Fighting to the Death

by Carl Merritt

  ‘Kill him!’

  ‘Put that asshole outta his misery.’

  The shouts from the crowd encouraged a red mist to descend in front of my eyes. I was on a roll of vengeance but it wasn’t really this fighter I was after. I paused for a moment and he caught me with a decent right-hander to my face. I jerked back in response. He then got me with a strong flurry of stinging punches. They were good-quality stabs that wiped out my surge of confidence.

  I knew I had to become even stronger. How dare he try to get back into the fight? I had to make him pay. So I moved in for a full-scale attack, headbutting him twice and then hitting him with a flurry of punches to his body. He legs were buckling so I pulled him towards me and caught him with a steamroller left to the back of his neck. At least two more bone-crunching headbutts followed in quick succession. Then I caught him with both fists, one after the other, snap, snap. He fell backwards and crashed low against the wire mesh wall of the cage. Then I laid in with a high left-sided kick to the head. My blind rage was in overdrive. I was like a runaway tank, ripping up all in my path. Some people in the audience were screaming for me to stop but I didn’t care.

  Then my opponent began struggling to his feet once again. Seeing him wobbling on his pins helped me regain some composure and, blinking, I felt my sanity return. I caught him with two huge sledgehammer knocks to the body and face. His legs shook like jelly again and he crashed to the floor. I looked across at Bill and Kenny and grinned, exposing my black gumshield. They looked far from happy.

  Truth is I had no real truck with this other fighter. I wanted to teach those two greedy bastards the biggest lesson of their scumbag lives. My primary aim had always been to hit Bill and Kenny where it would hurt them most – in their wallets.

  With my opponent half kneeling in front of me, I sent in a flurry of vicious kicks that hit their target with crunching efficiency. He crumpled to the floor. I looked down at him. He was clearly out cold. Then I leaned down and put my hand in his mouth and tried to pull him up by the teeth. He was about as useful as a sack of dead squirrels. So I turned and looked into the crowd. They’d switched sides and were cheering their socks off for me. It was pretty decent considering I’d just cost them a bundle. And it was a magical feeling, I can tell you. I bowed to the audience just as a water bottle was thrown into the cage. It was all over. His team had thrown in the towel.

  But I had just one more bit of business to attend to.

  The two English minders snapped open the bolt of the door to the cage and I scrambled out. My opponent was still out cold and two men, one of whom looked like a doctor, were leaning over him. I was still buzzing with pent-up energy as I walked through the cheering crowds towards the car park where the limo was waiting. I’d proved myself right and had shown a lot of people they were wrong to take me for a fool.

  Bill and Kenny were leaning against the limo with serious expressions on their faces as I arrived. ‘Well done,’ both of them said quickly at exactly the same time.

  ‘Where’s my dough?’ I snapped at them, enjoying every minute of their obvious discomfort.

  ‘It’s in the motor,’ said Kenny, whose ever-present smile had finally been wiped from his face.

  I clambered into the stretch with Bill, Kenny and the two English minders. As we drove to the airport you could have heard a pin drop, the silence was so overwhelming.

  After a couple of minutes, Kenny handed me an envelope. I looked up and caught Bill’s expression. He looked terrible. ‘Thanks,’ I said. I didn’t bother counting the money at the time but it turned out to contain $50,000 – the £32,000 fee I’d been promised, in dollars. Neither Bill nor Kenny said another word on the journey along the Vegas strip, not even when a hooker in a white leather mini-skirt tried to lean into our limo and offer her services at a red light. Then Kenny pulled a bottle of Bourbon out of the minibar between the seats. He poured out three glasses and handed me one. ‘No thanks,’ I said merrily. ‘I hate the stuff.’ Kenny looked at Bill, sighed, and at that moment they at last knew they’d been had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Nil By Mouth

  The limo that picked me up at LAX dropped me around the corner from my brother John’s apartment in Santa Monica because I didn’t want Bill and Kenny knowing exactly where he lived. When I finally rolled into the apartment in the early hours, John was still waiting up for me.

