The Final Adversary (2 page)

“Look, Dad,” he said, his voice crackling with unrestrained energy, “for two years we’ve waited for Barney to write or come home. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that he’s not going to do either? I say it’s time we took the initiative. If he won’t come to us, we’ll go to him! As Mother says, we can’t hurt the situation any.”

Winslow dropped his head, thinking of his oldest son,
Barney, who was completely different from Andy. Barney was slow to speak; Andy, quick. Barney never excelled at anything; Andy did everything well—with a dash that excited everyone’s imagination. “I failed somewhere with Barney,” Mark said heavily. “I should have been more patient.”

“You mustn’t say that!” Lola admonished, coming to put her arms around him. “We all misunderstood him, I think—but it’s not too late.”

He held her, drawing strength from her unshakable faith. In spite of the defeated look on his face, he forced a smile. “I wish I could believe that,” he murmured. “Maybe fathers don’t have faith the way mothers do.” He stepped back and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, Andy. We’ll do it your way. Let’s catch the one-fifteen train.”

“I’ll be ready!” Lola cried.

“You’re not going!” Mark said. “What are you thinking of—a decent woman going to a boxing match!” It had been several years since Gentleman Jim Corbett had defeated John L. Sullivan for the heavyweight championship of the world. Corbett had brought some respectability to the sport, but not much. It was still a brutal event, and only showy women attended.

Lola’s eyes glinted. “You won’t be upset about my going, Mark, when I tell you the rest of it.” She waited, enjoying the juicy morsel, the edges of her lips curved upward impishly. “Esther is going with us.”

“You’d take a
child
to a brutal thing like a prizefight? Lola, you’re not serious!”

“She’s Barney’s sister, and she’s not a child,” Lola replied. “We’re his family, and we’re all going to see him fight. True, it’s not the life we want for him, and God willing, it’s not the life he’ll have. But for once this family is going to do something for Barney without one critical word or deed. I
mean
it, Mark!”

Painful memories flashed across his mind of those years of rebellion, of struggles to keep his oldest son from a life
that was dragging him away from the family. Mark had tried unsuccessfully to bury those images of the past; now he faced her and said slowly, “All right, Lola. I never did anything right with Barney when he was home. We’ll try it your way. I’ll tell Bates to have the carriage ready.”

They left the house at 11:30 and caught the 12:00 train. Scarsdale, the location of the Winslow home, was twenty miles north of the city. Mark Winslow had risen to a directorship on the Union Pacific, and his work kept him traveling. Both he and Lola had agreed to leave the crush of New York City to live in Scarsdale, where they had been since the children were young.

The passenger car was crowded, so Mark and Lola were separated from the children by a few seats. Mark settled back, lost in thought and undisturbed by his wife, who knew his moods well enough to refrain from conversation. Finally he smiled. “Sorry to be such bad company.”

“It’s all right, dear.” She patted his hand. “We must have faith.”

“He’s so
different!
” Mark sighed.

“Different from whom?” Lola asked gently. “He’s not like Andy, you mean. I suppose that’s where we went wrong. I’ve thought about their childhood a lot, Mark. Barney was such a sweet child! Remember when he was small, how he’d wait for you and run to meet you? You two had some great times.”

Mark nodded. “Yes. I remember that. I think of it every day. We paid too much attention to Andy, didn’t we? Oh, it wasn’t intentional. But when your child does something well, you want to praise him for it. And Andy was good at everything. He still is.”

Lola twisted her hands together. She was a woman at peace with the world and herself—except in this one area. Here she could not conceal her grief. “I don’t know why we didn’t recognize it, Mark. We should have found a way to make Barney feel accepted, not rejected. It must have been terrible for him, always losing to Andy!”

She began to cry softly, and he put his arm around her and drew her close. Mark Winslow had been a hard man in his youth. His enemies would say
that
had not changed. Yet toward this woman, he was wholly tender and could not bear to see her weep. They sat quietly, listening to the rumble of the wheels intermingled with their daughter’s incessant talking.

“What’s a prizefight like, Andy?” Esther asked excitedly as the train approached the station. She had been delighted to get away. Her brown eyes gleamed beneath a shock of black hair, a copy of her mother’s.

“Not anything you should be watching,” he replied. “I tried to talk Mother out of bringing you along, but you know how she is when she makes up her mind. Might as well argue with a glacier.”

