The bridegroom was a positive picture of health and carried no black eyes. And Mae Theresa was a distinctly lovely bride.
—Ludwig Shabazian, Relief to Royalty,
James J. Braddock’s authorized biography, 1936
When Mae finally saw her husband striding up the fieldstone walkway, her eyes refused to blink. Jimmy was here again. Her lean, strong husband had come back to her on his own two feet, whole and unharmed. Alive. The realization instantly lifted the dark cloud, released the suffocating weight. She could breathe again. Feel again.
Fight nights were always like this for Mae. Jimmy would kiss her good-bye in the afternoon, and half the evening she’d feel paralyzed, whispering prayers, watching the clock. Then he’d come home, and the exhilarating relief would release her from all those hours of fearful numbness.
Men died in the ring. It was not an uncommon occurrence. And if they didn’t die they got hurt. Bad. The whole thing was a spectacle of injury and pain, and Mae didn’t completely understand it. But she loved her husband, so she tried her best.
It was a cold Saturday in January, at a 9:30 A.M. Mass in West New York’s St. Joseph’s of the Palisades Roman Catholic Church, that Mae Theresa Fox had vowed to take Jim Braddock in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.
Mae had been a telephone operator. She’d lived in Guttenberg, New Jersey, close by the Braddocks’ home in West New York. Her brother, Howard, had been a friend of Jim’s. Next to Marty McGann, the kid who used to hold Jim’s coat while Jim fought in the schoolyard, Howard was one of Jim’s closest pals.
Mae’s brother used to bring Jim back to the Foxes’ for something to eat, and it was Mae who liked to set the table—mainly because she liked to be around the handsome, shy smiles of one Jimmy Braddock.
Although Jim had loved Mae from the moment he’d met her, he didn’t get around to actually telling her so for quite some time. As a suitor, he’d been timid and reserved. Yet Mae had come to understand that although James was a person of few words, he was a considerate and generous man, and when he did have something to say, his wry sense of humor was usually evident, as well as his decency and quiet strength.
It took Jim a great deal of nerve to pop the question. He’d told Mae he’d wanted to wait until he had enough money to set up a nice home. When his boxing winnings had given him a small fortune of $30,000, he presented his case. Some of the money was in the bank, he told her, some in stocks and bonds, and the remainder invested in a West New York taxicab company. The money didn’t matter to Mae. She’d have married Jim Braddock no matter the figures on his balance sheet. But he hadn’t been certain of her feelings, and as he waited for her answer, she noticed he was shedding nearly as much perspiration as he did during one of his fights. Her yes gave him such obvious relief, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.
After their wedding, a home and family quickly followed. For Mae, she discovered that old saying was true. With each passing day in a good marriage, the love for your spouse grows stronger than the day before. But because of her husband’s profession, this meant Mae’s fears for him had grown as well.
Her Jimmy was moving closer now, toward the doorway. He paused a moment, just to gaze at her. She searched his wide-set brown eyes, his square, rugged Irish face for any sign of tonight’s outcome. Jimmy was a man unaccustomed to losing—only twice in the two and a half years since he’d turned pro. Mae knew tonight’s fight had been a long shot for Jim. The fighter named Griffiths had been favored to win. For a moment, she was hopeful, but then Jimmy looked down.
I can’t ask him, she thought. I can’t. She let her eyes do the awkward work of questioning. Jim’s answer was a slow shake of his head.
Mae looked away. She couldn’t stand to see her husband suffer. Not physically—which was why she no longer went to his fights—and not like this either. Losing to Griffith had to be a terrible blow. But boxing always let men down, sooner or later. For Jimmy, Mae always knew this moment would come—
Just then, a tiny chuckle made her look up again, back into her husband’s face. The tragic frown had disappeared. In its place was a roguish grin. The storm had passed. The flood was over. The world was new.
She closed the distance.
“I could kill you.”
The words were soft in his ear, just so he knew killing truly wasn’t what she had in mind.
“I like the sound of that.”
Jim was already pulling her slight form against his solid frame. His big, callused hands traveled down her slender curves, his mouth moved over hers.
Mae sighed longingly. When they were newlyweds, after his fights, she used to let him carry her right up the staircase and into their bedroom. But they weren’t newlyweds anymore. There were kids to be seen to, a guest right behind her.
“Jimmy,” Mae whispered, “my sister.”
Jim looked at the door to find his sister-in-law Alice, a slightly older version of Mae, walking into the hall. Racing past her were two jackrabbits with bright eyes and light brown hair. They circled Jim’s legs, hopping and squealing.
“Daddy, did you win?” cried four-year-old Jay.
Jay understood about Daddy’s job. Three-year-old Howard was still too young to comprehend what all the excitement was about, other than Daddy being home. Jim smiled down at his boys. He took hold of the younger one’s belt, hoisted him up for a kiss, then bent down to plant another on the older one. My little men, thought Jim. His eyes met Mae’s. My little family.
