CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
Theroad of the pass was hard and smooth and not yet dusty in the early morning. Below were the hills with oak and chestnut trees, and far away below was the sea. On the other side were snowy mountains.
We came down from the pass through wooded country. There were bags of charcoal piled beside the road, and through the trees we saw charcoal-burners’ huts. It was Sunday and the road, rising and falling, but always dropping away from the altitude of the pass, went through the scrub woods and through villages.
Outside the villages there were fields with vines. The fields were brown and the vines coarse and thick. The houses were white, and in the streets the men, in their Sunday clothes, were playing bowls. Against the walls of some of the houses there were pear trees, their branches candelabraed against the white walls. The pear trees had been sprayed, and the walls of the houses were stained a metallic blue-green by the spray vapor. There were small clearings around the villages where the vines grew, and then the woods.
In a village, twenty kilometres above Spezia, there was a crowd in the square, and a young man carrying a suitcase came up to the car and asked us to take him in to Spezia.
“There are only two places, and they are occupied,” I said. We had an old Ford coupé.
“I will ride on the outside.”
“You will be uncomfortable.”
“That makes nothing. I must go to Spezia.”
“Should we take him?” I asked Guy.
“He seems to be going anyway,” Guy said. The young man handed in a parcel through the window.
“Look after this,” he said. Two men tied his suitcase on the back of the car, above our suitcases. He shook hands with every one, explained that to a Fascist and a man as used to travelling as himself there was no discomfort, and climbed up on the running-board on the left-hand side of the car, holding on inside, his right arm through the open window.
“You can start,” he said. The crowd waved. He waved with his free hand.
“What did he say?” Guy asked me.
“That we could start.”
“Isn’t he nice?” Guy said.
The road followed a river. Across the river were mountains. The sun was taking the frost out of the grass. It was bright and cold and the air came cold through the open wind-shield.
“How do you think he likes it out there?” Guy was looking up the road. His view out of his side of the car was blocked by our guest. The young man projected from the side of the car like the figurehead of a ship. He had turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat down and his nose looked cold in the wind.
“Maybe he’ll get enough of it,” Guy said. “That’s the side our bum tire’s on.”
“Oh, he’d leave us if we blew out,” I said. “He wouldn’t get his travelling-clothes dirty.”
“Well, I don’t mind him,” Guy said—“except the way he leans out on the turns.”
The woods were gone; the road had left the river to climb; the radiator was boiling; the young man looked annoyedly and suspiciously at the steam and rusty water; the engine was grinding, with both Guy’s feet on the first-speed pedal, up and up, back and forth and up, and, finally, out level. The grinding stopped, and in the new quiet there was a great churning bubbling in the radiator. We were at the top of the last range above Spezia and the sea. The road descended with short, barely rounded turns. Our guest hung out on the turns and nearly pulled the top-heavy car over.
“You can’t tell him not to,” I said to Guy. “It’s his sense of self-preservation.”
“The great Italian sense.”
“The greatest Italian sense.”
We came down around curves, through deep dust, the dust powdering the olive trees. Spezia spread below along the sea. The road flattened outside the town. Our guest put his head in the window.
“I want to stop.”
“Stop it,” I said to Guy.
We slowed up, at the side of the road. The young man got down, went to the back of the car and untied the suitcase.
“I stop here, so you won’t get into trouble carrying passengers,” he said. “My package.”
I handed him the package. He reached in his pocket.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then thanks,” the young man said, not “thank you,” or “thank you very much,” or “thank you a thousand times,” all of which you formerly said in Italy to a man when he handed you a time-table or explained about a direction. The young man uttered the lowest form of the word “thanks” and looked after us suspiciously as Guy started the car. I waved my hand at him. He was too dignified to reply. We went on into Spezia.
“That’s a young man that will go a long way in Italy,” I said to Guy.
“Well,” said Guy, “he went twenty kilometres with us.”
A MEAL IN SPEZIA
We came into Spezia looking for a place to eat. The street was wide and the houses high and yellow. We followed the tram-track into the centre of town. On the walls of the houses were stencilled eye-bugging portraits of Mussolini, with hand-painted “vivas,” the double V in black paint with drippings of paint down the wall. Side-streets went down to the harbor. It was bright and the people were all out for Sunday. The stone paving had been sprinkled and there were damp stretches in the dust. We went close to the curb to avoid a tram.
“Let’s eat somewhere simple,” Guy said.
We stopped opposite two restaurant signs. We were standing across the street and I was buying the papers. The two restaurants were side by side. A woman standing in the doorway of one smiled at us and we crossed the street and went in.
It was dark inside and at the back of the room three girls were sitting at a table with an old woman. Across from us, at another table, sat a sailor. He sat there neither eating nor drinking. Further back, a young man in a blue suit was writing at a table. His hair was pomaded and shining and he was very smartly dressed and clean-cut looking.
The light came through the doorway, and through the window where vegetables, fruit, steaks, and chops were arranged in a show-case. A girl came and took our order and another girl stood in the doorway. We noticed that she wore nothing under her house dress. The girl who took our order put her arm around Guy’s neck while we were looking at the menu. There were three girls in all, and they all took turns going and standing in the doorway. The old woman at the table in the back of the room spoke to them and they sat down again with her.
