Fire Fighter

FIRE FIGHTER

He bangs down my guard and nicks me on the chin

When You Go Around Picking World's Champion Boxers Off Cactus Bushes, You're Bound to Get Stuck!

THOMAS THURSDAY Author of “Westward Ho! Kum,” “A Jay Out West,” etc.

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ADMIT that me and Horse Face Hogan have been fierce enemies in the fight business but at the same time we have been pretty sweet pals outside of office hours. Horse Face must always have his little joke, especially on me, and

then I must have a larger joke, especially on him. Anyway, it will be a very long period before either of us forget the Blank Ear Bailey-Dummy Delany and Baby Joe Gimmick-Cactus Carrigan brawls, and whenever Horse Face thinks of the 1

Thomas Thursday

Fire Fighter

Popular Sports, February, 1938

Delany’s style, which I have read plenty about, and see what can be done. According to all the newspaper reports, this Dummy person is knocking out most of his playmates with a six-inch punch, delivered with the right mitt. Now there is nothing in the line of a six-inch punch that can knock out your greatgrandmother, much less a well-trained boxer. Where the idea come from, I don’t know, but it’s like the famous saying, ‘Like Grant took Richmond.’ As a matter of record, it took General Grant about one year to take Richmond, and that’s that. Sam Langford, Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Dempsey were known as short hitters, but if you actually measured the blows which them babies sloughed their opponents with, it would be found that they traveled anywheres from 18 to 36 inches. This Dummy tomato had an orthodox style that was natural to him and he couldn’t change it if the house fell on his noggin. So I planned on training a brat to get inside and pound the corn starch out of his heart and liver. Meanwhile, I dig up a good prelim beezark who I found boxing around the Hollywood Bowl, and I see in him the makings of what I am after. I take him to my hotel and inform him that from now on—or as soon as he leaves the Coast— he has lost his hearing in both ears, which I noted were a little oversize the same as a mule’s. He says that he needs the potatoes and is willing to lose his tonsils and right eye if I guarantee that he eats tasty and often. We shake on the deal and thus was born the famous Blank Ear Bailey, known to his pater and mater as Elmer Loganberry, and can you imagine presenting that name to a fight crowd!

grand finale in Miami, he steams up plenty. I was out in the land of Califilmia with a handsome welter, trying to convince Hollywood that he was a sequel to Jack Barrymore and Max Baer, when I heard of the success of a new middleweight named Dummy Delany. I am deeply interested when I learn that Monsieur Delany is a Horse Face Hogan production and the plot was very boopy, to say the least. The sports writers have taken him up in a very large way and some stated that Professor Delany was about ready to upset the champ, Kandy Kid Karr. Now the big ballyhoo angle to Dummy Delany is the fact that he can’t speak a word of English nor even a sound in any other language, but he has a pair of excellent ears. This sounds like one of Horse Face’s little fairy tales to me and I suspect that Dummy Delany can talk more than your Cousin Maude’s parrot. I send Horse Face a letter of congratulation and conclude by saying that I hope none of the sports scribes are around when Mr. Delany talks in his sleep. Horse Face replies that I am too suspicious to live and claims that the Dummy is strictly on the up-and-up, and furthermore, if he could talk he would be very happy to do so. For reply, I parcel post Mr. Hogan a pound of the very cheapest boloney, along with my kind personal regards. He retaliates by sending me a tin bucket, with the following note: “Fill it full of water. Put your head in three times—and pull it out twice.” That seemed to end the correspondence and I began to figure out some means of putting a stop to Hogan’s dummy parade, as Horse Face is getting a bit too cocky, and I thought it was my duty to pipe him down. I consider the matter deeply for a few days and then come out with a snappy idea, an idea that looked very spiffy, indeed. I think if I can get hold of a good boy who can’t hear but can talk, just the opposite of Dummy Delany, it would be a swell setup. More, a fight between a guy who can’t talk and a lad who can’t hear should be the ring sight of the century. I search around Loose Angeles for a week but can dig up nothing in the line I am looking for. I finally give up and then decide to get some fair bummo, train him to the ways of Dummy

