Adams, Nick (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Walcott was sore as hell. By the time they’d gone five rounds he hated
Jack’s guts. Jack wasn’t sore; that is, he wasn’t any sorer than he
always was. He certainly did used to make the fellows he fought hate
boxing. That was why he hated Kid Lewis so. He never got the Kid’s goat.
Kid Lewis always had about three new dirty things Jack couldn’t do. Jack
was as safe as a church all the time he was in there, as long as he was
strong. He certainly was treating Walcott rough. The funny thing was it
looked as though Jack was an open classic boxer. That was because he had
all that stuff too.
After the seventh round Jack says, “My left’s getting heavy.”
From then he started to take a beating. It didn’t show at first. But
instead of him running the fight it was Walcott was running it, instead
of being safe all the time now he was in trouble. He couldn’t keep him
out with the left hand now. It looked as though it was the same as ever,
only now instead of Walcott’s punches just missing him they were just
hitting him. He took an awful beating in the body.
“What’s the round?” Jack asked.
“The eleventh.”
“I can’t stay,” Jack says. “My legs are going bad.”
Walcott had been just hitting him for a long time. It was like a
baseball catcher pulls the ball and takes some of the shock off. From
now on Walcott commenced to land solid. He certainly was a
socking-machine. Jack was just trying to block everything now. It didn’t
show what an awful beating he was taking. In between the rounds I worked
on his legs. The muscles would flutter under my hands all the time I was
rubbing them. He was sick as hell.
“How’s it go?” he asked John, turning around, his face all swollen.
“It’s his fight.”
“I think I can last,” Jack says. “I don’t want this bohunk to stop me.”
It was going just the way he thought it would. He knew he couldn’t beat
Walcott. He wasn’t strong any more. He was all right though. His money
was all right and now he wanted to finish it off right to please
himself. He didn’t want to be knocked out.
The gong rang and we pushed him out. He went out slow. Walcott came
right out after him. Jack put the left in his face and Walcott took it,
came in under it and started working on Jack’s body. Jack tried to tie
him up and it was just like trying to hold on to a buzz-saw. Jack broke
away from it and missed with the right. Walcott clipped him with a
left-hook and Jack went down. He went down on his hands and knees and
looked at us. The referee started counting. Jack was watching us and
shaking his head. At eight John motioned to him. You couldn’t hear on
account of the crowd. Jack got up. The referee had been holding Walcott
back with one arm while he counted.
When Jack was on his feet Walcott started toward him.
“Watch yourself, Jimmy,” I heard Solly Freedman yell to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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