The young man would talk and smile and shyly show off his prowess to the reserve youths. Then he would leave his parents some money and return to his impatient pursuit of power.
The barren, well-worn notes of the bell clanged over the lights and illuminated air and was lost in the crowd. The insistent booming of the drum hammered out a song of war.
‘Hold it, hold it, hold it! Right! Now, ladies an’ gentlemen, we have time for one last fight before we stop for the night. Have we a fighter in the crowd? Let me just tell you about these boys. Over on the left we have young Jimmy Green, only seventeen and out of ten fights he has only lost one. Put up your hand there, Jimmy!’
Up went the boy’s thin hand, eagerly showing everyone who he was. He grinned over the faces to a group of giggling Nyoongah girls up the back.
‘Then we have Hector Nikel, named after Hector Thompson, or is it the other way around?’ Mally got his usual trickle of laughter at this old joke that he made in every town. ‘He weighs eleven stone five, and will fight any man in the crowd. If you beat him you win forty dollars; if you knock him out, you win sixty. Put your hand up, Hector, so the boys can see.’
Clayton had heard this speech so many times that it ran automatically through his head. He had seen the same crowd so many times as well, watching, waiting and finally daring. So he looked out over the showground to the whispering darkness of the trees and wished he was home with his parents.
‘Finally, we are honoured with the presence of our champion, Baby Clay.’ Clayton showed his strong, white teeth in a smile and danced a few steps on the platform, flexing his muscles.
‘Now, is anyone here game to take him on for three one-minute rounds? All you have to do is last three minutes and you can earn one hundred dollars! So let’s see you up here!’
As usual, there were some hotbloods in the audience. The first to come up was a stocky white boy, with long, tangled, blonde hair, a black ragged shirt, and tattoos up his arms. Clayton guessed he had a girl down there to whom he had probably promised that he would ‘beat up one of those boongs’. But Clayton didn’t care what they thought, just so long as they came up so he could punch them down. The youth elected to fight Hector and boasted he was the best street fighter in the district. A solid, fat man, with small eyes and greased black hair lumbered up onto the stage. He boomed out that he was a shearer and would take on the champ. Clayton grinned inwardly; there was one in every crowd, and on the whole they were better off wrestling sheep or pulling their axes in their big, knobbly hands.
Then, from the depths of the clamouring horde, there rose a giant, gleaming in the light like a blue mackerel shining in all its splendour in the sun. He was as elegant as one of those awesome fish. He stood well over six feet tall although he was only young. His brown skin was covered with fine, golden hairs, and his muscles bulged beneath the shirt he wore. His deep blue eyes stared out calmly from his smooth brown face.
‘I’ll fight the bloke in the blue shorts,’ he rumbled.
Clayton glanced at Mally, expecting him to say that the fight was unfair. But the hawk-nosed little man took no notice as he called out, urging people to come in while the Aborigines with their victims went below to put on their gloves and to loosen up.
Soon the tent became filled with gaping spectators looking for a bit of blood and excitement, people who could live in a dream for a few false minutes, pointing out how they would have fought the fight when, if the truth were to be known, they would have run at the first clenched fist. So they gaped and cheered and lied and boasted, as do most spectators, for it wasn’t their blood being spilled. Some people have to drink a lot to become someone while others have to lie, but it’s all the same—liquor or lies. They stared at the champion and made comments about him as though he were a prize dog. Clayton sat against the post, serene and solemn, staring into space with his sour, sad brown eyes. He ran his fingers through his short, curly hair then looked anxiously at Jimmy’s huge opponent, who was grinning and muttering to some of his pals. Jimmy himself gave Clayton a big smile and waved from across the tent, where he sat with the Aboriginal girls all around him like dark bees around a rare, sweet flower. Clayton smiled faintly in return.
Then Kenny Clench, the fat, bespectacled referee, called Hector and the stocky boy together for the first fight. He warned them, then blew the whistle and the fight began. Hector displayed some of his flagging skills, but the youth was young and fast. Suddenly in the second round, he rabbit-chopped Hector to the ground and sunk a boot in before Kenny got to him. The wild youth swung a blow at Kenny, who ducked and smashed him across the face. Then Hector got up and pulled the dazed youth to his feet, only to send him sprawling into the shouting assemblage with a terrific haymaker.
