Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Bozo’s always been called ‘Bozo, the Boy Boxer’ in Yankalillee, but the Truth newspaper does this article on Bozo’s Bitzers and they call him Bozo ‘Dog Boy’ Maloney and it kind of sticks with the crowds. Big Jack now uses it to get Bozo’s name in the papers because he reckons it’s good publicity and will help Bozo get noticed for the Olympic trials. In truth, it nearly backfires because the Olympic Committee think Bozo’s being promoted like he’s a professional and it will bring a bad name to amateurism and is against the Olympic spirit. Nancy says they’re a bunch of silly old farts and must all be related to Philip Templeton. But I’ll tell you about that later.

  In the meantime, it turns out that what Mrs Rika Ray has done for Sophie’s warts, as well as being the midwife at Templeton’s birth, is child’s play compared to what she does for Bozo.

  The health part is weird Indian stuff that Bozo swears works a treat. Bozo’s not the sort of bloke that goes for mumbo jumbo like that, so if he says it works, then you can bet that it does. It’s called Ayurveda and it’s an ancient Indian type of medicine which is all about poking out your tongue and seeing things on it that can’t be revealed elsewhere. There’s other things as well, of course, but the tongue is one of the most important, in fact, probably the most important.

  Mrs Rika Ray explains it like this. ‘We are sleeping the night and breathing out all the time and all the poisons are coming out from inside and the tongue is catching them like sticky flypaper, then we are waking up with mouth like Indian lavatory, which is a very, very bad thing we are now fixing!’

  Every morning Bozo has to examine his tongue in the mirror. ‘We are looking for white coat like a bunny rabbit on the tongue. This is breathing-out fur we are making and that is very, very bad.’ Bozo has this tongue scraper, I’m not kidding. It’s a thing made of metal with tiny burrs on it like a carrot grater and he has to use it to scrape off ‘the breathing-out bunny fur’ on his tongue.

  ‘If it’s already on the tongue when he wakes up isn’t it too late? I mean the poison’s already been inside him doing its deadly best?’ I once asked Mrs Rika Ray.

  ‘No, no, no, no! Poison coming up is going down again, same as Mr Newton’s Law, what comes up must come down. We are making the scrapings so the poison buggers can’t go down again!’

  It’s all pretty complicated but Mrs Rika Ray says it’s been around about five thousand years and comes from the ancient Sanskrit texts and has been passed down by word of mouth, which is probably why the tongue is so important. Though I reckon it must be okay or they’d have found out by now, unless of course Indians are very stupid, which we know they’re not. It’s not just the tongue but Ayurveda has lots to do with herbs and massage, exercise and the stuff you eat. There’s even a bit of yoga thrown in for good measure, but not the sort that has a man with a turban and a flute making snakes come out of baskets, it’s a sort of exercise of mind and body. Or is the snake bloke a yogi?

  So there’s old Bozo training for his fights and dreaming of being chosen to go to the Olympics, with Mrs Rika Ray giving him herbs and almost no meat and massaging him before and after every fight, and him scraping away at his tongue and her looking for tell-tale indentations to see if he’s digesting his food properly, Bozo doing a thing called ‘meditation’ where you cross your legs and close your eyes and look at what Mrs Rika Ray calls ‘inner self’, which is not the same inner self that breathes out the poison, but the inner self that makes you strong and unbeatable. If you think that’s complicated, how about this. ‘We are dividing into three and then much overlapping is happening quick-smart, vasta is overlapping pitta or kapha or other way round, the overlapping is going on and on like bloody Dagwood sandwich!’ Mrs Rika Ray brings her hands up to either side of her face. ‘Oh, my goodness, who can be telling the combinations! Impossible, only I can do it, no other in Australia!’

  Well, if only Mrs Rika Ray knows how to work it out and Bozo’s got her, I suppose we can count ourselves lucky. I don’t know how this helps him to be a good boxer but he’s that focused on going to the Olympic Games that he’ll try anything. He says, no doubt about it, if he listens to Mrs Rika Ray he’s full of vim and he’s got something left at the end of a fight. Morrie says it’s all in the head, if you believe something hard enough, the head does the rest, it’s basic psychology. Me? I don’t know, I’m just glad I don’t have to give up meat like Bozo almost has.

