by Bill Vincent
“David, come over here.” Her tone was strange. It had an odd quality to it and seemed to catch but this I reasoned with only part of my mind while the major part quaked silently as I stood and putting the writing board to the side, walked towards her gingerly like a man that’s about to be slain.
Her next words catch me by surprise and for a few moments, I stand with literally one foot in the air and my mouth open like a fish wondering how on Earth she had gotten to know.
The statement was phrased like a question but sounded more like a statement of fact, “You opened this door.”
Eventually, I find my voice and reply, “Yes I did, it was not intentional though and I punched the door accidentally.”
At my reply, her eyebrows rose a fraction and I had the grace to look away, at anything but her.
“You were angry, weren’t you?” she asked quietly, with concern etching her voice and I nod in acquiescence. She considers me for a few moments and then sighing, pushes upon the door.
“You might as well as come in and meet him since you have already seen him,” she says as she enters the room with her skirt swishing gently behind her.
With trembling legs and an increasing pulse, I step into the room.
“My husband Frank was a fighter,” she says as she gently traces the contours of the poster I had seen earlier with the tips of her fingers. “He was one of the best. I lost him some years ago and since then, there has been no one to use his stuff and I packed them in here.”
Turning to me, I can see tears glistening in her eyes. “You all I have and family must stick together. I understand that you have gone through a lot and Frank also had some issues at a stage in his life, but boxing helped give him a new perspective. Go through his stuff, watch his videos and make your decision. Whatever you say, I will always be here for you but promise me one thing, never to fight in school or anywhere you could get in trouble with the law.
With tears now running down my face, I nod and smiling warmly, she envelopes me in a hug and there we stand for some time.
The next day at school, the guys who I fought with in the toilet came to meet me in the company of two other friends in the cafeteria. As soon as I set my eyes on them, the anger came roaring back along with the memories and I was stunned by its intensity and how powerful it was. Remembering that I had given my word and personally not looking to start a fight, I fought furiously to regain control of my emotions. Sitting there rigidly, and every muscle in my body tense, I struggled imperceptibly for some seconds with only a few twitches of my brow giving the indication that anything was wrong.
I am barely aware of the polite requests to sit down that the group now standing beside me made. I painstakingly wrest control back and push the boiling rage back until it longer threatened to spill over and there it quietened down for the time being. Breathing a bit heavily now, I visibly relax and nod curtly at the jocks to have a seat.
The first thing they did was to apologize and as far as I could tell, their apology was genuine. As Jimmy (they introduced themselves, he was the guy I punched in the stomach) succinctly put it, “We never meant to hurt you man, we just wanted to have some harmless fun with the new guy and just push him around a little. There was no way we could have guessed that you are sensitive to such things and have had horrible experiences. We are sorry for all you have gone through and the little we might have added to it.”
I nod and reply, “It’s okay, no hard feelings, just don’t come on people too strongly. You cannot know how they might react or what they have been through and bullying even if it’s just for the fun of it is also wrong.”
A cloud visibly lifts from their faces, bodies and postures. I had not noticed how tense they too were, not until that point. I am guessing someone at the counsellor’s office probably told them my story. We soon got to talking and they introduced themselves. I soon found out that we had quite a few things in common and I enjoyed the company (been getting tired of being lonely and eating alone).
My days soon take on a something of a regular pattern. Getting back from school, I would eat and then rush to the boxing room (that’s what I now call it) to watch the tapes of my uncle’s moves and before long, I was mimicking his every move while imagining what it was like to be in his shoes. Most times, I would study the large poster, studying every line and definition of his muscles and imagining what it was like to punch someone with such power and force. Along with these thoughts came the storm that was my anger and the almost irresistible urge to punch or break something. It was borne at the idea of the unfairness of life, the parents I never knew, the home I never had, the experiences I endured and the amazing uncle I never met.
On some days, the pressure was so great that I would slip on a pair of gloves and proceed to hammer the bag hung in a corner of the room (some would call it a punching bag but I didn’t know what it was called). It was on one of such evenings that my aunt peeped into the room and caught sight of the venom laden blows I was gifting the punching bag. She didn’t try to get my attention but brought up the issue at dinner that night.
“How would you like to start training professionally to be a boxer? It would be a great help to you and help you become a better person.”
I nod enthusiastically in reply and the matter was settled.
My aunt arrived from work very early the next day, just a few minutes after I arrived from school. After getting into the car with her, we soon arrive at a modest gym, which was a considerable distance from the house.
As soon as we enter, the smell of canvas, plastic and sweat hits me and the combination is organic. My aunt leaves me to go find someone and I look around. There are equipment of every size and shape whose function I could not fathom and countless punching bags. These also differed in sizes and some were arranged one after the other in a form.
“Hello, you must be David. I am Mark, and I was your uncle’s trainer. Your aunt here has told me about me, and she says you might just be as good as he was. So boy, you ready?”
