The Professional Page 16

  “And how many fights did you have there?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I guess about two dozen maybe.”

  “Did you play ping-pong with all of them, like with the red-haired kid?”

  “No, sir. I did for most of them. I made them real good fights, right up until I knocked out the middleweight champion of Australia. Then I fought the light heavyweight champion and I outpointed him. Then I had to fight the heavyweight champion. He wasn’t a boy knew too much about fightin’ but he was big. He had more than twenty-five pounds on me, and he kept hittin’ me on the arms until I couldn’t lift ’em, just blockin’ his punches, and he got the decision in fifteen rounds. Then I come home, because I wanted to see my wife and my daughter, and there wasn’t nobody else for me to fight down there neither.”

  “How long have you been married, Memphis?” I said.

  “Oh, fifteen years. My wife she works in a laundry.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’s twelve years old now already. In the school they say she’s smart, too.”

  “What’s she going to do when she gets out of school?”

  “She says she’s gonna be a nurse. I like that.”

  “I like it, too. That’s fine.”

  “Would you excuse me now?”

  “Sure, Memphis.”

  “Speakin’ of the laundry, I gotta get my own.”

  Memphis left us then, and I asked Eddie what he meant about the laundry.

  “He does his own laundry every day up here. You know?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Well, the only clothes he brought, besides what he wears on the road mornings, is the gray suit he’s got and that sweater he has on today. Then he’s got a change of shorts and socks and two T-shirts, and I guess, some handkerchiefs. Every day after the workout he washes out his shorts and socks and T-shirt and a handkerchief. He hangs them out in the furnace room off the kitchen and then, every day after he takes his shower, he has clean clothes to put on.”

  “He’s a wonderful guy.”

  “He should have been champion and made some money.”

  “I know, and one of the most amazing things to me about him and his type is that they never seem to resent us whites. We’re the ones who did it to him, you know.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Sure we are.”

  “I noticed today he looks something like that Louie Armstrong.”

  “And if he could have played a trumpet like he used to fight he’d have been another Louie Armstrong.”

  “That’s right.”

  I wanted to ask Eddie how, believing as he did about Memphis, he felt in using him as a sparring partner and banging him around. I could not find the right way to express it, however, and then he stood up and I put it away.

  “Doc got him a six-rounder on the card,” he said. “Memphis will make himself four hundred plus what he’s getting up here. At least it’s something.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  We walked around between the cascade of the willow, moving in the wind, and the south end of the hotel and started across the parking space to the front porch. A new light-blue, two-door Ford had apparently just pulled in, and a small, thin young woman got out and shut the door and walked toward us.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but can you tell me where I can find Eddie Brown?”

  “I’m Eddie Brown.”

  “Oh, fine. I’m Ethel Morse from the Bunny Williams show.”

  “The what?” Eddie said, shaking hands with her.

  “The Bunny Williams show on television. Don’t you know about it?”

  “Oh, yes. Doc spoke to me. This is Frank Hughes, Miss—”

  “Ethel Morse. I’m glad to know you, Frank.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I trust you’ll be with us on Monday,” she said to Eddie, “so I thought I’d just run up and ask you a few questions about your background and—”

  “Well,” Eddie said, “I don’t know.”

  “But as I understand it, you’re going to be in town on Monday, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sure. We have to go in for the preliminary examination, but I don’t know about the show. You’ve got to talk to Doc about that.”

  “Doc? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with Doc.”

  “He’s my manager,” Eddie said, smiling, “and he’s against television.”

  “He’s against television?”

  She was a very plain thing, about thirty, with not enough chin and a little too much nose and black-rimmed eyeglasses, and the way she looked right then you would have thought that Eddie had said that Doc was against God.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Well, you better talk to Doc. I don’t know anything about television. Frank, here, is a magazine writer, so probably he knows more about it than Doc or I do.”

  “I pass.”

  “Frank Hughes?” she said. “You write for magazines?”

  “I confess.”

  “I know your name. I’m sure I’ve seen your articles.”

  “Thank you.”

  She could be playing a hand, I thought, but for some reason I’m always inclined to believe them when they’re plain or homely. Why, I was wondering, do I always believe this kind and suspect the lookers?

  “Why don’t we go in,” Eddie said, “and find Doc?”

  “Fine,” she said, “although I must confess I’m a little nervous about meeting this ogre.”

  “Oh, no,” Eddie said. “Doc’s all right. He’s a wonderful guy.”

  “Lead on,” she said.

  She had on a dark green tweed suit that came off Fifth Avenue and not Fourteenth Street and a pair of flat-heeled, brown suède sports shoes with fringed, flap-over tongues for her day in the country. Over one shoulder she was lugging a large saddle-leather bag and she walked with a real stride for such a small woman.

  When we had ushered her into the lobby Eddie went upstairs to find Doc and I took her into the dining room and sat her down at one of the tables by a window. She refused a drink and asked me a couple of questions about the camp and who ran it, and then Doc came in, peering at her, and Eddie introduced them and we all sat down.

  “Now what do you want me to buy?” Doc said.

