by Peter Cocks
The other guy, Billy Cable, had a face that looked like it had been carved out of rock. He was fast. His hands were a blur and he caught me with flurries of punches, confusing me by coming from all angles. He cut my lip and raised a swelling over my right eye.
“And he hasn’t even broken a sweat yet.” Gary laughed. “But don’t worry, you won’t be up against anything as hard and fast as Billy.”
“Great,” I said through fat lips.
Billy danced high on his toes on the other side of the ring. He grinned through his gumshield, winked and tapped his head with the red sparring gloves before pummelling me through another gruelling round of sparring.
By the end of the fourth week with Gary Cribb and his boys, I felt ready to face anything. Or anyone.
FORTY-SIX
The tournament was up towards Woodford, beyond the East End, in a big hotel off the main road. It was a large, red-brick building, mostly used for conferences and business events.
The car park was rammed with Jags, Mercs and flashy motors of every other luxury brand you could name. I arrived with Gary Cribb in his beaten-up Mondeo. Training obviously didn’t pay as much as some of the other trades in his circle.
Sophie had gone with Tommy and Cheryl. They had been careful not to show a great deal of favouritism towards Jason, which I appreciated. Reading between the lines, I think they were all a bit ashamed of him challenging me. They all had some sympathy for the underdog.
In the back of their minds, they probably knew that I was going to get mullered.
The place was already filling up as we arrived: men in black or camel overcoats, women in furs, the evening air tangy with the smell of their cologne and perfume. It was obviously a night to be seen. Tacked on to the back of the hotel was a hall, where the ring had been set up. I felt a flutter in my guts as we walked past it, spotlit from above. Rows and rows of chairs and tables ranked back from the ring. It was pretty cavernous and must have seated at least five hundred.
All of them soon to be baying for my blood, I imagined. Unknown, unconnected.
There were twelve fights on the card and not much in the way of dressing rooms, so Gary and I were given a section of the ladies’ shower room and toilets attached to the hotel’s leisure centre. Our opponents were in the men’s. I tried not to take it personally that I was in the ladies’ bogs. There were five other fighters sharing the area, all trying to find their personal space so they could get into the zone.
It stank of feet, piss and underarm sweat.
The tournament would start with a couple of juniors, just over sixteen, and work its way up to a pair of well-seasoned heavyweights, the main draw of the evening. My fight was about halfway up the card, so I had a while to wait.
I could hear the crowd getting louder as it swelled in the hall. I heard the roar of anticipation as the MC got on the mic and made his announcements about the charity the evening was in aid of.
I didn’t give a shit. For me, it was personal.
The first lad went out. Callum Furey. He must have been sixteen and wore a green Repton Club vest. His face was fixed and he stared straight ahead as he entered the hall.
Another roar.
“Popular boy,” Gary said. “He’s a very useful boxer. He’s going to be good. Mind you, his brother was very handy too. But he’s the charity case in the wheelchair.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Car crash?”
Gary laughed. “Yes, some of them call it that. One of them car crashes where you get shot in the knees and get your head caved in with a bat. He can still smile and wave, but beyond that, the kid’s a cabbage.”
“Who did it?” I asked.
“Not really the best place to talk about it,” said Gary. “People round here like to blame it on an Asian gang from Commercial Road. But the Fureys are one of the big families in this neck of the woods. They like to throw their weight around.”
“So?”
Gary lowered his voice to whisper. “So, a lot of people reckon the kid getting hit was a warning to them to quieten down.”
“From who?” I said. I was beginning to get the picture.
“Various names have been mentioned. Including your guv’nor’s, though no one would dare say that out loud. Of course here it’s all backslapping and kisses, but the tensions are still there, underneath.”
We heard applause from the hall. The announcement that Callum Furey had won inside three rounds. A popular decision.
The next guy got ready to go out, bobbing and weaving. The rest of us weren’t wearing head guards or vests, being outside the board of control rules. He thumped light punches into his own face, preparing his body for the punishment it was about to receive. I patted him on the back, felt the sweat already soaking him. A fanfare blared from the hall and I heard the cheers as he went in. By now my heart was pumping and my guts were runny, and I was still a good three fights away from my beating.
