Fighting to the Death

by Carl Merritt

  Carole and me settled in Melbourne again and rented a trailer in a caravan park. We were happy and content. We went out everywhere together. She didn’t take her eyes off me for a minute. We had lots of nice new mates, and for a while life was sweet.

  Now, I don’t want my story to get predictable but if you cut to three months later I’m skint yet again. Surprise, surprise. There wasn’t as much building work around as I’d been led to believe and we lived the good life without really worrying about tomorrow. But this time our visa was about to run out so Carole and I decided we’d had enough of Oz and we’d head back to East London. I called my big bruv John up in LA and said we might be dropping in on him soon en route to England.

  Then I went and did it all over again: I rang Kenny. Now you may be asking why the hell did I do it when I knew he was a lying, thieving bastard, but if I told you I was hooked – and in need of money – would that make it any better?

  Kenny was naturally delighted. I could hear the dollar signs clicking as he spoke in that gentle lilting Irish voice of his. ‘As it happens, there’s a fight over here soon if you’re interested.’ I hesitated for the shortest split second of my life. Here we go again.

  Less than a week later we flew into LAX. John was at the airport to greet us with some bad news: Mum’s house in Forest Gate had burned down in a fire caused by an electrical fault. There was no insurance cover and everything was destroyed: if it wasn’t smoke-damaged it was burned to a crisp. But at least Mum, Lee and my kid brother Ian were unhurt.

  I wanted to forget the fight and head straight back to London but I’d already committed to Kenny and knew I’d never be able to fight again if I let him down. It would only delay our journey by forty-eight hours and then there was the money.

  Naturally, Carole was a bit suspicious about why I hadn’t wanted to get on the first flight home. She had a dig at me about it and that left me feeling very guilty. Then she started getting very tetchy with me. ‘Is there someone here you want to see?’ she asked me one morning after breakfast. ‘Have you got a girl here?’ I couldn’t tell her his name was Kenny and he was about to pay me to risk my life by walking into a cage with a homicidal maniac.

  ‘Come on, Carl. I wanna know or else there’s no point in us being married.’ Bloody hell, I thought to myself. She thinks I’ve got some bird tucked up here. What the hell am I going to do? The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Carole in this way. Nothing was worth that.

  That’s when it dawned on me I had no choice in the matter. I had to tell her the whole truth – well at least part of it. ‘I got something to tell you,’ I said. Carole naturally thought I was about to say I’d met someone and was doing a runner. When I told her I’d been offered a one-off prize fight, she sighed with relief because it wasn’t anywhere near as serious as she had feared. Of course I didn’t fill her in on the other fights for the moment.

  ‘We need the money, Carole,’ I added after explaining the situation.

  ‘Where d’you meet these kind of people in the first place?’ asked Carole.

  Good question. I backpedalled and decided to blame it on John. That’s what brothers are for, aren’t they? ‘It’s only a prize fight. Nothin’ dangerous, babe. Just a boxing match.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she snapped back, arms folded in a matronly manner. She eased up a bit when I told her that I’d earn thousands and it would help us start afresh in England. But women always know when something’s not right. They’ve got an instinct for the truth. I learned that with my mum and I knew that was the case with Carole. But I couldn’t tell her the full truth – not yet anyway.

  I’m just going to get through this one and then that’s it, I thought to myself. No more fights after this. As Carole would say, ‘Yeah, right.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Leaving Las Vegas

  Twenty-four hours later, big bruv John and I were flying to Vegas for a fight that Kenny assured me would be a walkover. This time, John was a lot calmer than at the previous fight in that LA parking lot. Kenny was at Vegas airport to meet us in a stretch limo. He said I was featuring in one of at least three fights. I hated Vegas from the first moment I clapped eyes on it. Lots of plastic, fake palm trees, fake tits, fake buildings, fake people. The whole place was a sham stuck in the middle of the desert to make sure it never got too near to civilization.

