Crowded Lives, page 5
Dave reached into his paper bag and took out the two apples. He looked over at Jackson again. “Want an apple?” he asked.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Lester. He came over and sat down on the bench with Handley, who handed him one of the apples. “Couple of times in the gym I was gonna pass the time of day with you,” Jackson said, “but my manager said not to.”
Dave nodded. “Gotta listen to your manager,” he allowed.
“Yeah, he say it ain’t good to get friendly with one’s opponents.”
“He’s got a point, I guess,” said Dave.
The two men sat looking straight ahead, munching on their apples. There were city sounds around them, but they were in their own little vacuum.
“My manager, he say you been fighting for a while.” Jackson commented.
“About fourteen years,” said Dave.
Jackson laughed and shook his head. “Man! Fourteen years ago, I wudn’t but six years old!”
Dave smiled. “Yeah, Muhammad Ali had just defended the title for the ninth time when I started fighting. Knocked out Zora Folley in the seventh. Right after that he had all that trouble with the draft and quit fighting. The heavyweight title was wide open. Every young fighter around dreamed of getting a shot at it.” Dave grunted softly. “You know, since I’ve been born, there’s been eleven heavyweight champions. Some people count how many Presidents there’s been; but me, I count up the heavyweight champions.”
“Hey, I know what you mean, man,” Jackson said. “The heavyweight title: that’s where it’s at.”
“Yeah. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s always out there, waiting for somebody to come and take it.” He turned and looked steadily at Jackson. “But it ain’t easy to get, you know. There’s lots of guys like me that a man’s gotta get past first. Guys like me, we’re called ‘trial horses’; we’re the backbone of the fight game; we weed out the ones that shouldn’t have the title. You know what I mean?”
Jackson nodded slowly. “What you saying is that nobody gets a free ride, right?”
“Right. Not with me, leastways.”
“Tha’s the way it ought to be,” Jackson declared. “I know I wouldn’t want it to be no different. I plan to go all the way to that title, and I want the road to be as tough as it can be. That way, when I do get up there, I’ll appreciate what I got.”
Dave grinned at him. “You’re a pretty smart kid,” he said. “Listen, are you in shape for me? Good shape?”
Jackson smiled a lazy smile. “I’m in shape for anybody,” he said easily.
“Reason I ask is because personally I am ready. I mean, man, I’m going in there to fight.”
“I’m glad to hear it, man,” Jackson replied. “Cause I want to look good for all the peoples gonna be watching me, see? I wouldn’t look good if you didn’t put up a fight.”
“I don’t think you get my full meaning,” Dave said quietly. “What I’m saying is, I think I can win.”
Jackson frowned slightly and looked curiously at Handley. “You serious? You think you can beat me?”
“You bet.”
“All right!” Jackson said, delighted. He grinned happily. “Hey, you know I was kinda afraid they was gonna give me a bum to begin with; a guy that would just make me look good, you know?”
Dave shook his head vigorously. “Not me, kid. I ain’t no tanker, never will be.”
“Well, that is fine, my friend! You and me, we’ll give the turkeys a fight.” Lester held his hand out, palm up, for some skin; instead, Dave shook his hand in the conventional way. Lester beamed. “Okay, tha’s cool. You all right, Big Dave.” He rose to leave. “Hey, thanks for the apple.”
Dave shrugged off the thanks. “See you at the fight, kid.”
Across the street, in the deserted locker room of the gym, Eddie cornered Pink. “Mr. Jake has got a job for you, pal,” the hoodlum said.
“I got a job,” Pink replied sullenly.
Eddie’s lip curled and he kicked Pink hard in the ankle. Pink groaned and dropped to a bench, clutching his ankle.
“Let’s start all over, dummy,” Eddie said in a quiet, hard voice. “Mr. Jake has got a job for you.”
“Okay, okay,” Pink groaned. “What is it?”
Eddie sat down beside him. “Mr. Jake and some other gentlemen who are interested in Lester Jackson’s future think maybe Big Dave Handley might have trained too hard for this fight. They’re worried that he might beat Jackson.”
