Entrapment and Other Writings by Nelson Algren Read Free Book Online Page B

cared for nothing, nothing at all; save the gossiping tongue of that Father Ryan.
    Pa was the first started saying I wouldn’t ever be nothin but a poolroom pug because of the drink, that everybody should try to be champ of whatever line he was in, and he never would stop to figure out how maybe I loved the drink only after I grew to know.
    Speciale wasn’t tough, he wasn’t even a little tough. He was strong, he was strong in both hands. But no way so strong as myself.It was the smart lads who beat me, the strong ones with nothing but strong in their hands were the very ones I fought best. I could be mean with the foulest of them, and cared more for fighting the ill-tempered low-hitting lads than ever I did for the easy-natured, claner ones. I liked this Speciale. Just for the low surly look of him.
    He hit me with an overhand right when I came out—caught me square on the side of the jaw with everything in the house behind it, and I shook it off before he got hisself set again from the force of his own great blow. I snapped his head back with a short left, not to hurt him but just to show him he couldn’t be hurting myself. He must have struck me twelve-fifteen times with that overhand right, me stopping a few in the air with Elbows McFadden’s old trick, and then just letting them come on. That gave me the chance to hit him and to show him I cared not at all for the strength he had in his hands. That made him a little wild the rest of the round.
    That’s how them I-talians are, and the Blackamoors as well: they get a little mixed in their minds, or scared a little, and they no longer hit so sharp. They start throwing all that they have, that’s why they burn out so fast. ‘Tis the Jew fighters that kape their heads: it’s when they’re losing that they fight better and better. But to do it he has to first lose the first four rounds, or get hisself knocked down once or twice. Then he gets up so very calm, and begins, once in a while, to swing. But he never swings once till he’s counted it first: he never pulls that trigger, as they say, till he sees it’s likely to ring the jackpot. And so it is, with a fighter like that, he has his fight hopelessly lost and as yet he’s hardly swung his hands—then of a sudden he does, and the fight is all over right then.
    I never felt so calm in all my life as after that first round, when the crowd thought I was hurt. I wasn’t, and Sol knew I wasn’t, and Speciale knew I wasn’t too. I wasn’t near so tired as him, settin across from him with my head thrun back listenin at him givin me the line about roughin him against the ropes and gettin the old thumb in his eye and the heel of the glove across his teeth comin out of the clinch. I opened my eyes at the warning buzzer and stood uptoo soon, just to show how fresh I was, and Sol took off the stool and I looked straight up to get the bends out of my neck—and way up there in the rafters, up there in the great dark with but one small light shinin on it and small flags flying about it, a sign said PARK AS LONG AS YOU LIKE IN A LOT OF YOUR OWN .
    And all the little flags waved a little, like there was a breeze up there you couldn’t even feel down where me and Speciale was. Then the lights was shinin hot on my back and Speciale was thrown that overhand right, mixin low lefts at my short-ribs, and I knocked him down with one I slung from the fourth row flush into his gut. When he got up I knocked him down with two straight lefts into his teeth. He spat out his mouthpiece at six, his front teeth was come too loose to gulp it well, and he come up at nine. The boo-boo birds in the back of the park, the iron-throated lads, begun yellin I should finish him while I was able.
    I could not. He was too fast to find, and still too strong. He went into his shell and stayed there, and I threw what I had, and it wasn’t enough. Beside, I wanted to get back to the corner to take another look at the sign with the little light on it