The Harder They Fall (7 page)

‘El Toro looks at me a long time and I can see that my words are working in his head. “I will ask permission of my father,” he says to me. The father talks it over with Mama Molina who has never travel more than fifty kilometres beyond Santa Maria. She is very much frighten for what will happen to her
infante muy grande
, when he goes down into the great cities. But the brothers Ramon and Rafael they urge the father very much to give El Toro the permission. The brothers have convince Mario to give El Toro the permission. Then there is much embracing and weeping and
Vaya con Dios
, and El Toro lifts his giant body onto my truck and waves goodbye to his family with his enormous hands. I drive down the mountainside with as much speed as I can because I am afraid if El Toro will change his mind.’

‘Giant son of peasant barrel-maker leaves village in
Andes to be strongman in travelling circus,’ I scribbled. It was one of those stories you could push beyond the sports page. The
Post
or
Collier’s
might go for it. There might even be a little extra dough in a piece that gives a name and a personality to the human desire for size and strength. I could start with a mention of the Jews of Palestine and give them Samson. It would sound learned to show how the Greeks worshipped Atlas, Hercules and Titan. How Rabelais dreamt up Gargantua. And now, Toro Molina. For modern times we’d dish up a giant of our own, worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with great and ancient company. What mighty feats would our giant perform, equalling those of Samson who came down from the hills to champion his subjugated people, Atlas who supported the world on his muscled back, and Hercules who fought his way up onto Mount Olympus! To keep the classical flavour, we could even ring in the
deus
ex machina
in the person of Nick Latka, post-graduate hoodlum, soft-shoe racketeer and country gentleman as the means by which a giant peasant from the highest mountains in the New World follows the old pattern from man of the people to hero to demigod and finally joins the deities of contemporary mythology.

‘Everywhere I go I have a very big success with El Toro,’ Acosta was saying while I played with the idea of becoming a god-maker. ‘The people have never see such bigness, such magnificence of muscles. Because I love El Toro so much I do not give him ten per cent of the collection; I let him keep twenty-five per cent, for I have promise that when he go back to the village, he will have more money than all the peasants together. But El Toro goes to the great marketplace
in Mendoza and like a child he spends every last centavo. For his mama he buys the bandana and for Carmelita a fine black lace gown and for himself a top hat which he brings back wearing on his head. Such a child is El Toro and so little he knows of the world.

‘Across the promenade from my circus at the great fair in Mendoza is my good friend Lupe Morales who is the old sparring partner of Luis Ángel Firpo. Lupe makes the challenge to anyone in the audience to stay in the ring with him for three minutes. I see the collection of Lupe Morales and I watch that of El Toro Molina and I am surprise to see that Lupe who is all wash up in the boxing brings more money than El Toro. Why am I wasting my time picking up little coins in a sideshow when I have in my hands a gold mine?

‘So I make a deal with my friend Lupe that he will teach El Toro the science of the prizefight in return for five per cent of all the money El Toro will make in the ring. When I tell El Toro what I have arrange, he says he does not like. “Why should Lupe hit me and I hit Lupe back when we are not angry with each other?” he says. Poor El Toro, he has a body like a mountain but a brain like a pea. “To be angry is not necessary, El Toro,” I say to him. “The boxing is a business.” But El Toro is not convince.

‘I have much worry because all my life I think, Luis, you are too clever to die in the province with your little travelling circus. Some day you will find something equal to your brain and showmanship. And now it is in my hand. But I am not thinking only of Luis Acosta. I think of El Toro also, who is become like a son to me. I have see his
house in the village and I know how poor he lives even with their four pairs of arms of such strength.

‘So I say to El Toro, “I offer you the opportunity to make more money than you ever dream was in the world. Just to climb into the ring and box half of one hour you will make five hundred, maybe one thousand, pesos. Come with me to Buenos Aires and I will make so much money for you that you will be able to go back to Santa Maria and pay off the debt on your father’s house and hire a maid for Carmelita. You can lie in bed after the sun is up and cuddle your wife and go to cockfights and sit at the café and sip your wine. How can you say you are in love if you are not willing to do this little for the happiness of Carmelita?’

‘And so at last I have convince El Toro because in my own language I am very
elocuente
, although perhaps you cannot tell it from my English which suffers from a shortness of vocabulary.’

