A Piece of Steak Page #5

"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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not dangerous, and was, therefore, just that much wasted strength. But
Sandel was tireless and unaware of limitations, and King grinned and
doggedly endured.

Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that
King was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the
old ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch
on the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's
right hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body,
heavy as it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine
seconds allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still
strong. He had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was
fighting grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which
was Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed
and his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom
born of the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not
alone had he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had
learned how to seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again
and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle
Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he
never permitted Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.

Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook
to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but
when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black
veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the
slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he
saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background
of white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent
and the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and
just opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was
so microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall.
The audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover
and tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.

Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed,
and then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter.
Feinting with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time
upper cutting with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was
it timed that it landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward
sweep of the duck, and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward,
striking the mat on his head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this,
then turned loose and hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel
no chance to rest or to set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till
the house rose to its feet and the air was filled with an unbroken roar
of applause. But Sandel's strength and endurance were superb, and he
continued to stay on his feet. A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain
of police, appalled at the dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside
to stop the fight. The gong struck for the end of the round and Sandel
staggered to his corner, protesting to the captain that he was sound
and strong. To prove it, he threw two back-air-springs, and the police
captain gave in.

Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was
disappointed. If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce,
would have rendered him the decision and the purse would have been his.
Unlike Sandel, he was not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty
quid. And now Sandel would recuperate in the minute of rest.

Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put
away Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight
and patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be
served! The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had
been Youth. To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself,
he had been fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had
he fought like Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the
point was that he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and
that sorely tried heart would not enable him to gather strength in the
intervals between the rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in
him to begin with. His legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp.
He should not have walked those two miles to the fight. And there was
the steak which he had got up longing for that morning. A great and
terrible hatred rose up in him for the butchers who had refused him
credit. It was hard for an old man to go into a fight without enough
to eat. And a piece of steak was such a little thing, a few pennies at
best; yet it meant thirty quid to him.

With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a
show of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what
it was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself,
then, going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired.
He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward
hook, then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to
the face and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never
let him rest, receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more,
smashing Sandel to the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of
blows into him, tearing away from his clinches or punching him out of
attempted clinches, and ever when Sandel would have fallen, catching him
with one uplifting hand and with the other immediately smashing him into
the ropes where he could not fall.

The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
voice yelling: "Go it, Tom!" "Get 'im! Get 'im!" "You've got 'im, Tom!
You've got 'im!" It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
ringside audience paid to see.

And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now
expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It
was his one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and
his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have
beaten his opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike
and force, coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of
the damage wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.
Stamina and endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the
virgin stamina and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming
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