Each Man's Son (15 page)

“There are no such things as ghosts,” Ainslie said, aware that he had taken Alan by the hand. “But we all see them sometimes.”

Then they heard the thud of hoofs on the grass and the squeaking of a rusty spring. A shadow emerged out of the mists and turned into a horse and carriage and a small man in a bowler hat. They climbed into the carriage without a word and the small man turned it around and started for the station. No
one said a thing. Ainslie could feel the boy pressing against him.

In the silence, the ideas which the doctor had been forcing beneath the surface of his mind all afternoon rose again and this time he looked them in the face. The boy must be given a chance. It seemed the most important thing Daniel Ainslie had ever wanted to do. Alan must be given an education, freed from the pits, made safe from everything in his background that would try to hold him down. Ainslie wasn't sure what steps he would have to take, but he knew his purpose. As yet, he thought only in terms of the boy's future and what he might be able to do for such a lad. For the moment Mollie was forgotten.

When the buildings of the town came blurring through the fog and the station emerged before them Ainslie spoke at last. “I think I may have some books.” His voice was once more noncommittal. “A boy can learn a great deal from reading. When I was Alan's age I lived in the Margaree and there were very few books for anyone, but the ones I did read were the most important in my life.”

 

Seventeen

I
N THE STREETS
of Trenton, the temperature was still ninety-two and the air was like cotton wool that had been dipped in hot dish water. The arena where the Miller-MacNeil fight was being held had a flat roof and the sun had been baking it for days. In an improvised dressing room Archie lay naked on a rubbing table. He usually tried to fall asleep on the table during the preliminary bouts, but in this heat he could only lie naked and sweat into the horse blanket that covered the raw boards beneath him. They said it was a hundred and ten in the ring under the overhead lights.

For a measureless span of time he lay and felt the sweat ooze out of him and felt angry because the only seconds he could look forward to were a pair of moth-eaten, bald-headed fellows provided by the arena for the preliminaries. He thought about Charley Moss and wondered what it would be like without him there in the corner. The door opened and closed as people looked in and went out again. Archie had no idea who they were and he didn't care. He wished there were a sheet between him and the horse blanket. He felt sure that Miller had been given a sheet. The door opened once more. When he waited for the sound of its closing and there was no sound he opened his eyes. For a moment he thought Charley
had come back. He was straddling a wooden chair in his turtle-necked sweater and a towel was draped over his right shoulder. A cigarette was pasted into the left corner of his mouth and his forehead was dry and wrinkled. Archie closed his eyes again, but the next time he opened them Charley was still there.

“If it iss
you
,” Archie said, “I can say I am sorry.”

Moss took the cigarette from his lips and threw it on the floor. A fragment of torn paper adhered to his lower lip and he rubbed it off as he scowled in irritation.

“It wass Downey I wass sore at,” Archie said, a note of pleading in his voice.

“Maybe. But it was me you took it out on.”

“I said I wass sorry.”

“I heard you the first time.” The harsh voice went on. “Maybe I hate your guts, but no boy I ever trained is going to let himself get stopped by that Polack. I told Downey tonight I was through with him.” He scowled at Archie. “A hell of a lot I got you to thank for!”

Archie squinted at the door as he heard the noise of rhythmic clapping from the crowd. This was the second preliminary the crowd had booed. By the time he got up there under the lights the crowd would be in a bad mood.

“What kind of shape are you in?” said Moss.

“This heat iss terrible.”

“It's the same for Miller as it is for you.”

“He iss used to it. My legs iss like putty already.”

“They were good enough a week ago.” Moss looked him over with narrow eyes. “You bastard! I bet you couldn't leave the women alone.”

“I wass all by myself for a week.”

Moss lifted his lip. “Just like Downey figured it! You got anything left, or did you leave it where you left your brains?”

“It iss not that. I want my wife to come here, but she hass not answered my letter.”

“She's a smart girl.”

“It iss four years since I ha? seen her.”

“All right. Forget her.” Moss got to his feet and his thin little body became tense and alert. “Now you listen. Tonight you get it into your head you got nuttin to lose. You're so low down right now no matter what happens to you, you lose nuttin. Do you know how big that crowd is out there? Less than two thousand people. That's how low you are. They don't think you're even good enough to give their boy a workout.” Moss stood over Archie. “Okay–hate them!” He put the palm of his hand on the lower part of Archie's face and rubbed it up so roughly that Archie sat up and the angry redness showed in his eyes. “All you got to do now is listen,” Moss added as he watched Archie closely. “No boy I train is going to be taken by that Polack.”

Archie was still staring at him as Moss opened the palm of his left hand where the stop watch usually rested. Now it held a pearl-handled penknife. He opened it and the blade he pulled out was less than an inch long, slim and tapered to a needle point. He held it flat on the palm of his hand.