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MONTH later I have Blank Ear Bailey ready for an assault against Horse Face Hogan’s contribution to ring history, and wire Horse Face that I have discovered a boy that will flatten his brat like a tractor over a flounder. Mr. Hogan’s return wire asks for several details and when I tell him that my new discovery can’t hear a thing, he whoops with joy. He says that such a setup should get more publicity than Napoleon got at Waterloo, although I have heard that Napoleon did not desire no publicity, even if they spelled his name right. Anyway, Horse Face says to come on quick and

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make a fortune for both of us, which did not seem to mean the fighters in particular. We shove off for the East and when we see Horse Face he looks my boy over like he was the measles or at least the latest in the dengue fever. “What is it?” asked Horse Face. “The guy who is going to give Dummy Delany back his speech, by slapping him on the Adam’s apple,” I say. “He looks like a pansy to me,” says Horse Face. I was afraid Blank Ear, forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be very deaf, might sock Horse Face on the zoopo, but I kicked him in the leg as a reminder. I then informed Mr. Hogan that Blank Ear Bailey was not to be confused with any sort of flowers, including Chinese orchids. The match is made and is to take place two weeks hence, during which time the sports writers have a field day, trying to figure out what will happen when a guy who can’t talk battles a bird who can’t hear. This catches the fancy of the fight bugs and they eat it up like fried fritters with golden gravy. Comes the night of the brawl and the Garden is packed like ice around Greenland, whilst the soothing click of the turnstiles is grand opera to my ears. I am getting for my cut twenty per cent of the net and Horse Face is accepting five per cent more, which is fair enough, if you know Mr. Hogan. I won’t bore you with the finer details of that swan dance because it was so slow that a couple of snails walking over fly-paper would be speedy compared to it. I had instructed Blank Ear to wait for the Dummy to come to him and get it and he followed instructions for ten rounds. Unfortunately, Horse Face had delivered the same set of instructions to Dummy and that biffo followed copy, all of which gave the fans hayfever and a feeling that sleep would be a welcome change from the show they were watching. The cash clients catcalled, even dog-called, but the merry men in the ring stuck to the business at hand, the same being to let the other fellow lead. It was a draw, and it couldn’t be any thing else, although I personally don’t believe in no draw decisions account of one boy must always get in a few more blows than his adversus.

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Popular Sports, February, 1938

UT the real fun began in the dressing-room, I am a bit sored up over the whole mess and so is Horse Face, although getting sored up is a part of Mr. Hogan’s disposition. However, I see a chance to get Horse Face very, very mad, and right in front of several sports writers I deliberately bump into Dummy Delany. He looks around at me with a funny expression on his pan. “What a bum you turned out to be!” I cracked. It was then that the Dummy did a startling thing, especially for a poor feller who couldn’t talk a word of English or make a sound in any language. “You can’t call me no bum!” he yelps. The sports writers are amazed that the Dummy can talk so well and raise a few surprised eyebrows, but you will have to give Horse Face credit for quick thinking in a pinch. “That’s marvelous!” he says. “Perfectly marvelous! Bailey must of hit my boy somewheres in the throat and loosed up his speaking tubes. That’s really—” “Yeah,” says one of the sports writers, “it is very marvelous, indeed. Too bad Bailey didn’t slough him in the left leg, it would have loosened up his Aunt Jane’s rheumatism and made the Dummy a sword-swallower in a sideshow.” I beat it away from there and do not see Horse Face again until the following night around Times Square. His first look at me is very sour but a second later he grins broadly. “You sure upset my little apple cart,” he says. “Did you see the nice fresh bushel of razzberries they give me in the papers?” “Forget it,” I says. “Think of the publicity.” “Listen,” he says confidentially, “that Bailey guy was not on the level, was he?” “Just like a Coney Island roller coaster,” I retorts. “I thought so,” he sniffs. “Well, don’t forget—it’s my turn next!”‘ To make a clean breast of matters, it was. Shortly after the Bailey-Delany floppo I get a letter from my Uncle Hiram Beanwhistle, out in Coyote Center, Arizona, asking me to come and spend a few weeks on his rancho. He lures me with a promise of tasty and appetizing foods and plenty of outdoor life, so what would you? 3

