“HOW are you going yourself, Jack?” I asked him.
“You seen this, Walcott?” he says.
“Just in the gym.”
“Well,” Jack says, “I’m going to need a lot of luck with that boy.”
“He can’t hit you, Jack,” Soldier said.
“I wish to hell he couldn’t.”
“He couldn’t hit you with a handful of bird-shot.”
“Bird-shot’d be all right,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t mind bird-shot any.”
“He looks easy to hit,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “he ain’t going to last long. He ain’t going to last
like you and me, Jerry. But right now he’s got everything.”
“You’ll left-hand him to death.”
“Maybe,” Jack says. “Sure. I got a chance to.”
“Handle him like you handled Kid Lewis.”
“Kid Lewis,” Jack said. “That kike!”
The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in
Handley’s. There were a couple of broads sitting at the next table to
us. They had been drinking.
“What do you mean, kike?” one of the broads says. “What do you mean,
kike, you big Irish bum?”
“Sure,” Jack says. “That’s it.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “They’re always talking about kikes, these
big Irishmen. What do you mean, kikes?”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “Whoever saw you ever buy a drink? Your
wife sews your pockets up every morning. These Irishmen and their kikes!
Ted Lewis could lick you too.”
“Sure,” Jack says. “And you give away a lot of things free too, don’t
you?”
We went out. That was Jack. He could say what he wanted to when he
wanted to say it.
Jack started training out at Danny Hogan’s health-farm over in Jersey.
It was nice out there but Jack didn’t like it much. He didn’t like being
away from his wife and the kids, and he was sore and grouchy most of the
time. He liked me and we got along fine together; and he liked Hogan,
but after a while Soldier Bartlett commenced to get on his nerves. A
kidder gets to be an awful thing around a camp if his stuff goes sort of
sour. Soldier was always kidding Jack, just sort of kidding him all the
time. It wasn’t very funny and it wasn’t very good, and it began to get
to Jack. It was sort of stuff like this. Jack would finish up with the
weights and the bag and pull on the gloves.
“You want to work?” he’d say to Soldier.
“Sure. How you want me to work?” Soldier would ask. “Want me to treat
you rough like Walcott? Want me to knock you down a few times?”
“That’s it,” Jack would say. He didn’t like it any, though.
One morning we were all out on the road. We’d been out quite a way and
now we were coming back. We’d go along fast for three minutes and then
walk a minute, and then go fast for three minutes again. Jack wasn’t
ever what you would call a sprinter. He’d move around fast enough in the
ring if he had to, but he wasn’t any too fast on the road. All the time
we were walking Soldier was kidding him. We came up the hill to the
farmhouse.
“Well,” says Jack, “you better go back to town, Soldier.”
“What do you mean?”
“You better go back to town and stay there.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m sick of hearing you talk.”
“Yes?” says Soldier.
“Yes,” says Jack.
“You’ll be a damn sight sicker when Walcott gets through with you.”
“Sure,” says Jack, “maybe I will. But I know I’m sick of you.”
So Soldier went off on the train to town that same morning. I went down
with him to the train. He was good and sore.
“I was just kidding him,” he said. We were waiting on the platform. “He
can’t pull that stuff with me, Jerry.”
“He’s nervous and crabby,” I said. “He’s a good fellow, Soldier.”
“The hell he is. The hell he’s ever been a good fellow.”
“Well,” I said, “so long, Soldier.”
The train had come in. He climbed up with his bag.
“So long, Jerry,” he says. “You be in town before the fight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“See you then.”
He went in and the conductor swung up and the train went out. I rode
back to the farm in the cart. Jack was on the porch writing a letter to
his wife. The mail had come and I got the papers and went over on the
other side of the porch and sat down to read. Hogan came out the door
and walked over to me.
“Did he have a jam with Soldier?”
“Not a jam,” I said. “He just told him to go back to town.”
“I could see it coming,” Hogan said. “He never liked Soldier much.”
“No. He don’t like many people.”
“He’s a pretty cold one,” Hogan said.
“Well, he’s always been fine to me.”
“Me too,” Hogan said. “I got no kick on him. He’s a cold one, though.”
Hogan went in through the screen door and I sat there on the porch and
read the papers. It was just starting to get fall weather and it’s nice
country there in Jersey, up in the hills, and after I read the paper
through I sat there and looked out at the country and the road down
below against the woods with cars going along it, lifting the dust up.
It was fine weather and pretty nice-looking country. Hogan came to the
door and I said, “Say, Hogan, haven’t you got anything to shoot out
here?”
“No,” Hogan said. “Only sparrows.”
“Seen the paper?” I said to Hogan.
“What’s in it?”
“Sande booted three of them in yesterday.”
“I got that on the telephone last night.”
“You follow them pretty close, Hogan?” I asked.