  ‘I did it, John. I fuckin’ did it!’ I hugged him. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘You should have seen the look on those bastards’ faces when they realised they’d been had. It was sweet, mate. Fuckin’ sweet.’

  John told me that Carole and Michelle had drunk so much to calm their nerves, they’d ended up crashing a couple of hours earlier. I had a bloody nose, a sore mouth and two shiners, so John helped clean me up a bit. We sat there swigging back a few beers and had a good chat about old and new times while I soaked my red-raw knuckles in a bucket of ice.

  The sun was coming up before I finally made my way towards the bedroom. Carole was fast asleep, with baby Melanie next to her in the crib. I got into the bed and just lay there staring at Carole for what seemed like hours. I’ll never leave you again, I thought to myself. Never.

  I woke up later that day at lunchtime to find Carole gently dabbing at my swollen face with an ice-cold flannel. I smiled at her and was about to say how sorry I was when she beat me to it: ‘It’s good to have you back.’

  Then Carole kissed me and added: ‘I didn’t think you’d be clever enough to pull it off, babes.’

  ‘Is that it?’ I asked, expecting a flood of tears and anger over what had happened.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Carole simply.

  I gave her the envelope containing the cash. A couple of days later we set off for London. Before we boarded the plane, John made me promise in front of Carole that I would never fight again. I agreed and we hugged John goodbye. It really was over this time.

  We used a lot of that money on a deposit for a decent house rather than the shoebox we’d been living in. I also took two months off in order to rethink our lives. It was a good decision because we sorted out a lot of things in that time.

  About five or six months later an invitation turned up in the post for me and Carole to go to a dinner dance. It was from Kenny. Carole didn’t want me to go, but I told her I wanted to attend ‘just for a laugh’.

  She didn’t see the joke. ‘You’ll just go and get yourself into more trouble. What’s the point in upsetting those sort of people?’

  ‘I gotta go,’ I replied. ‘There’s no way I’ll go back to fighting. I promise. On the baby’s life.’ And I really did mean it this time.

  Neville and Wayne turned out to be at Kenny’s dinner dance, held at a function hall in a back street of Ilford. Everyone was wearing dinner jackets except for me, in a black leather bomber jacket. Why should I care? In any case, I didn’t plan to stay long. Wayne and Neville laughed when they saw me walk in. They also grinned when I said I’d given up the fight game.

  ‘Bet you still got the bug,’ said Wayne.

  ‘No way.’

  Just then Bill waved me over to his table. He was with Kenny and a bunch of brassy-looking blondes who couldn’t have been their wives.

  ‘How’s life?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Excellent,’ I replied.

  ‘Might have somethin’ I could put your way,’ said Bill.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ I said before turning away from them. ‘It’s over.’

  As I strolled out, Bill and Kenny were looking right at me, no doubt hoping another mug like me might come along one day.

  A few months later I called up Bill: He must have thought I’d changed my mind and was coming out of retirement. All I wanted was a video tape of a fight to show the makers of the film Shiner, which I was working on as fight adviser. Bill was far from happy. ‘No way, Carl,’ he responded. ‘But if y
ou’re after a “job” …’

  ‘Leave it out, Bill,’ I said, putting the receiver down without even bothering to say goodbye. If you live by the sword you eventually die by it, or so they say.

  Working on a film was interesting, but it was only short-term and I was soon back in the building game, which, thanks to another property boom, was very busy.

  On 22 November 1998, our second daughter Jaime was born. That sealed my decision not to fight 150 per cent. My family really had taken first place from the moment I’d won that bout in Vegas.

  I suppose the cage was in many ways a reflection of my life because I often seemed to be trapped, whether it was by Bill and Kenny, or by that bastard who ended my legit boxing career, or by my childhood ruined by Dad doing a runner and that bully Terry making my life a misery.

