The Unsweet Science
McGrorty, Michael J.
Michael J. McGrorty The Unsweet Science A memoir of boxing, the Navy, and a man called Tanner. E verything I know about boxing was taught me in the Navy by a fellow named Tommy Rasher. I met...
...I wanted to drown him...
...Hank's strategy was to cut 38 The American Spectator July 1995 off the ring and prevent my escape...
...Come along if you like...
...He just turned away and sat down on his stool, alone...
...Maxwell said, "He's over at the door, the one taking tickets...
...Tommy seemed to change as well...
...Instead I circled right, luring him with distant jabs and faked punches...
...There was only one trick left to pull...
...Finally—railroad tracks, a sharp turn, and in the distance an ancient wooden building squatting like a grounded ark along the margin of a muddy field...
...Tommy wasn't the talkative type, so we passed most of the evening quietly walking circles around the bar district beyond the base gates...
...This was probably the last time I'd ever fight...
...I don't remember the next fight, but I do recall looking at Tanner through the ring ropes...
...One fellow he only way to avoid a headache and purple hit with a nasty hook was out cold for a whole day...
...I switched to a right lead, and cracked him twice with straight lefts before backing away from the hooks that came just after...
...With Tommy behind the wheel, we drove about an hour east of the city, beyond the realm of streetlight and sidewalk, gradually losing the houses, turning down narrower and narrower roads, until the headlights shone on vacant lots, then scattered farms, then on endless ranks of citrus groves intersected by eucalyptus windbreaks...
...He'd stripped down to trunks and shoes, and was wearing a sweatshirt that might have doubled for a grease-rag...
...There was no way that I could have handled anyone that much heavier...
...0 ver the next few weeks I maneuvered myself into Tommy's company on several occasions, but never managed to ask him about boxing or anything else...
...At knock-off, he appeared on the quarterdeck with a seabag full of boxing gloves that he transferred to my custody...
...fter altering my technique I seemed to improve—at least Tommy wasn't beating a drum-roll on my head...
...Tanner was the same, but I wouldn't be: now he would fight a left-hander...
...Most of the time I was matched with duplicates of Kessler, but occasionally I saw an organized defense, and sometimes got hit with a punch that rattled my brain...
...we had absolutely nothing in common except that we both breathed air and served on the same ship...
...I can still see Tommy, a small fireplug of a man, striding over to where the two drunks were rolling around, pushing up the sleeves of his uniform as he walked...
...After more heavy bag work he paired the boys off to spar, each wearing oversized gloves and enormous padded headgear...
...He'd qualified for the Navy boxing team as a featherweight, but was forced to leave when his hands, broken in too many childhood fights, refused to mend...
...If you'd put your goddamned hands up and throw straight punches, you wouldn't be getting beat so bad...
...Hank received the princely sum of $300 for each fight, of which Tommy took a third, giving me half of his share...
...The surrounding neighborhood must have been classy at one time, but had passed "shabby" on the way down decades before...
...Tommy had found Hank a few years before, trimmed him down, and taught him to keep the cork in the bottle...
...The first month he had me jump rope for a minute, then defend from a fixed position another minute, then attempt—vainly—to reach him with punches...
...I eyelids was to keep Hank in the center remember the guy's mouth- of the ring, crack off a couple of punches, piece flying out, landing three rows deep in the then leave town before the storm hit...
...On a cool spring evening, we set out for our rendezvous, three adventurers in a borrowed car...
...By the time I saw it, the place was being rented at fifty bucks a night to the city's Parks department, which, in keeping with tradition and conventional wisdom, offered boxing to the offspring of the poor...
...In the time remaining, he wanted to expose Hank to a variety of opponents before sending him off to a professional manager...
...Finally, and persuasively, because he could throw in the towel if I got into trouble...
...The idea was to make it a tough proposition for Hank and to keep me from being killed...
...Hank steered me outside to the loading dock where I lay, watching the stars spin until Tommy brought the car around...
...Angry at myself, I faked a left and threw Tommy's uppercut into his face, following it with an identical left that made him wince...
...Tommy didn't even look up when I walked back to my corner...
