Mae stood and held his arms. "Jimmy, if they get really sick, we
don't have the money for a doctor."
"If you send them away, this has all been for nothing," he said
angrily. "It means that we lost." He shook Mae's arms off. "I made
a promise to Jay, do you understand? I promised that we would
never send him away."
Without another word, he turned and walked across the
freezing room and out of the door.
Later that afternoon, he stood at the wooden counter of the
Newark relief office. An unsmiling woman counted out twelve
dollars and eighty cents, which she placed in a white envelope.
Jim's hand shook as he signed for the money, trying not to blame
himself for what he had done. Ashamed, he put the envelope into
his pocket.
He pushed his way through the unhappy crowd. They were
lawyers and dock workers, teachers and factory workers. Bankers
and builders. Now, unable to earn money themselves, they were
here to receive money from the state. Some were so ashamed that,
like Jim, they looked only at the floor. Others looked straight
ahead with empty stares.
After Jim crossed the river to Manhattan, he walked past all the
homeless people in the city who seemed to have no hope. The
story was the same everywhere: No work. No money.
At last, Jim reached the streets around Madison Square Garden.
There were no bright lights now, no people in expensive clothes
waiting outside. Instead, homeless people searched for anything
they could use.
Jim went to the familiar side door. The sign for the next fight
showed two boxers standing with gloves up. Jim remembered
when his picture had been on signs like this. He remembered the
fight with Tuffy Griffiths, the dream of that night when the future
looked bright for Jim Braddock.
But then another, less happy memory came to mind—the fight
24
against Tommy Loughran. It was July 1929—-just four months
before the Crash. Jim was fighting for the title of light
heavyweight champion, but it was the fight that turned Braddock
into a boxer of "failed promise."
The New York crowd had wanted Braddock to win, and the
fight had started well, too. But things changed in the second
round. Loughran began to dance around the ring, dodging
Braddock's punches easily. He had discovered Braddock's biggest
weakness—no left-hand punch.
In the rest of the fight, Braddock had hit the champion with a
few good punches, but it wasn't enough. The judges all decided
that Loughran was the winner. The newspapers weren't kind to
Braddock, who had looked slow in the last three rounds. His
dream of winning the title seemed to be at an end.
Now, years later, Jim stood in the shadows in Madison Square
Garden and said the same words that he had said after the
Loughran fight: "I don't know what went wrong."
He opened the side door and started up the stairs. The climb
to the Madison Square Garden boxing club was the hardest of his
life. The club was a place where the rich money-makers of New
York's boxing world could relax and do business. It wasn't high
above street level, but it was like another world.
At first, nobody noticed as Jim Braddock walked into the
smoky room. He went up to two men in the center of the room.
"Mr. Allen . . . Phil. . ."
The men looked up at the fighter. Others noticed and
conversations around the room died. Jim cleared his throat.
"I'm here because we can't afford to pay the heating bills. We
had to send our kids away . . . I just need enough money to get
my children back." Jim took off his hat and stretched it out.
The whole room was silent now. Mr. Allen put his hand in his
pocket. "Sure, Jim." He placed a few coins into Jim's hat.
"Thank you," replied Jim. Then he offered his hat to the others