At first glance, he is muscular, impressively so with a wide chest and nice biceps but his smile is open and welcoming, his eyes also twinkle with mirth, unconsciously, and I relax and reflect on what he has said.
“This here is real, it involves hard work, determination, consideration, empathy (yes, empathy), perseverance and the greatest of all is faith and never dying belief, so what do you say?” he completes while stretching his hand out towards me.
I stretch out my hand and clasp his proffered hand and his grip is strong but he makes sure it doesn’t hurt me. He pats me on the shoulder as I stand beside him, then pulling me by the arm; he begins to show me around the gym.
A quiet feeling floats up in my heart and it rings true as I walk through the gym behind Mark.
“I am home and it feels like home.”
Chapter Four
M
ark must have been pushing close to fifty. Heck, he could even have been years older than that, my guess was based on a rough estimation of his looks and, boy, was I wrong! A few days after I began training with Mark at the gym, a couple of old geezers came by the gym (pardon the pun but they were very wrinkled, almost ancient). From the greetings, it was clear to me that they were highly regarded by everyone at the gym. So imagine my shock when about three of them addressed Mark as old pal with peculiar hugs and special greeting styles that characterize old friends.
They chat amiably for some time before Mark beckons to me from where I have been running on a spot (yeah, he calls it cooling down).
As I approach them, I catch the tail end of their conversation. “…. he is a kid I just took on; you know I retired but Marge, Frank’s sweetie, convinced me that he has it and since I was bored of doing nothing and my kids have been badgering to come down to New Orleans….” Here, he visibly shudders and the others shake their head in sympathy. He is about to continue when I reach them dripping in sweat from head to toe (hadn’t even guessed I could ever s
weat this much).
“Oh, meet David, everyone,” he says and I accept proffered handshakes from all. None of them seemed to mind my sweaty palms and the moisture covering my hands. They all grasped my hand and somewhat manfully (won them points in my book). I learnt they mostly had been boxers and trainers who had known my uncle. They had trained and worked their careers during his era and all had glowing recollections of his bouts and how he was in the ring.
“He was real lightening to watch.” One called Paul says, “He earned that name by ending about seven consecutive bouts within the first twenty seconds. He would knock out his opponent within that time and they would not make the countdown. Can you just imagine the power of the blows that it took to achieve that and all in the first round, where stamina and strength are considered full and at optimal levels?”
They leave soon after but their words never fade and my heart swells with big dreams but as the saying goes “If wishes were horses…” I was now at the stage of discovering new muscles and places I did not know I could feel pain in. I must admit to having been surprised and then shocked. On the second day after I met Mark, I had been anticipating a whirlwind sought of training, delving into fight patterns, tricks and insights into the world of boxing.
Well, that was exactly what happened if you look at it from the opposite spectrum. I spent that day at a logging station hoisting planks and almost all shapes and sizes of wood except perhaps the biggest that were handled with machinery. A small comfort should probably be the fact that he worked as I worked and was still cool and dry by the time I was puffing and huffing at midday.
Taking pity on me, he called a rest and I just about collapsed on the ground to the amusement of the mill workers. Mark had an arrangement with them with regards to training and they treated the sight of us working alongside them as normal. Well, the next weeks were not really much of an improvement. I did not even get to see much of the insides of the gym, only met up with Mark there before he hustled us out and onwards to the next training plan, he had concocted.
I would run behind his truck while being tied to it, as he would drive at what he called a snail’s pace. We would transverse the whole district with everyone calling out greetings to Mark. “You have got a new one.” They would say, “Keep it up young man.” And I kept it up, through the morning, and afternoons on weekends and evenings on weekdays, jogging until I was exhausted and shaking from head to foot.
And Mark would stride out from the truck after each lap clutching his stopwatch, “You can still do better, young man, much better.” And little by little, my frustration grew bit-by-bit and transposed into a dull anger awaking the old nemesis. The straw that broke the camel’s back came quite innocuously one afternoon.
“I have a surprise for you,” he had said that afternoon while grinning widely. I had just got back from school and after resting a little bit had made my way to the gym to meet up with him. After a few minutes’ drive, he turned into a ranch driveway and I was nonplussed, what now?
As it turned out, my training for the afternoon was to catch well-oiled pigs (the oiling was an arrangement with the farm owners, I guess) but the sorting was normal farm procedure to group those within the same size and growth range. For about half an hour, I succeeded in catching (you guessed it) nothing! In relation, the farm hands caught about twenty pigs each.
Frustrated, I finally turn to Mark and explode. “Am fed up man, what more can I do to convince you to teach me? All you have been doing is toying with me and just having fun at my expense. If am not worth your time, please say so and I will leave you in peace.” I finish in a towering rage and shaking with emotion.
He laughs in response and I stare at him in consternation and disbelief.
Wiping his eyes, he finally replies, “Been waiting for you to show some spirit and backbone. You sounded almost like your uncle and that is the spark I have been waiting for.”
Seeing that I was still mad, he raises his hands in a placating gesture. “I know all we have been doing doesn’t really seem like much but I assure you that our training has not been just for the fun of it. Each one was picked to strengthen a particular area, the jogging is designed to strengthen your joints, increase your stamina and energy, the saw mill to give you raw strength and power while building up your muscle density and padding which helps absorb blows, this pig farm is to improve your reflexes, reaction time and heighten your awareness.”
Drawing me closer, he holds me at arm length and says, “I see great potential in you and gave you my word to be your trainer, that, I don’t take lightly. You have shown all that I require and even more, so now we will begin the next phase of your training starting at the gym tomorrow.”
The atmosphere in the gym the next day was palpable. I could literally feel the energy zapping through the air. There was an air of expectation and everyone greeted me with a nod and a smile.
“Good luck kid,” they all said, in one way or the other and as I made my way from the locker room into the gym proper, I soon saw why. Mark had a small stage set up and a board with records was the centrepiece. Each of these records covered a particular part of the gym facility set by boxers who used the equipment and a small banner to the side, pronounced me as Davie challenging the existing records.
Naturally, I was freaked out but Mark soon had me grounded with a few words, “This is what you want to do, smashing these is along the path to achieving your dreams and even if you don’t, we will know where you are and where we need to work on in getting you ready for your first fight.”
I nod and steel myself. The first was a punching bag on a slider, the force of a punch should propel it along the rail ruler. As I face it, the anger comes welling and I let go of control, open the floodgates and out it poured.
I smash my fist into the bag and it squeaks down the slide with the force of the blow. There are excited murmurs as the measurements are taken and some whispers float up to me, “… he is quite strong for his age… “
It was a record but only for my weight grade. I was nowhere near the gym record for the sheer power of a blow. The next was the treadmill and here I shattered all records, setting new sprint records, long distance records and the staggered lap records. Mark grins at me like a Cheshire cat from his seat near the boxing ring when the results were announced. Speed boxing was next and it involves consistently punching a spring like punching ball hanging from the roof that rebounds with every blow. My hands began aching long before I could no longer continue, so that record is safe for now. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, I am tested with and put through a wide range of equipment I cannot describe and break only a couple more records.
As I limp up the stairs that night, Mark calls after me, “You are ready for your first fight mate. Although, we are keeping small, it’s just an indoor gym bout with one of the established guys; it is fixed for next Saturday.” Then making a turn in the street, he zooms off.
And I limp up the rest of the stairs with a wildly skipping heart and fire coursing through my veins.
“Yeah! Bring it on!”
Chapter Five
I
sit very still, muscles tight and back ramrod straight. I hardly move at all, even the ones taken to breath are hardly noticeable. An observer from a neutral perspective would be forgiven for thinking I was a Mannequin. The class is silent as the teacher collects the sheets for the test and he then leaves the class. The anger is back and along with it comes a feeling of insecurity and shaky nerves. The cause, my first fight is tomorrow and I am freaking out.
My relationship with my classmates has changed over the past months as I train with Mark. I learn confidence, patience, perseverance and a host of other virtues from him. He would sit me down about three times a week after our training sessions and we would have long discussions, which I enjoyed and soon began actively looking forward to. He became a sort of uncle-figure for me and I got to ask a lot of questions I had previously been unable to ask my aunt
, especially those about girls and the feelings I sometimes had (Come on, it’s true, don’t roll your eyes).
Unconsciously, my appearance improved. I now paid more attention to what I wore and how my hair looked. One of Mark’s favourite saying was “to be respected, you have to first look respectable.” I no longer looked so scrawny and soon had soft rounded developments proportionally all over my body. When at first I noticed especially those on my stomach called packs, I was bubbling over to show Mark and he just shook his head and pulling his shirt up, showed me his. I was totally floored and was hit with the realization that I had quite a long way to go.
My improved appearance and much relaxed expression must have made me more approachable as I soon began receiving smiles in the hallways, which I tentatively returned. I was pleasantly surprised when on an afternoon; I was invited to join a group of friends at their table in the cafeteria. Much later, they confided in me that unlike before when I was withdrawn, coiled tight, head lowered and not wishing to be approached, I was now open, head raised, alert and likable. Hearing this did much for my confidence and I told Mark who was pleased at how well I was adapting.
However, there was one thing that did not change. All it did was become dull during periods and then flare when I was provoked. Although I was able to keep from lashing out on several occasions and keep a tight lid on things, I was still as volatile as ever. As the days went by and my first fight draws closer, I become touchy, anxious and sometimes border on the edge of panic and as all situations too close to fire are prone to do, I soon burst into flames.
I had arrived that morning to find that my combination lock had been tampered with and some notes had been stolen. This fuelled a dull anger that did not abate till the class test later in the day. My anger increased as the test we did was based on the stolen note. I was unable to revise and all I had to go with was a shady recollection. As soon as the teacher left the class, I hurriedly stood and left the class to get some fresh air and clear my head.