...In a second bout, five hours later, I ran into trouble, getting cracked repeatedly by a Puerto Rican with a penetrating jab and a habit of butting with his 36 The American Spectator July 1995 head...
...Across the ring sat Tanner, brow still bleeding, grimacing as he flexed a right hand that must have broken against my head in the furious exchange at the end of the fifth...
...anner waited until I'd reached center-ring before he T rose...
...Basically it was an amateur hour for aspiring pugilists, most of whom had about my level of skill and experience...
...It was true...
...This wasn't easy...
...He held his hands as though there was nothing to fear from me, so I shot two lefts into his face, and would have thrown a right, only he hit me with a right hook to the body that hurt and sent me backward...
...My shipmate hadn't even lost his hat...
...The effect was of the great hall of a barbarian king, with traces of the Augean stables...
...Before the match Tommy had told me this fellow had fought something like two dozen amateur bouts, and could handle himself...
...From the first bell I was dodging and covering up, trying to establish a rhythm, while my opponent was jackhammering my arms and shoulders, looking for an opening...
...He was livid with Hank for having told me, but calmly recited the obvious argument against my fighting on the undercard: I'd get the hell beaten out of me, if I wasn't actually killed, by any club fighter on the planet...
...I could see the referee, or whatever he was, lodged against the far ropes...
...Hank's fight was something special...
...At the time I spread 150 pounds over a six-foot frame, with long, wiry arms...
...By the third round I was on my way to losing, when my opponent butted me once too often and was disqualified...
...etween rounds, Tommy told me to keep it up, but I B had already decided to do something else...
...Hank wore conventional headgear, heavy oversized gloves, and a three-pound weight around each ankle...
...Whatever happens, don't let him get inside, or pin you down...
...Beyond the range of the lanterns in a cool twilight darkness stood a loose circle of men, not drinking, not smoking, talking very little, waiting to box one another...
...The first fight was something of a let-down with a rather energetic light-heavyweight knocking out a lethargic one in the third round...
...Smokers are as old as the Navy itself...
...After a few moments of chilly silence Tommy said, very softly, very slowly: "Mack, you are to fight a man named Tanner...
...Hank's job was to deliver enough terrific punches to convince our friends to sign him up...
...Suddenly he lurched forward, pushed me back with both gloves and followed, bent over, throwing hooks like a reaper...
...To Hank he said only, "You remember what I told you yesterday...
...He didn't seem to be in fighting shape, but his arms and shoulders looked hard as stone...
...He looked to be about forty, with some hard years mixed in: five-foot-six or seven, with thick hands and a battered brawler's face...
...Get in there and give it to him...
...It wasn't easy on either of us...
...0 The American Spectator July 1995 43...
...The referee waved us both to the center of the ring, Tommy whispered "Okay now," and I went forward to meet Tanner...
...Shocked, I realized that Tanner's strategy was working...
...Slowly, imperceptibly, Tommy had restored my confidence...
...He does work as a pipefitter when he can find it...
...Then the bell rang and somebody, probably Hank, hoisted me from behind and pushed me forward...
...Suddenly he sprang forward, threw an arm behind my head and slammed my cheek with his elbow...
...I turned and stormed back to Tommy, who was just finishing with Hank...
...Then, on the following day, Easter Sunday, I was knocked senseless by a fellow I had no business being in the ring with...
...I probably couldn't pull it off now, but at twenty all things were possible...
...Tommy only wanted me to last six rounds, to survive, but for what...
...Their solution was to have Hank fight under an assumed name, in a private club-fight in an out-of-the-way place...
...The power I didn't have was the thing that confidence could not make up for, and that made the difference between me and guys like Hank...
...On my third attempt he made me pay by throwing a chopping right into my liver, and I covered up for the last seconds of the round...
...Tommy cut the ignition and lights, leaving us some distance from the others...
...His very presence intimidated me, and there 34 The American Spectator July 1995 It was all over in two quick hours...
...Smokers were originally used as a forum for settling disputes between shipmates...
...I was always younger and smaller, and giving up the chocolate bar was easier than getting a black eye...
...Must be behind on his bills again...
...At this the victor faced me, drew a breath—and headed off down Broadway...
...I took a couple to the body but gave his face hell...
...The next bout began seconds after we left the ring...
