The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

ROUND BY ROUND

I.

The half-filled bottle stood at the right of the typewriter, and beside it the heavy tumbler; the green-shaded drop-light swung in the draft from the window over his head; he took a drink of whisky and typed in capitals ROUND ONE. He propped up his penciled notes of the fight against the calendar pad, then pulled it nearer, trying to make out his own shorthand. Romero led with left and followed with light right before going into clinch. He typed quickly with his two forefingers. The door of the alcove opened and Cush came in with his coat over his arm, his hat on the back of his head. He dropped the coat on top of his roll-top desk and went to the window.

“Well, and how was the fight of the century?” he said, as if to the office building across the alley, or as if to the fire escape. “Or was it in the bag like all the rest of them?”

“It was a peach, but I wasn’t looking. Have a drink.”

Cush brought a glass and poured himself a drink.

“These musical shows get my goat, they’re all alike. Jesus, what the hell can you say about them? Sprightly and whimsical and fantastic. If you could only say the smut was only so-so, or A No. 1 Gorgonzola. This one is a piece of cheese, but the chorus is pretty good.”

“Was his honor the mayor there?”

“Sure he was—sitting right next to the censor. But he needn’t have worried. This one won’t be taken off. It wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“How do you mean, fly?”

He continued to type, while Cush pulled the black oilcloth cover off his machine. Micky then drove a right to the ribs and left to face. Romero landed a left to face. Zabriski landed right to body. Zabriski drove right and left to body, which Romero cleverly blocked. At this point, he remembered, the man behind him said, “He won’t last it out, he won’t last ten rounds. Zabriski will kill him, he hasn’t got the guts.” Zabriski’s fiancée, in the fourth row, was being photographed—she was sitting with her mother and two other janes. She looked drunk. This was before she had begun to yell at Zabriski—come on Patsy, come on Pat, give it to him.

“Well,” said Cush, to his typewriter, “did Zabriski win it, or who?”

“There is a new champion, and it was a swell fight, science defeats slugging, but I didn’t watch it. I was elsewhere.”

“All right, I’ll bite, where were you?”

“I was picking flowers.”

“You mean Ann’s given you the bum’s rush again, or something. Who is it now?”

He didn’t answer at once, he frowned over his notes. Cush turned the sheet of paper into his machine and began typing. Round even. ROUND TWO … Zabriski scored a light left to jaw before clinch. Romero reached the champion with two good rights to jaw. The man behind him was saying, say this fellow’s good, this fellow is pretty good, watch him. Zabriski can’t touch him, look at the way he ties him up. Oh, baby, and was that a sock.

“It isn’t the same guy, it’s two other fellows. If you know what I mean.”

“Well for Christ’s sake why don’t you call it a day and give her the gate? Why didn’t you marry one of those chorus floozies and have someone faithful?”

“Faithful! heh heh. Isn’t that a laugh? That word isn’t in the dictionary any more, I looked it up. Nowadays all you’ve got to do is be yourself, that’s what the psychologists say, just be yourself. Ann’s herself, all right—she’s herself with everybody.”

“Well, don’t let it eat you, she isn’t worth it.”

Cush was typing quickly. The window shade began flapping in the draft, he got up and gave the cord a twitch so that the shade flew up to the top and wound itself silent with a series of ecstatic slaps against the casement. He leaned for a moment on the window-sill, and looked down into the squalid alley. Forty feet of midnight. Forty feet of emptiness surrounded by rusty fire escapes. But to jump down was no good, he didn’t want to die, that wasn’t the idea at all. What he wanted was Ann, all right—Ann standing here with her hands on the window-sill, seeing how desolate an alley could be at midnight.

II.

He sat down and took a drink, and turned the yellow copy-paper, and drew the penciled notes still closer. The writing was hard to make out, he had done it carelessly. Romero stepped into a right to the jaw and missed a hard right to the head. Both traded wallops at close quarters without damage. Romero landed a hard right to jaw but missed a left swing. Zabriski’s right to body was blocked. Romero missed two hard rights to body. Romero’s round. Four tough kids in the balcony began yelling and jumping up and down in their seats—what’s the matter, are you yellow, Zabriski, say would you like a nice piece of steak, what’s the matter are you afraid of him. And then there was that new buzzer which announced when it was ten seconds before the bell, and the urgent bell following almost immediately, and the two men springing out from their corners, and the seconds climbing swiftly over the ropes with the stools in their hands and the towels over their shoulders. The enormous canopy hung over the ring, its forty lights looking like a vast brooch of opals, swirls of tobacco smoke ascended toward the obscure ceiling, and the two great clocks looked down at the fighters, counting the seconds with important hands. How much had he missed by watching the clock, looking up over the heads of the two men, over their shoulders, over the interlaced arms and struggling bodies, beyond the naked shoulders reddened with repeated blows. A lot, probably. He had taken it down automatically, all except the ninth and tenth rounds, when he had gone out for a glass of beer; and those he had copied from Peters.

