Fixed by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Boxing
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2015-01-15T23:00:00+00:00

THE two had met in the center of the ring to shake hands, receive the final instructions. Now they came out fighting, as different in style as in build and color. Slam Finnegan, hardly more than a lightweight about the hips and spindling legs, had his weight layered around the shoulders and drawn down over his capable arms. He stepped in a light, mincing dance. The Negro was carefully muscled in every part; he wore a gravely studious air as he glided in and out with his stance rather low as against the tiptoe alertness of the white boy.

They came to the danger line, shifted away from it, met again with a sudden darting of gloves. Finnegan shook his head, stepped back; the Negro wove in after him; the whole Garden yelled with delight, seeing that this was to be a fight and not a sparring match.

Sammy said: “What I tell you? Notice the way that coon let ‘em slide off the back of his head? See that left he stuck into Finnegan’s belly? That didn’t do Slam any good!”

Slam Finnegan, backing away, pecked at a distance. The punches missed the bobbing head of “Little David” LaRue.

“He can hit when he’s on his heels, is what Finnegan can do, can’t he?” pleaded Sammy.

“You’ll see,” grunted Big Bill.

He turned his head and surveyed the crowd, particularly the working faces along the near-by benches. Their eyes were wide, glaring; some of the men worked their shoulders to help home punches; some made little automatic gestures as though they were blocking hard blows. No one in the great house sat immobile, at ease, except Big Bill, a deity raised above the pitiful human concerns of the millions. For he alone had knowledge of what the end must be.

He watched young Finnegan take the initiative suddenly, hammering home short blows to the body as he backed the Negro into a corner. The crowd yelled, the dry tinder of its enthusiasm for a favorite flaming up suddenly. For from exactly such an attack Finnegan knew how to shift a blow to the head and end a battle.

The round ended. Finnegan sat with his head down a little, his father handling him, sneering out words from the drooping corner of his mouth. Across the ring Little David had begun to laugh. Still laughing, he patted his body, looking up at his trainer. It was plain that the punches of Finnegan had not injured him.

“The nigger’s tough,” said Sammy Rosenbloom. “He sure can take it. Out on the Coast…”

“Ah. shut up for a minute,” said Big Bill. He leaned forward. “What you think, honey?” he asked.

“Idon’t know… Slam isn’t right,” said the girl. She turned her troubled face. “There’s not so much of the old ‘I be damned’ about him. He studies around too much. What’s he think he’s doing? Reading a book?”

“No, counting money,” chuckled Big Bill, settling back into his place.

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