To you women who cannot attend boxing matches because of the aforementioned masculine taboo that has been placed on attendance at the “fights” by women, permit me a few words of explanation. The principal contest of the evening, like all good things, is called the “wind-up” and it comes last. It follows the introductory “bouts” which are known as “preliminaries” or “prelims” I believe they were called by my friend Mr. Doug Campbell, popular sports editor of the Standard, who escorted me to McGovern’s Hall and showed me the “ropes.” In the “prelims” one sees the lesser known lights of the boxing fraternity, and it is considered a kind of obscurity to be relegated to the “prelims.” But it was in a “prelim” that I saw real beauty.
A mere strip of a lad, hardly more than a boy he was, and his name is Tony Morascho. Doug Campbell informed me that it was the début of Tony Morascho but I sincerely trust it will not be Tony’s last, for there was beauty personified, grace in every ripple of his lithe young frame, symmetry and rhythm and the speed of a cobra as it strikes the helpless rabbit. Beauty! Do you know El Grecco, the celebrated Spanish artist? Surely you do. Well, there was El Grecco, to the life….
That was how Al Grecco got his name.
He could not live the name down. The gang at the poolroom and at the gym called him El Grecco, and for a gag Packy McGovern billed him as Al Grecco on the next card. The name followed him into prison—was, in fact, waiting for him there; Lantenengo County Prison was ruled by a warden who, though no deep student of penology, believed in permitting his wards to have newspapers, cigarettes, whiskey, assignations, cards—anything, so long as they paid for it. And so when Al Grecco was sent up on the poorbox burglary matter he was not altogether unknown at the Stoney Lonesome, as the prison was called.
When Al had served his time he came out with some idea of turning square. He wanted to turn square, because he had seen so many ex-convicts in the movies who came out with one of two plans: either you turned square, or you got even with the person who got you sent up. He could not get even with Father Burns, the curate who had caught him burgling the poorbox, because it was a sacrilege to hit a priest, and anyhow Father Burns had been transferred to another parish. And so Al decided to turn square. First, though, there were two things he wanted to do. There was no one to give him money while he was in prison, and he felt he had been deprived of the two most important things you can have. He had about ten dollars, his earnings in prison, but that was not enough for a big night. He wanted twenty. So he got in a game of pool, to get his eye and his stroke back, and surprised himself by being pretty good. That gave him confidence, and he asked if he could take a cue in a money game. He lost all his money in the game and Joe Steinmetz, the crippled man who owned the place, would not stake him. Steinmetz would give him a job, he said, but no money to shoot pool with. So Al walked out of the place, wishing he had insulted Joe. Outside the poolroom, which was the next building to the Apollo hotel and restaurant, Al saw Ed Charney, sitting in his Cadillac sedan. Ed was smoking a cigar, and seemed to be waiting for someone. Al waved his hand and said, “Hyuh, Ed.” All the poolroom gang spoke to Ed, although Ed did not always answer. Now he beckoned to Al. Al made the distance to the car in three jumps.
“Hello, Ed,” he said.
“When’d you get out? Somebody spring you?” said Ed. He took his cigar out of his mouth and smiled benevolently at Al. Al was surprised and pleased that Ed Charney should know so much about him.
“No, I did my time,” he said. “I got out today.” He leaned with one arm on the rear door of the sedan. “I didn’t know you knew me.”
“I make it my business to know a lot of people,” said Ed. “How’d you like to make a sawbuck?”
“Who do you want knocked off?” said Al.
Ed glared and put the cigar back in his teeth, but then took it out again. “Don’t talk tough, kid. That don’t get you any place. That don’t get you any place except up in that jail house or else—” he snapped his fingers. “Nobody has to knock anybody off, and the sooner you get them ideas out of your head the better off you are.”
“You’re right, Ed,” said Al.
“I know I’m right. I make it my business to be right. Now if you want to make that sawbuck all I want you to do—can you drive a car?”
“Yeah. What kind? This one?”
“This one,” said Ed. “Take it out to the Gibbsville Motors or whatever you call it. English’s garage. Tell them I sent you out to have it washed and wait till they’re done with it and then bring it back here.” He reached in his pocket and took a ten-dollar bill from a roll. “Here.”
“A sawbuck for that? Do you want me to pay for washin’ it?”
“No. Charge it. I give you the sawbuck because you just got outa the can. Keep your nose clean.” Ed Charney got out of the car. “Keys in the car,” he said. He walked toward the Apollo, but turned after a few steps. “Say,” he said. “Who the hell ever told you you was a prizefighter?”
Al laughed. There was a guy for you: Ed Charney, the big shot from here to Reading and here to Wilkes-Barre. Maybe the whole State. What a guy! Democratic. Gave a guy ten bucks for doing nothing at all, nothing at all. Knew all about you. Made it his business to know all about you. That night Al Grecco did not get quite so drunk as he had planned; he waited until the next night, when he had thirty dollars from a crap game. That night he got good and drunk, and was thrown out of a house for beating up one of the girls. The day after that he took a job with Joe Steinmetz.
For three years he worked for Joe Steinmetz, more or less regularly. No one could beat him shooting straight pool, and he had great skill and luck in Nine Ball, Ouch, Harrigan, One Ball in the side and other gambling pool games. He saw Ed Charney a couple of times a week, and Ed called him Al. Ed seldom played pool, because there were only six tables in the place, and though he could have had any table by asking for it or even hinting that he wanted to play, he did not take advantage of his power. When he played he played with Snake Eyes O’Neill, the wisecracking, happy-go-lucky guy from Jersey City, who was always with Ed and, everybody said, was Ed’s bodyguard. Snake Eyes, or Snake, as Ed called him, carried a revolver unlike any Al ever had seen. It was like any ordinary revolver except that it had hardly any barrel to it. Snake was always singing or humming. He never knew the words of a song until after it was old, and he used to make sounds, “Neeyaa, ta ta ta tata, tee ta tee, laddie deetle,” instead of singing the words. He was not called Snake Eyes because he had eyes like a snake. Far from it. The name was a crapshooting term. He had big brown eyes that were always smiling. O’Neill was tall and skinny and in Al’s opinion was the snappiest dresser he had ever seen. Al counted up one time and he figured O’Neill had at least fourteen suits of clothes, all the latest cut from Broadway, New York City. Ed Charney was not a very snappy dresser. Ed had quite a few suits, but he did not change them much. His pants often needed pressing, and he often put his hat on so that the bow on the band was on the wrong side of his head. There were always cigar ashes on the lapels of his coat. But Al knew one thing: Ed wore silk underwear. He’d seen it.
In the last year before he got a job with Ed, Al frequently sat at Ed’s table in the Apollo. By that time Al was shooting such good pool that Joe cut him in on the weekly take of the poolroom, and Al had permission to use house money when he wanted to play pool for money. He was only twenty-one and thinking of buying a half interest in the place. He spent plenty, but he made plenty; anywhere from fifty to two hundred bucks a week. He had a car—a Chevvy coop. He bought a Tuxedo. He went to Philadelphia when there was a musical comedy and he knew a girl there that worked in night clubs and shows, who would sleep with him if he let her know he was coming to town. He liked the name Al Grecco, and never thought of himself as Tony Murascho. The boys who sat at Ed Charney’s table would not have known who was meant if the name Tony Murascho had been mentioned. But they knew Al Grecco for a good kid that Ed liked well enough to ask him to eat with him once in a while. Al Grecco was no pest, and did not sit at the table unless he was asked. He never asked any favors. He was the only one who ever sat at the table who had nothing to do with the stock market, and that was a big relief. All the others, from Ed Charney down, were in the market or only temporarily out of it.