Steel and other stories [SSC] Read online

  “Fix it,” he said, hoarsely.

  Pole swallowed. “Steel, I—”

  “Fix it!”

  “I can’t! That spring’s been fixin’ t’break for—”

  “You broke it! Now fix it!” Kelly clamped rigid fingers on Pole’s arm. Pole jerked back.

  “Let go of me!” he said.

  “What’s the matter with you!” Kelly cried. “Are you crazy? He’s got t’be fixed. He’s got t’be!”

  “Steel, he needs a new spring.”

  “Well, get it!”

  “They don’t have ‘em here, Steel,” Pole said. “I told ya. And if they did have ‘em, we ain’t got the sixteen-fifty t’get one.

  “Oh—Oh, Jesus” said Kelly. His hand fell away and he stumbled to the other side of the room. He sank down on the bench and stared without blinking at the tall motionless Maxo.

  He sat there a long time, just staring, while Pole stood watching him, the pry still in his hand. He saw Kelly’s broad chest rise and fall with spasmodic movements. Kelly’s face was a blank.

  “If he don’t watch ‘em,” muttered Kelly, finally.

  “What?”

  Kelly looked up, his mouth set in a straight, hard line. “If he don’t watch, it’ll work,” he said.

  “What’re ya talkin’ about?”

  Kelly stood up and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  “What’re ya—”

  Pole stopped dead, his mouth falling open. “Are you crazy?” he asked.

  Kelly kept unbuttoning his shirt. He pulled it off and tossed it on the bench.

  “Steel, you’re out o’ your mind!” Pole said. “You can’t do that!”

  Kelly didn’t say anything.

  “But you’ll—Steel, you’re crazy!”

  “We deliver a fight or we don’t get paid,” Kelly said.

  “But—Jesus, you’ll get killed!”

  Kelly pulled off his undershirt. His chest was beefy, there was red hair swirled around it. “Have to shave this off,” he said.

  “Steel, come on” Pole said. “You—”

  His eyes widened as Kelly sat down on the bench and started unlacing his shoes.

  “They’ll never let ya,” Pole said. “You can’t make ‘em think you’re a—” He stopped and took a jerky step forward. “Steel, fuh Chrissake!”

  Kelly looked up at Pole with dead eyes.

  “You’ll help me,” he said.

  “But they—”

  “Nobody knows what Maxo looks like,” Kelly said. “And only Waddow saw me. If he don’t watch the bouts we’ll be all right.”

  “But—”

  “They won’t know,” Kelly said. “The B’s bleed and bruise too.”

  “Steel, come on” Pole said shakily. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. He sat down hurriedly beside the broad-shouldered Irishman.

  “Look,” he said. “I got a sister back East—in Maryland. If I wire ‘er, she’ll send us the dough t’get back.”

  Kelly got up and unbuckled his belt.

  “Steel, I know a guy in Philly with a B-five, wants t’sell cheap,” Pole said desperately. “We could scurry up the cash and—Steel, fuh Chrissake, you’ll get killed! It’s a B-seven! Don’t ya understand? A B-seven! You’ll be mangled!”

  Kelly was working the dark trunks over Maxo’s hips.

  “I won’t let ya do it, Steel,” Pole said. “I’ll go to—”

  He broke off with a sucked-in gasp as Kelly whirled and moved over quickly to haul him to his feet. Kelly’s grip was like the jaws of a trap and there was nothing left of him in his eyes.

  “You’ll help me,” Kelly said in a low, trembling voice. “You’ll help me or I’ll beat ya brains out on the wall.”

  “You’ll get killed,” Pole murmured.

  “Then I will,” said Kelly.

  ~ * ~

  Mr. Waddow came out of his office as Pole was walking the covered Kelly toward the ring.

  “Come on, come on,” Mr. Waddow said. “They’re waitin’ on ya.”

  Pole nodded jerkily and guided Kelly down the hall.

  “Where’s the owner?” Mr. Waddow called after them.

  Pole swallowed quickly. “In the audience,” he said.

  Mr. Waddow grunted and, as they walked on, Pole heard the door to the office close. Breath emptied from him.

  “I should’ve told ‘im,” he muttered.

  “I’d o’ killed ya,” Kelly said, his voice muffled under the covering.

  Crowd sounds leaked back into the hall now as they turned a corner. Under the canvas covering, Kelly felt a drop of sweat trickle down his temple.

  “Listen,” he said, “you’ll have t’towel me off between rounds.”

  “Between what rounds?” Pole asked tensely. “You won’t even last one.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You think you’re just up against some tough fighter?” Pole asked. “You’re up against a machine! Don’t ya—” “I said shut up.”

  “Oh . . . you dumb—” Pole swallowed. “If I towel ya off, they’ll know,” he said.

  “They ain’t seen a B-two in years,” Kelly broke in. “If anyone asks, tell ‘em it’s an oil leak.”

  “Sure,” said Pole disgustedly. He bit his lips. “Steel, ya’ll never get away with it.”

