The Harder They Fall

  ‘Mi acento es stinko,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, you have the sense of humour,’ Acosta said. ‘In my Argentina we have the saying: A man who cannot laugh is a man who cannot cry.’

  ‘On Eighth Avenue life is not so simple,’ I said.

  ‘Around the Madison Square Garden it is very impressive, yes?’ Acosta said. ‘That is where they make the big business, the ringside ticket for maybe thirty dollars. In my country a hundred pesos. ¡Fantástico! My ambition it is to see the name of El Toro Molina in the lights of the Garden marquesina, this peasant clay that I have carve into work of art. It is my big dream, my big promise to El Toro.’

  He wasn’t kidding. You could see from the intense way his eyes worked that he wasn’t kidding. He was a little man, both in stature and achievement and he came from an underpopulated, second-rate country. This was his way of dreaming greatness. The way he lived it, Toro Molina was David to his Michelangelo.

  ‘But you must think I am a man of very much wind,’ Acosta said. ‘I have talk all this time and I have not tell you this matter of the warning. El Toro, I love him like my son, but he has no head for the business. Only me he trusts to take care of his money. For this he comes with me, to take back the big money to his family in the village. So I cannot tell him of the business of Meester Latka. He will not understan’ how I have sell fifty per cent to Meester Vanneman and how Meester Vanneman has turn around and sell forty per cent to Meester Latka and how Meester Latka has also buy from me another forty per cent. This business El Toro will not know how to understan’. It will make him very frighten’, I think. So it is better for El Toro if he think the agreement we come to New York with is not change. It is better if he think Meester Latka is only my very good friend, a very big North American sportsman. So when he sees Meester Latka around very many times he has no sospecha, sos …’

  ‘Suspicion,’ I said.

  ‘Exactamente,’ Acosta said, ‘suspicion.’

  ‘In other words, when I see the boy, you want me to dummy up about how he is being sliced up like corned-beef in a delicatessen,’ I said.

  ‘Please?’ Acosta said.

  ‘Dummy up,’ I said. ‘Keep quiet about your little deal with Vanneman and Latka.’

  ‘Ah, your slang, they are so colourful,’ Acosta said. ‘I would like before I go back to the Argentine to learn them all.’

  ‘Before you go back to the Argentine,’ I said, ‘you will learn a great deal.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Acosta said.

  ‘Now let’s get back to this work-of-art of yours,’ I said. ‘You really believe you’ve got a fighter, huh?’

  That look came into his eyes again. ‘Argentina, it is a land of great fighters,’ he began. ‘Luis Ángel Firpo would have won the knockout over Dempsey if the sporting writers had not lift him back into the ring. Alberto Lovell wins the amateur championship of the world in the Olympic. But El Toro Molina – he is our greatest, the greatest of all. In Argentina the mountains are very high, the pampas are very wide, it is a big country, big cattle, big men, but El Toro – his mother calls him El Toro because when he is born he weighs’ twelve pounds ten ounces – he is gigantesco, with the neck and the shoulders of a fighting bull and muscles in his arms as big as melons and legs as strong as the great quebracho trees of the Andes.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Just where did you find this mythological conglomerate of fighting bull, mountains, melons and quebracho trees?’

  ‘Ah, you mean where have I make my great discovery?’

  ‘Sí, dígame,’ I said. Nick should dig my dígame, I thought. I should get a couple of extra sawbucks for doing the Spanish version.

  ‘Two years ago I have a little travelling circus in Mendoza,’ Acosta began. ‘There is Miguelito, the clown; there is the bareback riders Señor and Señora Mendez and their horse; there is Juanito Lopez with his dancing bear; there is Antonio the Magician which is me (one day I will make a card trick for you); and there is Alfredo el Fuerte, Alfredo the Strong-one. At the end of his act Alfredo always makes the challenge to lift up anything that three men in the audience can carry up on the stage together.

