Granite Grit (Fighting's in the Blood #1)

by Lee Cooper

  Tim was always a straight to the point kind of guy and didn’t pull any punches telling you something you didn't want to hear. That’s what I liked about him, his honesty. Especially when he used to tell me that I didn’t have the killer-instinct in some of my fights.

  The conversation soon turned to our families. “So, you’ve twin boys, ‘en? Hope they get their looks from their mother.” I joked, even though I had no idea who she was.

  “Aye, and it’s a good job. I didn’t want ‘em having this long face.” He joked back.

  “What you doing for work?” I asked, fishing.

  “Am a bit o’ a scrap dealer really, plus I’ve got a few things on the side that earns me a few quid.”

  “On the side, eh? I remember you havin’ plenty on the side when we were young.”

  “Aye mate, don’t judge. I’m just the middleman.”

  Wasn’t going to ask what the stuff on the side was, I knew. Like May said, he was a bit of a dodgy cunt when we were younger, and obviously still roams in the same circles. Always selling goods to people on a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ basis from the back of his car.

  You didn’t have to ask where the stuff came from. It was obviously hot. But always cheaper than any shop around. I bought things like CD’S, DVD’S, even a TV for my Mom once, after Dad smashed it one Sunday afternoon, arriving home legless from the pub.

  If you needed anything, Tim was the man you went to see, the local Del Boy. Selling anything from a kitchen spoon to a Ford Escort exhaust.

  Right before we got to the gym, the old butterflies swirled in my guts, which was welcomed, because it showed I still had the fear. You needed to have the fear.

  Chapter 7

  Tillydrone-The name is a corruption of the Scottish Gaelic ‘Tulach Droighne’ meaning a knoll with thorn trees growing on it.

  Kilgours:

  As we headed closer to Kilgours gym in Tillydrone, I had honestly forgotten what a uniquely raw place it was. More so in the late eighties and early nighties, when an eerie silence from the cold streets gripped your insides. The high-rise, worn-out seventies built flats, ground surrounded by plain patches of muddy grass, with a couple of trees shadowed by terraced tenement flats. Bits of wooden ply as windows. Rubbish blowing around the area without a chance of seeing a bin, until the local council man turned up once a week to have a small tidy. The graffiti layered onto the local shop and Chinese takeaway was just left, owners probably tired of the continued chore of scrubbing it off. Tilly may have been described as a poor area of Aberdeen, but the characters I grew up with there, were far from poor. Hanging out with Sketchy Bob and Leroy Brown, gallivanting around the area, causing havoc and getting pished, was all the entertainment for young people in the area. It went hand-in-hand with the surroundings. That and chasing down the local pie, starting fights, or ending your pal’s scraps. Sketchy Bob was one who bore the brunt end of a fist now and again. Nicknamed because he always looked suspicious and stoned. His deal spot was at the end of Muggers Bridge, beside Hayton road dishing out scores and ounces to his list of clientele in between chases from uniformed police and panda cars. Smoked joints like fags from morning to night, and had the odd dealer scouting him for overdue weed debts. Turning eighteen, he ended up doing a seven-year stint at Shotts prison. Riots outside the Broadsword were common at weekends. Three of us were regular underage drinkers and the older punters didn’t exactly take a shine to us, especially Leroy ‘Gigolo’ Brown. A ladies man who had a black book as thick as a granite brick. Seventeen at the time, he wasn’t a stranger to the single mums in the area, visiting while their men were at work, on the piss or out on the rob. He was useless at defending himself, always said he was ‘A lover, not a fighter’ and that was true, going by the amount of times I had to step in and defuse a situation, knocking-out any cunt in my way, then getting my Dad’s fist for kicking in one of his mates. Other than that, the lad’s club flooded with bodies, beer cans, sexual capers and organized street scraps. Despite the in-house squabbles, people were loyal. Fight meetings like the ones held on Castlegate Terrace seen Tilly gather in numbers, carrying tools like iron-bars and knuckle-dusters, as common as pulling your socks up, ending the feuds in graphic fashion. Even Leroy and Sketchy Bob would get involved. These were great memories from my youth, unlike others I unwelcomely carried around

  On the way to Kilgours, we passed a couple of rusted, burnt-out cars on different streets. This was also a common occurrence, usually a district feud or an insurance scam. This was the reason I did a bolt out of here when me and the wife decided to bring up a family. It was no place to bring up a child. Couldn't let your kids out to play on their own, it was just too dangerous, they could easily bump into a junkie, or be picked up by some paedo roaming around.

