Cinderella Man (4 page)

Much of the nation was on its knees, knocked into a stunned stupor. At first, people told themselves it would all be over in a month or two, then a year or two. At first, Jim believed it too, even though he'd been among the group worst hit—short-run investors, small guys who believed that everyone could be rich. In a
matter of hours, his stock investments had gone to zero. Then his bank failed, wiping out much of the money he'd put there. Finally, his taxicab company went under, but not before he'd sunk even more money into it. By 1932, the Braddocks had lost every cent of the $30,000 Jim had earned during his rise in the ring. Jim had borrowed from friends and relatives, but nobody was in any better shape. The Braddocks were only one drop in a desolate ocean of families who'd lost their homes, their life savings, and in some cases even more.

Within days of the Crash, the president of the Country Trust Savings Bank had taken a pistol from the teller's cage at work, returned to his town house on West Twelfth Street, and blown his brains out. Everyone had heard stories like that, of men jumping out of windows. Less talked about were the ones who went into insane asylums and nursing homes, the ones who'd broke down mentally and physically, as well as financially. Others took their lives hoping to at least leave their wives and children some insurance money.

Fathers deserted their families, ashamed at not being able to support them, feeling what was happening to them was a consequence of their own personal failure. They'd just wandered off in disgrace.

The newspapers talked about overspeculation being the cause, how everyone had ignored the signs of economic downturn in the months before—rising unemployment, the fall off in automobile sales and department store revenues, farms failing in record numbers. The market just climbed higher and higher. Then the waves of panic hit, brokers ruthlessly un
loaded margin accounts, banks withdrew their funds, and the market completely collapsed.

New York's dazzling lights and frolicking revelers of the Twenties gradually faded, a vanishing mirage. Appearing in its place was a gray, raggedy throng of desperate down-and-outers rounding the block at relief offices, waiting on breadlines, freezing on street corners, their faces creased with want, looking everywhere for work and finding none. Hungry, empty, hopeless, defeated.

Jim's only hope had been boxing. Although the prizes had gone down with the ticket prices, prizefighting was still a popular sport, mainly because it was a relatively cheap good time and a side bet might double a fan's pocket. But after the crash, Jim's career had gone into a tailspin. He'd racked up more losses than wins in 1930, '31, '32…and, thus far, 1933 wasn't bucking that trend. As his fight record sank, he had a harder time getting on decent cards. Jimmy Johnston had Gould touring him on a low-rent circuit, Cauliflower Alley, and for over a year, Jim had been forced to take on any sort of work he could find.

With so many factories closed, the docks had been his best shot. Port Newark, on Newark Bay, was one of the country's largest cargo ports. Inside of thirty years it had been transformed from a desolate marsh to a seaport terminal with twelve thousand feet of docks including space for large warehouses and twenty freight steamers. Shipments were constantly being unloaded here and then transferred to the many railroads and truck lines that ran through the area. So every morning before dawn, Jim rose and hiked down to the water,
hoping to beat the odds among a horde of others just as desperate for work.

Shoving his cold hands into his pockets, Jim moved across a gravel lot and toward the small group of men already waiting by the locked gate of the high fence. The weather was cold for this time of year, even colder by the water, but the two-hour wait in the predawn mist earned him a valuable spot at the front of the swelling crowd.

When dawn finally hit Newark Bay, New York Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond, Jim barely noticed. The sky was so overcast little sunlight could penetrate the gloomy mist. To the north, the Hudson remained slate gray under cement clouds, and across its churning currents, the great skyscrapers of Manhattan looked more like tombstones in a crowded cemetery.

The sudden rattling of metal drew Jim's attention to the gate. The gaunt, middle-aged foreman stood on the other side. Jim straightened and glanced around at the murmuring crowd. Most of the men were huddled against the biting, wet chill, hands buried deep in the pockets of their old coats, faces stoned by sleeplessness. There were more than usual today, sixty at least.

With his clipboard under an arm, the foreman finished fumbling with the lock, then pulled the gate open and stepped up to the waiting swarm of unemployed. This man had the power over life and death, the power to change the fortunes of Jim and his family—of every man here.