Gary taped my hands up tight until they felt rock-hard, put my gloves on and laced them up. Old-school, 8 oz leather cherry-reds with laces rather than Velcro. They were padded with horsehair and felt hard. As nails. My opponent would be wearing the same.
I lay down on the bench and Gary massaged my shoulders and legs, getting the blood flowing. He karate-chopped my back and I felt the vibrations go through me, every muscle and sinew beginning to sing.
I rested on my back, covered in towels, and shut my eyes as the noise faded into the background. I had almost drifted off to a nicer place when I heard a roar and Gary Cribb’s steely fingers shook my shoulder.
“You’re on, son. Here we go.”
FORTY-SEVEN
A spotlight hit me the moment I entered the hall. A roar went up and the theme from Rocky pumped through the sound system. I almost smiled, because it was so naff and showbiz, but it made the adrenalin surge even more.
I jogged on my toes towards the ring, bright and white in the middle of the hall, focusing on Gary’s shoulders ahead of me.
Gary jumped up and held the ropes open while I ducked through, onto the canvas surface of the ring. The MC stood in the centre, announcing my arrival: “In the blue corner, fighting out of New Cross, South London, and weighing in at sixty-seven kilos, Ed–eeee Savage!”
Gary whipped the towel from around my neck and I raised my hands in the air. Not so much in expected victory, but more so they could see who I was. There was a mixture of mild applause and booing. I looked out into the crowds, but the lights were so dazzling that anything beyond the first three rows was just a dark mass. I saw the kid who the night was in aid of. He was in a wheelchair at the ringside, a baseball cap perched on his damaged head, clapping, his movements jerky and spasmodic.
I briefly caught a glimpse of Sophie with her mum and dad in the second row, and she blew me a kiss. Before I could acknowledge it, the MC’s voice boomed in again and a massive cheer rang through the hall. The theme from Rocky had been replaced by an old hip-hop track, each whump of the bass blasting through the cheering like a blow to my stomach. Jason had chosen his own fanfare, and it was working on me:
“Pack it up, pack it in,
Let me begin,
I came to win.
Battle me that’s a sin,
I won’t tear the sack up,
Punk you’d better back up…”
I remembered the name of the band: House of Pain. He’d got that right, for sure.
The cheering continued as Jason slipped into the ring. “Ladies an’ gen’men… In the red corner and fighting out of Bexley, and weighing seventy-five kilos … Ja–son Kell–eeeey!”
Either he was very popular, or the whole crowd was sucking up to his old man. He was wearing a white silk dressing gown with “Kelly” and a shamrock embroidered in green on the back. Donnie slipped the dressing gown off his shoulders and Jason waved at the crowd. His body was brown and sleek, not over-muscular, and covered in Japanese and Celtic tattoos. I remembered that Gary had told me too much muscle was bad for boxers: could m
ake you too stiff. Jason threw punches, jogging and shadow-boxing fluidly while Dave stood in the corner, geeing him up. Donnie came over to our corner.
“All right, Cribby?” he said to Gary. “All right, son?”
I nodded. While Gary rubbed my neck and put in my gumshield, Donnie leant into my ear. His huge paw patted my cheek as if wishing me luck. “Try not to win,” he growled. “If you know what’s good for you.” He patted my cheek again, harder, slapped Gary Cribb on the back and returned to Jason’s corner.
The referee called us to the centre of the ring, his voice a blur as he outlined the rules. I found myself caught in Jason’s stare as he eyeballed me, his eyes black and unreadable. He stood so close that our noses almost touched and I could smell his breath.
We touched gloves, the bell rang and Jason was straight on me. Before I’d even thought about squaring up, he swung a right up from his waist and caught me hard on the side of the head with the laced inside of the glove.
The crowd gasped.
