Fighter's Alley Read online

  Eddie stepped over the crumpled bodies, toward Will. That was when Will realized his friend had not escaped unharmed. He was holding his stomach, bleeding from just below his eye and from a cut on his forehead. Eddie shook as Will moved forward to help him.

  “Let’s go to the church,” Eddie said, his voice like gravel.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Will did the best he could. He filled a pail with water from the well in the alley and made a bed from the straw in the church basement. He laid Eddie down there and washed the cuts with the water and an old shirt of Eddie’s. Eddie’s ribs were badly bruised, and his breath was raspy, but the cuts were not too deep. He lay still for a long time with his eyes closed. Seeing him so still, so vulnerable, made Will sick to his stomach.

  This is my fault, Will thought. I brought him back into this.

  “I’m sorry,” Will said finally.

  “This is not your fault,” Eddie said, opening his eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this for me.”

  Eddie looked at Will, his eyes big. “I need you to know,” he said. “I need you to know that you can be a great fighter. I saw it in your eyes and I saw it in your speed and I saw it each time you fought. That’s why I’m doing this.”

  Will nodded. He felt something between pride and guilt.

  “When I left boxing, I said I’d never come back. It was a sport about money and greed.”

  “Then why did you start?” Will was afraid if he asked questions, Eddie would stop talking, but he had to know.

  “I had to survive,” Eddie said. He gestured toward the water, and Will brought the pail closer so he could drink. Eddie grimaced as he raised his head and drank, then lay slowly back down. “My sister came to America from Rome. She was going to work for a family, taking care of their children. We had no one here, but she was determined. My sister was also very beautiful, and it wasn’t long before she wrote that she was engaged. She said this American was rich and smart and would take good care of her, and she wanted me to come and live with them. My parents did not want me to go, but they knew there was opportunity here. So I came over on a ship a few weeks after my sister was married. But by the time I arrived, she had died. She had taken ill with fever. Died in days. I was devastated, but her husband did not seem sad at all.

  “He was not a good man, my sister’s husband,” Eddie went on. “He took me in, but he had me live in a room off the kitchen, cleaning the chimneys, eating scraps. He was always yelling, drunk. You have to remember, I did not speak English and I was not living with my people. I had to fight to survive, to eat. One day my sister’s husband saw me fighting with another servant boy over a dinner roll we’d found. He had just started promoting fights at a dance hall, and he saw something in me. I won every fight. I had nothing left in me but fight. I was alone and hungry, and he paid me and fed me to fight. And suddenly, I was very good at something.”

  Will tried to picture Eddie as a kid, as someone his age, and he couldn’t. He tried to picture someone telling Eddie what to do, and that was even harder to imagine.

  “People did not think I would win, because I was so small and young. But I always won. And that is how he made all of his money. Eventually he started to fix the fights. Everyone knew I would win now, so they always bet on me, and no one was making money. My sister’s husband said I had to lose, but I wouldn’t do it.”

  “I wouldn’t have either,” Will whispered. Eddie nodded. He smiled weakly at Will.

  “It was a big fight. There was a lot of money. The Promoter had promised a lot of people. And I wouldn’t lose. They kept stopping the fight, and he promised he’d kill me if I didn’t lose.”

  “But you won,” Will said.

  “I won.”

  “Why didn’t he kill you?”

  “I don’t know,” Eddie said. “I honestly don’t. But he said I could never fight again.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t want to fight. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had to hide for a long time. I’d lost a lot of people a lot of money. But until yesterday, I had a job. Sometimes I got the itch to fight. Some days I did.”

  Will let the silence settle in. He couldn’t imagine how alone Eddie must have felt, arriving in New York without family or even the right words. Finding something he loved to do, then having it taken from him.

  “You need a good night’s sleep, son. And so do I,” Eddie said finally.

  “I’ll be fine,” Will said. He knew when he got home that he’d be in trouble beyond what he could imagine. He had no idea what time it was—well into the night.

