Caleb (15 page)

34

A little while later, Jardine was sitting behind his desk, excitedly showing Caleb a poster he’d picked up in Camden. It announced a big fight show that month featuring a visiting white heavyweight. The program would also feature bouts between slaves whose masters entered them.

“There’s a prize, Caleb,” Jardine explained. “Maybe five or ten dollars for the winner of each bout.”

“Even if I win, Master—and there ain’t going to be many Caesars in
that
ring—it’s going to take the rest of my life to get enough to buy my freedom,” said Caleb as he examined the poster.

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, Caleb,” Jardine said eagerly. “The five or ten dollars is nothing. That’s beer money. The real payoff is in the side bets. Suppose Barney Kingston from over Cassatt way puts that big black of his, Pompey, in the ring. Barney’s going to want to back his boy with some real money—fifty, a hundred, maybe more. They tell me that thousands change hands on a busy day. We can do it, Caleb,” Jardine continued. “You fight, I bet, and we both win. What do you say? Do you want to be free or don’t you?”

“I want to, Master,” Caleb said seriously.

“Well, then?”

Caleb just looked at him, but Jardine knew what he was thinking. “Here’s the deal, Caleb,” Jardine said. “You can have all the prize money, and I’ll give you a percentage of the wager money I win.”

Caleb continued to look closely at his master.

“Don’t you trust me, Caleb?” Jardine asked.

“Yes, Master.”

“Well, then?”

“Mr. Staunton always said that the terms of a deal ought to be settled in advance,” Caleb said.

“Oh, he did, did he?” Jardine said. “And did he happen to say what percentage for Caleb would be fair?”

“No, Master.”

Jardine looked at his slave long and hard. Finally, he spoke. “Are you sure that he didn’t mention something about a fifty-fifty split of
all
winnings?”

“That does sound familiar, Master,” Caleb admitted.

“Did he say anything about Caleb getting any money for beating Caesar today?”

“I believe, Master, that he suggested that three dollars might be fair.”

Jardine wasn’t happy about it, but he paid up.

When Drusilla heard about Caleb’s intention to purchase his freedom by prizefighting, she was skeptical. “Marse Boyd’s going to feed you to the chopping machine,” she predicted, “and you’re likely to end up with a whole lot of lumps and no money—and no freedom.”

“That’s if I don’t win,” Caleb said. “What do you know about these fights?”

“Nothing. But from what I hear, they nothing but dogfights for black men so that white men can get drunk and hoot and holler and brag.
My nigger can beat your nigger.
That’s all they saying.”

“Well this one can’t think of no other way to buy his freedom, so he’ll just have to take his chances.”

“It’s
any other way
,” Drusilla corrected him. “If you’re going to be my teacher, you better sharpen up your language. You talk like those people down in the quarter.”

“I talk better English than Master Boyd,” Caleb said defensively.

“That’s not saying much. Now, let’s get back to my lessons. I want to learn to read before I’m too old to see the page.”

“Why do you want to learn to read and write, Dru,” Caleb asked, “if you’re not looking to be free?”

“You never know what’s going to happen, and I never heard of it hurting anybody to learn something,” she answered. “Now, let’s get to work. I’m getting sleepy.”

For the next three weeks, Caleb trained in the horse barn every moment he could spare. From memory, he dredged up as much as he could of what the old fighter had said about training and what he’d seen in that Boston gymnasium. Taking a piece of clothesline, he made himself a skipping rope and ignored the giggles of the children from the quarter who gathered to watch him and wonder.

Caesar hung around the horse barn so much in hopes of duplicating his big-money day that Jardine finally hired him for fifty cents a week to serve as Caleb’s sparring partner. Twice a day, the boy put on the gloves and did his best to hit Caleb while he practiced what he could remember of the old Irishman’s defensive techniques. It finally got so that Caleb could go a three-minute round without being hit once, no matter how hard Caesar tried. Caleb saved his own punches for the bales of hay he strung up with a rope in the middle of the barn, and he went through several of those. Jardine complained that he was going to destroy next winter’s food for the horses, but he was secretly pleased with Caleb’s progress. It was his idea that Caleb should sit for an hour each day with his hands soaking in buckets of brine. He’d heard somewhere that it hardened the hands. When nobody was looking, Caesar did the same.

35

Finally, the Saturday of the first boxing match arrived. Early that morning Caleb loaded up the wagon with all the things Jardine thought they would need: the boxing gloves, tape for Caleb’s hands, water, sponges, an old bathrobe of Jardine’s, and some towels. Drusilla insisted that Caleb take some arnica and a roll of bandages from the first-aid kit.

“I’m not going to war, woman,” Caleb complained, but it didn’t do him any good.

Finally, when the sun was just peeking over the horizon, they were ready to go. Caesar hung around the wagon, hoping that Jardine would take him along and maybe even let him fight. He was very disappointed when the wagon, with Caleb riding in the back, started toward the turnpike without him.

