The Final Adversary (13 page)

But in the fourth round Barney discovered that he was getting tired. He was not in good condition, and he was beginning to gasp for breath. His legs were getting rubbery, too, and he knew that sooner or later he’d have to slow Leonard down. He dodged one of the fighter’s wild rushes and took a chance. Planting his feet, he swung with his right and caught the surprised Leonard square in the face as he came careening off the ropes. The blow stopped him dead, and Leonard stood there unable to move.

Barney thought,
I’ve got him!
He moved forward, his right cocked to send the blow that would put the man down—and then he caught a tremendous right hand in his mouth. It was a disaster, beginning in his face and running down to his heels! Reeling backward, he tried to get his hands up, but he had no chance. With a roar, Leonard came charging in, battering Barney’s face and body with powerful punches. Barney took a smashing left that knocked him to the canvas, and he lay there trying to think. He heard someone shouting “Stay down, Barney!” but he rolled over and got up.

The referee looked in his eyes, asked, “You all right?” When Barney nodded, he waved the two together and stepped back. Barney tried to dodge Leonard’s rush, but his mind was spinning. He got his hands up, but the fists of the raging fighter came smashing through. Barney felt the ropes on his back, and Leonard battered Winslow’s side with short, wicked punches, and then drove paralyzing blows at his head. Barney never saw the punch that sent him to the floor. He found himself back in his place, on his stool, and heard Meyers say, “I’m gonna stop it, kid!”

“No!” Barney cried out. “I can do it!”

“He’ll kill you, Barney,” Meyers said.

“Just give me a chance, Benny!” he gasped. “I’ll stay away from him.”

Benny shook his head, but the bell rang and Barney came off his stool and moved to the center of the ring. He had his left out, and when Leonard came at him, Barney managed
a sharp left jab, but it made no impression. When Leonard charged him, he might as well have tried to avoid a freight train. A wild right struck Barney, sending showers of lights in front of his eyes, followed by a barrage of blows to his head and body that drove him to the floor.

He got up, but went down again, and then Leonard caught him with a roundhouse right that knocked him out. He hit the canvas loosely, and Meyers threw the towel in. It fluttered through the air, and the referee stopped the bout, holding Leonard’s hand high.

****

Coming through a long, dark tunnel, Barney tried to figure out where he was. He opened his eyes slowly, painfully.

“Hey, you’ve come around,” Benny said. “I was worried. You all right, kid?”

Barney looked dazed. He tried to sit up, but his head was spinning and his eyes wouldn’t focus. He seemed to see two of everything. He fell back, and Meyers said quickly, “Don’t try to sit up yet. You took quite a pounding in there.”

Barney lay back, and when the room stopped spinning, he looked around. “Where am I? Where is everyone?” he asked.

“You’re in the dressing room and you’ve been out for three hours, Barney. I was just gettin’ ready to take you to the hospital.”

Barney didn’t answer. Feeling was coming back, and it seemed as if every inch of his body screamed with pain. He tried to take a deep breath, and gave a small, involuntary cry.

“What’s wrong?” Benny asked.

“My side!”

Meyer touched the spot Barney indicated. “I think you got some ribs cracked—maybe broke. We better get you to the hospital.”

It took a long time, for Barney could move only with great care, but they made it to the hospital. The doctor examined him thoroughly. “He’s got two broken ribs, a bad
concussion,” he said to Benny, “and he’ll need stitches in that cut over his eyebrow.”

The doctor taped Barney’s ribs and sewed the cut together, but Barney could not see well.

“Why don’t you stay in the hospital for a couple days,” Benny suggested.

“No. Just get me home. I’ll be all right.”

Meyers took him directly to the boardinghouse, helped him up the stairs to his room, and put him to bed. “I’ll check with you tomorrow, Barney,” he said.

“I didn’t do good, did I?”

Meyers looked at him, then said carefully, “Barney, you got to stop fighting. You’re going to be a punch-drunk pug if you don’t.”

Barney lay there silently, then said, “You mean you won’t be my manager?”

