A Piece of Steak Page #2

"A Piece of Steak" is a poignant short story by Jack London that explores themes of pride, desperation, and the harsh realities of life as a struggling boxer. The narrative follows the aging fighter, Tom King, who reflects on his past glories while facing the physical decline that comes with age. As he prepares for a critical match against a younger opponent, King grapples with his fading abilities, the hunger for success, and the symbolic significance of a steak, representing both sustenance and the remnants of his former strength. Through King's struggle, London delves into the broader human condition, making a powerful statement about survival and the relentless passage of time.

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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.

"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked.

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

"Quarter before eight."

"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a
try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come
on for over an hour."

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

"Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'."

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.

"Good luck, Tom," she said. "You gotter do 'im."

"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it. I jus'
gotter do 'im."

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.

"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid--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-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home
if it's a win."

"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall.

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 n*gger, 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
"King wins!" and his 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.

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 were 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.

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