...The referee sauntered out of a neutral corner to raise my hand, which ruined the evening for quite afew bettors...
...Finally he was approached by some folks from Los Angeles interested in buying Hank to turn him into a full-time pro...
...Hank's was the second...
...Listen carefully, now: He's an old man and a drinker, but he's very tough and can hurt you...
...It says even more that he gave Hank half of the ten grand he was paid, and that he tried to give me a couple of thousand for working out with Hank...
...Having been a boot there, I had a pretty good idea what lay ahead: an outdoor ring set up inside a His initial offering was a roundhouse square of ancient wooden right that I ducked, countering with bleachers, and a threeround tussle with some a right lead to the stomach and a left inept recruit who'd proba- to the head that sat him down hard, bly been put up to the match by his pals...
...Speed I had, but no power...
...The situation looked good, but there was one catch...
...I became frustrated, and when one night it seemed my mentor was being unnecessarily thorough in beating a drum-roll on my head, I got mad and cursed him...
...They smelled like the back of an old taxi...
...Whatever impact he might have on anybody would be soon, or never...
...Hank's style was to bombard his man with punches...
...He stood as before, glaring and crablike, fists apart, waiting to strike...
...The fight is yours...
...But beyond mechanics, there is the unavoidable truth that while your object is to strike your opponent with as much force as possible, he has the same idea...
...It was his way of telling me to move on to something else...
...whereupon he stood back, laughed, and said, "Now listen to me: Your arms are six inches longer than mine...
...By round's end Tanner had adapted again, smashing my arms with his hooks and picking off my gloves with his own as they came into range...
...At 160 pounds, Hank was a middleweight, and he fought in real fights, the ones held downtown at the veterans' hall, or in preliminaries to bigger fights out of town...
...As the fifth round opened, I could see swelling around Tanner's eyes, and his mouthpiece had turned pink—it Across from us Tanner stood alone, without handlers, middle-aged, with a trace of a gut and a farmer's tan over a sallow complexion...
...Hank was a welder who worked on the base and who had trained under • Tommy for a couple of years...
...The lamps hissed and cast the room in a cold, unnatural light...
...I hit the canvas seat first as the bell rang, and watched from a dream as Tanner lurched drunkenly back to his corner...
...The crafty old bastard was having his way...
...This was a delicate matter to arrange, since having Hank face a really tough opponent at that point might end in a loss that reduced his market-value...
...My God, I thought, a right hook for a lead...
...The lodge hall was an ancient building that had seen considerable use as a rental hall for dances and weddings, but its best days had passed with the big-band era...
...In my first fight I jabbed and poked my way past a guy who spent his time loading up for a big punch he never delivered...
...He also told me to circle away from his right, and not let him set up for combinations...
...I spent my last month in the service at the transit barracks, pulling shore patrol duty for four hours every other night...
...T here were three fights before mine...
...Tommy walked back across the street and said only, "Let's get out of here before we have to explain this...
...The referee was satisfied to count the loser out from the comfort of the far corner, where he had stood, leaning into the ropes the entire fight...
...It's hard to kiss someone convincingly when you have a split lip, and even harder to explain scratches on your back left by the ring ropes...
...shame because of the way I'd found it out...
...Now, strip down and let's tape you...
...stayed away from Tommy for a while after that, out of both anger and shame...
...here and there little knots of men stood smoking, drinking from bottles, waiting for something...
...For a while I got better, but then seemed to stall...
...well, Hank married his girlfriend out of necessity and headed off to Seattle, never to reach the big time...
...begin he said, matter-offactly, "I'm heading out to coach some kids at the lodge hall down on Paterson Street tonight...
...In the minute or so he was there, I What he showed me, as gently as rehearsed about three hundred casual ways of possible, was that he could hit me expressing my interest in anywhere, anytime he wanted, and that boxing, but before I could try as I might, I couldn't touch him...
...I would guess he's 40 The American Spectator July 1995 about thirty-five...
...B ehind me, Tommy was yelling for me to get out, and I did, just as Tanner caught on to the game again...
...My help had consisted only of holding the heavy bag and gathering up equipment...
...But I wasn't worried...
...I would become Tanner...
...I'd never actually touched boxing gloves before...
