by Jack Tunney
“So, Deputy MacPherson won’t be mad at you for beating him up?” I asked.
The old man laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but he won’t come after me out here, well at least no more than usual, if that’s what you’re worried about. It might stick in his craw, but he’s not above the rules of the game. He’ll get his rematch eventually.”
“And you’ll beat him again, right?”
“Right. And do you know why?” he asked.
“Because you have discipline and focus and he doesn’t.”
“You’re a real quick study, son.”
“Do you think I can learn this discipline and focus stuff?”
He chuckled. “Yes. I believe you can.” He seemed to think it over. “Okay, boy. You’ve convinced me. Your training begins tomorrow.”
“Boxing,” I said.
“Boxing.”
With that one conversation, my life would never be the same.
***
The next few weeks were brutal.
A few weeks earlier, I would have told you the old man had put me through hell making me do work that made my arms and legs burn from exertion. I already knew how to chop wood, tend the fields, slop the hogs, and paint fences thanks to my summer spent working for my friend. But what he put me through since showing me the fight at Homer Jenkins’ farm, it was even harder. Once a week, like clockwork, the old man and I would head back over to Mr. Jenkins’ farm. Every week, he would walk with me up the path and give me the same warning about staying out of sight. Every week I would beg to go with him to see the fight close up and every week he would say no.
Each week, the old man fought a different man from town. Some I knew. Others I didn’t. The second week, it was Marcus Ballard, the reporter for the county newspaper. The next, it was Darwyn Trainor, a farmer from the other side of the county who rode in just for the fight. The week after, Old Man Winters squared off against Homer Jenkins himself. The next, Kevin Keys.
Each week he beat all comers, which I admit, impressed the hell out of me. My friend was old, walked with a limp, and his left hand shook, but once he stepped inside the empty pig pen behind Mr. Jenkins’ barn, he was unstoppable.
The day after the fights, we would replay the moves both the old man and his opponents had made, not to mention the other fighters. He explained why some moves worked and why others did not. It was an education in the art of war and I was being taught by a master craftsman.
The old man’s favorite piece of advice was something he repeated often. “Don’t give up! Never stop fighting!” It became my mantra and stuck with me.
This went on for weeks as the days grew longer. I watched each fight with a type of excitement I couldn’t quite put into words. The only stipulation Old Man Winters made was that I not tell my mother about the fights. It was an easy promise to keep. If Mama had known what we were up to, I would never have been allowed to return.
With each new training session, Old Man Winters showed me fighting postures I had never seen before. He usually had one of his tall tales to accompany each training session, which made the lessons that much more fun.
Despite what he told Mama, Old Man Winters taught me how to box and how to fight. It wasn’t quite boxing as I would come to know it, but the old man knew how to fight to survive, but sportsmanship did not fit into his worldview, even inside the ring.
For Old Man Winters, a fight meant kill or be killed. He always said, “If you’re going to fight, you’d best be fighting to win. Else, what’s the point?”
I learned his lessons well.
The next time Bobby Jackson and his boys came for me, they were in for quite a surprise.
ROUND FOUR
It didn’t take long to put the Old Man’s teachings into practice.
It was a cold and gray fall afternoon. As clouds threatened to unleash the first snowfall of the season upon the North Georgia Mountains, I was walking to school, outfitted with a brand new pair of winter shoes. Mama had saved up her sewing money to order them from the Sear’s Catalog. I thought they were the ugliest things I’d ever seen, but Mama seemed to like them, so I wore them.
I was almost to town when it happened.
Bobby Jackson and his six friends – Pete, Ed, Tommy, Sonny, Jake, and Freddie – were waiting me on the dirt road that led into town.
The boys charged at me, circling around me until I was trapped. There was nowhere to run. That was okay. I had no intentions of running from them ever again.
As expected, Bobby took the first swing. He was the ringleader. The other boys took their cues from him. Unlike our previous encounters, this time I was ready for him. I sidestepped the blow, just like the old man had taught me. Bobby’s beefy fist sailed past just inches from my face. He hit nothing but air. This left him off balance and I pressed the advantage, just like I’d been taught.
I brought my arm down against his back like a club, pushing Bobby even more off balance until he landed face first in the mud. He came up with a mouthful of red Georgia clay. He was fighting mad, the red of his face almost glowing in comparison to the gray gloomy sky.
I took a step back, but one of Bobby’s friends pushed me back toward their angry ringleader. He roared and came at me. There was no dodging him this time and he slammed into me like a charging bull. We hit the ground and rolled in the dirt, each of us landing blows against the other.
All the while, all I could hear was my mentor’s words telling me how to protect myself. I heeded those words, and minutes after the first swing I stood over a bleeding Bobby Jackson.
If he believed a magical tooth fairy would leave him a penny for each lost tooth, then Bobby would find a shiny new dime under his pillow come morning.
I spun around to the rest of Bobby’s gang, my fists clenched in front of me. “Come on! Who’s next?”
I didn’t have to wait long for my answer.