  ‘When we come to the little village of Santa Maria in the beautiful wine country of the Andes, we are ask to present our performance in the great patio for the amusement of the de Santos family who have the great casa de campo on the highest peak overlooking thousands and thousands of hectares of their beautiful grapes. It is the name day of the head of the de Santos family, and while they watch from the balcony, all the villagers crowd around our little portable stage in the courtyard. Things are passing very excellently. Yes, everything goes very excellently until my last act, Alfredo the Strong-one. Alfredo is a very accomplish strongman, only he has one weakness, which is a very great thirst for champagne brandy. The evening before our performance Alfredo has make a rendezvous with the youngest daughter of the butler of the de Santos casa. The next morning when I smell the breath of Alfredo, it is even stronger than he is. I find it out that the little muchacha has stolen for him a bottle of champagne brandy from the cellar of the great house with the keys of her father. So when Alfredo makes his challenge to pick up anything three men can carry up on the stage he is already puffing like a big fish in the net …’

  ‘This is all very interesting,’ I said, ‘but I’m not doing the life story of your circus. All I need is the stuff on Molina.’

  ‘Please,’ Acosta said, as if I were a heckler climbing up on the stage in the middle of his act, ‘they are all threads in the same rug, how I have come to make the great discovery of El Toro Molina.’ He fitted another cigarette into his holder and gave me his cold social smile. ‘When I see in what weaken condition is Alfredo the Strong-one I am praying to Saint Anthony of my devotion that nothing heavy will come up on the stage. But Saint Anthony does not hear me. Because three of the biggest men I have ever see are carrying up on the stage the biggest barrel of wine I ever see. One of the men is old, of very little more height than I have, but he is almost as wide as he is tall. The other two are young gigantes who have over six feet in height and weigh more than Luis Firpo.

  ‘“Who are these big fellows?” I ask. “They are the Molinas,” I am told. “Very famous of this village. The short one is Mario Molina, the barrel-maker, and those are two of his sons, Rafael and Ramon. At all our feast-days when it comes to the wrestling, old Mario was always the champion. And now his sons can throw him on his back as easy as you can swallow a grape.”’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘That’s in the script. I can use that.’

  ‘Please,’ Acosta said. ‘I will give you what Meester Latka call “the whole treatment”. Now the big wine barrel is on the stage and if Alfredo cannot lift it I have promise to pay each of the men who have come up on the stage one peso. And if, God forbid, anyone in the audience can come up and equal Alfredo’s feat, I have promise to pay five pesos. Poor Alfredo he puts his arms around the barrel and the sweat is running down both sides of his nose in two steady streams and I swear on the faithfulness of my mother to my father I can smell the champagne brandy. Yes, there is much sweat and much noise but no lifting of the barrel. All the villagers have begin to shout rude remarks and Alfredo has much anger in himself and sucks in his breath until the ribs begin to show through the fat. But still there is no lifting of the barrel. The villagers are throwing vegetables at Alfredo. Then someone calls out, “El Toro, we want El Toro” and soon everyone is shouting “El Toro, El Toro!”

  ‘Out of the crowd a giant rises up and he seems to get bigger and bigger as he comes. When he climb up on the stage he move very slow but very poderoso …’

  ‘Powerful,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Acosta said. ‘Very powerful, like an elephant. He seem very embarrass. “I do not wish to come up, señor,” he say to me, “but it is the wish of my friends who I cannot insult.” Then, I swear by my sainted mother, El Toro reach down and lifts the barrel high in the air. The crowd laughs and shouts Mucho, muc
ho, viva El Toro Molina. “Who is this fellow?” I ask. “He is the youngest son of Mario Molina,” they say to me, “the strongest man in Argentina.”

  ‘When I pay this young giant the five pesos he has win I say to him, “Perhaps you will like to come along with me and take the place of my Strong-one. You will have much money in your pocket and see many fine cities and everywhere you go beautiful señoritas will marvel at your strength and be yours for the taking.”

  ‘But El Toro says, “I wish to stay with my people. I am content here.”

  ‘“How much are you pay by the estanciero?” I say.

  ‘“Two pesos a day.”

  ‘“Two pesos! That is but the droppings of the sparrow. From Luis Acosta you will receive five pesos and when we are performing in Mendoza and the crowds do not keep their hands in their pockets you will make ten, maybe fifteen, pesos a day. You will come back to Santa Maria and take the most beautiful girl in the village for your wife.”

  ‘“You mean Carmelita Perez?” El Toro says.