  During the day it was a sombre place, all the kids at school or skiving out of the area, so their parents didn't catch them standing in a corner puffing a joint or downing a can. Most of the adults were recovering from the night before, or the single moms struggling with life, many bringing up their kids from the inside rather than the outside.

  As we approached the gym, I saw that it too had seen some rough years. The outside, once so fresh, was now covered in weeds, with crap dumped all around. The walls of the stone-built gym, covered in graffiti, the windows and doors now with steel-shutters, protecting them from the hooligans and thieves. The cladding panels on the roof rattling loosely in the night wind, and the walls soaked with water streaming down from the broken guttering, the building badly needed repair.

  Tommy wouldn’t have been happy knowing his old place had turned into this.

  I followed Tim to the door and cautiously walked behind him, not knowing what to expect. Just inside the door, there was a compact changing-room on the left. The interior walls in my memory were brilliant white with hanging posters of famous boxers. Wooden, shining paneled flooring, a vending-machine for sugar snacks and cold drinks, bins for the rubbish. Now…it was dank, grey and stank badly with stale sweat and mould. No more shiny floor, but ruined with black rubber scuff marks from trainers and littered with empty water bottles.

  We nipped into the small changing-room and changed in the chilliness of the night. The room as damp, cold and sour as the rest of the building.

  “Just come through when you’re ready lad, and grab a rope.” Tim said, then quickly stomped off to the left and through to the gym room where I heard a few people skipping.

  The skipping was soon drowned out by someone turning the volume up on the stereo, blasting out some hard-core dance beat.

  The walk through to the main gym was down a small corridor with more litter strewn on the floor and kicked out of the way. That old aroma of stale sweat hit me like a ton of bricks, as soon as I entered the gym and with that, a bucket-load of memories raced through my head. I had missed this odour, as crazy as that sounds.

  The gym hadn’t seen much maintenance over the years. The four bags hanging in a square shape from blue painted steel beams had tears, rips and duct-tape wrapped round them to hide the holes. The mirrors around the room were hanging squint on the worn-out, once white, painted walls. Mouldy torn mats on the floor and the lights hanging from the roof with galvanised jack-chains badly in need of replacing. A real classy place this had turned into.

  Focusing my eyes on the hung ropes located at the front of the room to my right, I walked over and grabbed a rubbery plastic one, six men skipping and peering at me. They took a good fix at the fresh meat. It was the usual intimidating stare you get walking into a new gym for the first time, sizing you up wondering ‘Who the fuck is this?’

  You couldn’t help get the feeling you were a stranger walking into a Western saloon with your spurs spinning round.

  I took my place and started skipping at the front with my back to them. A cracked mirror in front of me, so I took the opportunity to glance at the men skipping behind me.

  A couple of real, big-muscled heavies were right at the back, but the rest of the men app
eared in good shape, even the couple who were nursing black eyes. Their eyes had that focused look in them, as they warmed up their bodies. I got the impression that they weren’t the chatty kind you’d share a cup of coffee with.

  The ring was still in the same place, an offset area of the gym to the left. Tim was talking to a couple of suspicious characters, deep in conversation. He paid particular attention to the older, pale, big-bellied one, who looked in his mid-forties maybe early fifties.

  Towering around the six three height, about a couple of inches taller than Tim, dressed in a longish leather coat and pair of scabby jeans with white trainers. Looking around a hundred and fifteen kilos, with his belly shaped like a bowling ball. He leaned arrogantly against the wall with his hands in his hip pockets. His patchy fair hair combed to the side to hide his receding hairline.