Tommy had been correct, Jason’s right hand was fast and hard but unstylish. He used it more like a baseball bat, and as I tried to recover from the first blow, he clubbed his left hand hard into my face then brought the right swinging round again, this time catching my jaw and twisting my neck. Something like an electric shock shot down my back and my legs went weak.
The crowd bellowed as one, like a hungry animal; they obviously sensed blood early in this fight and the favourite was about to dish them up some carnage.
My tactics had been all wrong. I had expected to come out on the bell with my gloves up in defence before putting out a few range-finding jabs and doing some boxing. Wrong, really wrong.
This was a real scrap and now, inside of fifteen seconds, I was on my last legs. I went down on one knee.
The referee piled in, preventing Jason from raining more heavy blows down to finish it, to see off the interloper in good style. So that I couldn’t hold my head up in front of his parents or his sister, ever again.
He wanted to destroy me, and I couldn’t let him.
I took a count of eight. As my blurred vision cleared I could see Gary Cribb’s worried face in my corner, screaming at me. “Defend yourself!” he yelled. “Get back on the ropes, remember! Recover yourself then open up…” His face was a picture of anguish, like he knew all his hard work had been in vain.
Another person I was letting down.
I got up on seven and the ref had to hold Jason off as I wiped my gloves, ready to carry on. I held my fists high so that they’d take the worst of Jason’s swinging blows. As he piled into me, I did as I was told and reversed into the ropes towards my corner. I felt them burn across my back as I slid and rode Jason’s punches, keeping my fists tight to my head and my elbows tucked into my body while he battered me, trying to break me down. I gradually felt the strength return to my legs and I took about ten or twelve hard shots to my sides before the steam seemed to go out of his punches a little. I heard Gary Cribb scream, “Fifteen seconds!”
I pushed Jason off with my arms and tried to meet his eyes. They were still glazed over in a frenzy of violence. I dodged a left and then parried a right and, for the first time, I was able to land a blow on him. It was a good right cross and it caught him on the chin, taking him by surprise and making him reel a bit.
This was my opportunity to step off the ropes and get on him. I followed him, throwing another right, unbalancing him, then bringing a short left hook up to the other side of his head. He looked stunned, as if he had expected to get through three rounds without being touched. The expression on his face gave me confidence and I got on my toes, dancing and throwing fast jabs and hooks, attacking from the back foot until the bell went for the end of the round.
His round. No contest.
With my arms burning from the effort, I followed the wave of applause back to my corner.
FORTY-EIGHT
I felt I had lived a lifetime in the first three minutes, and in no time at all the bell went for the second round.
Gary had worked fast on me. He had rubbed Vaseline around my eyes, which were beginning to swell already. Three rounds wasn’t long in boxing terms, but it meant that all the aggression and action had to be packed into less than fifteen minutes. And Jason was determined to go hell for leather, to get this one finished inside the distance.
He started the second as he had the first, coming like a bull from his corner and swinging wild blows at my head. He caught me with a glancing one, but I was more prepared this time, riding the punches and stepping back. I caught him on the way in with a hard jab that landed square on his nose, and I swear I felt it crunch under my fist. Blood soon started flowing down across his lip and over his gumshield. This seemed to make Jason angrier and we went toe-to-toe for a minute, with him swinging heavy hooks and me countering with blocks and short hooks to his head. I tried to keep my jab working on his nose, smearing the blood across his face and down over the tattoos on his chest.
As we traded punches I could feel his blood, wet and sticky on my gloves. I remembered my training and broke through Jason’s defence, taking the inside position so that I could work on his body. I drummed punches into his ribs and up into his stomach, but I didn’t seem to be having much effect. His fists were beating around my kidneys and drubbing into the back of my head. I palmed him off, pushing up under his nose, and ducked on to my back foot, bringing an uppercut hard into his solar plexus. I heard him grunt in pain and I knew I had hurt him.
His eyes seemed to focus and his face went pale. He swore at me, shouting insults into my ear as we went into a clinch. Our elbows became locked together. The ref came to pull us apart, but Jason wrestled me around into the neutral corner away from the referee’s eyeline, then brought his head down hard on my eyebrow. It felt like a hammer.