  “Really!” she said, looking at Eddie and me. “Now I am frightened.”

  “Easy, Doc,” I said.

  “I hate television,” Doc said.

  “So I’ve been told,” she said, “although I can’t say I really believe it.”

  “You can believe anything I tell you, lady.”

  “But, really, you can’t hate television. What’s there to hate? What did it ever do to you?”

  “Everything, to both questions. Your business eats mine. Four years after your business started televising my business, forty-three small fight clubs in this country had folded because even a sucker won’t pay for something that somebody else is giving away for free. Why do I hate it?”

  “But I can’t see what earthly difference that makes to you. After all, Eddie Brown doesn’t box in these small clubs you’re speaking of.”

  “But where do you think he learned how to fight? Do you know that you may be sitting at this table right now with the last of the real professional fighters, because my business isn’t like your business where they tear a piece of bark off a tree and the first thing that crawls out they make into a—what do you call it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “A television personality,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Doc said. “A television personality. The first thing that crawls out they make into a television personality. Look at me.”

  “I am,” she said.

  “You’re looking at a guy who’s got a fighter and the sports pages and that’s all I’ve ever had for over forty years. I’m not married because I never wanted to be, and for the last fifteen years I’ve been living in the same hotel. I know every cabbie that wo
rks that stand there, day or night. I know how many kids they’ve got and what troubles they got with their wives. So one night when your business was just starting to catch on I came out and got in a cab. You listening?”

  “I most certainly am.”

  She was, too, because she couldn’t figure Doc at all.

  “So I sit back and the cabbie says: ‘Say, Doc, how about that Wally Johns?’ I say to myself that he’s not a fighter. ‘Willie Jones?’ I said. ‘Ballplayer?’ He starts to laugh. For the first time in my life a cabbie laughs at me. He says: ‘Doc, are you kidding?’ I said: ‘No. Who is he?’ He says: ‘Who is Wally Johns? He’s famous. He’s the guy announces the wrestling on television. He’s great.’ I said: ‘Stop the cab.’ He says: ‘Why? We’re not there yet.’ I said: ‘Yes, we are. We just passed it.’ I got out and slammed the door and walked six blocks in the rain. Television? What do you want from me?”

  “Well, we want Eddie Brown on the Bunny Williams show on Monday. Eddie has confirmed what they informed us at Madison Square Garden—that he has to be in New York on Monday anyway.”

  “We shouldn’t even be going in for the examination,” Doc said turning to me. “I told them: ‘Send that doctor out here.’ So they said: ‘We want Eddie and the other guy together for the photographers. If you both come to town we can start the fire under the fight.’ Now we should go on television, too.”

  “It was Madison Square Garden that suggested it,” she said. “They called us and said they’d spoken with you.”

  “Why don’t you get the other guy? The other guy is the great champion. Since when is television interested in the second man?”

  “Well, the people at Madison Square Garden suggested Eddie. The gentleman there who handles the publicity explained that Eddie is intelligent and makes a good appearance, and now that I’ve met him I’m convinced that he’s just what we want.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie said.

  “Ah, come on now. Level with me,” Doc said.

  “What?”

  “You know you don’t want the other guy because he’s colored. Admit it.”

  “That’s not so. We’ve had Negroes on the show.”

  “Who?”

  “We’ve had Negro musicians.”

  “What kind of a show is this, anyway?”

  “Well, it’s a half-hour show from two to two-thirty, Monday through Friday. Bunny is a grand person and she does a wonderful job. It’s basically an interview show and we have two guests each week. We may have someone who’s just written a book or is appearing in a new show or we may have someone who’s in the news. We’ve had baseball players. That Mr. Farrell of the Yankees has been very nice about sending us a player when the team isn’t playing that day.”

  “But it’s for women, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, basically, but you’d be surprised at the number of women who have become interested in what used to be just men’s things. Since boxing has been on television you’d be surprised at the number of women who enjoy it now.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised at anything,” Doc said. “What time does Eddie have to be there?”

  “Well, we’d like him there at one-thirty, to meet Bunny and to see the setup and get a picture of what we’ll want him to do. All he’ll have to do will be to walk in and sit down and Bunny will chat with him about his career. We’re honestly excited about having a prominent boxer.”

  “All right,” Doc said. “We’ll be there.”

  “Well, thank you. You had me scared, but you’re not so bad after all.”

  “I’m worse.”

  “Are you married?” she said to Eddie.

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Say, there’s a thought. Could we get your wife on with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Eddie said.

  “I know,” Doc said. “No.”

  “Really? It would help the show. Why not?”

  “Because he’s a fighter in training.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  No, I thought, looking at her, I can believe that. I’m sure you don’t.

  “You don’t?” Doc said. “Well, let’s just put it this way. He doesn’t look at his wife from now until after the fight. All right?”

  “Yes, if that’s your rule.”

  “My rule? It isn’t only my rule.”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” she said to Eddie, “if I might.”

  “Sure,” Eddie said. “Go right ahead.”

