The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (40 page)

Mizell said, “No. You sure wasn’t. This one you carried all the way, baby”

Bolie put his coat on, stared at the floor for a long moment, then looked up at Mizell. “I wasn’t off my feet?” he asked intensely. “I didn’t go down?”

“Not once,” Mizell answered. “Good night,” he said softly. “Good night, old timer. I’m proud of you!”

He shuffled out. Bolie Jackson stood looking at his hands and then, with wonderment, at his reflection in the cracked, dirty mirror. Exultation surged through him and he wanted to shout and jump around and sing. He’d won!

A crazy conglomeration of half-remembered, disjointed, kaleidoscope visions ended on a giant question mark. But he had won. The smile stayed on his face as he walked out into the corridor and happy excitement cloaked him in goose pimples as he headed toward the exit. Bolie Jackson had won. He’d made his comeback. Everything might change now. Everything. This was the road back and tonight he had taken a giant step along it.

He went out into the summer darkness and the night smelled sweet to him. He didn’t even feel tired. He didn’t feel old. All he wanted now was to see the little boy Because this night had to be shared.

The neighbors were waiting for him on the steps even though it was one in the morning. He walked among them responding to the back slaps and handshakes with a kind of joyous numbness. When he got inside, Frances was waiting for him at the apartment door. She hugged him.

“You should have seen him, Bolie. He’d like to go out of his mind, he was so happy! Whole building was shaking—you’d never believe it!”

Bolie looked questioningly over her shoulder into the living room.

“He’s up on the roof,” Frances said, “waiting for you.”

Bolie nodded and started to take the steps two at a time.

“Bolie,” Frances called up to him.

Bolie stopped.

“Send him down real soon. It’s real late.”

Bolie winked, grinned agreement, and continued up the steps. Henry Temple stood at the edge of the roof. The last neon of the late night, flashing on and off, sent sporadic light against the little boy’s profile. Bolie hurried over to the boy, knelt by him and grabbed his little shoulders.

“What do you say, Henry Temple?”

“You were a tiger, Bolie. You were a real tiger.”

Bolie grinned. “Look okay?”

“Sharp,” Henry answered in a serious little voice. “Sharp like a champ. You was Louis and Armstrong and everybody all wrapped up into one.”

Bolie laughed, warm, rich laughter that rolled out of him in waves, so filled up was he with the joy of it and the wonder of it. It had been so long, so very long. He pounded a fist into his palm.

“Hey,” he said, “you know something? That boy musta hit me so hard he knocked the hurt right outa me.” He laughed again, then shook his head with bewilderment. “I don’t remember a doggone thing, Henry. I must have really been punchy for a second, because I thought he had me down and there I was with the old ref wavin’ his arm down on me. It must have been some kind of dream or somethin’.”

A strange look passed fleetingly across Henry’s face. The little boy turned away. Bolie followed him.

“Henry,” Bolie asked in a different voice. “I was never off my feet. I never got knocked down.”

The little boy didn’t answer. Bolie grabbed him firmly, turned him around and stared intently into his face.

“Henry!” Bolie gripped him hard. “Henry, I was never off my feet.” It was a pronouncement. It was a final judgment designed to end the gnawing disquiet that Bolie had felt deep down since he found himself standing in the wing with his arm raised. He saw the little boy’s lips quiver.

Bolie’s voice was still. “Henry, was I? Was I lying on my back and on the way out?”

Henry nodded very slowly. Bolie stood up and looked off toward the darkened city.

“But nobody remembers it,” he whispered. “Nobody at all. ‘Cept me. I thought it happened...but it didn’t. I thought I was lying there on my back gettin’ counted out, but everybody tells me—”

Henry Temple moved very close to the fighter and stared up at him.

“Bolie,” he said simply, “I made a wish then. I made the big wish. I had to. I wished you was never knocked down. I just shut my eyes and I...I wished real hard. It was magic, Bolie. We had to have magic then.”

Bolie shook his head, his voice whispering, “No, no, no,” his eyes closing tight against the words, against the intensity, against the belief of the little boy in front of him.

“Had to, Bolie,” Henry said. “
Had
to. Nothing left for us then. Had to make a wish. Had to...”

Bolie’s head kept going back and forth in disbelief, in rejection, in denial.

The little boy’s words kept coming out like a chant. “Had to, Bolie. Had to. Had to.”

Then Bolie grabbed the boy His voice was cold fury, “You crazy kid. You crazy, kookie kid.” He shook him. “Don’t you know there ain’t no magic? There ain’t no magic or wishing or nothin’ like that. You’re too big to have nutsy thoughts like that. You’re too big to believe in fairy tales.’’

Tears rolled down Henry Temple’s face. “If you wish hard enough, Bolie!” he said, “it’ll come true. If you wish hard enough...”

Bolie had stood up and moved across the roof. Henry held out his hands to him.

“Bolie, if you wish and then believe. The whole thing is believing because if you believe it’ll stay that way.”

Bolie stood with his back to the boy and shook his head again.