‘Don’t worry about your English,’ I said. ‘Compared to the gentlemen who hang around Stillman’s, you have the vocabulary of a Tunney. And he had to sweat for his too.’

‘You are very kind,’ Acosta said. ‘So now I am ready to make my peasant giant into a champion. Lupe does not know the science of
el
box
like your Tunney or the little heavyweight Loughran who keeps his left glove in the face of Arturo Godoy in the big fight in Buenos Aires. But he knows to show El Toro how to put his left foot forward and hold his left hand out, with the right hand under the chin to protect the great jaw. He knows to show him how to balance on the balls of the feet, so he is ready to move forward or backward, and he knows to teach
him how to lead with his left hand and cross with his right and snap back once more into position. What you call the fundamentals of self-defence, yes? He shows him how to throw the uppercut when he is in close and how to hold his arms in to his body in the clinch, so his opponent cannot hit him in the kidney and the rib. And that is all Lupe can teach, because there is even more to the science than Lupe knows.

‘Little by little El Toro learns, for he is always serious in his work and tries to please me very much. In the sparring with Lupe he is very strong because he has the wind of a bull and in the clinch he can toss Lupe around like a feather, and when he has train nearly two months Lupe says now he is ready for the fight in Buenos Aires.

‘So at last we are in Buenos Aires, where Lupe Morales has arrange for Luis Ángel Firpo himself to box an exhibition with El Toro. When it is finish Firpo tell the newspapers that El Toro is stronger than Dempsey when Dempsey knock him down six times in the first round of their million-dollar fight in the state of New Jersey. So now El Toro Molina already has much fame in Buenos Aires and he is match to fight Kid Salado, the champion of La Pampa. Outside the arena the poster in very large letters has the name El Toro Gigantesco de Mendoza, the Giant Bull of Mendoza. And under this in little letters, “Under the Exclusive Management of Señor Luis Acosta”. Every time I see this poster, it make me feel very good. How Luis and his giant have come up in the world! We are making everyone sit up and notice. Two days before the fight there are no more tickets to sell. Out of this great piece of peasant clay I
find in the mountain I have make the biggest drawing card in South America.’

‘Okay, okay, but what happened with Salado? This suspense is killing me,’ I said.

‘In the fight with Salado it is ten rounds to a draw, which is all right for El Toro in his first time. You must remember that Salado is a boxer of much experience who knows many tricks and has three times knock out Lupe Morales. For this fight they pay me one thousand pesos, from which I give Toro five hundred, in spite I am taking all the risk by giving up my circus business and putting all my eggs on El Toro Gigantesco. With the five hundred pesos El Toro is very happy, especially when I take him down to the great shopping centre on the Roque Saens Peña. I take him to a tailor who makes especially for him a fine brown suit with red and blue stripes which make El Toro laugh with happiness because he has never own a suit of clothes before. “You see,” I say to him. “You trust Luis who takes the place of your father, and everything will happen good for you as I have promise.”’

‘This is all fine,’ I cut in, ‘full of stuff I can use, but we’re getting close to chow and we’re still down in BA. Bring me up to date, how you happened to come to town.’

‘For many many years,’ Acosta began, ‘I myself have the dream to come to North America. I cannot bring my little circus. I do not have money enough to go for pleasure. But now that I have El Toro I know it is my opportunity. The people of North America, I have hear, spend much money on the sports. And also they make themselves into big crowds to see something new. My El Toro Gigantesco,
I think, if he makes one thousand pesos in one night in Buenos Aires, he can make ten thousand dollars for one fight in North America. The people of North America are – you will excuse me – a little loco when it comes to the number of them who will pay big money to see a heavyweight fight. Lupe remembers from 1923, when he is with Luis Ángel Firpo, the night eighty thousand people pay to see our Wild Bull of the Pampas fight Jess Willard when Willard has forty years of age. So I have great confidence that El Toro will make an even bigger success in North America than Firpo who has make in two years here nearly one million dollar.

