Ringside Tale ll

Ringside Tales ll

When Joe Branson recovered, his dressing room was teeming with
traffic. His wife Dolores sat in the corner on a wobbly stool, with
both hands clasped tightly against her bosom. Her narrow face was rigid
with apprehension. Joe's pudgy trainer, Tex Horner, was hovering over
her, his raw hand upon on her shoulder. He looked mournful-like he just
lost a brother or a good friend. John Fish, his moneygrubbing manager
was pushing a mob of reporters out the door. Before he managed to get
the door closed and lock it, an undaunted reporter from Ring Magazine
pushed through and got off a quick shot of Joe, the camera's flash
stinging what was left of his good eye. A couple of gray-haired,
decrepit looking security guards in rumpled uniforms waited
uncomfortably by the padded table where Joe was sprawled, waiting for
instruction.
A diagnostical audit of Joe's condition was heard from behind him. It
was the baritone voice of Dr. Nash. Nash was busy indicating the number
cuts and bruises Joe received during his bout with "Terrible," Bill
McClean, the toughest beast who ever put on 16-ounce gloves.
The other voices in the room were distant, like from deep within a
cavern. Joe heard a furious rap on the door and peered through the
blood that clotted around his eye. His father, Howard, had barged into
the room. Fish let him inside after hearing Howard say that he would
break the door down if he didn't open it immediately. Joe's father was
big and loud and a fighter once himself. He retired early in his career
to start his own milk route. He rarely missed a fight of Joe's unless
it was out of state. Howard stopped bellowing at Fish, taking time to
assess the damage to his son for himself.
"Beat him up pretty good this time," he said, which was more of a fact
than statement. Fish nodded gravely, but was already spinning his
wheels over a new prospect, hopefully someone who could make him a lot
of money.
Howard added, "He should 'a known better than to get into the ring with
that monster. But you can't tell that boy nothin' when he makes up his
mind."
Joe wanted to smile, but his lips were swollen like balloons.
Hearing Dolores's sobs, Howard bent down and kissed her gently on her
cheek.
"Don't worry sweetheart," he said, "he'll pull through. The boy always
does. Why don't you go home and let the Doc take care of him. I can
drive him home when he's fixed up."
Dolores, tears streaking down her face, shook her head, no. "I need to
stay by my husband, Howard. I can't leave him like this. He's never
been hurt this bad."
Joe saw Dr. Nash grimace and his eyes become serious after Dolores's
resolve. Suddenly, his hands probed and prodded less at his body, and
instead they became sympathetic tools of compassion. He stroked the top
of Joe's head and motioned the guards outside. The guards looked
relieved at being dismissed.
Tex left Dolores with Howard and carefully sidled up to Dr.
Nash.
"He gonna be alright, Doc?" Tex asked, in his low, raspy voice.
Nash fumbled for his penlight and spread open Joe's right eyelid.
"Well," he said, scrutinizing his blood-red irises, "We won't really
know for sure until he gets x-rayed at the hospital. The ambulance
should be arriving any moment."
Joe instinctively felt Dr. Nash wasn't admitting the whole truth. He
could sense danger swimming through his brain. His body felt numb,
except for the racking pain in his jaw. He felt like he was
suffocating, the stabbing in his chest making it difficult for him to
breathe. He tried to speak to Nash, but failed. He could only manage to
twitch his nose, but it was too broken up for anyone to notice.
Tex persisted. "You can tell us somethin,' can't ya Doc?"
"Go ahead and fire away, Doc," Howard interjected-ever the
old-schooled, 'shoot from the hip,' no nonsense guy from Chicago's
South Side. "This ain't the first time he's been broken up after a
fight."
Nash glanced at Dolores for tacit permission. She nodded slightly and
then lowered her head towards her breast. Joe felt she sensed something
was very wrong as well. He felt Dolores was building a wall around her
and bracing for its collapse.
Dolores had always hated the life Joe chose. She hated the profanity
and the bloodthirsty looks from the gangsters in 3-piece suits who
flaunted their cash openly and the smoky pools of tobacco that choked
the air along with the inebriated jeers of glassy-eyed boozers. She
abhorred what boxing had done to Joe's face and ears from too many
brawls and illegal head butts. She used to say he had beautiful
features-but that was a long time ago-before he took to the fight
business.
Through the years, Joe's face bore the resemblance of a pug dog-flat
and fleshy. His ears had cauliflowered; his brow lacerated from the
glancing of laces from opened gloves; scars like sickles formed around
his eyes from cuts, which reopened with regularity. His speech became
slurred like a drunkard long on cheap wine, and his memory didn't
retain things like they used to. More frequently, he forgot his wife's
name and would just call her 'babe,' or 'hey beautiful.'
Dr. Nash took a deep breath and said, "Well, suppose I can give you a
definitive diagnosis. Mind you, he still needs to be x-rayed before we
can see how extensive the damage is. I can tell you his jaw is
fractured. It will most likely have to be wired shut. His nose is also
broken, but I'm sure that comes as no surprise. His right cornea
sustained some tearing. The damage may be irreparable-"
