Davo's Little Something (18 page)

It didn't take him long to find the place he was looking for in the phone-book; he rang them to check out a few prices and make sure they would be open when he got there: they would be. He checked out a couple more addresses in the city then with his passbook in the back pocket of his tracksuit he locked the flat and drove up to Bondi Junction to get $1000 out of the bank.

Although he looked a little sinister with his broken nose, piercing green eyes and wild brown moustache, the young solidly built fellow behind the counter at the Martial Arts Warehouse in Ryde couldn't have been more polite or helpful when Davo walked in and said he was the bloke that had rung up earlier. He showed Davo all the equipment he thought he'd need for his purposes, advised him on which stuff was the best and told him how he could save himself money. After about thirty minutes of browsing and asking questions Davo finished up with an 80 pound heavy punching-bag; a pair of leather bag mitts; a new space age leather skipping rope with lightweight plastic handles; and two sets of hand dumbbells with 100 pounds of weights. After much deliberation he also bought three books. A fairly big one on boxing. A smaller one, but with plenty of illustrations on Thai boxing. And because of what he'd seen those two Koreans doing on TV, a fairly voluminous book on Hapkido. He paid the man in cash: almost $650.

‘So you're going to do a bit of stunt work in movies are you?' said the young bloke from behind the counter, as he helped Davo out to his car with all the equipment.

‘Yeah,' replied Davo. ‘I'll just put this up in my garage and practise on it. Might help me to get a bit fit during the winter too.'

‘Not a bad idea. It doesn't hurt to know a bit of something these days either.' The assistant gave Davo a hand to clamp down the tonneau cover on his utility. ‘There's a lot of mugs getting around on the streets. It can come in handy.'

‘Yeah. Oh well, I always manage to avoid any of that sort of trouble.' Davo moved round to the driver's side and opened the door. ‘Anyway, I might see you again. Thanks for your help mate.'

‘That's alright—it was a pleasure. Good luck with your movies.' The assistant gave the roof of the car a couple of taps and Davo drove off. Next stop—the Central Railway end of George Street.

He found a parking spot on a loading zone just a few yards from the secondhand record shop he was looking for; he quickly backed the ute in and walked up to it. There were album covers, cassettes and magazines all over the front window, he checked out a few of the titles and prices then went inside. He had no trouble finding what he was looking for as there were literally thousands of records, albums and singles, stacked neatly in racks all in alphabetical order. He started with the A's and soon had his first album AC-DC: TNT. He bought nearly all albums. Cold Chisel, The Angels, Radiators, Dragon, Rose Tattoo: all driving, thumping bone crunching rock 'n' roll. After about twenty minutes he had quite a stack, enough tracks to fill at least four sixty-minute tapes. He paid the attendant—over a hundred dollars—and left with his records in two bulging plastic bags.

As he stepped outside a sign over a shop window across the road caught his eye. ‘Hi-Fi Warehouse—Annual Stocktaking Sale.' With his records tucked up under his arm he waited for a break in the traffic then jogged across George Street to have a look. What he was looking for was on special and stacked in the window with several others. A good solid top name ghetto blaster with detachable speakers and a 5 band graphic-equaliser: marked down from $330 to $260. After checking it out thoroughly and having a good listen he bought that too—also paying cash. That was just about the end of his $1000.

He placed the ghetto blaster and the records carefully in the back of the ute alongside the punching bag so they wouldn't roll around. Davo couldn't help it but he was feeling pretty pleased with himself as he got behind the steering wheel and started the car. He'd managed to get everything he needed in one go and at the right price and he was looking forward
to this new type of training—just how keen he was he wasn't quite sure though. Was all this trouble really worth it? He sat there for a few moments softly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while the motor quietly ticked over. Seeing he was down that end of town he decided to give himself a bit of incentive.