  Whatever it is, it’s working, Bozo keeps winning and getting closer and closer into contention. As I said, he’s no longer a featherweight but is now a welterweight. Now here’s the thing, who do you think he meets in his first fight in the National Championships? You guessed it, John Thomas, the big prick Bozo sparred with in the Russell Street gym the weekend Templeton was born.

  John Thomas has also moved up in the weight divisions and the Victorian amateur welterweight title is up for grabs and, as they’re the only two Victorians in the division at the Nationals, the fight is billed not only as the quarterfinals for the national welterweight championship, it will also decide which of them is to be the next state welterweight champion.

  John Thomas has become a police officer, which Big Jack says is a pity because you don’t need that type in the force, they’ve got too much aggro. Anyway, when Bozo started coming down on the weekends to Melbourne to train in the Russell Street gym, Thomas got real angry and told Kevin Flanagan that it was either Bozo or him. To choose, because he wasn’t going to fight for the same club.

  Remember, Thomas went to the Melbourne Olympics and, although he didn’t win a medal and was eliminated in the first round, he’s a big name around the place. Being an Olympian isn’t chickenfeed, especially around Melbourne where people are still basking in the glory of having pulled off the Friendly Games. Even though when the Hungarians played the Russians in the finals of the water polo and the pool was red with blood, it wasn’t all that friendly, I can tell ya. Anyhow, Thomas being in the Russell Street Police Boys Club is a big deal for the club so you can see he’s carrying a big stick to threaten Mr Flanagan.

  Big Jack says Kevin Flanagan sort of stands there looking down at his feet and rubbing his jaw before he says, ‘Well, son, you’ll be twenty for the Rome Olympics and I reckon you might get a medal this time, but only if you’re properly prepared, if you’re good enough. The kid from Yankalillee also wants to go to Rome real bad and he’s the only one in this state, possibly in the country, who can match you. Fight him, spar with him regularly and you’ll be that much better off.’ He looks into Thomas’s face, ‘Son, it’s not me has to make the decision, it’s you.’

  Well, John Thomas goes to the Police Academy and after that he’s posted to Geelong so he uses this as his excuse to leave the Russell Street gym even though Geelong is only a hop, skip and jump from Melbourne and, because he is an Olympian, Big Jack says they would probably have arranged for him to use a police vehicle from the car pool.

  The two of them, Bozo and Thomas, haven’t met again until the 1959 Nationals in Brisbane, which is billed as ‘The Carnival of Swat & Fist Fiesta’. This is mainly because Bozo was in the under-seventeen junior division until the August before the championships on October 28 and 29, so they couldn’t have met before this. Bozo’s got to be a welterweight just by growing and Thomas has got there by doing weights in the gym and doing a bit of general body building.

  Of course, the interstate people at the championships don’t know it’s a grudge match though some of the Victorians do. The story of Bozo, the Boy Boxer, and John Thomas the Olympian has been retold so many times that it’s become an almost legendary fight even though it was never really a full fight, only a bit of a serious spar.

  Now Bozo is seventeen and Thomas twenty and of course those in the know want to see what’s happened to them in the meantime. The news soon gets round the championships that this just could be a ding-dong scrap, that the two fighters hate each other and that there’s a real donnybrook in the ma
king as they’re well matched in height and reach and both are fast as buggery.

  It’s not true about them hating each other. John Thomas may hate Bozo, but Bozo’s not the hating type and, under Mrs Rika Ray’s treatments, which teach that hate makes a person weak, Bozo’s sort of super calm when he goes into a fight. ‘Totally focused’ is how Kevin Flanagan describes it. Bozo comes into the ring very quiet and doesn’t jump around or fist the air or even give his opponent the evil eye. All he does is sit on his stool and listen quietly to Mr Flanagan and Big Jack and sometimes he nods his head. Bozo looks like he’s about to fall asleep most of the time, which must be the meditation Mrs Rika Ray has taught him. It probably gives his opponents the shits seeing him like that all cool, calm and collected. Bozo says he just doesn’t see any purpose in huffin’ and puffin’ and blowin’ the corner posts over, and all that shadow-boxing is just boxing bullshit.