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Fire Fighter

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from the center of the town and Cactus gets all excited. “Fire!” he says. “Did yuh hear it? I gotta drive the hook’n ladder. See yuh later!” He grabs a pinto, mounts it like a flash, and rides like hell toward town. It seems that they have a volunteer fire department in Coyote Center and most all the lads are members, and whenever the gong sounds they make a mad scramble for the firehouse. They have two pieces of fire apparatus, one is a hook and ladder that the city of Hoboken, or some place, sold them for two bucks back in 1895, whilst the other is an old engine that some other burg willed them right after Thomas Jefferson was elected President of My Country ‘Tis of Thee. Anyway, they were both horsedrawn wrecks and, hooked to a set of roaring stallions, they rattled all over town. As to that fire gong, you may have seen them in small towns—a big iron hoop, mounted on a wooden arch. When a fire busts loose, you race to the gong and knock it for a three-bagger with the iron mallet. It makes a terrific noise and wakes up everybody but Paul Revere and maybe Henry the Eighth. The following day I begin to put Cactus Carrigan through some intensive training. I find he has a natural physique for boxing and begin to teach him the six fundamental punches of the gentle art of mangling ears. There are many others, but the chief busts are as follows: First, the left jab is considered the most essential of all, and the guy who knows how to use it is sitting witty. It is used as a defensive and offensive blow and causes considerable annoyance to the other bim, ask the birds who have received some. Second, the left hook which is used to lead and counter with, and the lad who knows the sand in his spinach can even lay his opponent on the canvas with it. Third, the swing, somewhat similar to the hook, known as the haymaker when the sports writers tell the story. Fourth, the straight right, a murderous sock when the boy knows how to toss it, and most of the ring’s kayos are delivered with this blow. Fifth, the uppercut, which should be used as a counter punch, and the one most in use to score a finisher with. Sixth, and perhaps the least, the

He also adds that he wants me to look over the lightweight champion of their county, a cowboy entitled Cactus Carrigan, who gained the title by winning two fights out of two, that being all the fistic fodder they could dig up in that district. I land in Coyote Center four days later and find that Cactus Carrigan, who labors for Uncle Hiram, is one of the best potential lightweights I have seen since Benny the Leonard. He is just eighteen, well-built, and is bronzed from riding the range. He has rigged up a home-spun gym in a little cowshed near the corral and has a light bag and weight-pulley to train on. I will confess that I do not find him overbright when it comes to using his brains, but I find that he has a straight right, driven directly from the shoulder, that is strictly high explosive. This is one of the hardest blows in boxing and the guy who can shoot it over with force and accuracy will kayo anything but a brick wall. “Would yuh care to do a little sparrin’ with me?” he asked. “I don’t have nobuddy to train with.” Now I am supposed to be a great expert on the art of boxing, but the one rule that appeals to me the most is that which lets the fighter go into the ring and take it on the lug, whilst the manager looks on with great admiration at a safe distance. My one experience between the ropes was very brief and I might say, in fact, that my first fight was my last because my playmate was so rude as to bust me on the beezer in the very first round, causing me to meet the floor halfway. “I will be glad to put on the mittens,” I says to Cactus, “if you will take it easy. I am a wee morsel aged and, besides, my mamma never brung up no stupid children.”

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R. CARRIGAN is careful but not quite careful enough to suit me and the first chance he gets he bangs down my guard and lets go that straight right from the shoulder, which same nicked me right on the chin. I get a nice close-up of Mars, Capella and Orion and when I come to I find he is holding me in his arms. “I’m shore sorry,” he says. “I just tapped you.” “With a hammer,” I says. At that moment we hear a bong-bong coming 4

