Then Tiny the bartender would bring Beerbohm his glass of draft and shot of Seagram’s Seven and Ned would throw the paper to Keegan in the back booth and wait to be invited over.
“Depressing,” Beerbohm would say. “Every story is apocalyptic.”
“The world is apocalyptic, Ned,” Keegan would answer without looking up.
Beerbohm would shake his head, hold the shot glass over the mug of beer and carefully drop it in, watching it sink straight to the bottom of the glass and settle there where the thick, oily liquor would seep up into the brew like an amber trail of smoke. He would tilt the glass toward the ceiling, suck in the whiskey and let the beer chase the bitter taste. Then he would pull his lips back, sigh and hold the empty glass up toward Tiny, the 250.pound ex- wrestler who tended the rear section of the Killarney bar.
Ritual. Five days a week. As certain as the sunrise.
It was that kind of relationship, spiced occasionally by a trip to the ball game or to a special event like the fight. .
The gladiators returned to their corners. Nobody sat down. The roar increased. The air crackled with tension.
Louis was hunched over, his eyes cool, staring across the ring at Schmeling, taking his size. The German avoided the stare, talked to his handler, glanced around at the gigantic saucer of people.
The bell.
They came toward each other, Schmeling with his shuffling gait, moving one foot, then bringing the other up beside it; Louis lighter on his feet, more fluid, his body as hard as a boulder. Louis’s eyes were cobra’s eyes, watching his victim, waiting for the proper moment. There was a bit of sparring, then suddenly Schmeling loosed his right, the same right that had put Louis away two years before.
It hit hard, a thud against the side of the Bomber’s jaw. Louis shook his head and forgot it. It was as if Schmeling had blown him a kiss. He moved past the punch like it never happened and for an instant fear widened Schmeling’s eyes. Then the onslaught began.
Louis lashed out with blurred rights and lefts. They sizzled through the hot air under the heavy lights and battered the German into the ropes. Then Louis unleashed a left hook. Schmeling never saw it. It drove him up in the air and against the ropes where he dangled like a drunk, one arm dangling over the top strand, dazed, confused, surprised.
Fear was etched into every muscle of his face. Louis was all over him, smashing lefts and rights into the stricken German. Finally the referee pushed him back. Schmeling was shaking on his feet. He took a one-count and plodded forth for more.
“He’s going to take him out in the first,” Keegan said. “Say goodbye twenty.”
With each wracking thud of Louis’s fists, Keegan felt a moment of delirious pleasure, as though he himself were landing the punch. Every splash of blood from Schmeling’s battered face gave him another moment of joy. He stood in the screaming, sweating crowd, fists clenched, eyes afire, yelling: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill the Nazi bastard,” with such unbridled fervor that even Beerbohm was surprised.
Schmeling looked pleadingly toward his corner, turned and caught a vicious right cross to the jaw. Above the din of the crowd, Keegan heard the bone-crunching sound as it connected. It literally hammered Schmeling to the canvas.
He was hurt. His eyes were roving crazily, trying to focus. He was back up on three, struggling up through air as heavy as oil, almost in slow motion. Arms half up, wide open, wounded and defenseless, he stared terrified as the next right smashed his already swollen jaw. He went down again, his gloves brushing the canvas, legs bent, head lolling. And again he rose, staggering, his senses battered to oblivion, his knees rubber. The Bomber stepped in tight and whacked him again.
“Jesus!” Beerbohm cried.
“Go ahead,” Keegan yelled. “Hit him again! Knock the bastard back to Germany where he belongs!”
Briefly, watching this Aryan apostle being demolished and humiliated, Keegan felt a moment of relief from four years of pain and anger, a moment when his hate seemed sated, a moment when he almost forgot Jenny Gould and Dachau. He had used his political connections. He’d sent hundreds of thousands to Germany in bribes. But he had learned nothing, accomplished nothing. He had failed at the only thing he’d ever truly needed to succeed at. So this, watching the fury of the -Negro fighter, was an instant of retribution.
Louis struck again, a coiled spring of destruction that battered Schmeling’s sagging jaw and demolished his hope. The Aryan apostle fell face-down on the gritty canvas.
Keegan could see the delight in Louis’s eyes as he danced to a neutral corner. From the corner of his eye, Keegan saw the white towel float from Schmeling’s corner and fall at the referee’s feet. He snatched it up and threw it over his shoulder. It dangled from the ropes as he began his count:
“One ... two . . . three . . . four . . . five . .
The crowd was manic. Schmeling’s handlers were awe- struck.
The referee looked down at the stricken Nazi and stopped counting. He spread his hands sharply apart, palms down.
“Yer out!”
The first round. Pandemonium.
And so on this June night in 1938, Joe Louis had finally gotten even.
As for Keegan, his heart soared as they dragged Schmeling’s battered body back to his corner. It was a bittersweet moment, a small taste of revenge. But it was not enough.
Not enough to make up for four years. Four years without a letter or a word from Dachau. Was she alive or dead? Keegan did not know.
How could it be enough?