There was no doorway leading from the room except into the kitchen. A curtain hung over it. The girl who had taken our order came in from the kitchen with spaghetti. She put it on the table and brought a bottle of red wine and sat down at the table.
“Well,” I said to Guy, “you wanted to eat some place simple.”
“This isn’t simple. This is complicated.”
“What do you say?” asked the girl. “Are you Germans?”
“South Germans,” I said. “The South Germans are a gentle, lovable people.”
“Don’t understand,” she said.
“What’s the mechanics of this place?” Guy asked. “Do I have to let her put her arm around my neck?”
“Certainly,” I said. “Mussolini has abolished the brothels. This is a restaurant.”
The girl wore a one-piece dress. She leaned forward against the table and put her hands on her breasts and smiled. She smiled better on one side than on the other and turned the good side toward us. The charm of the good side had been enhanced by some event which had smoothed the other side of her nose in, as warm wax can be smoothed. Her nose, however, did not look like warm wax. It was very cold and firmed, only smoothed in. “You like me?” she asked Guy.
“He adores you,” I said. “But he doesn’t speak Italian.”
“Ich spreche Deutsch,” she said, and stroked Guy’s hair.
“Speak to the lady in your native tongue, Guy.”
“Where do you come from?” asked the lady.
“Potsdam.”
“And you will stay here now for a little while?”
“In this so dear Spezia?” I asked.
“Tell her we have to go,” said Guy. “Tell her we are very ill, and have no money.”
“My friend is a misogynist,” I said, “an old German misogynist.”
“Tell him I love him.”
I told him.
“Will you shut your mouth and get us out of here?” Guy said. The lady had placed another arm around his neck. “Tell him he is mine,” she said. I told him.
“Will you get us out of here?”
“You are quarrelling,” the lady said. “You do not love one another.”
“We are Germans,” I said proudly, “old South Germans.”
“Tell him he is a beautiful boy,” the lady said. Guy is thirty-eight and takes some pride in the fact that he is taken for a travelling salesman in France. “You are a beautiful boy,” I said.
“Who says so?” Guy asked, “you or her?”
“She does. I’m just your interpreter. Isn’t that what you got me in on this trip for?”
“I’m glad it’s her,” said Guy. “I didn’t want to have to leave you here too.”
“I don’t know. Spezia’s a lovely place.”
“Spezia,” the lady said. “You are talking about Spezia.”
“Lovely place,” I said.
“It is my country,” she said. “Spezia is my home and Italy is my country.”
“She says that Italy is her country.”
“Tell her it looks like her country,” Guy said.
“What have you for dessert?” I asked.
“Fruit,” she said. “We have bananas.”
“Bananas are all right,” Guy said. “They’ve got skins on.”
“Oh, he takes bananas,” the lady said. She embraced Guy.
“What does she say?” he asked, keeping his face out of the way.
“She is pleased because you take bananas.”
“Tell her I don’t take bananas.”
“The Signor does not take bananas.”
“Ah,” said the lady, crestfallen, “he doesn’t take bananas.”
“Tell her I take a cold bath every morning,” Guy said.
“The Signor takes a cold bath every morning.”
“No understand,” the lady said.
Across from us, the property sailor had not moved. No one in the place paid any attention to him.
“We want the bill,” I said.
“Oh, no. You must stay.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said from the table where he was writing, “let them go. These two are worth nothing.”
The lady took my hand. “You won’t stay? You won’t ask him to stay?”
“We have to go,” I said. “We have to get to Pisa, or if possible, Firenze, to-night. We can amuse ourselves in those cities at the end of the day. It is now the day. In the day we must cover distance.”
“To stay a little while is nice.”
“To travel is necessary during the light of day.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said. “Don’t bother to talk with these two. I tell you they are worth nothing and I know.”
“Bring us the bill,” I said. She brought the bill from the old woman and went back and sat at the table. Another girl came in from the kitchen. She walked the length of the room and stood in the doorway.
“Don’t bother with these two,” the clean-cut young man said in a wearied voice. “Come and eat. They are worth nothing.”
We paid the bill and stood up. All the girls, the old woman, and the clean-cut young man sat down at table together. The property sailor sat with his head in his hands. No one had spoken to him all the time we were at lunch. The girl brought us our change that the old woman counted out for her and went back to her place at the table. We left a tip on the table and went out. When we were seated in the car ready to start, the girl came out and stood in the door. We started and I waved to her. She did not wave, but stood there looking after us.
AFTER THE RAIN
It was raining hard when we passed through the suburbs of Genoa and, even going very slowly behind the tram-cars and the motor trucks, liquid mud splashed on to the sidewalks, so that people stepped into doorways as they saw us coming. In San Pier d’Arena, the industrial suburb outside of Genoa, there is a wide street with two car-tracks and we drove down the centre to avoid sending the mud on to the men going home from work. On our left was the Mediterranean. There was a big sea running and waves broke and the wind blew the spray against the car. A river-bed that, when we had passed, going into Italy, had been wide, stony and dry, was running brown, and up to the banks. The brown water discolored the sea and as the waves thinned and cleared in breaking, the light came through the yellow water and the crests, detached by the wind, blew across the road.