...It says a lot about Tommy that he agreed to sell his interest only after insuring that Hank would get a decent contract...
...Remembering Tommy's lessons, I snapped two lefts at his eyes to gauge distance, then shot a right hand to his face...
...Fighting—that is, standing up and returning blows—was out of the question...
...We paid five dollars each and passed inside...
...His windbreaker was torn, his hair was dirty, and his shoes were pitiful...
...The American Spectator July 1995 35 tion from time to time...
...I faked another left that brought a right sizzling past my nose, and then his left, a quick, short, lethal left that just missed...
...W e had walked into a fruit-packing house, a huge old barn which bore the character of everything that had ever been shipped through it, and the odor of anything that the local dogs had dragged through in the slack season...
...Hank was ecstatic, and Tommy managed something like a smile...
...He was successful enough to make me find ways of getting out from under, but I was forcing him to discriminate, to wait to pull the trigger...
...I didn't even lose my hat...
...The tournament rules would be different and, it seemed, in my favor...
...My introduction to the ring took place at the San Diego Naval Training Center, familiar to thousands of former Navy men as boot camp...
...So that was how it would go: I'd punch, and he'd counter with hooks...
...I ran with the young boys and hit the heavy bag, but most of my time was devoted to preparing Hank for his fights...
...His right brow was cut and the blood was in his eye...
...After a few nights of this I learned that the only way to avoid a headache and purple eyelids was to keep Hank in the center of the ring, crack off a couple of punches, then leave town before the storm hit...
...Once there he paused, extending a glove, which I jabbed softly before setting up to fight...
...It was satisfying in a strange sort of way...
...Before the round I'd decided to become every boxer I'd ever seen, one after another, to prevent Tanner from timing my punches, and following me home with his hooks...
...What he didn't tell me was that the guy had only missed making the Navy team the previous year because he'd punched out a couple of military policemen...
...Other things came along to fill the void...
...He crabbed toward me and threw a sweeping right, but I loaded up and hooked hard into his ear, then as he turned away, hooked again to his head with everything I had...
...Hank told me this because Tommy wouldn't, knowing that I'd jump all over him to get into the ring...
...p oor Kessler...
...I might as well have hit him with a feather...
...I was full of questions and barely suppressed admiration, but he did nothing more than mumble until we were back on the ship, eating a midnight breakfast on the empty mess decks...
...I finished my breakfast without another word, and woke up the next day still not knowing what boxing was, but determined to find out...
...Then came a shocker: He asked if I'd take time to spar with Hank after workouts...
...I kept throwing lefts into his face, then rights, then combinations—left right left, left right left—and was scoring well, but his countering was vicious and painful...
...I'd seen Hank knock a man out by driving the man's own glove back into his face with a punch...
...I wore a large headgear and a padded singlet...
...According to tradition, the aggrieved parties don gloves and take swings at each other until one party cries uncle...
...He told me that I hadn't been ready...
...Then, one day after dinner, as I sat reading the newspaper in the shade of the port gun tub, a figure approached with the sun at his back and said in a gruff voice, "Have you got the sports pages...
...What he showed me, as gently as possible, was that he could hit me anywhere, anytime he wanted, and that try as I might, I couldn't touch him...
...By the third Maxwell was in trouble, and he was lucky to survive the fourth...
...After four weeks he began teaching me when to use and anticipate certain punches...
...I made it back to the stool with some help, despite ringing in my ears and a toothache that broadcast its pain from my upper jaw...
...Beneath them was the ring, unfamiliar at ground level, its two-strand ropes threaded through block posts sunk into the cracked floor...
...T o get anywhere as a boxer, Hank would have to become available for longer fights, and he'd have to train accordingly...
...In the third round I threw punches at Tanner from as far away as possible, but although it kept his bombs from reaching me, the net result was that my punches were rendered even weaker than before...
...T here wasn't time to savor glory, nor much to savor...
...That would mean a new ship, and no chance to train boxers...
...For a long time I went to bed with the taste of blood in my mouth...
...I'd just thrown a right cross into his teeth when his right hand came around like a sling and crashed into my cheek...
...On a sweltering August night in San Diego the luck of the draw put us together on Shore Patrol...
