Joe and Anthony invited me to attend the fights with them. It would be a fight between Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson?
Joe, the cop, came home one day with a large bandage covering his right ear. ?What happened?? I asked. ?A son-of-bitch punk tried to bite off my ear. I cracked his skull with my nightstick.? Joe was like a character out of pulp fiction or film noir. He was a small, wiry, Italian who had decided to become a cop right after graduating from high school. I loved him, his family, his son?s family, and their dog. Joe had hired me to walk the family?s boxer, Baron, every day after school. The dog and I were inseparable for one hour every afternoon.
One day while walking Baron, I was stopped by a big blue Schwinn bike that had blocked the sidewalk. A local bully costumed in a black motorcycle jacket, garrison belt, and engineer boots, sneered and said: ?I don?t like your face. I?m gonna smash it.? As he raised his fist to hit me, Baron, growling, lunged at the bully?s leg. The kid quickly pulled it away, but not before Baron got a mouthful of dirty denim. ?You?re lucky you got that mutt to protect you, otherwise you?d get it.?
?Yeah, sure,? I called after him. ?You?re a punk and a coward.?
I arrived at Baron?s home, but Joe wasn?t there. Instead, there was Anthony, Joe and Marie?s son, who was also a cop. I told him what had happened.
?Come down into the basement. I want to show you a few things.?
And there, I saw a speed bag, a body bag, free weights, jump ropes, boxing gloves. The whole works.
?Wow,? I said. ?I didn?t know you boxed.?
?Dad was a welterweight for the cops when he was in his twenties. He gave it up after three years, thinking he didn?t want to turn his brains to mush. He taught me to box, and I made it into the Golden Gloves semi-finals. Now, I coach boxing at the PAL when I?m not walking my beat. I?m gonna teach you how to defend yourself. Always remember, punch a bully really hard, aim for his nose or chin. Do it before he has a chance to hit you. Get him off balance, breathe fear into him. He?ll think twice about bothering you again. Bullies don?t like being hit. Once you stand up to them, they wither. And let me give you another piece of advice: If a kid comes at you with a knife, run. If you can?t run, pick up a stick and crack him in the head before he can reach you.?
?And then run??
?You bet,? he said.
A week later, Joe and Anthony invited me to attend the fights with them. It would be a fight between Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight championship. I had to ask my father if I could go, and he said as long as I was going with Joe and Anthony, it would be all right.
And so I went to my first professional fight. I was fourteen years old and could not have been more excited. Basilio had been the welterweight champion, after beating Johnny Saxton in two successive bouts. Their first one, which Basilio lost by a decision, was reportedly a fix engineered by Blinky Palermo and Frankie Carbo. Both of whom got time in prison. Of that first fight, Basilio said, ?It was like being robbed in a dark alley.?
Robinson, who had been my favorite fighter, was no longer young. He was 37 and his power and grace were declining. Yet, he put up an impressive onslaught and defense. He kept jabbing and wrapping Basilio into clinches. Towards the end of each round, Robinson let loose with a fast flurry of hooks, most of which didn?t land, because Basilio held himself so low that the blows swooshed past his head. Throughout the fight, Basilio was the aggressor, though shorter and less muscular than Robinson. He never stopped going after Robinson. He fought like a hungry tiger, never giving an inch. He wanted that championship the way a tiger wants a gazelle. He had most of the fans cheering him on, and they hooted and hollered their approval when Carmen won the decision. It was a fantastic fight, one that made a fourteen-year-old boy stand on his seat and cheer like a drunk.
In bed that night, I kept reliving the fight. Other than the Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series, it was the most exciting sporting event of my young life.
The following year, my father died of cancer, a long drawn-out painful end to a good life. Joe and Anthony became my own private Police Athletic League. They took me to professional fights and to Golden Gloves matches. My youthful brain thought how terrific it would be to manage a pro. But at my age, I had to settle for being a spectator. I loved the sport as much as I loved baseball.
In 1959, just before my mother sold our house and moved us to a small apartment, Joe and Anthony took me to a heavyweight bout. (Whenever we went to a fight, tickets were always waiting for them. I don?t know why they were comp?d, and I never asked.) The fight was a title bout between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson.
?Floyd?s the favorite,? said Joe as we made our way to seats. ?But you never know. Johansson?s supposed to have a powerful right.?
The favorite did not win that night; in fact, he went to the canvas seven times, before being knocked out. I found it hard to believe that Patterson had been the champ, but then he regained the title the following year. I did not get to the rematch, but watched it on TV at a friend?s house. I was pleased that Patterson had won and brought the title back to America.
Two years later, Joe died. I was told that he dropped dead in front of his precinct on a cold January morning. I attended the funeral at a Catholic cemetery in Queens, where a single bag piper played Amazing Grace and Joe?s widow, Marie, quietly wept. Later, we all went back to their house in Bayside, and I got to see Baron. The dog, now gray of muzzle, licked my right hand. His eyes, big and sad and watery, seemed to understand that Joe was not coming home again.
Jeffrey Sussman is the author of ten books and has a marketing/PR company, www.powerpublicity.com.
