BILL CADY Word Count: 149,227 - At My Friend's Place

Bill Cady, The Early Years … by Bill Cady 321
once. I snapped a jarring left jab at the rat and shut it up before the damned thing hit the
floor. I don‟t know if I killed it, or just knocked it out, since we left a short time later. I
can say I didn‟t hear even a sound from the rat, or see it move, after I gave it that punch.
Anyway, I must‟ve passed my test.
The guy, whose name I don‟t recall, had a fight for me that night. It would pay a
whopping fifty bucks, which I thought was a good deal. I didn‟t know that was at the
bottom of the low side, although five-hundred bucks is the most I ever made for any
fight. Most paid between a hundred and two-fifty, depending on the location, how many
fighters, and how much betting they anticipated.
Being new, I had the advantage of being unknown. However, being new, I had
the disadvantage of being unknown. No, I‟m not drunk, and neither are you. To be
unknown to the other guys I'd be fighting was good. I didn‟t look all that tough, not
when I wasn‟t mad, and no one had any advance dish on me. That meant they‟d often
take me for granted.
When a guy took me for granted, I took him to the cleaners. However, being an
unknown meant there was no one who knew how I fought I could tell the promoter to call
for a reference. For a while, that kept my price down a bit, but I soon got past it.
All my fights were with heavyweights, since I weighed 192, way too heavy for
the 172 pounds of light heavyweight. I fought guys from 175 pounds to 350 and more. I
didn‟t really care, and the big guys were easier fights than some real fast bastard who
weighed in around two-hundred.
My first fight was a black guy. A goddamned big black guy. Five-ten, not any
taller, and a good two-eighty. Pretty much all muscle with a coating of fat from too many
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