few weeks later, under a blazing hot Fourth of July sun, he and several thousand other fight fans sat in a makeshift arena over in Bay View Park and witnessed Jack Dempsey take on Jess Willard for the world heavyweight title. Dempsey looked disciplined, focused as he timed the release of each devastating blow. Willard had at least forty pounds on Dempsey, but Dempsey’s skill and ferocious power almost crippled the defending champion before the end of the first round.
Willard staggered about the blood-splattered mat for another six minutes; taking hit after hit, his right eye swollen shut, his face a crimson mess. Before the bell signalled the start of the fourth round, someone from Willard’s corner threw in the towel and it landed at Dempsey’s feet. Dempsey had battered Willard within an inch of his life. Cheering fans swarmed the ring and carried off their new champion. The next morning McCloskey found a gym and started training.
A fellow from the payroll office who knew a thing or two about keeping a book arranged for McCloskey to go a few rounds with a steelworker from the site. Bets started rolling in and the steelworker quickly became the odds-on favourite. He had a larger-than-life personality with matching shoulders, and when he wasn’t dragging his knuckles on the sidewalk he was using them to drive rivets into fastener plates.
The match was held on a hot and humid August night. Everyone came out to witness McCloskey’s suicide, filling the back room at Buckeye’s with their stench, noise, and cigar smoke. After the initial bell there was about a minute of dancing around that attracted groans and empty beer bottles from the crowd. The steelworker reacted by throwing a few careless swings at McCloskey’s head. And then McCloskey came out of nowhere with a barrage of punches culminating in a powerful left hook that crushed the steelworker’s cheekbone and sprinkled a few of his teeth across the mat. He went down. His trainer doused him with buckets of cold water, but his lights stayed out for a good long time.
McCloskey stood over his opponent’s mangled body and smiled through the blood and sweat trickling down his face. Everyone was amazed at the fury and intensity of McCloskey’s blows. He was like a force of nature, moving from unforeseen to unstoppable in a matter of seconds. He surprised even himself. The site foreman lost money on the fight, big money, the kind of money that’s hard to forget.
The next day McCloskey was told his services were no longer required and that he should hit the road. That was fine with him. He was confident that he could find work elsewhere by selling himself as both a skilled labourer and a fierce contender, and he did. He became a regular in the factories and shipyards that dotted the western shores of Lake Erie, fighting in bloody, bare-knuckle bouts that re-established his old regimental nickname: Killer McCloskey.
This went on for just over a year until jobs started getting scarce. Recession, labour unrest, and an influenza epidemic were taking their toll on the economy. McCloskey considered going home. He didn’t doubt there were opportunities back in the Border Cities; what he was afraid of was relapsing into the twisted wreck of a man he was at the end of the war. At the same time he felt guilty about not keeping in touch with his father and brother. He had written them only two or three times since he left home, and even then it was only a few lines on a postcard.
Days passed between jobs, and the bitter cold sharpened his hunger pangs until they were like a knife in his gut. He rang in the New Year unemployed and without a roof over his head. He was beginning to appreciate how quickly one’s fortune could turn. It was a bad spot to be in: even if he could get himself a match, he couldn’t fight tired and with no food in his belly. He was running on empty, in every sense.
One morning while on a job hunt he found himself parked on the shoulder of Telegraph Road at the north end of town, staring at the sign that had stopped him from going home once before: CANADA 60 MILES. This time it felt like Toledo was showing him the door. He checked his mirror and saw a truck approaching. He let it pass before merging with the traffic heading into Michigan.
When he reached Monroe he pulled over at a filling station to chisel the ice off his windshield and replenish his cigarette supply. At the counter in the garage there was a conversation going on between the mechanic and a teamster. It had something to do with the local stamping plant. Apparently as of this morning there were a few openings. The driver told McCloskey that if he was interested he should head over there pronto.
For once McCloskey’s timing was perfect: he landed himself a job at the plant. He felt saved in more ways than one. With what little money he had left he got himself a hot meal and a room at a run-down hotel near the train station. It would feel good to be working again. He stretched himself out on the bed and listened to the boxcars shunting back and forth until night fell. He closed his eyes and sleep came swiftly.
When he finished his shift the following afternoon and he felt he had a read on the place, he made some noise about being in need of a punching bag. The line workers knew what he was on about. One of them introduced him to a foreman who doubled as the plant’s unofficial sports and entertainment director. The foreman immediately paired McCloskey with a regular, a fighter who hailed from Oklahoma and went by the name Kid Okie.
The story was the Kid had been too young to go to war, so he stayed home and pulled his mammy’s plow instead. When she couldn’t afford to feed him any more because the crops were poor, she sent him into the rustbelt to seek his fortune. He was pocketing the money he made at the plant and sending his ma his meagre winnings. Little did the old lady know.
When the Kid climbed into the ring, McCloskey took a step back. He was about the size of one of the smaller Midwestern states. His short-cropped hair was white, in sharp contrast with his ruddy complexion. His trunks looked like they were tailored from a couple of grain sacks, his fists like clutches of sausages. At the sound of the bell he ambled towards McCloskey. He looked like he meant to do harm.
McCloskey got the Kid to swing first and then weaved to his left, sent a crushing right to his solar plexus and, as the Kid spun, a left to the kidney. The Kid straightened up just in time to receive another combination of furious body blows followed by an uppercut that broke his jaw in three places. He was rolling his wisdom teeth around in his mouth when McCloskey delivered the coup de grace: a solid left hook to the side of his head.
Less than thirty seconds into the fight, Kid Okie was as cold and flat as the prairie in winter. He never knew what hit him. When they pulled him off the mat he was thunderstruck, like a soldier pulled out of the earth after being buried alive by a mortar blast. McCloskey felt sorry for the kid, but only for a minute. He felt sorrier for the Kid’s mammy, who wouldn’t be getting her accustomed envelope this month.
There was another dry spell and several weeks passed without any fight prospects. Then McCloskey got laid off from the plant. Pretty soon he was idling fast and getting anxious again. He knew what this could lead to, and the choice was clear: either fall apart in the streets of Monroe or take his chances back home in the Border Cities.
McCloskey did his best thinking while eating. He debated the pros and cons of playing the prodigal son over a plate of muskrat, potatoes, and cabbage, washed down with a pint of ale much improved by a shot of rye. When he finished he considered the rat carcass on his plate and the nickel change he had left. Maybe it was time to finally bring things full circle. Ready or not, maybe it was time to take it home.
He jogged through a light spring rain back to his car, where he thought about it some more. Eventually he settled on a compromise: he’d go back to the Border Cities but wait to contact his family. He would get himself a job at Ford’s — far from Ojibway but still close to the action — and settle in. Only after he carved a space for himself would he then contact his father and brother.
Satisfied with his decision, he leaned back on the door, stretched his legs across the seat and, listening to the rain gently fall on the roof of the Olds, fell into deep sleep.
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