They came at me in a wave. I fought them off as best I was able, but as I’ve been reminded many times since that day, there is strength in numbers. I can’t say I won the fight, but I was sure I’d taught them a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.
For the first time in my life, I felt powerful, strong, and confident. I was in control of my life. I wasn’t afraid any more. As I ran home, I pulled off my shoes and let my bare feet splash in the muddy puddles dotting the dirt road leading home.
Being the turn the other cheek Christian woman she was, I was afraid Mama would be none too happy to hear I’d been in yet another fight. Mostly, she seemed relieved I hadn’t been hurt. She promised a long talk after supper.
I was washing up for dinner, taking extra care to get the blood off my skinned knuckles when there came a knock at the door. “Now who could that be?” I heard my mama say as she went to answer it.
I was not surprised to see Bobby Jackson’s pa standing there.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Mason?”
“Yes. Dottie Mason. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Henry Jackson,” he said. “I assume you know me.”
“Yes, sir,” Mama said, always polite and civil. “Everyone knows who you are, Mr. Jackson.” It was true. Henry Jackson owned most of the land the town was built on. Leasing out parcels of land to business owners and the town council had made him a very wealthy man, something that neither he nor his son was afraid to tell everyone.
“I also assume you know why I’m here.”
“No, sir. I’m afraid I don’t.”
“May I come inside, Mrs. Mason?”
“Of course. Please come in.” Mama stepped aside and with a gesture invited Mr. Jackson inside. Bobby was right on his heels, his eye already turning purple from the pop I had given him earlier.
Mr. Jackson, broad-shouldered man himself, filled the doorway. Not only were his shoulders wide, but his stomach was quickly working to catch up. I listened from the washroom, peeking around the door to see what was going on, but they spoke in hushed tones and I could only make out bits and pieces o
f what was said. All I knew for certain was that it was about that troublemaking boy, which I assumed was me, beating up his son and that he wanted to know what my mama was going to do about it. I couldn’t hear her answer.
After the big man was gone, Mama burst into tears. I’d not seen her cry for a long time. It took a lot to rattle a strong woman like her. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing a little boy can do when he sees his mother crying. I ran into her outstretched arms and hugged her tight.
After school the next day, a Friday, as I was heading to the old man’s house for my lesson, I saw Mr. Jackson arguing with Old Man Winters. That conversation did not end in tears as it had with my mama, but in pain. Like before, I couldn’t make out all the words because of how far away I was, but whatever they were talking about, Mr. Jackson did not like it.
Mr. Henry Jackson took a swing at the old man, thinking him helpless and blind. Winters proved him wrong, of course. He blocked the clumsy punch and countered with one of his own, popping his attacker square in the mouth and drawing blood. It was a move I recognized from one of our earliest lessons. Before the businessman could recover and take another swing at him, the old man used his knotty pine walking stick to sweep the bigger man’s legs out from under him. He dropped to the ground flat on his backside.
“I’d suggest you get on out of here before I forget I’m a gentleman,” I heard the old man say as Mr. Jackson lifted himself off the cold packed dirt.
“You’ll pay for this,” Mr. Jackson screamed, along with a few other choice words I wouldn’t dare repeat. I’d heard the word a few times, but only repeated it once, in my mother’s presence. She taught me a lesson that day about respect. I never uttered the word again. Not even in jest.
“This ain’t over, Gabriel! I can promise you!” Jackson shouted, pointing a finger at my friend.
Old Man Winters didn’t seem too all fire concerned about Mr. Jackson’s threat. The big man was powerful in the community, but my friend would be the first to tell you the community didn’t much use for him anyway and the feeling was pretty much mutual.
“As long as I got good Christians like you an’ your ma in my life, them uppity folk in town can go straight ta hell,” he’d once told me.
Mr. Jackson left, his pride, and lip, wounded. Even as he retreated, a word I’d learned in my lessons, but one I never truly understood until that moment, the big man threatened once more that Old Man Winters would get his. I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but I certainly understood a threat when I heard one. Bobby Jackson had parroted those same words in my direction more than once. Now I knew where he got it from.
After Mr. Jackson was gone, I said I was worried about what Mr. Jackson might do to get revenge, but Old Man Winters shrugged it off. “I ain’t afraid, young Master Mason,” he said. “Least of all of that man.”
“But he said…” I started.
My friend wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. “Now don’t you concern yourself with Mr. Jackson, boy,” he said. “I been dealing with his kind all of my life. Like my old mangy mutt, Roscoe over there, that man’s bark is worse than his bite.”
I wasn’t convinced, but he assured me everything would be okay. Looking back on things, I should have realized just how concerned he must have really been because he sent me home without a lesson. At the time, I was just thrilled to have an afternoon off from working in the old man’s barn.
I took off for the trails through the hills, my imagination creating all kinds of scenarios for me to enjoy. That day, I was on a jungle safari, stalking King Kong.
The next day, Old Man Winters was dead.
