Tomato Can Comeback (Fight Card) Read online

  Durban’s legs went rubbery and he sat down hard on the canvas. But he was game, and beat the count.

  A hook to the body drove Durban to the ropes, where Tom landed shot after unanswered shot before the ref pushed them apart to give a standing eight count.

  At the end of the round Tom dropped him with a simple one-two. It was a thing of beauty, like some sort of triphammer.

  Durban was saved by the bell, but his corner threw in the towel at the bell for round six.

  Long Tom stood there for a long moment with fists cocked, as if the towel might be withdrawn and he would have to go back to work. Then the Pollack pulled him onto the stool to sponge him down, get water into him and await the announcer’s proclamation.

  As they returned to the dressing room, Garrick marching as if retreating to the Pusan Perimeter and Kolodzei swaggering as if liberating Seoul, I snapped a picture and called out, “Great fight, Tom.” And I meant it.

  After seeing that the Detroit News covered the fight the evening before, Jerry Dubois reluctantly ran my story this time, though if I’d known what heading he’d give it, I might have thought twice about even writing the story:

  “THE TOMATO CAN TOURS PALOOKAVILLE”

  As sore as I was, I figured the Pollack would come at me with a knife after a heading like that.

  When I received a telephone invitation from Kolodzei to visit him and the kid, that’s halfway what I expected.

  ROUND 3

  Newspapers were taking notice of Long Tom’s comeback, so it seemed fitting that the quality of both opponent and venue were climbing. His next fight was in Auburn Hills, against journeyman Bobby Drake in a preliminary bout.

  Drake was a smart match. His lack of power meant he didn’t pose a much of a knockout threat, but his boxing skills were recognized and taken seriously—even by newspapers.

  Kolodzei and the kid were booked at a roadside motor hotel just outside town. I met them there the day of the fight and we had breakfast together at the restaurant just down the road.

  “About that headline,” I said, after we put in our orders, “that wasn’t my idea.”

  Kolodzei looked skeptical. But skepticism was better than a switchblade across my throat.

  Tom shrugged. “The article was good. I thought you treated Sarge and me square.”

  “I try to treat everybody square,” I said. I hadn’t implied Durban was a bum or slung any backhanded insults at him. To the contrary, I called him a game, gutsy competitor who would be hard to beat when he added on some experience and discipline. Just because there are winners and losers doesn’t mean you have to rub the loser’s nose in it. I hadn’t meant to do that when I made the Pearl Harbor analogy, but I guess folks had taken it that way.

  “I figured you’d be there for the main event tonight,” Tom said. “I invited you over to thank you—not just for the news coverage, but for sending me to Gandy’s. It was just the break we needed.”

  “Ralph’s a good guy,” I said. “And you got to understand something about the fight game—everybody loses sooner or later.”

  “Marciano hasn’t lost, yet.”

  “Yet,” I emphasized. “It’ll happen. Even if he’s smart and retires while still on top, he’ll get money trouble and come back, and come up short against somebody younger and quick enough to stay out of his way. Or he’ll just stay at it too long, until Father Time catches up. He’s pushing his luck already, as small as he is.”

  “I can’t imagine him losing,” Tom said.

  “I’d lay odds on it,” I said. “Who knows—I can’t always guess what other people will do. But I do know the fight game. Losing a bout doesn’t make you a loser, even though some of the papers make it sound that way. It’s what you do after a loss that tells the story. Ralph knows that.”

  Tom’s gaze fell to his lap as he said, “Thanks, Mr. Schwartz. Thanks for that.”

  Our food was brought out and we dug in, the kid putting away more than me and Kolodzei together.

  “You ready for Drake?” I asked, around a mouthful of eggs.

  Tom looked down again. “I hope so.”

  “He’s ready,” Kolodzei answered for him.

  I studied them both for a minute. “Hey, I know you need to concentrate on tonight,” I said, “but maybe, sometime afterwards, you could give me an interview.”

  “What do you want an interview for?” Kolodzei asked.

