Fighting to the Death

by Carl Merritt

  Then I straightened up and went after him, quickly connecting with a handful of punches, but they didn’t seem to have much effect on him. The sheer determination of this character was awesome. Everything I threw at him literally bounced off his upper body. Then he came back at me relentlessly. He was soon playing with me just to entertain the crowd. I tried to duck his firepower to give myself enough time to regain my composure but he wouldn’t give me an inch.

  From just outside the cage I heard Neville screaming: ‘Move! Move! For fuck’s sake move!’

  But by this time I wasn’t much better than a statue. My vision was badly blurred. My stomach was cramped. And he kept coming back and hitting me precisely on target. I was walking into his punches. My brain had slowed down and I was starting to lose all sense of co-ordination. I needed to pull something out of the bag but my nut was so scrambled my thoughts wouldn’t connect to my fists. Just then he connected with a mighty right to my neck and my world went black.

  Next thing I remember was coming round in the back of Wayne’s rusting old purple Capri as we drove to Whipp’s Cross Hospital at high speed. They later told me they thought I was about to peg it. I had no memory of anything after my opponent’s right fist connected with my Adam’s apple. Wayne and Neville also informed me that Bill had hot-footed it seconds after the end of the bout. Nice to know he cared so much about his so-called ‘prized’ fighter.

  I was in a bad way that night in the back of the Capri. I couldn’t move either of my arms and I was slumped up against the rear window, unable to sit up straight. My head was so swollen I looked like the elephant man. After I was checked into the hospital, I found out that my nose was busted. My ear drums were bleeding, My throat was so badly swollen by my enlarged Adam’s apple that I could barely breathe. I knew my jaw was fractured. My eyes were cut and so badly puffed I could only make out the shadows of objects. My knuckles were broken, mainly because I kept missing him and smashing my fists into the wall of the cage. I had badly bruised ribs. My collar bone was fractured. Even my shins were bruised and battered.

  Neville later said that my opponent had jumped all over me after I’d gone down. This was fair enough as I’d have done the same thing to him. But both Neville and Wayne thought he was out to kill me. Apparently, Bill then threw the towel in the cage, but this psycho just carried on trying to finish me off. He got a final; brutal kick to my head before being pulled off me by Neville and Wayne. They knocked him out in half a minute between them. Then they rushed back into the cage and dragged me to safety.

  Back at the Whipp’s Cross Hospital, Neville made out to the medics they’d found me in the street and brought me in. They said they thought I’d been beaten up in a pub brawl and claimed they’d never met me before in their lives. I was just coming round for the second time when the Old Bill turned up. My arm was strapped up. I had stitching around the eyes. As one of the coppers said, ‘You look like you been hit by a train, son.’

  Naturally, the law wanted to know what had happened. But they didn’t push me too hard on the matter because they knew I wouldn’t tell ‘em much. When the doctors gave me a head scan they spotted that plastic plate from the iron bar attack which had ruined my boxing career. They knew I was a scrapper. But I was more worried about the bed baths the nurses gave me twice a day!

  The docs did a great job bending my three bottom front teeth back into place. They were hanging out of their sockets. Then they stitched up the inside of my mouth. It was bloody painful.

  I ended up spending three days in hospital. A really sweet nurse took pity on me and phoned Carole and my mum to tell them where I was. I asked her to tell them I’d been in an accident. I could barely speak a word when Carole showed up at the hospital with Mum, who waited outside while Carole came in first. I told her I’d got into a fight outside the club where I worked the door. But I could see in her eyes that she didn’t fully believe me.

  Funny thing is that Carole didn’t push me on what really happened. That’s just not her style. Instead, she gave me a hug and made it clear she was just relieved I was still in one piece. Then she burst into tears on my shoulder. It hurt like hell when she leaned on me but I didn’t care. I was just glad to have her there. I had to stop the fight game before it drove a wedge between us. I didn’t want to risk losing Carole for ever.

