Rich Man, Poor Man (52 page)

His opponent was a rangy Negro, considerably taller than Tommy, and with much longer arms, shuffling dangerously in his corner in a little dance, nodding as he listened to the advice being whispered into his ear by his handler.

Gretchen watched with a rigid, painful grimace on her face, squinting through the smoke at her brother’s powerful, destructive, bare figure. She did not like the hairless male body -Willie was covered with a comfortable reddish fuzz - and the ridged professional muscles made her shudder in primitive distaste. Siblings, out of the same womb. The thought dismayed her. Behind Thomas’s boyish smile she recognised the sly malevolence, the desire to hurt, the pleasure in dealing pain, that had alienated her when they lived in the same house. The thought that it was her own flesh and blood exposed there under the bright lights in this dreadful ceremony was almost unbearable to her. Of course, she thought, I should have known; this is where he had to end. Fighting for his life.

The men were evenly matched, equally fast, the Negro less aggressive, but better able to defend himself with his long arms. Thomas kept burrowing in, taking two punches to get in one, slugging away at the Negro’s body, making the Negro give ground and occasionally punishing him terribly when he got bim in a corner against the ropes.

‘Kill the nigger,’ a voice from the back of the arena cried out each time Thomas threw a volley of punches. Gretchen winced, ashamed to be there, ashamed for every man and woman in the place. Oh, Arnold Simms, limping in the maroon bathrobe, saying, ‘You got pretty feet, Miss Jordache,’ dreaming of Cornwall, oh, Arnold Simms, forgive me for tonight.

It lasted eight of the ten rounds. Thomas was bleeding from the nose and from a cut above the eye, but never retreating, always shuffling in, with a kind of hideous, heedless, mechanical energy, slowly wearing his man down. In the eighth round the Negro could hardly lift his hands and Thomas sent him to the canvas with a long, looping right hand that caught the Negro on the forehead. The Negro got up at the count of eight, staggering, barely able to get his guard up and Thomas, his face a bloody smear, but smiling, leapt after him mercilessly and hit him what seemed to Gretchen at least fifty times in the space of seconds. The Negro collapsed on to his face as the crowd yelled ear-splittingly around her. The Negro tried to get up, almost reached one knee. In a neutral corner, Thomas crouched alertly, bloody, tireless. He seemed to want his man to get up, to continue the fight, and Gretchen was sure there was a swift look of disappointment that flitted across his battered face as the Negro sank helplessly to the canvas and was counted out.

She wanted to vomit, but she merely retched drily, holding her handkerchief to her face, surprised at the smell of the perfume on it, among the rank odours of the arena. She sat huddled over in her seat, looking down, unable to watch any more, afraid she was going to faint and by that act announce to all the world her fatal connection to the victorious animal in the ring.

Rudolph had sat through the whole bout without uttering a sound, his lips twisted a little in disapproval at the clumsy bloodthirstiness, without style or grace, of the fight.

The fighters left the ring, the Negro, swathed in towels and robe, was helped through the ropes by his handlers, Thomas grinning, waving triumphantly, as people clapped him on the back. He left the ring on the far side, so there was no chance of seeing his brother and sister as he made his way to the locker room.

The crowd began to drift out, but Gretchen and Rudolph sat side by side, without saying a word to each other, fearful of communicating after what they had seen. Finally Gretchen said, thickly, her eyes still lowered, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ ‘We have to go back,’ Rudolph said. “What do you mean?’ Gretchen looked up in surprise at her brother. ‘We came,’ Rudolph said. ‘We watched. We have to see him.’ ‘He’s got nothing to do with us.’ As she said this, she knew she was lying.

‘Come on.’ Rudolph stood up and took her elbow, making her stand. He met all challenges, Rudolph, the cold, veray parfit gentil knight at Sunnyside Gardens.

‘I won’t, I won’t … ‘ Even as she was babbling this, she knew Rudolph would lead her inexorably to face Thomas, bloody, victorious, brutal, rancorous.

There were some men standing at the door of the dressing room, but nobody stopped Rudolph as he pushed the door open. Gretchen hung back. ‘I’d better wait outside,’ she said. ‘He may not be dressed.’

Rudolph paid no attention to what she had said, but held her wrist and pulled her into the room after him. Thomas was sitting on a stained rubbing table, a towel around his middle, and a doctor was sewing up the cut over his eye.

‘It’s nothing,’ the doctor was saying. ‘One more stitch and it’s done.’

