Max Baer and the Star of David (22 page)

Max swallowed hard. I moved towards him but he waved me away.

“… because I hit Frankie Campbell with the last blow he ever felt in this world, and it did something funny to his brain, and we lost him the next day,” Max said. “And now I’m gonna introduce you to a man who wasn’t with us when it happened on that day, but, like me, he’s a man who thinks about Frankie Campbell every day of his life. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a warm welcome for Frankie Campbell Jr.!”

A stocky, well-built young man, standing at the rear of the crowd, waved to us.

“Come on up and say a few words to us, will you?” Max asked, but Frankie Campbell Jr. shook his head sideways, took a step backwards, waved again. “He’s good looking and shy like his dad was, and we can understand why he wouldn’t want to come up here on a day like this,” Max went on. “It would be hard for the best of us, me included, if it was my old man we were talking about. Now Frankie Jr. was just a few months old when his father left this world, and do you know what?” Max pointed to the ceiling. “I bet your father’s up there looking down on us and being real proud of you, Frankie, and of how you went and got a college degree at Notre Dame, and how you got your own family and kids now. And you know what else I bet he’s thinking up there? He’s thinking that if he had it to do over again, he’d step into that ring and give it his best, and do you know why? Do you?
Do
you?”

The gymnasium was silent.

“Well I’ll tell you why,” Max said. “Because he loved the sport the way I love the sport, and Horace loves the sport, and all of you young men on Horace’s teams love the sport, that’s why. Because if you don’t find something in your life you love—really love—life ain’t worth a plugged nickel. Because hey—look at me and what boxing gave me, okay? Because it gave me things I never would of had if not for this great sport. It gave me friends, and a wife and kids, and money, and a chance to make people happy, and—” he glanced at Ilana “—and it gave me a few other benefits too, right?”

Ilana waved to the crowd.

“And it gave Frankie Campbell the way to marry a woman
he
loved,” Max went on, “and to provide for her, and bring little Frankie Jr. into the world so he could be here today to honor his father’s memory. So when me and Horace, who was with me that day and held Frankie’s head in his own hands—when Horace and I put on a little show, and then some of you boys go at it, we’re gonna know that Frankie Campbell is looking down and smiling to see us doing the one thing that makes everything else okay, ain’t that right, Frankie?”

Max turned his eyes upwards, and we all did the same, and I almost expected, for a moment, consummate showman that Max was, that we were going to see Frankie Campbell floating up there, and hear his voice pour down blessings on us. Max pulled me to him, an arm around my shoulder, and as had ever been the case, I could not tell if he was being sincere, or playing at being sincere, or if he knew the difference. He talked to me through the opening in my head gear: “So I said to the doc, ‘I also get this ringing in my ears all the time, so what should I do about it?’ and the doc said, ‘Don’t answer it, Max.’”

Then, to the crowd. “And in honor of Frankie, and for the anniversary of his passing, I’m announcing that I’m donating another five thousand dollars to the Frankie Campbell scholarship fund—and oh shit!—I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I? So you gotta make believe you didn’t hear me, okay? Because I don’t want no credit ever, and wanted this to be synonymous, see—”

“
A
-nonymous,” I whispered.

“That too,” Max said, and he pointed to one of the boxers. “So what are you waiting for? Ring that bell, and let’s get to it. But first—Frankie Jr.—you take another bow, okay? You take
two
bows, one for you and one for your father, and you know what? Take one for your mother too, and for your wife, and for your two little kids, and it don’t matter where the money comes from, right? The main thing is to use it to give us a chance we wouldn’t get otherwise. Like I’d still be chopping up sides of beef, and Horace here, who could have been a champion, folks, let me tell you that—oh Horace had the goods for sure—and Horace, he might be washing pots and pans somewhere but instead he’s got a wife and a son who’s the smartest kid in California and who’s best buddies with my own boy, Max Jr. But for Horace friendship came first, see, and that’s another story for another day, so what’s important for you to know is that I love Horace like I love my own brothers—only more because he
ain’t
my brother, if you get what I mean—and let’s have him take a bow for all the great work he does here—!”

