Champion

by Gee, Maurice

  I was late. Mr Dent, marching in front of the band, wagged his finger at me as I ran to take my place. I yelled ‘Sorry’ at him and marched along with the Purple Heart on my chest. We did a circuit of the field and the band marched in twos into the bandstand. They were to play a concert. But first came prizes. I dismissed my platoon and ran to join Leo in the crowd, which broke from behind the ropes and sat on the grass round the stand.

  ‘What’d you think of Dad?’

  ‘He was great.’

  ‘We got the cake. See old Marv, eh?’

  ‘Marv’s a loony. Where’s Jack?’ I looked around and saw him coming with Mum and Gloria. We sat on the grass in a group and listened to a speech from our MP. He told us the gate takings and said the prizes would be money and, ‘Who knows, some of the winners might even be inclined to put it straight back in this collection box I happen to have. Where is it now? Yes, here it is.’ I thought that was a cheap trick but nobody objected. People came up and got their prizes – for jam, for pikelets, for scones, for embroidery, for flowers, for vegetables (Grandma won a lot) – and of course it all went straight into the box. At the end came the poetry prize. Mum took off her ear-rings and her scarf.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘You’ve got soot on your cheek, Mum.’

  She wet her handkerchief and wiped it off.

  ‘Well, poetry’s a gift,’ said our MP. ‘I guess it’s beyond us common folk. So friends, we didn’t get many entries. In fact, two.’ There were groans. There were some cheers. ‘But both, both, of the highest quality. And the winner is….’

  The trumpeter played tan-tan-tara.

  ‘…Miss Lorna Betts!’

  There she was, standing a short way off. She smiled a little smile, gave a little nod as if to say, ‘Perfectly right.’

  But my poor mum! First she went white. Then she went pink. She caught her breath and I was terrified she’d cry out loud. She was crying inside, I know that. Her poetry made Mum special, in her eyes. In everything else she was happy to be plain Bernice Pascoe. But in poetry she rose to her special place.

  Jack put his arm around her and gave a consoling hug.

  Miss Betts went up and shook the MP’s hand (Dearborn was his name, a little pouter pigeon of a man) and duly dropped her winnings in the box.

  ‘Not so fast. Come back here. Now face the front.’ He knew she was a teacher and played a game with her, which, oddly enough, made her simper. ‘Now Miss Betts will read her lovely lines – in a good loud voice.’ She obeyed; and Mum had to sit through the whole of it. It was, I have to say, much worse than hers. Mum at least had a sense of fun. I can remember the odd line. Here’s the end:

  So, folded in the hills’ embrace,

  Caressed by warm and swelling sea,

  Our town dreams in its one true place,

  And this we hope will ever be.

  Dearborn led the clapping. ‘Ten out of ten,’ he cried.

  ‘Mine’s better than that,’ Mum said. She was getting cross and that was healthier than being sad.

  ‘Course it is, Mum.’

  ‘The hills’ embrace.’ Gloria made a wide extravagant hug. ‘She’s gone potty.’

  ‘Ain’t no justice in this world,’ Jack said.

  We got up and walked away and sat under trees at the edge of the park, listening to the band.

  ‘I’ll write another one,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll show them.’

  ‘Good on you, Mum.’

  We listened to the concert and ate some scones Mum had bought in the tea tent. Dawn and Grandma arrived and Matty sat down next to Gloria. After a while Jack reached in the pocket of his pea jacket and brought out a mouth organ. He played very softly in time with the band. Leo and his father stopped. Leo sat on the pumpkin.

  ‘I didn’t know he could play,’ Leo said.

  ‘Nor did I.’

  ‘I did,’ Dawn said. ‘He played it on the launch one day when you weren’t there.’

  That made me jealous. It didn’t last. Jack’s music was soothing – and later on, throaty, wild, vibrant, wailing, sweet. It made me catch my breath. It made my heart swell until I thought it would leap out through my mouth on to the grass. We had a crowd around us before long. Jack stood up and played with his body swaying. Sometimes he bent forwards and sometimes he leaned back, and his hands, cupped over the instrument, imprisoned and let free wonderful sounds. Matty and Gloria started jiving and soon other couples joined in. Some of them could dance very well. The music went out and over the crowd, it looped out like a rope and caught them in. If you’d been high in a tree you would have seen them flowing in to a point, and Jack there like the hub of a wheel.

