Million Dollar Baby (31 page)

Then this tomato starts showing up with Ernie, and I noticed her watching me work with my fighters. One day he introduced her to me, his sister Sophia, a looker, a broad you’d call refined, wears Frenchy-type clothes. They asked me to have dinner with them, that they want to talk. She says to pick the place, so I say the Pantry, on Ninth and Fig. It’s a joint where they fry steaks on a griddle like in the Depression, and everything’s greasy. You get filled up and you stay filled up after a hard day. Sophia had trouble with the tough meat, but she was a trouper and chewed longer. She said her last name was Pescetti-Gottlieb, that she’s a teacher married to some kind of a psycho doctor who wants to help her work on Ernie’s self-esteem. I ain’t impressed by broads with double last names, and this self-esteem business don’t blow my doors off. But she ain’t uppity, and she looks like money, so my one good ear is open. Finally we get to it.

She says, “What do you think of my brother making a comeback?”

Straight out, I told her not much, told her it’d be a long haul. “He’s strong, but he ain’t young no more.”

“Hey, I’m only 28.”

Sophia’s the money, so I don’t pay him much mind. “See, starting all over at 28 and all blown up like he is, he’s a old man in this game. Look at him. What you weigh, 60, 62? His fighting weight was 47.”

“I weigh 60.”

I told her, “Fighting at his age, if he’s already the champ, 28 ain’t old. Okay, so he used to hit hard. But with his habits, and with his tit, his chances are in the toilet. Sorry about my language.”

“Don’t be, I appreciate your candor.”

“
Candor!
I’m in love with this broad.

She turns to Ernie. “Is he right or wrong?”

“I been running. I’m all the way down from 178.”

I asked him if he was drinking.

“I’m a AA recovering street alcoholic, always will be, okay? Can’t have drugs, can’t have one drink, not one, or I’m puking on the street again. Come on, I want my name back.”

I had to whack him for turning his back. “Why don’t you try the movies again?”

Ernie nodded, took my movie shot like he had to take my tit shot. Sophia wasn’t sure.

“But you remember Ernie, right?”

“I remember everybody.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“He could pitch, but he couldn’t catch. And it’s best if he don’t stand there fighting with his face, specially when you got heart trouble.”

“I got heart!” Ernie said, firm. “What I been through, I got heart!”

I told Sophia that talking heart wasn’t the same as having heart. Me telling her that didn’t make Ernie love me, but what’s going on here is who’s the horse and who’s the jockey. I asked Sophia who’s Ernie’s manager, and Ernie says she is.

“You get standard 10 percent off the top,” he said.

“Ernie, no offense, but 10 percent of nothin’ is nothin’. I charge up front for shot fighters.”

“I ain’t shot!” he said, getting red and peachy-looking.

You think your sister can handle the deep end of the swamp, the slimy shit at the bottom? That she can make deals that’ll move you, you think that? Then you got her. But if you want me, I’m the manager-trainer. I get one third off the top—if there ever is a top.”

Sophia said, “I was going to let Ernie have it all after your 10 percent.”

Ernie didn’t like her telling me that, but I didn’t think he’d last, so I told her that the first thing was to find out if he had anything left. I told her I’d charge $200 a week for two hours a day, six days a week. I told her nice-like if that was too much, then she should take Ernie back to Hollywood and start him dancing aerobics at 50 a hour.

Sophia said, “What will you teach him that he doesn’t already know?”

“I’ll teach him how to fight, that’s what,” I said. “How to think and move in there. But there’s more that you gotta pay.”

I explained that boxing is business. To the fight fan, whether they’re watching amateurs or pros, it’s a sport. But once a fighter goes pro, it’s business. That means the money’s got to come from someplace. I reminded her that she gets paid for teaching, that her husband gets paid for shrinking.

I said, “So why should a promoter put a shot fighter on the card who won’t sell tickets or look good on TV?”

“I ain’t shot,” Ernie said loud. “Damn it, I ain’t.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it costs to find out. I’m telling you now so there’s no surprises. You’re gonna have to juice the promoters, at least to start.”

“Does everybody have to pay?” Sophia asked.

“One way or another. Like kickbacks on training expenses. Or you gotta wait forever for a shot and you run outta time, or your boy falls in love and gets a job. Or because somebody in a silk suit decides he’s your partner.”