Pink shook his head. “I been watching Jackson train. Dave ain’t got a chance.”
Eddie put a stiff finger an inch from Pink’s nose. “You want to guarantee that with your life?”
Pink shifted his eyes, frightened. “No.”
“Then shut up and listen. You know how Dave always likes to suck on a couple of oranges before a fight?”
“Yeah,” Pink reluctantly admitted.
“You’re the one that’s going to bring him the oranges, right?”
Pink did not answer. Eddie jabbed the stiff forefinger against his chest.
“Right?” he insisted on an answer.
“Yeah, right,” Pink said.
“Okay. On fight night you’ll get the oranges from me.”
“You might as well pull out your cannon and blow me up right now,” Pink said defiantly, “’cause I ain’t going to do nothing to hurt Dave!”
“Who’s asking you to?” Eddie said innocently. “You think I’d hurt Dave? He’s my friend too, you know.”
“Then what’s this business about the oranges?”
“They’ll be doped, but with just enough stuff to slow him down; just enough so’s his reflexes won’t be as sharp.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Pink. “Then Jackson can rip his head off.”
“Jackson’s manager will be in on it,” Eddie lied. “He’ll keep his boy in check. The kid will coast to a nice six-round decision. Everything’ll be clean, no knockouts, no blood.”
“I don’t know,” Pink said reluctantly.
“Look,” Eddie told him coldly. “I’m not exactly making a request here. What I’m doing is giving you the message from Mr. Jake. If you don’t like the deal, he’ll just have you put in the hospital and we’ll find somebody new to work Handley’s corner. In the end it still comes out like Mr. Jake wants it.”
Pink stared down at the floor, his expression helpless and forlorn. He knew that he was boxed in: what Eddie had just told him was true; there was no way out for him. Shaking his head at the injustice of it all, Pink buried his face in his hands. Eddie sneered at the trainer’s display of emotion.
“I’ll meet you outside Gate Ten a half-hour before the fight,” he told Pink.
Eddie left the locker room and went down to the lobby. He called Mr. Jake from a phone booth.
“It’s all arranged, sir. I’ll give him the oranges just before the fight. I laid a line on him about Jackson’s manager being in on it. Promised that the kid would carry Handley to a six-round decision. Him and Handley are both going to be in for a surprise after Handley eats that doped orange. Jackson will rip his head off.”
“That’s very good, Eddie,” said Mr. Jake. “Listen, make sure that orange is doped good. I’m going to lay a bundle out of town that Handley will be stopped in one round.”
“No problem, Mr. Jake,” Eddie promised.
On the day before the fight, when Dave finished his last workout and walked back to the locker room, all the other fighters in the gym stopped their workouts and followed him. There were about a dozen of them, all sizes, weights, and colors, most of them preliminary fighters like Handley, who made their precarious living in four- and six-rounders. They eased quietly into the locker room and watched as Dave stripped off his sweatshirt, tossed it on a bench, and opened his locker door. They saw Dave’s mouth drop open; he stared incredulously into the locker. Hanging inside was a new satin robe, red and white, with his name across the back; and a pair of matching satin trunks with his initials on one leg.
“Hey, Pink, where’d this stuff come from—?” he asked, turning. Then he saw the other fighters. They smiled in unison, and a couple of them raised clenched fists. A tough veteran middleweight named Teddy Falcon stepped forward.
“We all chipped in for it, Davey,” he said. “We figure you’re one of us, you know. You could have just made a show of fighting this Jackson kid, but you been going at it like there was a title on the line. You’re gonna show’em that you ain’t no bum. You’re gonna look good in there tomorrow night. And win or lose, when you look good, we all look good—’cause you’re one of us. The robe and trunks are just our way of saying good luck.”