  Then Mum came in and was soon sobbing her eyes out. How could I do this to the two most important people in my life? Was I sick in the head to think I could get away with it all? ‘My baby. My baby,’Mum kept sobbing over and over. I felt terrible putting them through all this.

  The next day Bill turned up at my bedside to bung me my £1800 loser’s fee. I’d have copped £6000 if I’d won. He asked me why I thought I’d lost. ‘I dunno,’ I replied through my broken teeth and torn-up mouth. I just wanted him to fuck off and leave me alone.

  Bill tried to act like he cared. Then he went and ruined it by asking me to call him in a couple of weeks’ time. The last thing on my mind was a return to the cage. I just turned over and pretended I’d fallen asleep so that he’d leave me in peace.

  As soon as I got home from hospital, Carole and me started rowing really badly. Looking back on it, she had every right to be so pissed off with me. She knew I was up to no good but I wouldn’t tell her the truth.

  Carole begged me to give up the door work and I promised I would. But I didn’t really know if I could stick to that promise. ‘Everything’ll be alright. You’ll see. I’ll change. I promise I will,’ I told her. But I wasn’t sure if I meant every word of it.

  We had a quiet Christmas that year. Carole went everywhere with me. She was paranoid I’d head off back up west to the ‘club’ where I’d got my last beating. How could I treat her like this?

  About a month or so after I got out of hospital, Bill called up and insisted I bring Carole to a dinner dance he was organising at the Room At The Top club, in Ilford. There were tables with set places and more than half the crowd were in dicky bows and black dinner jackets. We were on a table with a number of old-time faces, including a friendly Irish bloke called Kenny. He homed in on me almost immediately after I sat down.

  Kenny was at least six feet tall, and very thin with shoulder-length hair cut like Kevin Keegan’s when he was at Liverpool and FC Hamburg. He must have been in his late forties with sharp, chiselled features and brown eyes. He walked with a limp and had on lots of jewellery, bracelets and gold chains. He had absolutely no style and looked like a seventies fashion victim. His soft Irish accent made you think he was a laid-back kind of fella, but a nasty one-inch scar on his chin seemed to tell another story.

  Kenny told me he sold used cars.

  ‘Bill says you’ve done a lot of jobs with him,’ he said, right in front of Carole, who was earwigging every word of our conversation.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, conscious that Carole was close by. ‘But I’ve given all that up now:’

  ‘Let’s have a chat later at the bar,’ muttered Kenny, more out of Carole’s range.

  A couple of hours later – after the speeches and the dinner were over – this fella Kenny appeared alongside me at the bar as promised. And he came straight to the point.

  ‘I’ve got a proposition,’ he said in his soft Irish brogue. ‘More money than you could imagine.’

  ‘Not interested,’ I snapped back with a dry smile.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Abso-fuckin-lootly.’

  ‘It’s a very special job in Vegas.’

  ‘I said no way.’

  ‘Well, if you ever go Stateside, let me know.’

  And I meant it at that moment. I had no intention of losing Carole or my life. The fight game was over. The risks were too high. I’d almost died barely a month earlier. I reckoned it was a sign from above, to get out while I still had my life intact. I turned and walked from Kenny straight back to Carole at the table. She’d hated every minute of the dinner dance. It just wasn’t her scene being stuck on a table, talking to a bunch of gangster
s’ molls. I also knew she’d sensed my unhappiness. A few minutes later we got up and said our goodbyes. But just as I shook Kenny’s hand he slipped a card into my palm. I said nothing.

  On the way out Carole asked me: ‘What was that all about with that bloke Kenny?’

  ‘Just a work thing, babe.’

  What sort of work?’

  ‘Buildin’ stuff.’

  I’m sure she didn’t believe a word I was saying.

  Within weeks of meeting Kenny, another familiar problem appeared on the horizon: I was skint yet again. The recession was kicking into gear and work in the building trade was getting harder and harder to come by. But I’d made my decision not to fight and for the moment I had to stick to that.

