crowd clapped and laughed at my new name. The Barberton Blues all yelled and whistled.
‘That was good,’ Lieutenant Smit said. ‘But it’s early times, you were lucky, man, you got a palooka. When I tell you to stay out of the way you stay out of the way, you hear? That right cross nearly brained you, man. Two like that early in the next bout and we throw in the towel, you understand!’
I nodded, and tried to look contrite. As Klipkop pulled the big mitts off my hands I suddenly felt light, as though I was going to float away. It was a wonderful feeling. It was the power of one stirring in me. Nothing Lieutenant Smit said could dampen my spirits. I jumped down from the ring feeling ten feet tall.
Doc gave me a big hug and then he held both my hands and we did a little jig which made me feel a bit silly but he was very happy. ‘Peekay, I am very proud today! Absoloodle!’ Then he stopped and reached into his pocket for his red bandanna and sniffed into it. He looked up, his blue eyes all watery. ‘Such a dancer, already. Absoloodle.’ I had never heard him say so many absoloodles before.
Fonnie Kruger won his fight against a kid from Boxburg and so did Maatie Snyman in the under thirteens, Nels Stekhoven in the under fourteens, and Bokkie de Beer in the under fifteens. I’m telling you, we were a pretty proud lot in the Barberton Blues, every one of us had advanced to the semis. Fonnie Kruger and I were both in the under twelve division, if we got through the semis we’d be in the final together. But our hopes were soon dashed. There was a kid from Lydenburg called Kroon who was the biggest eleven-year-old I had ever seen. He was at least a foot higher than me and twice as wide. He wasn’t a boxer, but he polished off a kid from Nelspruit in the first round when he sat him on the canvas after about one minute. We instantly dubbed him Killer Kroon. We all got scared just looking at him and Bokkie said he was glad he was fighting in the under fifteen division and not in the under twelve.
Fonnie Kruger got Killer Kroon in the semis and managed to go one round before he was sat on his pants, seconds after the second round had begun. I think he was glad that it was all over, Killer Kroon had closed his right eye. ‘It’s like boxing a blerrie gorilla,’ he said when he climbed down from the ring.
Just before lunch I entered the ring again to fight a kid from Kaapmuiden. He was a square-built, nuggety sort of bloke and very strong around the shoulders but not a lot taller than me. It was the first time I had stood up to another boxer whose chin level wasn’t above my head. It was a good fight and my speed saved me from taking the weight of his blows. He hit hard and straight, but I was able to move away as the punch came so the sting had gone out of it. Nevertheless he landed quite a lot of punches and was scoring well. Before the final round began Lieutenant Smit wiped my face.
‘You’re not doing enough to make certain of this fight. Watch his straight left, he keeps dropping his right glove after he’s thrown the left. Get in under the blow and work him with both hands to the body. I want to make certain you got enough points.’
We touched gloves for the final round and Lieutenant Smit was quite right. The kid, whose name was Geldenhuis, threw his left and then curiously dropped his right. I went in underneath and got five or six good blows to the body before he pushed me away. The final bell went and the crowd chanted, ‘Gentleman Peekay! Gentleman Peekay!’ They were all Afrikaners and the English word obviously amused them. I thanked Geldenhuis who also thanked me. Then Meneer de Klerk announced for the second time that day, ‘The winner in two out of three rounds, Gentleman Peekay!’ The crowd laughed and clapped and the Barberton Blues went wild.
Doc could hardly contain himself. ‘Not even one scratch, black eyes not even one. Perfect, you should play Chopin so good as this, ja?’ He laughed and handed me a towel. ‘Lieutenant Smit says you must have a shower and change into your clothes again. Tonight, six o’clock, we fight again.’He suddenly grew serious. ‘Peekay, in the finals is a big Boer, you must dance very goot, in him is too much Wagner. You must box like a Mozart piano concerto, fast and light with perfect timing, ja?’
Doc found a small antechamber leading off the corridor in which there was a leather couch. After lunch he made me lie down. I was anxious to watch the adult preliminary fights and succumbed with ill grace. Despite the heat he threw a prison blanket over me, and to my surprise I fell asleep. It was five o’clock when he came to fetch me and I felt a little stiff and sore. He made me have a warm shower before I changed into my boxing things again. By the time we got back into the town hall it was almost six o’clock and the preliminaries were over. Bokkie de Beer said five of the Barberton Blues were through to the finals, including Gert who had had an easy and a hard fight, but was okay. That made nine of the fourteen Barberton Blues in the finals. I went over to Gert to congratulate him and he seemed pleased.