A big car passed us, going fast, and a sheet of muddy water rose up and over our wind-shield and radiator. The automatic wind-shield cleaner moved back and forth, spreading the film over the glass. We stopped and ate lunch at Sestri. There was no heat in the restaurant and we kept our hats and coats on. We could see the car outside, through the window. It was covered with mud and was stopped beside some boats that had been pulled up beyond the waves. In the restaurant you could see your breath.
Thepasta asciutawas good; the wine tasted of alum, and we poured water in it. Afterward the waiter brought beefsteak and fried potatoes. A man and a woman sat at the far end of the restaurant. He was middle-aged and she was young and wore black. All during the meal she would blow out her breath in the cold damp air. The man would look at it and shake his head. They ate without talking and the man held her hand under the table. She was good-looking and they seemed very sad. They had a travelling-bag with them.
We had the papers and I read the account of the Shanghai fighting aloud to Guy. After the meal, he left with the waiter in search for a place which did not exist in the restaurant, and I cleaned off the wind-shield, the lights and the license plates with a rag. Guy came back and we backed the car out and started. The waiter had taken him across the road and into an old house. The people in the house were suspicious and the waiter had remained with Guy to see nothing was stolen.
“Although I don’t know how, me not being a plumber, they expected me to steal anything,” Guy said.
As we came up on a headland beyond the town, the wind struck the car and nearly tipped it over.
“It’s good it blows us away from the sea,” Guy said.
“Well,” I said, “they drowned Shelley somewhere along here.”
“That was down by Viareggio,” Guy said. “Do you remember what we came to this country for?”
“Yes,” I said, “but we didn’t get it.”
“We’ll be out of it to-night.”
“If we can get past Ventimiglia.”
“We’ll see. I don’t like to drive this coast at night.” It was early afternoon and the sun was out. Below, the sea was blue with whitecaps running toward Savona. Back, beyond the cape, the brown and blue waters joined. Out ahead of us, a tramp steamer was going up the coast.
“Can you still see Genoa?” Guy asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“That next big cape ought to put it out of sight.”
“We’ll see it a long time yet. I can still see Portofino Cape behind it.”
Finally we could not see Genoa. I looked back as we came out and there was only the sea, and below in the bay, a line of beach with fishing-boats and above, on the side of the hill, a town and then capes far down the coast.
“It’s gone now,” I said to Guy.
“Oh, it’s been gone a long time now.”
“But we couldn’t be sure till we got way out.”
There was a sign with a picture of an S-turn and Svolta Pericolosa. The road curved around the headland and the wind blew through the crack in the wind-shield. Below the cape was a flat stretch beside the sea. The wind had dried the mud and the wheels were beginning to lift dust. On the flat road we passed a Fascist riding a bicycle, a heavy revolver in a holster on his back. He held the middle of the road on his bicycle and we turned out for him. He looked up at us as we passed. Ahead there was a railway crossing, and as we came toward it the gates went down.
As we waited, the Fascist came up on his bicycle. The train went by and Guy started the engine.
“Wait,” the bicycle man shouted from behind the car. “Your number’s dirty.”
I got out with a rag. The number had been cleaned at lunch.
“You can read it,” I said.
“You think so?”
“Read it.”
“I cannot read it. It is dirty.”
I wiped it off with the rag.
“How’s that?”
“Twenty-five lire.”
“What?” I said. “You could have read it. It’s only dirty from the state of the roads.”
“You don’t like Italian roads?”
“They are dirty.”
“Fifty lire.” He spat in the road. “Your car is dirty and you are dirty too.”
“Good. And give me a receipt with your name.”
He took out a receipt-book, made in duplicate, and perforated, so one side could be given to the customer, and the other side filled in and kept as a stub. There was no carbon to record what the customer’s ticket said.
“Give me fifty lire.”
He wrote in indelible pencil, tore out the slip and handed it to me. I read it.
“This is for twenty-five lire.”
“A mistake,” he said, and changed the twenty-five to fifty.
“And now the other side. Make it fifty in the part you keep.”
He smiled a beautiful Italian smile and wrote something on the receipt stub, holding it so I could not see.
“Go on,” he said, “before your number gets dirty again.”
We drove for two hours after it was dark and slept in Mentone that night. It seemed very cheerful and clean and sane and lovely. We had driven from Ventimiglia to Pisa and Florence, across the Romagna to Rimini, back through Forli, Imola, Bologna, Parma, Piacenza and Genoa, to Ventimiglia again. The whole trip had only taken ten days. Naturally, in such a short trip, we had no opportunity to see how things were with the country or the people.
FIFTY GRAND
“Howare you going yourself, Jack?” I asked him.
“You seen this, Walcott?” he says.
“Just in the gym.”
“Well,” Jack says, “I’m going to need a lot of luck with that boy.”
“He can’t hit you, Jack,” Soldier said.
“I wish to hell he couldn’t.”
“He couldn’t hit you with a handful of bird-shot.”
“Bird-shot’d be all right,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t mind bird-shot any.”
“He looks easy to hit,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “he ain’t going to last long. He ain’t going to last like you and me, Jerry. But right now he’s got everything.”
“You’ll left-hand him to death.”
“Maybe,” Jack says. “Sure. I got a chance to.”
“Handle him like you handled Kid Lewis.”
“Kid Lewis,” Jack said. “That kike!”
The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in Handley’s. There were a couple of broads sitting at the next table to us. They had been drinking.