  Over by the hearse, drinking Dad’s beer, Marv heard. He switched the radio off.

  ‘My races,’ Dad complained.

  Marv held up his hand to silence him. ‘Chattanooga choo-choo.’

  Herb climbed on the bonnet of the hearse and looked over the cars.

  ‘It’s the nigra.’

  The band had finished playing and three bandsmen joined Jack, with drum, accordion and clarinet. They stood behind him and picked up the tune. Leo and Dawn tried jiving. They did very well. I had no rhythm in me but I stood by Jack, beaming with pride. He was mine, and every bit as good as Buddy Storm.

  He slipped his mouth organ into his pocket and grinned at Mum and held out his hand. In her gypsy dress, head scarf in her hand, she went flying in, and they danced to the clarinet and drum and accordion. The other dancers fell back to the edge of the circle and Jack and my mother put on a show. At least Jack did. Mum just kept a kind of rhythm and gave him an object to dance round. It was the first real jiving that we’d seen, outside the pictures. It was the outside world coming to town. It was the USA in Kettle Creek.

  I didn’t see Marv and Herb arrive. No one did. But suddenly Marv’s voice came through the music. It was like a nail grating on tin. ‘You think that’s good. You ain’t seen nothin’.yet.’ With face all red and thick body swollen, he stepped in. (In defence of Marv, I must say he’d drunk too much of my Dad’s beer. Dad, as usual, has to take some blame.)

  Marv grabbed Gloria. He tried to dance but she pulled away. Matty tried to barge in front of him, and Marv sent him flying with a swipe. Poor Matty. He went tumbling across the ring and ended sprawling on the grass between Mum and Jack, while Marv grabbed Gloria again. I heard a kind of roar from Stipan Yukich, although I didn’t see where he was. But Jack was quicker. He went across the circle in three steps. His fingers dug into the muscle of Marv’s arm and he swung him round and back, a huge heave, and sent him tumbling away, just like Matty, head first into the musicians, where his jaw made a thump on the drum. Silence then. You could have heard a voice on the other side of the domain.

  Jack speared Marv with his finger. ‘You keep your hands off. Boy!’

  Marv, on his elbow, took his time. Marv grinned. He had what he wanted. He stood up. He gave his shoulders an upward heave, rotated them, loosened them. I’ve never seen anyone do it quite like Marv. It made him unhuman, primitive.

  ‘I’ll show you folks how we deal with nigras.’

  We saw no one else but Jack and Marv. There were only two – Marv taking flat forward steps, and Jack circling easily to one side. But someone just as tough and ready was at the gala that day. We’d forgotten him: Bob Davies. I don’t know how he got between the two, but there he was, with his helmet straight and a palm the size of a dinner plate thrust in the face of each of them.

  ‘Enough,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Marv said.

  Bob Davies had been looking more at Jack. Now his head came round. Did he smile or was that more a wolf-twist of his mouth? ‘I said –’ (how quiet he was) – ‘enough!’ That last word wasn’t quiet, though he did not shout. But there was so much weight in his voice it seems to me it could have shifted railway wagons. Marv blinked and took a backward step. Davies’ palm closed and his finger pointed.

  ‘You, go that way.’ />
  Marv did not move.

  ‘Now!’

  Herb scuttled out of the crowd and put himself in front of Marv and pushed him back with two hands on his chest. Davies turned to Jack. His flattened palm still barred him.

  ‘You, that way.’ He pointed.

  ‘Yessir,’ Jack said.

  Marv, with Herb leaning all his weight on him and moving him one step at a time, said over his shoulder, ‘You shouldna done that, boy.’

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ Mum said.

  They went away. And somehow I stood alone in the circle, it was mine. Before the crowd came swirling across, with chatter and grin, I was alone, and I realised my victory. I had my Jack. I had my Buddy Storm, my Rockfist Rogan.

  Chapter 11

  Tiger Coop

  I whispered to Dad, ‘Jack and Marv should have a boxing match.’

  He smiled at me. Dad had already thought of it. He had the time and place all sorted out. ‘You keep out of it, Rex. Leave it to me.’ So I pretended to Jack I didn’t know. On Sunday morning I went down to the poolroom with Dad. Marv and Herb were waiting there. Dad opened the seats along the wall and hunted in the junk forgotten there, years of junk.

