This hope might have been realized if, at the last moment, they had not committed one of their characteristic follies. None of them, of course, would admit to the others that he would like to see the fight himself. Any suggestion of this was greeted by hoots of scorn. Jim, in fact, almost exploded with outraged contempt when one of them hinted that he might prefer to use his ticket instead of selling it for fifty dollars.
And yet, they held on to the tickets until it was too late—until, at any rate, they would have had to try to sell them at the Polo Grounds to possible last-minute purchasers. They might have been able to do this, but really what they had wanted all along, the secret hope that each of them had cherished in his heart and that none of them would admit, was that they could see that fight themselves. And that is what they did. And in the light of retrospect Monk was glad they did it. That night made history in their lives, in a curious, poignant, and indefinable way, as only a popular song or a prize fight can do in America, evoking a time with blazing vividness, a host of memories that otherwise would later be only obscure, blurred fragments of a half-forgotten past.
An hour before the fight was scheduled to begin, and even after the preliminary contests had begun, they were all together in the living room of their apartment, debating with one another violently. Each accused the others of having failed to go through with the plan. Each denied vehemently that he had had any intention of weakening. Above the whole excited babble, Jim’s voice could be heard passionately asserting that he was still out to sell his ticket, that he was going to the Polo Grounds for purposes of speculation only, that the rest of them could back down if they wished but that he would sell his ticket if it was the last thing he ever did on earth.
The upshot of it was that the more he argued and asserted, the less they believed him; and the more he shouted, the less he convinced himself. They all squabbled, argued, challenged, and denied until the final moment, which they knew somehow was coming. And then it came. Jim paused suddenly in his hot debate with himself, looked at his watch, ripped out an alarmed oath, and then, looking at them, laughed his soft and husky laugh, saying:
“Come on, boys. Who’s going to this fight with me?”
It was perfect. And it was the kind of folly and unreason that was characteristic of them all: the great plans and projects and the protestations they were forever making, and their ultimate surrender to impulse and emotion when the moment came. And it was exactly like Jim Randloph, too. It was the kind of thing he did, the kind of thing that he had always done, the irrational impulse that wrecked his best-laid plans.
Now that the time had come, now that they had all surrendered, now that all of them had openly admitted at last what they were going to do, they went jubilantly and exultantly. And they saw the fight. They did not sit together. Their tickets were in different sections of the field. Monk’s was over behind third base and well back in the upper tier. That square of roped-in canvas out there in the center of the field looked very far away, and that surrounding mass of faces was enormous, overwhelming. Yet his vision of the whole scene remained ever afterwards startling immediate and vivid.
He saw the little eddies in the crowd as the fighters and their handlers came towards the ring, then heard the great roar that rose and mounted as they climbed through the ropes. There was something terrific in the sight of young Dempsey. Over all the roar and tumult of that mighty crowd Monk could feel the currents of his savagery and nervous tension. Dempsey could not sit still. He jumped up from his stool, pranced up and down, seized the ropes and stretched and squatted several times, as skittish and as nervous as a race horse.
Then the men were called into the center of the ring to receive their last instructions. Firpo came out stolidly, his robe stretched across his massive shoulders, his great coarse shock of hair shining blackly as he stood and glowered. He had been well named. He was really like a sullen human bull. Dempsey could not be still. As he got his last instructions, he fidgeted nervously and kept his head down, a little to one side, not meeting Firpo’s sullen and stolid look.
They received their instructions and turned and went back to their corners. Their robes were taken off. Dempsey flexed and squatted swiftly at the ropes, the bell clanged, and the men came out.