“What do you mean, kike?” one of the broads says. “What do you mean, kike, you big Irish bum?”
“Sure,” Jack says. “That’s it.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “They’re always talking about kikes, these big Irishmen. What do you mean, kikes?”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “Whoever saw you ever buy a drink? Your wife sews your pockets up every morning. These Irishmen and their kikes! Ted Lewis could lick you too.”
“Sure,” Jack says. “And you give away a lot of things free too, don’t you?”
We went out. That was Jack. He could say what he wanted to when he wanted to say it.
Jack started training out at Danny Hogan’s health-farm over in Jersey. It was nice out there but Jack didn’t like it much. He didn’t like being away from his wife and the kids, and he was sore and grouchy most of the time. He liked me and we got along fine together; and he liked Hogan, but after a while Soldier Bartlett commenced to get on his nerves. A kidder gets to be an awful thing around a camp if his stuff goes sort of sour. Soldier was always kidding Jack, just sort of kidding him all the time. It wasn’t very funny and it wasn’t very good, and it began to get to Jack. It was sort of stuff like this. Jack would finish up with the weights and the bag and pull on the gloves.
“You want to work?” he’d say to Soldier.
“Sure. How you want me to work?” Soldier would ask. “Want me to treat you rough like Walcott? Want me to knock you down a few times?”
“That’s it,” Jack would say. He didn’t like it any, though.
One morning we were all out on the road. We’d been out quite a way and now we were coming back. We’d go along fast for three minutes and then walk a minute, and then go fast for three minutes again. Jack wasn’t ever what you would call a sprinter. He’d move around fast enough in the ring if he had to, but he wasn’t any too fast on the road. All the time we were walking Soldier was kidding him. We came up the hill to the farmhouse.
“Well,” says Jack, “you better go back to town, Soldier.”
“What do you mean?”
“You better go back to town and stay there.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m sick of hearing you talk.”
“Yes?” says Soldier.
“Yes,” says Jack.
“You’ll be a damn sight sicker when Walcott gets through with you.”
“Sure,” says Jack, “maybe I will. But I know I’m sick of you.”
So Soldier went off on the train to town that same morning. I went down with him to the train. He was good and sore.
“I was just kidding him,” he said. We were waiting on the platform. “He can’t pull that stuff with me, Jerry.”
“He’s nervous and crabby,” I said. “He’s a good fellow, Soldier.”
“The hell he is. The hell he’s ever been a good fellow.”
“Well,” I said, “so long, Soldier.”
The train had come in. He climbed up with his bag.
“So long, Jerry,” he says. “You be in town before the fight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“See you then.”
He went in and the conductor swung up and the train went out. I rode back to the farm in the cart. Jack was on the porch writing a letter to his wife. The mail had come and I got the papers and went over on the other side of the porch and sat down to read. Hogan came out the door and walked over to me.
“Did he have a jam with Soldier?”
“Not a jam,” I said. “He just told him to go back to town.”
“I could see it coming,” Hogan said. “He never liked Soldier much.”
“No. He don’t like many people.”
“He’s a pretty cold one,” Hogan said.
“Well, he’s always been fine to me.”
“Me too,” Hogan said. “I got no kick on him. He’s a cold one, though.”
Hogan went in through the screen door and I sat there on the porch and read the papers. It was just starting to get fall weather and it’s nice country there in Jersey, up in the hills, and after I read the paper through I sat there and looked out at the country and the road down below against the woods with cars going along it, lifting the dust up. It was fine weather and pretty nice-looking country. Hogan came to the door and I said, “Say, Hogan, haven’t you got anything to shoot out here?”
“No,” Hogan said. “Only sparrows.”
“Seen the paper?” I said to Hogan.
“What’s in it?”
“Sande booted three of them in yesterday.”
“I got that on the telephone last night.”
“You follow them pretty close, Hogan?” I asked.
“Oh, I keep in touch with them,” Hogan said.
“How about Jack?” I says. “Does he still play them?”
“Him?” said Hogan. “Can you see him doing it?”
Just then Jack came around the corner with the letter in his hand. He’s wearing a sweater and an old pair of pants and boxing shoes.
“Got a stamp, Hogan?” he asks.
“Give me the letter,” Hogan said. “I’ll mail it for you.”
“Say, Jack,” I said, “didn’t you used to play the ponies?”
“Sure.”
“I knew you did. I knew I used to see you out at Sheepshead.”
“What did you lay off them for?” Hogan asked.
“Lost money.”
Jack sat down on the porch by me. He leaned back against a post. He shut his eyes in the sun.
“Want a chair?” Hogan asked.
“No,” said Jack. “This is fine.”
“It’s a nice day,” I said. “It’s pretty nice out in the country.”
“I’d a damn sight rather be in town with the wife.”
“Well, you only got another week.”
“Yes,” Jack says. “That’s so.”
We sat there on the porch. Hogan was inside at the office.
“What do you think about the shape I’m in?” Jack asked me.
“Well, you can’t tell,” I said. “You got a week to get around into form.”
“Don’t stall me.”
“Well,” I said, “you’re not right.”
“I’m not sleeping,” Jack said.
“You’ll be all right in a couple of days.”
“No,” says Jack, “I got the insomnia.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I miss the wife.”
“Have her come out.”
“No. I’m too old for that.”