Esther, at eighteen, had known little of the world’s rough ways, nor had she ever been able to understand her older brother in the least. “I don’t think it’s right, all of us chasing around after Barney,” she pouted. “He’s the one who left home and disgraced us all.”

“He’s our brother,” Andy rebuked her. “And it’s up to us to do all we can to pull him out of the mess he’s in.” He gave her a critical look, adding, “You never showed much affection for Barney, Esther.”

“Well, neither did you!”

Andy hated to be corrected, but he was also a clear thinker, so he nodded. “That’s right, Esther. I was pretty insufferable, I guess. And it’s been on my mind for a long time.” He looked out the window, then back at her. “Look, I want to be a minister—but how can I reach out to people if I don’t care enough about my own brother to try to help him?”

“Andy, he’s gone so far down! Drinking and fighting—and who knows what else. We know he was in jail in Kansas for months.” Esther shook her head. “I think he’ll laugh at us.”

“You may be right—but that won’t kill us, will it?” He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the window just
as the train station came into view. “Hey, we’re almost there. I’ll get your bag.”

****

“You ain’t got no chance boxin’ with O’Hara, kid,” Benny Meyers, a short, fat Russian Jew, said. “He’s a fancy dancer, so I want you should put your head down and go at him like you wuz a mad bull. You got that?”

“Sure, Benny.”

“Okay. Now let’s go, but remember this fight’s important, Barney. O’Hara’s outboxed Jake Penny, Little Gans, and some real good ones. If he beats you, he’s gonna get a shot at Dutch Wagner. But Carmody says if you beat O’Hara, you’ll get the bout. And anybody who beats Wagner gets a shot at the champ. You know what that means?” Meyers’ black eyes bored into the boxer’s, and he whispered around the short black cigar: “It means the
world,
Barney! All the money you can spend, dames—all you could ever dream of. And everybody will look at you when you come into a hotel, and they’ll say, ‘There’s the light-heavyweight champeen of the whole world!’ ”

Barney Winslow listened quietly, his deep-set brown eyes half hidden. But at the last words, a gleam appeared. “I’ll kill this guy, Benny.”

“Now you’re talkin’!” Meyers said, leading his fighter out of the dressing room. “He’s gonna tag you with a few, kid. He’s good—but he ain’t got no killer in him like you have. Just let him have his licks—then wipe him out!”

The New York Arena had a name larger than the building deserved. It was no more than a factory that had gone bankrupt under the collapse brought on by President Grant’s corrupt administration. For years it had lain fallow until an enterprising young Jewish man named Danny Garfield had bought it on credit and turned it into a sports arena. The high ceiling permitted the construction of bleachers all around the center, with wooden benches radiating out from the ring.
Sprinkled throughout were newly developed electric lights, which cast harsh shadows down on the referee and the fighters as they met in the ring.

“Look!” cried Andy. “Over to the side! I think that’s Barney.”

The four Winslows were seated on the top row of the bleachers. They were lucky to get those at five dollars apiece. As they had pushed their way through the crowd, several men made crude remarks about the women. Once it was almost too much for Mark and he angrily turned to strike the man, but Lola grabbed her husband’s arm, murmuring, “It’s all right, Mark.”

After two five-round bouts, Esther whispered to Andy, “I feel as if someone is going to see me in a place like this. It’s
awful!
”

Lola, on the other hand, wasn’t as uncomfortable, for she had grown up in a cantina in Mexico years ago and had been part owner of a gambling club in a Union Pacific construction town. The rough talk, the smoke, and the crudity did not shock her; however, the fights did. The barroom scraps she’d seen were nothing compared to the barbaric scene here. It seemed degrading to pay to watch two men maul each other, but she had chosen to come.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the cries of the crowd as the referee introduced the next bout. “Now for our semi-final contest, we have Davy O’Hara, at one hundred eighty-six pounds from San Francisco, facing Battling Barney Winslow, weighing in at one hundred eighty-one pounds from New York City.”

He lowered his voice, said a few words, and the two contestants separated to wait for the bell.

Barney had had no contact with his family for two years, and the change took them by surprise. His coarse black hair was cropped short, he’d put on weight, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders rippled as he slapped his gloves
together. He turned just as the bell clanged, and Lola thought,
I wouldn’t have known him!