  ‘I know I put them somewhere. Ah!’

  He pulled out two pairs of boxing gloves and held them dangling by their laces. He looked like a shooter with two brace of ducks – how he beamed. The gloves must have started out brown but were faded to tan and had worn patches like mange. The hitting surface was rough, sand-papery, and the padding had matted so hard you couldn’t dent it with your thumb.

  ‘Good enough for Joe Louis,’ Dad said. He was able to believe what suited him.

  Marv chose the pair without knots in their laces. He held out his hands like a professional and Herb slid them on. Then Marv gave a shriek and ripped one off and threw it on the floor. Dad picked it up and shook it and a weta fell out.

  ‘It bit me,’ Marv yelled. But I think he only pricked his finger on one of its spiny legs.

  ‘What is it? A scorpion?’ Herb said.

  ‘It’s only a weta, boys. They don’t hurt.’

  Marv was swearing horribly. I reached out to pick the weta up but he pushed me aside and stamped on it with his great wide boot. I’m an entomologist. That’s my job today. It was a beautiful weta. I’ve never forgiven Marv for squashing it. I said to Dad as we drove home, ‘I reckon he’s yellow. I reckon Jack will wipe the floor with him.’

  Later in the morning I rode to the vineyard and told Leo about the fight. I didn’t tell Dawn. But Jack was at the launch and he mentioned it. Dawn was teaching him to swim. And that morning he gave her lessons on his mouth organ.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t swim but you’re teachin’ me. So keep blowin’.’

  Dawn tried again. Gave up.

  ‘Where will you go when you go to the war?’

  ‘Somewhere in the Islands. I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you want to fight?’

  Jack laughed. ‘People with guns scare me.’ He touched his scar. It was no joke.

  ‘Are you scared of fighting that man this afternoon?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do you want to fight him?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Why do you then?’

  ‘Well – ’ Jack spread his hands – ‘Alf set it up. I guess I gotta go along with it.’

  ‘Alf Pascoe is a crook. Everyone knows.’

  ‘I can’t let him down. They been good to me.’

  ‘Huh!’ Dawn said.

  ‘I wish it hadn’t happened though.’ Jack looked sad. ‘It kinda spoils things.’

  She got the idea that her job was to protect him.

  The match was in a clearing by the river. A line of trees over-topped the scrub on the eastern side, blocking out houses on the hill at the back of town. A dozen acres of scrub with winding paths cut the clearing off from the domain. It seemed very safe. No chance of unwanted spectators. No chance of Bob Davies interrupting.

  Church bells rang. The good people of Kettle Creek were going to worship. The baddies were at the clearing for the fight.

  A single rope on hammered-in posts formed the ring. Two bentwood chairs from our kitchen sat in corners. A keg of beer was wedged on a table. George Perry was barman. There weren’t enough glasses to go round and the men had to down their beer and hand unwashed glasses to the next in line. No one seemed to mind. Dad was going round taking entrance money and writing down bets. All the young tough guys of Kettle Creek were there, some in uniform. All the old tough guys were there too. No children allowed, but Dad told me I could watch from the scrub. He didn’t mention Leo but I brought him along. As the fight got nearer we grew bolder. We crept out of the scrub. We ducked around, catching glimpses of Jack in sandshoes and shorts but making sure he didn’t see us.

  Marv, stripped off, wasn’t fat at all. He was built without a waist. He was the same thickness from his shoulders to his hips. His arms were of an even thickness too, right down to his wrists, and golden hairs grew all over him, making him glitter in the sun. Herb helped him on with his gloves and laced them up. Half a dozen men helped Jack. It seemed to me they were sorry for him. He looked only half the weight of Marv.

  To keep our spirits up Leo and I crawled into the ring and started sparring. Some of the men egged us on. They wanted real punches and some blood. It might have come to that. Boys who start with sparring often end punching. But Dad stepped between us suddenly.

  ‘You boys clear out.’

  ‘Aw, Dad.’

  ‘This is men only. Go on, beat it.’ He sounded very bossy, but touched my shoulder in apology. ‘Jack says.’ I looked through a parting in the crowd and saw Jack watching me. He gave a small shake of his head.

  ‘There’s no fight while you’re here,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sorry, boys.’