As the referee pulled us apart I could see that Jason’s chest and white shorts were soaked with blood. I looked down and realized that I was covered in blood too.
My own.
The crowd were baying for more as the bell went to end the second round. I looked to the ringside but there were spaces where Sophie and Cheryl had been. Tommy was talking heatedly to an ex-champion and didn’t glance up at either Jason or me.
My eyebrow had split open like a ripe peach and Gary worked hard to staunch the flow of blood. He ironed it out with a freezing ice pack and swabbed it with Adrenalin on a cotton bud. Then he slathered it with Vaseline, and by the time he had sponged me off, I must have looked only half dead. I could hardly see Jason’s corner, but they were all over him, screaming advice, patching up his busted nose.
The bell went again, and with Gary’s advice to keep defending myself ringing in my ears, I went out for the final round.
There was no friendly touch of gloves this time and Jason rushed me once again. I tried to sidestep to take the centre of the ring, but he cut me off wherever I went, letting go with big, sweeping punches designed to club me to death, catching me with the backstroke, trying to open more cuts with the rough laces on the inside of the gloves. He foiled every attempt I made to outbox him, grabbing on to my arms, getting into clinches where he would start the dirty work: pushing me back against the corner post, rubbing his head into the cut over my eye.
His body was stinking and slick with sweat as he mauled me. He lifted his leg and grated the heel of his boot down my shin, making me yell with pain, all the while thumping at my ribs, wearing me down, punching low, his shots concealed by his own body.
I could taste blood and defeat in my mouth and in my aching bollocks. I pushed him away with both hands, blinking away gore and sweat, and put out a couple of feeble jabs, trying to keep him at bay. But he kept coming forwards. He threw a right cross, which I didn’t see coming through my swollen eyelid, and rammed his thumb hard into my good eye. The pain was unbearable. I was momentarily blinded as he lay into my head with more punches.
The noise of the crowd faded into the background, as did the screams of Gary Cribb, urgi
ng me to cover up and survive the remaining sixty seconds. I held on as best I could, shielding my head with my gloves, leaning on the corner post while he used my skull as target practice. Groggy, I slid on some blood and fell between the ropes.
The referee started a count but realized that it was a slip and waited for me to get to my feet. I could see the concern in his eyes as he checked my bloodied and battered face, and held fingers up for me to count. I could just see three. From somewhere deep in the distance, his voice asked if I was all right to continue. Through sheer animal instinct, I nodded that I was. Determined not to fall. Determined to die on my feet rather than live on my knees in front of these people.
I was ready to lose, but proud enough to want to be standing while I did it.
The referee waved for us to continue. Jason advanced on me, probing with his left, right hand hovering, waiting to plant his killer punch. My arms were trembling and weak, but I held my fists up in a show of defence. We circled one another while he looked for an opening. I saw Gary Cribb in the corner, ready to leap up and throw in the towel, ending my torture. Beside him I saw Sophie, tears streaming down her face, shouting out to me.
“Go, Eddie!”
She was out of Jason’s eyeline, but seeing my glance to the corner, he took it as my wanting to quit and stepped in close.
“Had enough?” he spat through his gumshield. He was panting heavily, as tired as I was, his hands dropped to waist level. “You fight like a girl.” He let go with a left, underpowered and slow from exhaustion, missing its target.
And from nowhere, my own left hand found its mark. A surge of anger flowed through me, like new energy, and brought my left fist up and into Jason Kelly’s slack jaw. The shock registered on his face for a millisecond: a millisecond in which I stepped back and followed through with a right that came all the way from the floor. Jason fell to the canvas heavily. His legs had gone.
I stood over him as the referee counted. His corner men and mine were in the ring already. Then, when the count had only reached eight, the bell to end the final round rang out. The roar in the hall was deafening, and there was pandemonium in the ring. The favourite had been beaten but had been saved by the bell.