“We’ll take a long walk before you turn in and get you good and tired.”
“Tired!” Jack says. “I’m tired all the time.”
He was that way all week. He wouldn’t sleep at night and he’d get up in the morning feeling that way, you know, when you can’t shut your hands.
“He’s stale as poorhouse cake,” Hogan said. “He’s nothing.”
“I never seen Walcott,” I said.
“He’ll kill him,” said Hogan. “He’ll tear him in two.”
“Well,” I said, “everybody’s got to get it sometime.”
“Not like this, though,” Hogan said. “They’ll think he never trained. It gives the farm a black eye.”
“You hear what the reporters said about him?”
“Didn’t I! They said he was awful. They said they oughtn’t to let him fight.”
“Well,” I said, “they’re always wrong, ain’t they?”
“Yes,” said Hogan. “But this time they’re right.”
“What the hell do they know about whether a man’s right or not?”
“Well,” said Hogan, “they’re not such fools.”
“All they did was pick Willard at Toledo. This Lardner, he’s so wise now, ask him about when he picked Willard at Toledo.”
“Aw, he wasn’t out,” Hogan said. “He only writes the big fights.”
“I don’t care who they are,” I said. “What the hell do they know? They can write maybe, but what the hell do they know?”
“You don’t think Jack’s in any shape, do you?” Hogan asked.
“No. He’s through. All he needs is to have Corbett pick him to win for it to be all over.”
“Well, Corbett’ll pick him,” Hogan says.
“Sure. He’ll pick him.”
That night Jack didn’t sleep any either. The next morning was the last day before the fight. After breakfast we were out on the porch again.
“What do you think about, Jack, when you can’t sleep?” I said.
“Oh, I worry,” Jack says. “I worry about property I got up in the Bronx, I worry about property I got in Florida. I worry about the kids. I worry about the wife. Sometimes I think about fights. I think about that kike Ted Lewis and I get sore. I got some stocks and I worry about them. What the hell don’t I think about?”
“Well,” I said, “to-morrow night it’ll all be over.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “That always helps a lot, don’t it? That just fixes everything all up, I suppose. Sure.”
He was sore all day. We didn’t do any work. Jack just moved around a little to loosen up. He shadow-boxed a few rounds. He didn’t even look good doing that. He skipped the rope a little while. He couldn’t sweat.
“He’d be better not to do any work at all,” Hogan said. We were standing watching him skip rope. “Don’t he ever sweat at all any more?”
“He can’t sweat.”
“Do you suppose he’s got the con? He never had any trouble making weight, did he?”
“No, he hasn’t got any con. He just hasn’t got anything inside any more.”
“He ought to sweat,” said Hogan.
Jack came over, skipping the rope. He was skipping up and down in front of us, forward and back, crossing his arms every third time.
“Well,” he says. “What are you buzzards talking about?”
“I don’t think you ought to work any more,” Hogan says. “You’ll be stale.”
“Wouldn’t that be awful?” Jack says and skips away down the floor, slapping the rope hard.
That afternoon John Collins showed up out at the farm. Jack was up in his room. John, came out in a car from town. He had a couple of friends with him. The car stopped and they all got out.
“Where’s Jack?” John asked me.
“Up in his room, lying down.”
“Lying down?”
“Yes,” I said.
“How is he?”
I looked at the two fellows that were with John.
“They’re friends of his,” John said.
“He’s pretty bad,” I said.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He don’t sleep.”
“Hell,” said John. “That Irishman could never sleep.”
“He isn’t right,” I said.
“Hell,” John said. “He’s never right. I’ve had him for ten years and he’s never been right yet.”
The fellows who were with him laughed.
“I want you to shake hands with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Steinfelt,” John said. “This is Mr. Doyle. He’s been training Jack.”
“Glad to meet you,” I said.
“Let’s go up and see the boy,” the fellow called Morgan said.
“Let’s have a look at him,” Steinfelt said.
We all went upstairs.
“Where’s Hogan?” John asked.
“He’s out in the barn with a couple of his customers,” I said.
“He got many people out here now?” John asked.
“Just two.”
“Pretty quiet, ain’t it?” Morgan said.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s pretty quiet.”
We were outside Jack’s room. John knocked on the door. There wasn’t any answer.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” I said.
“What the hell’s he sleeping in the daytime for?”
John turned the handle and we all went in. Jack was lying asleep on the bed. He was face down and his face was in the pillow. Both his arms were around the pillow.
“Hey, Jack!” John said to him.
Jack’s head moved a little on the pillow. “Jack!” John says, leaning over him. Jack just dug a little deeper in the pillow. John touched him on the shoulder. Jack sat up and looked at us. He hadn’t shaved and he was wearing an old sweater.
“Christ! Why can’t you let me sleep?” he says to John.
“Don’t be sore,” John says. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Oh no,” Jack says. “Of course not.”
“You know Morgan and Steinfelt,” John said.
“Glad to see you,” Jack says.
“How do you feel, Jack,” Morgan asks him.
“Fine,” Jack says. “How the hell would I feel?”
“You look fine,” Steinfelt says.
“Yes, don’t I,” says Jack. “Say,” he says to John. “You’re my manager. You get a big enough cut. Why the hell don’t you come out here when the reporters was out! You want Jerry and me to talk to them?”