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Fire Fighter

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his strength and do some training, and I find that he does some of his training on hard corn. Now booze is the one thing a fighter don’t need to train on and, those who do, go down the chute to the ashcan, pronto and speedily. The county is stirred up over Cactus being matched with a professional from the East and the night of the brawl the little arena is well packed. It was a typical western audience, with big sombreros bobbing and a flock of six-guns nestling in convenient holsters. “Go out and finish this guy promptly,” I advise Cactus. “He is fairly good, but you are much better.” At the bell, Packey Thomas rushes out of his corner with the innocent intention of murdering Cactus with a left hook to the jaw. It grazed my boy by dumb luck, account of Packey’s timing being terrible, and I breath easier. It had plenty of steam behind it, don’t think it didn’t, and it was just as well that it didn’t land. Cactus gets in close and sends in a right uppercut. Packey grunts and passes some remark about Cactus being a big bum and several other choice things. This burns up Carrigan and he pushes Packey away from him so hard that Thomas nearly flops over backwards. The crowd, sensing a grudge fight, bellers whoops of joy. Packey steps back to the center of the ring and tries to knock down Cactus’s left guard. All of which was a slight error on the part of the Senor Don Packey. Cactus lets go his straight right and it lands plum on the button of his ring mate. Packey falls over frontwards, flat on his mush, and that is a pretty sure sign that a boxer is no longer interested in the business at hand. He’s out as far as a buzzard’s beak! It took plenty of ammonia, smelling salts and four buckets of cold water to make Packey renew interest in life, liberty and the pursuit of scrappiness. The home-towners are tickled simple at the idea of their local pride walloping a rank—quite rank, if you ask me—outsider, and even Cactus lets his chest get a bit beyond normal measurement and he informs me right out in public that he is willing to take on anybody within five pounds of his weight. “Git me some tough hombre,” he begged. “I will smack the fire out of him in short order.”

chop, sent in while the hand is held above the shoulder, usually over the other feller’s left to the head, very annoying but does little damage. As to the one-two punch that you hear so much about—hooey! This much-ballyhooed blow is delivered with a fast left to the noggin or bean, followed with a right to the same spot. It is seldom successful in anything more than jarring the other lad and causing him to do some extra sniffing through the nose. Well, I pay close attention to the training of Cactus Carrigan for the next two weeks and he rounds into a pretty fair battler. I try to teach him all the tricks of the trade and he begins to feel that Barney Ross would be a setup for him, which is very foolish thinking, although a lot of guys get the notion that the gent wearing the crown is a terrible tramp who got a lucky break. I try to get a match for Cactus, but it seems that the only two birds in the vicinity who know a boxing glove from a Hereford bull have already been entertained by Mr. Carrigan and do not care for a return match on advice of counsel. This is a very sad state of affairs, and I am about to go around the state in search of fistic fodder when a bindle stiff flops off a passing freight and walks into town. I meet him while he is trying to chisel a cupa cawfee and a stale doughnut from the Golden Horn Cafe and I note that one of his ears is a resident of Cauliflower Row. “Box?” I asked. “Yup,” he says, “but I got in a jam with my manager back East and had to take it on the lam.” “What happened?” “I got tired watchin’ him grab ninety per cent of my take, and so I gets sored up one night and crowned him with a water-bucket. When he don’t come to in ten minutes, I think he has croaked, so I beat it out of town. I learn later that the louse is okay. Meantime, I’m flat.” “What’s your name?” “Packey Thomas,” he says, “and I had about forty professional fights. Broke about even on ‘em, but the ones I won was kayo stuff.”

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HIS listens very good to me and I arrange to have Packey box six rounds with Cactus Carrigan one week from date. I stake Packey to some steak-and-spud money, so he can get back 5

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“Pipe down,” I says. “You are doing okay, but so was Dempsey until he met Professor J. Francis Tunney.” “I am willing to fight every week,” he goes on. “I got a lot of confidence.” “Confidence is okay, but you got to have a little more than that. I have seen many a confident guy go in against a lad who was scared to death of him and wind up on the crank-case, horizontally speaking.” “What’s the crank-case?” he wants to know. “Skip it,” I says. I am hard pressed to dig up another playmate for Cactus to bowl over when I happen to read where my old pal and annoyer, Horse Face Hogan, is in Fargo, N. D. His latest lightweight flash, Baby Joe Gimmick, is boxing Teddy Gaff in that town and so I hit upon the idea of inviting Horse Face to bring on his belting beezark and have a go with my new discovery. I inform Horse Face in the letter that, although Cactus Carrigan is still very damp behind the ear, he is far from being in the bib-andrattle stage. More, I tell him with great pleasure that he can flatten anything he hits with his straight right, including lampposts. Mr. Hogan replies that he is very delighted, indeed, to hear frorn me again and is pleased to note that I have the next lightweight champ of the world, including the Bronx, N. Y. What is more, goes on Horse Face, he will be very happy to come to Coyote Center and have his Baby Joe Gimmick knock Cactus Carrigan for a complete set of stallions. He would also like to know whether he is supposed to box for a bouquet of sage-brush or two dollars and ninety cents, standard New Deal currency. I reply, via special delivery, that he can have twenty-five per cent of the gross whilst I will be satisfied with only thirty-five per cent of same. Horse Face don’t seem to be overjoyed at the percentage and he replies that he did not know that I was managing Joe Louis, and if so, the rate offered would be okay. He also remarks, in a P.S., that they can’t walk from Fargo to Coyote Center and that it takes gas and oil for his galloping bath-tub to operate with any measure of dispatch, and if I will send him twenty bucks, we should expect to see him within the next four days.

