The Last Card

H was floating, moving in a different time. His control over his body was perfect. His years of training, dedication, conditioning had all led to these nine minutes; three, three minute rounds of flowing, balletic motion.

It was the second round and the action was following the course of the first. H was fighting in the finals of the English Amateur Boxing Association. As the South of England champion he was fighting his northern counterpart, Henry ‘Bugle Boy’ Mancini. They called him Bugle Boy because he played the bugle when he wasn’t boxing. He didn’t play it well, in fact he could barely toot out ‘Three Blind Mice’, but he played it, and the press latched on to it, an angle for their human interest stories. H scowled every time he thought of it. Fuck Mancini and fuck his bugle. They say you need good lips to play brass. By the time H was through pounding Mancini’s face, the man would have to take up the guitar.

The arena, a sports centre in Birmingham, was packed. Three thousand people; punters, minor celebrities, the country’s amateur boxing cognoscenti. And they were all cheering for H. Because H was putting on a show and making the artistry of boxing look like the easiest thing in the world.

Despite media spin, Mancini was a tough, stocky, big-boned kid from Hulme, Manchester’s equivalent of the south Bronx. He was a bully. With a jaw carved from the concrete of the council flats he grew up in, Mancini could take a punch. He thought nothing of wading through two, three or four of his opponent’s punches to land one of his. And Mancini could punch. He was a banger. He’d bulldoze his opponents, not only taking their blows but flaunting the fact that he could take their blows and still keep coming. The public liked
watching 
Mancini not because he was good but because he was exciting. A bit like Nigel Benn in the early years.

But the public also liked watching H. H wasn’t a banger, he was a dancer. Slim, lean and whippet-fast. He didn’t just dance, he could punch as well, but he didn’t have Mancini’s weight of punch. On the way to this final bout, H’s knockouts were fewer; his journey was less spectacular in some ways, but no less decisive. Where Mancini would land the spectacular blow that could separate his opponent from his senses, H would land three that would put his man down, unable to beat the count. Stunned but not out. And so the hype leading up to this fight was all about how the Bugle Boy with the knock-out blow would handle the cold-eyed shuffler.

H was called the Shuffler because his patented move was the Ali shuffle. Having seen the great man do it countless times on video, H had imitated and then practised the move to perfection. To the point where he had made it his own. It was now somewhere between the Ali shuffle and a Michael Jackson moonwalk. Whenever H had an opponent on the run, or if it was a closely fought bout and H wanted to momentarily bamboozle an opponent, he would begin shuffling his feet and gliding smoothly round the ring. There were those who thought he was showboating but most people loved the
entertainment
. Either way H’s smooth, fluid movements would invariably bring the watching crowd, hungry for violence and action, to its feet, roaring approval. For H, the shuffle wasn’t so much arrogance as an
expression
of fun, the almost childlike joy he took in his sport and his ability to do it well. He revelled in his ability to make what he did look easy and the crowd responded, loved him for it.

And so it was that halfway through the second round of the finals of the English Amateur Boxing Association H began to shuffle. But only after peppering Mancini with any amount of stiff lefts that caused the Bugle Boy’s lips to bulge; only after a sweet one-two-three combination, the three being an uppercut that jolted Mancini’s head back, the sweat flying from his close cropped head; only after a body shot that literally doubled the bullying Bugle Boy from Hulme. Only after all these things did H finally allow Mancini to close in. And when Mancini did H promptly dropped his hands to his sides and shuffled his feet in a blur of motion that carried him out of harm’s way. The crowd began to rise, the front sections at first, and then further back
throughout the arena, as a roar of applause, approval and love built to a crescendo, crashing around H with the force of a waterfall.

For the first time in his life, H knew what it meant to feel drunk, intoxicated, inebriated on sheer ability.

Mancini stood, floundering, in the centre of the ring. H could see that he was bemused, befuddled and embarrassed. Through swollen eyes he glared at H. And the crowd roared. Like a mammal reared in water and finding himself on land for the first time, Mancini was confused; life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Movement was supposed to be fluid, taking in oxygen was not supposed to be
something
you thought about, and bashing opponents was supposed to come easy. None of this was true. H watched as, with resolve, Mancini again went for him. Bravely, he stepped forward, glaring, murder in his eyes. Rat-a-tat-tat! H peppered him with light, fast punches. Mancini brushed them aside and swung. Air. He missed, H was gone. Kept moving forward. H stopped shuffling, he was dancing, up on his toes, bang! a right to the side of Mancini’s head, Mancini swung, H bobbed, under the blow – bang! another left to Mancini’s face, the Bugle Boy’s lips this time and Mancini’s mouth sagged. He was trying to breathe, his mouth hung open, gasping for air, H in again, combination, one-two-three, bang-bang-bang! Mancini lunged, grabbed on to the Shuffler, clinging, holding.