  I ignored the Pollack and spoke directly to Tom. “I want to tell the story of your comeback. I can tell a better story if I know more about you.”

  Tom shrugged. “I got a little time to answer your questions right now, Mr. Schwartz.”

  “Okay,” I said, and produced my notepad and pen. “Let’s start with where you learned boxing.”

  “That would be at Our Lady of the Glass Jaw,” Tom replied with a wistful grin.

  “Excuse me?”

  He chuckled. “That’s what some of us called it. But not when the nuns could hear us.”

  “Catholic school, then.”

  He shrugged again. “Saint Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago. Anyway, it was Father Tim who taught me how to box. It was his way of burning off our energy, teaching us discipline…and when we needed to be punished, he’d lace on gloves himself to thrash us.”

  I couldn’t help grinning at that. It was too Irish-Catholic for words. Then it struck me he was talking about an orphanage. That meant he was an orphan. “What, um, made you decide to turn professional?”

  “We got pulled back from the lines there in Korea,” he said, with a glance toward Kolodzei. “For a morale booster, we had some exhibition fights. I went up against this guy from the engineers, and all those lessons from Father Tim came back to me. All the other gun bunnies talked me up so much, I guess it went to my head.”

  “Gun bunnies,” “red-leggers” and “cannon cockers” were some of the more polite nicknames soldiers had for artillerymen.

  “I got wounded after that,” Tom continued. “Didn’t ruin anything permanent-like, but it was enough to ship me stateside. But Sarge and the rest of the battery was stuck in Korea for all that crazy stuff after MacArthur was sacked.

  “I spent a few months in a hospital in California. There was a gym. The healthier I got, the more time I spent there. I kept expectin’ to be sent back to Korea when I healed up, but they let me walk, instead.”

  The rest of the story tumbled out. The kid started going to a gym in Los Angeles. He picked up some amateur fights, and was having one when Chet Brumek poked his head in one day. Brumek was in town for a heavyweight match he put together. Brumek told the kid he should turn pro, come with him to Detroit where Tom could work with Billy Day – a manager who could mold him into a first-class fighter. For a while that’s just what seemed to be happening.

  I nodded toward the Pollack. “You were still overseas when all this was going on?”

  Kolodzei nodded.

  “You ever manage a boxer before?” I asked.

  “Just in those exhibition fights he told you about.”

  “You sure notice a lot about the other fighters,” I remarked.

  “I’ve been a fight fan for a long time.”

  “How did it happen?” I asked. “I mean, you becoming his manager and all that.”

  Kolodzei dropped his knife and fork noisily on his empty plate. “We’re gonna have to cut this short. We got a fight tonight, and the kid’s got to concentrate.”

  Tom smiled apologetically, then pulled a pen from inside his jacket and scribbled on a napkin. “That’s my home address, Mr. Schwartz. Come visit after the fight and I’ll answer whatever questions you got.”

  I took the napkin and put it in my own breast pocket. “Thanks, Tom. I’ll do that.”

  “Just write a good story, huh?”

  I winked. “I always try.”

  SKILLED VETERAN BOBBY DRAKE UNDERGOES ARTILLERY BARRAGE

  By Gil Schwartz

  Auburn Hills, Michigan

  In the same b
attlefield where the Brown Bomber used to unleash his ordinance on the heavyweight ranks, another war took place last night. I won’t call them bombs that Long Tom Garrick was throwing—more like 155mm shells. It seems unlikely that Bobby Drake would care about the distinction.

  Drake marched to the sound of the guns, determined to dish out a boxing lesson from Round One. But boxing lessons are best reserved for brawling sluggers who advance with all guns blazing, leaving themselves wide-open for counterattack. Instead, Drake faced a disciplined soldier, if not a ring general, who deployed his weapons to devastating effect.

