So it was that the Goat went into Buio’s office that day and tossed that piece of paper on his desk with that message—that he wanted to fight me. And Buio, after asking himself why and answering his own question, after wondering how he had found out about the Dancer and telling himself it really didn’t matter, looked the boy straight in the eyes for a few seconds, then said, “The Dancer doesn’t fight.”
The Goat also looked Buio in the eyes for a couple of seconds, then grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, scribbled something on it and tossed it back on Buio’s desk.
There was one word on it: Bullshit.
“It’s not bullshit,” Buio said. “I’m telling you the truth, son. The Dancer doesn’t fight. I know his trainer Gustavo well. He was my trainer once upon a time. I’ve seen this guy training many times, and no one really knows why, but he doesn’t fight. Even Gustavo splutters when I ask him, and Gustavo isn’t the kind of man to splutter. Forget it, son. He’s good, yes, but in my opinion you’re even better, and anyway, a boxer who doesn’t fight, well, it’s hardly surprising they call him the Dancer.”
The Goat had stopped watching his lips and had started looking him in the eyes again, then he leant over the table, quite calmly wrote something on a little piece of paper, turned and walked out.
Buio picked up the paper, turned it and held it between the thumb and forefinger of both hands, without lifting his arms from the desk. This time, the Goat had written: Until I fight the Dancer I’m not fighting anyone else.
NO ONE THOUGHT the Goat would carry out his threat, but in fact he missed a regional championship, two friendly matches between gyms, two inter-regional meetings and even the Italian championship, which he probably would have won hands down.
He still trained as enthusiastically as ever, just as if he was going to fight, but whenever Buio took him a form to sign for a match, he would shake his head and quickly go back to whatever it was he was doing.
The first time this happened, Buio phoned Gustavo.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Gustavo, it’s Buio.”
“Hi, Buio, how’s it going?”
“So-so, and you?”
“Feeling old.”
“You were saying that thirty years ago.”
“But I probably won’t be saying it in another thirty years.”
Buio gave a little laugh. “Maybe not,” he said.
Silence.
“Listen, Gustavo, my boy Mugnaini says until he’s fought the Dancer he’s not going to fight anyone else. He’s already missed an international.”
“The one in Lucca?”
“Yes, the one in Lucca. Why weren’t you there?”
“Because I didn’t have anyone ready.”
“OK, but are you going to put the Dancer in a fight or not?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s the way it is. It’s not up to me.”
“How about a little fight between gyms, two rounds, just for fun, to keep my boy happy and get him fighting again? Look, this guy’s going to get me to the European championships.”
“The Dancer doesn’t fight.”
“Not at all?”
“Not at all.”
“All right, let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
“How’s your wife?”
“Better, thanks. How’s yours, still dead?”
“Fuck off, Buio.”
The second time, after the friendlies and the Italian championship, Buio came to the gym in person. I wasn’t there. I found out by chance the following day from a middleweight named Franco, a not very talented fighter, completely crazy but friendly. He told me that late in the day, as he was on his way out, he had seen Buio go into Gustavo’s office and close the door behind him. He also said he thought the reason for his visit was to ask Gustavo to let me fight. As he said this, he looked really moved, like a little boy who was talking about God knows what. The fact is, I heard this story about a fight another couple of times over the next few days.
This was it, the moment had come. I had to get in that fucking ring and demonstrate once and for all that I really was the best, that it wasn’t only a fantasy, that I wasn’t just a legend, but a person of flesh and blood, muscles and speed. I had to thrash the living daylights out of that deaf mute from the world outside. It would be a bit like thrashing Beethoven, Signora Poli, mother, every other boxer and the whole world—and then once and for all everyone would know that there was a piece of reality, square in shape with ropes all around, where I really was a sensation.
So a few days later I went into Gustavo’s office and said, “I want to fight.”
Gustavo took his head in his hands and said in that whiny black jazzman’s voice of his, like a chugging tractor, “What’s got into both of you? You can’t fight. Your mother would tear my head off. The last time you went home with a black eye, she came here and threatened to kill my family. Your mother’s crazy, son, and I don’t want to have anything to do with her. Why are you both so keen to fight anyway?”
“Because we want to know who’s the best.”
“What do you care? You’ll never be in the ring together, because you’ll never compete.”
“We’ll fight, it’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not the same thing. Drop it, forget that guy, I mean it. It wouldn’t be a good fight.”
“It would be the fight-of-the-century.”
That was it. I’d gone and touched Gustavo’s weak point, the weak point of any genuine lover of boxing: the possibility of witnessing a great fight. And even though we both knew it wouldn’t be the match-of-the-century, or even of the decade, it was also obvious that it would be a great fight and that everyone was itching to know which of these two great young boxers would get the better of the other. Where he would land a great left I would land a great right, where he would deliver a great uppercut I would deliver a great straight punch, and where he would close up like a goat I would start dancing.
No doubt about it, it would be a great fight.
“Forget it,” Gustavo said.
I don’t know what happened, but a few weeks later Gustavo called me to his office. Buio was there, sitting on a chair. He stood up and shook my hand, looking almost moved.