  “Eddie,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Eddie’s eyes were closed. “Thank you, son,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “You are a disgrace! To the family name, to your mother, to my career. A disgrace to the legacy of your grandfather!” Will’s father’s voice seemed to shake the windowpanes. “You could have destroyed my campaign!”

  Will’s parents had been seated in the drawing room waiting for him. It was nearly eleven o’clock. They had not eaten dinner or had their tea. His father had sent his own driver out looking for Will. He’d sent the police captain a message. He’d been to the Woodrat and learned about the fight, about the “filthy Italian,” about all the secrets Will had been keeping.

  Will’s mother sat with her hands in her lap and tears on her cheek while his father shouted. Will had always been afraid of his father, but tonight what he felt was devastated. It was over. He wouldn’t be able to fight at Coney Island. Everything Eddie had done for him, everything he dreamed about … His father had promised to lock him in the house until the day he left for Yale, and Will believed him. His life was over.

  “Do you have nothing to say for yourself?!” his father said. Will felt icy shivers on his spine. His father was standing over him, his face red from yelling.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Will said, because he knew this was what he should say. He did not feel sorry for a moment.

  “Sorry? Sorry!? This does me nothing. I will have to make public apologies on your behalf. On behalf of our family name.”

  His father’s voice pounded at him like fists. All Will wanted was to sleep.

  “Okay, William,” his mother said finally. She stood and was beside his father. She put a hand on his arm. “That’s enough for now.”

  “Enough?” his father coughed. But Will could see he was tired. He’d lost his fury. Will’s body felt heavy.

  “Go to sleep now,” his mother said. “We’ll speak in the morning.”

  Will’s head felt as heavy as his body as he lay in bed that night. It was hard to explain the disappointment that overtook him. He had been dreaming of the Coney Island fight for so long, training for so long, that it had been all he saw when he looked forward in his life. Now, to have it swept away from him so easily, he felt absolutely empty. He was wide awake when he heard his door creak open. His mother was wrapped in her dressing gown, holding a candle close to her face.

  “Will?” she whispered.

  “I’m awake, Ma.”

  She sat at the edge of his bed, as she’d done every night when he was smaller. She looked down at him, and for some reason he felt embarrassed. He felt sorry he’d lied to her all this time.

  “Why do you do it?” she asked.

  “Lie to you?”

  She shook her head. “Why do you go to that place, fight those people?”

  He felt the adrenaline sweep through him. He leaned up on his elbow.

  “Ma, I’m good at it! I’ve never felt like I do when I’m out there. I’m fast and I’m strong. I surprise people. And they’re not like you think, not all of them. Not all criminals and bad people. Eddie, who trains me. He’s really good. You would even like him.”

  His mother was watching him closely. Her eyes were bright. He held on.

  “Tomorrow is the thing I’ve been training for, Ma. A huge tournament. It’s at Coney Island, at the fairgrounds.
It’s not a bad place. It’s a real fight. And I can win. I really can.”

  He watched her. The hand with which she held the candle was steady. Will didn’t know what she was thinking, but he knew he’d said everything he could. He’d tried his best to make his mother see.

  “I’m really good at it, Ma,” he said again. And she lifted her eyes to him.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  “I will go with you to Coney Island.”

  He felt like he could leap from the bed.

  “One fight.” His mother lifted her free hand, raising one finger. “One fight. And I am with you the whole day. And we never utter a word of this to your father. And after this, it is over. You do everything I ask of you. You become part of the campaign. You focus on school.”

  Will nodded, but he was bursting. He couldn’t think beyond tomorrow. He wanted to jump up and down. He reached for his mother, but she held up her hand.

  “Shh. Now go to sleep,” she said. She stood and leaned in to kiss him lightly on the forehead. “Just go to sleep.”

  And she walked to the door, the candle dragging her shadow across the ceiling.