He had been killed in a mysterious fire that burned down his small shack and also consumed his fields. When I’d arrived at his house that Saturday morning for work, I saw several people milling about. In all the time I’d known him, aside from me and Mama, the only visitors he’d ever had was Mr. Jenkins.
The county’s volunteer fire fighters were busy trying to put out the fire. There was a line of men from the well pump to the house passing along buckets of water while a couple of their sons ran the empty buckets back to Mr. Anderson, the town druggist who owned the pharmacy. The fire fighters had the blaze mostly under control by the time I arrived.
Screaming, I ran for the house to see if the old man was okay, but someone grabbed me and stopped me from running barefoot into the burning ruins of my friend’s home.
I was heartbroken. My friend was dead and I knew why. He hadn’t died in a fire, I was sure, but there was no way to prove it.
I knew Henry Jackson was behind the fire. If he hadn’t set it himself then he surely sent one of his men to do it. No one else cared enough about Old Man Winters to even know his name, much less go to the trouble to kill him.
Mr. Jackson and his bully friends had killed Old Man Winters. I knew it. The town knew it. I think everyone knew it, but no one cared. Not one of them said so much as a peep. Not that it would have mattered much if they had. A black man living in the south had very few freedoms and no civil liberties in those days. Of course, at the time I had no idea what those words meant, but I would learn them soon enough.
My education was only beginning.
***
Winter was hard that year.
It had been a colder than normal and the snow sat heavy on the ground, covering up the usual brown mud. It was beautiful, but like all good things, the snow melted giving way to more mud, which then froze over before more snow fell atop the ice. It was a vicious cycle that repeated itself every few days.
Not only did I miss my friend – and I missed him a lot – but without the extra supplies the old man had shared with us, provisions ran low. Two weeks before Christmas, my mama took ill. She turned pale and sickly. I hated to leave her alone, but I had no choice. She needed help, so I ran to fetch Doc McNally, who rode his horse, ol’ Trixie, back to our place. I waited outside while the doctor gave her an examination. When he finally called me back inside, the doc told me Mama was very sick and running a high fever.
I took care of her for two weeks, taking care of all of the chores she normally did around the house. She must have had a special touch because no matter how hard I tried, the house never looked as good as the way she did it. That didn’t stop me from working at it though. Mama liked a clean house, so that’s what I was determined to give her. I didn’t want her to have to get up and work herself to death after she got better.
Doc McNally stopped by once a day, sometimes twice if he was in the neighborhood, as he liked to say.
“There’s really not much more we can do than wait it out,” he told me on his last visit to bring some new medicine he hoped would help. He usually wore a smile, but not this time.
“I’m afraid your mother’s condition hasn’t improved, James,” he told me. “But your mother is a fighter, son. Dottie is in the Lord’s hands now. Just keep her comfortable and have her drink a lot of juice and take her medicine. Can you do that?”
“We don’t have much juice,” I said.
“Water then,” he offered. “She needs to drink a lot of water and sweat out the fever. Keep those blankets on her and a cool cloth on her head.”
“I will,” I said and thanked the doctor, as I did after every one of his visits. I know she would have liked to thank him herself, but all she did was lay in her bed, sleep, and moan in pain.
Mama died on Christmas morning.
I was at her side when she drew her last breath. She had been asleep when it happened, which I was told was a good way to go by several people afterward. I sat with her for hours until Doc McNally returned in the afternoon to check up on her, as he had been doing every day since she had taken ill.
He left with her body wrapped up and strapped into a cart pulled by ol’ Trixie. The doc took her body to town to prepare her for the funeral. He offered to take me back to his house to spend Christmas with his family, but I politely declined the offer. This was my home. It was where I had spent all of my C
hristmases. That was not a tradition I was interested in breaking. Mama wouldn’t have liked it.
I watched Doc McNally’s cart disappear in the distance, swallowed up by the trees the lined the old dirt road leading to town.
And just like that I was alone.
I had no idea what to do next.
***
The day after Mama’s funeral, a lady had come calling. I don’t remember her name any more. She was a stranger.
“James Mason?” she asked when I opened the front door.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m he. What can I do for you?” I remembered the common courtesies my mama had taught me. She was a firm believer in manners, so I used them because I knew that’s what she would have wanted.
“I’ve come to take you to your new home,” she told me.
“But I have a home,” I told her. “I live here.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re still a child, James. You can’t take care of yourself.”
“Yes I can,” I told her. “I’m the man of the house. This is my home.”
“Not anymore,” a familiar voice said. Henry Jackson and the small group of men that seemed to always follow in his wake stood nearby. Bobby was also there with them, hands crossed over his chest. Father and son shared a smug smile. I’d never wanted to hit anyone more than at that moment. If there hadn’t been so many of them, I would have enjoyed wiping that grin off Bobby’s face.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him, no longer concerned with the strange woman.
“I own this land,” Mr. Jackson said. “Your mother took out a loan at my bank after your daddy… well, let’s just say she needed some help making it through those long winters without a husband to take care of her.”
