Sugar Pop Moon (6 page)

“Here comes the whupping,” the youngest one yelled, his hands cupped around his hairless lips like a ten-fingered megaphone.

“Kiss the canvas, boy!” another shouted, his dark brown eyes bulging with every syllable. Then he turned to his friend and laughed as if he had come up with a line worthy of Vaudeville.

Ernie's brown shoulders gleamed like wet stones under the glare of the torpedo lamps. Dorothy had never been attracted to a dark-skinned man before Ernie, but she couldn't help fantasizing about running into the ring and sucking him on the mouth under the glaring lights. Her corset, already biting into her bust, seemed to squeeze her lungs even more tightly whenever she looked at him.

Her father nudged his elbow into Dorothy's arm and motioned with his chin to the back of the aisle. There strutted Higgins, a tall, sinewy specimen with long arms and sweaty blond hair that dangled like string onto his forehead. He didn't have Ernie's muscles; he was lean and towered over most everybody in the crowd. He swaggered down the steps of the aisle, twisting his lanky body to avoid the outstretched arms of boxing fans hoping to shake the hand of their favorite thoroughbred.

“There's our future, honey,” her father said. “I can feel it.”

Dorothy excused herself, quickly making her way back up the aisle to get some air. She knew that Ernie had refused a bribe from her father's friends to fall in the seventh round. Now she wished he had taken the money, at least he would have walked away with something in his pocket.

When the bell rang, the two fighters left the safety of their corners and approached the center of the mat with their gloves raised. Dorothy watched from the cheap seats, barely able to see over the standing crowd. Every so often, between the padded shoulders of the cheering fans, she glimpsed Higgins pelting Ernie's right eye with lightning-quick left jabs. Ernie shook them off, but she'd been tagging along with her father long enough to know how quickly those kinds of punches could wear on a fighter.

The bell clanged and Ernie trudged back to his stool. Dorothy returned to her seat, knowing the fight would soon be over.

“Dorothy, get over here,” her father said, smiling. “You're missing the action.”

She sat down just in time to see the fighters start up again. Higgins stalked Ernie, pummeling his forehead. After a stiff right from Higgins, Ernie leaned back on the ropes and took a barrage of blows to his meaty trunk. But instead of crumbling to the floor, he pushed Higgins back, surged forward off the ropes, and lit into Higgins with a left hook that seemed to start at his knees. The blow bashed Higgins's ribcage and sent the tall man's right leg into a spasm. Higgins pinned his elbow to his midsection and took a couple of shaky sidesteps. Dorothy leaned forward, her heart racing at the thought of Ernie knocking Higgins out. But any hope she had of Higgins's demise was yanked away when the Irishman fired three rapid blows to the bridge of Ernie's flat, broad nose. Ernie's head snapped back, spraying sweat with each shot. Dorothy prayed he would fall without enduring any more punishment, but he bounced off the ropes, banged his gloves together, and went back for more. When Higgins threw a jab, Ernie ducked and unleashed another whistling left. This one landed squarely on Higgins's right temple and the lanky Irishman crumpled to the canvas, his head coming to rest on the bottom turnbuckle.

The referee shoved Ernie toward a neutral corner and started counting over Higgins. Dorothy eyed her father, who was squeezing the brim of his once perfectly formed charcoal gray homburg hat in his fists as his thousand-dollar investment lay helplessly on the mat.

Ernie was still standing, wobbly but on his feet, as the ringsiders showered him in a hail of insults, popcorn, and half-eaten frankfurters.

The referee, stooped over Higgins, kept counting but it was clear that Higgins had swung his last punch. “Seven! Eight!”

When the count reached ten, the ref walked across the ring and hoisted Ernie's gloved fist into the air. A white man in a fitted gray suit, pencil-thin mustache, and shiny black shoes climbed through the ropes and tied the
Evening-Star
's championship belt around Ernie's waist. Crunched programs and balled-up napkins rained into the ring as Ernie held his head high, a gob of mustard on his neck and specks of popcorn in his hair. He nodded at the smattering of Negro vendors who stood ringside staring up at him, spellbound. Once he had faced all four sides of the arena, Ernie climbed through the ropes and headed to his dressing room, his round face now puffed up and bloated, the swollen bridge of his nose the color of an eggplant.

Halfway up the side aisle, as Ernie turned to shake the hand of a Negro popcorn vendor, a wooden folding chair flew out of the crowd and smacked against his forehead. He dropped to the cement floor, wincing and pressing his gloved hands over his right eye.

Dorothy shot out of her seat.

“Where do you think you're going?” her father said.

“I'll just be a minute.”

She knew she wouldn't get near Ernie—the crowd around him was as impenetrable as granite. But she got close enough to watch in horror.

Her father caught up with her, grabbed her hand, and glared at her the way he did crooked employees.

“We're going,” he said. “Now.”

He pulled Dorothy away from the scene and led her toward the lobby. Trudging behind him as he yanked on her arm, Dorothy cursed herself for needing his money. Once she graduated from Wellesley, she would start teaching and slam the door on her father—and his crooked associates—for good.

When they reached the main aisle, Dorothy peeked back at Ernie. He was sitting up; blood was smeared across his forehead and trickled down his right eye. He shook his head as if he'd just come out of a cold shower, and then stared straight ahead, blinking. He was no doubt trying to clear his vision, but Dorothy told herself he was looking her way.