Break! The referee stepped in and separated the combatants. His left eye closing now, Mancini again came in, like a bull, all upper body beef, looking for the blow that would put an end to this. And again H shuffled, just out of reach. He was playing to the crowd, returning the love that they sent towards him in waves.

Ding, Ding! The bell rang to end the round. With all the noise in the arena only the referee heard it and had to step between the
fighters
, sending them back to their respective corners. On their way, they passed each other.

‘Are you gonna dance all night, bitch?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I thought blacks were supposed to be tough?’

H let this lie as he floated to his corner. Nick and Matt, his corner men, slid through the ropes and into the ring. With the precision of Swiss watch manufacturers, they set to work. A stool was planted in the corner, H was pulled on to it. A bucket of cold water with a sponge
in it was slapped to one side. Matt, the sixteen-year-old sponge boy, put his hand in H’s mouth, pulled out his gum-shield, dropped it into the bucket. He then dipped the sponge into the water and mopped H’s face, squeezing the cooling water over the crisp, clean cut of his features. Matt’s father Nick, a grizzled Irishman from the slums of Belfast, had already dropped to one knee. He looked piercingly into H’s eyes and spoke with calm but urgent authority.

‘What did he say?’

‘Stand and fight.’

‘What?’

‘Stand and fight. He wants me to stand and fight him.’

‘Forget him! He’s an animal! Dis is it son, all we’ve been working for. Look at me! It’s in de fuckin’ bag, just keep movin’, movin’, workin’ de jab, stickin’ it in ’is face, and shufflin’. Look at me!’

H’s eyes wandered over to look at Mancini in the far corner. Nick yanked his face back.

‘Keep keepin’ outta trouble, stay loose, stay focused, remember everythin’ we’ve worked for, back in de gym. Dis is yours! Dis is your day! Fuck dis Mancunian arsehole, you’re goin’ta make him pay de proice for turning up in de same ring as you. What’s de proice? What’s de proice?!’

But H was no longer listening. His breathing was easy, his head felt light. He deliberately slowed his breathing further. His gaze was clear. While Nick talked H stared, clear-eyed across the ring. In contrast to the calm efficiency of his own corner, Mancini’s was a mess: blood oozed from the cut above Mancini’s eye, his mouth was swollen and cut, two cotton buds were jammed up his nostrils. One of his corner men feverishly slapped grease over his red-raw eyebrows and forehead, another slopped water down his chest, into his trunks.

‘Look at me, H! What’s de proice?’

‘Defeat.’

‘Not defeat! Not defeat! Annoihilation! Crush dis guy! Like a bug! Leave no doubt in de judges’ moinds! Dere is no doubt already, but I want even less! Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’, no change of game plan, DMS – dancin’, movin’, shufflin’. Dis is de last round you’ll ever foight as an amateur. Make it one to remember. You’re next fight is as a professional and we go and make some real fuckin’ money with
de big dogs. Now go out and jab his fuckin’ head off, H. What are you?’

Matt took H’s gum-shield and slipped it back into H’s mouth.

‘I’m a champ.’

‘I can’t hear you!’

‘I’m a champ!’

‘I can’t fuckin’ hear you!’

‘I’m a champ!’

‘You’re a fuckin’ god! Now go out dere and prove it!’

Ding! Last round. Nick struggled up from arthritic knees back to his feet. He and Matt both kissed H before climbing out of the ring. H rose. He looked across at Mancini. The adrenaline spurted, still coursing through his veins. He shook his arms out, rocked his head from side to side, working out the kinks, he eased his gum-shield into a more comfortable place in his mouth.

The referee now waved him and Mancini to the centre of the ring, looked them both in the eye, paying special attention to the bloody Mancini. He was happy. As far as he was concerned, they were both able to box. He waved them together, stepped back. H looked at Mancini, Mancini glared back. H banged his boxing gloves together, ready to get it on …

Years later, when H looked back on his performance against the short, stocky fighter from Manchester, he would always find
goose-pimples
rising on his arms. Pure adrenaline, not blood flowed through your veins. Moving so fucking fast you think you’re about to defy gravity and lift off the face of the planet. But now, with the benefit of those added years, H realised what he had been experiencing was the celebration of unbridled, unfettered, pure and unadulterated,
one-hundred-per-cent-concentrated
youth.