The Power of One (53 page)

For my part I would always “just sit on the pot,” as Geel Piet called sitting quietly on the tiny three-legged corner stool waiting for the fight to begin. “Tell them nothing,
jong,
” he had said. “Just sit and watch, watch very carefully. I'm telling you, man, you can tell a lot about a boxer even before he throws a punch, if you watch him carefully.”

The bell for the first round went, and after we'd touched gloves the Helpmekaar kid came at me fast. He was hard-eyed and I could sense he planned to make short work of the fight. I saw the first straight left coming from a mile off and allowed it to miss the side of my head by a fraction. A near miss with the leading hand often gives a boxer the confidence to try again immediately with a similar punch. Thrown even harder than the

first, it invariably throws the boxer slightly off balance. The second straight left came right on time, and as it whistled past my ear his right dropped to the level of his chest, leaving his head wide open. I stepped in and, with my body slightly turned to maximize the power, I threw a right hook that landed flush on the point of his chin. He was already off balance, moving into my punch, and he hit the canvas hard, sprawling on his back. While the blow carried all my strength behind it, it was also a perfectly timed punch, and a gasp went up from the Helpmekaar crowd while a wild cheer rose from our first form boarders.

The kid on the canvas sat up as the ref began to count. There was no way I could have knocked him out, but he was clearly shaken. Young guys are too proud to stay down for the compulsory eight count, and he jumped to his feet glowering at me. The surprise had been on the other foot, and I now expected him to move around me for a while, waiting for a chance to use his superior strength to nail me with a few solid blows to the head.
First you're going to have to catch me, you Boer bastard,
I thought. The referee went through the compulsory eight count, then wiped his gloves and told us to box on.

I was obviously lighter than the other kid, and now, looking into his eyes, I suddenly realized that he had regarded the blow as a fluke and had no intention of boxing smart. He moved straight at me again, his right still held too low. He was telegraphing the punch to come by watching the point of my chin.
Christ, he's going to try the left lead again,
I realized. As Geel Piet would have said, “Some fighters you can read better than a book. But,
ag,
man, the story has no blery imagination.”

The straight left came hard and missed, merely flicking my ear. I brought my right across his left and hit him on the side of the jaw, only just missing the point. I followed with a left hook into his solar plexus and he sat down hard, the seat of his pants seeming to bounce as he hit the canvas. I cursed myself. You don't get too many chances for a really good right cross in a fight, and I hadn't set myself correctly. Nevertheless, it was a good punch, and the left had dug in just below the ribs where it really hurts.

Geldenhuis was strong and game and was back onto his feet in a second. He waited for the compulsory eight, and as the ref wiped his gloves he warned him that one more knockdown meant the fight was over. I knew I'd have to be lucky to get a third crack at him and decided it was time to box, to wear him down, jab, jab, jab, waiting for the chance to come under his left lead to land a series of solid punches under his heart. That way, if he wasn't enormously fit, I'd sap his stamina to give me another crack at him in the third and final round. The bell rang for the end of the round, and I returned to my corner to find Darby and Sarge grinning from ear to ear.

In the second round I simply boxed him. His style was exuberant, and I waited for him to grow impatient as I kept him at his distance with constant jabs to the face. Toward the end of the round he must have realized that the fight was slipping away and he seemed determined to knock me down, even if it meant taking a couple of punches on the way. He came at me with both hands swinging. I think he expected me to move away so that he could nail me in a corner. But I stood my ground and hit him with a straight left that pushed him back against the ropes. I followed with Geel Piet's eight-punch combination, two good scoring shots to the head, one of which opened a cut above his eye, the next bang on the nose, one more into the cut, and the rest neatly placed under his heart. To my surprise, when the bell went for the end of round two, the Helpmekaar guys gave me a round of applause.

Geldenhuis didn't come out for the third round. The referee had examined the cut above his eye and stopped the fight. I'd won on a TKO, the first win for the Prince of Wales School in two years.

It didn't seem to matter that we lost the other seven fights, though all lasted the distance. The boxing squad, generally outclassed, hadn't fought with such spirit and determination for years. Sarge was walking around flashing his mouth full of gold teeth and saying in a whisper that carried for yards, “Bloody marvelous, that ought to show those bloody Boers who's boss.” You'd have thought we had won the match.

The boxing coach from Helpmekaar came over and patted me on the back. “Who taught you to box, son?” he said in English.

“I learned in Barberton, Meneer,” I replied in Afrikaans.

Suddenly he looked smug.
“Magtig.
I knew you were too good for an Englishman! I've never seen a kid your age throw an eight-punch combination. Come to think of it, I've never seen any kid throw an eight-punch combination. Who taught you to box, man?”

“Meneer Geel Piet,” I replied.

“Well, I wish we had him at Helpmekaar, that's all I can say, man.”

“I don't really think you would have wanted him,” I replied, but he seemed not to hear me.

“You're an Afrikaner, what are you doing in a school like this?” Without waiting for my answer, he continued, “Listen, we could arrange for you to come to Helpmekaar. You'd be with your own people, we can organize a boarding scholarship.”

“I'm English. A
rooinek
,” I said quietly. For the first time in my life I felt enormously proud about something. Perhaps it was wrong to be proud, but I'd waited a long time to come to terms with being a
rooinek.

The coach from Helpmekaar looked at me for what seemed like a long time. “Well, you don't box like a Englishman. Don't desert your own kind, son. Englishmen don't talk Afrikaans the way you do. I know, I'm a language teacher as well as a boxing coach.”

“I am English,” I replied in English. “Honestly, sir.”

