“Beer,” Tickener said. “Middy.”
“You’ll have to give that up if you’re going to hang around with me,” the girl said. “It makes you fat and gassy in bed.”
“Scotch,” said Tickener.
“Three triple Scotches.”
We took the drinks over to our seats which were in the ten-dollar section with a clear view and just far enough back to keep your neck comfortable. Tickener asked me about Ailsa.
“Wouldn’t come,” I said. “She doesn’t like the fights.”
“I love them,” Toni said.
“Why?”
“They’re exciting, primitive.”
“What about the blood?”
“I don’t mind that.”
Oh Harry, I thought, you’ve got your work cut out here.
“What do you report on?” I asked her.
“Politics mostly.”
That figured.
The lights went down and an announcer as wide as he was tall pulled over a boom mike and started his spiel. I glanced across. Tickener and Toni were holding hands. There was a rush through the doors and a lot of foot noise as people took their seats. The announcer heaved himself out of the ring and the first of the two preliminary bouts started. The four-rounder was between a pale, crop-headed boy with heavy shoulders and a thin Aborigine whose arms seemed to hang to his knees. Their styles were completely different and didn’t mix. The crew-cut was a rusher and flailer and the dark boy was a fancy stepper with a neat straight left. They did no damage to each other and the fight was a draw. Two white men came up for the six-rounder, a heavily tattooed six-footer and a chunky guy who assumed a crouch while the referee was giving his instructions. This fight was over in five seconds; the tattooed man tried a left lead and the croucher came up under it and clouted him with a right he’d brought up off the floor with him. The tattooed man folded like a butterfly’s wings and the big body sank gently to the floor. The referee raised the arm that had done the damage without bothering to count over the fallen one.
That brought Rosso and Moody out early. I realised that I’d nearly finished my drink. Tickener and Toni were whispering and had barely touched theirs. The seat beside me stayed empty until the announcement of the main event began, then I was aware of a huge bulk beside me and a cracked, hissing voice.
“Gidday Hardy, can I use this? Can’t see a fuckin’ thing from back there.”
“Hello Jerome. Sure, it’s vacant. My woman wouldn’t come.” I don’t know why I said that but Jerome laughed.
“Mine neither. Reckons she seen enough fights when I was at it. Cunt of a game.”
Toni caught the word and glanced across sharply. I made muted introductions and a wave of beer breath swept across us as Jerome responded. He had a glass in his fist and raised it as an ex-welterweight champion took his bow.
“Woulda killed him,” he said.
Under the savage glare of the TV lights Rosso looked ugly, dank hair fuzzed on his arms and shoulders like fur on an animal and his skin was mottled. He wasn’t tall, about five nine, a real natural middleweight with terrific strength in his arms and thighs. He looked as if he could go all night. Moody looked better. His skin was glossy under the lights and he was better proportioned with the meat and muscle better distributed. If I’d been his manager I’d have been a bit concerned about him. He looked as if he might grow into a light-heavyweight, the disaster division where there’s no money to be made unless you’re wasting to get in against middleweights or giving away pounds to heavies. But he looked good tonight.
The announcer didn’t hold the action up too long. He tried a joke in Italian which got booed by a section of the crowd and then he gave it up and waddled away. The referee was Tony Bourke, a better than useful lightweight in his day. Trueman crouched in Moody’s corner, whispering in the fighter’s ear. He mimed a low punch and combination and the young Aborigine nodded. He clamped his teeth around the mouthguard and jumped up off his stool. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Toni as Moody skipped across the ring. But the Italian started the business by rushing Moody into the ropes and trying a clubbing left which Moody took on the glove.
The Aborigine had no trouble in ducking under Rosso’s follow-up right swing and propping him with a straight left as he moved back into open space. That was the pattern of the round; the shorter man rushed in, bullocked his opponent to the ropes and tried to smash him with short, clubbing punches. Moody jabbed him. Moody took the points for the round but there was something a bit supercilious about his style; his shots stung the Italian and made him look clumsy, but they didn’t hurt or frighten him or sap the strength in his body.
Rosso’s handler had smooth silver hair like Rossano Brazzi and a ring with a big, bright stone in it glittered on his finger as he waved and jabbed in the air in front of his fighter. Trueman and someone who looked like the dark boy with the withered leg worked quietly and efficiently on Jacko and there was little conversation in the corner.
In the next two rounds Rosso tried to cut Moody off and slam into him in confined sections of the ring. He managed to hem him in a few times but he couldn’t do much when he got there. Moody tied him up quickly and Bourke broke them and the Aborigine was off again, not dancing exactly, just moving in and out quickly and precisely and scoring with long lefts. His timing was good but not perfect. Rosso caught him with a few heavy body swings that had more power than they should have, given Moody’s evasive abilities and speed. But the Italian was way behind on points when they came out for the fifth.
It wasn’t a good round for Jacko. He seemed to have tired a bit and looked apprehensive. I couldn’t help wondering if the fix was in, somehow. Moody took a couple of punches he should have slipped easily and Rosso roughed him up badly in a clinch. The crowd noise went up a couple of notches. The Italians felt that their boy was getting on top and the Aborigines weren’t happy at all. No-one was neutral and the change of fortunes in the fight affected everyone. I could hear the rustle of money as bets were put on and laid off.
Moody looked a little distressed in his corner after the round but Trueman’s style hadn’t changed at all. The sixth started out much the same as the last round with Rosso aggressive and clumsily effective. Rosso brushed Moody’s left lead aside as if it was a cobweb and slammed in a hard clean right to the mid-section. Moody felt it and responded with a cuffing, playful-looking left to the side of the head. Rosso ignored that and bored in to land a short, jolting right near the Aborigine’s heart. There was a commotion behind me and I turned to see Ted Williams on his feet with beer slopping out of a schooner.
“Do him for Sunday!” he roared.
The punch or the shout transformed Moody. Maybe it was both. He seemed to settle into a firmer stance and loom over the Italian at the same time. He swayed out of reach of Rosso’s next swing and speared a hard left into his face. He followed that with a crisp right; it was the quickest punch combination of the night and Rosso faltered. He missed with a roundhouse drive at Moody’s head and Jacko came in shifting his weight slightly and sliding into position for the perfect punch – his whole body flowed in behind a short right that took Rosso on the chin and destroyed him. Moody’s shoulder hardly moved and the punch wouldn’t have travelled a foot. Rosso’s knees sagged and he collapsed like a ruptured bag of cement. The darkness was in and wrapping around him before he hit the canvas.
It was the sort of end-of-fight you read about, rather than see, maybe like when Dawson finished Patrick or Burns knocked out O’Neill Bell. Everyone was standing up shouting and people were turning to each other asking if they’d seen it. Toni towered up there, her eyes like saucers staring at the ring. I could feel the excitement in Tickener beside me. Jerome, on the other side, was hustling. He brushed men aside to get to others and I caught a flash of his brown fist in the air, full of money.
I’d made money too but it was that kind of moment when money doesn’t mean anything. I’d invested a lot of emotional capital in the events leading up to this and the moment was sweet. I finished my drink and felt the euphoria of the blacks around me catching hold and sweeping me up. My face creased into a smile and I was standing there foolishly taking in the scene like a stoned-out hippie. Suddenly the euphoria washed away and the alcohol warmth inside me died.
