Tandia (55 page)

The point was, if Jackson was simply building up the gate and his reputation with it, he was doing a remarkable job and the 'catfish and caviar' concept was working brilliantly. But in the last weeks he'd been pushing the concept of hate seemingly beyond the simple pyrotechnics of boxing promotion. If as Daddy Kockle insisted, rage and hate were indeed indispensable allies in the ring, then Peekay needed to do something to neutralise this advantage. Jackson's umbilical fear, passed on through generations of persecution and humiliation, was the way to do so. How to do this without being a white supremacist was the problem Peekay now faced.

The irony was, as a small boy who had himself been persecuted and humiliated, Peekay knew the kind of meaningless fear that gnaws at the lining of your gut. He had been taught by the great Inkosi-Inkosikazi, the greatest medicine man in all of Africa, to visit the night country where he could control his anxieties or solve the problems confronting him. And so, seated on a huge outcrop of rock just below the snowline in the Rocky Mountains, Peekay returned to Africa, to a primitive, deeply atavistic part of his mind, where he would seek the strength to confront Jackson's hate.

In Peekay's mind the night country was a very real place, the place of three waterfalls and ten stepping-stones in the Africa of his soul. He now prepared to enter it and closed his eyes, waiting for the stillness to come, the measured downward plunge into the night country, like the slowness of a man seen falling from a cliff at a great distance.

A sudden roar of water filled Peekay's head and he stood on a ledge above the first waterfall. Far below him the river rushed away, tumbling and boiling into a narrow gorge. Just before the water entered the gorge was the pool of the ten stepping-stones, ten anthracite teeth strung across its shimmering, gargling mouth. Inkosi-Inkosikazi spoke into the roar of the water, his voice quiet, almost gentle:

You are standing on a rock above the highest waterfall, a young warrior who has killed his first lion and is worthy now to fight in the legion of Dingane, the great impi that destroys all before it, worthy even to fight in the impi of Shaka, the greatest warrior king of all.

You are wearing the skirt of lion tail as you face into the setting sun. Now the sun has passed beyond Zululand, even past the land of the Swazi, and now it leaves the Shangaan and the royal kraal of Mojaji, the rain queen, to be cooled in the great, dark water beyond.

You can see the moon rising over Africa and you are at peace with the night, unafraid of the great demon Skokiaan who comes to feed on the dark night, tearing at its black flesh until, at last, it is finished and the new light comes to stir the herd boys and send them out to mind the lowing cattle.

As Peekay stood on the rock above the highest waterfall, waiting to jump, he could see the moon rising, held huge in a star-pinned sky, a bright silver florin throwing its light down onto the ten black stepping-stones two hundred feet below, where the third waterfall crashed down.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi's voice came to him:
You must jump now, little warrior of the king.

Peekay took a deep breath and launched himself into the night. The cool air, mixed with spray, rushed past his face. He hit the water below the first pool, sinking briefly before rising to the surface. With barely time to take a breath, he was swept over the lip of the second waterfall and then again down the third, plunging into the great roaring pool at its base. He swam strongly to the first of the great stones glistening wet and black in the moonlight. Jumping from stone to stone, he crossed the river, leaping to the pebbly beach on the far side.

Gear as an echo the great Witchdoctor's voice cut through the roar of the falls.
We have crossed the dreamtime to the other side and it
is
done.

Peekay opened his eyes, above him, over the far Rockies, huge cloud castles of light rose in a sky beginning to dim for the night. He picked his way down to the dark line of ponderosa pine, sending shale sliding and small rocks tumbling ahead of him. It was turned cold, the first hint of winter coming to the high mountains. This was the last time he would go up to the mountain. Tomorrow they would leave for New York. It was exactly one week before he would climb into the ring at Madison Square Garden. One week and sixteen years of waiting to become the welterweight champion of the world.

In his head Peekay carried the line he knew would undermine Jake 'Spoonbill' Jackson's hate.

