The Final Adversary (11 page)

“Just give me a chance,” Barney pleaded.

Benny threw the cigar on the floor and nodded. “I’ll give you this: You come to the gym for a few weeks. Do what I tell you. Then we’ll see.”

“Thanks, Benny!”

“No promises!” Meyers warned. “You don’t fight until I say so.”

Barney replied eagerly, “You’re the boss, Benny!”

With joy in his step, Barney left to buy his gear, convinced that he could fight again.

****

“You gonna take the kid on, Benny?” A man named Maxie Plummer had overheard Barney’s request to Meyers.

“Thinkin’ about it.”

“Better not waste your time,” Plummer advised. “A good fighter—he’s like a fine watch. One thing goes wrong and it never runs right again. Don’t think the kid can come back.”

“You may be right, but I’ll give him a chance.”

****

The next morning Barney arrived early at the gym and began his workout. It didn’t take long before both trainer and fighter discovered Barney was not the boxer he had once been.

“Your timing is off, your punches ain’t got no snap. You’re underweight by at least ten pounds,” Benny complained. “If I was you, Barney, I’d find a good job.”

“You just give me a month, Benny. You’ll see.”

Day after day he came in early and stayed late. He worked harder than any fighter Meyers had ever seen, and three weeks later he was getting back his old skills. Meyers commented on it one afternoon. Barney was punching the light bag, making it rattle with a precision that sounded like a drum.

“Better call it a day, kid,” Benny said. Then he laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day when I’d have to tell a fighter to stop training. You’ve done good, Barney.”

“Good enough for a fight?”

“Maybe in two weeks or so.”

Benny would say no more, so Barney left and decided to celebrate. He had been off liquor since his arrest. That night,
though, elated over his progress, he had a few drinks with another fighter—a middle weight named Joe Maddox. They had trained together, and upon meeting went for the bars just like old times. By ten o’clock they were more than a little high.

“I’ve had enough, Joe,” Barney said.

“Aw, we’re celebrating, Barney!”

“You can celebrate without me. I’m going home and get some sleep.”

He made his way toward the boardinghouse. On both sides of the streets, the bars and gambling joints were doing a roaring business. He stopped mid-stride when he heard his name called.

“Barney! Barney Winslow!”

A man rushed up and grabbed Barney in a big embrace. He tried to shake him off, not sure what he wanted. Then he heard a voice from the past.

“It’s me, dear boy! Awful Gardner!”

Barney couldn’t believe his eyes. Sure enough, it was Awful! He looked much the same as he had in prison—tall, thin-faced with gray eyes and a full head of black hair.

“Awful!” Barney cried. “It’s you!”

“Indeed, it is!” Gardner slapped him on his shoulders, saying, “How good it is to see you!”

“It’s wonderful to see you, Awful,” Barney said. Then his smile faded as a memory flashed into his mind. “Better than the last time we met in Sing Sing.”

“ ’Course ’tis better,” Gardner insisted. “Now, let’s go where we can talk. Me place is right around the corner.”

“All right.”

“But I can’t go for a bit. Got a spot of work to do.”

“Work? What sort of work, Awful?”

“Oh, just a bit of my own. Wait right here. Won’t take more than a shake of a duck’s tail!”

Gardner ran across the street and joined a small group in dark uniforms. Soon the sound of music filled the air. Barney watched as the Salvation Army band played. They had
more enthusiasm than skill, he decided, but a crowd soon gathered around them. One song, “Washed in the Blood,” brought back memories of the prison chapel where he’d last heard that song.

After a while the music stopped with a resounding boom from the big drum, and Awful Gardner stepped up on a small box and began to preach. His voice rose over the crowd gathering around him. “God loves you all! The Lord Jesus died for your sins—for every sinner. And who’s the worst sinner on this bloomin’ street? Me! Awful Gardner! Why, I’ve spilled more liquor than most of you have drunk!”

As Awful continued to preach, Barney listened. He was a hardened man, not ready to hear any preaching. Yet he had seen Gardner act out his gospel. Here was no high-church preacher, but a con out of Sing Sing, who had been able to keep a sweet spirit in a hell on earth.

Barney had plenty of arguments against religion and the Bible—but none against Awful Gardner. As he listened to the ex-con expound, Barney thought,
He may be wrong about God and the Bible, but he believes it with all his heart!