The narrow twisting little alley didn't look anywhere near as sinister in the daytime as it had in the night. In fact, with the sun shining on the old converted houses snuggled together it looked a little cute if anything. He left the car on a no standing zone and walked slowly over for a closer look. Standing next to that rusting, cyclone-wire fence on his own the feeling of elation he had had in the car earlier soon disappeared to be replaced by one of intense anger, and although it was broad daylight and there was hardly anyone around—slight trepidation. Suddenly the memories of that Thursday night came flooding back, he began to feel uneasy in the pit of his stomach and a cold sweat of fear spread across his forehead. He wanted to turn and run and get the hell out of there but he stood there forcing himself to look; firstly at the surrounding walls then down into the gutter and along the roadway. There were vivid discolorations and stains on the road. Were they bloodstains? His? Wayne's? He jammed his eyes shut as Wayne's screams and the savage frenzied shouts of the gang and the thuds of their boots and fists came bouncing off the walls and cars. Davo threw his hands up in front of his face and opened his eyes as if he expected it all to start happening again but instead he was momentarily stunned to see the sun shining brightly. Davo stood there feeling giddy, swaying slightly from side to side as his breathing returned to normal, then after a few minutes he was alright. He walked back to his car and sat behind the wheel staring over at the lane, the hatred and malevolence now bubbling up inside him like a boiling saucepan of milk. He realised, as he started the car, that if ever he needed any incentive for what he was doing he knew where to come.

*

Once he got all the gear inside the garage, putting up the punching bag wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. Davo was no handyman but the new bit chewed straight into the concrete roof of the garage like it was sponge-cake and the eye-bolt screwed straight into the hole. Just to be on the safe side he clamped a small metal bar through the eye, where it met flush with the ceiling, and secured it with two dynabolts. He slipped the swivel meat-hook through the eye-bolt and hung the four metal rings holding the bag straps off that. This was a little bit tricky but by balancing the bag on his shoulder and stepping up on a milk crate he managed to get the four rings attached in two or three attempts. Which showed him that although he was getting a little fitter he still wasn't all that strong: he made a mental note to make sure he did plenty of weight training before he attempted anything else. The bag was still just a bit high so he got back up on the milk crate, took it down and added another meat hook. Yes, that was perfect. The bag was on one side of the garage with plenty of room for him to move around it and plenty of space for him to skip on the other side. Spot on.

Davo watched the gently swaying red leather bag for a couple of moments and decided to try it out. He unpacked the leather mitts, the same colour as the bag, from their plastic wrapping, put them on, then gave the bag a bit of a push, watched it for a second or two and threw a left and a right: another left and two more rights. They landed more with a slapping sound than a thump and were a pretty mediocre effort; Davo realised he didn't have a great deal of ability when it came to throwing a punch. Another thing he noticed. Even the jarring from those few, feeble taps vibrated right up his arm and hurt inside his head, something like if you move suddenly when you've got a bad hangover. He knew there was going to be a lot of pain and frustration in front of him before he'd be able to overcome that pain and his ineffectiveness; but he was determined to get on top of it.

He unpacked the weights next and started sliding them onto the short metal bars, then, with the Allen key provided, tightened them flush against the rubber grips making two sets of hand dumbbells 30 pounds each. The attendant had given him a
chart of exercises to go with the weights which he pinned on the wall with some plastic putty. He peered at it intently for a while then decided to try a couple out sitting on an old wooden bench already placed up against one wall of the garage. Overhead presses and curls. The 30 pound weights felt like they weighed a ton at first as he forced them up over his head then dragged them from below his waist up level with his shoulders. But Davo was used to lifting fairly heavy things at work—though not repetitively—so he knew it would only be a matter of time before he would get used to doing this; he was quite looking forward to it actually. He did ten of each then placed the weights with a bit of a clang next to the bench; he made a mental note to get an old piece of carpet for them so he wouldn't damage the floor. That left the skipping rope.

Oddly enough, Davo knew the fundamentals of skipping rope properly. He remembered when he was a kid, going down after school to watch a mob of professional boxers work out at the old Boys Club when it used to be down North Bondi before the council bulldozed it and put a park there. He never got into the boxing and sparring but being a cheeky kid he used to borrow their skipping ropes and away he'd go. He got fairly good at it and over the years Davo found that skipping rope, boxer style, was a bit like riding a pushbike: once you got the knack, you never really forgot it. He moved to the other side of the garage, stood there with the skipping rope in his hands for a few seconds then took a deep breath, flicked the leather rope over his head and jumped. He did this slowly at first, like a schoolgirl, then gradually started changing and shuffling his feet. Yes he thought, after about three or four minutes, I might be a bit rusty but I'll be able to get into this alright. One thing he did notice, as he hung the skipping rope up on a hook sticking out of the wall, the new ropes were a vast improvement on the ones they had down the old Boys Club—this one literally hummed through the air. Yes, skipping was going to be alright.