They did not wait for Dave to thank them. He watched with a dry mouth as they all filed out, leaving him alone. Then he took the robe and tried it on. It had been a long time since he had owned a satin robe. Walking over to look at himself in the mirror over the lavatories, his mind went back to the early days when he had been undefeated, with 12 straight wins, and there had been talk of putting him in against Jerry Quarry or Jimmy Ellis or some other name contender. Then another up-and-coming kid had knocked him out and his stock had dropped drastically. From then on it had been win a few, lose one, win a few, lose one, until now he was 42 and 18, and a six-rounder a few times a year was all he could look forward to. Sighing, looking at himself in the mirror, he wished he had learned a trade of some kind, or at least finished high school. Maybe Dorry was right, he thought: maybe an over-the-hill fighter was nothing but a bum.
He shook his head. No, bums don’t wear satin. Tomorrow night he would show the world he was no bum!
He went back to his locker to hang up his new robe so it would look nice for the fight. In case Dorry decided to watch.
On Saturday night before the fight, Eddie stopped in the office of a doctor who owed Mr. Jake several favors. He opened a paper bag and poured half a dozen fresh oranges onto the counter in the doctor’s examination room. “Take your pick, Doc,” he said.
The doctor squeezed several of the oranges and selected one. Removing a cloth from a tray, he picked up a hypodermic needle, tested it for flow and in a quick, deft movement injected the chosen orange with the contents of the vial.
“Don’t get it mixed up with the others,” he told Eddie.
“Don’t worry,” Eddie answered. He took a roll of adhesive tape from his pocket, tore off a one-inch strip, and affixed it to the doped orange. “Thanks, Doc,” he said.
Outside Gate Ten at the stadium, Eddie waited with the bag of oranges until a somber-looking Pink shuffled up to him. Eddie handed Pink the bag. “It’s the one with the adhesive tape stuck to it.”
“You sure it won’t hurt him?”
“Not a chance. All’s it’s going to do is slow him down.”
Pink sighed quietly and took the bag. He started to walk away.
“Don’t forget,” Eddie reminded him, “this is for Mr. Jake. If you let him down, he’ll be very unhappy. Very.”
“Sure, sure,” Pink mumbled to himself, going on his way.
“I’ll stop by the dressing room later to see if everything is okay,” Eddie hollered after him.
At seven o’clock, when Handley arrived at his section of the big dressing room, Pink was there waiting for him. Handley saw the brown bag on the bench. “Those my oranges?”
“Yeah.”’
“Peel me one, will you, while I change.”
“Sure.” Pink opened the bag. With his back to Handley he removed the orange with the tape on it and studied it for a moment; then put it back and took out a good orange.
Handley stripped down and strapped on his leather protector. Then he slipped into his new trunks and sat down to put on his socks. Pink handed him the peeled section of orange. Handley tossed one in his mouth, sucked all the juice out of it and threw the pulp into a trash container.
“Jackson is going to get the surprise of his life, Pink,” he said. He tossed another orange section into his mouth.
Pink frowned thoughtfully. “You really think you can take this kid, Dave?” he asked.
“You seen how I been training, Pink. I’m ready. I can get around his hit-and-run style. I think I’ll go the distance with him, and I think I’ll get a decision.”
“Jeez,” Pink said quietly, “wouldn’t that be something?”
Dave finished the last of the orange sections. “Let me have another one, Pink.”
“Sure.” Once again Pink put the doped orange aside and peeled a good one for Handley. After he gave the sections to Dave, he peeled the doped orange and deliberately began eating it himself.
A few minutes later, Eddie came into the dressing room. “Hey, Big Dave, how you feeling?”
“Good, Eddie. I feel good.”
“Great. I just dropped in to wish you luck.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
As Handley laced up his ring shoes, Eddie looked around their corner. On the end of the bench he saw a small pile of orange peels. In the pile was the peel with the adhesive tape on it. Eddie winked at Pink. The trainer nodded.
After Eddie left, Dave bobbed his chin at the door and said, “Eddie’s a pretty nice guy, you know.”
“Salt of the earth,” Pink replied.
Just then Leo Marvel stuck his head in the door. “Okay, Handley, you’re up. Get in the ring.”
*****
At last it was time. Under the bright ring lights, the fighters were introduced and called to the center of the ring for their instructions. When that formality was over, they returned to their corners and waited for the bell.