“Tonight you're going to do what you're told. You're going to keep that left of yours pumping into his puss till I tell you to cut loose with the right. When he comes into you, you're going to move away from him. If you step in and mix it right away–” Moss jabbed the knife in sharp thrusts towards Archie's groin–“I'll stick this into your ass the minute you come back to the stool. You're going to box and keep out of clinches and watch for his thumbs. In this crowd Miller could chew your ears off and they'd love it. To hell with the heat. You got a left and he hasn't. Any fool with a left like yours can crucify a roundhouse slugger if he keeps his head, and you don't even have to do that. All you got to do is what I tell you. Now lie back and rest.”

Archie closed his eyes. After the loneliness it felt good to know there was someone who was looking after him. Charley
Moss was his friend after all and tonight he would make Charley proud of him. The horse blanket chafed his back and he turned restlessly. Then he sat up and slid off the table and poised himself on the balls of his feet, snapping punches into the air in an effort to build up his tensions. Moss eyed him critically and his forehead wrinkled.

“Okay,” he said. “Save it. You don't have to work up a sweat tonight.”

“It iss too hot to lie down.”

Archie crossed the room to a row of hooks and fumbled in the pocket of a jacket hanging from one of them. He came back with a snapshot in his hand and held it out to Moss.

“That iss the boy,” he said.

Moss squinted at the picture through the smoke of his cigarette. “Yeh. He's a nice looking kid.”

“He iss why my wife will not come to me.”

Moss handed the snapshot back and shrugged. “Women are only good for one thing. It's something to remember.” He turned to the table. “Come here under the light. It's time for the bandages.”

Archie held out his right hand and Moss wound the bandage over the knuckles and wrists with expert care. Then he bandaged the left and Archie clenched his fists and knocked the bandages solid until they seemed like parts of his hands. The door opened with a creak of rusty hinges and one of the semifinal boys came in, followed by the bald-headed seconds supplied by the arena. The fighter's right eye had a mouse under it and his nose was bleeding, but he was pleased because he had won the decision.

Moss picked up a faded green dressing gown with A
RCHIE
M
AC
N
EIL
in a flourish of white letters on the back, and Archie put it on.

“Okay,” Moss said, “let's go.”

“I whill do my best, Charley.”

“You better had. It's all you got left.”

As they went out and down the sloping concrete aisle the circus roar of the crowd pounded against the steamy walls of the arena. The crowd was in darkness and suddenly the familiar roar came out of it savagely. But it was not for them; it was for Packy Miller, who had entered the ring from the other side and was dancing about, caparisoned in a shiny black silk dressing gown, shaking hands with himself and showing his grin. Archie looked at this exhibition with scorn. He crawled through the ropes and went straight to his corner, and his back was turned when Miller cavorted over to give him some more of his grin and slap his shoulders with his bandaged hand.

“Get back where you belong,” Moss snarled at him, “before I paste you one myself.”

Miller's theatrical grin changed to an equally theatrical scowl and Moss turned back to Archie, well pleased. “That'll bring the bastard out fast,” he muttered.

Archie sat down and let Moss massage his legs. Under the lights it was even hotter than he had expected and he hoped he would not have long to wait. At the same time he found it was easy to sit down. Across the ring Miller was dancing and scuffing his toes in the resin, snapping punches at the air and jumping backwards into the ropes and coming off them with his chin down and his arms driving. Archie opened his mouth wide and yawned to fill his lungs. He felt old. Once he had danced around like that before a fight but now he felt none of the old tension. He wanted to knock Miller out and go home. He wanted to sleep in cool air. He realized that an announcer with a voice like a hog caller's was baying his name, weight and birthplace, and he got up and bowed curtly. The only applause he got was the sound of shuffling feet, but he was used to being unpopular and did not care. It was fully two years since he had fought with a crowd behind him. When Miller's name was bayed, the mob roared.

Archie got up and stood erect, then walked to the center of the ring with Moss beside him to listen to the automatic
instructions of the referee. Before they turned back to their corners Moss needled Miller once again and Miller made a rush at him which was blocked by the referee. Then Archie was alone in his corner waiting for the gong, with Charley's salt-and-pepper hair sticking up over the apron at his feet and Charley's voice snarling at him to keep his left going. In the opposite corner Miller was acting as though he needed all his will power to keep from exploding.

Suddenly Archie felt better. Miller was going to come out fast and he would nail him. He was going to win this for Charley Moss. He loved Charley Moss, by Chesus, he did. Looking sideways he saw Sam Downey's pale noseless face for the first time that night. Downey was in the middle of the front row with a cigar in his hand. Archie stared at him and licked the back of his right glove, then the gong rang and he slid forward, saw Miller rushing with his chin down and drove his left into the swarthy face, followed it with a short right to the body that spun Miller halfway around, knocked him back with another left, danced, feinted and split Miller's lips with a left as straight as a piston. He saw the whole face as exposed as a full moon, heard Charley's scream behind him and let go with the right. It smashed in solid and the next thing he saw was Miller on his haunches with a line of blood trickling out of the corner of his open mouth.