The Braddocks moved inside after that. Jim gave them a dramatic accounting of his pugilistic performance under the Garden’s broiling lights, and then Alice helped Mae settle the boys in to bed—not easy after Jim’s big boxing tale. Mae checked on her sleeping baby girl, Rose Marie, said good-bye to her departing sister, then sat down with Jimmy for some food.
Mae didn’t eat much, just opened a bottle of wine.
“Was he a real slugger?” Mae’s lively eyes were playful. Her face flushed.
Jim’s eyebrows rose. His wife had gotten tipsy. “You could come watch,” he suggested.
Having Mae see him win as a headliner in the Garden, that would be grand, thought Jim. He considered the nearly empty bottle beside the burned-down candle. Maybe if she had a little wine first, he thought, maybe then she’d come.
But the suggestion didn’t go over. Mae’s eyes looked away, the playfulness gone. “You get punched. Every time, it feels like I’m getting punched too. And I ain’t half as tough as you…and anyway…” she added, forcing her smile to come back, her fears to recede, “who wants those articles about me running out on a fight again?”
Jim caught her waving hand, brought it to his lips. He knew how much it bothered Mae to see him get hurt. He could still recall the terror-stricken look on her face at ringside during his first ten-round bout.
Jack Stone had sent him sprawling to the canvas at the West New York Playground. Braddock had never been knocked out in his career, but that day had been one of the few times he’d been knocked down. Mae had been there to witness it, and she’d been scared senseless.
Jimmy had gotten up again, had even won the fight, but the knockdowns had shaken Mae something awful. After that, she kept trying to put on a brave face. She even came to a few other fights. Jim never knew how hard it was for her, until the night he stepped in the ring with the “Harlem Harlequin.” The fighter was nothing special, but Jim was having a bad night. So pathetic did he look against his opponent—dreadfully awkward and appallingly slow, being forced to eat haymakers round after round—that Mae fled long before the final bell.
Jim had lost on points in ten rounds that night, and he’d lost Mae at ringside forever because some smart aleck sportswriters had seen fit to inform the public about Mae’s heartbroken flight from the building.
Jim understood her reluctance to sit at ringside now. But that stuff she claimed about her not being tough? Malarkey. He’d seen Mae take on the barking Joe Gould without a moment’s pause, seen her corral his wildcat boys into quiet little saints for Father Rorick’s Masses. She’d even bossed Jim about their wedding date.
Jim would never forget it. At the last minute, Gould had scheduled an important match in Chicago on January 17, the night before Jim and Mae’s wedding. The money was too good to pass up.
“I’ll take a plane right back after the fight on Friday night,” Braddock had pleaded with Mae, “and I’ll be back here in plenty of time for the wedding Saturday.”
“Nothing doing,” Mae had told him in that firm, pert tone she now used on their two little boys. “Suppose you get a black eye. Do you think I want to walk up the aisle with a bridegroom who has a black eye? I do not. No, Jim. We’ll postpone the wedding for a week.”
The memory made Jim smile. Yeah, he knew what tough stuff his wife was made of—even if she didn’t. It was one of the reasons he’d married her.
“Tell me about the girls,” Mae said suddenly, her eyes narrowing suspiciously at his faraway smile.
“Were there girls?” Jim asked innocently.
“Come on. There was one.”
“Yeah. Maybe there was one.”
A familiar game was starting.
“Blond?” asked Mae.
“A brunette,” answered Jim.
“Tall?”
“Like a gazelle. Don’t know how she breathed up there.”
Mae rose from her seat, moved around the table.
“Oh, Mr. Braddock,” she cooed, her head bowed in mock coyness. “You’re so strong. Your hands are so big.” She looked up, batted her eyes. “So powerful.”
Mae moved in close, her voice suddenly sincere. “I am so proud of you, Jimmy.”
Her small hands reached for her husband’s solid shoulders and she climbed onto his muscled thighs.
“Introducing two-time state golden gloves title holder…”
She rose up, onto her knees.
“In both the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions…”
Now she was standing on his thighs, looking into his eyes.
“Twenty-seven and two with eighteen wins coming by way of knockout…the Bulldog of Bergen, the pride of New Jersey, and the hope of the Irish as the future champion of the world…James J. Braddock!”
Jimmy rose, catching his wife by her tiny waist. Her hands moved under his shirt. She was kissing him now. He picked her up, carried her to the stairs and up to the second floor, then softly kicked open the door at the end of the hall. Their colonial was beautiful to start, but Mae had made it a real home. The solid oak four-poster dominated the master bedroom’s space. Dressers, night tables, a huge oval mirror, everything matched. Mae had picked it all out, arranged it with care. He laid her down on the soft white quilt, kissed her. She whispered some delightful words, then came a little boy’s call. Mae smiled, touched her husband’s cheek, left for a moment.
Jim began to undress. Listening to his wife’s tender whispers in the next room, he unbuttoned his shirt, took off his gold watch, laid it on the richly polished bureau. He gazed a moment at their wedding picture, framed in thick silver. As he took off his gold cross, he glimpsed himself in the mirror—the face of a man who’d been blessed and knew it. Jim kissed the gold. A lucky man, a winner.