  Then me and Carole decided that perhaps we’d head out to Australia where Carole had some old school friends. We were both worried about our cash-flow problem. Heading for a new life might be the answer, although I’d naturally miss my family. I’d heard it wasn’t that hard to get building work there, and anything was better than rotting away in East London.

  I even suggested to Carole that we pop into Los Angeles on the way and see my older bruv, John, who’d moved out there a couple of years earlier. In the back of my mind were Kenny’s words at that dinner dance. ‘If you’re ever in America, Son, give me a call.’

  Back in East London my reputation as a hardnut was well known. One woman approached me in my local boozer and asked me to kill her husband – I laughed at her because that’s just not my game – but if he ever turns up dead in the near future I’ll certainly know who paid for it! I’ve also solved a few domestic disputes when blokes have been hitting their girlfriends or wives.

  And then there’s the scourge of our society: drugs. One lady neighbour of my mum’s came knocking on her door when I was round for Sunday lunch one time. She was in a right state, tears rolling down her cheeks. She said a bunch of local crack dealers had moved into an empty council house round the corner and her fourteen-year-old boy had been hanging round with them and was now hooked on crack. Fourteen years old – that’s totally out of order. The lady says that her boy’s now so addicted to crack that he’s out thieving to pay for his habit and she’s scared he’ll end up inside if he’s not careful. Only the previous day this kid had nicked his own mum’s telly to get enough money for drugs.

  ‘I don’t want you to hurt him but can you sort it out, please?’ she asked me.

  ‘I’ll give it a go,’ I replied. Mum looked on proudly because she knew that I’d get it sorted.

  I really felt for this poor lady. She was worried out of her mind and no-one deserves that sort of stress in their lives. She’d been friends with Mum for years and we both knew exactly what she was going through.

  That night I got hold of a couple of mates and we headed round to the crack den. Two of us made out we were trying to score drugs when we knocked on the door.

  ‘Any chance of some gear?’ I asked through the door to a bloke with an African accent.

  ‘Only one can come in,’ was the reply.

  As the door opened, I threw one of my finest left-handers and he went down like a sack of dog shit. I walked over his body and then we walked half way up the stairs to where we could hear more people on the first floor. Then I stopped and went back and grabbed the semi-conscious ‘doorman’, stood him up and put him in front of us as a shield in case the others were armed, which is often the case. ‘Come on you fucker,’ I said to the doorman. ‘We’re goin’ upstairs.’

  They must have heard us because two younger blokes – one white and one black – came out of a door on the first floor and appeared at the top of the stairs. I shoved the doorman right in their path and produced the bats me and my mate had been carrying as weapons. It didn’t take them long to get the message. ‘We don’t want to see you lot round these parts no more. Scram!’ None of them said a word.

  ‘If I see you again I’ll kill you. This is just a taste of what’s to come. Comprendo?’

  I could see from the looks on their faces that they were scared shitless. We turned and walked out. Then I went to look for that fourteen-year-old boy back at his mum’s house round the corner.

  ‘Is he in?’ I asked her when she answered the door.

  ‘Yeah, come in.’

  ‘I need to tell him what’s happened to his mates.’

  The kid was in the front room watching TV – his mum had bought a new one on the HP. He had no idea who I was. I told him what I’d just done to the dealers and what I’d do to him if he ever thieved off his mum again. ‘Now empty your pockets,’ I ordered.

  He pulled out £50 in cash. He’d obviously nicked something earlier that day and was planning another visit to the crack den. By now he was shaking like a leaf. I raised my voice even louder and looked really angrily at him. Then I switched to my most menacing look. It was the only way to deal with him. ‘That shit’ll kill you. You’ll end up like all the other silly fuckers round here – dead in the gutter. Do you hear me?’

  The kid nodded his head so hard I thought it’d snap off at the hinges. Then he burst into tears. Next door his mum was crying in the kitchen. It was a very sad sight. But it had to be done.

  I just kept saying over and over, ‘Are you listenin’ to what I’m sayin’?’

