The Fighter (18 page)

They pile on chops and steaks, sausages and chicken rissoles. Unload boxes of fruit and vegies, cartons of sprite and juices. Set out sandwiches and salads and loaves of bread on the serving tables. Mustard, tomato sauce, salt and pepper, take your pick of condiments. And to finish, coffee and tea, milo, slices of cake, and biscuits. All is in place, the carnival erected.

And from the shadows they are emerging, from the nearby streets and beyond, one by one, in pairs and alone, making their way from rooming houses, commission flats, hostels and single-bedroom apartments. A black-clad woman on a motorised chair; a white-bearded man, ear glued to a red transistor; men and women in tracksuits; women dressed up; youths in hoodies; a man wheeling a bicycle trailing a trolley; men and women pushing shopping jeeps. There are long-time regulars, and tentative newcomers. Children. Entire families. They mill about, lean against the wooden fence, and form huddles on the footpath. Or hang back in the shadows. Settling. One by one they join the queue. They file past the tables, fill their plates, then find a seat on the plastic chairs and benches.

Spirits are lifting, fuelled by food and company. Hesitant eyes are making contact. The talk is accompanied by gestures that are growing ever more expansive. The listless are becoming animated, and the stoic casting aside their reticence. Brooding is being transmuted into engagement. Snatches of talk drift in and out of hearing.

‘She's a Jack Russell–chihuahua cross,' says the owner. The
dog nestles beside her on the park bench. ‘Got his dad's Jack Russell head and his mum's chihuahua body.'

The dog stands up, eyes the crowd, and receives pats and accolades.

‘She's with me all the time. She sleeps on my bed of course.'

A Laotian woman, a single mother, and her son, join the queue. Her eyes are clear, her complexion glows. She wears a black headscarf that accentuates her fine features.

‘You look so young,' says Henry.

‘It must be the sticky rice,' she replies.

S has brought garlic bread, his customary offering. The bowl is wrapped in tea towels to retain the warmth. It's the only thing he knows how to make, he claims, his proud weekly contribution. It is snapped up quickly.

‘Henry, you remind me of Santa Claus,' he says, then smiles shyly.

‘I get hurt, I come back,' says Y. ‘I always come back. I speak my mind, I get hurt, and I come back. A few years ago I was on life support. I stopped breathing. I was at death's door. I was floating away and I saw a white fence, and I knew I had to get back. I fought hard. I was not ready to go yet. I come back. I go away, but I come back. I always come back.'

She speaks fast. Her mind is on fire. The accented words flow with a poetic intensity. ‘There are two horrible things in the world: envy and greed,' she says.

‘I used to run all the time. I was on the go, chasing life, living it up and drinking myself silly. Now I can't do without a walking frame. My wings've been clipped. But I still see things.
I've seen rain. I've seen sun. I've seen bombs. I've seen hate. I've seen hope. I've seen angels and I've seen the devil, but I always come back.'

‘Thirty-three years Henry's been helping me,' says L.

Her jeep holds her belongings: CDs of Patsy Kline, Johnny O'Keefe, Bill Haley and the Comets, Hank Williams, country and western, sixties rockers. Grantley Dee: ‘Let the Little Girl Dance' is her favourite.

She wears a black coat, a black beanie and a bright red blouse with a large collar. ‘Mark Twain is my twenty-second cousin,' she says. ‘Samuel Clemens was his real name. I've got the family tree to prove it.'

‘My father lived hard,' says P. ‘He drove himself, and he drove us. He hung on till ninety-three. He was a tyrant. He loved opera. He loved Verdi. I love Verdi, “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves”,
Va pensiero.
Pure genius.' He begins to hum it.

All the while Henry is on the move. Circling. He pauses. Listens, and enters into conversations. He greets old timers, and welcomes newcomers. Does a stint behind the serving tables. He hands out plastic knives and forks, paper plates and paper napkins, engages in banter, rugged up against the cold in his thick woollen jacket and beanie. He is a dogged boxer in the fifteenth round, a master of conserving energy. He puts his arm on the shoulder of a man with delirium tremens and steadies his swaying. Props him up.

‘His Holiness has arrived,' says Mem.

Father Bob has come to survey the troops, as he does most evenings.

‘He's the director. Alfred Hitchcock,' quips Mem. ‘A dead set lookalike.'

‘Better than staying home,' says the good father.

He walks slowly, supported by a walking stick. He plants it on the pavement, and places both hands on the curved handle. He bends forward as he talks, moves from side to side, and works up a rhythm. The stick is an anchor.

‘Henry walks among them,' he says.

He lifts the stick and points it towards Henry, at work, circling. ‘See what I mean?'

Father Bob speaks elliptically. He sees the world in symbols; he views life as a sequence of parables. He is beyond religion. He is of life and the earth, and of the streets and the people. And Henry is a kindred spirit.

‘Henry is a people whisperer,' he says. ‘He knows the dark side. He kisses and hugs the vampires. See what I mean? A prostitute once came to me and complained: “Henry comes up to us and kisses us, and greets us with his love and best wishes, and we become lazy customers.”'

Father Bob retains his vantage point on the footpath. He is at ease in the semi-darkness. He does not need to move forward. He lifts the walking stick and hooks the curved top over his lower arm, freeing his hands. With each remark, his forefinger and thumb touch gently. He is firmly moored, yet in constant motion, mind ticking over. Taking it in. Observing.