“Oh, I keep in touch with them,” Hogan said.
“How about Jack?” I says. “Does he still play them?”
“Him?” said Hogan. “Can you see him doing it?”
Just then Jack came around the corner with the letter in his hand. He’s
wearing a sweater and an old pair of pants and boxing shoes.
“Got a stamp, Hogan?” he asks.
“Give me the letter,” Hogan said. “I’ll mail it for you.”
“Say, Jack,” I said, “didn’t you used to play the ponies?”
“Sure.”
“I knew you did. I knew I used to see you out at Sheepshead.”
“What did you lay off them for?” Hogan asked.
“Lost money.”
Jack sat down on the porch by me. He leaned back against a post. He shut
his eyes in the sun.
“Want a chair?” Hogan asked.
“No,” said Jack. “This is fine.”
“It’s a nice day,” I said. “It’s pretty nice out in the country.”
“I’d a damn sight rather be in town with the wife.”
“Well, you only got another week.”
“Yes,” Jack says. “That’s so.”
We sat there on the porch. Hogan was inside at the office.
“What do you think about the shape I’m in?” Jack asked me.
“Well, you can’t tell,” I said. “You got a week to get around into
form.”
“Don’t stall me.”
“Well,” I said, “you’re not right.”
“I’m not sleeping,” Jack said.
“You’ll be all right in a couple of days.”
“No,” says Jack, “I got the insomnia.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I miss the wife.”
“Have her come out.”
“No. I’m too old for that.”
“We’ll take a long walk before you turn in and get you good and tired.”
“Tired!” Jack says. “I’m tired all the time.”
He was that way all week. He wouldn’t sleep at night and he’d get up in
the morning feeling that way, you know, when you can’t shut your hands.
“He’s stale as poorhouse cake,” Hogan said. “He’s nothing.”
“I never seen Walcott,” I said.
“He’ll kill him,” said Hogan. “He’ll tear him in two.”
“Well,” I said, “everybody’s got to get it sometime.”
“Not like this, though,” Hogan said. “They’ll think he never trained. It
gives the farm a black eye.”
“You hear what the reporters said about him?”
“Didn’t I! They said he was awful. They said they oughtn’t to let him
fight.”
“Well,” I said, “they’re always wrong, ain’t they?”
“Yes,” said Hogan. “But this time they’re right.”
“What the hell do they know about whether a man’s right or not?”
“Well,” said Hogan, “they’re not such fools.”
“All they did was pick Willard at Toledo. This Lardner, he’s so wise
now, ask him about when he picked Willard at Toledo.”
“Aw, he wasn’t out,” Hogan said. “He only writes the big fights.”
“I don’t care who they are,” I said. “What the hell do they know? They
can write maybe, but what the hell do they know?”
“You don’t think Jack’s in any shape, do you?” Hogan asked.
“No. He’s through. All he needs is to have Corbett pick him to win for
it to be all over.”
“Well, Corbett’ll pick him,” Hogan says.
“Sure. He’ll pick him.”
That night Jack didn’t sleep any either. The next morning was the last
day before the fight. After breakfast we were out on the porch again.
“What do you think about, Jack, when you can’t sleep?” I said.
“Oh, I worry,” Jack says. “I worry about property I got up in the Bronx,
I worry about property I got in Florida. I worry about the kids. I worry
about the wife. Sometimes I think about fights. I think about that kike
Ted Lewis and I get sore. I got some stocks and I worry about them. What
the hell don’t I think about?”
“Well,” I said, “to-morrow night it’ll all be over.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “That always helps a lot, don’t it? That just fixes
everything all up, I suppose. Sure.”
He was sore all day. We didn’t do any work. Jack just moved around a
little to loosen up. He shadow-boxed a few rounds. He didn’t even look
good doing that. He skipped the rope a little while. He couldn’t sweat.
“He’d be better not to do any work at all,” Hogan said. We were standing
watching him skip rope. “Don’t he ever sweat at all any more?”
“He can’t sweat.”
“Do you suppose he’s got the con? He never had any trouble making
weight, did he?”
“No, he hasn’t got any con. He just hasn’t got anything inside any
more.”
“He ought to sweat,” said Hogan.
Jack came over, skipping the rope. He was skipping up and down in front
of us, forward and back, crossing his arms every third time.
“Well,” he says. “What are you buzzards talking about?”
“I don’t think you ought to work any more,” Hogan says. “You’ll be
stale.”
“Wouldn’t that be awful?” Jack says and skips away down the floor,
slapping the rope hard.
That afternoon John Collins showed up out at the farm. Jack was up in
his room. John, came out in a car from town. He had a couple of friends
with him. The car stopped and they all got out.
“Where’s Jack?” John asked me.
“Up in his room, lying down.”
“Lying down?”
“Yes,” I said.
“How is he?”