  He nodded.

  ‘D’you love your mum?’ He nodded again.

  ‘Well, now you gotta prove it.’

  I left them both cuddling in the kitchen. I’d done my bit. I could hear them still crying as I quietly closed their front door behind me. He was saying to her over and over, ‘I do love you, Mum, I do love you, Mum, I do love you, Mum.’

  A couple of days later, the same woman came knocking on Mum’s door again. ‘He’s been good. He’s got himself a paper round,’ she told us. She leant up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’ That was it. There was no need to ever talk about it again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kenny in the Middle

  I knew it was a crazy move, but I picked up the phone and called Kenny a few days later. I told him all about our plans to go abroad and how we were popping into LA on the way through to Australia.

  ‘So what sort of money we talkin’ about?’ I asked.

  ‘A lot,’ answered Kenny.

  Anything that would keep us going while we settled in Oz was worth a punt.

  I met Kenny a few days later in a pub on Soho Square in the West End. I remember it well because I didn’t often go up west and I had a hell of a time finding it! When I arrived at the boozer a few minutes late, Kenny was sitting at a corner table, sipping a gin and tonic with a mate he told to get lost when I sat down next to him.

  Kenny then asked me my travel plans all over again. I repeated that Carole and me were dropping in on my brother in LA and then heading out to Australia.

  ‘That could work very well for me,’ said Kenny in his soft Irish voice. ‘I know some promoters in the States and Australia.’

  ‘What?’ I asked quizzically. ‘They do that kinda thing out there, too?’

  ‘Where d’you think the cage came from in the first place?’ asked Kenny.

  Then he gave me a new phone number and told me to call him when I’d firmed up my travel plans. I felt a twinge of guilt as I left the pub that evening, but we needed the extra money if we were going to start a new life in a foreign land.

  Carole and I flew British Airways to LA a couple of weeks later. We stayed with my brother John and his wife Michelle at their apartment in Santa Monica, right slap bang alongside the Pacific Ocean. John’s a good-looking, slim fella with dark hair and brown eyes like our mum’s. He’s football mad and very boisterous. He also loves a good laugh and always seems happy. I was well jealous of my bruv’s life out there in the sunshine. Everything in LA seemed half the price it was back in London. It was the sort of life I hoped we’d find in Australia.

  After a couple of days, I bowed to temptation and called the phone number in nearby Venice Beach that had been given to
me by Kenny just before we left England. He answered on the second ring. It was almost as if he’d been sitting by the phone waiting for me to call.

  Kenny sounded cool as a cucumber and totally up for getting me a fight. We arranged a meet for later that day. I put the phone down, feeling a mixture of fear, guilt and outright excitement. But this time I decided I had to stop bottling it all up, otherwise I’d end up making the sort of mistakes that could cost me my life.

  So as me and my bruv breezed down Wilshire Boulevard in his old Cadillac convertible, I said to him, ‘I’m not here just to see you. I’ve got a money spinner on the go. Could be a good earner for you. But we can’t tell the girls.’

  John laughed. ‘What you gonna do, Carl? Rob a bank?’

  ‘It’ll all come clear when we go and see this mate of mine called Kenny.’

  I wanted John to be my trainer and come with me everywhere. I also needed him to provide my alibi to Carole and Michelle. That night, before meeting Kenny, we told them we were going for a beer. It was the perfect excuse. The first of many.

  We met Kenny in a small bar on Muscle Beach, Venice, where all the weight-lifters flash their torsos in a couple of open-air gyms. Kenny said the fight would be in an LA car-park – or parking lot as they call them out there. He also said the fight was booked up for two nights’ time. I had to make the decision there and then. I went for it.

  After saying our farewells to Kenny, me and John retired to an English-run bar in nearby Santa Monica and I told him everything about the previous fights; about Bill; about the fella who died; about the Irish bloke who got roasted; and of course about the docklands opponent who nearly killed me. At the end of it John said to me: ‘You must be fuckin’ mad.’