  ‘At last I have found the soft spot. “Of course I mean Carmelita,” I say. “Who else but Carmelita? You will come back with money enough to build a house for yourself. For you and Carmelita. And from Mendoza you will bring her a beautiful silk dress as fine as anything worn by the daughters of de Santos.”

  ‘El Toro looks at me a long time and I can see that my words are working in his head. “I will ask permission of my father,” he says to me. The father talks it over with Mama Molina who has never travel more than fifty kilometres beyond Santa Maria. She is very much frighten for what will happen to her infante muy grande, when he goes down into the great cities. But the brothers Ramon and Rafael they urge the father very much to give El Toro the permission. The brothers have convince Mario to give El Toro the permission. Then there is much embracing and weeping and Vaya con Dios, and El Toro lifts his giant body onto my truck and waves goodbye to his family with his enormous hands. I drive down the mountainside with as much speed as I can because I am afraid if El Toro will change his mind.’

  ‘Giant son of peasant barrel-maker leaves village in Andes to be strongman in travelling circus,’ I scribbled. It was one of those stories you could push beyond the sports page. The Post or Collier’s might go for it. There might even be a little extra dough in a piece that gives a name and a personality to the human desire for size and strength. I could start with a mention of the Jews of Palestine and give them Samson. It would sound learned to show how the Greeks worshipped Atlas, Hercules and Titan. How Rabelais dreamt up Gargantua. And now, Toro Molina. For modern times we’d dish up a giant of our own, worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with great and ancient company. What mighty feats would our giant perform, equalling those of Samson who came down from the hills to champion his subjugated people, Atlas who supported the world on his muscled back, and Hercules who fought his way up onto Mount Olympus! To keep the classical flavour, we could even ring in the deus ex machina in the person of Nick Latka, post-graduate hoodlum, soft-shoe racketeer and country gentleman as the means by which a giant peasant from the highest mountains in the New World follows the old pattern from man of the people to hero to demigod and finally joins the deities of contemporary mythology.

  ‘Everywhere I go I have a very big success with El Toro,’ Acosta was saying while I played with the idea of becoming a god-maker. ‘The people have never see such bigness, such magnificence of muscles. Because I love El Toro so much I do not give him ten per cent of the collection; I let him keep twenty-five per cent, for I have promise that when he go back to the village, he will have more money than all the peasants together. But El Toro goes to the great marketplace in Mendoza and like a child he spends every last centavo. For his mama he buys the bandana and for Carmelita a fine black lace gown and for himself a top hat which he brings back wearing on his head. Such a child is El Toro and so little he knows of the world.

  ‘Across the promenade from my circus at the great fair in Mendoza is my good friend Lupe Morales who is the old sparring partner of Luis Ángel Firpo. Lupe makes the challenge to anyone in the audience to stay in the ring with him for three minutes. I see the collection of Lupe Morales and I watch that of El Toro Molina and I am surprise to see that Lupe who is all wash up in the boxing brings more money than El Toro. Why am I wasting my time picking up little coins in a sideshow when I have in my hands a gold mine?

  ‘So I make a deal with my friend Lupe that he will teach El Toro the science of the prizefight in return for five per cent of all the money El Toro will make in the ring. When I tell El Toro what I have arrange, he says he does not like. “Why should Lupe hit me and I hit Lupe back when we are not angry with each other?” he says. Poor El Toro, he has a body like a mountain but a brain like a pea. “To be angry is not necessary, El Toro,” I say to him. “The boxing is a business.” But El Toro is not convince.

  ‘I have much worry because all my life I think, Luis, you are too clever to die in the province with your little travelling circus. Some day you will find something equal to your brain and showmanship. And now it is in my hand. But I am not thinking only of Luis Acosta. I think of El Toro also, who is become like a son to me. I have see his house in the village and I know how poor he lives even with their four pairs of arms of such strength.

  ‘So I say to El Toro, “I offer you the opportunity to make more money than you ever dream was in the world. Just to climb into the ring and box half of one hour you will make five hundred, maybe one thousand, pesos. Come with me to Buenos Aires and I will make so much money for you that you will be able to go back to Santa Maria and pay off the debt on your father’s house and hire a maid for Carmelita. You can lie in bed after the sun is up and cuddle your wife and go to cockfights and sit at the café and sip your wine. How can you say you are in love if you are not willing to do this little for the happiness of Carmelita?’

