The Kid's Last Fight

By Joe Van Rhyn

There is so much at stake as Johnny "The Kid" Whalen prepares for his next fight. A win could propel him to a championship. it could also cost him his life. Mob boss, Benny Benucci seems to hold all the cards, but don't count Johnny out. One good punch could turn the tables. Lots of fight action, but still plenty of time for for sweet romance. The book also contains four of Joe's favorite short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Van Rhyn
• Release date: Jul 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780998679891

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

C 2016 by Joseph Van Rhyn. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means without written permission from the author.

Published by El Cid Publishing, Las Vegas, NV 12/25/18

ISBN# 978-0-9986798-9-1

The author may be contacted at: [e-mail]

Additional information about the author can be found by going to his website: www.joevanrhyn.com

This book is dedicated to my fellow

writers of the Henderson Writers Group.

With their help and support I’ve made

my writing dream come true.

Welcome to Milwaukee

Johnny The Kid Whalen flicked on the light and tossed his room key and tattered suitcase on the bed. The room felt dank. The air was heavy and had a dirty sock smell. He threw his coat over the chair and cracked open the window. Cold exhaust laden fumes rushed in irritating his nose and sending a shiver down his back. Fat choice... freeze or choke to death. He pushed the window closed and checked his watch. Two AM.  He brushed back the ragged curtain. Outside, the neon sign blinked between colors, flooding the room with alternating shards of red and yellow. Each letter cycled on and off to spell out the word HOTEL–except the O and T failed to light. Johnny chuckled as he looked around the dreary room. H—EL. That’s one L shy of a perfect description.

Two floors below, ladies in short skirts and net stockings lined the far side of the street. As if guarding a small piece of turf, they spaced themselves along the boarded-up storefronts and braced themselves against the night chill. Boobs bubbled out of lightweight jackets. The ladies struck contortive poses, no doubt designed to show off their voluptuous assets. Neither rain, nor snow, nor the cold of night can stop that...sex goes on. He shook his head and wondered how many of them had spent an hour or two in this room.

Without warning, a sharp pain doubled him over.  He grabbed his head. Fingers kneaded his temples. A drop of blood dripped from one nostril and hung on his upper lip. Another drop followed. Then another. He cupped his hand under his nose. Half stumbling, he made his way to the closet-sized bathroom, tore off a long strip of toilet paper and began stuffing the crumpled tissue up his nose.

Dammit. He pulled the first round of blood-soaked crimson paper from his nose and pushed a fresh wad into each nostril. He brought his face close to the mirror. Scratching through three days of whiskers, he frowned at his reflection. As much as he would have like to blame the glass, he knew full well it was an honest depiction of what years of getting your face punched looked like.

Twenty-eight years old and you’re beat to crap, he moaned. A bent, oft-broken finger traced the deep creases around his eye and over his crooked nose.

Johnny wet a towel and held it to the back of his neck. With a hand on the dresser he steadied his way to the bed and eased himself down onto the sagging mattress. Tossing one of the pillows against the headboard he laid back and stared at the ceiling

Like with so many other quiet moments, he wondered if the life he chose was worth it. As a youngster boxing allowed him to blossom into manhood. The bloom had long disappeared. He studied his surroundings.

Somebody did a piss-poor job of patching the crack in the ceiling. Should have left well-enough alone.

The puke green paint on the walls turned his stomach. Strips of it had peeled away from the large water spot above the window. The dresser and overstuffed chair were early junkyard. What do you expect for ten bucks a night? He muttered, covering his eyes with his forearm.

Somewhere between sleep and consciousness he tried to make sense of the past few days. Everything had happened so fast.

Last week he was shivering in Bismarck, waiting for a Saturday night fight with another no-name challenger, when an Arctic blast of wind and cold sent the mercury crashing below the freezing mark. For crying out loud, he remembered saying. It’s only the end of September.

Waking in the morning he couldn’t stop shivering. Wrapping himself in the blanket, he fiddled with the heater control knob. Shit, this damned thing ain’t working.

