The Big Smoke Read online

balls & calisthenics, gravel roads

  & foul-mouthed children. Day

  after day of George Little or some

  other white man telling me what

  I should do. I don’t need a trainer

  & I don’t need a manager. I can do

  for myself. The manly art is a yawner.

  What else can I get from it?

  I’d rather be touring with Etta,

  playing the viol in Scranton, Buffalo,

  Rochester—wherever it pays to be

  who I am: the Heavyweight

  Champion of the World.

  Do you understand, Shadow?

  See, that’s why Jeffries is going to put it

  on you, Mr. Heavyweight. You never wanted

  to be a prize fighter. You just wanted the prize.

  THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY

  Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries, July 4, 1910

  Round One

  The fourth day of July & the sun can’t hide

  in the blue. James Jeffries can’t hide either.

  That’s why he drew the color line when

  he was champion. That’s why he retired

  & bought an alfalfa farm. Excuse after excuse

  to avoid me, even when that writer London begged

  him to take the championship back for the white

  race—It’s up to you, Jeff! Jeffries was busy

  hitching a plow in Burbank. Jeffries wanted

  none of it then & being in the ring with me

  didn’t convince him to reconsider. He brought

  the clinching game as soon as the bell rang:

  half wrestling, half jostling for any opening

  to rabbit punch. No leads, but he feinted

  some & leaned on me like we were dancing

  partners. Someone yelled, Cut out the motion

  pictures! & the bell rang. I smiled, patting

  his shoulder on the way back to my corner.

  One last gentlemanly gesture before the hurt.

  Round Two

  Jim Corbett paced outside the ring

  like one of those circus tigers before

  the man with the whip shows up.

  He kept yelling nigger as if name-

  calling could move me when Jeffries

  couldn’t. Corbett must not have heard

  the band playing “All Coons Look

  Alike” when I split the ropes.

  I’ve heard this same song my whole life.

  When the usual offenses didn’t work,

  Corbett said unrepeatable things

  about my mother, hoping to make me

  fight wild. I snapped Jeffries’s head

  back with a right & Corbett said,

  He wants to fight a little, Jim. I gave

  Jeffries another right to the gut, then

  a left to the face. You bet I do, I told

  them all. Waiting lathers a man up.

  Jeffries stretched out that long left paw of his, crouching a little

  to put the scare of a crotch punch in me. A red-hot sun poured

  down on our heads. All the while, he chewed a piece of gum

  like a milk cow chews cud. When he finally came at me, I shifted

  left, hit him so hard with a left uppercut he had to hang on me

  like a museum picture hangs on a nail to keep from falling out

  right then. All right, Jim, I told him. I’ll love you if you want me to.

  Round Three

  I knew before

  the fight I would

  hurt Jeffries, but

  hurt wasn’t enough.

  I wanted to take

  the man’s pride

  like a horse’s bridle

  & send him into

  the river. Him

  & anyone fool

  enough to think

  a four-flushing

  alfalfa farmer

  could beat Jack

  Johnson. Starting

  the third round, I

  taunted loud enough

  for everyone to hear:

  Come on now, Jim.

  Let me see what

  you got. Jeffries

  got so mad he rushed

  me & I planted

  a left on his jaw

  for his troubles.

  I got a couple of rabbit

  rights in before

  the referee pulled

  us apart. I smiled

  at Jeffries—big,

  so he & all of his

  supporters could see

  my gold dentistry—

  & said again, Show

  me what you got,

  Mr. Jeff. This is

  for the championship.

  Round Four

  The bell rang & Jeffries hit me with a left-handed lead to the stomach

  that sounded like an automobile crash. My insides felt like they felt

  when Clara left me broke & humiliated in St. Louis. After each punch,

  the crowd yelled as if Jeffries’s fists were Independence Day fireworks.

  When he caught my mouth with a left, the cut Kid gave me during

  training opened again. The crowd saw blood & hollered even louder.

  First blood for Jeff! Jeffries was getting in work, but Reno is not St. Louis.

  His fists weren’t up to the full task. Don’t rush me, Jimmy, I told him.

  You hear what I’m telling you? He did color my gold smile with a little red.

  Round Five

  I let Jeffries have his bloody mouth right

  back. Only he wasn’t smiling after. If he would

  have, it wouldn’t have been pretty.

  Round Six

  A left hook cut Jeffries’s right cheek.

  A straight left blocked up his right eye.