“Has that ever happened to you?”

“Everything’s happened to me.”

A couple of weeks go by. I didn’t see Ernie, and I forgot all about him. Then Sophia called me, said to meet her for lunch at the Polo Lounge. I showed up in a sweatshirt, like always.

First off, I ordered a Pilsner Urquell from the waiter, who sniffs. Later on I ordered chilled mulligatawny soup and cracked Dungeness crab on ice with mustard-mayonnaise sauce. For dessert, I had a ginger soufflé. Sophia started looking at me different.

We drew up a simple letter of agreement. For the next three years I was to be Ernie’s manager and trainer. If somebody big-time comes along and Ernie wants to sell the manager part of the contract, no problem, I get a third of the cash for the sale, simple. And I got my $200 a week, like I explained.

Ernie started to work, and I punished him. His outfit’s wringing wet, his mouth is dry as a popcorn fart. He’s crying for water. I told him that good fighters don’t need water, that bad fighters don’t deserve water. He stopped crying.

Truth is that I figured I’d pick up a few weeks’ work and that Ernie would fold. But he hung, the kid, God bless him, and then damned if I didn’t start to believe. Besides, I wanted to see a white fighter make it again, wanted more white boys in the gym, wanted to see white boys get their balls back from Democrats and back from thong-assed bitches who want their boyfriends to be like girls.

I start to think a lot about Ernie, about what’s going to work for him.

First off, with damaged goods like Ernie, you got to go at him from a angle. You got to get him to do stuff he doesn’t know you got him doing. You do that so he’s not worried that doing something new will make people laugh at him, you do it hoping he won’t go back to his old habits. Even so, all fighters can’t do all things. I got his legs up under him, and I got him to keep his hands up, but I couldn’t get him to keep his chin down all the time. And I couldn’t get him to slide in on his front toe instead of walking in heel-toe, which tends to make you a half beat behind the other guy.

The biggest thing I couldn’t get him to do was shift his weight from his front foot back to his rear foot when he threw his left hook. I figured he didn’t want to do it. Eighty percent of his KOs had come from doing it his way, even though I proved that shifting his weight made him hit harder, that it took less energy. I knew I wasn’t getting to him on the hook, but I wanted to have it on record that I tried. The right way not only sets up the right hand, but it gives more protection to the chin.

What I didn’t have to worry about was him boozing. He went to AA once he told me how terrified he was of falling off the wagon. He confided in me that his father had told him to stay away, that he didn’t have a son. And if he started drinking again, Sophia told him he’d have to walk the walk alone.

He was strong and quicker than I’d remembered. I put him in to spar with a 10-round fighter who I told to go easy on him. Ernie barely made it through three rounds, but he wouldn’t have made it at all if he was dirty. There were still big conditioning problems, but what he could do was hit, and he had good hand-eye reflexes. Maybe he wasn’t the fastest with his hands, but timing will beat speed if you know what you’re doing.

Ernie’s heart still bothered me some, but as long as I was getting paid, I could wait and see. Besides, the better the condition a fighter’s in, the bigger his heart. Once he was running right, and once he had a few wins, he’d be king of the hill again. A good white fighter is a draw. Maybe I could get him the right fights and we could go someplace.

The trick was to make Ernie the best at what he was already good at, power. But the biggest trick of all was to make his opponents think that Ernie would be the same old Ernie—walking in throwing bombs and lunging with his chin stuck out behind that wide hook of his. So once I knew I couldn’t fix his hook, I knew I had a problem, right? But once I knew my problem, I knew my answer. Switch him. Not from orthodox to southpaw. Not from banger to boxer. The switch would be from lead slugger to counterpuncher.

It went slick and sweet as unsalted butter. We worked on the footwork first, Ernie walking in same as always. But instead of getting off first, I had him wait a split second before unloading—that or I’d have him fake a shot. That forces the other guy to run, or to go first … and at that point Ernie would know that one of only two things can happen. Either a left hand is coming, or a right. I taught Ernie to block and counter. To catch the shot and counter. To slip and counter. I taught him to shoot combinations from inside, showed him he could do damage no matter where his shots landed.