“I need nine men and nine men only.”

The jostling began immediately.
Me! Pick me!

“One, two, three…” The foreman was pointing out men far too fast. “Six, seven, eight…”

Jim could feel the panic around him, the fear, as the
foreman's joyless expression continued to scan the crowd.
Me! Pick me!
Jim prodded his way closer, trying to be seen.

“Nine.”

Jim closed his eyes. All that waiting, hours in the cold, and it was over in less than thirty seconds. He hadn't been chosen.

“I been here since four.”

Jim opened his eyes. The crowd was dispersing around him, men were already heading off to look for work elsewhere. One man from the crowd had stepped up to complain. Jim recognized him from a short chat they'd had a few weeks before. His name was Ben and he had remembered Jim from one of his old boxing matches in Jersey City, in the days when Jim had had no trouble rolling over opponents. Like Jim, Ben had a wife and three kids—two were sick.

“Sorry brother,” the foreman told Ben, turning away. “Luck of the draw.”

Ben's gun came out of nowhere. A pocket, a waistband, Jim didn't know, but everyone knew where Ben's revolver was aimed—point-blank at the foreman's heart.

“I was here first.” Ben's eyes were wild, desperate. The hand that held the gun began shaking. The foreman stared at it and began shaking too.

“What about it?” Ben asked.

The foreman lifted his eyes from the gun to Ben's face. Time went perfectly still, then the foreman spoke, “My mistake, pal. I need ten.”

Still stunned, Jim's gaze followed Ben as he stepped through the gate. Jim wanted to look away, but just couldn't, simply watched and waited without breath
ing. Then it happened. Ben had barely put the gun back into his pocket when a few of the guys inside jumped him, wrestled him to the ground.

It was over for Ben now, thought Jim. Prison. How could the man help his wife and kids now? How?

Jim's eyes looked away, down to the broken concrete. Beneath his ratty shoes, he saw the front page of today's paper. The two-inch headline was no news to him:

 

UNEMPLOYED REACHES 15,000,000

 

“No shifts today, Dad?”

Hours later, Jim had finally returned to his tenement courtyard to find his eight-year-old, Howard, playing on the fire escape landing above the basement steps. One in four working people were now unemployed in America. One in four. But an eight-year-old didn't need to know that. An eight-year-old couldn't even fathom 15 million.

Giving his son a smile, Jim shrugged.
Win some, lose some
, he tried to say, even though he'd lost for hours, walking and hitching rides for miles, looking for work everywhere, finding it nowhere—not in Newark, Bayonne, or Jersey City.

“What're you doing, son?” The boy appeared to be jumping on a mattress spring.

“I'm being good,” answered Howard. “I'm being quiet. I'm being
hayve
.”

Jim recognized Mae's don't-mess-with-me warning list—which told him something was up. He raised an eyebrow. “Good?” he asked, but before he could get more out of him, a tiny wide-eyed rocket fired itself down the alley and into his arms.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

Rosy hugged her father's neck, then the six-year-old grinned brighter than Times Square's lights used to shine.

“What, sweetheart?”

“Jay stole!”

With a sigh, Jim carried Rosy down the steps and into their basement apartment. He found Mae standing over their eldest. Jay's ten-year-old face was red. He was staring at the floor.

Jim set his daughter down. “What's this all about?”

The little girl pointed at the table with a proud tattletale grin. “See? It's a salami!”

Mae replied sharply. “Your brother is in enough trouble without you telling, young lady.”

Jim looked questioningly. Mae pointed. It was a salami, all right, and it was a beauty, fat and marbled and laced with garlic, and the way Mae slivered the meat these days, Jim figured it could surrender enough slices to feed the whole Braddock family for a week.

“From the butcher's,” said Mae. “He won't say a word about it, will you Jay?”

Mae's stare moved from her son's furious face to Jim's questioning eyes. She held her husband's gaze—a silent handoff.

“Okay,” said Jim. “Pick it up. Let's go.”