...We were leaning on a parked car across the street from a country-western dive called The Lariat when two fellows tumbled through the curtained doorway, swinging at each other...
...I was even snapping off a good combinawere other things that kept my tongue tied: He was a boiler technician first-class and I was a third-class yeoman...
...Rising, he decided to adopt something along the line of an orthodox boxing stance, poking a tentative left ahead of a right hand held too low to protect him...
...Maybe if he goes six, he'll get his toolbox out of the pawnshop...
...I felt sick, then angry...
...But Tommy never looked up...
...Above a concrete floor littered with orange wrappers and crate-nails arched a maze of dark timber rafters from which a circle of gasoline lanterns had been suspended...
...He lurched toward me, but I spun away, leaving him nothing...
...I wanted to win...
...I don't remember thinking about whether or not I'd win my fight...
...But that was all later on...
...Back and forth from right to left-hander, I hit him a good dozen times before he could fire, all good solid shots to the face that stung...
...Finally I asked, "Where's this Tanner fellow...
...As a boxer, he was going places...
...Hank fought three times in two months, knocking out everyone he met in the After a few nights of this I learned that the first found...
...Hank stripped down to his trunks, and while Tommy taped his hands I walked with what I hoped was a purposeful stride over to the group beyond the light...
...The club in question provided boxing to its patrons more for the gambling than for the pure entertainment...
...I wasn't going to go to his blind side, but I wasn't going to lose, either...
...Although he was certainly more skilled and experienced, I should have been able to keep him at bay...
...Because I had trained with Hank and could take a punch...
...Over the years, I'd lost confidence in myself...
...He had to fight me now, hand or no, find some way to knock me out or make me quit...
...Tommy pulled up beside a battered loading dock that seemed a mile long...
...A real boxer—I would learn—was a guy who had never wanted for confidence, hit harder than his weight, and defended well enough to be around to hit back...
...In his day (which had passed a decade before) Maxwell had been ranked as high as tenth in the country, but the reason for the present matchup was that he could take a terrific punch...
...He only comes here when he needs money...
...My advantage, if I had one, was reach, not height...
...like a fool I stayed put and tried to match him straight up...
...For the last thirty seconds of the round we stood toe-to-toe, an old man and a young fool, throwing the hardest punches we could find the strength for...
...To my surprise, he agreed, and set me up with a three-rounder at the smokers the following week...
...Although I didn't realize it back then, Tommy had taught me boxing in a way that overcame the first and most fundamental of boyhood fears—that of being hit and hurt by someone else...
...Hank was the guy with all the problems...
...But on larger shore bases, smokers take on the formality of amateur boxing and lose the grudge match aspect altogether—although the level of performance isn't that much better...
...When the boys returned, he divided them into groups of three and set them to work punching heavy bags...
...We had long talks about boxing, the Navy, life in general...
...But when the last kid had left, Tommy turned to me and said, "Now put on a pair of gloves, and I'll show you a few things...
...Tommy had taught me that boxing was about confidence, but confidence wasn't always enough...
...I met Tommy in the twilight of a four-year enlistment twenty-some years ago, while serving on an old transport ship known as the Hennepin County...
...Add fatigue to pain—the one-minute rest between three-minute rounds actually makes a fight more rather than less tiring—and a boxing match at any level becomes more a matter of strategy than brute force...
...By this time, the bigger of the two combatants, having gained a sitting position on the torso of his opponent, was raining unanswered blows to the other drunk's face and head...
...While they were gone he told me how I could help, which was mainly to stay out of the way...
...Two months later I was discharged from the Navy...
...Finally, when everyone had settled up, the referee signaled to us and I took my corner with Tommy...
...Tommy had him run through a tough workout six nights of the week, and after nearly exhausting him, would have him spar with me for ten rounds...
...As the bell rang to end the first round, I gave him a right lead to the nose that came all the way from my shoes...
...I couldn't believe it...
...As we broke for the corners I could swear I heard him laugh...
...Good for him...
...One night, after a few pitchers of beer, he told me that he had been a fighter before becoming a boxer...
...I got accepted to college, bought a car, and began to count down the days to my discharge...
...That was pretty nice boxing," I volunteered...