  The last part of his sentence was drowned out as, suddenly, they were among the crowd, walking down the sloping aisle toward the ring. Kelly held his knees locked and walked a little stiffly. He drew’ in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d have to breathe in small gasps and exhalations through his nose while he was in the ring. The people couldn’t see his chest moving or they’d know.

  The heat burdened in around him like a hanging weight. It was like walking along the sloping floor of an ocean of heat and sound. He heard voices drifting past him as he moved.

  “Ya’ll take ‘im home in a box!”

  “Well, if it ain’t Maxo!”

  And the inevitable, “Scrap iron!”

  Kelly swallowed dryly, feeling a tight drawing sensation in his loins. Thirsty, he thought. The momentary vision of the bar across from the Kansas City train station crossed his mind. The dim-lit booth, the cool fan breeze on the back of his neck, the icy, sweat-beaded bottle chilling his palm. He swallowed again. He hadn’t allowed himself one drink in the last hour. The less he drank the less he’d sweat, he knew.

  “Watch it.”

  He felt Pole’s hand slide in through the opening in the back of the covering, felt the mechanic’s hand grab his arm and check him.

  “Ring steps,” Pole said out of a corner of his mouth.

  Kelly edged his right foot forward until the shoe tip touched the riser of the bottom step. Then he lifted his foot to the step and started up.

  At the top, Pole’s fingers tightened around his arm again.

  “Ropes,” Pole said, guardedly.

  It was hard getting through the ropes with the covering on. Kelly almost fell and hoots and catcalls came at him like spears out of the din. Kelly felt the canvas give slightly under his feet and then Pole pushed the stool against the back of his legs and he sat down a little too jerkily.

  “Hey, get that derrick out o’ here!” shouted a man in the second row. Laughter and hoots. “Scrap iron!” yelled some people.

  Then Pole drew off the covering and put it down on the ring apron.

  Kelly sat there staring at the Maynard Flash.

  The B-seven was motionless, its gloved hands hanging across its legs. There was imitation blond hair, crew cut, growing out of its skull pores. Its face was that of an impassive Adonis. The simulation of muscle curve on its body and limbs was almost perfect. For a moment Kelly almost thought that years had been peeled away and he was in the business again, facing a young contender. He swallowed carefully. Pole crouched beside him, pretending to fiddle with an arm plate.

  “Steel, don’t” he muttered again.

  Kelly didn’t answer. He felt a desperate desire to suck in a
lungful of air and bellow his chest. He drew in small patches of air through his nose and let them trickle out. He kept staring at the Maynard Flash, thinking of the array of instant-reaction centers inside that smooth arch of chest. The drawing sensation reached his stomach. It was like a cold hand pulling in at strands of muscle and ligament.

  A red-faced man in a white suit climbed into the ring and reached up for the microphone which was swinging down to him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “the opening bout of the evening. A ten-round light heavyweight bout. From Philadelphia, the B-two, Battling Maxo.”

  The crowd booed and hissed. They threw up paper airplanes and shouted “Scrap iron!”

  “His opponent, our own B-seven, the Maynard Flash!”

  Cheers and wild clapping. The Flash’s mechanic touched a button under the left armpit and the B-seven jumped up and held his arms over his head in the victory gesture. The crowd laughed happily.

  “Jesus,” Pole muttered, “I never saw that. Must be a new gimmick.”

  Kelly blinked to relieve his eyes.

  “Three more bouts to follow,” said the red-faced man and then the microphone drew up and he left the ring. There was no referee. B-fighters never clinched—their machinery rejected it—and there was no knock-down count. A felled B-fighter stayed down. The new B-nine, it was claimed by the Mawling publicity staff, would be able to get up, which would make for livelier and longer bouts.

  Pole pretended to check over Kelly.

  “Steel, it’s your last chance,” he begged.

  “Get out,” said Kelly without moving his lips.

  Pole looked at Kelly’s immobile eyes a moment, then sucked in a ragged breath and straightened up.

  “Stay away from him,” he warned as he started through the ropes.

  Across the ring, the Flash was standing in its corner, hitting its gloves together as if it were a real young fighter anxious to get the fight started. Kelly stood up and Pole drew the stool away. Kelly stood watching the B-seven, seeing how its eye centers were zeroing in on him. There was a cold sinking in his stomach.

  The bell rang.

  The B-seven moved out smoothly from its corner with a mechanical glide, its arms raised in the traditional way, gloved hands wavering in tiny circles in front of it. It moved quickly toward Kelly who edged out of his corner automatically, his mind feeling, abruptly, frozen. He felt his own hands rise as if someone else had lifted them and his legs were like dead wood under him. He kept his gaze on the bright unmoving eyes of the Maynard Flash.

  They came together. The B-seven s left flicked out and Kelly blocked it, feeling the rock-hard fist of the Flash even through his glove. The fist moved out again. Kelly drew back his head and felt a warm breeze across his mouth. His own left shot out and banged against the Flash’s nose. It was like hitting a door knob. Pain flared in Kelly’s arm and his jaw muscles went hard as he struggled to keep his face blank.

