guy’s head and made him get in the ring.”
“He might be dead, for Christ’s sake.”
“And if he is, what’s anybody supposed to do about it?”
O’Connor gestured in vague exasperation. “I don’t know!”
“Then what are we talking about?”
O’Connor turned to Pete the Goat, who was paring his nails with a pocketknife. “What do you think?”
The Goat pondered the question. He shifted the chaw in his cheek. “Well, I’ll tell you, one of the first fights I ever saw, bareknuckle I’m talking about, back when I was a kid, my uncle was working a corner and let me sit next to him. My uncle’s fighter was a fella called Moe, and in the fifth round he some way or other knocks an eye out the other guy’s head. Swear to God. There wasn’t much blood, a smear of it under the empty socket is all, and the eye’s hanging halfway down the guy’s cheek on some little stringy veins, I guess they were. You never saw nothing like it. Anyway, the ref stops the fight for a minute to try and figure out what to do. He asks the pug can he keep on fighting and the pug says yeah, but not with his eye hanging down like that because he can still see with it and it’s showing him his feet while the other eye’s showing him what’s in front of him and the whole thing’s terrible confusing and starting to make him dizzy, which I found easy to believe. Hiscornermen all have a close study of it and they don’t see any way to put the eye back in his head, so the pug tells them to just go ahead and pull it off and hold on to it so he can give it a proper burial later on. So they do, and the pug says that’s better, at least he’s not seeing in two different directions at once anymore. The ref asks is he sure he wants to go on with the match and the pug says yeah. Now, you’d figure a fighter with two eyes has got a pretty big advantage over a guy with just one, but turns out my uncle’s fighter, this guy Moe, had a delicate stomach. When the ref tells them to resume fighting, they swap a few jabs and Moe lands one on that empty socket, then steps back with this kinda sick look, then bends over and starts puking. And while he’s doing that, the one-eyed guy steps up and hits him with an uppercut from down around his ankles and Moe goes about a foot in the air and comes down like a sack of bricks. You coulda gone out and had yourself some supper and a cigar and still got back in plenty of time before he woke up.”
He paused and spat a streak of tobacco. “Boxing’s a rough game. Kinda funny sometimes, kinda strange sometimes, kinda sad sometimes. But all the time rough. Like the man said, it ain’t for everybody. Anyhow, that’s what I think.” And went back to paring his nails.
Ketchel grinned like a mule chewing briars.
O’Connor glared from one to the other. “Jesus Harrison Christ, I ask a goddamn simple question….”
I N TRUTH , K ETCHEL was not sure how he felt about the rumor that Curley Rue had died in consequence of the beating he’d given him, and because he was not one to be unsure about himself the uncertainty made him angry and troubled his sleep for the nexttwo nights. Then late the following afternoon came the news that James Jeffries had retired, the only heavyweight champ up to that time to retire undefeated. And Ketchel recalled a recurrent dream he used to have about Jeffries, a dream he’d never told to anyone except Kate.
The particulars were always the same. It was a fight to the finish for the heavyweight title and they slugged it out all day and all night, beating each other bloody into the 212th round while spectators came and went and the faces at ringside changed continually. But at the bell to begin round 213, Jeffries could no longer muster the strength to raise his arms, and Ketchel set himself and threw a tremendous overhand at big Jeff’s unprotected jaw. But on every occasion of the dream, in the instant before the punch struck he woke up.
Kate had not been
“He might be dead, for Christ’s sake.”
“And if he is, what’s anybody supposed to do about it?”
O’Connor gestured in vague exasperation. “I don’t know!”
“Then what are we talking about?”
O’Connor turned to Pete the Goat, who was paring his nails with a pocketknife. “What do you think?”
The Goat pondered the question. He shifted the chaw in his cheek. “Well, I’ll tell you, one of the first fights I ever saw, bareknuckle I’m talking about, back when I was a kid, my uncle was working a corner and let me sit next to him. My uncle’s fighter was a fella called Moe, and in the fifth round he some way or other knocks an eye out the other guy’s head. Swear to God. There wasn’t much blood, a smear of it under the empty socket is all, and the eye’s hanging halfway down the guy’s cheek on some little stringy veins, I guess they were. You never saw nothing like it. Anyway, the ref stops the fight for a minute to try and figure out what to do. He asks the pug can he keep on fighting and the pug says yeah, but not with his eye hanging down like that because he can still see with it and it’s showing him his feet while the other eye’s showing him what’s in front of him and the whole thing’s terrible confusing and starting to make him dizzy, which I found easy to believe. Hiscornermen all have a close study of it and they don’t see any way to put the eye back in his head, so the pug tells them to just go ahead and pull it off and hold on to it so he can give it a proper burial later on. So they do, and the pug says that’s better, at least he’s not seeing in two different directions at once anymore. The ref asks is he sure he wants to go on with the match and the pug says yeah. Now, you’d figure a fighter with two eyes has got a pretty big advantage over a guy with just one, but turns out my uncle’s fighter, this guy Moe, had a delicate stomach. When the ref tells them to resume fighting, they swap a few jabs and Moe lands one on that empty socket, then steps back with this kinda sick look, then bends over and starts puking. And while he’s doing that, the one-eyed guy steps up and hits him with an uppercut from down around his ankles and Moe goes about a foot in the air and comes down like a sack of bricks. You coulda gone out and had yourself some supper and a cigar and still got back in plenty of time before he woke up.”
He paused and spat a streak of tobacco. “Boxing’s a rough game. Kinda funny sometimes, kinda strange sometimes, kinda sad sometimes. But all the time rough. Like the man said, it ain’t for everybody. Anyhow, that’s what I think.” And went back to paring his nails.
Ketchel grinned like a mule chewing briars.
O’Connor glared from one to the other. “Jesus Harrison Christ, I ask a goddamn simple question….”
I N TRUTH , K ETCHEL was not sure how he felt about the rumor that Curley Rue had died in consequence of the beating he’d given him, and because he was not one to be unsure about himself the uncertainty made him angry and troubled his sleep for the nexttwo nights. Then late the following afternoon came the news that James Jeffries had retired, the only heavyweight champ up to that time to retire undefeated. And Ketchel recalled a recurrent dream he used to have about Jeffries, a dream he’d never told to anyone except Kate.
The particulars were always the same. It was a fight to the finish for the heavyweight title and they slugged it out all day and all night, beating each other bloody into the 212th round while spectators came and went and the faces at ringside changed continually. But at the bell to begin round 213, Jeffries could no longer muster the strength to raise his arms, and Ketchel set himself and threw a tremendous overhand at big Jeff’s unprotected jaw. But on every occasion of the dream, in the instant before the punch struck he woke up.
Kate had not been
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