“Don’t be downhearted, boy,” called Big Mose. “You lookin’ for a fight, I’ll box you.” He windmilled his big fists in front of his chest and grinned broadly. “I’ll box your ears. But you’ll have to pay me fifty cents. No? Well, then, I guess we better get to work.”

A crowd of men and boys was already gathering by the time the wagon reached Camden. There was a feeling of holiday in the air, and small boys hung around the bunting-decked platform in the town square that was serving as the boxing ring. They flexed their muscles, made a lot of noise, and chased each other as they pretended to be prizefighters.

Dotted around at a fair distance from the platform were more than half a dozen wagons much like Jardine’s, each with a slave, sometimes two, and a bag or crate of boxing paraphernalia in the back. The owners and the slaves looked at the competition with what they hoped was cool confidence and indifference.

Leaving Caleb to look after the wagon, Jardine jumped down and walked over to greet Barney Kingston, who had indeed brought Pompey, a burly man who seemed nearly as wide as he was tall and who was dressed in a red velvet suit made from a slightly faded pair of old curtains. On his head he wore a straw hat with a band reading
VOTE FOR BUCHANAN.
He was enjoying all the attention.

“Howdy, Barney,” Jardine said genially. “Your boy looks good.”

“Well, Boyd,” Kingston drawled lazily, “he is pretty fit. I can’t say that yours looks up to much.”

On orders from Jardine, Caleb was wearing old clothes that were two sizes too big. He was hunched over in the back of Jardine’s wagon looking at the pair of old canvas boots on his feet. A shapeless felt hat hid most of his face.

“Well,” said Jardine dismissively, “he’s new. I brought him along this morning mostly to get him used to crowds. We may not even fight unless we find something that looks easy. But I’ve got another young fellow at Three Rivers who looks very promising. You’ve heard of my Caesar?”

“Can’t say I have,” said Kingston. “Drink?”

“Why not?” said Jardine and followed him into a nearby hotel.

When Jardine returned to the wagon, he was very excited. “It’s all arranged, Caleb,” he crowed. “You’re going to fight that fool Pompey this morning. Three rounds for a purse of five dollars. But better than that, Kingston took my side bet of fifty dollars and gave me two to one odds. That means that you get—”

“Fifty-two dollars and fifty cents, Master,” Caleb said. “That is, if I win.”

Jardine looked stunned. “You mean there’s some doubt?”

“There’s always some doubt, Master,” said Caleb. He wished that he’d had a better look at Pompey.

The big crowd in the square was getting impatient waiting in the weak morning sunshine for the show to begin. But there was as yet no sign of the professionals. Some of the planters were talking about going ahead and matching their slaves, when a cheer came up from the fringes of the crowd, and a big open landau rolled into the square. All four seats were full, and one of them was occupied by a black man dressed just like the three white men in the other seats. An excited buzz swept through the crowd. The cheers soon turned to muttering. Local people just weren’t used to sights like that.

The driver of the landau, a beefy man in his late forties, jumped down and then sprang into the ring like a boy. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he bellowed, “Good morning, ladies”—he peered around at the crowd—“or rather, good morning, gentlemen and boys, to our prizefighting spectacular. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hannibal Hogan, former heavyweight champion of the world, and it is great to be here in”—he glanced at one of the banners—“Camden!”

He looked again at the crowd now pressing in on the platform. “The boxing matches will begin in just a little while, but first let me introduce to you my associates, who will be displaying their pugilistic skills for you today.” The other three men had come down from the landau and had climbed into the ring behind Hogan. They stood nonchalantly flexing their muscles beneath their smart suits. The two whites were in their early twenties and wore derby hats. The black, who was a little older, was hatless, and his hair was cropped so short that he looked bald. Between the two larger men, he looked almost like a boy. He looked around with seeming indifference, ignoring the murmurs of hostility from some of the crowd.

“First,” shouted the ringmaster, “is the middleweight champion of the Seaboard states, who will this morning defend the title he won only last month by knocking out Killer Caruso in the very first round! Mr. Tom Flynn, the New Jersey Mauler!”

Flynn, a stocky man with tightly curled blond hair and a thick mustache, stepped forward and struck a fighting pose. The crowd roared.

“And,” Hogan bellowed, “challenging Mr. Flynn for his title this very morning here in Camden is a young boxer who I predict will in a very short time bestride the prizefighting world like a colossus, the Hamtramck Hercules, Harry Benson!”

Benson, a dark-haired man sporting bushy eyebrows and a goatee, sprang forward like a young panther. He squared up to Flynn so closely and so pugnaciously that some of the crowd thought the men were going to fight right there and then. Their bunched fists nearly touched.

“You may believe, folks,” Hogan told the crowd, “that there is no love lost between these two prize pugilists. Show these good people, Tom, what Harry did to you in your last encounter.”

Tom Flynn opened his mouth in a broad but derisive grin, showing two teeth missing from his upper jaw. At the same time, he feigned a vicious punch at Benson’s head, and Benson moved in closer.