Dorothy stood alongside her father and his two cronies as the ring doctor examined Higgins, methodically poking his fingers into the fighter's shoulder blades, then his stomach, and finally, his rib cage. It didn't take a physician to see that Higgins was in bad shape. He was doubled over, clutching the right side of his midsection, and moaning every time he took a breath. Worse than his physical condition was his mental state. The almighty Higgins didn't even remember getting hit.

“The only real problem is the ribcage,” the doctor said to her father, as if he were delivering good news. “One rib is cracked. I suspect another is fractured. He'll fight again, but he'll need a couple of months.”

Dorothy knew better: Higgins was done, not because of his injuries, but because he'd lost to a no-name Negro oaf. Her father would finagle a way to get his money back, assuming Higgins hadn't already spent it on equipment, meals, lodging, whiskey, and women.

Dorothy wagged a finger to catch her father's eye. She wanted to tell him she'd meet him in the lobby, but it was useless. He was too wrapped up in the doctor's medical gibberish, which seemed to be just getting started.

She eased out the door and walked to the mouth of the corridor, where three reporters stood laughing about the fight, taking turns imitating the way Higgins had fallen to the canvas. Each had a press card dangling from his neck. The shortest one—he had a square jaw and wore a brown derby—stepped in front of her to block her path. He must have seen her coming out of Higgins's dressing room.

“Hey, Sister. How bad is he?”

His press card identified him as Walter Wilkins of the
Newark Evening-Star
. His eyes were darting down the hallway with a spark that could only come from a rookie. The fellow wanted a scoop, but he wasn't going to get one from Dorothy.

“He'll be out soon, ask him yourself,” she said.

“You can't tell me anything?”

“I barely know the fighters' names,” she said.

Wilkins smirked and walked toward Higgins's room. The other two lingered, scanning Dorothy's body with nearly the same level of scrutiny the doc had given Higgins.

Dorothy ignored them and made her way across the back aisle of the armory. A young guard with red hair and blue eyes policed the corridor leading to Ernie's dressing room. Dorothy flashed him a smile and he let her pass. As she did, he straightened his back and puffed out his chest, apparently so eager to look like a competent guard that he forgot to actually be one.

With a few more steps Dorothy found herself in front of Ernie's dressing room, where a wrinkled Negro man with a balding pate sat guard, his large round potbelly fitting snugly between the arms of his folding chair. Dorothy recognized him as Ernie's trainer, Willie Brooks. She'd seen him at the weigh-in, and again tonight in Ernie's corner, holding the boxer's water bucket, nursing his cuts, and screaming into his ear between rounds. Apparently, Willie also worked Ernie's door. He didn't need any help manning his post—there wasn't a fan or reporter in sight.

“Excuse me, is this Ernie Leo's dressing room?” Dorothy asked, knowing full well it was.

“Who's asking, Miss?”

Dorothy figured she had a few minutes before the press arrived, if they came at all.

“I'm Dorothy Albright,” she said.

Willie raised his eyebrows. He was no stranger to the surname.

“Edward Albright's daughter,” Dorothy said to close the deal.

Willie nodded and got up. Then he pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the dressing room door.

Ernie Leo rested his battered body on a bench in the converted storage room. Dust covered the base of the floor moldings. Four chairs, taken from the auditorium and still assembled into a single row of seats, were stacked against the brick wall. A makeup table peeked out from behind a pyramid of torn cardboard boxes but Ernie didn't go near the mirror—he couldn't breathe through his right nostril and could only imagine how bad his face looked.

He should have gone after Higgins harder and lower. The lowlife had butted heads with him three times, punched him in the kidneys twice, and hit him squarely below the belt right after the bell rang to end the first round. Ernie had kept it clean—he knew the ref wouldn't look away if a Negro broke the rules, regardless of how badly he'd been taunted. It didn't matter now, though, because lying on the bench to his right was a green leather belt with a shiny gold placard and gleaming red jewels. Ernie couldn't read the words, but he knew the fancy script on the belt proclaimed him the New Jersey boxing champion. And with that honor came twenty dollars.

Ernie's hands throbbed, his neck ached, and he could barely lift his arms to his chest. He'd slumped under the showerhead for ten minutes, hoping the heat would loosen his battered muscles, but hot water and steam could only do so much. He leaned back and held an ice-filled rubber bag to the bridge of his nose, careful not to upset the cotton bandage covering the stitches Willie had put in his forehead.

Still damp from the shower, he had a thin towel wrapped around his waist. His mitts, cut, ragged, and sweaty, lay on the floor next to his bare feet. He'd hung his street clothes—a well-worn navy blue jacket, matching vest, and creased, cuffed white pants—on a hanger in the second of three wooden lockers. He'd put his polished brown leather shoes, which would get fresh soles once he picked up his prize money, below them. On the shoes, he'd placed his straw hat, careful not to dirty the red ribbon circling its crown.

Willie swung open the door and told him he had a visitor. When Ernie saw it was Dorothy, he moved the ice bag to cover his swollen right eye.

“You were here?” he said, wishing he'd had a chance to change into his suit. “I thought you don't go for this stuff.”

“Don't you need a doctor?” Dorothy said, wincing as she took a closer look at the dressing taped to his forehead. She seemed nervous and Ernie knew it wasn't because of his wound. He was antsy for the same reason: Edward Albright had no idea she was here.

“Willie patched it up,” Ernie said. “It's not as bad as it looks.”