So. Weights, punching bag, sit-up board and skipping rope. It was like having his own little gymnasium right underneath his flat. He could get as fit as a fiddle and nobody would see him. They might hear the music going when he brought the
ghetto blaster down there but with the doors closed and the garage being right on the end no one would know much what was going on and everybody in the block kept pretty much to themselves anyway. Yes it was all going to be nice and hush hush, then, after about ten weeks, poor crippled Bob Davis was going to come roaring out of that garage one night like a tiger. Worse. He gave a nod of approval as he took a last look around then with a sinister contented expression on his face turned out the light, locked the door and went upstairs.

After some more chicken and salad for tea he started sorting out his records then rummaged around to find several blank cassettes. With plenty of Midnight Oil, Dragon, Cold Chisel and other rock albums to choose from Davo knew he'd have no trouble making up plenty of good training tapes. He remembered picking Sue up a couple of times from aerobic classes when they were married and watching the girls parading around in their crotch-tight leotards like Jane Fonda, kicking their heels up and doing stretching exercises to Cindy Lauper and Madonna and Michael Jackson and the rest of that disco pap. That might have been alright for the women but it didn't appeal to Davo one bit; not in the state of mind he was in. He needed mean music. Not that repetitious, don't wash your clothes, look vacant, head-banging shit. But good driving Oz rock. Something he could get his teeth into while he trained. He placed an album on the turntable then dropped a cassette into the tapedeck. He set the bias, twiddled the input dials then hit the pause button and the first track started going down. Midnight Oil—I Don't Want To Be The One. Yes, he smiled, as he sat back and listened to it. I can just see myself skipping to that.

 

I can't believe the perfect families on my colour TV, If I don't make it to the top it'll never bother me,
—and I don't want to be the one.

 

Funny lyrics he thought, as he read the sleeve while it was taping. It was the first time he'd ever taken any notice of the words of some of these songs. He dug it.

While Davo got his first sixty-minute cassette of rock 'n' roll tracks down, he read the sleeves and studied the album
covers out of idle curiosity; he also put aside the records he thought he'd use for the next cassette. While he was taping this second one however, he sat back and started leafing through the three books he'd bought at the martial arts shop, starting with the one on boxing.

It was all there. Straight left, left hooks, short rights, uppercuts. Then the combinations. Left jab, right uppercut, left hook to the chin. Jab, step and hook. Inside treble. Outside treble. Although Davo had never done any boxing in his life the book was quite explicit and easy to follow with plenty of photos. Swing the body like a gate closing. Pivot off the hip and shoulder. Come up on one foot. Drop the back knee. He realised reading it made it look simple and putting it into practice would be a different story altogether but he felt he could to it; he was determined to do it and that was the main thing.

The book on Thai boxing was interesting. Full of photos of nuggety little fighters whose almost innocent-looking faces belied the deadly ferocity they could muster with their hands and feet and while their bodies appear to be even slender by Western standards, their legs looked like they'd been carved out of teak logs. The boxing style was the same but the foot techniques were something else, consisting mainly of a Muay-Thai kick delivered with the instep with incredible force. It showed photos of how the Thai boxers went out into the bamboo fields and kicked at the bamboo with their insteps till they were almost rock hard and covered with callouses right up past their shins then when they got in the ring, although they'd try and kick each other in the head, they'd go mainly for crippling blows to the ribs and legs. Davo ran his hands across the tops of his legs and remembered getting corked there a couple of times playing football at school; he imagined what one of those kicks would feel like landing on the hard tight muscles of your thighs. It would be like getting hit with a baseball bat. They also had some interesting techniques with their elbows and knees; especially a close quarters knee up under the floating rib that made Davo wince just thinking about it. There was a definite knack to all of it but Davo felt he could master that too.