“Hello,” I said.
Gustavo told me to sit down. He passed his hand over his face and took a deep breath. “So,” he said. “You really want this fight?”
I felt every muscle in my face relax. My moment had come. “Yes,” I said.
“Then let’s do it,” Gustavo said. “But no fucking around”—he pointed at both Buio and me—“no sissy little two-round affair. You want to fight? All right. Let’s go the full seven rounds. I don’t want a fistfight, I want a boxing match, and I want to do it properly. We’ll hold it in three months’ time, on the twenty-eighth of February at nine in the evening, in your gym, Buio, because you have an Olympic ring, and I’ll leave it to you to organise it. We’re the beginners, so we’ll be the challengers. We’ll choose the referee together. I was thinking of Paoli but we’ll see. If one of you turns out to be over the weight, the match will be decided by adjudication. If there are any delays due to unforeseen circumstances, accidents and so on, we’ll get together and decide what to do, though I can’t guarantee we’ll keep the challenge going. And you,” he said, pointing at me, “if your mother comes here again and starts sounding off, I never want to see you again. Is that clear to everyone?”
Buio and I looked at each other like two little boys called to the headmaster’s office and nodded.
“Now fuck off before I change my mind,” Gustavo said.
Buio and I left the office with our heads down. Once outside, we shook hands.
“Bye, then.”
“Bye.”
“See you on the twenty-eighth of February.”
“OK. Good luck, then.”
“Thanks, you too.”
THEY WERE THE LONGEST three months of my life, and they flew by in an
instant. Before I knew it, I was suddenly up there in that damned ring, skipping up and down in the corner with a towel round my shoulders, my face smeared with Vaseline and two beads of sweat already stinging my eyes, suddenly aware that it wasn’t a game any more.
Gustavo worked me harder in those three months than he ever had before. He insisted I go running every morning before school, do two hours’ training every evening before dinner, go to bed at nine, and so on. At the same time I had to keep up with my schoolwork, my piano lessons, my marks and all those other things that kept my mother quiet and gave me some cards to play with, so I could continue my training and be forgiven for the two black eyes I brought home with me during those three months.
Gustavo would breathe down my neck for nearly an hour about speed, flexibility, developing my potential. Then he’d stick me up there in the ring to face whoever was available, whether they were tall or short, good or not so good, fast or slow, closed or open, technical or otherwise. He would stick them in the ring with me and urge them to wallop me as hard as they could, then from time to time he would stop the clock, get in the ring, give me a couple of slaps on my helmet and show me this or that punch, the mistake I had just made, the uppercut that had turned out so unbalanced … And then he’d give me another slap on my helmet.
“What are you doing? Can you tell me that? You do a dumb bend to your left and fire off an uppercut to the liver without even being properly supported on your legs. Don’t you know who it is you’re going to fight? Haven’t you seen how that boy fights? He’s a sniper. That’s what he’s waiting for—for you to take a big step and lose your balance or leave yourself exposed—and then he’ll get in there with one of his killer punches. And remember this, son, he won’t wait the way he waited with that nobody from Rome, he won’t stand there looking at you, he knows you won’t get caught like a sucker that way, he knows you’ll keep still. And if he doesn’t know it Buio does, he knows I’ll stop you and he’s seen you train. No, I’ll bet my arse he won’t wait. From the first round he’ll be there in front of you like a block of granite and he’ll parry you and tease you until you show him a square centimetre he can sink his fists in, and if you show him that, I guarantee you he’ll be in there like a shot. That’s all he can do. You’re too fast, too tall and too technical for him to fight you any other way. That’s all he’ll do: keep you at a slight distance and try to find a way in. And once he gets in you’re fucked, he’s too strong for you, you pansy, do you understand? Do you understand?”
He gave me another slap on my helmet and I nodded, cowed.
“So what were you doing, bending in that sloppy way? Do you know the chance you have of landing an uppercut to the Goat’s liver? Hmm, do you? Let me tell you: not much, not much at all. But if you want the truth, in my opinion that’s how you’ll win the fight, if you win.”
Gustavo always had that way of contradicting himself without contradicting himself which took you by surprise.
“What?” I muttered behind the gumshield.
“Yes.” Gustavo lowered his voice, as if he suddenly wanted to tell me a story. “In my opinion, that’s how you’ll win, if you’re going to win: you’ll hurt him where he least expects it. You have to have balls and the patience not to leave yourself open and not risk a sloppy uppercut, as if you’d just thought of it and were giving it a try. He’ll do everything he can to stay close to you and you’ll do everything you can to stay away from him. He’ll be thinking of those lightning straight punches that’ll be raining down on him like hail; he’ll be thinking of that right hand you keep up against your chin that’s as sharp as a cannonball when you let it go. That’s what he’ll be afraid of, it’s what he’ll be watching for, what he’ll be keeping an eye on. He’ll spend his time keeping you close, looking for a way in and keeping an eye on your right. He’ll be convinced that the moment he opens up you’ll get in there like a rocket with your right. That’s what he’ll be afraid of. And he’ll be so concerned about it, it’s very unlikely you’ll actually be able to get in there with that right. But damn it, that deaf-mute little bastard doesn’t have a thousand eyes; sooner or later he’ll have to forget that you have more than just a right; sooner or later he’ll leave his cheek or his liver or his chin exposed … That’s when you have to get in and surprise him; that’s when you have to come out with a great short hook or a strong uppercut and give him the jolt of his life. Sooner or later, too, he’ll have to try and get in a good straight right of his own. And that’s where I want you; that’s where you have to bend forwards to your left and get in an uppercut to his liver that’ll break a rib. Understood?”
