The Abysmal Brute, Jack London [readnow .TXT] 📗
- Author: Jack London
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Once, in a clinch, the fight manager heeled his glove on young Pat’s mouth, and there was just a hint of viciousness in the manner of doing it. A moment later, in the next clinch, Sam received the heel of the other’s glove on his own mouth. There was nothing snappy about it, but the pressure, stolidly lazy as it was, put his head back till the joints cracked and for a moment he thought his neck was broken. He slacked his body and dropped his arms in token that the bout was over, felt the instant release, and staggered clear.
“He’ll—he’ll do,” he gasped, looking the admiration he lacked the breath to utter.
Old Pat’s eyes were brightly moist with pride and triumph.
“An’ what will you be thinkin’ to happen when some of the gay an’ ugly ones tries to rough it on him?” he asked.
“He’ll kill them, sure,” was Stubener’s verdict.
“No; he’s too cool for that. But he’ll just hurt them some for their dirtiness.”
“Let’s draw up the contract,” said the manager.
“Wait till you know the whole worth of him!” Old Pat answered. “‘Tis strong terms I’ll be makin’ you come to. Go for a deer-hunt with the boy over the hills an’ learn the lungs and the legs of him. Then we’ll sign up iron-clad and regular.
Stubener was gone two days on that hunt, and he learned all and more than old Pat had promised, and came back a weary and very humble man. The young fellow’s innicence of the world had been startling to the case-hardened manager, but he had found him nobody’s fool/ Virgin though his mind was, untouched by all save a narrow mountain experience, nevertheless he had proved possession of a natural keeness and shrewdness far beyond the average. In a way he was a mystery to Sam, who could not understand terrible equanimity of temper. Nothing ruffled him or worried him, and his patience was of an enduring primitiveness. He never swore, not even the futile and emasculated cussing words of sissy-boys.
“I’d swear all right if I wanted to,” he had explained, when challenged by his companion. “But I guess I’ve never come to needing it. When I do, I’ll swear I suppose.”
Old Pat, resolutely adhering to his decision, said good-by at the cabin.
“It won’t be long, Pat, boy, when I’ll be readin’ about you in the papers. I’d like to go along, but I’m afeard it’s me for the mountains till the end.”
And then, drawing the manager aside, the old man turned loose on him almost savagely.
“Remember what I’ve ben tellin’ ye over an’ over. The boy’s clean an’ he’s honest. He knows nothing of the rottenness of the game. I kept it all away from him, I tell you. He don’t know the meanin’ of fake. He knows only the bravery, an’ romance an’ glory of fightin’, and I’ve filled him up with tales of the old ring heroes, though little enough, God knows, it’s set him afire. Man, man, I’m tellin’ you that I clipped the fight columns from the newspapers to keep it ‘way from him—him a-thinkin’ I was wantin’ them for me scrap book. He don’t know a man ever lay down or threw a fight. So don’t turn the boy’s stomach. That’s why I put in the null and void clause. The first rottenness and the contract’s broke of itself. No snide division of stake-money; no secret arrangements with the movin’ pitcher men for guaranteed distance. There’s slathers o’ money for the both of you. But play it square or you lose. Understand?
“And whatever you’ll be doin’ watch out for the women,” was old Pat’s parting admonishment, young Pat astride his horse and reining in dutifully to hear. “Women is death an’ damnation, remember that. But when you do find the one, the only one, hang on to her. She’ll be worth more than glory an’ money. But first be sure, an’ when you’re sure, don’t let her slip through your fingers. Grab her with the two hands of you and hang on. Hang on if all the world goes to smash an’ smithereens. Pat, boy, a good woman is… a good woman. ‘Tis the first word and last.”
Once in San Francisco, Sam Stubener’s troubles began. Not that young Pat had a nasty temper, or was grouchy as his father had feared. On the contrary, he was phenomenally sweet and mild. But he was homesick for his beloved mountains. Also, he was secretly appalled by the city, though he trod its roaring streets imperturbable as a red Indian.
“I came down here to fight,” he announced, at the end of the first week.
“Where’s Jim Hanford?”
Stubener whistled.
“A big champion like him wouldn’t look at you,” was his answer. “‘Go and get a reputation,’ is what he’d say.”
“I can lick him.”
“But the public doesn’t know that.
If you licked him you’d be champion of the world, and no champion ever became so with his first fight.”
“I can.”
“But the public doesn’t know it, Pat. It wouldn’t come to see you fight. And it’s the crowd that brings the money and the big purses. That’s why Jim Hanford wouldn’t consider you for a second. There’d be nothing in it for him. Besides, he’s getting three thousand a week right now in vaudeville, with a contract for twenty-five weeks. Do you think he’d chuck that for a go with a man no one ever heard of? You’ve got to do something first, make a record. You’ve got to begin on the little local dubs that nobody ever heard of—guys like Chub Collins, Rough-House Kelly, and the Flying Dutchman. When you’ve put them away, you’re only started on the first round of the ladder. But after that you’ll go up like a balloon.”
