‘Lay off Jo-Jo!’

As I said, he was big but slow. He was also anxious. His first punch got my left shoulder. It was a good punch and would have paralysed my left arm if I had had a left arm. He only got the left shoulder because he had lunged off balance the way a man will who has been waiting too long to throw the punch. He was no trained fighter, but he had muscles. His fist felt like a small bowling ball. I bounced off a wall like a duck pin. His second punch was slow in coming. I had time to roll with it. That was lucky, because it was aimed at my chin and was a lot more accurate.

His trouble was that he had his message on his mind. Any good fighter, ring or street, will claim that to fight well you must have your mind on your work. The fighter who sees the crowd or keeps one eye out for the cops is a loser. His mind was too busy.

‘Layoff!’

I rolled with the second punch, that came too slow. I threw one short jab at his face just to slow him down, kicked his shin as hard as I could, and rolled two garbage cans into his path. He ducked my punch, howled when I got his shin solid, and sprawled over the garbage cans when he tried to get at me again. By the time he picked himself up I was nothing but heels going away fast. I think I was leaning on the bar in Packy’s Pub and halfway through my first whiskey before the big man knew for sure that I was gone. And my brain was at work. Because I had a clear picture in my mind — a picture of the big man’s feet and shoes.

I suppose I saw the shoes when the big man went down over the garbage cans. They were the ancient, pointed, two-toned brown and beige shoes the fashion-plate hoods used to wear in the twenties and thirties. Legs Diamond and oh you kid. And the feet on the big man were like doll’s feet.