...but Tommy had been a good teacher, and before I knew it I'd won fourteen fights, most by knockouts...
...my tournament was over...
...Before settling the deal, however, our friends from Los Angeles decided to test the mettle of their prospect by putting him up against a known quantity...
...If he mentions Benny Leonard or Willie Pep, you've run into a real fan, if not a historian...
...Maxwell tried to get him to brawl, but Hank stood back and placed his shots carefully, countering through a storm of wild punches and landing about every other punch he threw...
...From across the ring two men rose and, calling to Tommy, gave a thumbs-up, and left the place...
...With no one to hoist him, Tanner rose slowly and made his way to the center of the ring...
...For two weeks I looked awful, and enjoyed it immensely...
...He was surprised, but I knew that he'd adjust quickly...
...One evening I came across two drunken sailors swinging at each other on the sidewalk outside the downtown YMCA...
...A pure brawler for sure...
...What happened after that was quick and memorable: Tommy no sooner arrived at the scene than he simply took the big man by the hair, pulled him upright, and announced, Michael J. McGrorty, who lives in Los Angeles, is writing a novel based on his Navy experiences...
...The pain shot through me and made my face run red again...
...Because I wanted one last fight, I told him...
...He was right, of course...
...He failed to come out for the fifth, which earned him a chorus of curses and a hard shower of assorted coinage...
...42 The American Spectator July 1995 wasn't much, but it was something...
...I said nothing but only stared across the ring...
...As the first fight got underway, the crowd of about a hundred men settled in atop stacked pallets and The American Spectator July 1995 41 crates...
...Enraged, I wrestled him back into the corner and with my shoulder against him hammered lefts into his face, then as he covered up, used both hands against his body...
...Because there was no time to find another boxer...
...The record books are full of boxers with excellent skills who never made any money for themselves or their managers...
...The man who'd taken our tickets...
...His hand is broken...
...He had recently passed the board for Chief Petty Officer, and would advance in a few months...
...Hank had been so focused on training that he'd never inquired where he was to fight, and I didn't care enough to ask...
...His initial offering was a roundhouse right that I ducked, countering with a right lead to the stomach and a left to the head that sat him down hard, more from shock than any real injury...
...Trying to salvage the first round, I threw a right lead which he answered with his left, coming just over my glove like a hawk diving on a pigeon...
...Tommy simply frowned, slashed a fork through his egg yolks and said, "Punching out a drunk isn't boxing...
...or a long time I didn't seem to be going any place in F particular, but after an eternity of pestering I got Tommy to arrange for my entry into the regional tryouts for the Navy boxing team...
...Lightning exploded in my head, and my legs went limp...
...Hurt but not finished, he reached back for a last trick, shuffling back to the ropes before my pursuit...
...Bent over, he tried to force me away, but I drove him back with Tommy's uppercuts and, with a leg between his, was thrashing a defenseless man when the bell sounded to end the fight...
...Tommy agreed to have Hank go six rounds with a former middleweight contender named Joe Maxwell...
...It took about a tenth of a second, but I can still see and feel that punch landing...
...It was my first lesson in what some ringside observer—who obviously had never put on the gloves—once called "the sweet science...
...His arms were too short for anything else, but he was strong enough to kill me with either hand...
...these were the laceless type used for training...
...The club operators required at least two matches from each manager...
...He concentrated on my ribs and upper arms, trying to bash me until my hands would fall too low for a decentdefense...
...This means that promoters are more likely to feature the boxing equivalent of Babe Ruth than a great defensive fighter, regardless of his ability...
...By the time I was fifteen," he said, "there wasn't a man around that could beat me, andonly one person I was afraid of—my older sister Clara...
...At the time, my greatest concern was keeping my girlfriend in Los Angeles from finding out that I was boxing...
...I tried left jabs to see if he'd bite and he did, hard on my body with both hands...
...Gradually the pain of the lesson eased and I drifted back to Tommy...
...You're here because you don't know any better...
...more from shock than any real injury...
...Tommy settled down in front of me, pushing a towel into my face...
...He and everyone else will be betting that you can't go six with him...
...Tommy couldn't have been more than five-foot-eight...
...At the end of the fight, I knew how they must have felt...