“Oncet in a while,” Cush murmured, “oncet in a while, why don’t they give us a decent show oncet in a while.”

“Next time we can swap assignments, I’ll throw in Ann for good measure. That is, if you can find her.”

“Well, where is she?”

“Ask me another. She was supposed to be having dinner with Mabel Innes, but when I called up Mabel, would you believe it, Mabel didn’t know anything about it.”

“Looks like bad teamwork, boy.”

“Yeah, I thought better of Mabel. She can usually think pretty fast, but this time I caught her on the wrong foot. If you know what I mean.”

The four tough kids had begun yelling, say what will your fiancée think of you now, go on back to Worcester, Zabriski, would you like a hot dog. She had turned and shouted angrily at them, shut up you coots, and then she began saying, over and over, come on Pat, come on Patsy, give it to him, show him what you can do, show the kike what you can do, go on in and finish him, he can’t take it, he can dish it out but he can’t take it. ROUND SIX.

He paused in his typing, and straightened his back, and looked up at the dingy white-washed wall, on which hung a small photograph of the James family—Henry and William sitting in garden chairs beside a wicker table, Alice standing behind them holding a sunshade, a cocker spaniel sprawled on the path. The garden was an English garden, an apricot or perhaps a peach tree was crucified flat on the brick wall, and the three good faces looked forward at him with an extraordinary integrity. Integrity! Yes, that was it, it wasn’t only the intelligence, the wisdom, it was the profound and simple honesty of all three faces—faces carved slowly out of serene honesty as if out of some sort of benign marble. A book lay on the table—too large for The Wings of the Dove, too small for Varieties of Religious Experience. What would it be? And what were they thinking, what were they remembering together, as they thus faced the camera, or the world, with such triune simplicity and kindness? They all seemed to be looking steadfastly at the truth.

He interrupted his meditations on the English garden, the peach tree, the three faces, by sitting forward again and dropping his hands at the side of the machine. Cush went out of the alcove with a sheet of yellow paper, holding it up and reading it as he pushed open the door.… Romero crossed a right to the jaw as Pat scored with a light left to face. The challenger neatly ducked Zabriski’s right and left swings. Both landed light lefts to body. In a sharp mixup Romero outpunched the champion and forced him to break ground. Zabriski had a hard time finding his fighting range, the feathery-footed challenger weaving, bobbing, dancing around, making it impossible for the champion to score.… The man behind him was beginning to say, gee, what’s the matter with Zabriski, come on Zabriski you’re rotten, for Christ’s sake keep that left up, keep up that left. Why, he’s making a monkey out of you.… The four tough kids, ejected from their seats in the balcony, had reappeared on the floor at the back, they were standing up on their chairs and booing, everybody turned to look at them, and a cop began walking slowly down the aisle toward them. One of them had a dirty cross of sticking plaster on his forehead.

Cush came in again, with the sheet of paper still in his hand, and said—

“I don’t know what it is, but whenever you really want something in this office you can’t get it.”

“Ain’t that the truth. What is it now?”

“Nobody cares, my boy, nobody cares. They just don’t take any interest. By the way, you aren’t driving back I suppose, by any chance?”

“No, I’m walking.”

“Walking! for the love of God.”

III.

They both typed steadily for a while. Above the sound of the machines they could hear the shrill whine of the dynamo in the basement and a vague rumor from the press-room. Now and then a voice floated up from an open window in the alley. The fiancée had certainly been a hard-boiled jane, and no mistake—a genuine gum-chewing blonde, with a jewel in every hole. But she was game, she was loyal. The woman marching by the beaten man! Her voice rose to a scream. Come on, for God’s sake Patsy, that left can’t hurt you, go on in under that left, make him stop dancing and fight, mix it up with him. Lookit, his knees are getting weak, he’s getting groggy. O come on and stand up to him you big boloney.… ROUND ELEVEN.

There was something merciless, something fascinating, something profoundly cruel, like the snake hypnotizing the sparrow, in the way Romero’s long left kept flashing lightly to Zabriski’s right eye, right cheek, jabbing the side of his head, pushing him off, stabbing again and again. The champion, at first mystified, and then annoyed, at last became angry—he tried to rush that grinning superiority, to break down that dancing guard, he pushed the challenger repeatedly to the ropes, trying desperately to get to close quarters, but always to find himself blocked. Above him would always be that eye, that curious half-amorous, half-derisive look, gleaming down at him with a kind of infinite understanding, an understanding faintly and humorously tinged with pity. The fiancée was becoming more and more silent—only now and then, but with flagging conviction, saying—come on now Patsy, come on now bozo, don’t let him get away with it. But the murmur from the whole hall grew every moment louder, more excited, more electric—it was becoming obvious that there would be a new champion. If Romero could last, if he could continue to compel Zabriski to box, avoid a last-round knockout—ROUND THIRTEEN.