  The contest was located in a massive hall behind one of Vegas’s largest casinos. But I wasn’t really thinking about the fight at all. My mind was on my dear old mum back in East London, without a home or a brass farthing to her name after that fire. Hopefully I’d be able to bung her a few bob after this fight.

  I was also a bit concerned that Carole might up and run before I got back to LA. She was far from happy with what I’d been up to. Perhaps I should never have told her about the fight game in the first place?

  The stretch limo dropped us at the entrance to the hallway in a massive open-air car park and, when we walked in, it looked like yet another film set. The cage was brightly and carefully lit for maximum effect. Daggers of light bounced off the glistening mesh framework. There must have been at least 300 people milling around. Most of them were young, fat-cat yuppie types in expensive yet casual gear, dripping with Cartier and Rolexes.

  Me, John and Kenny sat back and watched the first two fights without anyone even sussing out I was one of the scrappers. The first bout was between a couple of good old-fashioned thumpers, but the second was like a lesson in kick boxing. It was slick but unconvincing – a bit like Las Vegas itself. I wasn’t impressed.

  I started warming up just before the end of the second fight. John was twitching so much, I snapped at him to cut it out because it was starting to make me feel like shit. I needed to psyche myself up. And I was far from focused on the job at hand.

  Then I spotted my opponent warming up on the other side of the cage. He was a big Mexican, much taller than that one back in LA, and he looked trim and fit. Then the compère announced over the PA system: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the London Limey, winner in LA recently, versus the winner of four straight Vegas fights. This promises to be one helluva battle.’

  London Limey, who thought that one up? I was irritated because I’d told Kenny to cut out the nicknames during the last battle in LA. I still didn’t like the crowd knowing where I was from because that might help give away my true identity.

  Opposite me, the fit Mexican was trying to wind me up. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. I tried my hardest to give him a cold, hard stare back but I didn’t really have my heart in it. I just wasn’t all there. I wanted to be back in East London, helping out my family.

  As soon as I climbed into the cage that afternoon, I went straight for my opponent. Get it over quickly, I kept thinking to myself. It’s gotta be the only way. It was a complete disaster; I ran straight into a flurry of punches and kicks that demolished me in a matter of seconds.

  For the second time in my career as an illegal fighter, my world went black. I was out cold. Sparko. Finito. End of contest. Not even half a minute had passed.

  I was just starting to come round when my seriously blurred vision caught sight of a towel being thrown into the cage. I got to my hands and knees. Then I stopped and collapsed back on the floor, head in hands. It was all over virtually before it had begun. Luckily for me my opponent didn’t finish me off with his feet.

  Kenny’s two hefty British minders and my brother John dragged me out of the cage like a piece of dead meat. ‘Don’t worry, bruv. You’ll be alright,’ said John, but he didn’t sound very convincing. Just then I heard Kenny’s voice: ‘Get him in the limo and straight to the airport.’

  The purse for that pasting was a measly $2500. It wasn’t worth a cent of it. I couldn’t even afford to give John any dough and if it hadn’t been for him I’m not sure we’d have got out of there in one piece.

  He virtually carried me through Vegas airport and onto the plane. No one else would have shown such loving care and attention –
certainly not Kenny. Once on board that plane, I had only one thing on my mind: Carole. ‘She’s gonna kill me, John. My marriage is finished. She’ll never forgive me. Please get me home, big bruv.’

  We got a taxi from LAX to John’s apartment in Santa Monica. I’d just about pulled myself together as I hobbled through the front door, my face blown up like a pineapple, complete with two crimson shiners.

  Carole flung her arms around me and burst into floods of tears. I felt like shit. I’d nearly lost my life out there. ‘Let’s get home, babe,’ I muttered into her ear as we stood there in the hallway hugging for at least ten minutes. Two days later we touched down at Heathrow.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Low Profile

  From 1991 to 1993 I steered totally clear of the cage by getting plenty of work in the building game. I’d promised Carole after that disastrous last bout in Vegas that I’d never do it again. Naturally, Carole kept a close eye on me at all times in case I got tempted. But our main priority was to start a family.

