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Authors: Budd Schulberg
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belligerence. When he drank himself into a stupor he did so quietly and gradually like the death of Galsworthy’s patriarch in
Indian Summer of a Forsyte
. No fuss and never any fights, even when goaded by a champion like Vince Vanneman. He was one of the few men I’ve ever known who could pass out and not lose either his cookies or his dignity.
‘Seen your new heavyweight yet?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I been pounding my ear. You see him?’
I shook my head. ‘He’s gone to mass with the Duchess.’
‘Well, we’ll take a look at him in the gym tomorrow.’
‘Nick’s all excited,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
A loud yawn escaped him. ‘’Scuse me, ma’m.’
‘Who’s the biggest guy you ever handled before, Danny?’
Danny thought a moment. ‘Big Boy Lemson, I guess. Scaled around two-thirty. Looked tough, but he was muscle-bound, had a glass jaw. I tell ya, Eddie, I don’t get excited about these jumbo heavyweights. Hundred ’n eighty,eighty-five, that’s all you need to knock out anything, if you know how to punch. Dempsey was only one-ninety at Toledo. Corbett’s best weight was around one-eighty.’
‘Nick sees a sensational draw in this Molina,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
That’s about the most combative Danny ever got, that ‘yeah’. It would be harder to find two guys further apart in the boxing business than Danny and Nick. Nick was all business. For him the fix was second nature. To Danny it wasn’t a sport any more either. It was a trade. He happened to be an honest craftsman. His way was to start from scratch, pitting his brain and his kid’s natural talent and ability against all comers. That was too haphazard for Nick. Whether it was horses or fighters, he liked to play sure things.
‘You could use a little more shut-eye, Danny,’ I said. ‘We’ll catch you later.’
‘Right, laddie,’ Danny said. There was still the echo of a brogue. He stretched out on the grass again. Beth took my arm and we walked on.
Under the next umbrella sat a couple of gamblers. It sounds like easy generalisation to look at a couple of guys you have never seen before and flip your mind down to G like a card-file, right away, ‘Gamblers’. But I would have laid five-to-one that’s what they were, if I hadn’t learnt my lesson a long time ago never to stake my judgement against the professional players’. One of the gamblers had done too well for a long time and it was all in his face and his belly. The other had started out with a very good physique and still kept a little pride in it. Once in a while, when he got into a bathing suit, he probably felt a twinge of self-consciousnessabout the surplus fat on him and subjected it to the hard mechanical hands of the steam-bath rubber. They were both dressed in easy, comfortable clothes that added up to the kind of country ensemble that looks expensively cheap. The fatter one was wearing a yellow flannel sports shirt that must have cost sixteen bucks at Abercrombie & Fitch. But there was nothing Abercrombie & Fitch about the short hairy arms, the fat neck and the sweat staining the shirtfront even in the shade. You would think the Scotch or the British or whoever knitted his socks would have known better than to waste pure wool on such corny patterns.
‘Gin,’ the leaner one said, pushing back an expensive Panama hat from a low forehead tanned from bending over racing programmes in the sun near the railing.
The fat man threw his cards down in disgust. ‘Gin,’ he said, nodding his head in weary resignation and turning to us as if we had been there all the time, appealing to us as sympathetic onlookers witnessing a catastrophe. ‘Gin. Every five minutes gin. All the way up from Miami it’s all I hear – gin, gin, gin! Three hundred and two dollars he’s into me before we hit Balteemore. The cards he gives me, I shoulda got off at Jacksonville.’
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ the man with the Panama said. ‘How
Indian Summer of a Forsyte
. No fuss and never any fights, even when goaded by a champion like Vince Vanneman. He was one of the few men I’ve ever known who could pass out and not lose either his cookies or his dignity.
‘Seen your new heavyweight yet?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I been pounding my ear. You see him?’
I shook my head. ‘He’s gone to mass with the Duchess.’
‘Well, we’ll take a look at him in the gym tomorrow.’
‘Nick’s all excited,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
A loud yawn escaped him. ‘’Scuse me, ma’m.’
‘Who’s the biggest guy you ever handled before, Danny?’
Danny thought a moment. ‘Big Boy Lemson, I guess. Scaled around two-thirty. Looked tough, but he was muscle-bound, had a glass jaw. I tell ya, Eddie, I don’t get excited about these jumbo heavyweights. Hundred ’n eighty,eighty-five, that’s all you need to knock out anything, if you know how to punch. Dempsey was only one-ninety at Toledo. Corbett’s best weight was around one-eighty.’
‘Nick sees a sensational draw in this Molina,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
That’s about the most combative Danny ever got, that ‘yeah’. It would be harder to find two guys further apart in the boxing business than Danny and Nick. Nick was all business. For him the fix was second nature. To Danny it wasn’t a sport any more either. It was a trade. He happened to be an honest craftsman. His way was to start from scratch, pitting his brain and his kid’s natural talent and ability against all comers. That was too haphazard for Nick. Whether it was horses or fighters, he liked to play sure things.
‘You could use a little more shut-eye, Danny,’ I said. ‘We’ll catch you later.’
‘Right, laddie,’ Danny said. There was still the echo of a brogue. He stretched out on the grass again. Beth took my arm and we walked on.
Under the next umbrella sat a couple of gamblers. It sounds like easy generalisation to look at a couple of guys you have never seen before and flip your mind down to G like a card-file, right away, ‘Gamblers’. But I would have laid five-to-one that’s what they were, if I hadn’t learnt my lesson a long time ago never to stake my judgement against the professional players’. One of the gamblers had done too well for a long time and it was all in his face and his belly. The other had started out with a very good physique and still kept a little pride in it. Once in a while, when he got into a bathing suit, he probably felt a twinge of self-consciousnessabout the surplus fat on him and subjected it to the hard mechanical hands of the steam-bath rubber. They were both dressed in easy, comfortable clothes that added up to the kind of country ensemble that looks expensively cheap. The fatter one was wearing a yellow flannel sports shirt that must have cost sixteen bucks at Abercrombie & Fitch. But there was nothing Abercrombie & Fitch about the short hairy arms, the fat neck and the sweat staining the shirtfront even in the shade. You would think the Scotch or the British or whoever knitted his socks would have known better than to waste pure wool on such corny patterns.
‘Gin,’ the leaner one said, pushing back an expensive Panama hat from a low forehead tanned from bending over racing programmes in the sun near the railing.
The fat man threw his cards down in disgust. ‘Gin,’ he said, nodding his head in weary resignation and turning to us as if we had been there all the time, appealing to us as sympathetic onlookers witnessing a catastrophe. ‘Gin. Every five minutes gin. All the way up from Miami it’s all I hear – gin, gin, gin! Three hundred and two dollars he’s into me before we hit Balteemore. The cards he gives me, I shoulda got off at Jacksonville.’
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ the man with the Panama said. ‘How
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