‘When I tell El Toro we will take a boat to North America, he is very frighten. He remembers that the old man of the village says the people of North America do not like the dark skins. The parents of El Toro are of Spanish blood, but there is from the grandfather a little of the
Negro
, perhaps a drop or two. The skin of El Toro is yellow-brown, from standing so many years in the Andean sun. El Toro has heard that in your country they burn the dark ones. He has not the intelligence to understan’ that this is not an occurrence of every day.

‘So I say to El Toro, “You know the great house of the de Santos that rises from the highest hilltop overlooking your village and the Rio Rojas. When you come back with me from North America, you will have money enough to build a house of such elegant proportions on the other side of the valley. The people of your village will lift their eyes to the
casa de Molina
and say ‘Look, it is even greater than the
casa de Santos
.’” To El Toro this sounds like the biggest of all dreams, but he has learn to have faith in his Luis and
to follow him like an obedient son. So at last we are here in North America, four thousand miles from the village of Santa Maria. When you put it in the papers, please write how proud is Luis Acosta to introduce to your great country the first authentic giant to climb through the rope and seek the championship of the world.’

‘Is that all you have to say for publication this morning?’ I said.

‘One more little thing,’ Acosta said. ‘When you spell my first name please be so kind as not to put an o in the middle – just the four letters, please: L-u-i-s, pronounce Looeeess.’

‘I’ll remember,’ I said.

‘Thank you very much,’ Acosta said. He was an intense, self-centred little man who obviously loved to hear himself tell this story over and over again. His personality was compounded of romanticism and materialism, benevolence, acquisitiveness and too many years of unsatisfied vanity, all resolved now in his paternal and profitable creation.

‘And now there is just one little personal matter of which I will ask your advice,’ Acosta said. ‘It is the matter of the percentage. When I come to New York I have very much difficulty arranging a match for El Toro. To get a good match, you need to have very often your name in the papers. You must have much money for the build-up. And to fight in the Garden, it is necessary to know Mr Jacobs.’

‘How long you been around here now, Acosta?’ I said.

‘We are now in your country nine weeks.’

‘You’re doing all right,’ I said.

‘Twenty-five years in the circus business,’ Acosta said.
‘I learn to fool the people and not myself. I see very quick the American boxing business is closed tight for Luis. It is entirely necessary to have partner who has what you call the “in”. I meet Meester Vanneman in the gymnasium. From the way he talk he is a manager of very big importance. So I sell him fifty per cent of El Toro for twenty-five hundred dollars. But a week later I am astonish to hear that Meester Vanneman has sell forty per cent of his share to Meester Latka for thirty-five hundred dollar. Then Meester Latka sends for me. Meester Vanneman cannot get El Toro into the Garden, Mr Latka say to me. He is the only one who has the connection to do that, he say. So he makes me the offer to buy forty per cent of my share for thirty-five hundred dollars also. Only, if you will excuse me for saying, it is not exactly an offer. If I do not give him this forty, Meester Latka says to me, I might as well take my El Toro back to Argentina. It seems he has the power to keep me out of the Garden and any other place. So you see, Meester Lewis, for me the position is very difficult. For all my work I am left with only ten per cent. And from this I have promise to pay half to Lupe Morales. I did not come for money only, but to me this is a very great disappointment.’

I ran through the stockholders in my mind, eighty per cent of the manager’s end to Latka, which meant 40-40 for him and Quinn, ten for McKeogh, ten for Vanneman, ten for me, five for Acosta, five for Morales, added up to 120 per cent. A little complicated. Not as complicated as some of Nick’s deals, but well beyond simple arithmetic. Not the kind of equation to figure in your head, unless you had Nick’s head, in which case you didn’t worry about
such mathematical problems as how to cut a pie into five quarters. Either Nick’s head or Nick’s bookkeeper, Leo Hintz. Leo was a neat, serious, middle-aged man who looked like a small-city bank-teller. In fact that’s what he had been, in Schenectady, until his thirty bucks a week made him feel that a change was necessary. Unfortunately for Leo the change he decided to make was a slight alteration in some of his entries, a little matter of a digit here and there that added up to an extra zero on the end of Leo’s $1560 a year. Not long afterwards, however, Leo’s income was suddenly cut to fifty cents a day, which is what the State of New York pays the inhabitants of Sing Sing prison. Leo was a sort of mathematical genius with a natural talent for quiet larceny, the modern highwayman who has swapped his black mask for a green eyeshade.