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Popular Sports, February, 1938

EEING that there would be no fight unless I mailed Horse Face the twenty chips I shoot it on and, sure enough, the old burglar arrives on time. I show Horse Face my new discovery in training and he admits that Cactus will be a champion, if I keep him out of the ring, and don’t let him get his feet wet. “You are nerts,” I says. “I have never seen a better prospect in my life.” “Don’t make me grin,” says Mr. Hogan. “Baby Joe Gimmick will hit Carrigan in the eyes so hard that they will drop to his stomick and he will have to let down his tights to see where he is going.” “And Carrigan will belt your bum so hard,” I retorts, “that his ears will drop to his feet and he will have to unlace his shoes to hear the bell.” “Not with his fists, he won’t,” says Horse Face. “I am willing to bet you even dough,” I go on, “that Cactus Carrigan makes a monkey out of your brat before the fight is over.” “He couldn’t even make a monkey’s nephew out of Gimmick,” says Horse Face, “unless your boy leads with a machine-gun in his right and tear-gas in his left.” “Listen,” I says, “my babe is so tough that he chases grizzly bears and wild cats with a feather duster.” “He must be yellow,” remarks Horse Face, “my boy would chase ‘em with only one of the feathers from the duster.” “I have fifty bucks, even money, that I am right,” I says. “Is it a bet?” “It is a very good bet for me,” admits Mr. Hogan. “Who will hold the hundred dollars?” “I will be glad to hold the hundred dollars.” “Undoubtlessly,” says Horse Face, “you will be very happy to hold the hundred dollars, but I got pockets that are strong enough to hold more than a hundred berries.” “Maybe it would be a good idea if we got some third person to hold the hundred dollars,” I suggests. “That would be the best idea,” says Horse Face, “since Edison put light in a hunk of glass.” “How about the chief of police?” “What’s his name?” Horse Face enquired.

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Fire Fighter

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could bet just half of what he would like to wager. In the end, he covers about two hundred dollars of the natives’ dough, and all the time I thought he was broke, after betting me the fifty. Now I am very glad that none of the big city sports writers was at the ringside, the night of the Gimmick-Carrigan festival, because they would have gathered enough funny copy to last them two years and six months, and I would never hear the end of it. It was all very woopy, what I mean! The same act, staged as a Hollywood jumping snapshot, starring Wheeler and Woolsey or Laurel and Hardy, would have brought the house down, chimney and all. Just before the fight, staged for six rounds, Horse Face Hogan comes into the dressing room and wants to know if I would like to cancel the bet before Baby Joe Gimmick knocks my hero for a trip to see Alice in Wonderland. “Just because you are a pal of mine,” says Horse Face, “I will be glad to let you out of it.” “I will take it back,” I says, “after the fight, at which time your fifty will be added to it.” “Suit yourself, sucker,” he sniffs. “But I don’t like to take babies from candy.” I give Cactus Carrigan some last-minute instructions before he enters the ring, account of I would like him to remain perpendicular as long as possible. “I will knock him out very soon,” says Cactus. “He is a very fresh hombre, anyway. I met him on the street this morning and he passes a bad remark.” “What did he say?” “He says he hopes our undertaker is good and that our cemetery is very beautiful,” says Cactus. “I did not know what he was yapping about then but I told another feller what he says and the other feller says he insulted me.” “You were insulted very highly,” I says. “Just for that I would bash his biscuit in as soon as possible. And throw that straight right as often as convenient. Remember, you can lead a hoss to water, but a punch must be driven.” About half of the crowd are members of the volunteer fire department and they are there to see that Baby Joe Gimmick does not get more than an even break, except around his neck. Cactus is the first to enter the ring and the cheering could of been heard in Softdrink, Kansas, what with