  Not that it was easy adjusting back to East London. We spent the first year after our return living with Carole’s mum because our flat was rented out and we needed the income in order to survive. The following year we moved in with my mum, which was quite tricky for Carole. But we got through it in the end – although sometimes we found ourselves under a lot of heavy pressure because of the obvious domestic complications.

  I’d made a promise to Carole and I wanted to stick to it. Never again. No more fighting. Carole was working as a receptionist and, together, we just managed to scrape through. Truth is, I was terrified of losing her. I’d have crumbled if Carole wasn’t around. She remained the single most important thing to ever happen in my life.

  Around this time I even ended up employing my old man when I was foreman on a building job in Finborough Road, West London. He didn’t like taking orders from me. One time me and a couple of the lads nailed his boots to the floor as a joke. He wasn’t happy about that either. Another time we gave him a pie that was so piping hot he dropped it on the floor. I suppose those sort of pranks were my way of letting him know I thought he wasn’t much of a dad.

  But when the old man found out about the cage fighting he had a right go at me, which at least seemed to prove he cared. ‘Are you mad, Son?’ he asked.

  But then, typical of the old man, he went and asked me if I could get him into one of the fights. No doubt he wanted to gamble a few bob – and I’m not sure he’d have put his money on me, either! Anyway, he never did get in to see me fight and I’m glad about that.

  Back in East London my special services continued to be called upon. One of my mum’s neighbours was being terrorised by some youths on her estate. This woman had a daughter called Sue who’d been going out with a fella. They’d had a baby and the baby had then died from a hole in the heart, so they were going through a bit of a rough patch. This fella was on drugs, threatened the mother-in-law with a knife and then moved a couple of his mates into the flat. They wouldn’t leave and the mother didn’t want to involve the cozzers because these fellas were a bit stir crazy. So she asked me to sort out her problem.

  I went round to the flat with a pal and knocked on the door. We didn’t tell them the real reason why we were there at first but we pretended that one of them had upset me by going round saying bad things on the manor about me. I wasn’t going to burst into the flat because then the Old Bill might get involved if a neighbour called them. If it was out on the street I had got half a chance of getting away, whereas if I was inside the flat creating havoc they could corner me and do me. The fellas came steaming out and tried to have a dig at us so we launched ourselves at them. We gave them a right seeing to and warned them that if we saw them around the area we’d kill them.

  It worked and they didn’t come back to the flat anymore. Sue, the ex-girlfriend then rubbed it in a bit more, telling them I was a psycho and I’d come round and kill ‘em if I ever saw them again. I heard they left the manor that day and never returned.

  Just a few days later I came to the rescue of yet another local damsel in distress. I was at my mum’s house when the front doorbell went and I opened it to find Karen, a teenage friend of Carole’s, standing there with a tiny baby in her arms. She was sobbing. ‘He’s smashing the house up, Carl, please come quick.’ Then I noticed the bruising round her cheek-bone and a tiny speck of blood on her upper lip. Say no more.

  I waved her into our house and tried to calm her down while finding out exactly what had happened. Then I headed off to her house just round the corner. As I strode up the path, the front door to her maisonette was wide open so I walked straight in.

  ‘Hello. Anyone in?’

  ‘Who the fuck’re you?’ came a voice out of the darkness.

  ‘I’m Karen’s friend.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Just then, someone loomed out of the pitch black into full view. Then he grabbed a chair and threw it against the wall and started kicking in the telly. I moved in fast.

  He next pulled a kitchen knife off a sideboard by the telly and started waving it in my direction. Seeing that knife glinting in the light made me completely lose it. I picked up a chair and hurled it right at him and hit my target. He fell to the ground and I jumped on him. He still had the knife in his right hand.

  I sat on his chest with one hand holding his wrist down with the knife still grasped in his palm. Then I began smashing him in the face with my favourite left hook.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said with a punch.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said with another punch.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said with a third punch.

  ‘Get off me. I’ll kill ya!’ he screamed. Not a good response on his part.