Little by little the crowd began to drift away, and Gardner gave them a parting blessing, then came running over to Barney. “Now, dear boy, how about a spot of tea, wot?”

Barney followed Gardner to his room, a small room in a fairly nice boardinghouse. As they talked, or rather, Gardner did, Awful scurried around, heating water, finding the sugar, pouring the tea, providing a little jam for the small biscuits he set on the table.

“I work all day washin’ dishes, and spend me evenin’s with the Salvation Army preachin’ on the street,” Gardner said.

“Happy as a clam, I am!” he said when Barney asked if that satisfied him. “The Good Lord is with me, I’m able to move about, and I get to spread the gospel every day.” Then he put his hand on Barney’s shoulder. “And you, old chap? How goes it with you?”

“Good.” Barney nodded. “I’m in training now. Looks like I’ll get my first fight in a couple of weeks.”

Gardner eyed him doubtfully. “A hard life, fightin’. It done me in, just about.”

“It’s all I know, Awful.”

“Aw, laddie, we will see. If God can get you out of Sing Sing, He can do anything—wonderful things with you!”

Barney shifted around and Gardner saw his visitor’s discomfort at any mention of God. “Well, now,” Awful said wisely, “I’ll come and watch you train, and you can come and drink me tea.”

“I’d like that, Awful.” He hesitated, then smiled. “I never did tell you what a big help you were to me in prison.”

“Ah!” Gardner scoffed, waving his hand. “Not a bit of it!”

“Yes, you were.” Barney thought for a moment. “I still have bad dreams about that hell hole. But nearly always when it starts closing in on me, I remember that you were always there. I could always count on you—calling me ‘dear boy’ and promising me things would be all right. It—it meant a lot to me, Awful. It really did!”

On that note, Barney left, and true to his word, Gardner was at the gym the next day. Barney, too, kept his promise and had tea and cake in Awful’s room.

Three weeks later, on October 14, Barney’s first fight was scheduled. But the afternoon before he fought, he was walking along Water Street, when a woman stepped out of a bar. At first he paid no attention. Then she turned.

It was Katie Sullivan! She did not see Barney, and he darted back to watch her. She and the man with her staggered down the street. She still looked as petite as she had the first time he saw her at Antoine’s when his family had visited him. But now she had the appearance of a common woman—painted face and droopy mouth. He realized he was not the only one who had changed over the past months.

His mother had told him that Katie’s testimony led to his
release. Strangely enough, his bitterness at being locked up had fastened on her.

“If she’d spoken up,” he’d said to his mother, “I would never have gone to prison.”

Lola had tried in vain to explain that Katie had little to offer and had not understood how important it was.

“It was her fault,” he told himself. “All she had to do was speak up—but she wouldn’t!”

Looking at the retreating figure, he felt hatred rise up, and he wanted to smash her face in. Then he pushed the rage aside.
Can’t get into trouble with the police,
he decided.

The night of the fight he boxed poorly. Benny thought it was because Barney wasn’t trained properly, but he blamed it on Katie Sullivan. The hatred he felt toward her made him so angry he rushed his opponent, flailing blindly. The other fighter, a skilled boxer, stood away from Barney and left him looking like hamburger.

Barney lost the fight on a decision. The disappointed trainer said afterward, “Barney, you used to be a good boxer, but now you’re just a street fighter. You’ll get your brains scrambled if you go on in the ring. Get a job.”

That night, instead of going to sleep, Barney got drunk, then crawled to his room at daylight and fell across the bed, his sodden mind raging,
It was her fault—Katie Sullivan! I’ll get her sooner or later!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rescue Mission

“Miz Winslow?”

“Yes, Helen, what is it?”

As the maid came into the drawing room where her mistress was reading a book, she said in a perplexed tone, “Ma’am, there’s a man come to the door asking to see Mr. Winslow.”

“A gentleman to see Mr. Winslow?”

“Well—not to put too fine a point on it, ma’am. He ain’t no gentleman. Not no
regular
gentleman, that is.”

“Bring him in, then,” she said, putting her book down.

That response wasn’t enough for Helen. She was proud of the Winslow status and quick to protect it. “He ought to go to the back door, not come up to the front.”

“Is he a tradesman?”

“I dunno, Miz Winslow.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He just don’t fit into no kind of pattern.”