I can see my breath, he shouted in the phone conversation with the front desk. White vapor escaped his mouth. He listened for a moment. A telegram? For me? Yeah, I’ll put on my overcoat and come right down.

It came in late last night, the clerk said, handing over the paper. He coughed back a smirk at seeing the bundled-up man. I didn’t want to wake you.

Johnny unfolded the yellow paper. The message was short and to the point.

––––––––

Leave now. Stop. Come to Milwaukee. Stop. Expense money waiting at Western Union. Stop.

Benny.

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It was date-stamped September 25, 1948.

I need my bill, he told the man behind the counter. Do you have a bus schedule?

The clerk pointed to a rack at the end of the counter.

Milwaukee? Johnny muttered as he started up the stairs. What’s going on in Milwaukee?

He pondered the question.  He’d been to the brewing capital of the world once before, and seemed to recall, depending on the direction of the wind, the stockyards, metal foundries and breweries made the air somewhat odoriferous. A September wind off Lake Michigan had little problem slicing through the heaviest mackinaw. Few would characterize Milwaukee as a garden paradise, but Johnny wasn’t complaining. He welcomed the change of venue and felt the Wisconsin bastion would be far better than remaining in this North Dakota sub-zero icebox. It also got him out of another meaningless small paying fight.

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Squealing tires and honking horns on the street below brought Johnny back to the present. He got up and threw the wet cloth in the sink. He eased the soiled tissues from his nose, making sure the bleeding didn’t re-start. Satisfied, he unbuttoned the two top buttons on his shirt, pulled the tails out of his pants and plopped his butt in the chair. Something’s up. This ain’t like Benny. I’ve been on his shit-list for six years.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to believe Benny would try to do something nice for him.

Johnny closed his eyes. It’s got to be the Knowles thing.

He remembered sitting in the bus terminal and picking up a copy of the Bismarck Tribune someone had left on the bench. The headline on the sports page provided a clue as to what might be in the works. It read: Knowles Breaks Arm. Milwaukee fight in Jeopardy. The accompanying article described the promoter’s scramble to find a suitable replacement for the sold-out fight between Mighty Mike Mayfield and Battling Bobby Knowles. There was no mention about how Knowles sustained the injury. "I’ll bet Benny had a dirty hand in that." He tossed the paper in the trash can and boarded the bus.

As the Greyhound lumbered down the road, Johnny found himself pondering the possibility of being the one stepping in to fight Mayfield. Watching the last of the snow-covered countryside give way to autumn colored fields of hay and drying corn, he couldn’t stop the excitement that warmed his face. This would be the opportunity he’d been waiting for the past half dozen years, a chance to get back into big time boxing. The early morning sun felt warm and his breath no longer fogged the window.

The fourteen-hour bus ride to Milwaukee gave Johnny plenty of time to reflect on his checkered boxing career. He first stripped on gloves as a fifteen-year-old. Boxing at the local Y, he was a street-hungry kid, out to punish the world for his dad getting killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His mom was so devastated by the loss of her husband, she drowned herself in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

The gym rats and YMCA do-gooders became his family. Boxing became his passion. He soon collected a boatload of trophies and medals by annihilating every amateur foe he faced.

Johnny turned professional when the war ended. Known as the Toledo Torpedo, his reputation as a fierce competitor spread quickly. He boxed his way around the Midwest circuit taking on all comers. As a nineteen-year-old sensation he mowed through the bottom half of his weight class, completely dominating a host of greenhorn returning GI’s and over-the-hill palookas. Fans jumped on the Whalen bandwagon. They packed the local gyms and armories to watch the young, western Ohio light heavyweight. His lightning quick hands, solid right cross and undefeated record soon captured the attention of a Milwaukee promoter.

At twenty-two, Johnny was about to get his first big money fight. Billed as the Post-War Fight of the Decade, it pitted The Kid against a seasoned fighter from the Bronx.

Beer City went wild. The bout sold out in two days. Public sentiment had The Torpedo sinking this opponent and opening the way for a shot at the title.

One sportswriter from the Milwaukee Journal signaled caution—maybe young Whalen