Stephen Solomita - A Piece of the Action

“It’s gotta be other cops, right?”

“Yeah, but what kind of cops?”

“Maybe you could just tell me what’s on your mind, Sarge. I’m supposed to report in five minutes.”

“The cops who come to the regular matches aren’t on foot patrol. Foot patrolmen are mostly young. They’ve got families to raise. It’s the older cops who show up. Lieutenants, captains, deputy inspectors. These are cops who can help you, Stanley. Who can put you into squads where you’ll make decent collars. The goddamned chief of detectives is a boxing maniac. The …”

“The chief of detectives?”

“That’s right. Matthew Halloran, himself. He fought in the amateurs twenty-five years ago. Now, he gets his kicks watching cops beat the hell out of each other. You want a gold shield, Stanley? That what you’re lookin’ for?”

“I wouldn’t complain,” Moodrow admitted.

“If you fight and win, especially when we’re up against squads from the firemen or sanitation, the chief of all the detectives in New York City will come to the locker room and shake your hand. My squad’s fighting in Brooklyn next Tuesday. Come and see for yourself.”

Moodrow did go to see for himself and while the chief of detectives was nowhere to be found, Moodrow recognized several dicks from his home precinct, the 7th. The captain of the 7th was there too, screaming for blood or victory, whichever came first.

The essential message was obvious-even if there was no glory, no thrill of victory for Stanley Moodrow, that didn’t mean there was no glory for the spectators. They reacted like they were at Yankee Stadium instead of Saint Regis High School.

Three days later, Moodrow began to train. A month later, he had his first fight and his first victory under his belt. It’d never been easier. His opponents were more concerned with attitude than winning. They stood toe to toe and slugged it out, even when they were conceding fifty pounds and a ten-inch reach advantage. They really didn’t have any choice. The few who tried to keep away from him, to dance and jab their way to victory, were booed and jeered at by their own partisans. And the judges hadn’t looked on their efforts any more kindly than the crowd.

The victories continued to come, one after another, for more than a year. And Moodrow had his sore right hand pumped by dozens of ranking officers, including an Irish inspector named Patrick Cohan with an unmarried daughter named Kathleen. Cohan, without ever saying it, became Stanley Moodrow’s rabbi, bringing him to parties and functions, bragging about his exploits, encouraging his courtship of “my darlin’ Kathleen.”

“I would’ve preferred an Irishman,” Patrick Cohan had explained when Moodrow came to him for permission to ask Kathleen out, “but you’re tough, smart and ambitious. Lord knows, there’s no lack of tough, ambitious cops. It’s the smart ones who’re hard to find. So full speed ahead, boyo. Make her happy, if you can. Make her happy, but keep your hands to yourself. I want my daughter to come to the altar in a white gown, as pure as the day she made her first Holy Communion.”

Moodrow didn’t bother to look around when the door to his dressing room opened and Sergeant Peretti, Allen Epstein’s assistant, announced, “Five minutes, Stanley. The light-heavies are outta the ring,” but he felt his gut begin to knot up. It wasn’t the importance of this particular tournament that bothered him. It was the caliber of his opponent.

Liam O’Grady was quick, smart, Irish and a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. He’d mastered a strategy available to few fighters, amateur or professional-the art of hammering his opponent while moving away. On the face of it, O’Grady’s technique defied the laws of physics. A fighter had to be moving forward, to get his whole body into the punch, if he wanted to hit with power. But rules were made to be broken and Liam O’Grady had broken all of them (along with Stanley Moodrow’s nose) a year before. O’Grady had danced around the ring like a giant Sugar Ray Robinson, while Moodrow, a clumsy Jake La Motta, lumbered after him, punching air.

There were differences, of course. Sugar Ray Robinson was a consummate professional. He could stay on his bicycle for fifteen rounds and still be throwing punches at the end. O’Grady, on the other hand, was only a gifted amateur. He could stick and move for three rounds, not fifteen. And this fight wasn’t going three rounds. In deference to its importance, the bout, like every fight in this all-star tournament, had been scheduled for six. And the fighters were to wear eight-ounce gloves instead of the customary ten. Most important of all, the referees had been instructed not to stop a fight unless a fighter was out on his feet.

“You ready, Stanley?”

“Huh?”

Epstein frowned. “You’re not focused, Stanley. You’re not here.”

“Then where am I, Sarge?” Moodrow began to put on his robe. He was smiling.

“You tell me?”

“What are they callin’ this tournament? The First Annual Inter-Service Boxing Championships? The Golden Gloves and the Olympics all wrapped up in one?”

“So what, Stanley? This isn’t the first time you’ve gone up against a fireman. You’ve gotta see it as just another fight. Stop putting pressure on yourself.”

“Who’s here tonight, Sarge? Who’s out there screaming for blood?”

“This ain’t helping you.”

“The commissioner’s sitting ten feet away from the ring. The chief of detectives is right next to him. There are city councilmen out there, the borough president, a deputy mayor. If I win, I’m a hero. If I lose, I’m a bum. My daddy always told me not to be a bum. He told me bums were the lowest form of life on the face of the earth.”

Epstein draped a towel around his fighter’s neck. “I could never tell you anything,” he said. “You think you know it all.”

“You could never tell me anything, because you don’t know anything. Not about fighting. Let’s go.”

As they stepped into the narrow corridor connecting the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms with the gymnasium, the crowd in the tightly packed gym sent up a roar.

“O’Grady’s in the ring,” Epstein observed. “Now, it’s your turn.”

As if on cue, the crowd began a chant that was close to a moan. “Moooooooo-Drow, Moooooooo-Drow, Moooooooo-Drow.”

“Your fans await you.” Epstein’s smile was closer to a grimace.

“You trying to say the vampires are hungry, Sarge? That’s all that’s happening. The vampires need to be fed. My blood or someone else’s. It’s all the same to them.”

Epstein started to answer, but Moodrow turned away and marched into the gym. The room was packed, firemen on one side, cops on the other. Moodrow walked between them without turning his head, stepping up onto the ring apron and ducking between the ropes with practiced grace. Once inside, he raised his arms in premature triumph. The crowd went wild, stomping, whistling, cheering. He wondered if they even knew that Liam O’Grady had kicked his butt a year ago? Or cared, for that matter.

“Siddown, Stanley, lemme get the gloves on.”

Moodrow dropped to the stool and extended his left hand. His head swiveled until he was staring directly across the ring at a smiling Liam O’Grady. Though he would have liked to return the smile, to meet arrogance with arrogance, he dropped his eyes to the canvas. If O’Grady wanted to think it was going to be easy, Moodrow had no objection.

“Whatta ya say, Stanley?” Ed Spinelli was a deputy supervisor in sanitation by day and a referee by night. He’d been chosen for his experience and his neutrality. “Lemme see the gloves.”