A Piece of Steak

A Piece of Steak by Jack London

With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last particle of flour

gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and meditative way. When he arose

from the table, he was oppressed by the feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he

alone had eaten. The two children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order

that in sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched nothing,

and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She was a thin, worn woman

of the working-class, though signs of an earlier prettiness were not wanting in her face.

The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbor across the hall. The last two

ha'pennies had gone to buy the bread.

He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his weight, and

quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into the side pocket of his

coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his

forgetfulness, he put the pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as

though he were burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied,

stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His

rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to carry the

heavy resoling that was itself of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap,

two-shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.

But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he was. It was

the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in long years of service in the

squared ring and, by that means, developed and emphasized all the marks of the

fighting beast. It was distinctly a lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might

escape notice, it was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless, and constituted a mouth

harsh to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal, heavy.

The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost expressionless under the

shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was, the eyes were the most animal-like

feature about him. They were sleepy, lion-like - the eyes of a fighting animal. The

forehead slanted quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a

villainous- looking head. A nose, twice broken and moulded variously by countless blows,

and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice its size, completed his

adornment, while the beard, fresh- shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the

face a blue-black stain.

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All together, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or lonely place.

And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done anything criminal. Outside of

brawls, common to his walk in life, he had harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known

to pick a quarrel. He was a professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was

reserved for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going,

easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too open- handed for his

own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies. Fighting was a business with him.

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In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus

in it. It was a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle

of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse. When Tom

King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that the Gouger's

jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he

had played for that jaw and broken it again in the ninth round, not because he bore the

Gouger any ill- will, but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win

the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill- will for it. It was the game,

and both knew the game and played it.

Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely silent,

staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the hands, large and swollen;

and the knuckles, smashed and battered and malformed, testified to the use to which

they had been put. He had never heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but

well he knew the meaning of those big, upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too

much blood through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He had

stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distention had passed his endurance.

He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast twenty rounds, hammer and tongs,

fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the

ropes and in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of

all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling, himself rushing,

striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers

of blows in return, and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood

through the adequate veins. The veins, swollen at the time, had always shrunk down

again, though not quite - each time, imperceptibly at first, remaining just a trifle larger

than before. He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment,

caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had

been smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.

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The impression of his hunger came back on him.

fists and spitting out a smothered oath.

comfortable big as it was.

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Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull terrier he had

kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without end. Burke would have

given him credit for a thousand steaks - then. But times had changed. Tom King was

getting old; and old men, fighting before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills

of any size with the tradesmen.

He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the longing had

not abated. He had not had a fair training for this fight. It was a drought year in Australia,

times were hard, and even the most irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no

sparring partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient. He had

done a few days navvy work when he could get it, and he had run around the Domain in

the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training without a partner

and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had

undergone very slight expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of

the Gayety Club had advanced him three pounds - the loser's end of the purse - and

beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings

from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were

hard put themselves. No - and there was no use in disguising the fact - his training had

not been satisfactory. He should have had better food and no worries. Besides, when a

man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.

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His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.

there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley, an' a ten-round go 'tween

Starlight an' some sailor bloke. Don't come on for over an hour.

At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.

He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to kiss her - he never

did on going out - but on this night she dared to kiss him, throwing her arms around him

and compelling him to bend down to her face. She looked quite small against the

massive bulk of the man.

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He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely against

him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was all he had in the world,

with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies. And he was leaving it to go out into the

night to get meat for his mate and cubs - not like a modern working-man going to his

machine grind, but in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.

'im,

- an' I can pay all that's owin', with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught

- not even a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's comin'

from a loser's end. Good-by, old woman. I'll come straight home if it's a win.

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It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered how in

his palmy days - he had once been the heavyweight champion of New South Wales - he

would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most likely, some heavy backer would

have paid for the cab and ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee

nigger, Jack Johnson - they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man

knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the

world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except navvy work,

and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in that. He found himself

wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no

one had told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have listened

if they had. It had been so easy. Big money - sharp, glorious fights - periods of rest and

loafing in between - a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of

the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk - and the

glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's

name in the sporting columns next day.

Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way, that it was

the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising; and they were Age, sinking.

No wonder it had been easy - they with their swollen veins and battered knuckles and

weary in the bones of them from the long battles they had already fought. He

remembered the time he put out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the

eighteenth round, and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.

Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a

couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a hungering for a

piece of steak. Bill had fought game and taken incredible punishment. He could see now,

after he had gone through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger

stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory

and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room.