‘Ag it wasn’t too hard, Peekay. I think I got lucky. But like you, man, I got a Boer in the finals that’s as big as a mountain, a super heavyweight. He won both his fights on knockouts in the first.’
‘You got the speed, speed is everything,’ I quoted Geel Piet.
‘Not if he gets me in a corner,’ Gert said solemnly.
‘Then stay out of corners, man!’ I said flippantly, but the advice was meant as much for myself as it was for him.
‘You on soon, I’ve got money on you, Peekay. You can do it, I’m telling you.’ But I could hear him talking in his head and he was very, very worried about me.
Fonnie Kruger came over and said that Lieutenant Smit wanted me.
Lieutenant Smit and Klipkop were in earnest conversation with Meneer de Klerk and seemed not to notice my arrival. I stood and waited for them.
‘The Boer kid has thirty, maybe forty pounds on yours. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit,’ the referee was saying, shaking his head.
‘You saw him in the other two fights. He hardly got touched, our kid’s a good boxer,’ Klipkop said.
‘He’s better than that. He’s the best I’ve seen in a long time. But he’s a midget compared to Kroon. Kroon dropped both his opponents in the first. That’s a bad kid. I work with young boxers every day, I’m telling you, this kid is not a sportsman.’ Meneer de Klerk threw his hands open in a gesture of reconciliation. ‘There’s plenty of time, he’s only ten. Let the boy grow a bit, wait till next year. He’s champion material, too good to spoil with a mismatch.’
I could see a hesitant look cross Lieutenant Smit’s face. The voices going on inside his head were confused. My heart was going boom, boom, boom, and I couldn’t swallow, there was a huge aching lump in my throat. Then he cocked his head and squinted at the bald referee. ‘I make you this promise, Meneer de Klerk. If my boy even looks like being hurt we throw in the towel. You don’t know Peekay. That kid has worked three years for this fight. In three years he hasn’t missed one training session. For two years he just fought the bag and the ball. I can’t pull him out without giving him a chance.’
‘I’ll give him one round, Smit. If he even looks like being hit in the first round I’m giving the fight to Kroon on a TKO, you understand?’
Lieutenant Smit nodded his head, ‘Ja, okay, you the ref, man.’ He turned and saw me and I grinned at him as though to indicate I’d just arrived. They had to give me a go. I had to fight Kroon. Kroon was no bigger to me than Jackhammer Smit was to Hoppie. I could take him, I knew I could take him. ‘We got to glove up now, Peekay,’ Lieutenant Smit said as he took a glove from Klipkop and slipped it over my left hand.
I climbed into the ring and sat on the little stool and Killer Kroon also sat on his. When he sat down he didn’t look as though he was on the potty. He stared directly at me. Shit he was big! He had a grin on his face and I could hear his conversation to himself, ‘I’m going to knock this little bugger out first round.’
‘You got to catch me first, you bastard,’ I said to myself. But I could feel his hugeness growing and beginning to fill the ring.
With the arrival of the townspeople for the finals, the town hall was at least half full. I had looked down on a bigger crowd when I played Chopin at the Barberton concert, but a boxing crowd is different, much more raw or something. I remembered Doc’s words, ‘You must box like a Mozart piano concerto.’ In my head I could hear the way Doc would play a Mozart concerto, no arpeggio, fast and straight, the timing perfect. It made sense to box Killer Kroon in the same way.
‘Never mind his head, Peekay. You just keep landing them to the body. Quick punches in and out with both hands. Scoring shots. Stay out of reach and don’t let him get you against the ropes, not even once. You box him in the middle of the ring. Make him work, make him chase you all the time, you hear?’
I listened to them carefully, but I knew the real answer came from Geel Piet. That I had to box with my feet. I had no idea what sort of a boxer Killer Kroon was. His first opponent had lasted less than a minute and Fonnie went down a few seconds into the second round but had spent all of the first back-pedalling.
As I just sat there waiting, Kroon stared at me with an evil grin and I began to feel very small and a little