  Just after I quit the game for good, I saw a brilliant film called Nil By Mouth, directed and written by actor Gary Oldman, and starring that diamond geezer Ray Winstone. I’ve never cried so much at a movie because it brought so many unhappy memories pouring back to me. I later heard that the film was based on Oldman’s life as a kid in London. It featured the same sort of domestic chaos that dominated my childhood. At least I’d managed to escape the abuse, thanks to Carole, my mum, my kids and my brute strength.

  But I’d so nearly lost it all. Everything ended up centring on that last fight. It was the ultimate gamble that could have cost me my life and my family. And now I hoped I would never put them through that ever again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Big Easy

  For four long years I kept out of bovver and avoided all the old haunts. I really liked the peaceful life at home with Carole and the girls. The nearest I came to a punch up was when some fella cut me up at the traffic lights. It was a good feeling not to be looking over my shoulder all the time and I was desperate to keep it that way for the rest of my life.

  The first edition of this book had come out and I’d made a few bob out of it, so life was pretty sweet. But I knew it would never last that long.

  Then in the winter of 2004/2005 the building game started drying up a bit and I began getting twitchy about how I was going to pull in enough cash to provide for my family. I guess that’s the way it goes with most people. You hit a dry patch and you start really stressing out about how you’re going to pay the bills and stuff like that. My priority was – and always will be – Carole and the kids.

  One day in late spring 2005, I was out on a rare building job over in the East End when I met this fella called Dan who’d I’d known back in my cage fighting days. He’d been quite a tasty scrapper himself as it happens. Dan was a decent fellow. Not flash or outwardly hard but he could certainly pack a mean punch when required. Dan and I had also worked the doors at a couple of nightclubs together so he knew all about me and my dangerous old habits. Anyway, one day he asked me out of the blue if I was still up for a scrap, although he did it in a very clever, roundabout sort of way.

  ‘How’s the money situation goin’ at the moment, son?’

  I knew what he was on about before he’d finished the sentence.

  ‘I’m always on the lookout for a decent earner,’ I answered, watching a Cheshire-cat grin come over his face as I talked.

  Next thing I know he’s saying, ‘I know this fella in Dagenham who read yer book and he reckons he could ‘ave ya.’

  I always wondered how long it’d take for some Big Mouth to get wound up by my book. There’s still a lot of so-called hard nuts out there who reckon they could take on the entire SAS and beat ‘em.

  Then Dan chipped in, ‘He’s no youngster but he’s got a bit of form.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘So?’

  ‘And he’s from Spain,’ added Dan, as if I was supposed to be impressed. Dan then explained he’d beaten one of this bloke’s cousins in a scrap, which was how he came to meet him in the first place.

  Meanwhile, I had only one thing on my mind – the cash. ‘You better get a meet sorted, old son.’

  I must have been bloody mad. Back home everything was sweet as a nut, apart from being a bit short of a bob or two. What the hell was I doing putting all that at risk? Carole was happy ‘cause I’d kept out of trouble. We had a lovely house, two beautiful daughters. I’d even just splashed out a fortune on having the windows done, which might have been why I was a little brasso! But then it’s too easy to look for excuses ain’t it?

  Trouble was, my mate Dan had just put a big cake in front of me and I couldn’t resist eating it. I could feel the excitement building up inside me within seconds of him first mentioning the fight.

  ‘So he thinks he’s a hard nut does he?’ I asked, already enjoying all that hardman banter once again.

  I knew there and then I wanted this fight to happen. There’s no point in denying it. I was completely up for it. I was well pumped up. There was no holding me back!

  So I agreed to meet this Spanish geezer a few days later in a pub in Dagenham called The Magpie. I’d actually helped build an extension to it, which was why I remembered it so well. Those evil old bastard promoters Bill and Kenny would never have allowed me to meet an opponent ahead of a fight. But Dan was a much straighter shooter, if you know what I mean. In any case, by meeting the Spaniard first I knew I could always back out if I didn’t like the look of him.