For the first time, Jay raised his eyes to look at his father. The boy's expression was pleading, desperate, angry—and full of fear.
Don't make me do this. Can't you see we need it? Can't you?

“Right now!”

The front door banged open. Jim was on his way, his son, salami in hand, dragging slowly behind. As Jim strode down the street, he said nothing. Jay followed on
his heels, eyes downcast. When they reached the butcher, Jim opened the door, waved his boy inside.

A quick explanation, an apology, and the stolen property was presented to the victim. The butcher glanced from son to father. Braddock met the man's eyes.
I am not raising my son to be a thief.

No more words were needed. The butcher nodded approvingly, returned the fat, greasy salami to his meat case, then Jim and Jay left the shop. The two walked down the street, side by side. The embarrassment had been endured, the lesson was now over, and Jim couldn't help recalling his own boyhood lessons at the hands of his stern father—after one of those lessons, Jim usually couldn't sit down for hours.

Joseph Braddock was a massive figure of a man, with snow white hair and a thick Irish brogue. He believed in God, hard work, and doing right by your fellow man, and he'd instilled these lessons in every one of his sons.

Once, before one of Jimmy's fights, his dad had said, “May the best man win.” The words weren't really about winning. They were about being a certain kind of man—the kind who kept his dignity by fighting fair and respecting the rules. In Joseph Braddock's view, only this kind of man truly deserved to win, to be admired, to be hailed a winner. Jim agreed. Being the best kind of man was not an easy thing, but it was the most important thing. His father had instilled that in him. Now it was Jim's turn to do the same for his own son.

Jim walked beside his ten-year-old in silence, waiting, giving his boy time. Jay was a quiet kid, just like his father, and Jim knew why: It wasn't always easy to find the right words.

“Marty Johnson,” Jay finally blurted out after a few blocks. “Marty Johnson had to go away to Delaware and live with his uncle.”

Jim frowned, but said nothing.

“His parents didn't have enough money for them to eat,” Jay added.

Jim stopped on the street, turned toward his son. The boy's anger was gone now. The shame and desperation were gone too. Only one thing was left in that young face…the same thing Jim felt earlier today, and almost every day since the Crash.

“You got scared,” Jim told his boy. “I can understand it. But we don't steal. No matter what happens. Not ever. Got me?”

Jay swallowed, managed a nod.

“Are you giving me your word?” asked Jim.

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“I promise.”

“Things aren't so good right now, Jay, you're right. But Daddy's doing his best.” Jim touched his son's cheek. Soon enough, the boy's skin wouldn't be peach smooth anymore, thought Jim, he'd be shaving—he'd be a young man. Now was the time to make the boy understand what kind of man his father wanted him to be.

“There's a lot of other people a lot less fortunate than us. And if you take something, somebody else goes without.” Jim crouched down so he could look at his ten-year-old eye to eye. “Here's my word, good as wheat in the bin. We're never going to send you away, son.”

Jay's small lips were already trembling, his eyes desperate.
You promise?

“I promise,” said Jim.

Finally, the tears came, spilling from the little boy's eyes. Jim pulled Jay into his arms. He held onto his child as tight as he could.

Mount Vernon, New York
September 23, 1933

The locker room was a dump. Bins with broken doors, a filthy concrete floor, half-plugged drains, and rank air polluted with the charming smells of dried sweat and stale urine.

“He's a slow guy. He plants himself. Keep him in the middle. And dance around him. You know what to do. Guy's a bum.”

The weary routine had begun. Joe Gould, sporting one of his usual dapper-looking fawn-colored suits, taped up Jim's hands while trying to brace his spirits.

Almost everybody Jim knew had been ruined by the Crash—except Joe Gould. The little fast-talker always
did have something going on the side, and he appeared to have done okay for himself, still showing smart indications of wealth and a fiercely sunny disposition. Braddock had borrowed money more than once from his manager. The sunny disposition, however, didn't lend. To Jim, it made about as much sense as a summer day in the middle of the Ice Age.