“Somebody got to knock it out of you, don’t they? Somebody got to take you by the hair and rub your face in the world and give you a taste and a smell of the way things are, don’t they? He turned toward Henry. “Listen, boy,” he said, his voice crusted with misery “I’ve been wishing all my life. You understand, Henry? All my life. I got a gut ache from wishing. And all I got to show for it is a faceful of scars and a headful of memories of the hurt and the misery I’ve had to eat with and sleep with all my miserable life.”

His voice broke as he heard the sobbing intake of Henry’s breath. “You crazy kid, you,” Bolie said, his voice breaking. “Crazy, crazy, kookie kid. You tellin’ me you wished me into a knockout? You tellin’ me it was magic that got me off my back? He took a step toward Henry. “Well now you listen, boy. There ain’t no magic. No magic, Henry. I had that fight coming and going. I had it in my pocket. I was the number one out there and there ain’t no such thing as magic.”

“Bolie,” the little boy sobbed, “Bolie, if you believe, understand? You’ve got to believe. If you don’t believe, Bolie, it won’t be true. That’s the way magic works.” He took a stumbling run over to the fighter and grabbed him around the waist, burying his face against him. “Bolie, you got to believe. Please, please believe.”

“Little kook,” Bolie said to the tiny, kinky head. “Little kook, that’s what you are. How come I got mixed up with you? Ain’t I got enough trouble without getting mixed up with some dopey kid who—”

He stopped and looked down at the little boy and then he was on his knees and had suddenly swept the boy into his arms, holding him tightly, pressing his cheek against his.

“Henry,” he said softly, “I can’t believe. I’m too old and I’m too hurt to believe. I can’t, boy. I just can’t!” He held the little boy’s face in both hands and wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “Henry, there ain’t no such thing as magic. God help us both, I wish there was.”

“Bolie, you got to believe.”

“I can’t.”

“You got to, Bolie. You got to believe, or else—”

“I can’t.”

They stood there close together. Henry’s voice, a plaintive, hopeful prayer; the fighter’s, a hollow, empty rejection. The sick, thin yellow light from the bulb over the roof door held them briefly in a weak illumination and then time froze again. The light gradually changed until it was no longer on the roof. It was the white-hot orb of the ring light bathing the canvas of the roped-off area of a fight arena where a dark and bleeding fighter lay on his stomach, his face against the canvas and rosin of the ring floor. Above him a referee brought down his arm in measured sweeps.

“Eight, nine, ten.”

He swiped his hands out in opposite directions like a baseball umpire judging someone safe, then pointed to the stocky white man in purple trunks, who stood nonchalantly in the neutral corner, waiting for the victory that he knew was his to be made official. The referee came to him, raised his right arm, and he was then engulfed by handlers, his manager, and other people who swarmed in over the ropes.

Mizell walked tiredly to Bolie, who had just risen to his hands and knees like a blind, groping animal. Bolie allowed Mizell to help him to his feet and took the traditional, beaten, stiff-legged walk back to his corner.

He did not hear the crowd nor see the light. He did not hear the voice on the loudspeaker announce, “The winner by a knock out, one minute, thirteen seconds of the fourth round, Jerry Corrigan.”

Another cascade of cheers rippled over the room and next thing Bolie knew he was standing on his feet in street clothes with Joe Mizell opening the door for him. He looked down at the misshapen little handler and forced a grin.

“How many of them was there?” he said, with a crooked smile.

“Just the one boy,” Mizell answered softly. “Nine years your junior and with two good hands.” He pointed to Bolie’s bandaged right hand. “But I’ll tell you something, Bolie,” he continued softly. “You took it good. You took it like a man. They’re jackals up there,” he jerked his head toward the ceiling. “Jackals. They don’t know what’s what, but I know. You showed them the kind of guts they don’t get too often. I’m proud of you, old timer. I really am.”

He patted Bolie on the back and held the door open a little wider. Bolie walked slowly out of the room and then down the corridor toward the exit.

He walked through the still stifling heat along the sidewalk heading toward his brownstone. Just three people sat on the steps. The scrawny little old man looked up at him through slitted eyes then spat through the railing.

“You should have stood in bed,” he announced coldly. “Why the hell didn’t you use your right hand?”

The other two people just looked away. Bolie looked briefly at his swollen, bandaged right hand, then walked up the steps and inside. He knocked at Frances’s door and heard her footsteps approaching from inside. She opened the door a few inches then, seeing Bolie, swung it open completely to let him enter.

“He’s in bed,” she said quietly “That’s a sad little boy in there.”

“Can I see him?” Bolie asked.

“Sure. I expect he’s waiting for you.”

Bolie went to the bedroom door.

“Bolie?”

He stopped at the door and turned to her.

“I’m real sorry,” Frances said.

Bolie smiled, nodded.

Henry lay in bed, his eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling. He half rose as Bolie came in. Bolie stopped halfway to the bed, suddenly, inexplicably, ill at ease. He cleared his throat.

“Pulled a rock, Henry,” he said, grinning. “Threw a punch before I should have. Hit the wall. Busted my knuckles. I went in with half my artillery gone.”

The little boy smiled at him through the darkness and held out his hand. Bolie went to the bed, took Henry’s hand and held it.

“You looked like a tiger, even so,” Henry said. “You looked like a real tiger. I was proud of you. I was real proud.”

Bolie leaned over and kissed the boy on the cheek, then stood up and started toward the door.