  When the day of the meet came around, Dan had wanted us to turn up mob handed but I said what’s the point? If he wanted to fight in the pub he’d be bloody stupid. So I had Dan watching from nearby just in case someone jumped up and took a pop at me but I knew nothing would happen. Although I did make sure Dan was packing just in case the entire meet was some sort of stunt by one of my old battered opponents trying to get revenge on me.

  I made a point of winding up the Spaniard by turning up 20 minutes late for the meet in that pub. When I finally walked in and saw him sitting there, I knew immediately he was the man because he was all bulked up like Arnie S and sitting there looking really manic all on his own. He even had cuts all over him, which immediately told me he wasn’t much of a fighter. The Spaniard had short, cropped dark hair with a little razor line through his scalp. Very pretty.

  He also looked like he weighed in at around 18 stone and was about six foot two, which is an inch or so taller than me. His neck was so thick he looked more like a weightlifter than a fighter, which was good news because these sort of pumped up geezers are always the easiest to put on the floor.

  But the best sign of all was the empty plate and a couple of pint beer glasses in front of him. A real fighter wouldn’t be tucking into a stodge and downing pints for a meeting like this. He spoke pretty good English although he had quite a broken Spanish accent. Turned out he was 41, a year older than me. Then I noticed his big barrel of a gut. I knew I’d have him no trouble.

  As I sat across the table from him, he tried to come across as confident, bolshie and flash. At one stage he even growled, ‘I’ll take you on.’ Simple as that. But that just made me realise he was a bit twitchy. Then I grinned at him. Stupid bastard didn’t realise why.

  Then it was my turn to chuck in a bit of banter.

  ‘You’re not much cop, are ya son?’ I said, looking right into his eyes.

  He tried to look daggers back at me then. But I could tell behind his watery, dark brown eyes that he was nervous.

  I knew he had a couple of heavies sitting nearby just in case we kicked off there and then but, as I said earlier, that would have been stupid. I wanted the prize money, not the satisfaction of knocking him flying. Having a stand-up in a boozer just because I didn’t like the look of a man wouldn’t have earned me a penny.

  Then the Spaniard growled again.

  ‘I’m gonna have you.’

  This was getting silly. I knew he was shitting hot bricks.

  ‘Whatever you say, old son…’ I replied, as cool as the proverbial cucumber. ‘Now what about the readies?’

  That’s when he barked back: ‘You get
four grand loser’s purse, winner’s twelve.’

  Sounded good to me because I knew which purse I’d get.

  ‘Done.’

  I put me hand out to shake on it. He grabbed hold of it, which I didn’t like one bit.

  ‘So when’s the meet?’ I asked, snatching my hand away from his.

  ‘We be in touch soon.’

  That’s when I noticed his whole face had completely changed expression. He was clearly worried that I was so confident. He must have thought I’d haggle with him over the cash.

  Then he said in a much softer voice.

  ‘I speak to my people and we agree a date.’

  ‘That’s cool.’

  All I cared about was giving him a hammering and earning the cash. It hadn’t taken much to turn me back into a fighter.

  So that was that.

  The Spaniard sat there as I got up and left the pub. All I knew was that his promoter would be putting the money up. I didn’t care who paid it out as long as it was there to collect immediately after I’d crushed that fat old Spaniard into the ground.

  Now I might have looked cool and confident in front of the Spaniard but the enormity of what I’d just done really hit me after I got out of the pub. What the hell was I playing at? Carole would be furious with me for going back on my word. I’d promised her I’d never fight again. But instead of facing up to what I’d just gone and done I went straight home and tried to put the whole thing to the back of my mind. No point in telling her just in case it never happened.

  But then other questions started going through my head. Am I going to get out of this alive? What if it’s all some kind of trap set up by Kenny and Bill? But then I remembered the Spaniard’s nervous face and I knew I could have him easy. I was 100% certain. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.