People cheered, and the bell clanged, and while I raised my gloved hands in a gesture of thanks and waved to my boxers and well-wishers, Max came at me, hit me two hard punches to the gut, then clipped me on the chin.

“Gotta pay attention, friend,” he said. “That bell rang, and when it does you gotta be ready to come out fighting, because my name is Maximilian Adelbert Baer and I was once heavyweight champion of the world, in case nobody told you.”

I fell back on the ropes, shook my head to clear it, feigned collapse—as if I were going to fall flat on my face—and when Max put his gloved palms out to catch me, I caught him with a good left hook to the gut, and then a solid roundhouse right.

Max did a wobbly backwards jig across the ring and, beaming with happiness, shouted out so everyone could hear: “See what I mean about what a great fighter he is, and how he got the one thing I never had?” He tapped on the side of his head. “And we all know what that is … or ain’t.”

Then he came at me again, and we sashayed around the ring together, trading feints and jabs, and when the bell clanged to end the round, Max gave me a big hug—“This is a genuine Baer hug, if you get my meaning!” he called out to the crowd—and then he told me to choose a half-dozen fighters, and each of them would get a minute in the ring with him, and if any of them was able to land a glove on
his
gorgeous kisser, he would be rewarded with a kiss from Ilana! I chose six of my best boxers, and one at a time they got in the ring with Max and went at him, but Max skipped and danced around just beyond their reach, and sometimes he leaned back against the ropes and let them come at him, toying with them, slipping punches deftly, and batting away their blows as if swatting away flies. And after he was done with the six boxers, my boys started to urge me to go in against Max and win a kiss from Ilana, and began a chant that grew louder and louder.

“Ho-race! Ho-race!”
they chanted. “
We want Horace! We want Horace! We want Horace! Ho-race! Ho-race!”

I started back into the ring, and Max hugged me again, and told the crowd that he couldn’t make the same wager with me that he’d made with my boys. And why was that?

“Because Horace here is a happily married man,” he said. “He’s married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I’m proud to say she’s my friend too, and if she heard that I was responsible for him getting kisses from Ilana, why I’d be in deep soup, my friends.”

Everyone laughed, and I was feeling so happy in that moment—proud of my teams, and proud to be Max’s friend, and happy the two of us could give and take the way we could—that I was wishing the afternoon would never end. So I did something I had not expected to do. I suggested that we turn the prize for our prizefighting around, and that for every blow Max landed on
my
face,
he
would get a kiss from Ilana.

Max beamed. “Now I’ve got a wonderful wife and kids too, like Horace, and I’m a married man too—” he said, and paused for a second or two “—but I’m not a fanatic about it.”

And then he and I waltzed around the ring for a while, and gave the folks a show they would never forget, and I made sure that, try as he might, Max did not win a single kiss from Ilana.

After Max and I had showered and dressed, and he was done giving out autographs, he and I walked to his car, exchanging news about our wives and our children, and when we were at the car, he put his arms around me and held me close to him.

“You’re looking great, Horace,” he said, “and I’m glad we got this time to be alone, you and me, because I want you to know something I ain’t even told Mary Ellen or the kids, see—because even though I made a joke from it, it was true what the doc said to me about my ticker, so here’s what I’m gonna ask you to do. I’m gonna ask you to give me a little more time the next few months, especially when I’m out on the road, so you can keep an eye on me.”

“Sure, Max,” I said.

“I meant it when I said you’re my best friend in the world,” he said. “And I know you got your troubles too, so I kept away from your eyes, and I appreciated that you never used them as an excuse for us not to go at each other, because that shows the kind of classy guy you are. You trusted me on that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And hey—you were quick as ever with those hands of yours.” He faked an uppercut to my chin, and I blocked it. “Like old times, right? You and me shuffling around, everybody cheering us on and loving us to death. And speaking of loving, there’s something else I know, ’cause you got a certain look in your eyes I never seen before, and it tells me you’re a man
in
love, and I bet I got that right.”

This was when I noticed Hawkins standing by the side of the building, between two large trash containers. He was staring at us without trying to hide, and he was holding an envelope.

I turned away. “What did you say?” I asked.