“Well, Englishman, I doubt that there's a kid in your weight division anywhere in South Africa who could beat you. That is, if this
rooinek
school doesn't bugger you up.”

He turned away abruptly and walked over to where Darby White was standing jiggling his balls and looking pleased with himself. I could see they were both looking at me, and Darby White had a proprietorial grin on his face.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see the big kid I'd fought. He wore a large pink Elastoplast patch over his left eyebrow. “Howzit?” He stuck his hand out. “Jannie Geldenhuis. No hard feelings, okay? You won fair and square, man,” he said in English with a thick Afrikaans accent.

“Thanks for the fight,” I replied in Afrikaans as I shook his hand.

He grinned and seemed pleased that I'd replied in Afrikaans.
“Ag,
man, I don't think I even hit you once, I've never done that before. It'll teach me a blery good lesson. You looked such a little bugger, I thought I had a easy fight on my hands.”

I grinned at him. “You're such a big bastard, I thought I was going to get a hiding.” Gert had always said that a man should be magnanimous in victory, and Jannie Geldenhuis seemed like a nice bloke.

“Ja,
that was the blery trouble, man, so did I.” He grinned

again. “Just you wait, I'll get you back on the rugby field. What possie you play?”

“Scrum half. By the way, my name's Peekay.”

“Ja,
I already know. Me too, I'm also a scrum half.
Alles van die beste,
Peekay.” He turned to go and then turned back and rubbed the point of his jaw, “Jesus, you hit me a beauty in the beginning of the first round!” Then he turned to join his schoolmates.

“Ja,
so long, Jannie,” I said, pleased it had ended this well.

Morrie walked up just as Geldenhuis departed. “Howzit? What did the hairy back want, your autograph?”

“Nothing. He just said no hard feelings, he'd see me on the rugby field.”

Morrie grinned. “I'll say no hard feelings, we're rich!” He frowned suddenly. “But we've still got to hate the bastards.”

“Shit, Morrie, not after it's over!” I said, grinning.

“It may only have been a boxing match to you!” Morrie pointed to the wooden spoon hanging from the beam above our heads. “To me it's the beginning of getting rid of that spoon! We can only do that by learning to hate.”

I sighed. “Morrie, you've got to learn there are good Boers and bad Boers, just like everyone else. You can't just lump them all together.”

“The only good Boer is a dead Boer!” Morrie snorted.

“The only good kaffir is a dead kaffir, is where that came from,” I said, chiding him for his lack of originality.

“Yeah, them too,” he added ruefully.

“Christ, Morrie, you're a Jew! How can you say things like that?”

Morrie laughed. “I'm a very complicated Jew,” he said. “Peekay, if we're going to win against those Boers we've got to learn to hate them. Don't you even understand the fundamentals?”

“Bullshit!”

“Yeah, it is. You're right, it is bullshit.” He looked at me and grinned again. “But for Christ's sake, don't tell the others. We've got them thinking they can win, that the enemy isn't invincible.”

He was the only one on the boxing squad who hadn't congratulated me, and I wondered why. I was to learn that Morrie was the world's best persuader; he could pump courage and spirit into a dejected boxer, soothe his battered ego and rebuild his selfesteem. Morrie smoothed words on and gently massaged them

in as though they were a magic balm. But he used them this way only for a predetermined purpose and only with people he considered less than his equal. A light pat on the back was all I ever got. Morrie considered me his equal and he allowed me to share his superior intellect, which was usually two or three jumps ahead of anyone else.

“Well, tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Morrie asked.

“How much? How much did we make?”

Morrie grinned. “Enough for you to buy Cooper several hundred cream buns if you ever have to again. I reckon we'll get a fiver out of it each.”

“Jesus, Morrie, that's wonderful!”

“It's only the beginning, Peekay. This time we gambled and won. Next time you fight, we're going to know the form. We're going to know everything there is possible to know about your opponent. Every time he scratches his bum, we're going to analyze why. The making of money should never be left to chance.”

After my solo victory against Helpmekaar, Atherton, Cunning-Spider, and Pissy Johnson immediately joined the boxing squad, along with twelve of the other new boys. It soon became apparent that Pissy Johnson was totally uncoordinated and would never make a boxer, but Atherton and Cunning-Spider were natural athletes and quickly caught on. Morrie called the new boys “the Wooden Spoon Goons,” swore us all into an elaborate brotherhood, and elected himself president for life and me captain.

Morrie knew the value of a little mystique. The initiation into the Wooden Spoon Goons involved the exchange of everyone's blood except his own. He swore each of us into the brotherhood and then instructed me to swear him in as president for life. He had personally composed the protocol for the ceremony, and when his turn came he handed me a slip of paper to read which went like this: “Do you, Morris Levy, solemnly agree to fight with all your wit and skill and nerve to restore the Prince of Wales School to its former boxing glory?” This came as somewhat of a surprise to all of us, as we had no idea there had been any former glory to restore us to.

“I do,” Morrie said.

“Do you agree to act selflessly without thought of personal glory or gain as the president for life of the Wooden Spoon Goons?” I wondered how he had managed to reconcile this with our business arrangements.

“This I do solemnly declare to do,” Morrie said in an impressive flourish of grammatical construction.

“In consideration for so doing and in the year nineteen hundred and forty-six in the reign of His Gracious Majesty King George the Fifth, I, Peekay, captain of the Wooden Spoon Goons, declare Morris Levy president for life.”

Morrie had confided to me in a rare moment of introspection that in naming him his parents had thrown the whole bloody Polish ghetto at him. “Why couldn't they have given me just one
goy
name, like Derek or Brian or Arthur or something?” It was the only time I ever heard him question his Jewishness.