He stepped back and felt the ropes chafe his spine. By Chesus, it couldn't be as easy as that!

Then he saw Miller on one knee holding his right glove down on the canvas and he knew he was coming up and was still strong. He saw Miller's grin indicating to the crowd that he was all right and remembered the measurement of his neck. But in spite of that size-eighteen neck, Miller took a count of nine before he got up and Archie saw, as he slid forward, that the Pole's eyes were none too steady. He snapped a left into his face and liked the feel of its impact, but immediately Miller went into a crouch with nothing showing but
arms, elbows, gloves and the top of his head. Archie crossed his right and felt a stab of pain and wondered if he had broken a knuckle on Miller's skull. He slammed another right into the pork-barrel body and felt pain again, but he did not believe he had broken any bones in his hand. He decided to work over Miller methodically, but the pork-barrel body exploded against him and his head snapped back in a cloud of stars as Miller butted his jaw in the clinch. Archie felt ashamed to be caught by a butt in the first round, shook loose and went after Miller in a rage. He found nothing but arms and elbows and he seemed to have been punching for hours before the gong ended the round.

“You crazy bastard”–Moss was snarling into his ear–“quit slugging and box him!”

“Work on my legs,” Archie muttered. “They feel like they wass nothing in them.”

He felt Charley's skillful fingers kneading his calves, but there was no sign of returning life. By Chesus, wass this the time they all waited for, the time the legs went? He told himself he must be careful, but in the next round he let himself be lured into another flurry which ended with Miller wrestling him hard against the ropes. He kept snapping his left into the face in the third round and in the fourth Miller missed such a theatrical swing that he fell down with the momentum of his own blow. By the end of the fourth Archie was well ahead on points and Miller had failed to land a single solid punch. But Archie came back to his corner shaking his head.

“He iss still strong.”

“Keep your left going,” Moss muttered. “That's all you got to do.”

“By Chesus, I feel like there iss nothing inside of me whateffer.”

“Maybe there ain't, but there's enough for tonight. This bum is worse than I thought he was.” Moss looked down at Downey in the front row and jerked his thumb towards
Miller's corner. “How do you like him?” he snarled, so loudly that men three rows behind Downey heard him.

Through a haze of sweat Archie saw the pork-barrel body opposite and could almost feel its strength across the ring. There were six rounds left and he was so tired his loose legs were quivering. That neck on Miller, by Chesus it wass not a neck at all. His head grew out of his shoulders like a gorilla's.

Archie was thinking about the neck when Miller got into a series of clinches in the next round and he had to keep his head off his chin. It was a bad round of boxing without a single clean punch, but when Archie came back to his corner he told himself desperately that the fight was half over and he was still ahead. He felt water splash over his face and shoulders and gulped for air, but the harder he fought for it the less air there seemed to be. Suddenly Charley's face was right there in front of his eyes and Charley was telling him to go in and finish it this round. The gong rang and he did not move. He felt a stab of pain in his left buttock and sprang up from the prod of Charley's penknife and for a moment his head cleared.

Miller was in front of him, chin down as usual, forehead wrinkled, black curly hair sodden with sweat. Archie's left shot out and cut Miller's eye. Another and another left, and Miller staggered back with Archie feline and lethal after him. There was a surge from the crowd, a surge like the noise of water when the tide turns, and Archie knew that support was coming to him at last. Miller heard it too, and in one single lucid moment Archie had time to think what a fool this boy was, for though he had just been shaken, Miller picked this moment to charge. Archie's left flashed out and landed solid. With Miller rushing, that shot would have been decisive if there had been any real snap behind the glove. As it was, it stopped Miller upright and glassy-eyed and the right followed with all Archie had left flickering up through his legs and shoulders and coming out with a bang on Miller's jaw. Archie stepped back with trembling knees and a white
coldness clamping his forehead and knew he was through. Miller rolled heavily on the floor and got his elbows under his chest. The referee was counting as slowly as he could and get away with it. Miller tottered up, turned his back on Archie and grabbed the ropes with both hands. Archie went after him and for several seconds stood there, his brain clouded, not knowing what to do, no reflexes working as he found himself confronted by Miller's back. He swung his right and it landed feebly on Miller's hulking shoulders. Then Miller bent down like a crab, lurched around, grabbed Archie by the waist and hung on. By the time the clinch was broken, he was at least as fresh as Archie was. The round petered out in fumbles and clinches and Archie's legs were weaving when he went back to his corner.