Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

Hymie had also revealed his big plan. By now he was so intimately involved with me as a boxer as well as a friend that he acted quite unselfconsciously as my manager. In two and a bit years Hymie had acquired a remarkable expertise on boxing and he too was aware that we’d reached the limitations of both Darby White and Sarge and needed to take the next step in my training.

‘Who’s the best professional boxing trainer in South Africa?’ he’d asked one afternoon shortly after our return to school.

‘You already know the answer to that; Solly Goldman.’

‘Well, I went to see him during the holidays. We’re working out for him when he gets back from a trip to England in six weeks. If he likes what he sees, he’ll take you on.’

‘Jesus, Hymie, that’s wonderful! How’d you get him to agree? Solly Goldman only handles professionals.’

For once Hymie wasn’t ready with a flip answer. He looked down at the back of his hands as he answered. ‘We’re going to pay him. We’ve got enough money in the bank to pay him for a year then we’ll think of something else.’ Hymie looked up at me. ‘Now I know what you’re going to say; but as far as I’m concerned my money is yours, you’d do the same for me.’

‘It’s not on, Hymie. Thank you, but it’s simply not on. There are two reasons. The first you already know about, no hand-outs, not under any circumstances, friendship notwithstanding. The second is more practical, that’s our business capital, the first rule of business is never to eat into your capital, you above all people know that!’

‘Look, we’d still keep the Bank, I can borrow money from my old man to keep the float going. You don’t have to take a hand-out. You can buy back your share of the float capital from the profits and you can take a salary as pocket money, you’ll see, it will work out.’

‘Hymie, there’s nothing in the world I want more than Solly Goldman’s expertise, but I can’t do it. It’s got something to do with an incident in my life when I was five years old and I’ve promised myself I would never again forfeit my independence, never again find myself in a position where I wasn’t in control of my life.’

Hymie looked hurt and I couldn’t blame him, in a sense I was rejecting his friendship and his trust. But the wounds entrenched by the Judge and Nazi stormtroopers had left adhesions on my psyche as a constant reminder to me that I was on my own.

‘Okay, Peekay, have it your way, man.’ Then Hymie grinned. ‘If I think up a scam and your share makes enough money to pay Goldman, will you be in it?’

I grinned, relieved that he had accepted my objection. ‘That’s business, that’s different! But only if I play my part and the whole thing’s kosher.’

‘Shake a paw, partner,’ Hymie grinned. ‘This one is going to be an intellectual masterpiece!’

Atherton, Cunning-Spider and I had been a combination on the rugby field from form one. I was a natural scrum-half with Atherton, following in the footsteps of his famous cousin, developing into a brilliant fly-half while Cunning-Spider was a centre with a lot of style. Hugh Lyell and Jean Minnaar, both Sinjun’s People, were also on the team. While I was still technically under fourteen I elected to play in the under fifteen team to keep the combination together. Pissy Johnson, who seemed to grow bigger every term, was a front row forward and, of course, Hymie only became interested because most of the Wooden Spoon Goons were in the team. The under fifteen team in any school is the nursery for the first fifteen and so the players in it are always carefully watched by the rugby masters who regarded this particular team as one with great promise.

Hymie, as usual, analysed the teams against whom we played and, like his boxing notes, we had a pretty good idea of their game plan and capability before taking the field against them.

As he had done in his swot spot in boxing, Hymie made us think and behave like winners. ‘Winners make their own luck but winners are also lucky,’ he said.

In the under thirteens and fourteens, when we had played Helpmekaar, the Afrikaans school where I had boxed my first bout to beat Jannie Geldenhuis, the much bigger Helpmekaar forwards had made mincemeat of us and the stronger, bigger backs had run us off our feet. Geldenhuis, playing scrum-half opposite me, had thoroughly enjoyed his revenge on each of these four occasions. In the last under fourteen match there they’d beaten us narrowly, as we left the field he’d given me an unnecessarily patronising pat on the back. ‘In the ring is one thing, on the rugby field is another. Rugby is more important than boxing, man.’ We’d met five times in the ring and while he was always a tough opponent, on each occasion I’d beaten him; he had a right to try and get even. We would play each school twice during a season and so in our personal score it was me with five boxing wins, Helpmekaar four rugby wins. Hymie, in particular, was anxious to change these rugby statistics when we met in the under fifteens. While the Helpmekaar team were still bigger than we were, things had evened out a bit in size. Hymie was convinced we could beat them. ‘Look at the statistics, Peekay, in the under thirteens they beat us twenty to nil and again fifteen nil, last year it was nine nil and ten three and we scored a try to two free kicks and a drop goal. Statistically we have to take them this year.’

I had my doubts, Helpmekaar with four wins to their credit in the preceding two years had a right to be confident. ‘Hymie, they’re Boers, they’d rather die than lose to an English school, it’s not simply a matter of statistics!’

‘Ja, I know, that’s what we’re going to have to fix.’

On the Wednesday afternoon two weeks prior to the match, when we were meant to be studying at the Johannesburg library, Hymie drew me aside. ‘Will you come to Helpmekaar with me this afternoon to see Jannie Geldenhuis, don’t ask any questions, just say, yes… it’s important.’

Sitting on the top deck of the Parktown bus he outlined his plan. ‘There are nearly twelve hundred kids at Helpmekaar and six hundred at our school, if we can get most of them to place a bet on Helpmekaar winning against our under fifteens we could really clean up, we’d have your Solly Goldman money.’

‘Christ, Hymie, we’re back to straight gambling! You’re crazy, this isn’t like those fist boxing matches when we took a few bets in the toilet before the fight. There I was a surprise factor in that scam, the punters from the other schools didn’t know we had a boxer who could fight. This is just the opposite, they know how good we are and what’s more we’ve never beaten them! This whole thing contradicts our business philosophy.’

‘You know what your problem is, Peekay? You worry too much.’

‘With you as a friend, that’s hardly bloody surprising. I hope you’ve got a plan?’

Hymie opened his hands expansively. ‘Does a bird fly? Of course I’ve got a plan, but I may have to tapdance a little when we get there so please excuse me if I don’t explain it to you in detail. But I promise you our business philosophy is intact.’

‘Hymie, listen! Picking up a dozen punters in the shit house is one thing; taking on a whole bloody Afrikaans school is another. You don’t know these buggers like I do, these guys don’t gamble, the Afrikaans are very religious, you know.’

‘Greed, my dear Peekay, transcends religion. Did not the Roman soldiers gamble for Christ’s garments at Golgotha? Besides, when those Helpmekaar guys see the odds I’m offering, their little Boer hands won’t be able to get a kitchen knife to their money boxes fast enough.’

‘Hymie, I hope this whole thing’s kosher. If it turns out to be a con and they find out, we’re dead meat!’ Hymie had taught us all the Jewish word ‘kosher’ and it had become the generic term for something being legitimate.