by Jack Tunney
“Yes, sir. Just skin and bones.”
“Bones aren’t weak.”
“But bones can break,” I shot back.
“So can stone.” He reached over and lifted Roscoe’s big gnarled beef bone out of the old dog’s dish. Occupied by his nap, the dog decided it wasn’t worth getting excited over. “I tell you bones are strength,” Old Man Winters said, hefting the thick yellowing bone in his fist.
Without warning, he brought the bone down hard against the wooden porch, cracking the wood beneath on impact. The loud crack echoed off the trees and mountains so loud it even made ol’ Roscoe lift his head to see what was going on. It nearly scared me out of my britches.
“That sound weak to you?” the old man asked.
I shook my head.
“I can’t hear you, boy. That sound weak to you?”
“N–no, sir.”
“That’s good, because it isn’t. And neither are you.” He tossed the old gnarled bone back into the dog’s dish then leaned in closer as if about to impart some big secret of the universe. “Besides, we can always make them arms of yours stronger, if you want.”
“Come with me.”
“Yes, sir,” I said and followed him around to the back of the house where a pile of logs were piled.
“First thing we need to do is get you conditioned,” he said. “You’ve got power, but we need to work on strength. And do you know how we’re going to do that?”
I shook my head no.
He smiled and pointed to the pile of wood. “Get to choppin’, boy.”
***
“You tired yet?”
“No, sir,” I lied. My arms were like lead, but every day after school there I was, chopping wood like a mad man. We had already split enough logs to heat his house for four years.
After a couple weeks of intense chopping and stacking my arms no longer felt like lead weights were tied to them when I crawled out of bed in the morning. Not only had I chopped all of the old man’s firewood for that winter and many more, but he’d also had me move that darn stack of wood three different times, restacking it in different locations. Each time I thought I was done, he would decide the stack was in the way and needed to be moved again. I was beginning to think he was having fun at my expense when he told me it was time for my next lesson.
“I’m ready,” I told him.
He smiled, which made me nervous.
The old man had me load stacks of wood in his rickety old wheelbarrow and push it down the road to Miss Haney’s place where he then had me stack it on her front porch. We made three trips until he was satisfied she had enough.
We repeated the process for several of the old man’s neighbors, some of whom he considered friends and others who were too proud to ask for help. It was a bit of a struggle to get the wheelbarrow full of wood up the rutted out dirt roads leading up into the mountains, but somehow we made it there and back again. We also dropped off a few loads of wood at my house. Mama and me would be warm come winter.
Once we finished all the wood chopping and deliveries, the old man called me over to sit on the porch with a cool glass of lemonade. “I think you’re ready to learn how to fight, boy,” he told me.
“But my Mama told me I didn’t need to be fighting,” I said. The last thing I needed to do was get in trouble. “She told me I should turn the other cheek like it says in the Bible.”
“And how’d that work for you?”
“I ended up with two sore cheeks.”
“Exactly.” He smiled. “Now, we don’t want you getting on your Ma’s bad side, so what I’m going to teach you is purely for self defense. Do you understand what that means?”
“No, sir,” I said, shaking my head.
“Your Ma and me don’t want you to go out looking for a fight, boy,” he said. He held up a finger before I could say anything. “But if and when a fight finds you, and believe me, boy, it will eventually, then you need to know how defend yourself.” On my apparent goofy expression, he explained further. “You need to know how to take care of yourself, boy.”
I smiled. I’d been beat on enough by bullies like Bobby Jackson and his friends to last me a lifetime. If Old Man Winters was going to teach me how to make them leave me alone then I was all for it.
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes, sir.”
So we started.
ROUND THREE
“Have you ever seen a real fight?”
The question came out of the blue and took me by surprise. We were sitting on Old Man Winters’ front porch after a long day working in his garden. After a short break after working, we usually started my fight lessons. Not only had I seen a fight or two, but I’d been in a few myself so I wasn’t sure why the old man asked the question. Then again, I wasn’t sure why he said a lot of the stuff.
“Of course, I have,” I told him.
“Hogwash. You ain’t seen no real fighting, boy. This schoolyard brawling you and them boys in your class do ain’t fighting, son. Not real fighting at any rate. You want to see some real fighting?”
“Yes, sir.”
Without another word, he grabbed his cane and hobbled toward the road. He was halfway there when he stopped and turned back to look at me with the frustrated look he wore when I wasn’t paying attention to what he was trying to teach me. “You coming?” he asked, shaking his head at having to deal with a dimwit like me.
You didn’t have to tell me twice, so I leapt off the porch and followed. On the way, he talked, but instead of telling me yet another tale from his days in the war, he asked another question.
“You ever heard of boxing?”
I hadn’t, which seemed to amuse him somewhat, but not enough to stop him from telling me the history of what he called, “The Sweet Science of Manliness.”
A few miles later, we left the road and took an old hiking trail into the woods. I knew the trail well, having taken it many times in my wanderings around town. The trail followed the river around the outskirts of Claytonville.