  The welterweight division is about where you start to attract attention in a national championship, though the real crowd-pleasers are the cruiserweights and heavyweights, who get most of the limelight. The fight between Bozo and John Thomas is scheduled to start at ten o’clock, when the hall would usually be almost empty except for a few fighters and their trainers working out. But on this particular morning there’s more than five hundred fight fans and all the other fighters are there to watch as well. This is not a lot of people. For the finals there will be five thousand people in the Brisbane Festival Hall, but it’s a lot more people than would normally be watching the preliminary fights.

  Thomas, it seems, hasn’t been backwards in coming forward and has been saying a few things about Bozo ‘Dog Boy’ Maloney that are not very polite. He has every reason to be confident, he’s got the Melbourne Olympics under his belt and he’s become a much harder, tougher, physically stronger and more skilled fighter since the two of them last met. Besides, there’s always the possibility that he didn’t take Bozo too seriously the first time and Bozo got a crack at him before he woke up to what was happening. This time there will be no surprises, except of course that Bozo might have learned a bit more as well.

  I’m sitting in a ringside seat with Mrs Rika Ray who’s wearing her gold-silk sari dress, her Bozo tiara and her boxing-glove earrings that hang down on a little chain from each ear.

  Sarah, who’s also come to Brisbane, is wearing a Mike outfit that causes all the boxers to wolf-whistle when we come into Festival Hall. It’s a pair of hipster pants made out of sort of rust-coloured Thai silk and very tight. With them, Sarah wears a simple short-sleeved cream cotton shirt cut like a man’s, with the first three buttons undone. She wears a green scarf tied around her neck, not a long scarf, sort of like a bandanna, and Mike has spraypainted a pair of ordinary sandshoes the same colour as the bandanna. Mike calls it ‘Casual Dazzle’.

  Morrie’s come with us as well. We’ve driven up from Yankalillee in the second-hand Volkswagen Kombivan Bozo’s bought for the business. It was in an accident and consigned to the wreckers and Bozo got it for fifty quid. John Crowe panelbeat it and put it together again. It’s got seats in it like a small bus and although Bozo’s going to take the seats out to turn it into a parcel van, he hasn’t done so yet and we all fit in, with room for our sleeping bags, blankets, cushions and cooking stuff. Morrie and Sarah take turns driving, because Bozo of course hasn’t got his licence yet. Big Jack turns a blind eye to this in Yankalillee but we can’t take a chance on the open road. Anyway, it gives Bozo a chance to have a bit of a rest on the way up to the championships.

  It took us three days to get to Brisbane and we camped out beside a different river on the two nights and then, when we arrived in Brisbane, we went to the Brisbane City Caravan Park, which is alongside the river and not that far from Festival Hall. Talk about modern. It had hot and cold water in the shower block, which was clean as anything, with even septic toilets. There was a modern laundry with these Bendix washing machines you put a shilling in and you could do your whole wash and, then, for another six pence there were dryers, so you didn’t even have to hang your clothes out on a line. We’re snug as a bug in a rug because we’re in the tropics or subtropics and very warm at night. Morrie’s been enjoying the fights but now is dead worried because he’s been told that it’s a grudge fight between the two boxers and he wants to be there in case Bozo gets hurt.

  Sophie is back in Carlton looking after little Colleen and Templeton while Nancy’s stayed home in Yankalillee because she’s got a crook back. Tommy’s been on a binge and gone walkabout so couldn’t be found. Mike’s never been with us to a single boxing tournament and he maintains his record by remaining with Sophie to sew. Sophie’s a very nervous type and Morrie wouldn’t let her be in the house alone because she’s frightened of Nazis, but with Mike there as well it’s okay. Mind you, he probably couldn’t protect her against a determined house fly. Mike’s funny like that, he’s got a mouth full of razor blades if he wants, but he can’t stand violence and he’d faint if he saw blood. He once did when I cut myself badly on a broken bottle while we were doing the garbage.

