He had some other business and he sent me on alone up to Lake Benton in the Adirondacks. I rode in the back end of buses and I kept thinking of that suit the warden gave me. After I put on the suit Johnny bought me, I took the old one out and crammed it down deep into an ash barrel. The old grey train was a long way behind me.
It was the same old training camp where I had been getting in shape for that shot at the title six years before. I got off in the center of the town of Benton and walked on out the dusty road, carrying my suitcase.
I turned down the familiar trail between the trees, and stopped when I came to the bend where I could see the first blue of the lake shining ahead. I walked on slow, smelling the woods, looking at the lines of the main camp, the outdoor ring with the peaked roof over it the shack which housed the light and heavy bags, the pulleys and the bars. Somebody was in the shack singing hoarsely as he slammed the light bag around.
I walked on down and Barney Cizek, the ugly little guy who has been trainer for Johnny’s boys for the last thousand years walked out onto the porch and looked at me blankly. Then his wrinkled face cracked into a wide grin.
“Holy Nelly! It’s the Singer!” he gasped. He ran down the steps and grabbed my hand and danced up and down as he shook it. Then he yelled, “Everybody! Come on out here!”
Four guys came out, two from the house and two from the shack. I knew two of them, Fat Stan Bellows, a middleweight a couple of years younger than me, a trial horse with deceptive speed who works as a sparring partner for Johnny’s better boys and also chops down the hopefuls from other stables — and Harry Jansen, a blond, dumb honest light heavy who is pure sparring partner and a nice guy.
Fat Stan grabbed my hand and said “How the hell are you, Wash? Nice to see you around. Do any fighting in the clink?”
Harry Jansen shook hands too and said, “You’re heavier, Wash.”
Then Barney introduced me to one of the strangers, Jug Hoffman, and told me that Jug had a shot at the welter title coming up in the Garden in a week. Jug shook hands and said, “I heard about you, Washburn. Saw you fight a long time ago when I was fighting amateur.” I liked his looks. He was one of those chunky, solemn boys, with a chopped up face and eyes without guile. He moved quickly and breathed audibly through his flattened nose. He looked every inch a scrapper.
I turned questioningly toward the last of the four, and Barney said, “You ought to remember Joe, Wash. Joe Rye. He’s coming right along as a light heavy.”
I remembered him then, but it was hard to figure out how a kid had changed so much. I remembered him as a skinny kid of seventeen, pale and quiet, who used to sit and watch practise rounds. He read a lot, too.
The skinny limbs had filled out. He was deep chested, broad shouldered and sullen. There was something wild and uncontrolled that was readable in his eyes.
Unlike the others, he made no attempt to shake hands. He said, “Hi,” turned and strolled back toward the shack. He walked like a fighter.
The others were silent for a minute, and then they all began to talk at once as though to cover up for the kid. I told them how I had run into Johnny and he had hired me and they told me that there was a lot of work and they were glad to have me around. They told me about the good and bad luck that Johnny had had with his string during the years that I was away.
Finally we were caught up on the news and I jerked a thumb toward the shack which was vibrating with the noise of Joe Rye slamming the heavy bag. I said, “How about the kid? I thought Johnny said once that Joe’d never be a fighter if he could help it.”
Barney sighed and said, “That’s the answer. He can’t help it. He knows that if he doesn’t handle Joe, somebody else will.”
“Watch yourself if you spar with him, Wash,” Fat Stan said heavily.
“What’s the pitch?” I asked.
“He’s one of the mean ones,” Barney said.
I knew what he meant. There’s a lot of them in the fight game. They find out that they can get into a ring and whip another man with their fists. The realization seems to unlock something inside of them, some ferocity that is more of the animal than of the man. After a little while it pervades their whole life, and they can’t help thinking of every other human in terms of combat. They walk around with a growl in their throat and a chip on their shoulder, a beast walking like a man. They turn cruel and savage in every aspect of life. They can’t climb into a ring without trying to kill the opponent, even when it is only training. It is a type of sadism. I know because I was close to being that way when Johnny first took me over. He cured me.
I said, “How did the kid get that way? I didn’t think he was the type.”
Barney shrugged. “He went into the army when he was twenty. He was such a quiet kid that I guess he had a rough time. Then he got sore and licked a guy that was picking on him. Now all he wants to do is go around beating the hell out of everybody.”
“What’s Johnny doing about it?”
“Hell, he can’t see it. It’s his own son, Wash, and I guess maybe being somebody’s pop gives you a blind spot. He hates to have his kid in the fight racket, but since he can’t do anything about it, he wants to have him be the best. He thinks that the mean Streak is spirit.”
“How’s the kid doing?”
“Good. Real good. He’s had seven pro fights and got five knockouts, one decision and one loss on fouls. He ain’t popular though,” Barney said. “Down in Philly a month ago, he knocked out Harry Rosar in the fourth, While Harry was trying to get up, the kid clubbed him on the back of the neck. The fans don’t like that stuff.”
“You wait until you go a few rounds with him,” Jansen said. “He scares the hell out of me.”
“How good is Jug Hoffman?” I asked.
“Just about the best. He ought to take the title. Only trouble is he’s weak on defense when the heat is on. You can see from his face that he’s taken a lot of slamming around. He’s been fighting since he was sixteen.”
“Punchy?”
“Not at all. Seems to take it okay. We’ve been working on his defense.”
I went in the camp with Barney and met Sam Tooker, the cook and janitor and he fixed me up with a late lunch. I didn’t see all the rest of them together until dinner time. I was willing to hang back and take my dinner in the kitchen, but the rest of them seemed to take it for granted that I’d eat with them — and that is one of the nice things about the fight game. Your worth depends on what you can do with your hands, not what color you happen to be.
Joe Rye was a little late and I noticed the conversation died away when he got to the table. He glared at me as though I shouldn’t be there, and then didn’t look up again. He wolfed his food silently while I sat across from him thinking how it was too bad that a kid so good looking should have that streak of mean blood in him. He was certainly built like a fighter, and he wore his blond hair cropped close to his skull. On the outside he looked more like he should have been rowing for some college crew rather than punching at heads. It’s hard to tell where that streak’ll crop up.
Joe finished and shoved his chair back. He walked out without a word or a backward look. The table conversation got lively again. I could see what was wrong with the training camp. One guy like that can sour the atmosphere for everybody. It made it worse to have the guy in question be the son of the manager. That limits the things you can do to keep him under control.
The others piled in early and Barney and I stayed up, sitting on the porch, looking out across the lake, talking about the old days. I don’t know how we got started on Joe Rye again. Barney said, “It’s too bad, you know. I can figure right now how the kid’ll end up. He’ll get better and better, and get a bigger and bigger head. Then, some day, some poor soda jerk or bartender is going to cross him up and Joe’ll tear the guy’s face off with his fist. You can’t go around thinking like he does and not get into trouble.”