  “I love you, Ma,” Will said as the door creaked shut behind her.

  He knew he wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was strange to be with his mother on the train. Will wasn’t used to seeing her outside of the house or traveling outside their own carriage. She sat upright and proper, as beautiful as ever, and she smiled. People stared at her. They could tell she was someone important, but she didn’t seem out of place. Will liked that. She didn’t seem afraid. She seemed to belong, and he felt proud to be at her side.

  The train was crowded. Passengers were dressed in their best top hats and dresses. Children kneeled to stare out the window, and mothers rested picnic baskets on their laps. Will was exhilarated by the roar of the steam engine and the scent of the beach as they traveled farther and farther from Manhattan. But mostly he thought about the fights.

  This tournament is a way for boxing to come to all of the people, he thought.

  He imagined that the families with their picnic baskets were going not to the beach but to the fights. In his heart he knew it was not true. Not true yet, but it could be.

  He closed his eyes and heard Eddie’s voice. Next to him, his mother slipped her hand into his. In his mind, Will threw punches—left-right, left-right, face, chest, face, chest. He aimed at the air in front of him, picturing a body. Picturing Paddy Dohrring and hearing Eddie’s voice in his ear: “Never stop training. Never stop thinking the fight.”

  The train had reached its end. Will held tight to his mother as they spilled into the sea air. He could hear the ocean and the sound of birds. The boardwalk creaked with crowds. His mother stood tall, but he could tell she was nervous. Nearby, the turrets of hotels loomed over them, and Will caught sight of a tent, a blowing sign illustrated with a hunched boxer.

  “There!” he said, and he pulled his mother toward the tent.

  As they moved closer, he could see the tent was filled with the familiar hunched backs of men in dark clothes and frayed suits. But families with umbrellas and picnic baskets hovered nearby, peeking in at the spectacle. There were four rings under the tent. Only one of them featured a fight already in progress. What Will saw there made his heart drop to his knees.

  “Wait here, Mom!”

  He let go of his mother and ran into the tent, to the farthest ring. He was about to leap over the ropes when someone caught his arm and held tight. He turned. It was Silas, surprisingly strong and looking pale and stringy outside the dim light of the bar.

  “You have to let him fight,” Silas said. Will looked up in desperation at the ring.

  “He signed up,” Silas said. “It’s how they draw a crowd. See the biggest men fight the fallen champion. He’s won three fights already.”

  Will fell back, standing close to Silas, his heart beating fast. He could barely recognize Eddie in the ring above. Eddie’s face was swollen and bloody, his left eye already purple black. He fought shirtless, and his steel chest and arms were red and raw, his knuckles bleeding and swollen. He looked like he was sleeping on his feet, swaying unsteadily, his head bowed. Will had never seen him look like that.

  Eddie’s opponent was a giant, arms like barrels and legs twice the size, a chest as wide as a train car. As Eddie swayed, the man pummeled him with punches that looked like they would shatter brick. Eddie stood his ground, holding his fists up to protect his bloodied face. Will watched helplessly, as Eddie stepped slightly back, steadying his stance. In a swift movement, his right fist retreated and then cut in a perfect hook to his opponent’s kidney. The giant crumpled, a childlike heap on the floor of the ring. Eddie fell exhausted to the ropes. Will jumped into the ring while Oakley called the fight for Eddie.

  “What are you doing?” Will said, easing Eddie to the ground.

  “You weren’t supposed to see this,” Eddie said hoarsely.

  “I thought you would never fight again.”

  “I needed the money, Will,” Eddie said, looking down.

  “He knocked out four men!”

  “—greatest fighter alive!”

  “—no one could take him!”

  “—even as an old man, he costs me all of my money!”

  The remarks floated all around them as the crowd fanned out.

  “You should have let me help you,” Will said. Eddie shook his head and cringed. Suddenly Will felt a light hand on his shoulder. It was his mother, there beside them in her dress and finery. She knelt before Eddie with a bucket and a pile of bandages in her hand.