  He left me no choice but to then whack him really hard. I caught him at least another half a dozen times with a flurry of punches. On the fifth hit, he went out like a light. I dragged him out of the house by his hair. Then he started coming round.

  Meanwhile Carole and Karen had appeared on the pathway. ‘Don’t kill him, Carl. Please don’t kill him,’ pleaded Karen.

  ‘He’ll live.’

  Then I told Carole to go home while Karen waited with me.

  I hauled this prat to his feet and dragged him back into the maisonette where I sat him down on one of the few remaining chairs.

  ‘How did all this start?’ I asked him.

  ‘She nicked my money.’

  By now Karen was in floods of tears and so was her baby: it was bedlam. And then he started yelling again.

  ‘Stop shoutin’!’ I ordered. He went quiet.

  Then I asked Karen if she still wanted to stay in the flat.

  ‘I love him.’

  ‘What? Even though he’s just hit you?’ I asked.

  Then he chipped in: ‘She nicked my money and she deserved a slap.’

  ‘Shut it,’ I barked.

  ‘But she nicked my money …’

  ‘You don’t hit a woman for any reason,’ I growled, thinking back to my own experiences with my dad and that bastard Terry.

  ‘If I hear you’ve done this ever again, I’ll be back to sort you out.’

  I heard that the day after my visit to their flat he found the money he thought she’d nicked down the back of an armchair. I even popped round and helped repair their front door. But I did that for Karen, not him.

  Amazingly, they did sort themselves out and they’re still together to this day. Sometimes I bump into that bloke in my local and he always tries to buy me a bevy, but I’ve never accepted one because I don’t drink with wife-beaters.

  * * *

  In the midst of all this, Uncle Pete, who was now based back in England, helped me get some work doing security for the Rolling Stones, for their UK-based tours. I was even offered the chance of touring with the Stones in Japan but I didn’t want to be apart from Carole for three months so I turned that down. At all big UK concerts, there’s a pit area between the rock stars and the audience. I was one of the security men
responsible for stopping the fans getting on the stage. Naturally, there were lots of birds after the Stones. They’d be constantly asking for backstage passes and some even offered their bodies for it – ridiculous, ain’t it?

  When the Stones came on, the noise was always out of this world, beyond deafening. Whole mobs of women tried to climb the barriers and we had to grab ‘em and then throw ‘em out of the arena. There were fights galore and I got lots of scratches but I never used my brute strength on a female. One time I had a tear-up with another minder because he knocked out some poor lady. It was out of order and he had to be taught a lesson.

  Uncle Pete also once got me work at a David Bowie concert. There, we got virtually drowned in women’s panties – there were so many, we had to kick them out of the way. The smell of pot was also lethal and I’ve no doubt many of those women were off their heads on something a lot stronger as well. I even came across a few nutty blokes who were I suppose what you’d call gay stalkers. Other women would stuff notes into my pocket, which they wanted me to pass to Bowie. Some of the things they promised in the letters would make your hair stand on end!

  I also did the security at two hotel parties after Stones concerts. My main job was to keep journos out. One time these two really gorgeous-looking girls tried to soften me up but I knew what they were up to and told them to take a hike.

  Probably the heaviest minding job I ever had was to protect a NatWest Bank executive whose family had been threatened with kidnapping. They lived in Southwark and I had to stick by them virtually every minute of the day and night. Luckily no one ever made a grab for them.

  The strangest job assignment I ever had was when I escorted this Russian Mafia type around London. He never once said a word to me over the space of five days. He’d just hand me a piece of paper with an address and off we’d go in the rented limo. A lot of his meetings were in Holiday Inns around London. One time I even had to drive him into one of the roughest parts of the East End and I was amazed because the British crims he met turned out to speak Russian! Later on at that meeting it all got very heated and a couple of shooters were pulled out on the Russian, who then hotfooted it back to the car before we headed straight to Heathrow. I never saw him again but I heard later he copped a couple of bullets on the streets of Moscow.