  Drake won the first three rounds on all cards, setting the pace with his jab and crisp counters. One minute into Round Four, Long Tom scored his first knockdown. It was a sizzling one-two we’ve seen from him before—his jab landing on the nose and the right cross exploding on the point of the chin. Drake rose at the count of seven and spent the remainder of the round buying time with clinches, swiveling head movement and a bicycle not unlike that of the great ring technicians of boxing lore dating back to Gentleman Jim Corbett.

  In Round Five, Drake had his legs back, but he remained on the defensive. Long Tom landed strategic salvos, but remained patient.

  By Round Ten, Garrick had gained the lead with the judges, clearly the more aggressive fighter since the knockdown, and landing the harder punches. For those who had been expecting Garrick’s tank to run dry in the later rounds, disappointment was their destiny.

  Few had paid attention to the accumulation of body shots Long Tom landed throughout the night. Drake was one exception. In the twelfth, he took a doozy of a right in the stomach and backed up to the ropes, obviously hurt. Long Tom lost some of his poise in going for the kill, missing with looping blows from both hands. Then his left hook caught Drake on the jaw. Drake froze in place, the ropes holding him upright. With his target bracketed, Long Tom fired for effect.

  The referee stepped in to save Drake before those bursting shells blasted him into Arlington.

  Long Tom Garrick’s cannons are proving to be just as deadly as ever.

  ROUND 4

  It was some exchange I had with Jerry Dubois to get the headline I wanted in there. He felt obligated to remind readers of what a poor showing the kid had against Braxton.

  “He’s a jockstrap,” I insisted. “He has nothing to do with politics, okay?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” the editor retorted.

  “I mean save your hatchet jobs for senators from Wisconsin, and whoever else you see as a threat to progress. This kid is just a fighter.”

  This seemed to stun him speechless. And as it turned out, he didn’t force the term “tomato can” into either the story or the heading.

  An operator found St. Vincent’s for me in Chicago, and after a few tries during different parts of the day, I was able to get Father Tim Brophy on the line.

  He sounded Irish as Paddy’s pig, asking who I was.

  “Gil Schwartz, with the Detroit Free Press,” I said. “I’m hoping to write a piece about Tom Garrick—not just some bout summary—a story about him. He says you’re the one who taught him to box.”

  “Oh, sure,” Father Tim said. “He was a hard one to match up—so skinny he weighed less than all the boys his age, but he had the reach on all of them. And a big, fast punch in both hands.”

  “He’s still got the punch,” I said, chuckling, “but he seems like a natural welterweight to me.”

  “Oh, he is. It was when I first found him he was unnatural. I had to funnel pounds of good cookin’ into him for many months before he began to fill out.”

  “I’m so glad I found you, sir. Have you got time to answer a few questions about him?”

  “Well,” the priest said, “I certainly don’t want to impede the press. But tell me, you’re not one of those who like to call him ‘tomato can,’ are you?”

  “No. My editor is, but I do what I can. What happened to his parents?”

  “Abandoned him, I’m afraid,” the priest replied. “Born in the worst years of the Depression. Mother died of consumption. Father couldn’t find enough work to keep him fed…finally delivered him to Saint Vincent’s one day and was never heard from again. Tom was probably four years old at the time.”

  This would have bothered me more if I hadn’t heard other stories just like it. “What sort of kid was he?”

  “Eager to please. Polite. Humble. Quiet. But he was lackin’ in confidence most of the time. I learned I had to speak to him a bit different from the other boys.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “Well, most boys, it takes something drastic to get their attention. You know—so they’ll pay attention to what you’re trying to teach them, so they’ll learn. But Tom always paid attention to everything. And when me or the sisters would say something harsh, like we often had to with the other boys, he would take it personally.”

  My pencil hovered over my notepad, not sure what to scribble. “So…you mean…what, he cried a lot?”