I nodded again and Gustavo gave me another slap.
“So what was that crap just now? Why the hell do you bend like a dummy and leave yourself open like a sucker? He has to forget you can do those kinds of punches. Listen to me, son, and I want us to be absolutely clear about this: if, on the night, I see you throw a single pointless hook or uppercut, I swear I’ll throw in the sponge and stop the fight. If you risk going for the knockout punch when you don’t have it, I swear I’ll stop the fight. Get this into your head: if you win this fight, you’ll win it either narrowly on points or because you have the patience to wait for the right punch.”
That was how Gustavo thought. He trained me like a normal boxer of my size: he made me throw one straight punch after another and made me keep to the centre of the ring and give the initiative to my opponent, holding him at a distance and tormenting him with jabs, but he was convinced that the thing that would clinch the fight would most likely be one of those punches no one would expect: a quick, sharp punch from a short distance, with a lot of weight behind it, which would take my opponent by surprise. And that was something he worked on a lot, too. He would direct me in the ring: the rule was that if he suddenly clapped his hands I had to sidestep and deliver a quick combination of two or three punches, then turn and come out again, possibly rounding it off with a nice quick right just to annoy my opponent. When it worked, he would applaud for a few seconds and yell “GOOD!” but when I got it wrong and laid myself open he would throw a towel or a glove on the floor or stamp his foot and swear and curse me in that croaky black man’s voice of his.
One week before the fight, he told me we were there now and for the last days I had to take it easy and get some rest. Of course, I still had to go running, but mainly to work off the excess of lactate, and of course I still had to train, but one hour was enough, and then just gymnastics, or at most a couple of easy rounds, just to keep in practice.
I was wound up like a spring. No one could stop me now. I looked at myself in the mirror at the gym and felt as ready as a real champion. There I was, preparing for the championship of the world; I was Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and all the others who, over the generations, had ever skipped up and down on a wooden floor and looked into their own eyes in the mirror like gladiators.
Apparently, the betting had gone through the roof. They gave me three-to-one. They said that in the end the Goat’s experience would lay me out flat. They said I was a good boxer, but when you got down to it I was a ballerina, and as soon as I found myself up there I’d be shit-scared and start to fire off pointless punches just like that Roman boy I had seen at the Teatro Tenda. There were even those who said I would be beaten in the first round, or that the Goat would get in the ring and, when the bell rang, would walk to the centre with his head down, parry a couple of jabs the way he knew how, then get inside and cover me in a forest of punches so thick that Gustavo would have to use a chainsaw to get me out.
Luckily, there were also those who liked me, who said I was so accurate and fast and technical I could beat anyone; that however good you were, there was no way to get in close to me without leaving yourself open and getting one of my rights straight between the eyes. There were some who said the Goat would never even get close to me; that he would stand there powerless under a hail of jabs, and from out of that hail would emerge one of my power shots t
hat would lay anyone out flat; that it didn’t matter that I’d never fought before, because class is class, and it doesn’t really matter if you demonstrate it or not: if you have it you have it, and all anyone else can do is acknowledge your superiority.
Then there were the undecided: those who may have been more far-sighted than the others and really had no idea how it would go, those who had seen both of us and didn’t let their imaginations run away with them, those who had come to see us both train during those three months; people you saw after the training session chatting away at the back of the gym, some of them smiling and shaking their heads; people who really didn’t see how one of these two boys could get the upper hand over the other because they were both so different and at the same time so similar.
But no one had any doubts that it would be a great fight.
AND NOW SUDDENLY there I was, up there in that ring, skipping about in the corner, holding my gloves up to my chin as if to pray, my eyes closed, the spotlights over my head, and in front of me and all round the ring those rows of seats and those aisles packed full of excited-looking people drinking beer, talking, watching silently, laughing, concentrating or drawing figures in the air. All those people had come there to see us, to see me, to see this ballerina they had heard so much about, this prince of the ring, rarely seen, the stuff of legends—a real master. They had come there to see if it was really worth telling the stories and believing in them or if, once again, as usually happened, reality would destroy the myths, like a father hitting a little boy who tells a lie, a little boy who only lies because he wants to live a different life from the shit around him. They were there to see a battle between dream and reality, between the world as it was and the way we would like it to be. Or perhaps they only wanted to see once and for all if it’s talent or effort that wins out, or whether talent even exists or is just a lot of hot air. There was a whole world hanging over that ring and as the referee walked into the centre of it and the people fell silent I knew that, if I lost, my life would no longer be the same. Maybe if I won, too, but that wasn’t what worried me.
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