  ‘And so at last I have convince El Toro because in my own language I am very elocuente, although perhaps you cannot tell it from my English which suffers from a shortness of vocabulary.’

  ‘Don’t worry about your English,’ I said. ‘Compared to the gentlemen who hang around Stillman’s, you have the vocabulary of a Tunney. And he had to sweat for his too.’

  ‘You are very kind,’ Acosta said. ‘So now I am ready to make my peasant giant into a champion. Lupe does not know the science of el box like your Tunney or the little heavyweight Loughran who keeps his left glove in the face of Arturo Godoy in the big fight in Buenos Aires. But he knows to show El Toro how to put his left foot forward and hold his left hand out, with the right hand under the chin to protect the great jaw. He knows to show him how to balance on the balls of the feet, so he is ready to move forward or backward, and he knows to teach him how to lead with his left hand and cross with his right and snap back once more into position. What you call the fundamentals of self-defence, yes? He shows him how to throw the uppercut when he is in close and how to hold his arms in to his body in the clinch, so his opponent cannot hit him in the kidney and the rib. And that is all Lupe can teach, because there is even more to the science than Lupe knows.

  ‘Little by little El Toro learns, for he is always serious in his work and tries to please me very much. In the sparring with Lupe he is very strong because he has the wind of a bull and in the clinch he can toss Lupe around like a feather, and when he has train nearly two months Lupe says now he is ready for the fight in Buenos Aires.

  ‘So at last we are in Buenos Aires, where Lupe Morales has arrange for Luis Ángel Firpo himself to box an exhibition with El Toro. When it is finish Firpo tell the newspapers that El Toro is stronger than Dempsey when Dempsey knock him down six times in the first round of their million-dollar fight in the state of New Jersey. So now El Toro Molina already has much fame in Buenos Aires and he is match to fight Kid Salado, the champion of La Pampa. Outside the arena the poster in very large letters has the name El Toro Gigantesco de Mendoza, the Giant Bull of Mendoza. And under this in little letters, ??
?Under the Exclusive Management of Señor Luis Acosta”. Every time I see this poster, it make me feel very good. How Luis and his giant have come up in the world! We are making everyone sit up and notice. Two days before the fight there are no more tickets to sell. Out of this great piece of peasant clay I find in the mountain I have make the biggest drawing card in South America.’

  ‘Okay, okay, but what happened with Salado? This suspense is killing me,’ I said.

  ‘In the fight with Salado it is ten rounds to a draw, which is all right for El Toro in his first time. You must remember that Salado is a boxer of much experience who knows many tricks and has three times knock out Lupe Morales. For this fight they pay me one thousand pesos, from which I give Toro five hundred, in spite I am taking all the risk by giving up my circus business and putting all my eggs on El Toro Gigantesco. With the five hundred pesos El Toro is very happy, especially when I take him down to the great shopping centre on the Roque Saens Peña. I take him to a tailor who makes especially for him a fine brown suit with red and blue stripes which make El Toro laugh with happiness because he has never own a suit of clothes before. “You see,” I say to him. “You trust Luis who takes the place of your father, and everything will happen good for you as I have promise.”’

  ‘This is all fine,’ I cut in, ‘full of stuff I can use, but we’re getting close to chow and we’re still down in BA. Bring me up to date, how you happened to come to town.’

  ‘For many many years,’ Acosta began, ‘I myself have the dream to come to North America. I cannot bring my little circus. I do not have money enough to go for pleasure. But now that I have El Toro I know it is my opportunity. The people of North America, I have hear, spend much money on the sports. And also they make themselves into big crowds to see something new. My El Toro Gigantesco, I think, if he makes one thousand pesos in one night in Buenos Aires, he can make ten thousand dollars for one fight in North America. The people of North America are – you will excuse me – a little loco when it comes to the number of them who will pay big money to see a heavyweight fight. Lupe remembers from 1923, when he is with Luis Ángel Firpo, the night eighty thousand people pay to see our Wild Bull of the Pampas fight Jess Willard when Willard has forty years of age. So I have great confidence that El Toro will make an even bigger success in North America than Firpo who has make in two years here nearly one million dollar.