The fighters approached the referee in the center as he held out his hand, the two men touched gloves, and the fight began. Barney lunged forward, his right hand swinging up in a sweeping motion. O’Hara ducked easily and gave his opponent a sharp blow with his left. It wasn’t a hard jab, but it left a red spot on Winslow’s cheek. Barney pulled up, turned and moved forward, both hands slightly cocked at shoulder height, and once again maneuvered O’Hara into position, then made another charge. This time his fist caught O’Hara on the shoulder and spun him around. O’Hara twisted his body, took a short step to the left, and shot his left at Barney’s forehead.

Mark leaned forward, oblivious to the crowd. He had been in many fights in his youth, and the sight of the two men throwing punches made his nerves tingle. He felt Lola clutch his arm, and heard Andy yell, “Come on, Barney!” Mark was a competitive man and understood Andy’s reaction. He, too, stretched forward, pulling for his son to strike O’Hara down.

Lola hated every minute of it, and prayed that God would give her wisdom to deal with her son. She understood Mark’s and Andy’s response, for she knew men. But she knew as well that they had forgotten her son’s predicament—trapped in a world that would destroy him.

When the bell sounded after three rounds, Barney dropped to the stool at the side of the ring and gulped down the water Meyers gave him. “You done good, Barney,” his trainer said. “He’s gettin’ tired. Can’t keep that dancin’ up all night!”

Barney’s face was red and sweaty. The cut over his left eyebrow needed attention and Meyers dabbed at it, saying, “You ain’t gonna last for ten like this.” He peered down. “You got the nerve to go after him, Barney—I mean dig his grave?”

Barney’s eyes glowed. “I’ll get him, Benny!”

The bell rang, and Barney sprang like a cougar across the ring. His rushes had slowed down, and though O’Hara had
gotten used to the rhythm of them, he was caught off guard. He managed to avoid Barney’s first wild blow but caught the second one square in the mouth. It drove him back into the ropes, his eyes glazed. The crowd jumped to its feet, screaming, “Get him, Barney! Get him!”

There was no strategy in Barney’s movements. He simply punched wildly, driving home each blow with every ounce of strength, most of the jabs missing. But O’Hara could not avoid the savage attack. He was struck in the face, on the side of the neck, in the body, the last punch sending him to the floor, motionless. The referee waved Barney back and began to count: “One—two—three—”

Slowly O’Hara roused, but his legs wouldn’t work. At the count of seven he stumbled to his feet, swaying groggily. The referee stepped back, and Barney rushed O’Hara, hitting the helpless fighter unmercifully.

Lola watched as her son pelted the man in front of him, closing her eyes at last when the bloodied O’Hara fell to the canvas and lay still.

“The winner by a knockout is Bat Winslow!” the referee shouted, and the crowd screamed in response.

Barney felt Benny hugging him, and then the robe was on his shoulders. Men were shouting his name and crowding around to pat his back as Meyers led him through the packed aisles to the dressing room.

Meyers removed Barney’s gloves and cleaned him up, chortling with glee at the victory. Just as Barney’s shirt was on, the door opened. A pair of soft arms circled his neck and he heard the cry, “You won! You won, Bat!”

Barney felt a kiss on his bruised lips, then Sally said, “Come on! We’re going to have a victory celebration and drink champagne—all on Mr. Barone.”

Tony stepped forward and smiled. “Bat, I never saw anything like it! No man alive could have stood up to you!”

Barney grinned through puffy lips. “Well, O’Hara did a pretty good job of it.”

“But you got him.” Tony waved his hands in the air. “Now let’s go. All on me—oh, this here is my new star—Katie Sullivan. Katie, meet Battling Barney Winslow.”

Katie had been appalled by it all, but there was no threat in the fighter now. He regarded her through eyes almost in slits, then nodded. “Glad to know you, Katie.”

At that moment the door opened again, and he saw several people framed in the doorway.

“Hey, we’re leaving,” Tony said quickly. “No time for talk with your fans.”

Barney’s eyes were still so swollen he couldn’t see clearly. Then he heard “Hello, son.”

Dazed, Barney stared. This was worse than any blow he’d taken in the ring. He couldn’t seem to move. Suddenly, a cool pair of hands touched his cheeks, and he smelled his mother’s scent of lilacs.