...Before I could answer, he said, "The only reason I ask is that you have a fast pair of hands, and I think Hank should get used to seeing some speed...
...Across from us Tanner stood alone, without handlers, middle-aged, with a trace of a gut and a farmer's tan over a sallow complexion...
...Knowing this, Tommy set Hank up with six-round matches designed to show off his punching skill and potential as a crowdpleaser, a gate attraction...
...He didn't seem to be in fighting shape, but his arms and shoulders looked hard as stone...
...Like most younger siblings, I grew up under the tyranny of a big brother who could and did thump me whenever he felt like it...
...Later I would read in my medical record: "Subject brought in by friends, insists fell off bicycle—if true, did so after terrific beating...
...ike baseball, football, or hockey, professional L boxing is a public entertainment that has to appeal to the crowd beyond its circle of cognoscenti in order to pay the bills...
...My last match, against this shabby old man...
...He kept the right up near his ear and threw the left after my punches...
...ver the next few weeks I helped Tommy with his 0 young charges, at the same time learning the fundamentals of boxing beginning with the visceral reality that boxing is, first and foremost, painful...
...Maybe he had been a terror to his little brother, or had watched too many Rocky movies...
...Joe Maxwell looked fully a decade older than Hank, and the others seemed to have some miles on them, too...
...Since then Hank had been in about a dozen fights, mostly eight-rounders, winning all by knockout...
...He'd slowed down, but I hadn't...
...More matches meant more bets, and more of a cut for the house...
...crowd...
...Hank had a knockout in either hand, but I had about one knockout divided between right and left...
...I'd reddened his face, but no amount of punching could damage the ruin of his nose...
...Before going into tech- . nique, Tommy made sure that I understood the elements of pain and fatigue...
...I, on the other hand, was a green suburban kid for whom the Navy was an opportunity to travel and save up for college...
...After Tommy rounded up his group of boys, who ranged in age from nine to twelve, he sent them out to run around the block...
...Poor Hank looked and fought like a crippled dinosaur, staggering around trying to get at me...
...Poor me when he did—he'd come right through my jabs like Sherman through Georgia, then lean me into the ropes and bag away until my ears buzzed...
...Tanner winced and covered up, then swiped at his eye with a glove...
...An hour later I was at the Naval Hospital looking one-eyed at my reflection in a towel dispenser as a corpsman laid out sutures...
...I might have gone on like that forever, but the Chief Petty Officer who ran the smokers let me know that I'd be boxing at a ten-pound handicap if I wanted to keep knocking down people on Saturday nights...
...I did approach him a couple of times as he sat eating dinner, but he froze my courage with a flinty glance and I managed only a hello before heading back to work...
...On the drive back to the ship, I asked him why he hadn't corrected me earlier...
...The mechanics of the sport are simple enough—any schoolboy who watches television can imitate a boxer's stance and technique...
...Before you say anything, you'd better know that he's never been knocked out here, and something else—he's fighting for bread...
...Everyone smoked, and most were drinking...
...Hank Sanborn was a real boxer...
...but instead had been fighting inside, toe-to-toe, where his short arms gave him an advantage...
...When he pulled it away, a red rivulet ran off my cheek, and onto my knees...
...Knowing his time was running out, Tanner took a few hard grunting breaths, and came at me like a locomotive...
...Tommy's idea was to break him of that by fatigue—to keep him so tired that he'd learn to conserve his power for the late rounds...
...Then there was something cold on my neck and Tommy said, clearly, "Mack, you've got the old man whipped...
...punching down is difficult, and I'd never fought a shorter man...
...He looked over at me with an expression that seemed to say, "So what...
...The whole thing couldn't have taken fifteen seconds...
...At this, the drunk took a swing at Tommy—actually, more of a roundhouse right, his arm sweeping majestically overhead as Tommy's right hand, then his left, were buried in the big man's stomach with a noise like a thumped washtub...
...o it was that I found myself preparing for a six-round S fight with an unknown opponent, to be held someplace I'd never heard of...
...He was perfectly at home in the infernal atmosphere of the boiler room and had won the respect of the men above and below him...
...Years ago he was a lightweight, but he's drunk his way up to your class...
...so Tommy ordered me to throw left jabs from as far away as possible, and to counter with long rights...