“I’ll meet those three named in the same ring one after the other,” was Pat’s decision. “Make the arrangements accordingly.”
Stubener laughed.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you think I can put them away?”
“I know you can,” Stubener assured him. “But it can’t be arranged that way. You’ve got to take them one at a time. Besides, remember, I know the game and I’m managing you. This proposition has to be worked up, and I’m the boy that knows how. “If we’re lucky, you may get to the top in a couple of years and be the champion with a mint of money.”
Pat sighed at the prospect, then brightened up.
“And after that I can retire and go back home to the old man,” he said.
Stubener was about to reply, but checked himself. Strange as was this championship material, he felt confident that when the top was reached it would prove very similar to that of all the others who had gone before. Besides, two years was a long way off, and there was much to be done in the meantime.
When Pat fell to moping around his quarters, reading endless poetry books and novels drawn from the public library, Stubener sent him off to live on a Contra Costa ranch across the Bay, under the watchful eye of Spider Walsh. At the end of a week Spider whispered that the job was a cinch. His charge was away and over the hills from dawn till dark, whipping the streams for trout, shooting quail and rabbits, and pursuing the one lone and crafty buck famous for having survived a decade of hunters. It was the Spider who waxed lazy and fat, while his charge kept himself in condition.
As Stubener expected, his unknown was laughed at by the fight club managers. Were not the woods full of unknowns who were always breaking out with championship rashes? A preliminary, say of four rounds—yes, they would grant him that. But the main event—never. Stubener was resolved that young Pat should make his début in nothing less than a main event, and, by the prestige of his own name he at last managed it. With much misgiving, the Mission Club agreed that Pat Glendon could go fifteen rounds with Rough-House Kelly for a purse of one hundred dollars. It was the custom of young fighters to assume the names of old ring heroes, so no one suspected that he was the son of the great Pat Glendon, while Stubener held his peace. It was a good press surprise package to spring later.
Came the night of the fight, after a month of waiting. Stubener’s anxiety was keen. His professional reputation was staked that his man would make a showing, and he was astounded to see Pat, seated in his corner a bare five minutes, lose the healthy color from his cheeks, which turned a sickly yellow.
“Cheer up, boy,” Stubener said, slapping him on the shoulder. “The first time in the ring is always strange, and Kelly has a way of letting his opponent wait for him on the chance of getting stage-fright.”
“It isn’t that,” Pat answered. “It’s the tobacco smoke. I’m not used to it, and it’s making me fair sick.”
His manager experienced the quick shock of relief. A man who turned sick from mental causes, even if he were a Samson, could never win to place in the prize ring. As for tobacco smoke, the youngster would have to get used to it, that was all.
Young Pat’s entrance into the ring had been met with silence, but when Rough-House Kelly crawled through the ropes his greeting was uproarious. He did not belie his name. he was a ferocious-looking man, black and hairy, with huge, knotty muscles, weighing a full two hundred pounds. Pat looked across at him curiously, and received a savage scowl. After both had been introduced to the audience, they shook hands. And even as their gloves gripped, Kelly ground his teeth, convulsed his face with an expression of rage, and muttered:
“You’ve got yer nerve wid yeh.” He flung Pat’s hand roughly from his, and hissed, “I’ll eat yeh up, ye pup!”
The audience laughed at the action, and it guessed hilariously at what Kelly must have said.
Back in his corner, and waiting the gong, Pat turned to Stubener.
“Why is he angry with me?” he asked.
He ain’t,” Stubener answered. That’s his way, trying to scare you. It’s just mouth-fighting.”
“It isn’t boxing,” was Pat’s comment; and Stubener, with a quick glance, noted that his eyes were as mildly blue as ever.
“Be careful,” the manager warned, as the gong for the first round sounded and Pat stood up. “He’s liable to come at you like a man-eater.”
And like a man-eater Kelly did come at him, rushing across the ring in wild fury. Pat, who in his easy way had advanced only a couple of paces, gauged the other’s momentum, sidestepped, and brought his stiff-arched right across to the jaw. Then he stood and looked on with a great curiosity. The fight was over. Kelly had fallen like a stricken bullock to the floor, and there he lay without movement while the referee, bending over him, shouted the ten seconds in his unheeding ear. When Kelly’s seconds came to lift him, Pat was before them. Gathering the huge, inert bulk of the man in his arms, he carried him to his corner and deposited him on the stool and in the arms of his seconds.
Half a minute later, Kelly’s head lifted and his eyes wavered open. He looked about him stupidly and then to one of his seconds.
“What happened?” he queried hoarsely. “Did the roof fall on me?”
As a result of his fight with Kelly, though the general opinion was that he had won by a fluke, Pat was matched with Rufe Mason. This took place three weeks later, and the Sierra Club audience at Dreamland Rink failed to see what happened. Rufe Mason
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