Homer Jenkins owned most of the land on this side of the river. He was a farmer, but unlike Old Man Winters, Mr. Jenkins had several helpers working for him. He had the largest farm in the county and raised cattle, pigs, and sheep. He also kept horses and had one of the largest gardens in the county. A year ago, he opened a grocery store in town selling fresh vegetables and meats straight from his farm.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Hush, now,” I was told. “We have to be quiet the rest of the way, understand me?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”
We didn’t go far. At the top of the ridge overlooking the backside of Mr. Jenkins’ barn was a dusty square pen. Several of the local men I knew, and some I didn’t, were filing into the area around the pen. They were drinking and laughing.
It looked like a party and I wondered why Old Man Winters hadn’t been invited. Then I remembered how Mama told me some folks didn’t like Old Man Winters because of the color of his skin.
I admit, I never understood that, but maybe it was why Bobby Jackson didn’t like me. His skin was pale white and spotted with freckles and mine was a bit darker from so much time spent in the sun. To my child’s mind, it seemed like a stupid reason not to like someone, but many people seem to think it’s everything.
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
“Just watch.”
Two of the men climbed over the wooden fence into the pen. Until that moment, I thought we were going to see someone wrestle a pig like they did over at the summer festival in town each year. Then the men removed their shirts and stood facing each another, their arms raised up in front of themselves. I recognized the stance as one I’d recently been taught by Old Man Winters.
I was about to ask another question when someone hit an overturned washbasin with a metal pole. At the sound, both men came at one another, swinging their fists. I couldn’t believe it.
They w
ere fighting.
Tom Fleming worked the railroad. He was a hard, miserable man who I had never seen smile, but inside the ring I could see he was enjoying himself. His opponent was Abraham Leeper, the principal at my school. He was such a stern man, but here he was laughing, something I would have thought him incapable of doing.
The two men squared off, dancing around one another as they traded blows. With each thump of fist against flesh the crowd went wild, whoopin’ and hollerin’ at the top of their lungs while passing a jar of Mr. Ballard’s home brew back and forth.
I’d never seen anything like it in my entire life.
“What are…” I started, but was immediately silenced.
“Just watch,” Old Man Winters whispered.
We sat there for hours, watching as the men from town took turns inside the square pen beating one another senseless. There were bloody knuckles and noses, split lips, and black eyes, but none of them seemed angry.
One of the men whose name I didn’t know, but had seen around town, spit out a couple of teeth loosened by a lucky punch. I was confused, but also excited by the prospect of this activity.
The next match came when Deputy Anson MacPherson fought a man I didn’t recognize. I assumed he was a visitor from the railroad as we got a lot of those in town. The deputy fought hard and fast, getting in several blows. It looked a little unfair to me. The stranger wasn’t fighting back the way the other men had been and I didn’t enjoy the fight as much as I had the ones before.
The fight ended with a knock out blow that dropped the stranger face down into the dirt, which is where Deputy MacPherson left him while he took money from some of the bystanders.
And then it was over.
Old Man Winters got to his feet, holding onto a tree for balance.
“Are we leaving?” I asked, hoping the answer was no.
“No. We ain’t leaving,” he said. “At least not yet. I need you to stay here, okay?”
“Okay. Where are you going?”
“Just stay here and watch, boy. You keep your eyes on that pen down there.”
“Why?”
“Just do as you’re told,” he said, before shuffling back down the path.
I wondered where he could be going, and I actually thought about disobeying and going to look for him, but then I heard raised voices from below. Curious as I was, I shifted my attention back to the fights just in time to see the deputy and Doc McNally, drag clear the stranger MacPherson had knocked out. “Who’s next?” the deputy asked once the pen was clear. When no one answered his challenge, he laughed. “What’s the matter, boys? Afraid to take your licks like ol’ Connor over there? Come on! Is there no one here man enough to take me on?”
“I’m next,” a voice called out. I was as surprised as everyone to see Old Man Winters step around from the side of the barn and walk toward the men gathered around the pen.
It was the first time I had ever seen him interact with any of the men in town. I’d heard from Mama that they didn’t like him very much in town. I couldn’t imagine why because he was always nice to us.
“Well, well, well,” Deputy MacPherson said with a laugh. “Gabriel Winters, as I live and breathe. Haven’t seen you at one of these things in a coon’s age, boy. You looking to fight tonight?”
“Something like that, Anson,” my friend said, as he leaned his cane against the barn and started rolling up his shirtsleeves.
“You got stones, I’ll give you that.”
“Well, you did say something about looking for an opponent man enough to take you on.”
MacPherson laughed. “And you think you’re that man, Gabriel?”
“I do indeed.”
Deputy MacPherson stretched out an arm toward the open gate leading into the pen. “If you’re looking for another beat down, boy, then by all means step on up and take your medicine. I’ll be happy to oblige you.”
“Not this time,” I hear the old man say. Had they fought like this before? They didn’t seem to be friends. At the time, I was confused by what I saw, but I was excited to see my friend demonstrate all of the techniques he’d been teaching me.