  “Mom!” Will stepped back, uncertain what to do as his two worlds came together. At least his mother kept the crowds away. Men whispered, booed, and cheered, but they did not come close.

  “It was all Mayflower’s idea.” Silas appeared with another pile of bandages and gave them to Will’s mother. “See the greatest fighter fight the biggest men. Mayflower said he’d give the Italian ten dollars for every fight he won. Nobody thought he’d win. It was a joke, to get people here.”

  Will’s heart sunk lower. He had known Eddie was sleeping in the church, he had known things were bad, and he’d done nothing.

  “But he knocked out every man,” Silas said, shaking his head. “Every one.”

  Will’s mother was whispering to Eddie, who had risen some from his slouch. Her touch seemed to have brought him back to life. Will felt proud.

  “You know, your fight is next,” Silas said. “They’ll be calling you to ring three. You’re fighting Paddy Dohrring.”

  And just like that, Will stopped thinking about Eddie for a second. He started thinking about how he might lose.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Will had been afraid his mother’s look at Eddie would make her change her mind. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t let him fight. But she remained quiet and stayed focused on Eddie. They moved him to the corner of ring three, and Will’s mother made an onlooker give them some chairs—one for Eddie and one for herself. Eddie gestured to Will, who knelt at his feet. One of Eddie’s eyes was swollen shut, but the other one was bright and clear.

  “I need you to forget about me,” Eddie said. Will nodded, but the guilt was like a rock in his stomach. “I need you to forget about everything around you except for the boy in front of you—”

  “It’s Paddy Dohrring,” Will said, miserable.

  It doesn’t matter who that boy is,” Eddie went on. “It matters that you know what he’s thinking, you know what he’s planning, and that you stay one step ahead of him. You remember everything I taught you. You think only with your body.”

  Will nodded. The last part was what he needed to hear. The last part was what he remembered. He turned to his mother, who smiled and nodded. Will could fight; he still had her blessing. He climbed into the ring.

  Paddy Dohrring stood still and confident in the opposite corner. A bell rang out
in another ring, men cheered, and the faraway rush of ocean waves drifted into the tent. Will’s stomach jumped in circles. Paddy was wearing wool pants, worn thin, and suspenders held them over his muscled shoulders. His face looked mean and focused. He stared at Will. He didn’t smile or wink or make jokes. He was focused. And that was the worst part.

  The official stepped into the center of the ring. Not one of the Woodrat regulars like Oakley—the official wore a suit and a thick mustache. He looked from one boy to the other. “Are we ready?” He raised his hand, and the bell rang.

  It was like Eddie said. Will stepped forward and everything around him blurred, just like the first time he had fought. He knew Paddy was a fighter who didn’t dance or fake. He hit. All Will could see was Paddy’s thick fists and his strong chest. Will was ready. And still. The punch came out of nowhere. It hit him before he saw it, driving hard into his gut. Will fell to his knees, gasping for air. He knew he had to stand, stand up! He saw white, black; he couldn’t breathe. But somehow, he took back his footing.

  “Round two!”

  This time, Will was ready. He danced left, right; he ducked Paddy’s uppercut and moved around him.

  “Where are you going, coward?” Paddy hissed. He was strong but not fast. His next punch knocked against Will’s shoulder, but Will just kept moving. Paddy swung his heavy fists. Moving to the left, Will saw his opening.

  Keeping his eyes on Paddy’s face and with his fist traveling in a swift arc, Will smashed Paddy’s jaw. A lightning bolt of pain shot up Will’s forehand, while a stream of blood burst from between Paddy’s lips. Paddy stumbled back to the ropes. He leaned but didn’t fall. Will used this time to catch his breath, jumping in place. He knew to never stop moving. The adrenaline had replaced his guilt now. It was rushing through his veins.