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It lasted eight of the ten rounds. Thomas was bleeding from the nose and from a cut above the eye, but never retreating, always shuffling in, with a kind of hideous, heedless, mechanical energy, slowly wearing his man down. In the eighth round, the Negro could hardly lift his hands and Thomas sent him to the canvas with a long, looping right hand that caught the Negro high on the forehead. The Negro got up at the count of eight, staggering, barely able to get his guard up, and Thomas, his face a bloody smear, but smiling, leapt after him mercilessly and hit him what seemed to Gretchen at least fifty times in the space of seconds. The Negro collapsed onto his face as the crowd yelled ear-splittingly around her. The Negro tried to get up, almost reached one knee. In a neutral corner, Thomas crouched alertly, bloody, tireless. He seemed to want his man to get up, to continue the fight, and Gretchen was sure there was a swift look of disappointment that flitted across his battered face as the Negro sank helplessly to the canvas and was counted out.
She wanted to vomit, but she merely retched drily, holding her handkerchief to her face, surprised at the smell of the perfume on it, among the rank odors of the arena. She sat huddled over in her seat, looking down, unable to watch any more, afraid she was going to faint and by that act a
Rudolph had sat through the whole bout without uttering a sound, his lips twisted a little in disapproval at the clumsy bloodthirstiness, without style or grace, of the fight.
The fighters left the ring, the Negro, swathed in towels and robe, was helped through the ropes by his handlers, Thomas gri
The crowd began to drift out, but Gretchen and Rudolph sat side by side, without saying a word to each other, fearful of communicating after what they had seen. Finally Gretchen said, thickly, her eyes still lowered, “Let’s get out of here.”
“We have to go back,” Rudolph said.
“What do you mean?” Gretchen looked up in surprise at her brother.
“We came,” Rudolph said. “We watched. We have to see him.”
“He’s got nothing to do with us.” As she said this, she knew she was lying.
“Come on.” Rudolph stood up and took her elbow, making her stand. He met all challenges, Rudolph, the cold, veray parfit gentil knight at Su
“I won’t, I won’t …” Even as she was babbling this, she knew Rudolph would lead her inexorably to face Thomas, bloody, victorious, brutal, rancorous.
There were some men standing at the door of the dressing room, but nobody stopped Rudolph as he pushed the door open. Gretchen hung back. “I’d better wait outside,” she said. “He may not be dressed.”
Rudolph paid no attention to what she had said, but held her wrist and pulled her into the room after him. Thomas was sitting on a stained rubbing table with a towel around his middle and a doctor was sewing up the cut over his eye.
“It’s nothing,” the doctor was saying. “One more stitch and it’s done.”
Thomas had his eyes closed, to make it easier for the doctor to work. There was an orange stain of antiseptic above the eyebrow that gave him a clownish, lopsided air. He had obviously already taken his shower, as his hair was dark with water and plastered to his head, making him look like a print of an old-time bare-knuckle pugilist. Grouped around the table were several men, whom Rudolph recognized as having been in or near Thomas’s corner during the fight. A curvy young woman in a tight dress kept making little sighing sounds each time the doctor’s needle went into flesh. She had startling black hair and wore black nylon stockings over outlandishly shapely legs. Her eyebrows, plucked into a thin pencil line, high up, gave her a look of doll-like surprise. The room stank of old sweat, liniment, cigar smoke, and urine from the toilet visible through an open door leading off the dressing room. A bloodstained towel lay on the greasy floor, in a heap with the sweat-soaked purple tights and supporter and socks and shoes that Thomas had worn during the fight. It was sickeningly hot in the room.
What am I doing in a place like this, Gretchen thought. How did I get here?
“There we are,” the doctor said, stepping back, his head cocked to one side, admiring his work. He put on a pad of gauze and a strip of adhesive tape over the wound. “You’ll be able to fight again in ten days.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Thomas said and opened his eyes. He saw Rudolph and Gretchen. “Good Christ,” he said. He smiled crookedly. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“I have a message for you,” Rudolph said. “A man called Al phoned me this afternoon and told me he’d put five hundred at seven to five for tonight.”
“Good old Al,” Thomas said. But he looked worriedly over at the curvy young woman with the black hair, as though he had wanted to keep this information from her.
“Congratulations on the fight,” Rudolph said. He took a step forward and put out his hand. Thomas hesitated for a fraction of a second, then smiled again, and put out his swollen, reddened hand.
Gretchen couldn’t get herself to congratulate her brother. “I’m glad you won, Tom,” she said.
“Yeah. Thanks.” He looked at her amusedly. “Let me introduce everybody to everybody,” he said. “My brother, Rudolph; my sister, Gretchen. My wife, Teresa, my manager, Mr. Schultz, my trainer, Paddy, everybody …” He waved his hand vaguely at the men he hadn’t bothered to introduce.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Teresa said. It was the suspicious voice of the telephone that afternoon.
“I didn’t know you had family,” Mr. Schultz said. He, too, seemed suspicious, as though having family was somehow perilous or actionable at law.
“I wasn’t sure myself,” Thomas said. “We have gone our separate ways, like they say. Hey, Schultzy, I must be getting to be one helluva draw at the gate if I even get my brother and sister to buy tickets.”
“After tonight,” Mr. Schultz said, “I can get you the Garden. It was a nice win.” He was a small man with a basketball pouch under a greenish sweater. “Well, you people must have a lot to talk about, catch up with the news, as it were, we’ll leave you alone. I’ll drop in tomorrow sometime, Tommy, see how the eye’s doing.” He put on a jacket, just barely managing to button it over his paunch. The trainer gathered up the gear from the floor and put it into a bag. “Nice going, Tommy,” he said, as he left with the doctor, the manager, and the others.
“Well, here we are,” Thomas said. “A nice family reunion. I guess we ought to celebrate, huh, Teresa?”
“You never told me anything about a brother and sister,” Teresa said aggrievedly, in her high voice.
“They slipped my mind for a few years,” Thomas said. He jumped down off the rubbing table. “Now, if the ladies will retire, I’ll put on some clothes.”
Gretchen went out into the hall with her brother’s wife. The hall was empty now and she was relieved to get away from the stink and heat of the dressing room. Teresa was putting on a shaggy red fox coat with angry little movements of her shoulders and arms. “If the ladies will retire,” she said. “As though I never saw him naked before.” She looked at Gretchen with open hostility, taking in the black-wool dress, the low-heeled shoes, the plain, belted polo coat, considering it, Gretchen could see, an affront to her style of living, her dyed hair, her tight dress, her over-voluptuous legs, her marriage. “I didn’t know Tommy came from such a high-toned family,” she said.
“We’re not so high-toned,” Gretchen said. “Never fear.”
“You never bothered to see him fight before tonight,” Teresa said aggressively, “did you?”