  A beaten fighter’s blood on my glove

  sprinkled in dust. The sun. A beaten

  fighter wrapped up, pushed back into

  his corner. An angry crowd burning

  to a crisp. I asked Corbett where he

  wanted me to drop his broken fighter,

  but Corbett didn’t want to mouth anymore.

  Then I heard that reporter Naughton

  spelling out the fight for the telegraph:

  “Jeffries took a left hook to the jaw.”

  I hit Jeffries with another left & a straight

  right: Is that all he took, Mr. Naughton?

  Round Eight

  All these whites booing & boosting

  for Jeffries. They slept under café

  tables & on blanket-covered billiard

  tables for this? They knew their farmer

  was whipped & their rent money

  was lost & that knowledge brought

  out the worst in that unruly crowd.

  Between the name-calling, the swirls

  of dust, & descriptions of my demise

  after the fight ended, I could hear

  the one voice that mattered: Etta

  screaming over & over, Keep it up, Jack!

  Round Nine

  Every time I jabbed Jeffries,

  he ducked lower, until I thought

  he might just lay down right there.

  The crowd was still booing,

  so I waved & said, I’ll straighten

  him up here in a minute. Sweat

  all over me & Nevada dust sticking

  to me. The dust in Jeffries’s cuts

  made him look a little less beaten.

  Someone in the crowd hollered,

  “He’ll straighten you up, nigger!”


  Even after nine rounds of me

  beating on their boy, they still didn’t

  see he was only standing because

  I let him. I stepped in & gave Jeffries

  the kind of uppercut that makes

  a prize fighter stand up straight

  & question his profession.

  Jeffries’s mouth was so swollen he looked

  like the newspaper versions of me. Through

  those cartoon lips, he tried to talk: Ain’t I

  got a hard old head? I hit him with two rights

  & agreed: You certainly have, Mr. Jeffries.

  Round Ten

  The bell rang & Jeffries

  came out determined

  to go down fighting. As if

  he had a choice. He came

  out in that crouch with a frown

  like he ate a piece of bad fish.

  After he missed a couple

  of blind swings I asked,

  Jimmy, are you mad?

  Round Twelve

  Mr. Jeffries refused to give in. There wasn’t much

  difference between his face & the meat on a butcher’s

  table. & he kept coming, like a bull that knows what

  happens after the fight. I just moved out of the way,

  shook some of the dust off his face with punches

  as he passed. Corbett was as hysterical as a woman:

  It only takes one or two, Jeff! So I gave Jeffries

  a quick right to the face, let it sink in for a minute,

  then hit him with two more & said, See that?

  Round Fourteen

  Questions bring as much hurt

  as fists do: How you like ’em,

  Jim? Left hook instead

  of a question mark. Did that

  hurt? Right then left, straight

  to the face like a Galveston wind.

  Was that your nose that just

  broke? Right jab, then

  a crunching like eggshells.

  Round Fifteen

  Jeffries didn’t have anything left

  to give, so he tried to spit on me.

  Dust & blood where there should

  have been spit. He tried to clinch

  me again & I let him have a left

  for trying. His nose was broken

  & in that friendless Nevada sun,

  he couldn’t find any wind. I pushed

  him away & gave him both hands.

  I hit him so hard the free lookers

  on the hill above the stadium

  could hear it clearly. The farmer

  fell back into the ropes, then

  headed for his corner the same

  way a horse heads back to the barn.

  I caught him with an uppercut

  & three fast lefts to the ribs.

  Jeffries dropped to his knees

  like old fruit from a tree & grabbed

  the last rope. The referee counted

  nine before Jeffries pulled himself up.

  Don’t let the nigger knock him out!

  Don’t let the nigger knock him out!

  As soon as the referee moved, I tried

  to punch through Jeffries. He went down

  again, back & through the ropes. As if

  the ropes could protect him from me.

  Don’t let the nigger knock him out!

  Don’t let the nigger knock him out!

  Jack Jeffries & one of the other corner boys helped

  his brother off the canvas. The younger Jeffries must

  not have appreciated his brother because he pushed

  Jim right back into the ring. Jim swayed there like a tree

  about to fall in a storm. I heard Corbett yell, Don’t,

  Jack. Don’t hit him! so I hit Jeffries four more times

  for the things Corbett said about my mother. I stood

  over Jim with my right ready, so he could see what

  to expect if he could still see. The white towel was in

  the ring before the referee finished counting him out.