“Easy, gentlemen, easy,” Hogan told them soothingly. “You’ll get your chance in just a little while to show these good people which of you is the better man. In the meantime—”

Then a voice came from the back of the crowd: “What’s the nigger doing up there?”

“I’m glad you asked that question, sir,” Hogan shouted. “The man you see in this ring is no ordinary nigger. This one”—he gestured toward the black man who was still standing in a relaxed manner behind him—“is not only
free
, but also of royal blood. This, my friends, is Prince Zulu, come to these shores to witness the best boxing in the world and display the skills which make him the middleweight champion of South Africa.”

The black prince directed a low, foreign-looking bow toward the crowd. Half of them applauded and the other half booed.

“Later this very morning,” Hogan continued, “Prince Zulu will give an exhibition of his boxing skills. That is, if any of you gentlemen have a black contender whom you will allow to take the risk of climbing into the ring with his majesty for a winner-takes-all prize of one hundred dollars in gold!”

The tumult after this announcement was so great that it took Hogan five minutes to be heard again. “And now,” he shouted, his voice beginning to sound hoarse, “if gentlemen with boxers to match will come up to ringside to make arrangements, the boxing spectacular will begin shortly.”

Jardine looked at Caleb with doubt in his eyes. “Do you believe that?” he asked. “Free
and
a prince—
and
a boxing champion. I never heard of anything like that. Did you, Caleb?”

“No, Master,” Caleb said.

Beginning the day’s activities were half a dozen short bouts between local slaves. Caleb and Pompey were scheduled to be the last of these. Sitting in the wagon, Caleb had a good view of the action in the ring.

Hogan shepherded the first pair of slaves, who were stripped to the waist and wearing boxing gloves, into the center of the ring and announced to the crowd, “Each match will be three equal rounds of three minutes. If there is no knockout, the referee—that’s me—will make a decision. My decision will be final, and the winner will collect a purse of five silver dollars.

“Now,” he said, pushing the slaves apart, “go to your corners and come out fighting.” This was quickly followed by the ting of a bell struck by Prince Zulu, who was serving as timekeeper. The boxers shambled toward each other.

The first five matches were more circus than sport. With little thought for matchmaking, the unskilled blacks were paired haphazardly. They punched blindly away, hoping to connect. Inside the first round it became clear how each bout would end, and the only real question became whether the bouts would last the full three rounds. Only two did. In the other three matches, the loser wisely decided that being “knocked out” was preferable to taking further punishment. If these losers had thought more about what would happen when they got home, they might have put on a better show.

But the crowd enjoyed themselves enormously, laughing and whooping and shouting encouragement to their favorites. At the end of each bout, Hogan raised the right hand of the winner, who received five silver dollars in a showy clink of coins. Outside the ring, the owners of the winners proudly showed off their champions. The losers skulked back to their wagons.

It was clear from the beginning that the sixth match would be different. Jardine wanted to remain in Caleb’s corner, but Hogan pointed out that Caleb would have a better chance with an experienced second. As Harry Benson tied the sweaty gloves on Caleb’s hands, he asked in a low voice, “Ever fight before?”

“Not in the ring, sir,” Caleb replied.

“Well,” said Benson with a glance over his shoulder at Pompey in the opposite corner, “my advice would be to box him for a round. Don’t get anywhere near those young hams he calls hands. You can start fighting him in round two—if there is one.” He slapped Caleb’s gloves. “Go!” he said, jumping from the ring.

When Prince Zulu hit the bell, Caleb moved forward. If he hadn’t, the match might never have started. Pompey, stripped to his red velvet trousers, took just one step and stopped. He was as immobile as the traditional carved wooden statue of an Indian in front of a tobacco shop. And nearly as hard. With no waist to speak of, Pompey’s body looked like a black side of beef. Even before he’d moved a muscle, he was already glistening with sweat. He held his gloved hands before him like battering rams.

Mindful of Benson’s advice, Caleb advanced cautiously. Pompey did not move. The two slaves looked at each other for a long moment.

A voice called out from the crowd, “Come on! At least ask him to dance, won’t you?” The crowd roared with laughter.

Feeling foolish just standing there, Caleb darted in and landed a slapped right high up on the side of Pompey’s face. Pompey did not move, and Caleb felt as if he’d just struck the side of a prize bull.

Encouraged by Pompey’s apparent unwillingness to carry the fight to him, Caleb decided to take the opportunity to try out all of the punches he’d practiced in the horse barn. He pretended that Pompey was a bale of hay and, moving as swiftly as he could, hit the stolid slave with six different punches in about ten seconds. The bored crowd roared, and Caleb was beginning to think that this was fun when suddenly Pompey’s right arm, which had seemed as stationary as a hitching rail, flew out with surprising speed and struck Caleb a glancing blow on the jaw.

Reeling back, not hurt but stunned, Caleb saw that Pompey was lurching after him, his thick arms pumping like pistons. “Get him, Pompey!” a hoarse voice called out, and the mass of men and boys shouted their approval. Caleb got his gloves back up just in time to deflect two massive blows. He was wondering what to do next when the bell sounded.