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Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the iron law of the

game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him, another man only twenty;

each, according to the make of him and the quality of his fibre, had a definite number,

and, when he had fought them, he was done. Yes, he had had more fights in him than

most of them, and he had had far more than his share of the hard, gruelling fights - the

kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the arteries

and made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and

stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance

overwrought. Yes, he had done better than all of them. There was none of his old fighting

partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all finished, and he had

had a hand in finishing some of them.

They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had put them

away - laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in the dressing-room. And now

he was an old un, and they tried out the youngsters on him. There was that bloke,

Sandel. He had come over from New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in

Australia knew anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel

made a showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger purses to win; so it

was to be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle. He had everything to win

by it - money and glory and career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping-block

that guarded the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty

quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there

came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible,

supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and

torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It destroyed

the old uns and recked not that, in so doing, it destroyed itself. It enlarged its arteries

and smashed its knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever

youthful. It was only Age that grew old.

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At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came to the

Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made respectful way for

him, and he heard one say to another:

Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a keen-eyed,

shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.

quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of steak.

When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came down

the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst of greeting and applause

went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged salutations right and left, though few

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of the faces did he know. Most of them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was

winning his first laurels in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform and

ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding stool. Jack Ball,

the referee, came over and shook his hand. Ball was a broken-down pugilist who for over

ten years had not entered the ring as a principal. King was glad that he had him for

referee. They were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules,

he knew Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.

Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the ring and

being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued their challenges for

them.

pounds side bet.

The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang through the

ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across the ring at him curiously, for

in a few minutes they would be locked together in merciless combat, each trying with all

the force of him to knock the other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for

Sandel, like himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume. His face was

strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair, while his thick, muscular

neck hinted at bodily magnificence.

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Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with the

principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges went on. Ever Youth

climbed through the ropes - Youth unknown, but insatiable - crying out to mankind that

with strength and skill it would match issues with the winner. A few years before, in his

own heyday of invincibleness, Tom King would have been amused and bored by these

preliminaries. But now he sat fascinated, unable to shake the vision of Youth from his

eyes. Always were these youngsters rising up in the boxing game, springing through the

ropes and shouting their defiance; and always were the old uns going down before them.

They climbed to success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever they came, more and

more youngsters - Youth unquenchable and irresistible - and ever they put the old uns

away, themselves becoming old uns and travelling the same downward path, while

behind them, ever pressing on them, was Youth eternal - the new babies, grown lusty

and dragging their elders down, with behind them more babies to the end of time - Youth

that must have its will and that will never die.

King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the

Sportsman

, and

Corbett, of the

Referee

. Then he held out his hands, while Sid Sullivan and Charley Bates,

his seconds, slipped on his gloves and laced them tight, closely watched by one of

Sandel's seconds, who first examined critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of

his own was in Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers were pulled off,

and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over his head. And Tom King, looking,

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saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with muscles that slipped and slid

like live things under the white satin skin. The whole body was acrawl with life, and Tom

King knew that it was a life that had never oozed its freshness out through the aching

pores during the long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and departed not quite so young

as when it entered.

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The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and the

seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they shook hands and instantly

took their fighting attitudes. And instantly, like a mechanism of steel and springs

balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel was in and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes,

a right to the ribs, ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly back

again. He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The house yelled its

approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought too many fights and too many

youngsters. He knew the blows for what they were - too quick and too deft to be

dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going to rush things from the start. It was to be

expected. It was the way of Youth, expending its splendor and excellence in wild

insurgence and furious onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory

of strength and desire.

Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light- footed and eager-hearted,

a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that wove itself into a dazzling fabric

of attack, slipping and leaping like a flying shuttle from action to action through a

thousand actions, all of them centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood

between him and fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and

he knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do till the other

lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned to himself as he deliberately

ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on the top of his head. It was a wicked thing to do,

yet eminently fair according to the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to

take care of his own knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on the top of the

head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked lower and let the blow whiz

harmlessly past, but he remembered his own early fights and how he smashed his first

knuckle on the head of the Welsh Terror. He was but playing the game. That duck had

accounted for one of Sandel's knuckles. Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go

on, superbly regardless, hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight. But later on, when

the long ring battles had begun to tell, he would regret that knuckle and look back and

remember how he smashed it on Tom King's head.

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The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the rapidity of his

whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of punches, and King did

nothing. He never struck once, contenting himself with covering up, blocking and

ducking and clinching to avoid punishment. He occasionally feinted, shook his head

when the weight of a punch landed, and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing

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