Read Online Cinderella Man by Marc Cerasini - Free Book Online Page B

even look up as his manager walked off, leaving him on the bleachers beside the dark ring, in a vast, empty space. Alone.

ROUND FIVE
    A man can endure a lot if he still has hope.
    â€”Clyde T. Ellis,
as quoted by Studs Terkel in Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
    â€œOh, dear Lord. Baby…”
    Jim met Mae at the front door. As the scarred plywood creaked open, he glimpsed the tender, attentive expression on his wife’s face and knew in an instant how much he was going to miss seeing her look at him this way—like he was some kind of returning soldier who’d been in harm’s way, a fighting man who, win or lose, would always come home to steadfast devotion. With his boxing career over, Jim realized, Mae would never have cause to look at him like this again, and he was more than a little uneasy what failing her would do to him. To them.
    â€œI haven’t got the money,” he told her straight. He was too tired and in too much pain to break it any easier. “They wouldn’t pay me. Called it a no contest. Said the fight was an embarrassment.”
    Mae’s fretful gaze went from the blue and purplebruises on Jim’s battered face to his golden right hand, now caged in a fresh white cast. Her small fist reached out, unfurled like a flower. Soft fingers brushed the hardening surface.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked.
    â€œMr. Johnston made a decision…” He shrugged. “They decommissioned me.”
    Fear in Mae’s eyes flared to anger. What did she care about boxing commissioners’ edicts or violated fight rules? She cared only about her husband. “Jimmy, what happened to your hand !?”
    Jim sighed. “It’s broke in three places.”
    With one blink, Mae’s face went blank. Her gaze lost focus. “Mercy…I’m so sorry.”
    Jim stared at his wife. Her words had come out strangely distant, like she’d read them off a Western Union telegram. Deciding she must not have understood what he’d just told her, he tried again—
    â€œSaid I’m through , is what they said. Said I’m not a boxer anymore.”
    But Mae Braddock had moved past this already. Chewing the edge of her thumbnail, she began to pace the small front room. “Well, okay,” she said, “if you can’t work, we ain’t gonna be able to pay the electric or the heat—”
    With the gas and electric already overdue, Mae had taken to keeping the heat and all the lights off, save a small lamp in the corner. As she walked back and forth, a shadow flickered across the dingy wall, haunting her every step.
    â€œâ€”and we’re out of credit at the grocery,” she added, “so we need to pack the kids, they can stay at my sister’s temporary, I’ll take in more sewing—”
    â€œMae—”
    â€œThen that way we can make two or three breadlines a day and then—”
    â€œI’ll get doubles, triple shifts where I can find them,” Jim told her. “I’ll get work wherever I can.”
    â€œJim, you can’t work, your hand’s broken—”
    She was pacing faster now, her steps going nowhere, just trapped in a repetitive activity in their confined space. Jim could see she was still fretting, her eyes still refusing to look at him.
    â€œMae!”
    The strength in Jim’s voice finally broke through. She stopped.
    â€œI can still work,” he told her.
    Mae swallowed hard, said nothing.
    â€œGet the shoe polish out of the cabinet,” he told his wife, clear and firm. “Go on. If they see me lugging this around, they won’t pick me will they?”
    Mae stifled her response and did as he asked.
    â€œSo, we’ll cover it up with the shoe polish,” Jim continued as he sat down at the table and extended his hard, white liability. Mae sat next to him and looked down at the cast.
    â€œBaby, it’s going to be okay,” he