Read Online Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara - Free Book Online

He had been with Ed Charney andeating regularly for four years, but he still did not gain much weight. Stayed about the same. His bones were small, and he was a thin little man in every part of him. He was born in Gibbsville, the son of Italian parents. His father worked on a navvy gang and supported six children, of whom Al was the third. Al’s name was not Al, and it was not Grecco. His real name was Anthony Joseph Murascho, or Tony Murascho, until he was eighteen. He had been kicked out of the parochial school for striking a nun when he was fourteen; carried newspapers, stole, was house-man in a poolroom, served a year in prison for burgling the poorbox in one of the Irish Catholic churches, and was arrested several other times: once when a false alarm was turned in (he had an honest alibi); once for attempted rape (the girl could not positively identify more than two of the six suspects); once for breaking the seals on a freight car (the railroad detectives listened to his father’s plea, and they had a good case against four other boys, so out of kindness to the old man they did not prosecute Tony); once for stabbing a colleague in a poolroom argument (no one, not even the victim, could swear Tony had done it; and anyway it was only a slight wound).
    It was when he was eighteen, the same year of his life that he went to the county jail, that he got the name of Al Grecco. At that time he decided to be a prizefighter, and though he had a lingering touch of gonorrhea, he went into training and studied the sweet science under Packy McGovern, Gibbsville’s leading and only fight promoter. Packy told him he was a born fighter, had the real fighting heart, and that the clap was no worse than a bad cold. He made Tony lay off women, alcohol, and cigarettes, and do a lot of bag-punching. He showed Tony how to hold his elbows and how to keep his right foot in position so he could move his body backward without taking a backward step; that was footwork. He taught Tony how to scrape an opponent’s eyes with the palm of the glove, and also how to use his thumb, and also how to butt. He of course instructed Tony never to enter a ring without first knocking a few dents into the aluminum-cup supporter which is supposedto be a protection against foul blows. You never know when you can claim foul and get away with it, and if the cup is not dented no club physician would dare allow the claim. Tony Murascho, who up to that time had been known only as a tough little guinny, was matched to fight a preliminary bout at McGovern’s Hall.
    As it happened, Lydia Faunce Browne was assigned to write a feature story about that fight card. Lydia Faunce Browne was not a Gibbsville girl originally. She came from Columbus, Ohio, and had been in Gibbsville five years when her husband deserted her. He was younger than Mrs. Browne, who at the time of the desertion was forty-nine, and he left behind, besides Lydia, a large bill at the Lantenengo Country Club, another big bill at the Gibbsville Club, and several other bills. For a time Mrs. Browne eked out a living and paid a little on the bills by teaching auction bridge to the wives of the Jewish storekeepers, but she finally flattered Bob Hooker, editor of the
Standard,
into giving her a job on the staff of the
Standard.
She told him he was a real man for his editorial on his dead dog. She became the pest of the
Standard
office on her own hook, and was being built up big by Bob Hooker, who regarded himself as the William Allen White–Ed Howe–Joseph Pulitzer of Gibbsville. He began to regard Lydia as the local Sophie Irene Loeb, and paid her $35 a week, with three exceptions the highest journalistic salary in the town.
    Lydia was always being sent down in the mines, much against the wishes of the miners, who think it is unlucky for a woman to enter a mine; or riding in locomotive cabs, or spending a night in prison, or interviewing visiting celebrities, such as George Luks (who later wanted to know