“I had Lew fighting in Philadelphia,” John said.
“What the hell’s that to me?” Jack says. “You’re my manager. You get a big enough cut, don’t you? You aren’t making me any money in Philadelphia, are you? Why the hell aren’t you out here when I ought to have you?”
“Hogan was here.”
“Hogan,” Jack says. “Hogan’s as dumb as I am.”
“Soldier Bathlett was out here wukking with you for a while, wasn’t he?” Steinfelt said to change the subject.
“Yes, he was out here,” Jack says. “He was out here all right.”
“Say, Jerry,” John said to me. “Would you go and find Hogan and tell him we want to see him in about half an hour?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Why the hell can’t he stick around?” Jack says. “Stick around, Jerry.”
Morgan and Steinfelt looked at each other.
“Quiet down, Jack,” John said to him.
“I better go find Hogan,” I said.
“All right, if you want to go,” Jack says. “None of these guys are going to send you away, though.”
“I’ll go find Hogan,” I said.
Hogan was out in the gym in the barn. He had a couple of his health-farm patients with the gloves on. They neither one wanted to hit the other, for fear the other would come back and hit him.
“That’ll do,” Hogan said when he saw me come in. “You can stop the slaughter. You gentlemen take a shower and Bruce will rub you down.”
They climbed out through the ropes and Hogan came over to me.
“John Collins is out with a couple of friends to see Jack,” I said.
“I saw them come up in the car.”
“Who are the two fellows with John?”
“They’re what you call wise boys,” Hogan said. “Don’t you know them two?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s Happy Steinfelt and Lew Morgan. They got a pool-room.”
“I been away a long time,” I said.
“Sure,” said Hogan. “That Happy Steinfelt’s a big operator.”
“I’ve heard his name,” I said.
“He’s a pretty smooth boy,” Hogan said. “They’re a couple of sharpshooters.”
“Well,” I said. “They want to see us in half an hour.”
“You mean they don’t want to see us until a half an hour?”
“That’s it.”
“Come on in the office,” Hogan said. “To hell with those sharpshooters.”
After about thirty minutes or so Hogan and I went upstairs. We knocked on Jack’s door. They were talking inside the room.
“Wait a minute,” somebody said.
“To hell with that stuff,” Hogan said. “When you want to see me I’m down in the office.”
We heard the door unlock. Steinfelt opened it.
“Come on in, Hogan,” he says. “We’re all going to have a drink.”
“Well,” says Hogan. “That’s something.”
We went in. Jack was sitting on the bed. John and Morgan were sitting on a couple of chairs. Steinfelt was standing up.
“You’re a pretty mysterious lot of boys,” Hogan said.
“Hello, Danny,” John says.
“Hello, Danny,” Morgan says and shakes hands.
Jack doesn’t say anything. He just sits there on the bed. He ain’t with the others. He’s all by himself. He was wearing an old blue jersey and pants and had on boxing shoes. He needed a shave. Steinfelt and Morgan were dressers. John was quite a dresser too. Jack sat there looking Irish and tough.
Steinfelt brought out a bottle and Hogan brought in some glasses and everybody had a drink. Jack and I took one and the rest of them went on and had two or three each.
“Better save some for your ride back,” Hogan said.
“Don’t you worry. We got plenty,” Morgan said.
Jack hadn’t drunk anything since the one drink. He was standing up and looking at them. Morgan was sitting on the bed where Jack had sat.
“Have a drink, Jack,” John said and handed him the glass and the bottle.
“No,” Jack said, “I never liked to go to these wakes.”
They all laughed. Jack didn’t laugh.
They were all feeling pretty good when they left. Jack stood on the porch when they got into the car. They waved to him.
“So long,” Jack said.
We had supper. Jack didn’t say anything all during the meal except, “Will you pass me this?” or “Will you pass me that?” The two health-farm patients ate at the same table with us. They were pretty nice fellows. After we finished eating we went out on the porch. It was dark early.
“Like to take a walk, Jerry?” Jack asked.
“Sure,” I said.
We put on our coats and started out. It was quite a way down to the main road and then we walked along the main road about a mile and a half. Cars kept going by and we would pull out to the side until they were past. Jack didn’t say anything. After we had stepped out into the bushes to let a big car go by Jack said, “To hell with this walking. Come on back to Hogan’s.”
We went along a side road that cut up over the hill and cut across the fields back to Hogan’s. We could see the lights of the house up on the hill. We came around to the front of the house and there standing in the doorway was Hogan.
“Have a good walk?” Hogan asked.
“Oh, fine,” Jack said. “Listen, Hogan. Have you got any liquor?”
“Sure,” says Hogan. “What’s the idea?”
“Send it up to the room,” Jack says. “I’m going to sleep to-night.”
“You’re the doctor,” Hogan says.
“Come on up to the room, Jerry,” Jack says.
Upstairs Jack sat on the bed with his head in his hands.
“Ain’t it a life?” Jack says.
Hogan brought in a quart of liquor and two glasses.
“Want some ginger-ale?”
“What do you think I want to do, get sick?”
“I just asked you,” said Hogan.
“Have a drink?” said Jack.
“No, thanks,” said Hogan. He went out.
“How about you, Jerry?”
“I’ll have one with you,” I said.
Jack poured out a couple of drinks. “Now,” he said, “I want to take it slow and easy.”