“Well, just bring him in,” Lola said again, smiling as the maid stalked off. The roly-poly maid’s insistence on protocol amused Lola, for she herself was not given to class consciousness. She got up and looked out the window as she waited.

“Here he is, ma’am,” Helen sniffed, adding, “and keep your muddy feet off things.”

“That will do, Helen,” Lola rebuked.

The man was dressed in a dark suit, worn but neat and clean. He was in his mid-thirties, with clear gray eyes and thick black hair.

“Sorry to be a bother,” he said. “I’d like to see the mister
if he’s home.” His words rolled off his tongue in a distinct accent.

“My husband is in Chicago. Perhaps I can help you?” she offered. “His office is in the Strand building. You could see him there next Friday, I think.”

He hesitated, his bony hands twisting his hat, as though trying to make a decision. “Is it Barney’s mum you are?”

“Why, yes,” Lola answered. “Barney is my son.”

“Well, Miz Winslow, me name is Gardner. If it’s not—”

“Why, of course! You must be Awful Gardner!”

“That’s me, ma’am,” Gardner said, encouraged by her response. “I hate to be bustin’ in like this, but I didn’t know no way to get a word with you and the mister.”

“Do have a seat, Mr. Gardner,” Lola offered. She smiled as he eyed the fragile Queen Anne chair, adding, “Go ahead, it won’t break.”

Gardner sat down carefully, placed his hat in his lap, and clutched it as if it would give him security in the midst of such grandeur. Perspiration dotted his broad forehead, for it had taken considerable courage to come to the Winslow mansion. He felt completely out of place and might have fled except for the kind smile from the beautiful woman seated across from him.

“Barney has told us so much about you, Mr. Gardner,” Lola said. “You were a great blessing to him in prison.”

“Just call me ‘Awful,’ ma’am,” Gardner nodded. “But it wuzn’t much I wuz able to do for the dear boy. Just a kind word now and then.”

“It was a great deal to Barney. He’s often told me how you kept his spirits up when things were so dark.” Her smile dimpled and she added, “I told Barney you were probably an angel in disguise, sent by the Good Lord to encourage him.”

“Me? An angel?” Awful shook his head and smiled ruefully. “No fear, Miz Winslow! Just an old con saved by the blood of Jesus.”

“Barney’s heart is hardened against God right now, Awful,” Lola said. “But your witness about Jesus won’t be lost.”

“I pray not, ma’am, I do indeed,” Gardner nodded vigorously. “It’s the prayer of me heart that the dear boy will come to ’imself and find the Savior.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Yes, ma’am, that I have. It’s that I’ve come about,” he said, shifting his eyes.

Lola sensed he was having difficulty. “Is Barney in trouble?”

“Well, yes, ma’am, he is. You know he’s gone back to fightin’, and that’s a rum go for any bloke.” Gardner shook his head sadly. “I’ve tried to get him to shake free from it. Used to be a pug myself, Miz Winslow, and it’s no life for a man.”

“His father and I have tried to get him to do something else, but he refuses our help.”

“Right-O! The lad’s got a stubborn streak!”

“I’m afraid he comes by it honestly,” Lola sighed. “All the Winslow men seem to be that way.” She bit her lip, then asked, “What else is it? That’s not all you came for, is it?”

“To tell the truth, ma’am, I just felt I had to come.” Gardner shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and then looked Lola in the eye. “I been trying to help the lad, but he won’t let me do much. The truth is, he’s gone on the grog.”

“Gone on the grog?”

“He’s drinkin’, ma’am. Pretty bad.”

“He can’t do that when he’s in training, can he?”

“Lots of them do,” Gardner shrugged. “John L. Sullivan was a whiskey soak. I talked to his manager, Benny Meyers, and he tells me that he’s warned Barney to stay off the sauce—but Barney won’t even pay no mind to Benny.”

Lola jumped up and began to pace. She had known things were not going well for Barney. He had not come to the house for days, and Andy had heard that his brother was back to his old ways. She and Mark prayed much for him, and spent endless hours trying to find a way to help their oldest son. The
burden had become so great that Lola was never free from it—always finding her mind and heart turned toward Barney.

Gardner sat quietly, his eyes taking in the anguish on the woman’s face. He had heard enough from Barney to know how much he loved his parents, how he had broken their hearts. Then when Katie Sullivan told him about Mrs. Winslow’s courageous efforts in freeing Barney from prison, Gardner had decided he must come.