No sooner was Mr. Winters inside than the deputy charged him. Winters spun around and blocked the punch before it could connect with the back of his head. It seemed like cheating to me and I wanted to shout down, but I remembered how he warned me to keep quiet.
Old Man Winters landed three quick shots. They were so fast, I barely saw his fists connect until the deputy dropped to the dust-covered red Georgia clay.
“Get up,” he told the deputy.
MacPherson was a stocky man, not very tall, but strong. I guess he would have to be to work with dangerous prisoners at the jail.
“You gonna lay there all day, boy?” Old Man winters asked.
The deputy did not seem to like being called boy. A growl escaped his lips and he got back to his feet. He smiled as he squared off against the old man. Was he afraid of him? It would be years before I fully understood what was really going on in that pigpen.
Old Man Winters blocked the deputy’s clumsy attack with ease, dropped his arm and exposing his right side. From my many practice sessions with him, I knew this was a feint, a trap for his opponent.
Deputy MacPherson apparently did not recognize the move and he stepped right into it, placing a fist in Old Man Winters’ side. If he had not been ready for it, the blow could have been crippling, but the old man was prepared. He took the hit, rolling his body with the impact while, at the same time, bringing his left arm into position to deliver what he called the coup de grâce, which was a term I had never heard before. I always assumed it meant knockout punch because that was usually the result.
The punch connected with such force I could have sworn I felt it from my hiding place. Later, I realize it was probably just my excitement at seeing my friend in action, but it was the most powerful punch I’d ever seen.
You could have heard a pin drop when Deputy MacPherson hit the ground. And he hit hard, his face slamming into the dirt with enough force to leave an imprint.
“Get up!” the old man told him, but we all knew the deputy was down for the count.
Doc McNally ran in and knelt next to the fallen fighter and checked him over. “He can’t,” the doctor said. “He’s out like a light. You could have killed him, Gabriel.”
“It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it,” the old man said. My friend looked around him at the faces, some familiar, others not so much, but not one among them that he could call friend. “Anybody else?” he asked.
When there were no takers, the old man rolled his sleeves back down over his bare brown arms and walked out of the pen, stopping only long enough to pick up his cane before hobbling back down the trail.
By the time he got back to where I lay watching, the sun had started to set. As the sun dipped behind the mountain shadows stretched across the barn and the fight arena.
Since there were no lights out behind the barn, the men started heading home. Doc McNally stayed next to the deputy until he regained consciousness. He seemed none to happy with the idea of losing. If I had used any of the words he did, Mama would have washed my mouth out with soap.
“I don’t think Mr. MacPherson likes you,” I said.
“Feeling’s mutual,” my friend said. “Let’s get you back home before your mama starts to worry.”
We walked back down the hiking trail in silence. I was bubbling with excitement and loads of questions, but he silenced me with a gnarled finger against his lips. It wasn’t until we were back on the road leading to my house that he let me talk. I asked a lot of questions, but the most important of those was, “What were you and those men doing back there? Why were you fighting each other?”
“We weren’t fighting.”
“It sure looked like fighting to me,” I said.
“What we were doing is called boxing,” Old Man Winters said.
“Boxing?” I’d never heard of that before, but I wanted to kn
ow more. “Can you teach me how to do this box fighting?”
“Maybe.”
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Calm yourself, boy,” the old man said. “I said, maybe. Boxing requires great discipline and focus, which you do not have. You have to learn to control your eagerness.”
“I can do that,” I said excitedly.
He smiled.
“Honest,” I added, not realizing the irony of showing how eager I really was to learn how to not seem eager. “Can you teach me? Please?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Boxing is kind of like fighting, but there are rules, and you’ll have to learn them. You can’t use some of the moves I’ve taught you in boxing.”
“Really?” That made no sense to me. What possible use was there for rules in a fight. All of our lessons to that point had been to win no matter the cost. Now I knew how to hurt bullies like Bobby Jackson I was being told there are rules.
“Yes, sir. Rules are what separates men from beasts. Civilization has rules,” he said. “Sometimes those rules don’t make a lick of sense, but that’s the world we live in. Out here in the real world, we all have our place. For good or ill it’s just the way it is. There’s no changing it. I used to think there was, but maybe we’re too far gone to change. I don’t know.”
He stared off into the distance as if looking at some magical thing only he could see. We walked along in silence for a few steps.
“Inside that square, all men are created equal,” he continued. “Inside that square, even a lowly stock boy has as much chance of coming out on top as a doctor, a lawyer, or even his boss at the dry goods store. No matter who wins, it stays there. The shopkeeper doesn’t punish the stock boy for winning once they get back to their daily routine.”
“Why not?”
“Because boxing is a gentleman’s game. Outside that square behind the barn the world is full of hate and bigotry. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. It’ll be up to better men than me to change things, but inside that fence, oh, boy, all men truly are created equal. All you’re got is what’s inside of you.” He tapped his chest above his heart with a gnarled finger. “Your money and your standing can’t do nothing for you in there, no sir.”