THE DUKE OF SEVENTH STREET (Part 2) by Judith Fabris
The temperature from the lights ringside must have reached 120 degrees. As the fight progressed, Sugar Ray was getting the best of Maxim. Duke was still covering bets at even higher odds. I thought we were goners. The fight was a fifteen rounder. The bell sounded after the twelfth. Sugar Ray was by far the aggressor, and he was landing all his punches, but both fighters were suffering from the heat.
Duke and I were watching what was going on in the fighters’ corners. Maxim was just sitting there, calmly, doing nothing. Robinson’s seconds were wetting him down to cool him off.
“He’s not going to make it,” I told Duke. “Robinson’s going to knock him out.”
Just then Duke covered a $500 bet that Robinson would win in the thirteenth.
Why was Duke betting so heavily now? Did he see something I didn’t? If it came to a decision, I was sure Robinson would win. I looked at the fighters in their corners. I couldn’t see anything unusual happening. Three more rounds to go. My chest constricted and I was having a hard time breathing. The adrenaline pumped faster and faster. I watched Duke cover even more bets.
The warning buzzer sounded and all the seconds left the ring. The bell rang. Maxim got up from his stool. Robinson sat on his, head down. What was going on? What was the matter with him? He looked completely exhausted. It was the heat. My heart was in my throat. The heat got to him. The crowd yelled for Sugar Ray to get up. The referee moved to the center of the ring, motioned for Robinson to come out. I waited. Nothing. Just sat there, head down. When he didn’t move, the ref held up Maxim’s right hand.
“Winner by a technical knockout in the thirteenth round, and still light heavyweight champion of the world, Joey Maxim.”
Yankee Stadium was pure bedlam.
Duke and I jumped up and down, hugged each other and screamed at the top of our voices. If there had been a ceiling we would have hit it. The whites went crazy and the blacks were disconsolate, even crying.
I transferred money from the bag to inside my shirt. Duke handed me more and more money. I had wads stuffed in my pockets, wads stuffed inside my shirt. The blacks around us began to hoot and jeer and look menacing.
“Okay, Vinny. Get da hell oudda here. I’ll catch up widya later.”
It didn’t take me long to leave the stadium. I kept looking around for fear that someone staring at me would notice my bulging pockets and stomach.
I had to get back home to Jersey. First, a cross-town bus from the eastside to the westside into the middle of Harlem. Then a subway down to Times Square. Once I reached the Square, I couldn’t decide whether to take a bus through the Lincoln Tunnel to Jersey, or head for the Weehawken Ferry. I opted to take a subway to the ferry. I began to breathe a little more easily once I sat down on the ferry. Its passengers were mainly families or couples.
When the ferry reached Weehawken, it was still a long walk up the hill to catch a bus to Union City. I decided to spend $10 of Duke’s money and take a cab to Seventh Street.
My gut was wrenching. I felt paranoid that people could see all the money inside my shirt. I felt much more comfortable with the money burning holes in my pockets and not my gut.
When I arrived home, I went immediately to the bathroom where we had a large cupboard. I pulled everything out from the upper shelf. Then I sat on the floor and counted the money. Over $6,000. I would have liked to give it all to Mom. A corporal’s salary wasn’t much, but I sent her one half of my pay. If she found this stash, there’d be too many questions. I put the bills in packets, rubber banded them, and placed all the packets in the very back of the shelf. I crammed everything else back in and went to bed. I was exhausted with relief at arriving home without incident. For two days Duke was missing.
My mother planned a big family dinner at my grandmother’s the last night of my leave. All my uncles and aunts and my sister sat at the table. All that is except Duke. Mom and Nonna had worked all day making ravioli. We also ate salad, Italian bread, and special desserts from Antonelli’s. We drank the last of my grandfather’s good red wine he made the year before he died.
We were in the middle of dinner when Duke arrived. He wore the same clothes as when I last saw him two nights before. But they were all cleaned and pressed and he looked like a million bucks. He sat down next to me and ate with us.
When dinner was over, he took me aside and wanted to know where the money was. Did I still have it?
“Yeah, at the house,” I told him. “I hid it.”
We went back to my house so I could get the money. Mom always kept a bottle of Lord Calvert Rye on hand for Duke. I asked him if he wanted a drink.
“Yeah, Vinny, and a beer chaser.”
He sat down at our kitchen table. I poured him a double shot, and gave him a beer from the icebox. I left the room to retrieve the money from its hiding place. When I returned, Duke had his coat off and was unbuttoning his shirt. Beneath his white ribbed cotton tank undershirt, he was wearing a money belt. The damn thing was bigger than the ammo holders we wore in combat. It was dark tan. It must have had a minimum of thirty-five compartments, sealed by grippers. The belt went from below Duke’s belly button to just under his pecs. And it was bulging with money. I never asked where he got it, or how, but I was sure curious. I thought I had all the money. I plopped what I had down on the kitchen table. Duke stuffed the money in a couple of the emptier compartments.
When he finished, he handed me $500.
“Jeez Duke,” I said as I gave him back the five bills. “You know I’d just give this to Mom. How’d I explain to her where I got it? She’d kill me if she knew it was from gambling.”
Duke agreed with me and didn’t press the matter any further. He gave me a long and fatherly hug, telling me I wouldn’t see him again before I left for San Francisco. I left two days later. In the long run, Mom got the money anyway.
After my discharge, I knew I wouldn’t go back to New Jersey. California would become my home. Duke was furious with me. Yet, when I graduated from law school, he sent me a briefcase, the butteriest leather I’d ever felt. In his note of congratulations, he told me I’d done the right thing by finishing school and not coming back to Jersey to work for him.
“I’m very proud of you, Vinny. As proud of you as if you were my own son.”
The next time I saw Duke was fifteen years later. I returned for his funeral. Duke had been killed by a car as he was crossing the street.
Many long, hot summer nights have passed since the Maxim/Robinson fight. I’ve seen champions come and go. But every time I sit at ringside, I see my uncle as if it were yesterday.