"Speak English, Doc," Tex interrupted. "We ain't exactly college grads
ya know."
"I mean he could go blind in his right eye," said Nash,
impatiently.
"But that would mean he's finished," said Fish, feeling a depletion is
his pocket book. Fish hoped he could scrape up a new fighter quick.
"You sure about that Doc?"
"Pretty sure."
Joe thought about Dr. Nash's diagnosis. He wondered if he could
sustain another beating from the likes of Bill McClean, or any other
brawler. Even if his eye turns out okay, could he put himself through
another mauling, possibly ending up on a cold slab down at the morgue?
"But I'm a fighter," he argued with himself, while feeling intense pain
searing through his jaw. "I've been beaten before. I've taken the
hardest shots and still came back." The pain jolted him back to
reality. "But not like this," he conceded.
Joe had taken a serious beating through out the fight but managed to
stay on his feet against a much stronger opponent. He was knocked down
twice and almost submitted to the 8th count but found himself on his
feet, facing more punishment. Then Joe thought back to that last round
with McClean. McClean was all smiles when the bell rang. It was if he
was saving up the worst for Joe.
He came straight at him like a bulldog-corralling him against the
ropes-pounding his kidneys over and over with blows like iron anvils.
He recalled the powerful McClean pushing him against the ropes, and
then catching him off balance with a hook that unhinged his jaw. It was
that punch alone that would have done him in-but it was the piston-like
blow that followed, catching him between the eyes, snapping his head
back, turning his legs into noodles and making everything turn
black.
Later, he awoke in a sooty haze of consciousness as he was carried
through a subdued crowd of spectators on a stretcher to his dressing
room. Muffled voices filled the gloomy arena, testifying to a loud
cracking sound from the ring just as McClean landed his knockout punch.
Joe could hear some lingering words of concern and laymen's
speculations on his condition. The crowd pressed around him. Flash
bulbs illuminated a few of their images; gaping mouths and rubbernecked
faces of dread fixed in his mind like photographs before he swooned
into darkness again.
That was all he could remember before he woke up in his dressing room
and heard his wife sobbing quietly in the corner and the reporters
aggressively clamoring for any news of his condition.
Joe thought about the disembodied voices that floated through the air
earlier. He remembered specifically the words that echoed within the
din about a cracking sound coming from McClean's wallop in the 12th and
final round. "It had to be the sound of my jaw breaking," he thought.
Joe reached up instinctively to touch his jaw. His arm didn't react to
the signal. It lay motionless, like a dead weight. He sent a signal to
the other arm?nothing. He willed movement to his toes ?again nothing.
The revelation seized Joe with panic. He realized the cracking was the
sound of his neck breaking- the cracking of his spine as his head
snapped backward. He wanted to cry out but could only moan and cry
bloody tears down his blood- caked face.
Only Dr. Nash had a notion that Joe was paralyzed. Earlier he had
furtively pricked the bottom of Joe's feet with a tack he had removed
from a picture on the wall and got no response. In fact, no part of
Joe's body from the neck down responded to any stimuli. But, he didn't
want to be the one to tell Dolores and the others. He'd let the
surgeons make that diagnoses after Joe reached the hospital.
"He's in so much pain, Doctor," said Dolores, teary eyed. "What's
taking that ambulance?"
"They should be hear any moment, Mrs. Branson," said Nash, wishing
they would hurry. Nash was only a General Practitioner, hired by the
boxing commission to help out with minor injuries during bouts. It was
extra money for Nash, which he needed to help put his three kids
through college. But he never thought he'd encounter a paralyzing
spinal injury. He usually tended to some swelling, fractures, or cuts
until they could be taken to the hospital for more detailed work. Most
of the time he was patching up spectators who got pummeled by some of
the rowdier element.
As if the ambulance attendants had heard Nash's wish, they arrived
seconds later. They laid Joe on the stretcher with difficulty, his body
much heavier as it succumbed to pure gravity, and they led him out into
the hall amongst the teeming reporters, his wife following
behind.
"What's the story champ?Ya gonna ask for a rematch??" Light bulbs
flashed from everywhere in the narrow hall. The reporters broke with a
volley of questions. "Was McClean the toughest fighter you ever met in
the ring?How do you feel having to give up the title?Do you think your
age had anything to do with losing the fight Joe?What's your plans for
the future?"
Joe felt detached from all the shouting. He thought of Dolores and
wished he could tell her his fighting days were over. He would tell her
he was sorry he ever started using his fist for a living. He wanted to
tell her that what she had believed was right all along-fightin's for
bums and gangsters and people who don't have the smarts to make it with
their brains. But he knew none of the past mattered as he was put into
the ambulance. Not even the fact that he was never any of those things
Dolores described. He was just a fighter pure and simple. And, as a
true fighter, he had to begin training for the fight of his life-the
fight to survive.

THE END