“Same as yours—Hogan.” “He’s out,” says Horse Face. “Any Hogan that trusts another Hogan ain’t no genuine Hogan. Know any bims around town named Hemingway or St. Clair?” “No,” I says, “but the mayor is an honest old coot, with tobacco-stained whiskers, and wouldn’t steal less than a grand from Dillinger or Captain Kidd.” “Okay,” agreed Horse Face, “the mayor holds the hundred dollars and I keep him in sight.” At that moment the fire gong goes bong-bong and two hundred volunteers make a wild dash to the fire house, just a block away from where me and Horse Face are gabbing. “What is this,” demanded Horse Face, “a strike riot?” “There is a fire some place,” I explains, “and them babies are volunteers.” Pretty soon the hook-and-ladder comes racing down the street and I. point out Cactus Carrigan on the driver’s seat. “There goes the next lightweight champion of the world,” I says, with pride. “Yeh,” says Horse Face, “at driving a hookand-ladder.” Well, the whole town is all het up over the forthcoming fisticuffing between Baby Joe Gimmick and Cactus Carrigan and I have a great load of goo about the brawl in the Coyote County Pioneer, which seems to come out whenever enough advertisements come in. There are pictures of Gimmick and Carrigan right on the front page, next to the departed hence and ushered in columns, and Cactus buys up half the edition to make sure he will have enough photos of himself to last over the week end.

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EANWHILE, Horse Face yawns around town and drops remarks hither and likewise yon that it is a shame that a cute little lad like Cactus Carrigan is going to be ruined for life by Baby Joe Gimmick. This bragging gets the hometowners all sored up, especially the volunteer firemen, who think Cactus is a combination of Battling Nelson and Tony Canzoneri. They ask Mr. Hogan if he has any money that he would like to lose and Horse Face, who is waiting for just that, says he is very sorry, indeed, that he does not control all the U. S. mints so he 7

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arena and found a neutral corner for himself. The referee, without waiting to see whether or not Cactus was in a neutral corner or in Cairo, Egypt, begins to count over Baby Joe in a very rapid manner. At the rate he was going he would of reached twenty by the time a stop-watch arrived at ten. Naturally, I do not complain of this speed, seeing that it was not my boy on the floor, but I observe that Horse Face Hogan is over in his corner doing a cross between the dance of St. Vitus and handsprings. “What is this,” whinnies Horse Face, “a frame up?” The crowd boos him down and begin to give more than three cheers for Cactus. At the count of eight, Baby Joe stirs sudden, notes with dismay and alarm that he is on the floor, and decides that no fights have ever been won from that particular location. He gets up and grabs Cactus around the waist and ties his arms up very neatly. Cactus looks toward me for advice and I motion for him to push Baby Joe away and stop fooling. He tries to do that but Baby Joe seems to like his position and hangs on all the harder. “Step on his big feet!” yells some lad in the bleachers. Cactus seems to think this advice is very sound and he lands on Gimmick’s dogs with a hard jump. Baby Joe lets out a beller of pain and protest and claims foul to the referee. As to Horse Face, he claims everything from the rabbit punch to robbing the children’s home and the bell rings just in time to prevent a riot. Baby Joe staggers back to his stool, where Horse Face give him careful advice about many things, but which few boxers ever hear account of being sprayed at the same time with water and smelling salts. I look over to Hogan’s corner, catch his eye, and wave in the very best of humor. However, it appears that Horse Face must of had a cold in his nose because he kept his thumb in that location and let his fingers wave like Dakota wheat in the breeze. “The fight is all yours,” I tell my boy. “Yeh,” he says, “but that feller is afraid to let me hit him.” “Many fighters are like that,” I says, “but you go right out and sock him just the same.”