  There’s a bantamweight fight going on between a Queensland boxer and one from New South Wales. Bantamweights are usually nice to watch because they’re fast and generally pretty cocky, but these two have way too much respect for each other. For the three rounds they’re either standing off, throwing punches that are seldom landing, or they’re locked into a clinch so that the referee is constantly telling them to break. The New South Welshman gets warned in round two for headbutting but I don’t think it was on purpose. In the final round, with the crowd having lost interest and talking to each other, the ref warns them halfway through the round to get on with the fight or he’ll stop it. So there’s a bit of action at last with the boxer from Queensland using his left quite well and only just getting on top, though it’s a boring fight which could have gone either way. If the Queenslander comes up against a good boxer in the quarterfinals, he’s going to get slaughterated. It’s funny, you wonder why boxers like that want to get into the ring when they’re so reluctant to have a go. I reckon that was why I gave boxing away, though I told myself it was because of the garbage, and me being too tired.

  The referee announces Bozo Maloney and John Thomas, but not like it’s a big deal, not the way it would happen in the finals with a ring announcer doing the honours. He just says, ‘The next fight is a welterweight contest between John Thomas and Bozo Maloney. Will their seconds prepare their corners and the two boxers get up into the ring.’ Then he announces, as sort of an afterthought, that the fight will be for the vacant Victorian welterweight title. But there is a fair bit of excitement in the crowd because, as I said, the word’s got around this could be a good fight.

  Bozo does his usual sleep act in the corner while John Thomas is snuffling and punching the air. Not much has changed in this department since the last time. Thomas tries to lock Bozo into the big stare but Bozo takes no notice and drops his eyes as the referee goes through the usual stuff. He examines their gloves and tells them to break when he says ‘break’, in the case of a knockdown, go to a neutral corner, blah, blah, blah. ‘Okay, shake hands, come out fighting with the bell,’ he says finally. Bozo looks up for the first time and the two boxers’ eyes lock. Thomas grins. Bozo’s expression doesn’t change, he’s focused, ready to go. Big Jack slips Bozo’s mouthpiece in. Thomas is standing in his corner punching his gloves together, anxious to get going. He’s in good shape and you can see the results of the weights, his pecs show clearly and, unlike last time, he has a tan and looks sharp.

  The bell goes for the first round and it’s on for one and all. Both boxers move quickly towards the centre of the ring and the stoush is under way. Thomas leads with a left that misses, but follows with a right that hits Bozo high on the forehead, the punch throws his shoulder up a fraction and Bozo puts a left hook into his opponent’s rib cage. The two of them stand there, matching blow for blow, both of them taking most of the punches on
the gloves, though Bozo is also hitting Thomas hard on both arms, high up on the biceps. Then Thomas hits him with a simply beautiful left uppercut and knocks Bozo into the ropes and he’s onto him, seating a left and a right into Bozo’s stomach. The uppercut and the two punches to the gut are enough probably to win him the round. Bozo hangs on and then goes into a clinch and the referee has to separate them. The uppercut and the left–right combination have slowed Bozo down and he dances around Thomas, more interested in staying out of the way than hitting his opponent. Thomas is on top and manages to land a hard straight right into Bozo’s face. In fact, Bozo seems to walk into the punch and his nose starts to show a fair bit of claret.

  The bell goes and Thomas is well ahead, he’s outboxed Bozo and is giving him a lesson.

  Mrs Rika Ray is beside herself. She is accustomed to Bozo winning the first round and getting on top of his opponent and she’s never seen him outboxed like this. Even Morrie, who knows nothing about boxing, is looking worried and wants to know whether he should go up and see if Bozo’s nose is okay.

  Thomas is sitting in his corner and his second is yelling out stuff but you can see he isn’t listening. He’s drumming both feet on the canvas and looking towards Bozo’s corner, he wants to get going, certain after such a good round that he’s got Bozo’s measure. Old Bozo has his eyes closed while Big Jack stems the blood from his nose, Kevin Flanagan is talking to him softly because he never yells, and Bozo is nodding. With the bell about to go, Thomas stands up and so does Bozo.