“I know two bits will buy a guy a seat,” Jim muttered, “a guy who gets to watch you bleed and call you a bum. I know that because he's a paying customer, I have to take it from him.”

“I see. Well. Pardon me. Let me restate.” Gould narrowed his eyes on Braddock. “Mr. Abraham Feldman is a novice fighter whose ass you should gently kick until it's humped up between his shoulders. If, of course, it doesn't offend your overly sensitive nature.”

Gould finished taping Jim's left, dropped it and grabbed the right. Jim winced. Gould looked down. He played with the hand. Jim winced again.

“This break's still a couple weeks away,” said Gould, examining Braddock's knuckles. “Why didn't you tell me, Jim?”

Jim didn't look up from the grimy floor.

Back in March, Braddock had gone ahead with a Philadelphia bout against Al Ettore, even though his badly hurt hand hadn't completely healed from his January fight with Hans Birkie. Ettore would have been a hard man to box even with a good hand. Trying to do it with a bum paw made Jimmy look like he had no business being in the ring. By the fourth round, the referee had halted the fight.

Still Braddock wouldn't stop. He couldn't. His family badly needed the purses, so he'd gone up against Al
Stillman in St. Louis. In the ninth round, Jim laid a terrific right to the young man's jaw. Braddock won the match, but had reinjured his hand.

Braddock kept fighting: Martin Levandowski in April, Al Stillman again in May, Les Kennedy in June, and Chester Matan in July. For those last battles, he'd managed to use painkillers, smashing the right again and again, never giving it enough time to fully heal.

Gould rubbed the back of his neck. Letting an injured fighter climb into the ring was strictly illegal. Braddock had pushed the envelope in Pennsylvania and Missouri, but now that they were back in New York, Gould was worried. Jimmy Johnston was in the audience tonight, along with two other state boxing commissioners. Anything went wrong in the ring, it could finish them both.

“Can't get any shifts,” Jim finally admitted. “We owe everybody.”

The weak, desperate voice Gould heard wasn't Braddock's—not the one he knew anyway. With a sigh, Gould considered the state of his friend's patched-up street clothes and ratty shoes, thought of Mae and the kids.

“Screw it,” said Gould. “I'll tape it double.”

Double taping was just as illegal. Gould knew it. He kept wrapping.

“So, this extraordinary opponent of yours who my grandma could beat with her breath, you keep your left in his face and when his head pops up like a little bunny rabbit…boom! One shot. Make it good. Finish early, I'll buy you an egg cream.”

As Gould wrapped, Braddock considered the idea of winning. His record hadn't been
all
bad since the night
he'd KO'd Tuffy Griffiths at the Garden and everyone had started ranking him a world title contender. On the other hand, the very next fight after Tuffy had been a helluva disappointment.

Just two months after Griffiths, Braddock had climbed into Madison Square Garden's ring again, this time to fight Leo Lomski. In the very first round, Jim had walloped Lomski with a dizzying right. But instead of finishing him off, Jim had shuffled around and hesitated, squandering his opportunities long enough to give Lomski time to recover.

After that, Lomski never let Braddock get close again. With Lomski constantly standing off and jabbing, Braddock couldn't get enough leverage to use his right cross. He'd swung and swung his right all night, but Lomski's left had dominated and Braddock had lost on decision.

It wasn't over for Jim that night, however, not by a long shot. One month later, in February of 1929, he'd KO'd George Gemas in one round at the Newark Armory. A month after that, he'd taken on Jimmy Slattery, the “Buffalo Adonis,” in Madison Square Garden. An eight to five favorite, Slattery was a brilliant boxer—a flickering, flitting, dancing ghost whose opponents found impossible to tag. Amazing his fans and astonishing his critics, Braddock's terrific right hand had caught and smashed the ghost by the end of the eighth round. By the ninth, Jim had KO'd him.

Now, as Braddock prepared to face Feldman, he tried to keep that ninth-round Slattery KO in mind. Anything was better than remembering his disastrous match against Tommy Loughran.