Kenny declared Hector the winner, and some of the youth’s mates, in the corner, booed and hissed and declared that the referee was unfair. ‘One boong hangs around another. They’re like bloody flies.’
Then Hector had gone for them as well, clouting one under the ear before they slunk off. That was Hector, moody and glowering, holding a grudge behind his smouldering eyes.
The champion got up then.
‘Righto, you two—no dirty fightin’—fight clean and fair; no ’ittin’ below the belt or bitin’, kickin’, so on. Make it a good fight,’ Kenny mouthed like a human tape recorder. He had said the same thing so many times before that he scarcely realised he was talking. Words without meaning, yet meant to convey meaning. Like the paintings flapping outside, in the wind; or Mally’s mouth flapping outside in the sun. But only the sun and the wind really meant something.
The gross, greasy shearer came swinging blindly at the thin, agile Aboriginal, thinking eagerly of all the beer $100 would win. The air whistled where Clayton’s head had been, then the shearer grunted in astonishment as two hard fists found his heavy gut. It was David against Goliath, sheer strength against skill. It was always the same, and always the heavies would topple and smash like empty beer bottles, to be swept into the gutter.
It was the end of round one, and the two moved to their corners for a rest. The shearer was already sweating and unsure. He had depended on an early knockout, but now he would have to last two more rounds.
Clayton hissed to Jimmy, who was winking at the Nyoongah girls. ‘Hey, koordah. See that big bastard? You watch ’is left, look. Keep blockin’ and you’ll be right, brother.’
‘Yeah, Clayton,’ Jimmy smiled, then the whistle went for the second round.
This round, Clayton didn’t waste time. He ducked a few roundhouse swings, then closed in. Before the shearer could get in a clinch, Clayton sent a punch that cracked on the big, fat man’s dirty stubbled jaw. Three more in the same place toppled him over to the canvas, where he stayed for the count. This was Clayton’s trademark, and it always worked.
It was Jimmy’s fight now and Clayton warned him again.
‘You look out, koordah. No muckin’ round with this bloke.’
‘Orright, Uncle Clayton,’ the youngster beamed at his joke.
The giant came out fighting and left the boy no hope at all. The white man’s first lightning punch wiped Jimmy’s smile off his face and sent him tumbling. He stood up gamely though groggily and was knocked down again. Up he sprang, angry and bewildered, almost in tears because of his shame in front of his women. The giant idly brushed him away with a superior smile. It seemed so easily done that the crowd laughed as Jimmy crashed to the canvas and stayed there. Sadly Ken counted ten then went to hold the towering winner’s arm up. The man pulled his arm away and held it up himself, ignoring the embarrassed Kenny. He relished the laughter of the mediocre mob. Over against the wall, Clayton’s blazing eyes flared.
The people filed out, having seen their violence for the day. They ignored thin Jimmy, who was being supported out the back by his two pals. Yet if he had won they would have been swarming around him, anxious to get a glimpse of the young hero.
Out of the stuffy tent, smelling of man and manmade feelings,
Hector and Clayton laid the boy down gently. Lights from the shooting gallery flashed green, blue, red and white on the three.
‘Geeze, ’e took a beatin’, look. Done ’is nose in, I reckon,’ Hector growled, and his heavy, dark face looked more incensed than usual.
‘What’s bloody Mally playin’ at, well? Even a kid could see Jim was no match for the big gorilla. Shit, not even I could beat ’im properly, unna?’ Clayton raged.
Then Kenny came out with cold water and a towel. He was expert at fixing up broken wrecks, so went about his job in silence, watched by the boy’s only two mates, with faces as blank as the canvas walls that hemmed them in.