That’s the key. Hurt the man. Make him back up, make him fight on his heels. Go to his kidneys, make him know his piss’ll be red in the bowl. Damage the eyeballs, make the white a pool of blood. Separate his ribs, cause spasm to the liver. Cripple the joints where the arms and the shoulders come together. Break him down. Take his heart and squeeze it. That’s the game we play. That’s how awful it is. But surviving that, and winning, that’s what gives you the kick. It’s called getting respect.

To get Ernie sharp, I put it on him a little at a time, had him catch my punches on his arms, on his gloves, on his shoulders. If the other guy throws a right to the body, you catch it with your left elbow and counter with a left—a hook, a uppercut or a jab. The same on the other side. It works because the other guy is open when he punches, just like you. The difference is that you’re not trying to stay away, you’re staying close, and he can’t counter as good as you can, because you’re so close you can suck on his tittie.

Or I’d have Ernie slip to his left under a right hand and drive his own right into the gut, come back to the head with a hook, because the other guy’s got his hands down at his waist from the body shot. Think about it. Some bitch slaps your face. What happens first? Your hand goes straight to the sting. It’s
after
that when you rap her back, right? Except if Ernie catches you flush, you ain’t dealing with a slap. It’s all logical, only you got to be good or you’re the guy looking for the place to go to sleep.

We went from footwork to the punch mitts and to the big bag, where he learned to grab his balance in a wink off a pivot and to drill up-and-down combinations of five and six punches. Now his dick was hard again. What he liked about working this way was that it put him in position to always bang with power. Was it pretty, like Ali? Not if you didn’t know what you were looking at. But to the old-time fight guys, it was like watching Charley Burley again, who you couldn’t hit from three paces with a handful of rice. Joe Louis was maybe the best counterpuncher of all, those short little shots of his broke hearts and bones. And in the ’70s, there was Albert Davila at 115 pounds, who put a kid in the grave.

People in the gym began to shy away from Ernie once they saw what he could do. Usually you don’t have to pay for sparring in the gym unless you’re getting ready for a big fight and you’re getting training money. The other guys will help you, you help them. But some of the time I had to pay for work. Forty dollars for four rounds, maybe more. I did it because Ernie’s not getting any younger. Sophia understood. There would also be fighters who wanted to try Ernie out, so we obliged. He’d make them miss, and he’d make them pay. His pride came back, and he didn’t need to go to AA so much.

Sophia called me often to tell me how happy she was with the way things were going. She always thanked me, always asked me if I needed anything.

“I need a champion.”

The next stage was to test him under the lights, dump fight noise on him. I got the Commission to let us start off at six rounds instead of at 10 because of Ernie’s long layoff. They’d heard how hard he was working and said okay. I began with club fights in Bakersfield and Santa Maria, Indio, down in Pedro. I paid the promoters under the table to put Ernie on the card, and same way had to pay the opponents’ purse as well.

The first fight’s pure panic. Ernie’s so afraid he’s going to lose the fight that he left three rounds in the dressing room from nerves. I always carry in my medicine kit a flat sterling-silver half-pint flask that I bought in Madrid. I fill it with Hennessy X.O and sometimes give a snort mixed with orange juice to a scared kid for his nerves. I knew better with Ernie.

In the ring, he forgot everything and reverted to his old style. It didn’t surprise me, that’s what the lights and the noise’ll do to you. We were winning rounds the hard way, when in the fourth round Ernie’s legs go and he’s staggering tired. We got lucky when the other guy butted us. Ernie’s cut was so deep above his eyebrow that he couldn’t see from the blood. I could have stopped the flow, but I played a hunch and on purpose I let it bleed. In the fifth, blood everywhere, they stopped the fight in the first minute and gave it to Ernie because he was ahead on points. So that’s a good cornerman for you. If I’d stopped the blood, the other guy would have stopped Ernie.

Back in the dressing room, Ernie slumped over while I took care of the cut. I soaked two towels in ice water and wrapped one on his head, one across his chest and shoulders. He didn’t even flinch when they hit him. It was 20 minutes before Ernie was on his feet again. It was a tough fight with a bad stink to the win. But scared as he was to start, Ernie didn’t go dog on me, and we did what we went there to do. We won.

The cut meant 45 days before we could fight again. That was good. It gave me time to work on Ernie’s mind some more.