“Put some water in it,” I said.
“Yes,” Jack said. “I guess that’s better.”
We had a couple of drinks without saying anything. Jack started to pour me another.
“No,” I said, “that’s all I want.”
“All right,” Jack said. He poured himself out another big shot and put water in it. He was lighting up a little.
“That was a fine bunch out here this afternoon,” he said. “They don’t take any chances, those two.”
Then a little later, “Well,” he says, “they’re right. What the hell’s the good in taking chances?”
“Don’t you want another, Jerry?” he said. “Come on, drink along with me.”
“I don’t need it, Jack,” I said. “I feel all right.”
“Just have one more,” Jack said. It was softening him up.
“All right,” I said.
Jack poured one for me and another big one for himself.
“You know,” he said, “I like liquor pretty well. If I hadn’t been boxing I would have drunk quite a lot.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You know,” he said, “I missed a lot, boxing.”
“You made plenty of money.”
“Sure, that’s what I’m after. You know I miss a lot, Jerry.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, “like about the wife. And being away from home so much. It don’t do my girls any good. ‘Whose your old man?’ some of those society kids’ll say to them. ‘My old man’s Jack Brennan.’ That don’t do them any good.”
“Hell,” I said, “all that makes a difference is if they got dough.”
“Well,” says Jack, “I got the dough for them all right.”
He poured out another drink. The bottle was about empty.
“Put some water in it,” I said. Jack poured in some water.
“You know,” he says, “you ain’t got any idea how I miss the wife.”
“Sure.”
“You ain’t got any idea. You can’t have an idea what it’s like.”
“It ought to be better out in the country than in town.”
“With me now,” Jack said, “it don’t make any difference where I am. You can’t have an idea what it’s like.”
“Have another drink.”
“Am I getting soused? Do I talk funny?”
“You’re coming on all right.”
“You can’t have an idea what it’s like. They ain’t anybody can have an idea what it’s like.”
“Except the wife,” I said.
“She knows,” Jack said. “She knows all right. She knows. You bet she knows.”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
“Jerry,” says Jack, “you can’t have an idea what it gets to be like.”
He was good and drunk. He was looking at me steady. His eyes were sort of too steady.
“You’ll sleep all right,” I said.
“Listen, Jerry,” Jack says. “You want to make some money? Get some money down on Walcott.”
“Yes?”
“Listen, Jerry,” Jack put down the glass. “I’m not drunk now, see? You know what I’m betting on him? Fifty grand.”
“That’s a lot of dough.”
“Fifty grand,” Jack says, “at two to one. I’ll get twenty-five thousand bucks. Get some money on him, Jerry.”
“It sounds good,” I said.
“How can I beat him?” Jack says. “It ain’t crooked. How can I beat him? Why not make money on it?”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
“I’m through after this fight,” Jack says. “I’m through with it. I got to take a beating. Why shouldn’t I make money on it?”
“Sure.”
“I ain’t slept for a week,” Jack says. “All night I lay awake and worry my can off. I can’t sleep, Jerry. You ain’t got an idea what it’s like when you can’t sleep.”
“Sure.”
“I can’t sleep. That’s all. I just can’t sleep. What’s the use of taking care of yourself all these years when you can’t sleep?”
“It’s bad.”
“You ain’t got an idea what it’s like, Jerry, when you can’t sleep.”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
Well, about eleven o’clock Jack passes out and I put him to bed. Finally he’s so he can’t keep from sleeping. I helped him get his clothes off and got him into bed.
“You’ll sleep all right, Jack,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “I’ll sleep now.”
“Good-night, Jack,” I said.
“Good-night, Jerry,” Jack says. “You’re the only friend I got.”
“Oh, hell,” I said.
“You’re the only friend I got,” Jack says, “the only friend I got.”
“Go to sleep,” I said.
“I’ll sleep,” Jack says.
Downstairs Hogan was sitting at the desk in the office reading the papers. He looked up. “Well, you get your boy friend to sleep?” he asks.
“He’s off.”
“It’s better for him than not sleeping,” Hogan said.
“Sure.”
“You’d have a hell of a time explaining that to these sport writers though,” Hogan said.
“Well, I’m going to bed myself,” I said.
“Good-night,” said Hogan.
In the morning I came downstairs about eight o’clock and got some breakfast. Hogan had his two customers out in the barn doing exercises. I went out and watched them.
“One! Two! Three! Four!” Hogan was counting for them. “Hello, Jerry,” he said. “Is Jack up yet?”
“No. He’s still sleeping.”
I went back to my room and packed up to go in to town. About nine-thirty I heard Jack getting up in the next room. When I heard him go downstairs I went down after him. Jack was sitting at the breakfast table. Hogan had come in and was standing beside the table.
“How do you feel, Jack?” I asked him.
“Not so bad.”
“Sleep well?” Hogan asked.
“I slept all right,” Jack said. “I got a thick tongue but I ain’t got a head.”
“Good,” said Hogan. “That was good liquor.”
“Put it on the bill,” Jack says.
“What time you want to go into town?” Hogan asked.
“Before lunch,” Jack says. “The eleven o’clock train.”
“Sit down, Jerry,” Jack said. Hogan went out.
I sat down at the table. Jack was eating a grape-fruit. When he’d find a seed he’d spit it out in the spoon and dump it on the plate.
