Брайс Кортни - The Power of One

‘Gentlemen,’ Bokkie said, ‘this is Kid Louis, the next welterweight champion of the South African Railways.’ The men at the side of the table nearest to us all cheered and whistled, and a man on the other side of the table stood up and pointed to the man Hoppie and I had been staring at.

‘This is Jackhammer Smit. Stand up, Jackhammer, where’s your manners, man?’ he grinned. The miners surrounding Jackhammer whistled and cheered just as the railway men had done a moment before. Jackhammer rose slowly to his feet. He was a giant of a man with his head completely shaved. Hoppie’s grip tightened around my fingers momentarily and then relaxed again. ‘This is one big gorilla, Peekay,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth. Jackhammer took a couple of steps towards us. His heavy eyebrows were like dark awnings above coal-black eyes. A growth of several days made a bluish stubble over his chin and gave him a permanently angry look. His nose was almost as flat as Bokkie’s and one ear looked mashed.

Hoppie stuck his hand out but the big man didn’t take it. The men all fell silent. Jackhammer Smit put his hands on his hips, and tilting his head back slightly he looked down at Hoppie and me with eyes of anthracite and doom. Then he turned back to the miners. ‘Which of the two midgets do I fight?’ The miners broke up and beat the surface of the table and whistled. Jackhammer Smit turned back to face us. ‘Kid Louis, huh? Tell me, man, what’s a Boer fighter doing with a Kaffir name? Shit man, you should be ashamed of yourself. Kid Louis? I don’t usually fight kids and I don’t fight Kaffirboeties, but tonight I’m going to make an exception.’ He laughed. ‘You the exception, railway man. Every time I hit you you’re going to think a bloody train shunted into you!’ He turned and grinned at the seated miners who shouted and cheered again, then he walked the two steps back to his chair where he slumped down and took a deep drink from the jug of beer.

Hoppie was breathing hard beside me but quickly calmed down as the men turned to see his reaction to Jackhammer’s taunts. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. ‘All I can say is, I’m lucky I’m not fighting your mouth, which is a super heavyweight.’

Jackhammer exploded and sprayed beer all over the railway men who were seated opposite him. ‘Come, Peekay, let’s get going, man,’ Hoppie said moving towards the door to the cheers, whistles and claps of the railway men.

Bokkie and Nels followed quickly. Hoppie turned at the door. ‘Keep him sober, gentlemen, I don’t want people to think I beat him ’cause he was drunk!’

Jackhammer Smit half rose in his chair as if to come after us. ‘You fucking midget, I’ll kill you!’ he shouted.

‘You done good,’ Bokkie said, ‘it will take the bastard two rounds just to get over his anger.’ He then told Hoppie to get some rest, that they’d pick us up at the mess at seven-fifteen to drive to the rugby field where the ring had been set up. ‘People are coming from all over the district and from Letsitele and Mica and even as far as Hoedspruit and Tzaneen. I’m telling you, man, there’s big money on this fight, those miners like a bet.’

‘No worries,’ Hoppie said. ‘See you at quarter past seven.’

We walked the short distance to the railway mess. The sun had not yet set over the Murchison range and the day baked on, hot as ever. ‘If it stays hot then that changes the odds.’ Hoppie squinted up into a sky the colour of pewter, his hand cupped above his eyebrow. ‘I think it’s going to be a bastard of a night, Peekay. A real Gravelotte night, hot as hell.’

When we got to the mess Hoppie told me his plan. ‘First we have a shower, then we lie down, but here’s the plan, Peekay, every ten minutes you bring me a mug of water. Even if I say “no more”, even if I beg you, you still bring me a glass every ten minutes, you understand?’

‘Ja, Hoppie, I understand,’ I replied, pleased that I was playing a part in getting him ready. Hoppie took his railway timekeeper from one of the fob pockets of his blue serge waistcoat hanging up behind the door.

‘Every ten minutes, you hear! And you make me drink it, okay little boetie?’

‘I promise, Hoppie,’ I said solemnly as he began to undress for his shower.

The window of Hoppie’s room was wide open and a ceiling fan moved slowly above us. Hoppie lay on the bed wearing only an old pair of khaki shorts. I sat on the cool cement floor with my back against the wall, the big railway timekeeper in my hands. In almost no time at all Hoppie’s body was wet with perspiration and after a while even the sheet was wet. Every ten minutes I went through to the bathroom and brought him a mug of water. After five mugfuls Hoppie turned to me, still on the bed resting on his elbow.

‘It’s an old trick I read about in Ring magazine. Joe Louis was fighting Jack Sharkey. Anyway, it was hot as hell, just like tonight. Joe’s manager made him drink water all afternoon just like us. To cut a long story short, by the eighth round the fight was still pretty even. Then Sharkey started to run out of steam in the tremendous heat. You see, Peekay, the fight was in the open just like tonight and these huge lights were burning down into the ring, the temperature was over one hundred degrees. In a fifteen-round fight a man can lose two pints of water just sweating and if he can’t get it back, I’m telling you, man, he is in big trouble. I dunno just how it works but you can store water up just like a camel sort of, that’s what Joe did and he’s the heavyweight champion of the world now.’

‘What did Mr Jackhammer mean when he said you were a Kaffir lover, Hoppie?’

‘Ag, man, take no notice of that big gorilla, Peekay. He’s just trying to put me off my stride for tonight. You see Joe Louis is a black man. Not a Kaffir like our Kaffirs, black yes, but not stupid and dirty and ignorant. He is what you call a negro, that’s different, man. He’s sort of a white man with a black skin, black on the top, white underneath. But that big gorilla is too stupid to know the difference.’

It was all very complicated, beautiful ladies with skin like honey who were not as good as us and black men who were white men underneath and as good as us. The world sure was a complicated place where people were concerned.

‘I’ve got a nanny just like Joe Louis,’ I said to Hoppie as I rose to get his sixth mug of water.

Hoppie laughed. ‘In that case I’m glad I’m not fighting your nanny tonight, Peekay.’

After a while Hoppie rose from the bed and went to a small dresser and returned with a mouth organ. For a while we sat there and he played Boeremusiek on the mouth organ. He was very good and the tappy country music seemed to cheer him up.

‘A mouth organ is a man’s best friend, Peekay. You can slip it in your pocket and when you’re sad it will make you happy. When you’re happy it can make you want to dance. If you have a mouth organ in your pocket you’ll never starve for company or a good meal. You should try it, it’s a certain cure for loneliness.’

Just then we heard the sound of a piece of steel being hit against another. ‘Time for your dinner,’ Hoppie said, slipping on a pair of shoes without socks and putting on an old shirt.

Dinner at the railway mess was pretty good. I had roast beef and mashed potatoes and beans and tinned peaches and custard. Hoppie had nothing except another glass of water. Other diners crowded round our table and wished Hoppie luck and joked a bit and he introduced me to some of them as the next contender. They all told him they had their money on him and how Jackhammer Smit was weak down below. They almost all said things like, ‘Box him, Hoppie. Stay away from him, wear him out. They say he’s carrying a lot of flab, go for the belly, man. You can hit him all night in the head, but his belly is his weakness.’ When they had left Hoppie said they were nice blokes but if he listened to them he’d be a dead man.