...The fight's over, now get the hell out of here...
...Finally, as the bell rang, Tommy said, "Left lead, then right uppercut, and guard yourself...
...A half-hour later he took them aside one at a time, and had them throw slow punches at him as he countered with slow punches of his own...
...Hank was on his way...
...Boxing is nothing like that...
...So it was that on a cool October evening I stood face to face with a skinny kid named Kessler, touched gloves, and entered the world of boxing...
...Anger because he hadn't told me the truth...
...Tommy admitted he had no hope of seeing Hank develop into a premier boxer...
...He didn't give a damn for the punches he was absorbing, and I wasn't hurting him...
...Some years later a dentist informed me that Tanner had broken my cheekbone...
...I looked to the side to find Hank and realized that Tommy had been rubbing my left shoulder, and I hadn't even felt it...
...I realize now what a good heart he must have had to take me in, to waste hours on a kid anyone could have seen would never become a real boxer...
...We got our gear and climbed a flight of wooden steps to a sliding door at which a figure in a dirty windbreaker waited...
...but among the confident, other rules apply...
...Avoiding a punch counted as much as delivering one, and I'd been taught to be a good avoider...
...The term signifies the informal (and often illicit) boxing matches held aboard Navy ships and shore stations...
...All five were dressed in street clothes and had the broad-shouldered look of boxers, except that they all seemed, well, too old...
...As a minister's son growing up on an Indian reservation, the only white kid for miles, he was a natural target for abuse...
...Despite being close in weight, I would never have thought to spar with him...
...Seldom is anything like real skill exhibited in these grudge-matches...
...With only three months left on my enlistment and a world of possibilities waiting, why do it...
...Whatever happened, he would be no help...
...A moment later, Kessler sat honking blood through a broken nose, likely to fight no more...
...Have you seen your face...
...There was a roaring that might have been the crowd, but there were so many sounds in my head it was hard to tell...
...But Tommy taught me the first law of survival: one can deliver blows as well as receive them...
...Ask any man to name three famous boxers, and you'll get a short list of knockout specialists...
...He expected me to circle left, into his dim eye and useless hand...
...By the time my back hit the ropes I was another boxer, bent lower than he, throwing uppercuts into the gap between his punches...
...So that the sole judge, the incompetent referee, could award the fight to Tanner...
...Farther down the dock other cars had stopped...
...Aside from that, he was an Old Navy type, right down to the tattoos, a man for whom the service was a career, a way of life...
...For me, however, there would be other smokers, one each weekend, until they became so predictable that Tommy stopped coming along...
...The knowledge hurt: I would always be better than the average man with my fists, but never a competitive boxer...
...No business whatever...
...to me it was simply a chance for a last hurrah...
...He was angry and hurting and we both knew his only way out was to force me into the ropes and hammer me inside...
...At the last second Tommy had thumbed some stuff onto my cheek that burned like hell but cleared most of the fog away...
...The house got five percent of anything under a hundred, and ten percent above that...
...Buoyed by this success, I decided to take on the world, and asked Tommy if I might get into a match some time...
...I spent the rest of the round trying to duplicate this success, but Tanner learned fast...
...In the corner Tommy pulled my mouthpiece and sponged me with ice water...
...Now two drunks lay prone on the pavement...
...Shielding my eyes, I looked up into Tommy's ruddy face and lied, "Sure, I'm all finished with 'em...
...I waited until one had put the other on the pavement, then strode up and announced: "Okay sport, clear out, the fight's over...
...Tommy had gone on to another command and Hank...
...I followed him home three times with hard rights, then buried lefts in his side...
...My ribs were getting a rest, but my arms—meaning my defenses—were beginning to drop...
...But not all, as I soon found out...
...To my astonishment he sat next to me and read through the section...
...They needed another fighter for the card...
...Tommy was talking but I couldn't hear...
...In any event, he didn't fare well...
...In the world of ordinary men the confident would prevail...
...Tommy explained the arrangements: At the end of the first round, bets would be placed as to the winner, the final round, and whether one or another man could go the distance...
...Tanner was willing to take two to land one...
...which brought a chuckle from a few throats...
Vol. 28 • July 1995 • No. 7