Hymie had spent very little time in the mountains. Most of the time he was in New York tying up details for the fight, getting the film crew organised and supervising the footage which had been shot of Peekay in training camp. It had originally been intended that the film crew would spend a month in Colorado, but a good training schedule is pretty routine and after a week they'd obtained all the footage they needed. This was good on two counts: it made up for the money Peekay had spent on air fares for himself, Mrs Smith and the two fighters flying from Atlanta to Kansas City and it left Dutch and Daddy Kockle free to run a tight, uninterrupted programme.

Peekay had entered training camp six pounds under the welterweight limit. Mrs Smith's cooking steadily took care of the deficit. No training stable ever ate better. Despite the gruelling programme, by the time they returned to New York he was a pound and a half under the correct weight, which was the strongest he'd ever been going into a fight.

Mrs Smith was a fighter's mother and was therefore conscious of diet and she'd served Peekay well.

She also realised Peekay and Dutch were helping her boy. Peekay fought hard in the training sessions but he never set out to hurt his sparring partners as some champions do and he would often enough stop when Peppy made an error of judgement and explain it to him, showing him how to avoid the trap it inevitably led to. After the seven weeks in training camp the young speed-merchant from Atlanta was starting to develop a good left-hand punch and was a much improved all-round boxer. Mrs Smith showed her gratitude by delighting their stomachs at every meal.

On one occasion Hymie had returned to the ranch with a new orchestration by St Martin in the Fields of the Odd Bodleian Choir singing the
Concerto for the Great Southland.
Mrs Smith had loved it immediately. She'd previously organised them all into a small musical group. Daddy Kockle played a nice clean clarinet and Dutch was no slouch with a mouth organ. Peppy's voice was light but clear and Jerome was a good baritone. Only Togger was almost tone deaf but this was no big deal and he was expected to sing along anyway. Seated at the ranch piano, an old upright which wasn't too badly out of tune, Mrs Smith taught Togger, Dutch and Peekay most of the well-known negro spirituals. To Peekay's surprise he knew a great many of them, coming as he did from a background of the Apostolic Faith Mission. With the advent of Hymie's new pressing the small group now learned to sing and play Doe's wonderful concerto, Mrs Smith taking the lead part with the rest of them following as the chorus. She was a skilful pianist and a superb contralto, and she sang the haunting refrains with an instinctive sense of Africa, though the music would often reduce her to tears. She would remove her pebble glasses and wipe her eyes and sniff. 'I bin visitin' my people in the great Southland of Africa. Peekay, yo' people and mine they sure got lovin' and hopin' in their voice!'

With a great fire crackling in the huge open fireplace, Mrs Smith's musical soirees proved to be among the happiest memories Peekay would take back with him from America. It had been expected that Mrs Smith and Peppy would return to Atlanta when the camp broke up but there was simply no way she was going to miss the fight and she wrote to kin folk in Harlem to tell them to expect the two of them. Peekay had selected Jerome and Togger as the sparring partners he wished to work out with in his last week, which was basically easy stuff and a wind down to the fight. Together with Dutch, the three boxers had taken a plane from Denver to New York, leaving the others to make the long journey back in the Chevvy bus.

The Odd Bodleians had arrived, taking an entire floor of the Waldorf Astoria and sending Manhattan's socialites into a veritable whirl. The arrival of the Oxford contingent led by Aunt Tom almost guaranteed the fight would be a society affair, and Bergdorf Goodman enjoyed a sudden upsurge in business as lavish parties were hastily arranged all over town.

Jam Jar took a suite and seemed to party on from the moment he arrived. Even when he was out at the invitation of some Boston Brahmin or Sutton Place socialite, a business acquaintance or friend of the family, the party in his suite continued.

The weigh-in took place mid morning on the day of the fight at the offices of the New York boxing commission just up from Madison Square Garden. The auditorium with its high ceilings was crowded with people: reporters and photographers hoping for a confrontation between the two fighters, ex-fighters and hangers-on, people who hoped to be seen and who called hello loudly to others they hoped to impress. Mrs Smith was there wearing a brilliant yellow dress with a pale blue picture hat and carrying a yellow silk parasol like a walking stick. Yellow and blue were Peekay's colours and she wore them with a huge smile as she walked with Dutch. Peppy had joined Jerome at the opposite end of the room, conscious that his mama was the only woman in the room. O'Flynn the promoter was talking to Hymie waving his hands, obviously upset over something and Elmer Milstein was talking to the unit manager of ABC Wide World of Sports who were setting up a camera.