Thomas had his eyes closed, to make it easier for the doctor to work. There was an orange stain of antiseptic above the eyebrow that gave him a clownish, lopsided air. He had obviously already taken his shower, as his hair was dark with water and plastered to his head, making him look like a print of an oldtime bare-knuckle pugilist. Grouped around the table were several men, who Rudolph recognised as having been in or near Thomas’s corner during the fight. A curvy young woman in a tight dress kept making little sighing sounds each time the doctor’s needle went into flesh. She had startling black hair and wore black nylon stockings over outlandishly shapely legs. Her eyebrows, plucked into a thin pencil line, high up, gave her a look of doll-like surprise. The room stank of old sweat, liniment, cigar smoke, and urine from the toilet visible through an open door leading off the dressing room. A bloodstained towel lay on the greasy floor, in a heap with the sweat-soaked purple tights and supporter and socks and shoes that Thomas had worn during the fight. It was sickeningly hot in the room.

What am I doing in a place like this, Gretchen thought How did I get here?

There we are,’ the doctor said, stepping back, his head cocked to one side, admiring his work. He put on a pad of gauze and a strip of adhesive tape over the wound. ‘You’ll be able to fight again in ten days.’

Thanks, Doc,’ Thomas said and opened his eyes. He saw Rudolph and Gretchen. ‘Good Christ,’ he said. He smiled crookedly. ‘What the hell are you two doing here?’

I have a message for you,’ Rudolph said. ‘A man called Al phoned me this afternoon and told me he’d put five hundred at seven to five for tonight.’

‘Good old Al,’ Thomas said. But he looked worriedly over

at the curvy young woman with the black hair, as though he had wanted to keep this information from her.

‘Congratulations on the fight,’ Rudolph said. He took a step forward and put out his hand. Thomas hesitated for a fraction of a second, then smiled again, and put out his swollen, reddened hand.

Gretchen couldn’t get herself to congratulate her brother. ‘I’m glad you won, Tom,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He looked at her amusedly. ‘Let me introduce everybody to everybody,’ he said. ‘My brother, Rudolph; my sister, Gretchen. My wife, Teresa, my manager, Mr Schultz, my trainer, Paddy, everybody … ‘ He waved his hand vaguely at the men he hadn’t bothered to introduce.

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Teresa said. It was the suspicious voice of the telephone that afternoon.

‘I didn’t know you had family,’ Mr Schultz said. He, too, seemed suspicious, as though having family was somehow perilous or actionable at law.

‘I wasn’t sure myself,’ Thomas said. ‘We have gone our separate ways, like they say. Hey, Schultzy, I must be getting to be one helluva draw at the gate if I even get my brother and sister to buy tickets.’

‘After tonight,’ Mr Schultz said, ‘I can get you the Garden. It was a nice win.’ He was a small man with a basketball pouch under a greenish sweater. ‘Well, you people must have a lot to talk about, catch up with the news, as it were, we’ll leave you alone. I’ll drop in tomorrow sometime, Tommy, to see how the eye’s doing.’ He put on a jacket, just barely managing to button it over his paunch. The trainer gathered up the gear from the floor and put it into a bag. ‘Nice going, Tommy,’ he said, as he left with the doctor, the manager, and the others.

‘Well, here we are,’ Thomas said. ‘A nice family reunion. I guess we ought to celebrate, huh, Teresa?’

‘You never told me anything about a brother and sister,’ Teresa said aggrievedly, in her high voice.

They slipped my mind for a few years,’ Thomas said. He jumped down off the rubbing table. ‘Now, if the ladies will retire, I’ll put on some clothes.’

Gretchen went out into the hall with her brother’s wife. The hall was empty now and she Was relieved to get away from the stink and heat of the dressing room. Teresa was putting on a shaggy red fox coat with angry little movements of her shoulders and arms, ‘If the ladies will retire,’ she said. ‘As though I never saw him naked before.’ She looked at Gretchen

with open hostility, taking in the black wool dress, the low-heeled shoes, the plain, belted polo coat, considering it, Gretchen could see, an affront to her style of living, her dyed hair, her tight dress, her over-voluptuous legs, her marriage. ‘I didn’t know Tommy came from such a high-toned family,’ she said. ‘We’re not so high-toned,’ Gretchen said. ‘Never fear.’ ‘You never bothered to see him fight before tonight,’ Teresa said aggressively, ‘did you?’

‘I didn’t know he was a fighter before today,’ said Gretchen. ‘Do you mind if I sit down? I’m feeling very tired.’ There was a chair across the hall and she moved away from the woman and sat down, hoping to put an end to conversation. Teresa ruffled her shoulders irritably under the red fox, then began to walk peckishly up and down, her high stilletto heels making a brittle, impatient sound on the concrete floor of the hallway.

