The Final Adversary Read Online Free

into Washington to right the nation’s wrong.”
    Mark Winslow leveled his eyes at Barone. “The Union’s had worse times. We’ll survive President Cleveland just as we’ve survived other presidents.”
    The two men continued to exchange views, with a few comments from the rest of the party—except Barney, who had remained silent the entire evening. The presence of his family disturbed him intensely and he wished he could leave. With relief he accepted Sally’s urgent plea to dance.
    Sally’s attractiveness had long given way to the coarsened life she lived. She was overdressed and her poor speech marked her position clearly. “Say, sweetie,” she cooed, “why ain’t you never told me you come from a ritzy family? That ring your ma’s wearing—ain’t it something? Hey, maybe we can go visit ’em—bet they got a fancy place, ain’t they, Bat?”
    Barney ignored her banal chatter. When he first met her, he had been flattered, but soon tired of her mindless talk and incessant desire for gifts. His mind drifted to his family. Why did they come to see me fight? They hate my way of life. As he moved around the floor with Sally’s voice humming in his ear, he thought about the heated discussions he and his family had before he left home. It was like another world—both pleasant and terrible.
    Dad looks good, he thought, glancing at his father. I wonder if he ever thinks about the time he took me fishing in Minnesota? That was the best time I ever had—just him and me. Andy got sick and couldn’t go, and the two of us camped in an old cabin for two weeks. We fished and hunted, and just talked and talked! He told me all about when he was young and how he fought in the war—I ain’t never forgot that!
    The later years, he remembered, were filled with efforts to please his father. Once he’d studied night and day, trying to make all A’s, but in spite of that, he’d made mostly C’s. Andy got all A’s. Mom tried to say nice things about mygrades—but Dad never said a word. That brought back other memories of trying to fit into the family, but by the time he was twelve years old, he had understood that he’d never be smart enough to please them.
    When he went to college, he was convinced he’d never make it. And with that attitude, it was easy to be lured into a group of drinking and disgruntled students. By the middle of his second semester, he’d been dismissed for his behavior. The thought of his father’s displeasure still raked across his nerves. Should have gone on my own then, he thought. That job with the Union my dad got me was too much. Everybody expected me to be as smart as Mark Winslow—I was a fool to try it. The last scene before leaving home flashed into his mind. Standing in front of his parents, pale with anger, he had shouted, “I’ve never been able to please you—and I never will! You want me to be perfect! Well, you’ve got Andy—let him be perfect. I’m getting away from here—and I won’t ever come back!”
    That scene had become a nightmare. All across the country it had awakened him in a cold sweat. He’d gone down fast; and in drunken stupors and in jails, he’d hear himself shouting, “I won’t ever come back!” He’d turned to fighting to make big money, so when Benny Meyers had picked him off the street and trained him, it had been like shutting a final door to his past. Prizefighting had brought adulations from both Benny and the crowd that followed him. For the first time he felt accepted, worth something—and it had been pleasant. Even some of the upper crust were drawn to the violence of the ring. Barney himself disliked fighting. It gave him no pleasure to smash another man into a bleeding hulk, and the cries from the crowd made him uneasy, for he knew how fickle they were—cheering just as loudly if he were the one being beaten!
    When the music ended, he and Sally joined the rest, where he sat with downcast eyes. Stealing looks at his parents from time