July 18, 1929, one year after Braddock had defeated Griffiths—and three months before the stock market sent the country's economy from the canvas to the morgue—promoters had finally consented to let Braddock take a shot at the world light heavyweight title by fighting the champ. In fifteen harrowing rounds in Yankee Stadium, Tommy Loughran, one of the best boxers in the history of the game, had crushed Jim's hopes for a world title.

Braddock should have learned a lot from that humiliating match against Loughran, it just wasn't a memory he was keen on recalling before he had to step into the ring one more time…

“Let's go,” said Gould.

He'd finished double-taping Braddock's bum right and lacing on his gloves. Now it was time for the stout little manager to lead his six-three boxer down the main aisle of the Mount Vernon Armory, past the wooden bleachers and into the ring.

The crowd was an anemic crew compared to Jim's Madison Square Garden days—and not just in volume. Leaner in face and shabbier in attire, there was a desperate look about them, as if the bets they'd made tonight were going to pay the grocery bills tomorrow. They sat murmuring beyond the ring's hot lights, a sea of fedoras and caps sending up clouds of smoke.

Closer to the action sat a small cadre of flashy gamblers with glossy-lipped companions. A long ringside table held tonight's three official judges, the sports reporters leaning on their black typewriters, a few photographers with flashbulbs ready to pop, and a single radio commentator prattling into a heavy steel microphone—

“Jim Braddock, just five years ago, was considered first in line for the world championship. But in the last year, he's lost ten fights and hasn't managed a single KO.”

Tell me something I don't know
, Jim muttered to himself as he climbed through the ropes and began to shadowbox in his corner. Gould massaged his shoulders, told him to relax.

The hall's low buzz began to rise, swelling into yelling and whistling. Braddock turned to see Abe Feldman making his way down the crowded aisle with a vigorous gait and high-spirited punches.

“Now Braddock faces Abe Feldman,” the radio man continued, “an up-and-comer with seventeen wins, one draw, and one loss. In less than two years he has recorded nine KOs.”

Jim froze.
This
was the “bum” Joe's grandma could beat?

Under his hands, Gould felt Jim's shoulders go completely rigid. “Who whipped Latzo?” Gould barked to his boxer.

“I did.” Jim's voice was barely there.

“Who KO'd Slattery in the ninth when everybody said he didn't have a rainmaker's chance in hell?!”

“I did.”

“That's right. But we should pucker our assholes over Feldman?”

“No.”

The spectators clapped and whistled as Feldman climbed into the ring. Abe was the crowd favorite, young and golden like Braddock used to be with an untouched nose and two pretty ears. Jim felt his gloves begin to sink.

“Jimmy, Jimmy, look at me!” Gould grabbed Jim's gloves, brought them back up. “Is there someplace else you'd rather be?”

“No.”

“Good. So what are you going to do?”

Braddock closed his eyes. Everything went away: the crowd's hoots, the locker room stench, Mae's weary sighs, Ben's pulled gun, Jay's silent tears, all the mistakes and missteps of the last four years. He reminded himself the “underdog” crown was no new hat. Then he opened his eyes.

“I'm gonna get an egg cream.”

“There you go. That's the spirit!”

 

The punch was a leather hammer to Braddock's face. Jim moved for the counter, but Feldman blocked his drive.

“C'mon Jimmy, let's put on a show!”

From the corner, Gould was sweating nearly as much as Braddock as he jabbed the air, mimicking every move his fighter made.

“Let's open him up for the folks!”

Gould's bulldog voice hadn't yet gone hoarse from all the yelling, but it made no difference. The only things getting through to Braddock were the booming bursts of pain inflicted by Feldman's targeted blows.

Every boxer's hits were different. Some felt like
rata-tat
tommy-gun bullets, others like beer bottles breaking over your face, cutting your nose and lips. Feldman's jabs felt like he'd picked up a butcher's cleaver—the strikes weren't big, but they were solid and hard and hit squarely with practiced aim.

