But early on Rooney knew that despite his cunning, stolid body, his deft right hand, and a certain amount of ring skill, he would never be major. He watched other fighters, black and white, work their way up, but somehow it never happened for him. He stayed on the “circuit,” as folks called it, and watched as other men, lesser men, succeeded. He was told it was because he “just wasn’t ready for it.” He knew it because he was so ugly, the nose too splayed, the lips comically thick, the eyes seeming to pop from his head. People who followed the fights wanted their man to look, if not heroic, at least decent. No matter what he did, Rooney couldn’t look good. He fussed with his hair, he grew a beard, he had his teeth worked on, he took to wearing a gray cutaway and matching top hat. It didn’t matter. No matter what you did to Rooney’s face, you couldn’t alter it. It was the sort of face that, no matter how long you stared at it, you never quite got used to.
He beat Jackson in ’88 and Salivar in ’89. He even beat a Chilean named Estafen. He awakened one day and noticed how gray his hair was getting. A few weeks later, fighting a plump kid he should have had no problem with, he nearly got knocked out. It wasn’t that the kid was so good. It was that Rooney was getting so bad. Strength, endurance, quickness-by the time he was age thirty they had all left him. And they would never come back.
Wifeless, even finding few prostitutes who were willing to welcome him into their beds, he spent his life trying to make some sense of forces he sensed but could not understand. Why had he been bom not only colored but so ugly? Why were less gifted men promoted when he was not? Would he ever know anything remotely like a normal life? The other day, walking up the street, he’d noticed a small cottage surrounded by a picket fence. A man and woman had stood in the yard, hand in hand, watching a dazzling little blonde girl play with a calico dog. Rooney had almost been overcome by a feeling that started out envy but ended up sadness. Would he ever have a life like that? Ever?
“You know what we’re looking for, Rooney.”
“I know.”
“We want a show.”
Rooney nodded.
“A good show, Rooney.”
Rooney nodded again.
“He hits you, you get up. Meanwhile, you hit him every chance you get.”
“You ever see Carter anymore?”
“Not anymore.” John T. Stoddard’s eyes dropped, and Rooney wondered what was wrong.
“He head east?”
“I’m not sure where he headed. He-died,” Stoddard replied.
“Died?”
“In the ring.”
“Carter?”
“Had you seen him in a while?”
“Not for a while, no.”
“He’d started to get old suddenly.” Stoddard shook his head. “You know how it gets with fighters.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“He found this kid from Pennsylvania. This really strapping bastard.”
“A kid killed him?”
“Nineteen. But a punch you just can’t believe.”
Rooney got up from the chair. The three of them were in a small room on the east edge of the raw board building adjacent to the ring. The room smelled of heat and tobacco. The building was a warehouse for a tobacco wholesaler. Rooney was already stripped to the waist because of the heat.
“Carter. Dead.” Rooney shook his head. “He was a decent man for a-”
Stoddard grinned and turned to the man he called Guild. “He was going to say ‘a decent man for a white man. ’ You see, Guild, they think of us what we think of them.” He laughed in a booming way that revealed anxiety beneath.
Rooney kept pacing. “Victor still hates colored folks?”
“I’m afraid he does.”
“What we ever do to him?”
“You know how Victor is.” Stoddard tapped his skull to indicate he was crazy. “You go fifteen rounds with him, you could be sitting pretty, Rooney. Sitting very pretty.”
“I go fifteen rounds with him, I could be dead is what I could be.”
“Victor’s not so young anymore.”
“That why he killed a fighter just last spring?”
“To be honest, that guy wasn’t much of a fighter. He really wasn’t.”
Stoddard looked over at Guild. There was some doubt in his expression. “Now you’re not going to go out there and just lay down, are you, Rooney?”
“We have an agreement. I’m going to stick to that agreement. I’m going to do everything I can.”
“I need at least twelve rounds.”
“I need my head on my shoulders, too.” Rooney allowed a certain belligerence to come into his voice.
Stoddard glanced over at Guild again, then back at Rooney. “Why don’t you show me a little something?”
“I ain’t in the mood.”
“Just a little something, Rooney. So I know you’re fit and all ready to go.” He patted his stomach. “You’ve been putting on weight, boy.”
“I’m gettin’ old.”
Stoddard smiled. “Old is going around. Like the flu. Everybody seems to be catching it.”
Rooney finally relented and showed him a few things. He showed him a few right hooks and a few right crosses and a few uppercuts. He stood in the sunny comer and fought his quick moving shadow. The shadow was not quite as black as Rooney.
When he finished, there was a sheen of sweat on his back and arms. He went over and sat on the edge of a chair. He was panting. As he had told Stoddard, he was getting old. He’d fought many one-hundred-round matches in his youth. Today he was up against two things-the loss of that youth and the unforgiving hands of Victor Sovich.
“You know something, Rooney?”
“What?”
“You look scared.”
“I got a right to look scared.”
“You’re going to be fine.”
“He hates us folks.”
“Victor isn’t exactly a spring chicken himself anymore.”
“That’s what you said. That don’t necessarily convince me.”
“I need a good show, Rooney. A damn good show. There’s going to be a lot of people out there.”
“Sure. A man who kills other men always gets a crowd.”
Stoddard paused. “You’re forgetting something, Rooney.”
“What?”
“You killed a man, too.”
“Not on purpose.”
Stoddard smiled. “That story kind of hangs on.”
“What story?”
“That you poisoned his drinking water before the fight.”
“That’s bull.”
“It’s what I hear.”
“It’s not the truth.”
“You just put on a show today, Rooney. That’s all I care about. The past is the past.”
Rooney noticed how interested Guild seemed since the conversation had come round to the fighter Rooney was accused of poisoning.
“I won’t look good if you don’t look good,” Stoddard said. “You just try and remember that, all right?”
“All right.”
Stoddard came up. He looked as if he were going to pat Rooney on the back. But you could see in his eyes the distaste he felt for the boxer’s sweating body. He brought his hand back to his suit coat and put it in a pocket.
Rooney said, “You tell Sovich not to kill me.”
“I’ll tell him, Rooney.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“I ain’t got nothing against him. He shouldn’t have nothin’ against me.”
“I’ll talk to him, Rooney. You can bet I will.”
Rooney sighed. “Maybe I’ll retire after this one.”
Stoddard said, “That’s something to think about, Rooney. That sure is something to think about.”
He and Guild left soon after.
Rooney sat in the chair. There was a fly in the room. Every few minutes Rooney tried to slap it down. He had no luck.
He thought about the fighter he’d poisoned that time. The kid wasn’t supposed to die. All Rooney had wanted was to slow him down enough to beat him good. Then the kid up and died.