Jake 'Spoonbill' Jackson hadn't yet arrived. It was the champ's prerogative to be late and to be weighed in first and Peekay stood quietly with Togger and Daddy Kockle. He'd made no concession to the event and wore the blue tracksuit Hymie had given him the first day they'd turned out for Dutch three years earlier. The yellow silk stitching proclaiming 'The Tadpole Angel' on the back had faded and where some of it had been worn away Mrs Smith had lovingly re-embroidered it, sitting by the fireplace in Colorado.

There was a sudden lifting of the noise level in the auditorium as Jake 'Spoonbill' Jackson entered. Jackson was a smooth-faced man with an elongated head which didn't seem in the least bit negroid. His head was completely shaved, but he'd grown a pencil-line moustache which hardly showed because his skin was so black. Now he wore a white satin dressing-gown with an American flag on the back and a plain pair of basketball boots, with the laces undone, flapping on the floor as he walked. The dirty sneaker-style boots contrasted strangely with the ritzy-looking robe. He untied and removed his robe, allowing it to fall into the hands of Michael O'Rourke, who stood directly behind him. Then he stepped out of his shoes and stood barefoot beside the scales in a pair of white satin boxing shorts. Around his waist hung his WBC World Championship Belt, a grotesque gold and enamelled affair which resembled an elaborate kidney belt. With a grin he stepped onto the machine expecting the official to commence weighing him in.

However, the small bald-headed man in charge of the scales simply waited. Jackson grinned a trifle awkwardly; unclipping the belt, he handed it to O'Rourke. He'd obviously worked up a little scene which had backfired and to cover his embarrassment he now turned to the crowd. Standing on the scales like an orchestral leader, he raised his arms.

'What a Spoonbill stork do to the Tadpole?' he yelled.

'He munch him!' the ten or so people in his retinue shouted.

'And then what he do?' Jackson shouted again.

'He crunch him!' they answered.

'And when he munch him and crunch him what he do then?'

'He swallow him down!!' The group yelled at the top of their lungs, some of them punching the air above their heads like a group of cheerleaders.

Jackson turned to Peekay, acknowledging him for the first time. 'You call me Catfish, you damn right, I Catfish!' He turned to the group once again, 'What a Catfish gonna do to a tadpole?'

'He
munch
him and
crunch
him and
swallow him down!'
they yelled back gleefully.

Jackson pointed his finger at his opponent. 'You hear me now, white boy! You hear me good, Tadpole! I'm hungry, I'm hungry, man! Tonight I gonna
eat you!'

Peekay regarded him silently for a long moment. Then he said, 'I have only this to say to Mr Jake Spoonbill Jackson,' he paused as the whole room waited to hear his response to the champion's goading. 'If he takes his hate with him into the ring tonight I will win for…
hate
is
a slow witted ally in the ring.'
They were the words he had been given in the night country.

The commission doctor examined them both, measuring their heartbeats and taking their blood pressure. They weighed in almost identically, Peekay just four ounces lighter than Jackson, who came in a pound under the welterweight limit. The whole procedure was all over in less than fifteen minutes. Now only waiting time remained and Peekay returned to the hotel to rest.

Dozens of telegrams had arrived from South Africa, notably from St John Burnham, Peekay's old headmaster, Gert and Captain Smith at the Barberton prison, the mayor and town council of Barberton, Miss Bornstein, Peekay's primary school teacher, Mrs Boxall and one from Gideon Mandoma which read:

Hambari ngokunakekela bafowenu ma bulala ingonyama.

Go carefully my brother and kill the lion.

Among the many telegrams were from some from E. W., Harriet, from England, and one from Doris which read:

Roses are red…Violets are blue. Win or lose, I'll still love you!