  As his seconds helped him up, I heard Jeffries saying,

  I couldn’t come back, boys. I couldn’t come back.

  RACE RELATIONS

  The president of Talladega College

  said it was better for me to have

  beaten Jeffries & let a few coloreds

  be murdered in the riots than for me

  to lose & allow their spirits to be killed.

  I quit fifth grade to load cotton steamers

  & even I know the spirit is no good

  without the body. All that violence

  just because my black fists were too many

  for a pair of white fists. If they had any

  manhood, these people wouldn’t fight

  at all. The truth is, whites are supposed

  to know better on general principle.

  The fellows making trouble over

  my victory at Reno didn’t have anything

  to do with it & they don’t have any class.

  If they knew the real Jack Johnson,

  they’d behave themselves, like he does.

  MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

  Etta Duryea

  Hit goes Papa like a steam

  engine that lost its track.

  Hit goes Papa in some hotel

  in Ohio somewhere. Gaston’s

  run off, so the show is over.

  Hit goes Papa: Ain’t I a prince?

  The Prince of Darkness hits

  like Papa. Only to the stomach

  & back hits Papa. I know

  about Gaston—hit hit hit. No

  babies, thanks to Papa’s hits.

  Hit goes Papa until all

  I see is Papa marrying me.

  ARISTOCRACY

  Etta Duryea

  If I had a gun, I’d treat Papa

  like a duck in a Long Island

  duck hunt. If I had a gun,

  I would provide myself

  the same kindness enemy soldiers

  are provided. What I want

  is a metallic way back to before.

  When I close my eyes, I dream

  gold teeth fanned like a rainbow

  in the afternoon. When I was

  in the back room with Gaston,

  I heard a gold smile around

  every color. If I had a gun—

  COMPROMISES

  Excerpt from Belle Schreiber’s interview with Agent T. S. Marshall. October 30, 1912

  I have to ask again. Did Mr. Johnson ever promise you anything for your company?

  That smoke promised all kinds of things. A bathtub full of jewels. Money for my own sporting house. I never got any of it. He brought me on the road with him and put me up at whatever two-bit hotel was near where he stayed with Etta. I had to pay the bill and keep the hotel receipts so he would pay me back. What a gentleman.

  Was Ms. Duryea aware of Mr. Johnson’s infidelity?

  I believe so, but when she caught us together, Papa acted like I was a lunatic, following him around. If I didn’t go along with it, he’d beat me the next time we were alone. Our relations finally ended when Etta gave him a real ultimatum. The next day, he gave me $500 and a train ticket and that was it. I saw him at a horse track last year and he said he wasn’t married to Etta. I knew he was. Papa never cared about any of us. From her last actions, Etta seemed to finally understand that fact.

  THE SHADOW KNOWS

  I know this isn’t how you

  thought things would go

  when you were joyriding

  Wabash Ave
nue in the Flyer,

  all those white women

  hanging out of your auto

  like streamers at a party.

  I bet you imagined you’d

  always be the Galveston

  Giant, the Champion Negro

  drinking champagne with

  your breakfast eggs, a cigar

  huffing like a smokestack.

  A straight sport even in old

  age: white three-piece on the bed

  where Etta carefully laid it.

  You could see it all then,

  like one of those burlesque

  shows in Paris. Come on, now.

  White folks didn’t like you

  before you whipped Jeffries

  & black folks lost appreciation

  for your golden magnanimousness

  the minute your gallivanting

  got somebody killed. Satisfaction

  is its own cold consequence.

  Hate to tell you, but that gorgeous

  left hook don’t mean a thing

  to the agents & their Mann Act.

  You’re going to jail & dragging

  me with you. What’s the guff,

  Mr. Heavyweight Negro?

  No repartee now that the law

  is kicking at your door?

  REMEMORY

  I’ve forgotten some prize fights

  & the names of men I beat more

  than they beat me, but how can

  I forget Divine Intervention

  with a scar dividing my thigh

  like Wabash splits Chicago?

  That horse back-kicked so hard

  my leg bone broke, split my skin

  like a lazy plum. I layed back

  in that stall, bleeding & hollering

  in the dirty hay, with that horse

  looking over his shoulder at me

  like it was my fault & the flies

  & the flies’ humming stuttering

  like telegraph type until Jim

  found me. I couldn’t tolerate horses

  after that. The scar is purple now

  & jagged as a pant’s hem.

  Even though the bone healed

  all right, I rub the scar for luck.