“Nothing important—just that I love you, Horace,” he said. “And it ain’t that I love
men
, see, but that I love
you
, okay? And with the news I got from my doc this morning, and seeing Frankie Campbell’s boy, I figure why hold back now. So I’m saying what I been wanting to say, which is I never loved anyone the way I loved you. None of my wives, and none of the actresses and chorus girls I played patty-cake with, and not even Joleen, but you don’t tell her that, okay? I wouldn’t want to make her feel bad, or—” he broke off “—it’s just that I miss us hanging out together the way we did, on the road and stuff, and me being the crazy man-about-town, and making people happy wherever we went, and you there to keep me out of
real
trouble. I ain’t sorry for anything I did in this life, though, good
or
bad. No regrets, Horace, right? I mean, I never wanted to
hurt
nobody, see, and…”

He was crying softly, and I realized that until the doctor had warned him about his heart, it had probably never occurred to him that he was going to die some day. I held him close to me, and while I did I began preparing myself for Hawkins.

“Will you be all right?” I asked.

“Oh sure,” he said. “Like Ilana says, only in Hungarian, a saying her people got—‘Everything’s fine except for all this blood pouring out of a hole in my neck.’”

For a brief moment, in return for what he was confiding in me, I considered telling him the truth about me and Joleen. But what would be gained by telling him
now
, I asked myself. Instead, I told him I had been missing him too, and to give my warm regards to Max Jr. and his family.

“And you do know me well, yes, because there is someone now,” I added. “It’s very unexpected and quite wonderful—in truth, it’s as if I’ve fallen in love for the very first time in my life.”

“Yes,” Max said. “Sure, Horace. I’m glad for you, but with me, see, it’s always been like a hunger that no matter what I eat, I want more, so I just keep eating. Not just for the ladies, or food, or for going out on the town, but for
life
. People say you can’t have everything—but hey—I
want
everything!—and the truth is I’m a little bit scared now, that before I get to have it all they’re gonna tell me time’s up, the show’s over, and that’s why…”

I glanced toward the YMCA. Hawkins was gone, and Ilana was walking toward us, arm in arm with two of my boxers, Leo behind them, the four of them laughing.

“So you be good, and say hi to Joleen and Horace Jr.,” Max said, “and I’ll call you, and let you take care of me—we got a deal, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you tell Joleen I’ve been thinking about her too.”

“Yes.”

“You fought good, Horace,” he said, and he said good-by to my fighters, gave them a Confucious saying about it being good for a girl to meet a boy in the park, but better for a boy to park meat in a girl, and then he got into his car with Ilana and Leo, and drove away.

Instead of going home, I made my way down to the Embarcadero, and walked along the harbor until I was under the Golden Gate Bridge, after which I meandered side streets I recalled from when Joleen and I had first lived in San Francisco. I walked and I walked, seemingly without purpose, but wound up where I knew I would, at the house Joleen and I had been living in at the time we met Max Baer, and before I could allow memories to wash through me—the sun had gone down by now, and though my visual acuity was weaker than usual at this time of day—I could make out a man standing in the alleyway next to our old house, and I knew it was Hawkins. I was not surprised.

“Got what you want,” he said, showing me the envelope. “Had your chance to show me the man today, but you lost it. So now I gonna do what I tell you I gonna do and bring that man down big-time, make myself a dowry like you never got for Joleen.”

I hung my head as if I were a defeated man. But I was ready for him. He was determined to destroy Max Baer’s life, or to grow wealthy in the attempt, and I was equally determined to do whatever was necessary to keep him from doing so. But, like Max, Hawkins was afflicted with an insatiable hunger, I knew, and once he was done with me, Max, and Joleen, he would surely move on to Horace Jr., Miss Hémon, Mary Ellen, and others.

“Tell me what you want,” I said, and glanced around to see if anyone had followed either of us, or was out walking. The neighborhood, to judge from debris in the street and the sorry state of the houses, several of them abandoned, had clearly fallen on hard times. Next to a three-storey Victorian house that was being demolished—two houses away from where ours still stood—there was now an empty lot, and—my good fortune—two dumpsters sitting in it, one of them overflowing with debris.