Doris xxx

Doris with the wonderful tits, as usual, was about as subtle as a meat axe, but Peekay found he missed her rather more than Harriet.

Hymie came in and sat on Peekay's bed. 'I don't seem to have spent enough time with you, over these last eight weeks, old mate,' he grinned.

'All the time I needed, Hymie.' Peekay punched Hymie lightly on the shoulder. 'As long as you're in my corner tonight, that's all that matters.' Peekay could feel himself becoming sentimental and changed the subject quickly.

'Why were you and O'Flynn having a set-to this morning?' Hymie explained how Aunt Tom wanted Mrs Smith in with the Odd Bodleians and O'Flynn had insisted they forfeit six seats for the space the piano would occupy or pay him two hundred and fifty dollars a seat.

'Jesus, Peekay, I usually love dealing with the Americans, they're open, honest and they make decisions fast. But the guys running American boxing are crud! It's full of hoods, hoodlums and rip-off merchants. I'll be bloody glad when you take that championship belt and piss off.'

Peekay realised what a strain it had all been for Hymie, who'd worked solidly for a year to bring the event off so that they'd end up with some money in the bank despite the lopsided purse they were getting for the fight. Peekay was going to need money to buy his share of a law practice and the often delicate negotiations had largely fallen to Hymie. 'Thank you, Hymie. I owe you a big one,' he said softly.

Hymie looked at his friend almost fiercely. 'Never! I could never begin to give you back what you've given me, Peekay. Without you I would have ended up just another rich Jew in carpet and underfelt.'

Hymie and Peekay left the hotel together, driven to the Garden in Elmer's family Lincoln. Sensing they wished to be alone the chauffeur activated the electric window, sealing the back from the front of the car. It was a ritual the two of them had kept since the first fight they'd worked together at school. Just the two of them going through tactics, talking the fight into each other's heads. Woodrow was directed to a side entrance.

Daddy Kockle and Togger were waiting for them in the dressing room. It was big and cold place about as welcoming as a public latrine. Against the left-hand wall stood a makeup bench above which was a mirror surrounded with small naked globes, most of them either smashed or not working. Peekay entered and threw his bag on the bench which was scarred with a thousand cigarette bums. The surface of the mirror, where the mercury had blistered into brown blobs, made his face look as though it was covered in liver spots. A bentwood chair, the rattan missing from the seat and replaced by a section of plywood, stood in front of the bench. A wooden bench ran down the centre of the room and another ran across the far wall where it was stopped short by a closed door. A rub-down table rested between the centre bench and the wall opposite the mirror. From the ceiling a naked bulb of very high wattage flared concentrated white light into the room. There was absolutely nothing comfortable about the dressing room. It looked like it was; a place to leave and a place to come back to without making any impression. The door on the far wall, Togger discovered, led to a shower and toilet.

Dutch arrived, looking nervously at his watch. There was plenty of time. Togger held a small hand towel. It seemed to be a prop, to give his hands something to do for he was twisting it unknowingly into a length resembling a thick piece of rope. Only Daddy Kockle seemed relaxed and was seated on the rubbing table with his legs crossed.

Peekay started to undress. Togger, happy to find something to do, took Peekay's clothes and hung them up on a wire hanger like a valet. Peekay fitted the protector harness on, a jockstrap device with a hard, leather-covered aluminium crotch box. Then he pulled on the light blue shorts with the yellow waistline which Hymie had ordered for the fight, after which he pulled on a pair of thick socks. Leaving off his boxing boots, he moved over to the rub-down table. Daddy Kockle jumped from the table and Peekay saw he'd brought his clarinet.

Dutch started to work on Peekay's shoulders, first rubbing him down with vaseline, then taking the towel from Togger and rubbing what vaseline remained off again before starting to massage his shoulders. 'Just a light one, lad, loosen you up a bit,' he spoke softly as though only the two of them were in the room. 'Take your time tonight, build it slowly, you've got fifteen rounds.' It was advice he'd offered a hundred times before.