The Game

J >> Jack London >> The Game


Joe had at last become the whirlwind. Genevieve remembered his "just
watch, you'll know when I go after him." The house knew it, too. It was
on its feet, every voice raised in a fierce yell. It was the blood-cry
of the crowd, and it sounded to her like what she imagined must be the
howling of wolves. And what with confidence in her lover's victory she
found room in her heart to pity Ponta.

In vain he struggled to defend himself, to block, to cover up, to duck,
to clinch into a moment's safety. That moment was denied him. Knockdown
after knockdown was his portion. He was knocked to the canvas backwards,
and sideways, was punched in the clinches and in the breakaways--stiff,
jolty blows that dazed his brain and drove the strength from his muscles.
He was knocked into the corners and out again, against the ropes,
rebounding, and with another blow against the ropes once more. He fanned
the air with his arms, showering savage blows upon emptiness. There was
nothing human left in him. He was the beast incarnate, roaring and
raging and being destroyed. He was smashed down to his knees, but
refused to take the count, staggering to his feet only to be met stiff-
handed on the mouth and sent hurling back against the ropes.

In sore travail, gasping, reeling, panting, with glazing eyes and sobbing
breath, grotesque and heroic, fighting to the last, striving to get at
his antagonist, he surged and was driven about the ring. And in that
moment Joe's foot slipped on the wet canvas. Ponta's swimming eyes saw
and knew the chance. All the fleeing strength of his body gathered
itself together for the lightning lucky punch. Even as Joe slipped the
other smote him, fairly on the point of the chin. He went over backward.
Genevieve saw his muscles relax while he was yet in the air, and she
heard the thud of his head on the canvas.

The noise of the yelling house died suddenly. The referee, stooping over
the inert body, was counting the seconds. Ponta tottered and fell to his
knees. He struggled to his feet, swaying back and forth as he tried to
sweep the audience with his hatred. His legs were trembling and bending
under him; he was choking and sobbing, fighting to breathe. He reeled
backward, and saved himself from falling by a blind clutching for the
ropes. He clung there, drooping and bending and giving in all his body,
his head upon his chest, until the referee counted the fatal tenth second
and pointed to him in token that he had won.

He received no applause, and he squirmed through the ropes, snakelike,
into the arms of his seconds, who helped him to the floor and supported
him down the aisle into the crowd. Joe remained where he had fallen. His
seconds carried him into his corner and placed him on the stool. Men
began climbing into the ring, curious to see, but were roughly shoved out
by the policemen, who were already there.

Genevieve looked on from her peep-hole. She was not greatly perturbed.
Her lover had been knocked out. In so far as disappointment was his, she
shared it with him; but that was all. She even felt glad in a way. The
Game had played him false, and he was more surely hers. She had heard of
knockouts from him. It often took men some time to recover from the
effects. It was not till she heard the seconds asking for the doctor
that she felt really worried.

They passed his limp body through the ropes to the stage, and it
disappeared beyond the limits of her peep-hole. Then the door of her
dressing-room was thrust open and a number of men came in. They were
carrying Joe. He was laid down on the dusty floor, his head resting on
the knee of one of the seconds. No one seemed surprised by her presence.
She came over and knelt beside him. His eyes were closed, his lips
slightly parted. His wet hair was plastered in straight locks about his
face. She lifted one of his hands. It was very heavy, and the
lifelessness of it shocked her. She looked suddenly at the faces of the
seconds and of the men about her. They seemed frightened, all save one,
and he was cursing, in a low voice, horribly. She looked up and saw
Silverstein standing beside her. He, too, seemed frightened. He rested
a kindly hand on her shoulder, tightening the fingers with a sympathetic
pressure.

This sympathy frightened her. She began to feel dazed. There was a
bustle as somebody entered the room. The person came forward,
proclaiming irritably: "Get out! Get out! You've got to clear the
room!"

A number of men silently obeyed.

"Who are you?" he abruptly demanded of Genevieve. "A girl, as I'm
alive!"

