That night Fred and Dave stayed in one of the cabins down the road. They came up the next morning for breakfast and then said good-bye to Eddie and Doc and Freddie Thomas and left for the other camp.
“We’ll see you when you get sprung,” Dave said, when I walked them to Dave’s car.
“Don’t worry about it,” Fred said. “He’ll win.”
“Good.”
“Whatever happens,” Dave said, “you’ll get a good piece. I never knew the guy was such a good talker.”
“He’s great on boxing. On the rest he’s thin, but I don’t press him. With a month to give to it I try to let him emerge as if I’m almost not here. It’s not the easiest thing to do.”
“Stop weeping. Do you think the boys in the Tombs have it better?”
“All right. Take your eighty papers and your eight million readers and get out of here.”
That afternoon Doc sent Eddie eight rounds. Enough had been in the papers about the fight by now so that there were a couple of dozen men and women and a half-dozen kids sitting on the chairs and watching while Freddie Thomas kept after the sparring partners to press more and Doc leaned on the top rope watching Eddie turn it on. Now and then one of the men would say something in a low voice to the woman next to him and the woman, stony-faced and watching the fighters, would nod or shrug.
“Excuse me,” one of them said, walking up to me, when Eddie climbed out of the ring and walked over to the big bag.
“Yes?”
He was about thirty years old, with a mop of blond hair, and he needed a shave. He had on a red-and-black-checkered woolen shirt, the tails worn outside of his brown corduroy trousers, and he had a boy about three by the hand.
“I’m a boxing fan.”
“Good.”
“Is the fight going to be on television? Eddie Brown’s fight?”
“Not around here.”
“Not around here? We get the fights here.”
“Not this one. They’re blacking it out north to Albany and south through Philadelphia.”
“How come? We seen it the last time Eddie Brown fought.”
“Not this one. This is for the title.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to go to the fight.”
“Them tickets cost a lot of money, don’t they?”
“Thirty dollars ringside, but you can get up in the gallery for five dollars.”
“Who’s got that much money for a fight? You pay a lot of money for a television set, you should get all the fights.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better, you can watch that fella in the ring now box on television on Monday night.”
Penna and Booker Boyd were moving around the ring, Boyd stalking Penna.
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The white boy.”
“Al Penna.”
“Is he good?”
“You can see for yourself. He fights the semifinal at the St. Nick, and the semifinal goes on around nine-thirty on Channel 5.”
“Yeah? Good. Thanks a lot.”
Eddie was lying face down on the rubbing table in the dressing room, naked except for a towel brought up like a loin cloth, Freddie Thomas working on him and the air in the small room sharp but, at the same time heavy, with the smell of the oil of wintergreen. Freddie had finished with the thighs and calves, and was starting on the shoulders.
“This is one of those times I envy fighters,” I said.
“I’ll give you a rub,” Freddie said.
“No. I’d be ashamed, an impostor. A fighter earns it.”
“Phew!” Penna said, coming in and closing the door behind him. “That stinks.”
“You don’t know what’s good,” Freddie said.
Penna’s face, above the white terrycloth robe and the towel around his neck, was running with sweat.
“‘Our love is forever—’” he started to sing, standing there and throwing his arms out. “‘No—’”
“That isn’t so good, either,” Eddie said, turning his head to look back at Penna. “How about getting another station?”
“What’s the matter? You gettin’ touchy?”
“No.”
“Listen. If I wasn’t such a good fighter, you know what I’d be.”
“No.”
“One of them airline Charlies. One of them pilots. You go to all them foreign countries and you have a broad in every one.”
“Listen, Penna,” I said. “I just met a fan of yours.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“A guy out there in a red-and-black shirt. He thinks you’re a great fighter.”
“Yeah? Tell him to be at the St. Nicholas Monday night. One-two. Bam-bam. Raise me hand, ref. I’m your boy.”
“He’ll be there.”
“Yeah? I’ll give him my autograph. Cheap. For a buck.”
After breakfast the next morning Booker Boyd and Barnum and Penna left, in an old Ford. A friend of Barnum’s—a Negro kid about eighteen and a Golden Glover—had driven it up the night before, and they were going to drop Penna off at the Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge so that he could get a bus into New York while they went on to Philadelphia.
“You just fight your fight,” Barnum said to Eddie, when they shook hands at the car. “You’ll take that boy.”
“Thanks. Good luck to you guys.”
“Fight that fight you been workin’ on. You’ll show the people.”
“Thanks.”
“Tune in tomorrow night and watch this boy go,” Penna said. “I’ll see you Friday at the weigh-in, anyway.”
“Good,” Eddie said. “Good luck, Al.”
“You guys will miss me around here. You’ll be sorry I’m gone.”
At about 12:30 I was lying on my bed and reading and Doc was napping on his. The window was open and I heard car wheels on the gravel and got up and looked out. It was one of those big black for-hire Cadillacs, with driver, and the newspapermen—six of them—were getting out.