“I wouldn’t be doing you a favor if I did.” Meyers stood beside him. “I’ve always liked you, Barney. When it looked like you could do it, I was glad. But I been around fighters all my life, and I tell you that you can’t make it. Maybe prison took it out of you—I dunno. But whatever done it, you’ve lost the touch.” He put his hand on Barney’s shoulder. “It’s not the end of the world, kid. You got a good family, rich people. They’ll help you.”

Meyers saw that Barney was not listening, so he said, “You’ll feel better in a few days. It’ll be all right.” He left the room, closing the door quietly. As he walked down the stairs he said to himself, “The kid is pretty low—but he’ll come out of it.”

Barney lay on the bed, feeling empty and miserable. His body screamed with pain, every breath giving his rib cage a spasmodic jerk. But the futility of his future, his fragmented relationship with his family, his inability to find his place in the world hurt even worse. Fighting was the only thing he’d ever done well. Maybe he could still do it, find another manager and try again. Yet . . . could Meyers have been right?

Barney dragged his battered body to the dresser, where a bottle of liquor beckoned him—the medication he needed to numb his physical and mental torment. He drank heavily, the soothing liquid flowing freely down his throat. Going back to the bed, he dropped down and waited for the liquor to dull his nerves. Soon he grew dizzy and slumped in a heap, but he held on to the bottle. No one had ever told him that a person with a concussion should never drink, so he continued taking sips from the bottle until he finally passed out.

The next morning, he awakened with a splitting headache. The bottle beside him was empty, and he lurched to his feet. The room spun around and he crashed full length to the floor. Great sheets of pain ran through his sides. Unable to curb the agony, he lay gasping for breath. After about an hour, Barney rolled carefully to one side and managed to struggle to his knees; then hanging on to the wall, he made it back to his bed. He searched his pocket and found some cash. “Gotta get something for my head,” he mumbled. He rose slowly to his feet, stumbled to the door, and left the room. His first stop was the closest saloon, where he drank steadily for an hour.

The bartender stared at him, and when Barney looked into the mirror on the wall, he saw why. His face was swollen and covered with purple bruises, his eyes almost slits. The cut over the one eye had bled, leaving the dried blood splashed across his forehead. His lips were puffed like doughnuts, and his hair caked with dirt—
a total mess,
Barney thought.

Gotta go clean up,
he decided as he staggered to his feet, too drunk to do more. “Maybe if I walk a bit—clear my mind,” he mumbled to himself. He headed for the door and down the street. He hadn’t gone far when he felt sick to his stomach, and stepped into the saloon nearby. From that moment on, all was a blur to him. He woke up sometime that night in an alley, struggled to his feet, and made his way back to the boardinghouse. He groped his way up the stairs to his room and headed for the pitcher of tepid water, gulping down all there was.

Falling across the bed, sick again, he tried to think, but his brain was muddled from alcohol. He fell into a stupor, and when he awoke hours later and checked his pockets, he discovered the money was gone. He looked in the dresser and stared at the few dollars left. He began to feel pangs of hunger and decided to get a sandwich at the saloon. But after eating, he spent the rest of the money on whiskey.

When Barney left the saloon in the early afternoon, he wandered aimlessly down the street for hours. Drunken men were no novelty to people, so nobody stopped him or asked if he needed help. As he walked, he tried to think. The more he thought the angrier he became. Life had given him a rotten turn. People had done him in!

Filled with this bitterness, he turned down Pearl Street—just by chance.

It was by chance also that Katie Sullivan was on her way down Pearl Street. She had worked all day at the cafe and was heading home. She didn’t even notice the man coming toward her. As usual, she was so exhausted that her mind was fixed on getting to her room and having something to eat.

Barney saw the woman but didn’t recognize her at first. Then he stopped, shook his head to clear his blurred eyesight, and felt a dull anger race through him.

Katie! Katie Sullivan! It was her fault! He had been frustrated ever since Sing Sing, trying to figure out
why
he had been imprisoned. Later when he had discovered through his mother that Katie Sullivan had been in possession of the information that might have kept him out of prison, he blamed her. He didn’t reason all this out—indeed, he didn’t reason at all, but had found someone to fix the blame on for his own errors. His mother had tried to counter his accusations, but he had shut his mind; and now as he stared at the girl, an uncontrollable rage engulfed him.