  She reached into the shoulder bag and brought out a pack of cigarettes and took one and I lighted it for her. Then she came out with a stenographer’s notebook and flipped it open professionally and sat forward with a small gold pencil poised.

  “First of all, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “How many prize fights have you had?”

  “Ninety.”

  “How many have you won?”

  “Eighty-seven.”

  “How did you start to be a fighter?”

  Eddie told her about the boy’s club and the amateurs and how Doc discovered him. She was asking Doc about this when we heard the shout and turned.

  “Hey! Where’s the next champion of the world!”

  “Hey, Louie!” Eddie said, his face breaking into a big grin, and then he stood up. “Come over here!”

  It was a little guy, dark-haired, in a dark blue suit, with the open collar of his white sports shirt folded down outside the collar of his jacket. Behind him were four others, all in their late twenties or early thirties and all of them grinning, and they stood there while Louie came over.

  “This was my first manager,” Eddie said, after he and Louie shook hands. “Louie is the one I was telling you about, had me in the amateurs. All these guys are from the old neighborhood.”

  Louie shook hands with Doc, and then Eddie introduced him formally to Miss Morse and to me.

  “Look,” Eddie said to him. “I’m busy for a few minutes, so take the guys into the bar. Take Frank with you, too. Tell him about the old neighborhood. I’ll be in.”

  “Sure,” Louie said, grinning at Eddie. “Sure.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m glad to have met you, Miss Morse.”

  16

  So you’re all from Eddie’s old neighborhood,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Louie said.

  “And the best neighborhood in the world,” the one named Frankie said. “We’re not kiddin’. It was the greatest. The best neighborhood in the world.”

  “It used to be, when we were kids,” the big husky one named Pretzauer, but called Pretzel, said. “It ain’t the same no more.”

  “What is?” Frankie said. “But it still ain’t bad.”

  We were spread along the bar while Girot served us. Pretzel and one named Pete had asked for beer, but Louie and Frankie and a quiet, good-looking one dressed in brown sports clothes and wearing a tie and named Harry had ordered whiskey.

  “Well, here’s to Eddie Brown, the next middleweight champion of the world,” Louie said.

  “Right,” Frankie said.

  We all drank to Eddie.

  “These guys you’re lookin’ at here now,” Louie said, “we’re all Eddie’s gang. Since we’re kids, we’re all the same gang.”

  “All except Dom ain’t here,” Frankie said. “Dom had to work today.”

  “Oh?” I said. “What does Dom do?”

  “He’s got an important post with the City Transit Authority,” Frankie said, and a couple of the others laughed.

  “He’s with the I.R.T.,” Louie said. “He’s a track worker.”

  “But a real good guy,” Frankie said.

  “The best,” the one named Pete said. “He wanted to come up, too. He really wanted to see Eddie.”

  “It’s too bad,” Frankie said.

  “So what do the rest of you guys do for a living?”

  “Me, I got a piece of a poolroom,” Louie said. “Frankie, here, owns a gas station.”

/>   “Half a gas station,” Frankie said.

  “Pretzel drives for a beer distributor, Harry’s a fireman and Pete tends bar at the Stanton.”

  “That’s a nice hotel,” I said to Pete.

  “You ever drop in?”

  “I have, but probably not in a couple of years.”

  “Drop in and look for me. I’m there nights.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “But Eddie’s the one,” Frankie said. “Eddie’s our boy.”

  “We go to all of Eddie’s fights,” Louie said, “except the ones away out of town. You know. I mean we couldn’t go to Pittsburgh and Chicago and Omaha, but we all started with his first fight, when I put Eddie in his first four-rounders at the Ridgewood, and all these guys went. We never missed any fight of Eddie’s we could get to. We even drove up to Holyoke the times he fought there, and we’d be drivin’ home all night.”

  “Hey! How about that first fight Eddie had in Holyoke, hey, Pretzel?” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Pretzel said.

  “What about it?” Louie said.

  “There was this guy there wanted to bet us,” Pretzel said.

  “Wanted to bet us?” Frankie said. “He didn’t want to bet us.”

  “That’s right,” Pete said. “He didn’t want to, but he did.”

  “A guy sittin’ right behind us,” Frankie said to me. “A loud mouth. He’s rootin’ for the guy’s fightin’ Eddie. You seen Eddie fight, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He don’t look to kill the other guy the first round or two. I mean, usually he don’t. He usually goes out to figure the other guy out, first.”

  “Doc taught him that right from the start, how to case a guy,” Louie said. “Doc’s some manager.”

  “He’s the best,” Frankie said, “but this loud mouth is rootin’ for the other guy. He’s hollerin’: ‘Kill him! Knock him out! He’s from New York, so he can’t fight! Knock that bum out!’ This keeps up all the first round, and when he starts it again in the second I turned around to him and I said: ‘Look, Mac, why don’t you tune that volume down?’ He says: ‘Whatta ya mean?’ I said: ‘You’re disturbin’ people. The fighter can’t hear you anyway.’ He says: ‘He can hear me all right and he’ll knock that bum right back to New York and you know what you can do.’