“Well, and how was the fight of the century?” he said, as if to the office building across the alley, or as if to the fire escape. “Or was it in the bag like all the rest of them?”
“It was a peach, but I wasn’t looking. Have a drink.”
Cush brought a glass and poured himself a drink.
“These musical shows get my goat, they’re all alike. Jesus, what the hell can you say about them? Sprightly and whimsical and fantastic. If you could only say the smut was only so-so, or A No. 1 Gorgonzola. This one is a piece of cheese, but the chorus is pretty good.”
“Was his honor the mayor there?”
“Sure he was—sitting right next to the censor. But he needn’t have worried. This one won’t be taken off. It wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“How do you mean, fly?”
He continued to type, while Cush pulled the black oilcloth cover off his machine. Micky then drove a right to the ribs and left to face. Romero landed a left to face. Zabriski landed right to body. Zabriski drove right and left to body, which Romero cleverly blocked. At this point, he remembered, the man behind him said, “He won’t last it out, he won’t last ten rounds. Zabriski will kill him, he hasn’t got the guts.” Zabriski’s fiancée, in the fourth row, was being photographed—she was sitting with her mother and two other janes. She looked drunk. This was before she had begun to yell at Zabriski—come on Patsy, come on Pat, give it to him.
“Well,” said Cush, to his typewriter, “did Zabriski win it, or who?”
“There is a new champion, and it was a swell fight, science defeats slugging, but I didn’t watch it. I was elsewhere.”
“All right, I’ll bite, where were you?”
“I was picking flowers.”
“You mean Ann’s given you the bum’s rush again, or something. Who is it now?”
He didn’t answer at once, he frowned over his notes. Cush turned the sheet of paper into his machine and began typing. Round even. ROUND TWO … Zabriski scored a light left to jaw before clinch. Romero reached the champion with two good rights to jaw. The man behind him was saying, say this fellow’s good, this fellow is pretty good, watch him. Zabriski can’t touch him, look at the way he ties him up. Oh, baby, and was that a sock.
“It isn’t the same guy, it’s two other fellows. If you know what I mean.”
“Well for Christ’s sake why don’t you call it a day and give her the gate? Why didn’t you marry one of those chorus floozies and have someone faithful?”
“Faithful! heh heh. Isn’t that a laugh? That word isn’t in the dictionary any more, I looked it up. Nowadays all you’ve got to do is be yourself, that’s what the psychologists say, just be yourself. Ann’s herself, all right—she’s herself with everybody.”
“Well, don’t let it eat you, she isn’t worth it.”
Cush was typing quickly. The window shade began flapping in the draft, he got up and gave the cord a twitch so that the shade flew up to the top and wound itself silent with a series of ecstatic slaps against the casement. He leaned for a moment on the window-sill, and looked down into the squalid alley. Forty feet of midnight. Forty feet of emptiness surrounded by rusty fire escapes. But to jump down was no good, he didn’t want to die, that wasn’t the idea at all. What he wanted was Ann, all right—Ann standing here with her hands on the window-sill, seeing how desolate an alley could be at midnight.
II.
He sat down and took a drink, and turned the yellow copy-paper, and drew the penciled notes still closer. The writing was hard to make out, he had done it carelessly. Romero stepped into a right to the jaw and missed a hard right to the head. Both traded wallops at close quarters without damage. Romero landed a hard right to jaw but missed a left swing. Zabriski’s right to body was blocked. Romero missed two hard rights to body. Romero’s round. Four tough kids in the balcony began yelling and jumping up and down in their seats—what’s the matter, are you yellow, Zabriski, say would you like a nice piece of steak, what’s the matter are you afraid of him. And then there was that new buzzer which announced when it was ten seconds before the bell, and the urgent bell following almost immediately, and the two men springing out from their corners, and the seconds climbing swiftly over the ropes with the stools in their hands and the towels over their shoulders. The enormous canopy hung over the ring, its forty lights looking like a vast brooch of opals, swirls of tobacco smoke ascended toward the obscure ceiling, and the two great clocks looked down at the fighters, counting the seconds with important hands. How much had he missed by watching the clock, looking up over the heads of the two men, over their shoulders, over the interlaced arms and struggling bodies, beyond the naked shoulders reddened with repeated blows. A lot, probably. He had taken it down automatically, all except the ninth and tenth rounds, when he had gone out for a glass of beer; and those he had copied from Peters.
“Oncet in a while,” Cush murmured, “oncet in a while, why don’t they give us a decent show oncet in a while.”
“Next time we can swap assignments, I’ll throw in Ann for good measure. That is, if you can find her.”
“Well, where is she?”
“Ask me another. She was supposed to be having dinner with Mabel Innes, but when I called up Mabel, would you believe it, Mabel didn’t know anything about it.”
“Looks like bad teamwork, boy.”
“Yeah, I thought better of Mabel. She can usually think pretty fast, but this time I caught her on the wrong foot. If you know what I mean.”
The four tough kids had begun yelling, say what will your fiancée think of you now, go on back to Worcester, Zabriski, would you like a hot dog. She had turned and shouted angrily at them, shut up you coots, and then she began saying, over and over, come on Pat, come on Patsy, give it to him, show him what you can do, show the kike what you can do, go on in and finish him, he can’t take it, he can dish it out but he can’t take it. ROUND SIX.
He paused in his typing, and straightened his back, and looked up at the dingy white-washed wall, on which hung a small photograph of the James family—Henry and William sitting in garden chairs beside a wicker table, Alice standing behind them holding a sunshade, a cocker spaniel sprawled on the path. The garden was an English garden, an apricot or perhaps a peach tree was crucified flat on the brick wall, and the three good faces looked forward at him with an extraordinary integrity. Integrity! Yes, that was it, it wasn’t only the intelligence, the wisdom, it was the profound and simple honesty of all three faces—faces carved slowly out of serene honesty as if out of some sort of benign marble. A book lay on the table—too large for The Wings of the Dove, too small for Varieties of Religious Experience. What would it be? And what were they thinking, what were they remembering together, as they thus faced the camera, or the world, with such triune simplicity and kindness? They all seemed to be looking steadfastly at the truth.
He interrupted his meditations on the English garden, the peach tree, the three faces, by sitting forward again and dropping his hands at the side of the machine. Cush went out of the alcove with a sheet of yellow paper, holding it up and reading it as he pushed open the door.… Romero crossed a right to the jaw as Pat scored with a light left to face. The challenger neatly ducked Zabriski’s right and left swings. Both landed light lefts to body. In a sharp mixup Romero outpunched the champion and forced him to break ground. Zabriski had a hard time finding his fighting range, the feathery-footed challenger weaving, bobbing, dancing around, making it impossible for the champion to score.… The man behind him was beginning to say, gee, what’s the matter with Zabriski, come on Zabriski you’re rotten, for Christ’s sake keep that left up, keep up that left. Why, he’s making a monkey out of you.… The four tough kids, ejected from their seats in the balcony, had reappeared on the floor at the back, they were standing up on their chairs and booing, everybody turned to look at them, and a cop began walking slowly down the aisle toward them. One of them had a dirty cross of sticking plaster on his forehead.