Without thinking, he followed the blind impulse that seized him. Rushing up to her, he grabbed the startled girl by the
arm and shouted, “You little tramp!” Shaking her violently, he ignored her cries, then slapped her across the face.

Katie screamed and begged him to let her go. But by now he was so insane from whiskey and the injustice done him that he was devoid of any mercy. He continued to hit her repeatedly until she fell to the pavement. As though driven by an unseen force, he reached down and pulled her up, still cursing her.

Hearing the commotion, Simon Wintz, a tall, thick-set Polish butcher sweeping in front of his shop half a block down, rushed to the rescue. Unlike most street people, who had learned that it was better if they let assailant and victim—even damsels in distress—fight their own battles, he had to intervene.

“Let that woman go!” Wintz shouted. He was new to the country and had not learned to ignore men’s attacks on women.

Barney paid no attention, as though he couldn’t hear Wintz. The butcher grabbed the attacker’s arm and jerked him away. But Barney turned like one robbed of his prey and struck Wintz, catching him high on the cheek. Wintz immediately drew back his huge fist and sent it crashing into Barney’s side—the one with the broken ribs.

With a cry of agony Barney fell, clutching his side.

Wintz ignored him and helped Katie to her feet. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes,” Katie sobbed. She had not even recognized Barney Winslow in his filthy condition, but now she did. Shocked at the discovery, she thought of Lola Winslow and the hurt this would bring her.

“What’s going on?” a voice behind interrupted.

“Mr. McGivern,” Wintz said, recognizing the local policeman on the beat, “this drunk was beating up the girl.”

“You know the man?” the officer asked Katie.

“N-no, sir,” Katie lied. “He just came up and started hitting me.”

Ryan McGivern stared down at Barney, who was doubled up with pain. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I gave him a hit,” Wintz said, “but not that hard.”

“Well, I’ll take him along to the station. Help me get him up.”

It took both men to get Barney to his feet, but he couldn’t walk. McGivern shook his head. “He’s got something busted. We’ll have to have the wagon for him.”

They put Barney down, and he lay doubled up until the wagon came. “Better take him to the hospital first,” McGivern said. The driver nodded, and when the wagon was gone, the officer turned to Katie. “I’ll have to have your name in case something comes of this.”

Katie thought fast. “My name is Eileen Smith. I work at the shoe factory on Tenth Street.” She wanted nothing to do with the law.

The policeman wrote the information on his note pad, nodded, and said she could go.

Katie wasted no time and in a flash she was gone.

****

Barney groaned with pain as the doctor examined him.

“How’d you break those ribs?” the physician asked.

“In a boxing match,” Barney answered.

“You should have better sense than to get into a fight with broken ribs. They’re going to give you some real trouble now.”

His words were prophetic. The police took him into custody and threw him into a crowded cell, but that night he developed a burning fever. The sergeant in charge consulted the captain, saying, “He don’t look good to me, Cap. I think we better let him go. We ain’t got enough on him really. The girl didn’t press charges.”

So it was that Barney found himself on the street an hour later. He had a high fever and the pain was unbearable. Every step was torture as he made his way back to his room.

For two days he lay there, drinking water from the pitcher
and eating little. The landlord kept the pitcher filled and brought food twice—until he learned Barney was broke.

“You’ll have to move along, Winslow. I’m not running a charity here.”

Barney only half understood the man’s words, but the next day he left the boardinghouse, pale and sick.

That night he slept under a bridge, delirious and shaking with fever. The next day, one of his fellow derelicts under the bridge shared a bottle with him, but he had nothing to eat.

Darkness fell, and his fever rose. He shook so hard his teeth were clicking audibly. Unable to stand it any longer, he left the shelter of the bridge. The air was biting cold as he staggered down the street, lurching from side to side, barely keeping his balance. The shadows cast by the lights were like ghosts of the past. His mind wandered, and he couldn’t discriminate between the shadows and reality.

How he got there, he was never able to tell afterward, but he looked up to see a narrow three-story building in front of him.

Then he heard music, music he’d heard before. A band was playing and someone was singing. He leaned against the lamppost and listened to the words: