Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  The old feller, officially retired two months ago, was bent over the coffee table studying the form for today's racing as I entered the living room.

  'Chuffin' 'ell Paul', he cried, leaping to his feet. 'I thought it was the coppers bursting in. '

  He shook hands with Del, nodded at Davy; (he'd not met him before), and peered short-sightedly at Anita.

  'How's Karen, Delroy?' he asked immediately.

  'OK Walter. She sends her best.'

  'When you see your dad Delroy, tell him to back a horse called Little Rascal every time it runs. Have you heard me? Little Rascal, Delroy, Little Rascal. What's it called?'

  'Little Rascal, Waiter.'

  'That's it, Little Rascal. Now don't forget to tell your Dad will you?' He began to tell him its family tree, owners, trainers, but Del shut him up.

  'Right Waiter, Little Rascal, I won't forget.'

  It was good to see the old feller was still as pedantic as ever.

  Del had to take Davy back to Sheffield and be back in Liverpool for dinner-time.

  On the pavement I asked him why he'd brought Anita.

  'You like her then?'

  'Like her, she's fucking gorgeous. Fix it for Saturday Del.' He burst with a maniacal shriek, a lunatic witch doctor who's just

  found the formula.

  'Wait and see,' he said rolling his eyes and then slipping into the car. 'See you Saturday, brother,' he called driving away.

  * ***

  It was Saturday morning when I saw him again on his own manor, Liverpool 8. We were going to some theatre for the midday weigh-in for the Conteh fight and his brother Michael and a few of his pals were coming. We were sitting in the front room of a little terrace house just off Granby Street and discussing Conteh's chances, passing time until the weigh-in. It was good to see Michael after so long,

  a tall, very dignified feller, who'd been across the landing from me in Hull. He was a natural athlete, didn't smoke or drink, loved classical music, Mozart and Beethoven were his favourites, and was a chess player of county standard. He'd been a friend before I'd met Del. Seeing them together nobody would ever think they were brothers, they were as different to look at as me. Michael had a ginger tint to his hair, much lighter skin and freckles, and very strong opinions about the rights and wrongs of everything. We'd had some belting arguments. It was from Michael I'd learned how it was to be black, and not just black but the son of a chief. Their father, Mr Sampson Asawa, was a chief of the Zulu nation. He'd been a chef aboard some ship all his life but he was still a chief. Every time a seaman from the Zulu nation docked in Liverpool he had to pay his respects and both Michael and Del were very aware of their father's status in the community. This particular part of Liverpool was African, and all the lads in the room had African fathers and their's had the greater status. You could tell that from just looking and hearing them talk. Both of them had no wish to see Conteh and didn't care if he won or not but they were coming to the weigh-in. The trouble with the Contehs went back years and had nothing to do with boxing. Something going back to Africa I thought in the car speeding through the City.

  It was over by the time we arrived because we couldn't find anywhere to park and then had to walk a mile through narrow, cobbled, back-alleys and side streets, things Wakefield didn't have now and it was just over, but there was heaps of activity on the stage where the scales were. In the stalls journalists were writing notes, officials striding about and Jerry Quarry speaking into a microphone for an American TV network; Quarry had fought twice for the World title and was the best white heavy for decades. Casually I wandered over to see how I compared up. He was a dangerous looking feller, thick shoulders and chest but not all that broad. He fitted into my theory spot on. All the way through the history of the heavyweight division the champion has become bigger with each passing decade and he was a heavy of the late 60s, early 70s, and just that bit smaller all round than me. Size made all the difference in punching power and I wanted all the punching power possible if I was going to get anywhere at my age. I was on the ebb, not getting any worse, not getting any better, and the quicker I could knock them over the longer

  I would last. Jerry Quarry was retired at the age I would start and to have a chance of getting anywhere then I had to have as many fights in as short a time as possible. At my age recovery isn't what it was; if we had the same recovery rate that we have when we're 10 we'd live to be 700 years old. I could still do it with a bit of luck I thought, leaving the place, and if I earned half of what Jerry Quarry had I'd be more than happy.

  Alex was standing in the foyer as we'd arranged, wearing a white mac and his usual sinister black specs. Without them his eyes turned the colour of brake lights. He was a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas, playing a gangster. He looked mean and menacing. He was with his usual entourage, a group of fellers who loved boxing. Mikey Conners saw me first, a feller with a flower pitch outside Holborn tube station and one of Alex' s regular pals. He'd been in Hull to see me with Alex a few times. He nodded, touched Alex on the arm, who turned to me. 'Hello lad,' he said, his face solemn. 'Here's your ticket and this is .. . ' he introduced me to his pals. When we came to a huge elderly black feller he said, 'and this is Joe Gans. You've heard of him. Right, you'll be sitting next to Joe.'

  Three nights ago I'd been undressing for my final night in the choky block and now I was going to be sitting right next to arguably the best heavyweight of his day. My sister couldn't be more pleased sitting next to Woody out of the Bay City Rollers. Alex never failed to amaze me with the people he knew but fighters were his favourites. He loved and respected fighters and thought they all needed protecting. In his opinion promoters exploited fighters until they were finished and then left them high and dry. The Board of Control had just refused him a promoter's licence again and Tommy said it was because they reckoned he was a bad influence. He'd already had one promotion without official backing which had been a huge success and was considering another. Tommy had advised me to terminate our friendship. Alex said it was wise to pretend we had until I was under way and then it didn't matter.

  Before we could present our tickets Tommy came through the door from the arena smack into our intended path. He was wearing a powder blue evening suit and smoking a short, very thick cigar. He noticed Alex, then me, and almost swallowed it. He recovered instantly and smiled self-consciously.

  'This is Alex, Tommy,' I said, with a disarming smile, 'I've told you all about him. A good friend of mine. And Alex this is Tommy, my future manager.'

  'You've a good lad here Tommy,' Alex said, 'looked after properly he'll go all the way.' He shook Tommy's hand.

  'Oh, he'll get his chance,' Tommy said quickly, 'providing he looks after himself. And stays out of trouble.' He appeared embarrassed, out of his depth.

  'This is where I'll be sitting if you want me Tom.' He peered at the number on the ticket, glad of the distraction.

  'Right, right.' He nodded at the assembly, scars and side-bums evident everywhere like Bluebeard's crew.

  He swallowed, 'Right then, see you later,' and disappeared the way he'd come.

  Any independent observers watching this little drama would have been under the illusion Tommy had been frightened, terrified out of his skin, but they'd have been wrong. Alex gave the likes of Tommy a guilt complex, and it was this that caused him to act the way he had. All his managerial career he'd been over-matching his lads, slipping them in to fill up the bills too early in their careers against opponents that were too good. He was the biggest matchmaker in the north, and as a manager he had the biggest stable of boxers, so it only made sense he'd use his own lads to get the 25% manager's fee. Some of the lads he'd managed had the potential to be champions but they'd been rushed into bouts against fighters far superior too early in their careers and finished up skint, beaten, and terribly disillusioned. Lots of the lads I'd trained with as a kid had turned pro under Tommy and they all said the same thing, but yet he had the effrontry to say Alex was a bad influence.
I knew differently.

  Alex had been in Hull gaol, through the gates, along the wings and into the gym. For him to have been allowed he'd been checked meticulously by the police. Any shadow on his character, any whisper about his integrity, no matter how minor would have left the Governor no alternative but to have him stopped. Alex was spotless, which was more than I could say for Tommy. Now though, in the Autumn of my physical powers he was probably the best manager I could have. He couldn't over-match me and I was sure to get plenty of fights.

  The stadium had been transformed from a seedy back-street emporium into a 5-star arena. The layout wasn't any different; the sides gently sloping to the ring in the centre; but the decor was, it sparkled with affluence and class. When I'd boxed here 3 times in a 4-week period back in '73 in my bid to win the ABAs, the place had been a health hazard. The walls had been covered in flaking, faded, tobacco stained emulsion. The seating had been ripped and had nails on the alert for trousers. The floor had been that of terraces after a football match. Above the ring black-out curtains had dangled from the windows. Now the walls were gleaming white and all the aisles were covered in thick red carpet and the blackout curtains had been removed. It was the perfect setting for a World title fight.

  The capacity crowd weren't at all interested in the boxing for watching the celebrities sitting in their seats and others parading down the aisles to theirs. There were odd shouts of encouragement and occasional bursts of clapping but no real interest, not until Spinks and Peter Freeman, the Central Area heavyweight champion, entered the ring for the main supporting bout, and then pandemonium broke loose and didn't stop until the fight was over.

  Tommy had pulled out all the stops for me to fight Spinks. This was his first pro' fight as it would have been mine, and when he hadn't succeeded he'd got the Central Area champion to substitute. The country was divided into 3 areas and Peter was the champion from Birmingham to the Scottish border. It meant one of three things. One, Tommy was up to his old tricks of over-matching, two, he fancied I was better then Peter, or three, he'd rather have me beaten up than him.

  It was over in the first minute after Leon tore from his corner and

  set about Peter as if he was a punch bag and for all the resistance he

  showed he may have been one. He slowly sank to his knees and then

  toppled over although in my book he hadn't been hit hard enough to

  put him on the deck. He collapsed from shock and fright and hadn't

  really been prepared to fight for keeps. It was a devastating performance from Leon but he wouldn't beat me. I could feel it in my

  bones. He could win all the gold medals he wanted and I hadn't had

  the gloves on in 4 years but I'd back myself any day to beat him.

  The television people broadcasting live to America sent word to

  hold up the main event until they were back on schedule. Leon' s

  destructive performance had thrown it out by half an hour. All the stadium lights came on as the MC, Nat Basso, began introducing stars and celebrities from the ring. One after the other, all Liverpool football players past and present it seemed to me received rousing cheers. Any minute I expected Joe to be called but as the stars became more and more obscure and the cheers grew less and less I realised it wasn't to be. It crossed my mind it could be because he was sitting with Alex and then realised it was people who were in the news now and most of this mob wouldn't know Joe Gans from Mahatma Gandhi. Everybody in the place was a star it appeared but the people sitting on our row, judging from the stars Nat was finding, and I strongly suspected he'd have liked to brain Peter for not lasting the distance but then word came the television people were ready. How word came I'd no idea; the television cameras were high on the wall above the main entrance on a specially constructed platform about 30 yards from the ring but suddenly everybody knew as if by telepathy. Instantly the atmosphere changed from a day at the seaside to waiting for the eighth draw on the football coupon. The lights slowly dimmed until it was pitch black and then a spotlight stabbed from the TV platform to illuminate where the fighters would emerge. As it came on the entire crowd gasped a breath of air and then sat rigid in their seats. The seconds dragged as the tension increased. It was as if we were all watching the fuse bum on a giant stick of dynamite. It was electric, palpable enough to fry eggs.

  The silence was only broken by the cameramen high on the platform whispering furtively when suddenly a ripple of applause grew in a second into the roar of a jumbo jet. The stick of dynamite had exploded into cheering that was so loud I had to bend my head and put fingers in my ears to prevent them from hurting. The spotlight showed a group of fellers wearing white pullovers coming down the aisle with a black hood bobbing in the middle.

  Stan Hutchins, from Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, challenging for the World light-heavyweight title danced from his corner to cheers louder and more prolonged then any I'd ever heard and then the lights dimmed and went out.

  A minute crawled by, then another, the tension even greater than before, building by the instant until it felt as if the very air was alive and living on the silence. This wasn't anything as common as a stick

  of dynamite, this was extra-terrestrial. The spotlight trained on the tunnel never wavered. There wasn't anything I could see, not a thing when suddenly, in unison, the entire crowd of 5,000 erupted with a noise that lifted the top off my skull as though it were an egg. Once again I had to put fingers in my ears to stop the hurt and felt like shouting; I was used to silence and hadn't adjusted yet, especially when the noise lasted until Conteh had been in the ring about a week.

  As they were being gloved and the referee gave his instructions I glanced about to see how the women were taking it. There were hundreds, all dressed as if they were at a film premiere. Without exception, and for all their make-up and jewellery, their excitement radiated through to such a degree they could be drooling with saliva dripping from their chins. This was a contest between two grown men who'd honed their basic instinct to perfection. This was to see who would survive: the rules that govern boxing, no hitting below the belt, no hitting behind the ears, kid people that boxing is civilised and a game like chess. The only places a boxer is allowed to hit are the only places worth hitting, and like chess one makes a move, the other makes a move but instead of winning or losing bishops and rooks it's teeth and senses that are lost. Survivors lived to fight another day and women loved survivors and winners and men prepared to fight.

  It was over in the 3rd round and Conteh had successfully defended his crown with a move of infinite perfection. He'd been fractionally faster but his strength had appeared brittle compared to Hutchins, and the longer it lasted the more I thought strength would tell. Hutchins threw a full blooded right cross and as his weight transferred from the back foot to his fist Conteh slipped his head fractionally to one side and waited with it positioned ready. Hutchins followed through unable to avoid crashing his face onto the top of Conteh's forehead; right where a horn would grow if he was a unicorn. Hutchins stepped back bewildered, unable to comprehend how he'd been hit, with the right side of his face a crimson mask. Conteh knew immediately it was over. He didn't leap in and take advantage before the ref could intervene and stop the fight and I thought regardless of the feelings of Michael and Del, John Conteh wasn't a bad feller at all. He was only in there to win and not inflict unnecessary injury. The sheer class of his winning move and how he held back made him more than a World champion in my book. John Conteh was a sportsman and a

  humanist and there are very few of them about. If I practised forever I doubted I'd be able to execute such a move; it was something you had to be born with, and there was no way I could have held back like he had.

  The crowd were disappointed it hadn't lasted longer although they cheered enough for my ears to begin hurting again. There was just the undercurrent in the roar, as though it were a lion that had killed a gazelle when it could eat a buffalo, the blood lust sated but not satisfied. The pap
ers would say tomorrow Conteh had won after a clash of heads inferring he'd either butted or fluked his victory, too blind to see the skill and daring of his move like the people sitting in front. One feller got a huge laugh with the comment, 'If only Roger Hunt could have used his head like Conteh we'd have won the league every year.' Their blindness needled me.

  Alex and his pals had to rush to catch the last train and couldn't stay for the closing bout.

  'Let me know if anything develops,' he instructed, shaking my hand in the foyer. 'Take care of yourself and if you get any problems just give me a ring.'

  Joe wished me all the best like old Micky Conners, and then they all disappeared through the doors and into the night. With time to kill before Del showed up I thought it wise to show my face in the dressing room area to keep Tommy sweet and see if that too had been given a coat of restoration.

  The stadium was almost empty when I returned, the closing bout having no interest for anybody but the family and friends of the two fighters and the atmosphere was that of an amateur show. The electricity was used up and the battery flat.

  The dressing room area hadn't been titivated or decorated, or not since the black-out curtains had been installed. It was silent and sad, as if the short concrete floor with doors either side was the morgue for dead dreams. The stadium was known as the graveyard of champions and even Conteh's victory couldn't resurrect the dreams that had died here.

  Four years ago I'd come along this corridor to the end dressing room completely confident my future was assured but now I wasn't sure at all. All the training in the world couldn't stop the clock and I'd this rotten 6 months to get through first. Maybe old Tom would