slugging. Bimmy must have put two and two together and made sure that Mrs. Adams and the two little boys had seats up real close where Bobby couldn’t fail to miss them. And it was working.
The ref came over to the corner. “He got clipped with a left hook,” he said to me.
“In your dreams,” I said.
The ring doctor was at the apron, leaning over the ropes and looking into Bobby’s eyes with a flashlight.
“Put that goddam thing away,” I said, “he wasn’t knocked down.”
The doc ignored me. “Well,” he said quietly to Bobby, “how do you feel?”
“I’m all right, he didn’t knock me down, he stepped on my foot and I tripped.”
When the bell rang I looked away from Bobby’s face, afraid to see what might be in his eyes. I pulled him off the stool, my eyes fixed on Adams’s wife. She was holding one of her boys on her lap, the other seated next to her. There was no way Bobby wasn’t going to see her.
“Jimmy,” I said to the cutman. “Go find the usher for that section and tell him there’s an emergency. That Adams’s home is burning and that the police are looking for Mrs. Adams; she needs to call them right away.”
“You got it.”
I turned back to the fight. Adams had reached the center of the ring first. Bobby stayed outside his reach, jabbing, circling, trying to keep away, but Adams closed the gap and every time Bobby jabbed, the other fighter threw combination counter left hooks, landing solid punches to the body and head, making me wince as I heard the thuds.
“Move away!” I yelled. But Adams was still light on his feet, cutting the ring off, and had abandoned the jab, punching hard, trying to take Bobby out. He landed another double hook to the ribs, causing Bobby to hold on. I could see the body shots were starting to take their toll. The ref separated them and as soon as he stepped aside, Adams weaved back in, throwing a jab at Bobby’s left cheek, followed by left and right hooks to Bobby’s head. He was in danger of going down again when the bell rang.
“You’ve got to punch back,” I told him in the corner. “He’s standing straight, unloading from the outside, with his left all the way down at his waist. Just step to your left and get inside and upper cut him. It’ll be lights out.”
“I can’t do it in front of his kids.”
“This isn’t Kernan you’re fighting. This guy is going to take you out if you don’t try and take him out first.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Then start punching again, dammit.”
When the bell rang he was back out there all right but it seemed his heart wasn’t in it any longer. After taking a couple of jabs in the kisser, he clinched and was content to waltz Adams around the ring, oblivious to the boos coming from the crowd. That was pretty much the story of the whole round. Bobby taking jabs in the face and then clinching. The ref was looking at him as if he felt something might be wrong with him.
“How do you feel?” I asked him when he came back to the corner at the end of the sixth round.
“Great,” he said, spitting out his mouthpiece.
He didn’t look that great. The welt under his left eye was larger now and turning purple, swollen like an overripe plum ready to burst. It was forcing his lower eyelid shut and I was worried the ring doc would be back to check it out, saying Bobby couldn’t continue.
“Look. Look out at the seats. His wife and kids are gone.”
Bobby turned and squinted. “You’re right,” he mumbled. “They are gone.”
“So get back out there and bust this guy up like you busted up Mike.” I rubbed his legs while Jimmy pressed the endswell against the bruise. “Go for his body. You had it right when you said he was thirty-four. Age him, make his body feel every punch. He’s thrown a lot of punches and he’s tired. You can finish him.”
Bobby nodded. The gleam was back in his eyes.
He was up before the bell rang and went right after Adams in the center of the ring. He threw a solid straight left to Adams’s nose followed by a hard right hook that Adams couldn’t duck. The fighter was wobbled and grabbed for Bobby’s arms and clinched. Blood spurted from his nose where the left had landed. I could see Bobby looking out of the corner of his eye at the seats where Adam’s wife and kids had been sitting. He winked at me.
“His nose is broken!” I yelled.
After the ref broke them up, Adams backpedaled, using up time, staying away from Bobby’s punches, taking boos from the crowd instead.
At the end of the seventh round, Bobby was breathing hard, his rib cage one reddened mass from the punches Adams had landed. Condition was everything and I was worried. But Adams was no longer hooking or throwing straight rights, concentrating on protecting his smashed in nose and trying to go the distance for the decision. He was slower too and Bobby was slipping the jab and right-stepping him again. Just before the bell, he turned Adams and there was plenty of zip in his right hook when it landed solidly to the other fighter’s side.
“Kidney punch, kidney punch,” came the shouts from Adams’s corner.
The ref waved them off but between rounds the corner kept it up, Bimmy screaming foul at the ref who ignored him.
In the eighth, Adams was retreating, trying to dance away. Bobby stepped in and hooked him with a left and tried to follow up with a right but Adams was inside him and reached up and pulled Bobby’s head down. The referee separated them and gave Adams a warning as the crowd booed.
Bobby moved in again and slipped a jab, ripping another right hook to Adams’s side and the fighter visibly slowed, his elbows down protecting his right side. Screams of kidney punch erupted again from Adams’s corner and the ref cautioned Bobby to be careful with the right hook. The fighters were back in the center of the ring and Bobby took a couple of solid punches to the body from Adams so he could land one of his own to the other fighter’s nose. Blood sprayed out over the crowd and I knew Adams wouldn’t try that again.
At the end of the eighth round Bobby was slow as he came back to the corner. “It’s close,” I told him. “He’s not looking good. He’s slowed. He’s more tired than you. The bleeding from his nose won’t stop, you busted it up real good. He’s going have to take you out if he wants that title rematch. You can’t afford to cover up. But neither can he. He’s going to have to stop protecting his nose and punch. I want you to counter with straight lefts and rights to the center of his face. Something will hit his nose. Then hook him with both hands. Can you give me a four punch combo? Can you do that?” I was yelling at him. “You can win this fight now, in this round, but you’ve got to go all out. He’s not going to quit, you’re going have to take him out. Four punches! Four fucking punches!” I held four fingers up in front of his face.
He nodded at me and smiled. I couldn’t believe it. The kid had been in the fight of his life, had taken a terrific beating in the middle rounds and he was smiling at me. I had to smile back. The kid sure had a lot of heart.
The bell rang and I hauled him off of the stool, practically shoving him out into the ring. In Adams’s corner, they were doing the same thing