Round One.
Dave Handley came out of the corner with everything he had learned in 14 years of ring warfare—plus the conditioning that had resulted from the hardest physical training he had ever done. All of it showed: he was at once at his best against the young Pan Am Games champion.
Lester Jackson was smooth, stylish, with fast hands and fast feet. He moved and stuck and jabbed like a young Ali or a modern-day Ray Robinson. His speed and concentration were flawless. But none of it worked against Handley in that first round.
When Jackson flicked his left jab, it landed not on Handley’s face but on his glove. When he threw his overhand right, more often than not it missed completely. When he danced around the ring, Handley did not chase him; instead he stepped to the side and cut off the ring on the younger man. All the while, Lester Jackson was smiling: when his jabs were short, when his hooks missed, when his footwork was neutralized—he smiled. But he was constantly on the defense as Handley, head tucked behind his cocked right, methodically pressed forward, working him to the body trying to slow him down. Handley was confident, determined, professional. He moved forward steadily, building up points with a cautious but effective aggressiveness. When the bell sounded, Handley returned to his corner knowing he had won the first round.
“I can take this kid, Pink!” he said eagerly. “I’m gonna win this fight!”
“Keep working him, Davey,” Pink said. His words were slightly slurred. When he leaned over to wipe Handley’s face, he dropped the sponge.
“What’s the matter?” Dave asked. “You sick or something?”
“I’m okay,” Pink said. He retrieved the sponge, rinsed it in the water bucket, and wiped Handley’s face. Then he began to massage the fighter’s shoulders.
“He’s not as good as I thought he’d be, Pink,” Handley said. It was nervous energy talking now, and the words kept coming. “He’s not as fast as he looked in training. And his punches ain’t sharp, you know; even when he lands, they don’t bother me. I’m cutting off the ring on him pretty good, don’t you think? I mean, his footwork is okay, but if I keep cutting the ring in half, it won’t do him no good—”
The warning buzzer sounded for Round Two. As Pink started to step through the ropes onto the ring apron, he slipped and almost fell. Quickly he regained his balance.
“Pink, you sure you’re okay?” a frowning Dave Handley asked.
“Yeah, yeah, fine,” the drugged trainer replied. “Go out and work him this round, Big Dave.”
“I’ll work him, Pink,” Handley said eagerly. “I’ll work him for you, pal.”
The bell rang. Handley moved out to the center of the ring and resumed his cautious forward attack. But this time Lester Jackson did not back up. Instead he stood flatfooted and began to tattoo Handley with a series of incredibly fast jabs and hooks. Handley was taken completely by surprise as the blows rained on him with a vengeance. Before he could recover his composure, Jackson finished his flurry and backed off.
Handley went after him. The young black began to move around the ring again—so fast now that Handley was unable to cut him off. As Jackson moved, he flicked out a steady tempo of hard sharp lefts, each of them finding Handley’s eye or cheekbone. Handley’s head began to snap back with each blow. Trying to regain his earlier momentum, Dave rushed forward in a sudden attack. Jackson was ready for him. All but one of Handley’s punches missed—and Jackson countered with half a dozen brutal combinations. Handley’s knees buckled. He rushed forward again. Jackson drilled him with a solid right. Handley dropped to one knee.
His mouth open, staring incredulously at the crowd, Handley took the mandatory eight-count. As soon as he got back up, Lester Jackson was all over him again. The Lester Jackson of the second round was a far different fighter from the Lester Jackson who had allowed Handley’s hopes to soar so high in the first round. This Lester Jackson was faster, smoother, harder hitting, and all business. He went after Handley with grim determination, landing with four or five remarkably accurate punches now for every awkward, missing blow that Handley attempted. Jackson’s flashing gloves were like twin pistons: they turned Handley’s face beet-red, bloodied his nose, cut his right eyebrow, knocked his mouthpiece out of the ring. Finally, from the sheer volume of blows hitting him, Handley went down again—all the way onto his back this time.
