Free Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas Page B

and turned it upside down just as Toney snapped the picture. It was the kind of silly Kodak everybody takes. Buster probably gave it to May Anna, but somebody got a hold of it later on during the trial, and the California papers printed it. The wire services even picked it up. That’s why the story went around that Buster was a pumpkin head. And that is a lesson not to take damn fool snapshots.
    There were other things Toney taught Buster. He made him practice his punches in a shed out back that was so low Buster couldn’t stand up straight. He had to squat down, and that developed his crouch, Toney said.
    To build up his speed, Buster ran. He ran to work then back home at night. When he wasn’t working, he ran foot races against the horses that pulled the delivery wagons on Montana Street, but he got so he always won. Then he went to Columbia Gardens and ran around the race track. When they took out the horses to exercise, Buster raced against them.
    Sometimes we went down in Toney’s machine and watched Buster run against the thoroughbreds. “If you don’t make it as a boxer, at least you can fill in at horse races,” Whippy Bird told him.
    “May Anna can be the jockey,” Pink smirked. He said it under his breath so Buster wouldn’t hear. Me and Whippy Bird did, though, and Whippy Bird punched him in the ribs.
    “Or you can be a mine mule,” I yelled, and I was just about right. Not long after that when one of the mules in the Mountain Con where Buster worked was sick, Buster pushed the ore cars himself. For a time, he was called Mule McKnight, but that name never stuck. Probably because Buster insisted that everybody call him Buster Midnight. We insisted on it, too. That was the classiest name I ever heard, even better than Marion Street. I guess me and Whippy Bird can pat ourselves on the back for helping to invent two of the most famous names in America.
    Not everything Toney made Buster do was so great, though. He told him to chew pine resin that he dug out of trees. Me and Whippy Bird tried it once, and it tasted like hell, worse than near beer. That pine gum was tough as leather. Toney said it helped Buster toughen up his jaw. He told Buster to chew garlic before a fight, too, but Buster never did that. He wasn’t against breathing garlic fumes on the other boxer, which was the reason Toney told him to do it, of course, but he sure didn’t want to stop those kisses he got from May Anna every time he won a fight.
    There was one other thing Toney had Buster do that was crazy, and that was get beef brine from the Hutchinson Brothers Packing Company and soak his hands in it. He even rubbed it on his face. Buster claimed it made his hands tough as ore—“hard-rock hands,” one of those sports writers called them.
    All that was just the start. In addition, Toney arranged for Buster to work out at the Centerville Gym. Toney hustled up some kind of deal, as he always did, probably providing free bootleg. It let Buster practice there for nothing as long as he was a sparring partner for the other fighters training at the gym. That was good because Buster learned about fighting from other people besides his brother. Toney didn’t know everything there was to know about fighting—even though Toney thought so.
    It’s odd when you think about it. There was Toney, only a so-so fighter who didn’t care enough to train himself, but still, he was the best trainer in Butte for Buster. He was harder than anybody else ever would have been on Buster, too. “You think I’m tough?” Toney would say when Buster complained. “You just step in that ring with somebody who knows what he’s doing. You’ll find out what tough is, Buster Kid Midnight.” Toney always got Buster’s ring name mixed up. I think that’s because he still hoped Buster would pick up Toney’s old Kid McKnight name and bring it glory.
    After he’d trained for a couple of months, Buster told Toney to line him up a fight. Toney wouldn’t do