sombreros flying in the air and war-whooping. The boys go to the center of the ring and the referee, a local lad who did not know what it was all about, gives what he thinks are the correct instructions. They would of been okay for a bull fight but since few boxers ever listen to instructions, anyway, he could of advised them to leave their corners riding motorcycles and toss monkey-wrenches at each other. Clang! I yank the stool from under Cactus and he leaps up with fire in one eye and assorted mayhem in the other. Baby Joe also leaves his corner with a look in his eyes that seems to suggest that he would like to get it over as soon as possible and see that six-months old picture now playing at the Coyote Center Opera House. He comes right up to Cactus and just as my boy is about to measure him with that iron right, Baby Joe darts suddenly to the left, leaving Mr. Carrigan a bit dumbfounded in the middle of the ring. Whilst Cactus is wondering what it is that is causing Gimmick to act so strangely, Baby Joe bounces off the ropes, lands in back of Cactus, and pushes him around front face. “I never hit punks in the back,” says Baby Joe. “Keep in front of me so I kin paste you proper.” Cactus turns to me for advice, as I had told him to, and I wave him on. “Let ’im have it when you are ready!” I says.

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ACTUS feints with his left, and while he is testing same, Baby Joe slips in a sweet left hook to the chin. This annoys Cactus and he makes up his mind that he will get in a sock for himself, which is always a wise decision, if you ask my opinion. He rushes at Baby Joe and, after first taking a one-two on the lug, he lets go his straight right. His whole body was behind the punch and Baby Joe goes over backwards and rests on his buttocks. His eyes are somewhat glazed and he has a very funny expression on his front page. I yell to Cactus to get into a neutral corner so the referee can count right up to fifty, if need be, but he turns to me and wants to know what the hell a neutral corner is. I tell him to get into the farthest corner away from Baby Joe and point to it, otherwise he might have gone outside of the 8

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Popular Sports, February, 1938

forget about the strange disappearance, for the nonce, of Mr. Hogan. A few seconds later Baby Joe is sprawled on the canvas, from another straight right to the button, and it looks very good that he will remain there. And then a very annoying thing happened, don’t think it didn’t. Bong! Bon-nn-g! It was the fire gong and half the audience seemed to leave their seats en masse and begin to climb over heads and shoulders in a struggle to reach the exits. I try to stem the tide but they use me for a carpet and I am treated in a very rude manner, if you care for the truth. I am about to turn my head toward the ring when a very heavy weight falls all over me. I disentangle myself from a lot of arms and legs and am dazed to note that the weight is no less than my belting beauty, Mr. Cactus Carrigan. “Quick!” he shouts. “Get me outa here—I gotta drive the hook’n ladder. I gotta drive the hook’n ladder!” “You can’t do that,” I says. “You are in a fight and you will be disqualified for leaving the ring!” “Can’t help thet!” he says, and pushes me over a water-bucket and races for the nearest exit. I turn again toward the ring and see the referee counting over Baby Joe Gimmick. By the time he reaches nine, Baby Joe, still very much dazed, gets to his feet and begins to stagger all over the ring. Then he spots the referee and makes a right hand pass at his belly. The referee jumps out of the way, notes that Cactus Carrigan has left the ring, then raises the right hand of Mr. Hogan’s prize petunia. “The winnah!” he yelps. “I disqualify Cactus Carrigan fer leavin’ the ring!” Well, that was all, which was sufficient for one evening, so far as I was concerned. I don’t see Horse Face Hogan again until the following morning. He has naturally collected all bets and is feeling quite jolly, and he can easily prove that he has a right to be, the big stiff. “Why the sour puss?” he says. “I hope you enjoyed yourself banging that fire gong last night,” I snorts. “What’s the matter,” he says, “didn’t you like the song I played?”

