“You like the salts between rounds?” the tall second asked.
“Only if I got a pair of glass eyes. Keep plenty of water on me.”
“Hell of a hot night for it.”
“Take it easy with the collodion. A little bit is plenty.”
“You a bleeder?”
“I cut easy over the eyes.”
“Here. I’ll rub some vaseline in your eyebrows. We’ll try to keep you greased. I... I don’t suppose you want no advice?”
“Only if you see something I seem to be missing. I’ll pace myself.”
They waited in silence. The crowd roared louder than before. He knew what it meant: A knockout in the semi-final. The back of his neck felt stiff as he waited for it; it came sooner than he expected: A loud hammering on the door.
“Okay! Front and center.”
Lew swung his feet up onto the table, stretched out, closed his eyes. “That’s us,” the tall second said in a worried tone.
“Take it easy. Let the kid sweat out there.”
“Sure.”
He tried to relax, but he was tight all over. He let the minutes go by. There was another irate hammering on the door. “Snap it up in there!”
“Coming right out,” Lew yelled. He didn’t move. He waited until he heard the heavy stomp of thousands of feet in unison, that time-worn gesture of crowd impatience. Then, he stood up slowly, and faked a stretch and yawn. The tall second hung the lightweight robe across his shoulders. The other one picked up the pail and the bottles. The tall second took the kit. They went out.
The sound was enormous in the corridor, like being inside a drum during parade. He went ahead, down the long, long aisle between the customers, hearing the rhythmic stomping falter and die away to be replaced by hooting and catcalls and a cheer much feebler than it would have been had he come out on time.
He went up between the ropes, saving his strength, sitting heavy on the stool, noting with grim pleasure that Sammy Hode was bounding nervously around in his corner, yanking at the ropes, grimacing at the crowd. The arc lights were blue-hot, and a swarm of dazed moths spiraled endlessly. A flunky attacked them with a DDT bomb while the crowd jeered. The moths, poisoned, banged senselessly around the ring. Lew made a mental note to maneuver Hode into the insects whenever he could. Make every break and take every break.
He closed his mind to the formalities, the announcements, the fighters and civic figures who clambered up to bow and then prance to each fighter to wish him luck. Lew sat with his eyes half-closed. It had been a long time since he had been stirred by the crowd or by the crowd noise. They were a necessary evil. To him it had always seemed as though all fights were conducted in dead empty silence, and only between rounds, or during a knockdown, did he become partially aware of the great breathing roaring beast beyond the perimeter of the lights.
He ambled out and listened to the “break when I say break” routine, and kept his eyes focused on Hode’s middle, noting with pleasure that the kid was breathing too fast, too hard. His big chance — a great big deal! Knock out old Lew Barry for the people! A punk kid — a wise kid. Smack him down where he belongs! Not up here with the pros, up here with the workmen... He felt the slow anger moving and turning inside of him. He felt the tightness of his face, felt with pleasure the alive weight of the slabbed muscles of his shoulders and arms. This is my business, sonny. Tonight you take a lesson. Tonight you yell for Mother.
The referee shoved the mike out of the way. The lights along the perimeter fence faded out. He went back to his corner. The tall second yanked off the robe and stuck out the mouthpiece. Lew tapped it in place with the tip of his new glove, broke the padding a little more across the knuckles, took two long slow pulls at the top ropes, bending his knees deep; then turned at the bell, shuffling out, chin safely behind his left shoulder to touch gloves with the eager bouncy kid.
The kid danced and pranced, and Lew shuffled stolidly after him, knowing that these first few moments would set the pattern of the bout. Five years dropped away as though they had never been. He knew that he had handled the training right. He had hit the best peak he could achieve, and hit it right on the button. The kid rapped him in the forehead with two brisk jabs and Lew, waiting for the right, saw the flicker of motion in time to stab it away with his left and thump his own right under the boy’s heart, solidly enough to make the crowd yell.
Sammy danced back, tried too fancy a shift and stumbled. He covered himself again with grotesque, ludicrous haste. Lew stepped back, lowering his arms, a grandstand play which got a cheer from the crowd. Hode danced back and darted in, and hit Lew one solid disconcerting smash before Lew tied him up in a clinch. In the clinch Lew found that the kid was no infighter. So Lew leaned contentedly on him, tying him up tightly, then working one arm free to hammer down onto the boy’s kidneys, two solid chopping blows of the kind that wear a man down. Yet it worried him that the boy had tagged him so readily. He had felt the blow before he had seen it. And hitting that sturdy opponent was like hitting hard rubber. His hands seemed to bounce off the rubbery interlaced muscles. A tough kid — no doubt of that.
They circled each other with sudden mutual caution, then Lew tried to open the boy up. He let the right go and saw, too late, that he was outsmarted. The boy came up inside with a hard left hook to Lew’s middle. It made him grunt. He touched Hode with two long harmless left jabs and at the bell they were circling.
Lew plodded over and slumped onto the stool, eyes half closed. He filled his mouth with water and let it run down his chest into the waistband of his trunks. It felt cool and good.
He stood up at the warning buzz, and, at the bell, let Hode come across the ring to him. Lew tried a classic foot-feint, pivoted, caught Hode a fraction off balance, and drove his best left home to the jaw. Hode bounced and shook his head and came in hard and fast. Lew tied him up in the corner after taking a hard smash under the eye. He leaned on the kid and felt dull discouragement. The kid could be tricked, but he was too fast to hurt. He hammered the kidneys again, then made a grandstand play of breaking clean.
The kid came in and suddenly Lew was sitting on the seat of his pants on the floor, his head ringing, his eyes temporarily unfocused. His head cleared quickly and he could have gotten up at the count of four. It bothered him that he hadn’t seen the punch coming. The kid was in a neutral corner, breathing hard, looking happy and confident. Lew took the full nine, came up, let his gloves be wiped on the referee’s shirt. He was conscious of the crowd’s roar. He moved away stiff-legged, and it suckered the kid into coming in fast for the kill. Lew moved to meet him with a right and a left and a right that were hard but seemed to do little damage. The kid bounded back uncertainly, circled and came in again. Another unseen blow rocked Lew badly and he hung on, forcing the referee to pry him loose from the clinch. The kid was coming in again as the bell sounded. Lew slouched gratefully onto the stool.
“What did he hit me with?” he said to the tall second.
“The knockdown? A left. And when you hung on, it was a right.”
“He’s too damn’ fast.”
The second grunted. Keep this up, Lew thought, and you’re going to take a hell of a licking. Nice clean fun. Nice sport for the youngsters. He thought of the slim, blonde, nervous girl. He remembered one of his first important fights, when an aging pug had worked him over neatly.
He was up just before the bell rang. Ivy was out there some place. Jack was watching his good old pal. This was a slick kid. A well-trained kid. He knew the whole book; learned it in college. Well, kid, we now give you a post-graduate course. We give you a master’s degree in the fight game. All from yours truly, Lew Barry, who has just decided that chivalry is dead.