“I suppose you heard that Bill Coit was through!”

“Yeah. Yeah, I heard it. Too bad. But surprising it didn’t happen before.”

“And would have, believe me, if it hadn’t of been for Mary. That’s a game kid, and she deserved better. Right now she ought to be in Arizona or a sanitarium or something.”

“Yes, I know.”

“The demon rum.”

… As they shook hands for the final round, Zabriski sent a hard right to Romero’s head and sent lefts and rights to body. Romero swung himself off his feet when he aimed a right to Pat’s head and dropped to the canvas. Romero made a great rally. While plainly tired, he stood toe to toe with the champion and slugged freely. Romero landed a stinging left jab to Pat’s face, while Zabriski dropped a right and left on Romero’s body. The champion fought madly, crowding Romero but missing badly. Romero drove home several good rights and lefts to the head to finish the round with a light lead. Romero’s round.

The excitement of the decision, the unanimous decision, the whole audience standing on chairs, the ridiculous knock-kneed dance of Romero as he shook his two gloves together in the air high over his head, all this was much less impressive than Zabriski lying on the table to be rubbed down, just saying laconically I was overtrained, I knew two days ago I couldn’t make the weight. Fifteen pounds was too much, now I know better.

He fell asleep under the hands of the rubber, while his fiancée was having a drink with the manager outside the door. Sure, she was saying, I know, you don’t need to tell me, I wasn’t born yesterday. You just watch him next time.

And, of course, yes, there would be a next time. He pulled the yellow sheet out of the machine. Twelve o’clock. Cush had stood up and was putting his coat on.

“If you’re going down, will you take this, Cush? I want to write a letter.”

“Sure. Good night.”

“Good night.”

IV.

But it wasn’t a letter exactly—he got up and began looking at the photograph of the James family once more. What he wanted to say to her was something about that—something about those people sitting there in a garden. If it were somehow possible to say that. To make her realize what that could mean.

“My dear, instead of writing you a letter, in the ordinary sense of the word, or instead of arguing with you further about this issue which has reared its scaly head between us, or telling you again for the thousandth time that I simply cannot bring myself to believe in this easy and casual habit of promiscuous flirtation, which you and so many other men and women eagerly defend, I am going to do something else. Perhaps this means that I’ve given up all hope of convincing you, perhaps it doesn’t; it may even mean that I think any attempt to do so is now too late, since the gulf between us is already so immense that the wings of Father Imago himself seem too frail for such a voyage. Are you in fact not already lost to me? am I not lost to you? When we argue about it, no matter how amiably, we speak in turn, but neither of us listens, neither of us hears. It is no use my repeating again that I do not like to see you being kissed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who claims that privilege on the ground of his friendship for us both; it is no use my saying that I experience a deep revulsion, a deep schism of the spirit, when I see you yield yourself, not unwillingly, to attentions even more sensuous than these, not only in my presence, but in the presence of other people as well. You will merely reply, wearily, that I am jealous, which I am; or that I am a prude, which I am not; you will say again, as you have so often said, that these things do not matter, that these little physical manifestations do not matter—as if one could ever for a minute separate the physical from the spiritual, as if the body were not just as much a part of the soul as the soul is a part of the body. If body and soul are indeed at all separable, which I doubt, then they are separable only in the sense that a pair of dancers is separable: as long as they dance, they are one; when they separate, the dance is over, something vital has come to an end. It is this disunion which seems to me evil, seems to me destructive. To love with the soul, but not with the body, is to love God, and that is perhaps a kind of death; to love with the body, but not the soul, is certainly a kind of death, for it starves the soul as swiftly as the other starves the body; only when we permit body and soul to love together do we really live. Before me as I write is a photograph of three people. What I really want to tell you about is these three people. I would like to tell you what they mean to me, what art-shape they made of their lives, what it might mean to you or to anybody to realize what they are as they sit there—”

He dropped his hands from the machine in a sudden despair. It was impossible, it was a kind of absurd day-dream, it was unreal, he ought to have known better. It could not be done, would never be done. It could not be said. You felt these things or you didn’t.… Instead, they would quarrel, and then quarrel again, they would quarrel day after day and night after night, there would be no end to it forever.