They didn’t see the little boss until later that night. By then Jimmy had recovered, although his snubbed nose that all the girls thought was so spunky was crooked and red. It was a trophy of defeat he could have done without. They sat inside the caravan they shared, playing cards. They used matchsticks, every stick representing 5c. On these occasions, when they were alone, even sour old Hector would raise a laugh or two. They were happier in their small group, with some of Jimmy’s women beside them sometimes, giggling and whispering and laughing at Jimmy Green’s antics. The boxers would sit in their dirty caravan, with the pictures of other boxers, footballers and nude women gathered around like the audiences in the boxing tent, grasping any spare wall space they could find. That was their world in the small crowded caravan, private, warm and safe from the white, milling, unfeeling mass outside.
The door flew open and Mally Price burst in unceremoniously. His round, pink head gleamed in the white light and his small eyes swept over the boxers.
Clayton roared, ‘Hey, you white prick! What you reckon you doin’, makin’ Jimmy fight that big cunt today?’
For a moment fear crept into the little man’s eyes, then indignation flared blackly across his pale face.
‘Never mind about that, Clayton. You just listen here. You can worry about other people’s fights when you perfect your own.’
‘Hey, what? Where did I go wrong today? Well? You never even come down to watch, so ’ow’d you know, you skinny weed?’
The other two stared down at their cards, trying to ignore the argument.
Mally Price stared into the angry black eyes and a look of cunning covered his sallow, yellow face. He hissed through his crooked, brown teeth:
‘I’ve just about had enough of your cheek, Clayton. Now listen, on Saturday night, the bloke who fought Jimmy is going to fight you. He’s the champion of the district, so you had better’ve paid attention to his moves. But it will draw a big crowd all right!’
‘You used Jimmy for a punchin’ bag, you weak creep. I oughta bust you one,’ snarled Clayton.
‘When did you last seriously train? When did you get Ken to give you a workout? Let’s see your guts, boy.’
The questions hit Clayton more powerfully than any punches. Price knew the young man had not done any proper training for months and was getting slow. Clayton could see that Price almost wished he would lose, so he would have to grovel in his own blood and start up the weary, hard ladder all over again.
The little man leapt around the table and began jabbing Clayton in the stomach. The Aboriginal, taken by surprise, had no time to cover up, and backed off.
‘Huh,’ the man sneered. ‘Baby Clay really is a baby.’
He turned and pushed his way to the door. Then he spun around with a triumphant look on his thin, foxy, face.
‘Yes, Clayton, boy. You got no time to be rude or cheeky no more. You’re just the same as the rest, you see? You can be beaten; and if you are beaten on Saturday night, you can say goodbye to this tent, because I won’t want you. I really have got a team of boxers here, haven’t I,’ he jeered. ‘A skinny little starter-off, who couldn’t stop a fly if it wasn’t for his mate the ref; an old has-been —’
‘I can still box,’ Hector growled. ‘You oughta be careful what you say, else we might walk out on you.’
‘Sure, walk off, Hec. Don’t expect to get another job as a boxer, though.’ Price dismissed Hector’s anger. The old man rubbed a sleeve across his broken, bulbous nose, knowing Price had spoken the truth.
‘But I haven’t mentioned the prize of my show yet.’ His eyes swirled across to the fuming Clayton. ‘Our champion—Baby Clay!’
The way he said the name was not a compliment but a mockery. Perhaps it had always been that way. While Clayton had thought he was getting somewhere in life, he had, in reality, been going nowhere. Worse, he had been a puppet in the hands of Price, jerking and smiling and knocking men out. All the time he had thought he was someone—Baby Clay, the champion boxer—and all the people had stared and laughed to see him act the fool. He should have remained Clayton Little, sleeping in the sun under a tree, getting the odd job. He had thought he had found truth but had found only false glory. The boxing tent was an open wound and he was one of the maggots feeding off the poison. One day he would turn into a disgusting fly whom no one liked, not into the beautiful butterfly he had dreamed of becoming. Then he would fly off and live among the rubbish he thought he had left behind him when he became famous.
Price sneered again. ‘I want to see you training tomorrow, boy,’ he ordered, then went out.
There did not seem much point in playing cards any more, since all the fun had gone out of the evening. Not even Jimmy, who could double up in laughter at the sight of a yawning cat or a dog scratching fleas, made a joke before he went to bed. Hector patted the glum youth on the back.