  “No more than any other orphan.” The priest cleared his throat. “You’ve got to understand, Gil…can I call you Gil?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve had hundreds of boys come through here, Gil. Sometimes I don’t figure one of them out right away—especially if he’s a quiet one. The loud ones, and troublemakers, take up so much of our time… Anyway, it was not an easy thing to hurt Tom in a fight, once he learned the science of it. But it was very easy to hurt him with words. In time, I came to see how harsh words from me shook his confidence. He was very sensitive that way. I still think it was because he didn’t lose his parents to death like other orphans; but his father intentionally tossed him away…like some piece of garbage.”

  I considered this for a silent moment. “Did you keep in touch with him after he left the orphanage?”

  “Oh, he called or wrote faithfully for a few years,” Father Tim said. “But not since that fight with Braxton. I sure would like to hear from him again. You don’t happen to have an address for Tom, do you?”

  I pulled the napkin out of my pocket. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  I gave the priest the address Tom wrote down for me. Father Tim answered more of my questions, then had one of his own.

  “Were you there at that fight he had with Braxton, by any chance?”

  “Right at ringside,” I said.

  “How did he look, to you? I mean, before the TKO.”

  I thought back to Pearl Harbor Night. “He seemed kind of dry and pale. But then, I’d seen him like that for other fights, too. It usually didn’t stop him from scoring a knockout within the first couple rounds.”

  A fighter is supposed to be warm and loose for a bout. Normally, this means he keeps warm by dancing and shadowboxing right up to the referee’s instructions.

  “Something was wrong,” Father Tim said. “He never had problems with stamina as a boy. How has he looked in his last few fights?”

  “Really good,” I said. “He’s been easing back up to the level of opposition he had before. He’s been strong in the later rounds.”

  “Aye,” Father Tim said. “He was sick, or something, against Braxton.”

  Not long after my telephone conversation with the priest, a woman found her way into the bullpen.

  I knew all the female reporters by name, and this wasn’t one of them. In heels, she came to about five foot six. She had a nice figure. Judging by the face (attractive, but a little on the hard side) she shaped up to be about my age—Class of ‘39.

  The sight of her reminded me how long it had been since I’d been to my favorite watering hole, Waistgun Charlie’s. A long time. Making new lady friends took loads of charm, and, since Thelma, it wasn’t often I could dredge up enough of it to have social success.

  “I’m looking for a Mr. Gil Schwartz?”

  The pensive voice shook me out of my thoughts of booze, broads, and bawdy fun. I met her gaze when index fingers all over the newsroom pointed my way.

 
; She walked toward me and I appreciated the spectacle of her locomotion. She stopped at my desk and asked, “Mr. Schwartz?”

  I stood from my chair to be polite and inquired as to how I could be of service.

  She clutched a small purse in both hands. The bony, vein-layered hands of a hard-working woman. Not quite as smooth and soft as I liked them. Her straight brown hair was pulled back tightly into a businesslike bun. Her face had once been quite pretty, I decided, but makeup had aged her features prematurely until she now needed the eyeshadow and other trappings.

  “You’ve been writing stories about Thomas Garrick,” she said. “And I’m trying to find him.”

  Some reporters have what is called “a nose for news.” Nobody ever attributed such to me, but right then and there I just knew there was some kind of story in this.

  “I didn’t catch your name, miss.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing. “How rude of me. It’s Mrs. Mrs. Judith Kress.” She extended one of those worn-down hands and I shook it.

  “You’re a friend of Tom’s?”

  She continued to blush. “I haven’t heard from him in over a year. Not until your stories, Mr. Schwartz. Well, you see…I…”

  “I have an idea, Mrs. Kress, how about we hop around the corner for some coffee and a sandwich? I’m a little hungry and I both talk and listen better with coffee.”

  “Well…” Her lips contorted a bit as she considered my offer. “That would be fine, Mr. Schwartz.”

  We rode the elevator down together, then strolled half-around the block for a snack, some coffee and a cigarette. As we walked, I got the gist of things. She was actually a couple years younger than me—Class of ‘41. A war widow, who hadn’t even been married two full years when she got the polite, ugly letter from the War Department. She had her late husband’s pension, plus what she made waiting tables at the restaurant where she met Tom.