  The other character, the shorter of the two, was heavy-set, absorbing the conversation. Skin clay-coloured, almost Maori-like, gold hooped earring and heavily greased hair. As wide as he was tall. He stood barrel chested and arms out wide. Casually dressed in a badly matched tracksuit.

  While they spoke, everyone carried on skipping to a timer sounding every three minutes, with one-minute intervals.

  Tim finished talking, picked up a stopwatch from beside the stereo, switched off the automatic timer and hung the stopwatch round his long neck. “Right, another round, then we’ll get stuck into the circuit.”

  The circuit, I knew it well. Forty minutes of Hell. Move around the room, station-to-station in three minute rounds between thirty second breaks. Move between the four boxing bags, the speed ball, floor-to-ceiling ball, sit-up station, pull-up station and shadow boxing. This got the sweat up and wore you out. It was going to exhaust me being the first night back.

  No pain, no gain.

  “Right, have a break, five minutes before we get started. Wrap up!” Tim shouted from the front, standing beside the two suspicious characters as they both sat squashed on a weight bench, looking onto the room.

  I got my wraps and gloves out my bag, resting while wrapping my hands in front of one of the bags, still not breaking radio-silence with the rest of the boxers.

  Tim approached me. “How you coping, lad?”

  “Aye, am alright, like.”

  “Well, don’t go burning yourself out on the circuit, you’re no spring chicken now. You do remember what the circuit is?” Tim took a real professional approach to his job as trainer inside the gym. Pushing the men hard, giving them the motivation they needed. Not teaching any kind of technique, but really good at egging them on.

  “Of course I remember, you cheeky cunt.” Tim walked away, back to work.

  “OK chumps, circuits start on my shout. OK, on ye go!” He said, pushing the start button on his stopwatch.

  Beginning on the bag, I took it from there to move around the room from station-to-station, getting more exhausted with every round that passed, and was soon breathing out my arse.

  The sweat ran down through my hair and forehead like rainwater. That was only after twenty minutes. Tim was right, no spring chicken now.

  The other boxers in the room banged away like men possessed and didn’t look like putting the brakes on. Grunting and growling at every fist thrown at the bag. Thrashing the speed-ball and getting encouraging shouts from Tim and the big character that decided to join in on the coaching.

  He had a mean and arrogant attitude, yelling straight into a couple of guy’s faces as if it was as normal as the day was long. The circuit was surely coming to an end, I hoped. I needed a timeout.

  A couple of rounds later, shadow boxing around the middle of the floor, Tim finally calls out. “Time, boys. Roy and Chris, you two in the ring.” He nodded his head toward two guys.

  “Alright, boss.” One of them answered.

  Roy was a big man, the biggest of the boxers here. Six foot two, wearing a loose bodybuilder’s vest exposing his hairy chest, making his bald head look even larger than it was. Around thirty something and a body shaped like a Coke can. Looked more like a retired bodybuilder than a boxer if you ask me, but looks mean nothing in this game and judging how he hammered the bag, I think he knew his stuff.

  Chris on the other hand had a smaller frame, probably just under six foot but not nearly as chunky as Roy. In his late-twenties with a full head of black hair, toned muscles bursting through his light grey t-shirt. His calves, for fuck sake, were massive. Like Popeye’s arms, they were.

  They geared up, entered the ring, taking a corner each. Tim had the stopwatch, leaning over the top rope, waiting to start the clock.

  “Alright boys, you two ready?” Tim said as he gave them both a customary look like a referee would in a bout, and both replied with a grunt. “OK, I’ll start the clock, three minutes.”

  The two men came squaring up to each other in the centre of the ring, without the traditional headgear on for sparring. They started a raw-looking spar, throwing bombs to and fro as if it was a fight. It looked brutal from the start, no feeling-out process. It was straight to the point of trying to hurt one another.

  Roy stood his ground, letting Chris’s punches bounce off his rounded face and bald head with no second thought, or signaling of any pain to his brain.