“What is it?” Doc said, sitting up. I hadn’t said anything, so he must have sensed it.
“The riot squad. The gentlemen of the press.”
“It’s about time they showed.”
“It’ll be a riot, too. Tom White’s with them.”
“I was afraid of that, but I was hoping he didn’t come to camps any more.”
“He doesn’t. Just for the big ones. I haven’t seen him in a year. You’re supposed to be honored.”
“A year is too soon. Why does he have to be like that?”
“You know as well as I do. He’s getting old.”
Doc had put on a tie, and was getting into his jacket.
“We all are, but not like that. What’s the matter with him?”
“He can’t take the competition. His seams are showing.”
“Then he should quit.”
“Don’t get drunk and tell him that.”
“I’m not crazy.”
Doc went down and I washed and thought about it. When I was just starting in New York, Tom White had already come down from Syracuse and it was all new then and he was new and he took the town. You should never take those years from him because he was the best, but then it became the second time around for him and the third, and somewhere along the way, he got tired of working and resorted to the impression that he owned it all—that the ball games were played for him and the fights fought for him. I could see him starting to resent the new ones among us and, when I read him, I could taste that tangy wine turning to vinegar and the whole thing spoiling before the bottom of the barrel and the grave.
I looked in on Eddie, but he was asleep, with the white candlewick spread pulled up over him, so I closed the door again and went down. They were spread along the bar, Doc in the middle with Tom White, Tom doing the talking and Ernie Gordon hovering at his side, calling him “boss” and making certain to be listening and to light Tom’s cigarette and to signal Girot for another martini for Tom.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tom said, and we shook hands.
“Hello, Tom.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to ask the same about you.”
He was a good-looking guy, even at sixty and dissipated, and he still dressed with the best.
“Well, I thought I’d write a few columns about this damn fight. I don’t think it’s going to be so much but, for some reason, there’s a lot of interest in it.”
“It’ll be a good fight.”
“It better be, after those stinkers they’ve been putting on that television. What are you doing here?”
“I’m doing a magazine piece about Eddie.”
“Still with that magazine stuff? Why don’t you get back in an honest business, like ours? Those magazine editors don’t know what they’re doing.”
In the time they’ve been here, I was thinking, he can’t have had more than one. He sure comes out of the gate fast these days.
“Magazine editors. What the hell do they know about sports?”
I watched him. He had three at the bar, and kept insisting that Doc keep up with him. When we sat down he had another, and ordered another one for Doc. He seemed in a pretty good humor, talking about the old days and what he once told Kearns, in front of Dempsey, but he just picked at his food.
By the time we had finished eating, Eddie was going into the gym, so we all went in there. They were too many for the small dressing room, so they waited for Eddie to come out, and then he sat on the ring apron, with Doc sitting next to him, and they sat in the chairs. There were four of them in the first row and I sat in the second row with Tom and Ernie Gordon.
It was so warm in the gym, even with a couple of windows open, that Eddie did not need his robe, and he sat there in just his white T-shirt and brief white-knitted trunks and white woolen socks and his ring shoes. Freddie Thomas handed him some gauze, and he started wrapping the right hand, his legs dangling, while they asked him the questions. It was so warm, in fact, that when I looked over at Tom his eyelids were heavy, and I figured that, with the drinks in him, he might fall asleep.
“So what makes you think you can win this fight?” he said suddenly, stirring.
“I just believe I can,” Eddie said, still bandaging.
“Great! That’ll make big news. You ask him something, Ernie.”
“Eddie,” Ernie said, “what do you think of the other guy, technically? I mean, what do you think is his best hand?”
“Who the hell cares about that?” Tom said, turning on Ernie.
“His best hand?” Eddie said. “His left.”
“What do you want me to ask him?” Ernie said to Tom.
“Get a story! Get a story! What the hell do you think I got you up here for?”
This is going to be great, I was thinking. The only trouble is that I’ve seen this play before.
“You say his left hand?” one of them in the front row said. “He’s knocked a few of them out with his right.”
“I know,” Eddie said. “He’s got two hands, but I think his left—that jab and hook—is his best.”
“The left is the fighter’s working hand,” Doc said. “The right just comes in for the pay-off.”
“Like you,” Tom said. “You ought to know.”
I looked at Doc and saw him look at Tom, and his face set. I was thinking that I ought to go out and get Tom another drink. If he didn’t knock it out of my hand it would put him to sleep, and that would be a way out of it.
“What about those three fights you lost, Eddie?” one of them in the front said.
“I lost three. I won eighty-seven.”
“I don’t mean that.”
“I’ll answer that,” Doc said. “He got two bad decisions, one in Philadelphia and one in Boston.”
“That’s right,” Ernie Gordon said. “I saw the one in Boston.”