The first round had been spent in feeling each other
out, but by the second, the young comer had rushed Braddock, layering him with jabs, hooks, uppercuts, forcing him to eat leather. Jim tried to counter, but he just couldn't get a break. Everywhere Feldman threw, Jim was. Everywhere Braddock threw, Feldman wasn't.

Jim looked slow and awkward compared to his young opponent, who lightly danced around him on the canvas, pivoting and punching like some gangland ballerina. Suddenly, Feldman saw an opening, laid into Braddock's ribs with a combination that sent Jimmy back into the ropes.

The crowd began to boo, their jeers rising with the smoke through the armory's musty air. In the corner, Gould bobbed and weaved, willing his fighter to break out, counter, find an opening—do anything but stand there and let himself get pounded into dog food.

“You got to be first, Jimmy! Don't let him get set!”

Jim saw a break in Feldman's guard and threw a hard cross. He smashed Feldman's jaw and sent him reeling. Jim pivoted in fast, cocked again for the finish, but Feldman lowered his head as Jim let go. Braddock's lethal right connected with the top of Feldman's skull. Abe's helmet of a cranium refused to give, but Jimmy's half-healed, double-taped hand did—

Jim grimaced as the horrible crack of bone against bone echoed in his cauliflower ear. Knife-sharp blades of agony sliced through Jim's fingers, and he fell into a clinch with Feldman. The bell ended the round but not the clinch, because Feldman was hurting too. The Ref stepped in to break it up, sending both fighters back to their corners.

While the cutman toweled the sweat and blood from
Braddock's face, Gould unlaced his glove. Even beneath the heavy tape job, the manager could see that Jim's knuckles were out of alignment, and his fingers had swelled into purple sausages. Gould's lightest touch made Jim shudder. His boxer could no longer hide the pain.

“It's broken proper, Jimmy. I'm calling it.”

Jim swallowed and thought of the purse, Mae, and the kids, the empty milk bottles.
Mama, I want to eat too.

“I can use my left.”

Rounds were three minutes long. Breaks between them only one.

“Stay inside.” Joe quickly replaced the glove, laced it back up. “Don't let him crowd you. Do what you can with the left.”

The bell clanged and Jim was up and into the ring. Gould shook his head. “I wish he could find his goddamned left,” he muttered to the cutman, then the manager lifted his voice to the rafters. “Shut him down!”

But Jim couldn't. His opponent rushed him, raining solid punches in stinging one-two rhythms. Jim tried to counter, but Gould was right—he just didn't have a left-hand punch. Worse, his right couldn't even block anymore, and his boxing shoes felt like they'd been dipped in lead. As Feldman landed blow after blow, Braddock was practically standing still, a defenseless six-three bag of sand for Feldman to punch at will.

Time usually slowed for Jim under the broiling hot lights, but now it was hurtling forward in a violent frenzy, a breakneck merry-go-round that turned Feldman into a blur of unpredictable movement.

Desperate, Braddock began to throw out his left again and again. His wild jabs missed, but he managed
to send one serious uppercut to Feldman's chin. Abe was still hurting from the right cross Braddock had fed him in the last round, and the uppercut did some damage.

Both boxers fell into another clinch. They swayed in a drunken dance, back and forth across the canvas, and the gallery began to jeer again, hurling insults and catcalls.

“Pay attention!” Gould shouted.

The faces in the irate crowd were a whirling blur in Jim's pain-racked vision—

“You stink!”

“Go home!”

“No good—”

Suddenly Jim decided maybe he had
one
more right cross in him.

“Bum!”

Yeah
, thought Jim,
one more
—

Jim cocked back and let fly. He struck Feldman on the sweet spot, and the boxer reeled, but beneath Jim's glove, beneath his tape, his broken hand had completely shattered.

As Jim braced against white-hot convulsive spasms, Feldman counterpunched with a vicious right. Jim's head snapped back. He staggered, pulling Feldman into yet another pitiful clinch, holding onto his opponent like the intoxicated host of a party, desperately trying not to pass out. Feldman didn't look much better. His arms wrapped around Braddock, and once again the two waltzed across the canvas.