“I guess I was pretty stewed last night,” he started.
“You drank some liquor.”
“I guess I said a lot of fool things.”
“You weren’t bad.”
“Where’s Hogan?” he asked. He was through with the grape-fruit.
“He’s out in front in the office.”
“What did I say about betting on the fight?” Jack asked. He was holding the spoon and sort of poking at the grape-fruit with it.
The girl came in with some ham and eggs and took away the grape-fruit.
“Bring me another glass of milk,” Jack said to her. She went out.
“You said you had fifty grand on Walcott,” I said.
“That’s right,” Jack said.
“That’s a lot of money.”
“I don’t feel too good about it,” Jack said.
“Something might happen.”
“No,” Jack said. “He wants the title bad. They’ll be shooting with him all right.”
“You can’t ever tell.”
“No. He wants the title. It’s worth a lot of money to him.”
“Fifty grand is a lot of money,” I said.
“It’s business,” said Jack. “I can’t win. You know I can’t win anyway.”
“As long as you’re in there you got a chance.”
“No,” Jack says. “I’m all through. It’s just business.”
“How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” Jack said. “The sleep was what I needed.”
“You might go good.”
“I’ll give them a good show,” Jack said.
After breakfast Jack called up his wife on the long-distance. He was inside the booth telephoning.
“That’s the first time he’s called her up since he’s out here,” Hogan said.
“He writes her every day.”
“Sure,” Hogan says, “a letter only costs two cents.”
Hogan said good-by to us and Bruce, the nigger rubber, drove us down to the train in the cart.
“Good-by, Mr. Brennan,” Bruce said at the train, “I sure hope you knock his can off.”
“So long,” Jack said. He gave Bruce two dollars. Bruce had worked on him a lot. He looked kind of disappointed. Jack saw me looking at Bruce holding the two dollars.
“It’s all in the bill,” he said. “Hogan charged me for the rubbing.”
On the train going into town Jack didn’t talk. He sat in the corner of the seat with his ticket in his hat-band and looked out of the window. Once he turned and spoke to me.
“I told the wife I’d take a room at the Shelby to-night,” he said. “It’s just around the corner from the Garden. I can go up to the house to-morrow morning.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Your wife ever see you fight, Jack?”
“No,” Jack says. “She never seen me fight.”
I thought he must be figuring on taking an awful beating if he doesn’t want to go home afterward. In town we took a taxi up to the Shelby. A boy came out and took our bags and we went in to the desk.
“How much are the rooms?” Jack asked.
“We only have double rooms,” the clerk says. “I can give you a nice double room for ten dollars.”
“That’s too steep.”
“I can give you a double room for seven dollars.”
“With a bath?”
“Certainly.”
“You might as well bunk with me, Jerry,” Jack says.
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll sleep down at my brother-in-law’s.”
“I don’t mean for you to pay it,” Jack says. “I just want to get my money’s worth.”
“Will you register, please?” the clerk says. He looked at the names. “Number 238, Mister Brennan.”
We went up in the elevator. It was a nice big room with two beds and a door opening into a bath-room.
“This is pretty good,” Jack says.
The boy who brought us up pulled up the curtains and brought in our bags. Jack didn’t make any move, so I gave the boy a quarter. We washed up and Jack said we better go out and get something to eat.
We ate a lunch at Jimmey Handley’s place. Quite a lot of the boys were there. When we were about half through eating, John came in and sat down with us. Jack didn’t talk much.
“How are you on the weight, Jack?” John asked him. Jack was putting away a pretty good lunch.
“I could make it with my clothes on,” Jack said. He never had to worry about taking off weight. He was a natural welter-weight and he’d never gotten fat. He’d lost weight out at Hogan’s.
“Well, that’s one thing you never had to worry about,” John said.
“That’s one thing,” Jack says.
We went around to the garden to weigh in after lunch. The match was made at a hundred forty-seven pounds at three o’clock. Jack stepped on the scales with a towel around him. The bar didn’t move. Walcott had just weighed and was standing with a lot of people around him.
“Let’s see what you weigh, Jack,” Freedman, Walcott’s manager said.
“All right, weighhimthen,” Jack jerked his head toward Walcott.
“Drop the towel,” Freedman said.
“What do you make it?” Jack asked the fellows who were weighing.
“One hundred and forty-three pounds,” the fat man who was weighing said.
“You’re down fine, Jack,” Freedman says.
“Weighhim,” Jack says.
Walcott came over. He was a blond with wide shoulders and arms like a heavyweight. He didn’t have much legs. Jack stood about half a head taller than he did.
“Hello, Jack,” he said. His face was plenty marked up.
“Hello,” said Jack. “How you feel?”
“Good,” Walcott says. He dropped the towel from around his waist and stood on the scales. He had the widest shoulders and back you ever saw.
“One hundred and forty-six pounds and twelve ounces.”
Walcott stepped off and grinned at Jack.
“Well,” John says to him, “Jack’s spotting you about four pounds.”
“More than that when I come in, kid,” Walcott says. “I’m going to go and eat now.”
We went back and Jack got dressed. “He’s a pretty tough-looking boy,” Jack says to me.
“He looks as though he’d been hit plenty of times.”
“Oh, yes,” Jack says. “He ain’t hard to hit.”