‘Hey, look ’ere, koordah, don’t you get worried. Clayton’s the one to worry, look. ‘E’s goin’ to fight that big cunt and ‘e’s gotta win.’
Later, Clayton lay sleepless in his creaking bed. He heard Hector snore and the wind playing around the dark caravan. He could hear the noise of the show faintly through the fibreglass walls. Once a young couple came scuffling into the dark secrecy behind the empty boxing tent. They kissed and squeaked and giggled. Over in Jimmy’s bed, Clayton heard the youth giggle, too. The boy had already forgotten Mally Price’s scathing words—but Clayton hadn’t. The soft velvet lips of the night kissed his soul but he would not be quietened. He tossed and turned, finding comfort in the squeaky noises the bed made. Then, at last, he fell into a restless sleep.
The next day huge mountain ranges of clouds towered in the sky, heaving and rolling and creating an ever-changing panorama in shades of turquoise blue and black and faded grey. Clayton squinted up into the sky and was awed by the grandeur of it all. To think that wind and clouds had formed all that beauty and all those colours.
Jimmy was chewing a piece of sourgrass, meditating. He grinned at Clayton through his bruises and suddenly, for an instant, Clayton was reminded of a day in his youth when Lennard had grinned down at him as he had woken up.
‘Lookit the champ. ’Oo ya goin’ to beat up today?’
‘The bastard who laid into you yesterday.’
‘Goin’ to win today, koordah?’
‘Nuh,’ Clayton smiled and punched at the boy playfully. The next minute they were both rolling around on the dew-stained grass, clowning like children. Hector gave a faint smile from where he sat in the shade and wished he were young again.
‘Don’t ’it me, don’t ’it me, Mr Champ! I gotta look pretty for all me womans, you know,’ Jimmy giggled.
‘Any rate, time you got Ken to fix your muscles up. Big fight t’night,’ Hector rumbled from the flapping shadows.
Clayton grinned over at the old man. His eyes became quiet and still.
‘I thought I might go walkabout, ’Ec. Pick up a woman, ’ave a drink, ’ave some fun, for once.’
‘But the fight—’
‘Fuck the fight! Clayton snarled. ‘Yeah, fuck everybody. I’m goin’ to town and that’s that.’
He spun around and wandered off, alone, as he always had been.
The showground was dead at that time of the day.
The tinny music from the merry-go-round drifted hand-in-hand
with the wind. Pieces of paper were kicked into the air by the wind’s idle feet and cartwheeled away. Magpies carolled as they swooped round and round in the sky on their own merry-go-round.
The garishly painted figures of famous boxers on the canvas writhed in the hands of the wind as they sparred. That was all the fighting they would ever do now. Clayton stared into the fixed, bland eyes of his own image and knew in his heart that that was the most he could expect from life. To be pinned forever on Mally’s canvas; picked up, painted over, every few years, by Mally’s thin fingers—in his power at last.
Clayton shambled away.
The town was only small, mainly a depot for the farmers. A church, a co-op, a few shops and houses, a garage-cum-petrol depot and the hotel.
A few old cars and trucks dozed by the side of the one gravel road as Clayton stumbled over the railway line towards them. He whistled a song and forgot about the show.
‘Hey, mister! Hey, mister!’
Around the corner of the hotel slunk four scraggly figures. The oldest child, a boy about twelve years old, cried again, from behind his cigarette, ‘Hey, mister, you that boxer, unna?’
‘We seen ya last night, any rate, didn’t we, Johnny?’ piped the other skinny boy. The two girls stood silently, staring shyly at the man.
‘Ya give old Bobby Hornton buggeries, unna,’ Johnny grinned. ‘’E thought ’e was good, too,’ and the boy laughed.
All the children were dressed in patchy clothes too big for them, except for the older girl, whom the mother tried to keep pretty. She was the only one to wear shoes, but they were laceless and cracked and two sizes too big.
‘Yeah, man. Me and Micky snuck under the tent and seen ya fight.’
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