  The B-seven feinted with a left and Kelly knocked it aside. He couldn’t stop the right that blurred in after it and grazed his left temple. He jerked his head away and the B-seven threw a left that hit him over the ear. Kelly lurched back, throwing out a left that the B-seven brushed aside. Kelly caught his footing and hit the Flash’s jaw solidly with a right uppercut. He felt a jolt of pain run up his arm. The Flash’s head didn’t budge. He shot out a left that hit Kelly on the right shoulder.

  Kelly back-pedaled instinctively. Then he heard someone yell, “Get ‘im a bicycle!” and he remembered what Mr. Waddow had said. He moved in again, his lips aching they were pressed together so tightly.

  A left caught him under the heart and he felt the impact shudder through his frame. Pain stabbed at his heart. He threw a spasmodic left which banged against the B-seven’s nose again. There was only pain. Kelly stepped back and staggered as a hard right caught him high on the chest. He started to move back. The B-seven hit him on the chest again. Kelly lost his balance and stepped back quickly to catch equilibrium. The crowd booed. The B-seven moved in without making a single mechanical sound.

  Kelly regained his balance and stopped. He threw a hard right that missed. The momentum of his blow threw him off center and the Flash’s left drove hard against his upper right arm. The arm went numb. Even as Kelly was sucking in a teeth-clenched gasp the B-seven shot in a hard right under his guard that slammed into Kelly’s spongy stomach. Kelly felt the breath go out of him. His right slapped ineffectively across the Flash’s right cheek. The Flash’s eyes glinted.

  As the B-seven moved in again, Kelly side-stepped and, for a moment, the radial eye centers lost him. Kelly moved out of range dizzily, pulling air in through his nostrils.

  “Get that heap out o’ there!” some man screamed.

  “Scrap iron, scrap iron!”

  Breath shook in Kelly’s throat. He swallowed quickly and started forward just as the Flash picked him up again. Taking a chance, he sucked in breath through his mouth hoping that his movements would keep the people from seeing. Then he was up to the B-seven. He stepped in close, hoping to out-time electrical impulse, and threw a hard right at the Flash’s body.

  The B-seven’s left shot up and Kelly’s blow was deflected by the iron wrist. Kelly’s left was thrown off too and then the Flash’s left shot in and drove the breath out of Kelly again. Kelly’s left barely hit the Flash’s rock-hard chest. He staggered back, the B-seven following. He kept jabbing but the B-seven kept deflecting the blows and counterjabbing with almost the same pistonlike motion. Kelly’s head kept snapping back. He fell back more and saw the right coming straight at him. He couldn’t stop it.

  The blow drove in like a steel battering-ram. Spears of pain shot behind Kelly’s eyes and through his head. A black cloud seemed to flood across the ring. His muffled cry was drowned out by the screaming crowd as he toppled back, his nose and mouth trickling bright blood that looked as good as the dye they used in the B-fighters.

  The rope checked his fall, pressing in rough and hard against his back. He swayed there, right arm hanging limp, left arm raised defensively. He blinked his eyes instinctively, trying to focus them. I’m a robot, he thought, a robot.

  The Flash stepped in and drove a violent right into Kelly’s chest, a left to his stomach. Kelly doubled over, gagging. A right slammed off his skull like a hammer blow, driving him back against the ropes again. The crowd screamed.

  Kelly saw the blurred outline of the Maynard Flash. He felt another blow smash into his chest like a club. With a sob he threw a wild left that the B-seven brushed off. Another sharp blow landed on Kelly’s shoulder. He lifted his right and managed to deflect the worst of a left thrown at his jaw. Another right concaved his stomach. He doubled over. A hammering right drove him back on the ropes. He felt hot salty blood in his mouth and the roar of the crowd seemed to swallow him. Stay up!—he screamed at himself. Stay up goddamn you! The ring wavered before him like dark water.

  With a desperate surge of energy, he threw a right as hard as he could at the tall beautiful figure in front of him. Something cracked in his wrist and hand and a wave of searing pain shot up his arm. His throat-locked cry went unheard. His arm fell, his left went down and the crowd shrieked and howled for the Flash to finish it.

  There was only inches between them now. The B-seven rained in blows that didn’t miss. Kelly lurched and staggered under the impact of them. His head snapped from side to side. Blood ran across his face in scarlet ribbons His arm hung like a dead branch at his side. He kept getting slammed back against the ropes, bouncing forward and getting slammed back again. He couldn’t see any more. He could only hear the screaming of the crowd and the endless swishing and thudding of the B-seven’s gloves. Stay up, he thought. I have to stay up. He drew in his head and hunched his shoulders to protect himself.

  He was like that seven seconds before the bell when a clubbing right on the side of his head sent him crashing to the canvas.

  He lay there gasping for breath. Suddenly, he started to get up,
then, equally as suddenly, realized that he couldn’t. He fell forward again and lay on his stomach on the warm canvas, his head throbbing with pain. He could hear the booing and hissing of the dissatisfied crowd.

  When Pole finally managed to get him up and slip the cover over his head the crowd was jeering so loudly that Kelly couldn’t hear Pole’s voice. He felt the mechanic’s big hand inside the covering, guiding him, but he fell down climbing through the ropes and almost fell again on the steps. His legs were like rubber tubes. Stay up. His brain still murmured the words.