"That's all right, she's his girl," spoke up a young fellow she
recognized as her guide.

"And you?" the other man blurted explosively at Silverstein.

"I'm vit her," he answered truculently.

"She works for him," explained the young fellow. "It's all right, I tell
you."

The newcomer grunted and knelt down. He passed a hand over the damp
head, grunted again, and arose to his feet.

"This is no case for me," he said. "Send for the ambulance."

Then the thing became a dream to Genevieve. Maybe she had fainted, she
did not know, but for what other reason should Silverstein have his arm
around her supporting her? All the faces seemed blurred and unreal.
Fragments of a discussion came to her ears. The young fellow who had
been her guide was saying something about reporters. "You vill get your
name in der papers," she could hear Silverstein saying to her, as from a
great distance; and she knew she was shaking her head in refusal.

There was an eruption of new faces, and she saw Joe carried out on a
canvas stretcher. Silverstein was buttoning the long overcoat and
drawing the collar about her face. She felt the night air on her cheek,
and looking up saw the clear, cold stars. She jammed into a seat.
Silverstein was beside her. Joe was there, too, still on his stretcher,
with blankets over his naked body; and there was a man in blue uniform
who spoke kindly to her, though she did not know what he said. Horses'
hoofs were clattering, and she was lurching somewhere through the night.

Next, light and voices, and a smell of iodoform. This must be the
receiving hospital, she thought, this the operating table, those the
doctors. They were examining Joe. One of them, a dark-eyed,
dark-bearded, foreign-looking man, rose up from bending over the table.

"Never saw anything like it," he was saying to another man. "The whole
back of the skull."

Her lips were hot and dry, and there was an intolerable ache in her
throat. But why didn't she cry? She ought to cry; she felt it incumbent
upon her. There was Lottie (there had been another change in the dream),
across the little narrow cot from her, and she was crying. Somebody was
saying something about the coma of death. It was not the foreign-looking
doctor, but somebody else. It did not matter who it was. What time was
it? As if in answer, she saw the faint white light of dawn on the
windows.

"I was going to be married to-day," she said to Lottie.

And from across the cot his sister wailed, "Don't, don't!" and, covering
her face, sobbed afresh.

This, then, was the end of it all--of the carpets, and furniture, and the
little rented house; of the meetings and walking out, the thrilling
nights of starshine, the deliciousness of surrender, the loving and the
being loved. She was stunned by the awful facts of this Game she did not
understand--the grip it laid on men's souls, its irony and faithlessness,
its risks and hazards and fierce insurgences of the blood, making woman
pitiful, not the be-all and end-all of man, but his toy and his pastime;
to woman his mothering and caretaking, his moods and his moments, but to
the Game his days and nights of striving, the tribute of his head and
hand, his most patient toil and wildest effort, all the strain and the
stress of his being--to the Game, his heart's desire.

Silverstein was helping her to her feet. She obeyed blindly, the daze of
the dream still on her. His hand grasped her arm and he was turning her
toward the door.

"Oh, why don't you kiss him?" Lottie cried out, her dark eyes mournful
and passionate.

Genevieve stooped obediently over the quiet clay and pressed her lips to
the lips yet warm. The door opened and she passed into another room.
There stood Mrs. Silverstein, with angry eyes that snapped vindictively
at sight of her boy's clothes.

Silverstein looked beseechingly at his spouse, but she burst forth
savagely:--

"Vot did I tell you, eh? Vot did I tell you? You vood haf a bruiser for
your steady! An' now your name vill be in all der papers! At a prize
fight--vit boy's clothes on! You liddle strumpet! You hussy! You--"

But a flood of tears welled into her eyes and voice, and with her fat
arms outstretched, ungainly, ludicrous, holy with motherhood, she
tottered over to the quiet girl and folded her to her breast. She
muttered gasping, inarticulate love-words, rocking slowly to and fro the
while, and patting Genevieve's shoulder with her ponderous hand.