“What are you siding with him for?” Tom said, turning on Ernie.
“The other fight he lost,” Doc said, “I got him licked on purpose.”
“I’ll bet,” Tom said, raising his voice.
“What do you mean, Doc?” one of them in front said.
“About seven years ago he licked a guy pretty good in a semifinal in Pittsburgh. It was outdoors, with a couple of heavyweights on top. He started to think he was pretty good.”
“I’ll bet,” Tom said, again loudly.
“The next fight he had he looked lousy. He beat the guy, but he was trying to make me out a liar and—”
“That’s no great feat,” Tom said.
“He thought he knew it all, now, so I got him a semifinal in Cleveland. I got him a guy licked him, not bad, but he licked him. He needed it.”
“That’s right,” Eddie said, smoothing the tape on the hand and nodding. “I know it now.”
“You want us to believe that?” Tom said.
“What?” Doc said, and I could see it all over his face now.
“You know what.”
“Look, Tom. I don’t give a damn whether you believe it or not.”
“Oh, you don’t?”
“No.”
“You think I’m going to believe that stuff, like that line you handed Dave Scott in that column he had yesterday morning?”
So that’s it, I thought. It’s that competition and how he resents Dave.
“I don’t give a damn what you believe.”
“Let’s forget it,” I said. “Let’s have a drink.”
“I’m not going to forget it,” Tom said. “That stuff about why he never had a champion before. Why, you couldn’t have won that title with Rusty Ryan or anybody, and you won’t win it with this guy, either. You’re nothing but a loud mouth.”
“If you weren’t drunk,” Doc said, “I’d belt you.”
“Easy, Doc,” Eddie said, sliding off the ring apron with Doc.
“Who’s drunk?” Tom said, standing up, Ernie holding him by the right arm. We were all standing now.
“You are,” Doc said. “You’re a miserable, goddamn dirty drunk, who stands on corners and abuses people in that column. You don’t know the first goddamn thing about boxing and you never did. You can’t even write good any more because the rot has set in from the inside and you’re dead and you don’t know it. Don’t think you can intimidate me with your lousy column. Not any more.”
“Come on, Doc,” I said. “Knock it off.”
I knew it was not only the drinks talking, but the fight and Jay and many years and everything.
“Knock it off?” Tom said, sneering at me. “He’s going to get knocked off. That fighter of his there is going to get flattened, and I’m going to say it in that paper tomorrow—that and a few more things.”
“I don’t give a damn what you say,” Doc said.
“Come on,” one of those in front with Doc said.
“You’ll see all right. You’ll see it in the paper.”
“No I won’t,” Doc said, “because I haven’t read that stinking column of yours for five years, and I won’t read it tomorrow. And I’ll tell you something else. Don’t talk like that about this fighter here.”
“Forget it, Doc,” Eddie said.
“Why not? I’ll say and write what I want about him.”
“And show your stupidity. He’s not only gonna knock that other guy out but, when he does it, the other guy will go down with his face right in front of yours. Print that.”
With that Doc pulled his arm away from Eddie and turned and walked to the back of the gym. Freddie Thomas followed him, and I looked at Eddie and he shrugged at me.
“I’m getting out of here,” Tom said. “I’m going down to that other camp. Where’s that damn driver?”
“He’s in the bar,” Ernie Gordon said. “What are the rest of us supposed to do?”
“I don’t give a damn what you do. I’ll send him back.”
After Tom left, Eddie boxed four rounds and Doc said nothing to him the whole time. Then the rest of them went into the dining room and found their typewriters and started to write their pieces. When I came into the dressing room Freddie Thomas had just brought the tea and Doc was trying to make work for himself, picking things up and putting them down again, while the fighters drank their tea.
“Well,” I said, “now that it’s over I’m glad I was here to hear it.”
“I’m glad you were, too,” Doc said.
“I’d have done anything I could to have stopped it, but I couldn’t think of anything.”
“What difference does it make?”
“He’ll rap you in the column tomorrow,” Eddie said.
“He’ll rap you, too,” Doc said, “but what difference does it make? It’s about time somebody in this business told him off.”
“That’s right,” I said, “but you really burned that bridge.”
“Who needs it? What do I have to worry about him for any more? I’ve got a fighter that’ll stand up for me in there. You knock that guy out and you’re the champion, and what have I got to worry about? Tom White? He only picks on little people.”
The next day, right after the workout, I took Eddie’s car and drove into the town and got the paper. I read the column, standing in the cigar store, and when I got back Doc was in the room and I handed it to him.
“He never mentions you or Eddie,” I said. “He just datelines himself from the other camp and writes about the other guy.”
Doc read the column, quickly, and then threw the paper on the bed.
“I knew he had no guts,” he said.
“Of course not. He’s afraid Eddie’s going to win.”
“No guts,” Doc said. “Absolutely no guts.”