  I was almost in tears. ‘That’s not fair.’ I would probably have said, ‘Jack’s mine,’ but Leo tugged me away.

  ‘Come on.’

  I followed him out of the ring.

  ‘Pretend we’re going.’

  We went into a path, letting Dad see, and Jack see too, but as soon as we’d gone round a bend Leo headed off into the scrub. We crept a zig-zag route to the line of trees and chose the one with the thickest foliage. Up we went, forty feet, climbing silently. The whole of the clearing came in view, with the scrub behind it, then the domain and half the town.

  ‘Better than a ringside seat,’ Leo said.

  I was sulking. ‘Too far away.’ But he was right, we got a better view than anyone.

  Marv was in the ring, sitting in the corner furthest from us. Jack got in. He swung his eyes along the line of trees. He must have guessed what we would do. Leo got us back in the leaves in time. Jack sat down and went from sight. Then Dad got in. I hadn’t known he was referee; but I was proud of the way he strutted. I thought he might help Jack somehow too. I’d seen how lightly built Jack was and my dream of uppercuts and left hooks wouldn’t stand up. Jack had the build of a runner not a fighter. And Marv – Marv was a hippo, a Tony Galento.

  Dad wiped his mouth. ‘Gentlemen,’ he cried. The talk kept on. ‘Shut your gobs!’ That worked better.

  ‘Right. Now. Here goes. This is a heavyweight bout –’

  ‘He’s no heavyweight,’ someone cried; meaning Jack.

  ‘What he lacks in weight he makes up for in skill. Enough interruptions. A heavyweight bout. Betwee-een. On my ri-ight. Batt-ling Mar-vin Var-coe from the O-zark Moun-tains.’ What a talent Dad had. He got cheers. ‘He’s won all his fights by knockouts, this boy, and listen gents, he once knocked out Max Schmeling – in one round.’

  They hooted with derision. They loved it. Marv was on his feet, waving his gloved hands above his head.

  ‘And now – on my left – the one and only Ti-ger Coo-oop from Chi-cago.’ Jack stood up. He raised one hand, acknowledging the cheers. ‘What a real champion this boy is. He’s sparred with Max Baer and Tommy Farr and h
e once went ten rounds with the Brown Bomber himself.’

  Jack shook his head in wonder. There was no way of keeping Dad in check.

  Dad called Jack and Marv into the centre. He stood between them, tubby, speaking low, while they stared at each other over his head. I don’t know what Dad said – the rules I guess, the number of rounds, the purse for the winner (excepting expenses) – but at the end he told them to have a good clean fight.

  ‘Can’t fight clean with nigras,’ Marv replied.

  I saw how Dad looked anxious. Even for him things might turn ugly at the end and his dream of profits, good sport, admiration, turn into broken ribs and broken noses. I think he saw what he had got Jack into. But what could he do now? He told them to go to their corners and come out fighting when they heard the bell.

  The seconds lifted out the chairs. George Perry was timekeeper – and, being George, made everyone wait. He eyed his stop-watch, raised a little hand-bell, gave a sharp tinkle at last.

  Marv sprang out. He was low to the ground. He held his head forward and arms spread out. He seemed to come rushing straight at me as well as Jack. His gloves seemed to whistle as he swung. Jack hardly had time to get out of his corner. One, two, those gloves went swooping round in huge blows. Jack vanished. I thought for a moment he had gone down. But all he had done was bob under the punches and slip by Marv, and there, it was like magic, Jack appeared in the middle of the ring. Marv had almost thrown himself off his feet with the punches. He staggered as though he’d been hit and took a moment to find Jack again. Then, with head like a ram and fists out front, he rushed again.

  Jack side-stepped, flicked his glove, hit Marv’s nose. We heard the smack high in the tree. Marv stood still. Then he roared. He located Jack off to one side and ran at him, to wrestle now I think, not to box. Jack bent his knees, halving his height, and hit Marv, right, left, right, in the stomach, on the jaw, on the side of his head – and Marv fell down. We did not hear the blows. Everyone was yelling too loud. I was yelling too. ‘Come on, Jack! Come on, Rockfist!’ Leo grabbed my arm and tugged so hard I almost lost my grip on the branch. I looked where he was pointing. Davies’ black car was racing across the domain.