The Harder They Fall by Budd Schulberg

Author:Budd Schulberg [Budd Schulberg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749013172
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-09-19T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘I got a good idea,’ the photographer said. ‘Sit him down on the ground and photograph him with his feet close to the camera, so they’ll look a mile high.’

We sat him down.

‘How about this?’ I said. ‘Stand him up and shoot up at him – the skyscraper angle.’

‘That’s a honey,’ the photographer said.

We stood him up.

‘Now let’s get a big close-up, one of those distortion jobs. Shove that big puss right into the lens.’

We tilted his head. We posed him with wine barrels, hung him from the branch of a tree like Tarzan. We had him putting away six fried eggs, being massaged by two rubbers at one time. We photographed him with his enormous gloved fist in the foreground, sighting along his forty-inch reach. We caught him ‘in action’ with George, ‘landing his famous mazo punch’, which, our caption was going to inform the unsuspecting reader, Toro had developed back in his little Andean winery when he used to drive the bung into the barrel with a single blow of his heavy mallet.

The mazo was just a wild roundhouse right swing, which any third-rate professional could parry with his left, and counter with a right that would have caught Toro exposed and off balance. But fortunately for this racket, the fight fan who knows the finer points of the sport is a rare item. Most of them just come for the massive pleasure of seeing one guy beat the hell out of another guy, and if you give them something like a mazo punch to chew on, they’ll turn cheerfully to their neighbour and say, ‘Boy, here comes that old mazo again.’

When we had enough pictures, Danny put Toro through a couple of rounds of shadow-boxing. Shadow-boxing, working through all the motions of offence and defence, against an imaginary opponent, can be beautiful to watch. With a fast, skilful boy who knows what he’s doing, it becomes a kind of modern war dance. The fighter weaves and feints, shoots his punches sharply into the air, pivots and circles. But Toro just plodded dully around the ring, pawing the air.

‘Faster, snap it up,’ Danny snarled.

Toro looked over with the white of his eyes showing in fear. He was afraid of Danny. He knew Danny had no use for him. He made an effort to move faster and sharpen up his punches, but it was just as Danny said: the big knotty muscles were in his way. He breathed hard with the effort of impressing Danny.

‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Danny said.

‘But this shadow-boxing, it is not natural for him,’ Acosta hurried to explain. ‘This does not mean that when he is in the ring with …’

‘Will you dry up and blow away?’ Danny said. Acosta’s eager face drew back into a subdued pout. Danny rang the bell impatiently. ‘All right, George,’ he called. ‘Let’s go two three-minute rounds.’ As George shuffled into the ring, Danny said, ‘Keep him working, keep him busy, don’t give him a chance to loaf.’

George pushed one glove against the other casually.

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