  Standing his ground, his left foot in front of his right, staring menacingly into Chris's eyes with a fiendish grin, all his size used as intimidation.

  Chris was losing the so-called spar as time went past. With a couple of rounds done and dusted and into the third, he was getting pushed further and further back onto the ropes. Slouching onto them, cowering into a shell, hands tucked up by his head and elbows over his ribs as Roy’s true nature poured out. Bullying Chris into a corner, he was pounding away at him like he was a toy, eventually resulting in Chris taking a knee on the ground. The big burly character told him to get back up, without pity.

  Chris couldn't cope with Roy’s strength and aggressiveness. He weakened as every second passed. He wasn't as fit as Roy either, which did him no favours. “Get on your feet, boy!” This was a savage way to spar. My Dad’s preferred way to spar, brutal, so it would build up your resistance to pain.

  It turned out Chris had to take a few more knees in that last round. Looking battered, exhausted and lost, with no real desire to continue. At the same time, knowing he couldn’t stop, he just got on with it without searching for a way out.

  “Right you. Out you come, boy.” The burly character shouted at Chris from the opposite corner, flicking his head.

  Out he came between the ropes, bruised and dripping in sweat, strolling slowly over to the water-fountain at the entrance of the gym. The burly guy signaled over to Tim. Glancing over at me, they talked quietly and in secret.

  Tim then came over. “Mike wants you in for a couple rounds.”

  Chapter 8

  The Spar:

  “Really? On ma first night back?”

  “Aye, you’ll be fine. You’re made o’ that Tilly grit. Come on lad, just a couple rounds.”

  What the fuck, let’s give it a shot. What was the worst that could happen? Not as if a punch would kill me, although I was extremely skeptical about my ability between the ropes after so many years.

  Tim gave me a couple minutes to get kitted up with my gum-shield and headgear from the changing-room. Slotting the gum shield in after festering in my bag for so many years, it was fucking minging. Tasted like chewing a bit of grotty car tyre.

  Strolling back through to the ring, the nerves were churning around in my guts at the thought of getting hurt again. As I say, ‘It’s like going swimming, can’t go in the water without getting wet.’

  I feared I was about to get drenched.

  “No need for that thing in here.” Tim nodded at my old head-guard. Having witnessed that two men go at it like a pair of bears scrapping over a river salmon, no way was I going in there without it.

  “Think I’ll keep it on, if it’s all the same wi’ you, mate.”

  “Aye, nae bother. Here, slide
your paws inside these.” My hands forced themselves into a pair of worn out 14oz gloves. The inside padding round the curve mostly disappeared with Velcro hanging off the wrist and not offering to stick.

  “These are a bit past their sell-by date, are they no’?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re in need of some new ones, but you’ll have to make do. Listen, I know you’re knackered, but keep your chin down and your hands up. He’s a bully, and likes to dish it out.”

  I took his words on board, but really it wouldn’t help, I wasn't in any shape to stop him, being a good bit heftier than me and undoubtedly much fitter. I would just have to suck it up and get on with it.

  As my first foot touched down on the inside of the ropes, that nervous churn in my gut came, which I hadn’t experienced in years. “OK lads, you two ready, on you go.” Tim instructed.

  Fuck sake, what am I doing here? Time to roll back the years and get rid of the cobwebs.

  Roy and I veered forward to have customary touch of gloves and a glance in each other’s eyes before we started.

  His look, confident and assured. A stark contrast to the look of anxiety in mine. Everyone in the gym stared in our direction. Waiting to see what this piece of fresh meat was capable of.

  I stuck my head into my chest, hands up, hopping back and forth on my toes, left leg in front of the right, attempting to refresh my memory.

  Roy shadowed me, impatient with my movement around him. With every little step he edged his 110kg towards me and there it was, the pain. Hitting me with the standard jab, usually the first punch you would throw. It landed bang on my kisser, coiling my head back like a rag-doll, sending a shock-wave all the way from my head to my toe. Falling onto his hairy chest, I tucked my chin in. He didn’t like that, shoving me back with both gloves.