The second round is very active, both boys leave their corners in a very angry mood, and they come out fighting, letting the blows fall where they may. Everything seems to go, including kidney, rabbit and Baby Joe even pulls a pivot punch that surprised Cactus more than a little bit. I call the attention of the referee to the barred punches and he says that he will attend to his business if I will kindly attend to mine. Near the last minute of the three-minute round, whilst they were exchanging punches toe to toe, Cactus hauls back and lets go his straight right and it taps Baby Joe right on the bim-bah, Yale for kisser. Once again Mr. Gimmick makes the decision to bounce to the canvas and find ease and comfort on the floor, where he rolls over twice before putting on the brakes. Cactus, in his excitement, goes to three corners, before deciding which one is the most neutral, whilst Horse Face shrieks his tonsils out, begging his boy to listen to the alarm clock and get up. Meantime, Baby Joe remains quiet and peaceful and does not hear the beginning of the referee’s count.

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IMMICK finally gets off the canvas at the count of seven and meets Cactus like he was his mother, or at least a rich uncle, judging the way he flops into his arms and holds on. The crowd howls for the referee to break them up, and give Cactus a chance to put over a finisher, but the referee had his own rules about boxing. Whatever they were I never found out. The bell finds Baby Joe holding tightly to the arms of Cactus and even then the referee had to remove him to his corner. The third round will be the last—don’t leave your seats! They come out fighting and my lad clips Baby Joe a stinging right upper-cut to the chin. Horse Face’s boy staggers and indicates that he does not care for any stinging right uppercuts to the chin.” He pokes two left jabs into Carrigan’s face and my battler backs away, flecking his right glove across his nose. But he comes back with a right cross to the head, and Baby Joe does not care for that, either, proving he is hard to please. I look over to Horse Face’s corner and intend to give him a pleasant smile but am puzzled to observe that he is no place to be seen. But right then the boys begin some heavy bombarding and I 9

Thomas Thursday

Fire Fighter

Popular Sports, February, 1938

swankiest drums in town, the King Plaza Hotel, and he is dazed when he sits down and gets a peek at the surroundings. “Soup to nuts and back again,” I tell him. “I am far from broke.” We both order a very substantial and appetizing dinner and when we reach the dessert I ask him to pardon me a moment as I just thought of a phone call I had to make. “Be back in a jiffy,” I says. “Okay,” he says. I race out, grab the nearest telephone and dial the hotel. I tell the lad who answers in the grill that I would like to hold converse with that funny looking guy sitting at the second table on the left. Horse Face is on the phone in a moment. “Horse Face?” I asked. “Yeah,” he says, “what’s the matter?” “I am very sorry to tell your Horse Face,” I says, “that I can’t get back.” “You—what?” yelps Mr. Hogan. “What about this restaurant bill for $5.80?” “Pay it with the six bucks you got,” I suggests, “and don’t forget to tip the waiter the twenty cents change.” “What is the big idea?” he roars. “I forgot to tell you, Horse Face,” I says, “that I am a volunteer member of the fire department and some one just sent in a threealarm call. I will have to drive the hook-andladder.” For a moment Horse Face is speechless, then he comes back to life. “Okay!” he snorts. “But don’t forget—” “Yeah,” I says, “I know—it’s your turn next.”

“Hell—no,” I says. “It sounded like The End of a Perfect Fray to me.” “So there was a fire last night, hey?” he goes on. “Nope,” I counters, “it was just another false alarm—like Baby Joe Gimmick.” “Well, I’ll be seeing you,” he says. “You certainly will,” I admits. “And don’t forget—it’s my turn next!”

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ELL, I don’t see Horse Face again until next January, three months later, and then I find him standing on Flagler street, in the land of Miami. He seems rather dejected looking and the glim on his map is very sad, indeed. However, he greets me with much affection and asks how everything is breaking. I inform him that I have come down for the winter season and am getting along swell. “I am very happy to hear it,” says Horse Face. “I hope there ain’t no hard feelings account of that fire stunt I pulled back in Arizona.” “None in the least,” I assure him; none in the least. In fact, Horse Face,” I says, “I have forgotten all about it, although it was a very good joke.” “You are one swell guy,” he says. “I always did like you.” “Had dinner yet?” I asked. “Nope,” he says. “To be frank, I’m sort of skimping, the bankroll being down to six bucks and the rents down here are sort of brutal.” “Be my guest,” I begs. “I will be happy to stake you to a feed in a very swell trap.” “That is just dandy,” beams Horse Face. “Let’s go.” I haul him into the grill of one of the

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