Inside the dressing room Thomas was dressing slowly, turning away modestly when he put on his shorts, occasionally wiping at his face with a towel, because the shower had not completely broken the sweat. From time to time he looked across at Rudolph and smiled and shook his head and said, ‘Goddamn.’

‘How do you feel, Tommy?’ Rudolph asked.

‘Okay. But I’ll piss blood tomorrow,’ Thomas said calmly. ‘He got in a couple of good licks to the kidney, the sonofabitch. It was a pretty good fight, though, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Rudolph-said. He didn’t have the heart to say that in his eyes it had been a routine, ungraceful, second-rate brawl.

‘I knew I could take him,’ Thomas said. ‘Even though I was the underdog in the betting. Seven to five. That’s a hot one. I made seven hundred bucks on that bet.’ He sounded like a small boy boasting. Though it’s too bad you had to say anything about it in front of Teresa. Now she knows I have the dough and she’ll be after it like a hound dog.’

‘How long have you been married?’ Rudolph asked.

Two years. Legally. I knocked her up and I thought what the hell.’ Thomas shrugged. ‘She’s okay. Teresa, a little dumb, but okay. The kid’s worth it, though. A boy.’ He glanced maliciously over at Rudolph. ‘Maybe I’ll send him to his Uncle Rudy, to teach him to be a gentleman and not grow up to be a poor stupid pug, like his old man.’

‘I’d like to see him some day,’ Rudolph said stiffly.

‘Any time. Come up to the house.’ Thomas put on a black turtle-neck sweater and his voice was muffled for a moment as

he stuck his head into the wool. ‘You married yet?’

‘No.’

‘Still the smart one of the family,’ Thomas said. ‘How about Gretchen?’

‘A long time. She’s got a son aged nine.’

Thomas nodded. ‘She was bound not to hang around long. God, what a hot-looking dame. She looks better than ever, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she still as much of a shit as she used to be?’

‘Don’t talk like that, Tom,’ Rudolph said. ‘She was an awfully nice girl and she’s grown into a very good woman.’

‘I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Rudy,’ Thomas said cheerfully. He was combing his hair carefully before a cracked mirror on the wall. ‘I wouldn’t know, being on the outside the way I was.’

“You weren’t on the outside.’

“Who you kidding, brother?’ Thomas said flatly. He put the comb in his pocket, took a last critical look as his scarred, puffed face, with the diagonal white slash of adhesive tape above his eye. ‘I sure am a beauty tonight,’ he said. ‘If I’d have known you were coming. I’d’ve shaved.’ He turned and put a bright-tweed jacket over the turtle-neck sweater. ‘You look as though you’re doing all right, Rudy,’ he said. ‘You look like a goddamn vice-president of a bank.’

‘I’m not complaining,’ Rudolph said, not pleased with the vice-president.

‘You know,’ Thomas said, ‘I went up to Port Philip a few years ago. For Auld Lang Syne. I heard Pop is dead!’

‘He killed himself,’ Rudolph said.

‘Yeah, that’s what the fruit-lady said.’ Thomas patted his breast pocket to make sure his wallet was in place. The old house was gone. No light in the cellar window for the prodigal son,’ he said mockingly. ‘Only a supermarket. I still remember they had a special that day. Lamb shoulders. Mom alive?’

‘Yes. She lives with me.”

“Lucky you.’ Thomas grinned. ‘Still in Port Philip?’

‘Whitby.’

‘You don’t travel much, do you?’

There’s plenty of time.’ Rudolph had the uncomfortable feeling that his brother was using the conversation to tease him, undermine him, make him feel guilty. He was accustomed to controlling conversations himself by now and it took an effort not to let his irritation show. As he had watched his

brother dress, watched him move that magnificent and fearsome body slowly and braisedly, he had felt a huge sense of pity, love, a confused desire somehow to save that lumbering, brave, vengeful almost-boy from other evenings like the one he had just been through; from the impossible wife, from the bawling crowd, from the cheerful, stitching doctors, from the casual men who attended him and lived off him. He didn’t want that feeling to be eroded by Thomas’s mockery, by that hangover of ancient jealousy and hostility which by now should have long since subsided.

‘Myself,’ Thomas was saying, ‘I been in quite a few places. Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Hollywood, Tia Juana. Name it and I’ve been there. I’m a man broadened by travel.’