‘It's all about place,' he says. He lifts the stick from his arm and points it upwards. ‘Heaven is not another place.' He lowers the stick and waves it at the assembled company. ‘It's this place,
clearly seen.' In the huddles around the tables and benches, and the lit-up faces, the volunteers lined up behind the serving tables, tending the barbecue, in the quiet undertone of voices. In the talk and laughter, and the stillness that hums beneath it.

In this hour there is trust. Familiarity. The gathering is at its zenith, a tranquil celebration. Communion.

Henry moves as if on autopilot. He has been doing this for decades.

The talk is subsiding. The carnival is winding down. Slowly they are leaving, disentangling themselves, drifting off as they had come, in singles and pairs, in families, wheeling shopping jeeps now stocked with food, back to who knows where. Slipping away into the darkness, disappearing down side streets and around corners.

‘It all helps, it all helps,' says the Laotian woman as she guides her son into the night.

They arrived. Stayed a while, and now, quietly, they are gone. The lights are being unwound, the tables wiped down, and the chairs folded. The van is packed and the crew is leaving. The square returns to quietude. Several old men remain. They lean back on the benches and succumb to their private dreaming.

From nothing to nothing, from empty space to empty space, and in between, heaven, clearly seen. And, after all these years, Henry is still walking among them.

27

The night is far from over, and Henry is still moving. He is not ready to go home. He is still in the fight, still jabbing and weaving. After a quick nap, he is back in the yellow Hyundai, on Wurundjeri Way, heading north through the city, past the Seafarers' Mission, and the white eaglehawk on the black pedestal.

Once he's through the skyscraper canyons, the horizons return. The ferris wheel is rotating, and the strobe lights are moving, in beams of mauve and blue, green and violet, and Henry is turning east, leaving the port via the dimly lit industrial streets of West Melbourne, gliding along the dark flanks of the inner city.

He veers left at the roundabout from Dudley Street into Peel
Street, and skirts the Vic Market. He charges onwards, turning left into Flemington Road opposite the hospital complex. Henry is within minutes of Princes Park, the scene of his childhood runs, the exhilaration. He does not reflect upon it. He is intent on tonight's destination. He turns left into Racecourse Road, overshoots the mark and is temporarily lost.

His homing instincts kick in and he doubles back past the public high-rises. He turns right into a side street and draws up by the brick building on the corner. He makes his way into the foyer, and is waved past by security into the cavernous hall where the action has long since started.

It's fight night at the Melbourne Pavilion and the beer is flowing. The food keeps coming—kebabs and sushi, roast chicken in bread rolls, fried fish with yoghurt dips—the patrons have paid good money to eat and drink at tables with a ringside view of the action. The preliminaries are over and the energy is building with each successive bout, surging towards a climax.

Between rounds Queen are singing ‘We Will Rock You', and the audience is singing with them. The final fight is approaching, and the Golden Boy, Qamil Balla, is jogging towards the ring, ducking and feinting, shuffling three steps forwards, two steps sideways. Shadow sparring. He emerges into the spotlight.

He is a pied piper leading his entourage—a conga line of corner-men and handlers with towels over their shoulders, water boys clasping bottles and buckets, hangers-on and seconds. They are running to keep up with him, as if to stop would break the adrenaline-driven rhythm. After all, an Australian title is there for the taking, and the boy wants it. It's so close he
can smell it, as can his backers.

The conga line snakes between the tables, the men highfiving acquaintances, pumping fists in the air, saluting punters in the bleachers. They move past the judges and commentators, and propel their boy ringside, urging him on as he climbs those three steps to the ring, where Jack ‘the Ripper' Brubaker is waiting. And all the while Henry is moving from table to table, laughing. He is back where he belongs, and where his ascent began, greeted and welcomed by old friends, embraced by the fraternity.

All night he is on the move, and all night they are draping their arms round his waist, on his shoulders, tapping him on the back, kissing him on the cheeks, reaching out in affection—promoters, aficionados, bouncers and ageing doormen, black-shirted underworld figures and their henchmen alongside surgeons and barristers—all lusting for the scent of leather, the hollow thud of glove on midriff, the spurt of sweat from colliding bodies. The hall reeks of masculinity.

‘Henry,' they proclaim, ‘it's great to see you.' ‘Henry bloody Nissen, where've you been hiding?' The clichés are flying. ‘He's an ornament to the game,' they will tell anyone within hearing. ‘He was a tough bastard, but always fought cleanly.' ‘No punching beneath the belt, just good honest-to-god fighting.' ‘We could do with a few more like him in these disrespectful days when every young upstart expects instant success and quick riches.'

And Queen are singing their signature song, the disco lights are flashing, and the tacky chandeliers are glittering. The MC is bellowing ‘ladies and gentlemen', introducing the fighters. He stands mid-ring, mic in hand, spruiking their stats, their win
to loss ratios, talking up their records. His resonant voice, filled with mock drama, reverberates in the rafters.

The national anthem is being played. The entire audience is rising. The dress code is smart casual, but no one's holding anyone to it—the pavilion contains it all, from the formal to the ragged, from men in tuxedos and bow ties to no-nonsense punters in sweatshirts, baggy trousers and tracksuits. And Henry Nissen in his customary worn jeans and runners, winter jacket and navy jumper.

The referee has the boys centre-ring, face-to-face. He is laying down the rules, spelling them out with his fingers, then sending them to their corners with a pat to the shoulders, releasing them for last-minute trainer instructions, a last towelling down, and a final cat-whistling boost from their supporters.

Then it's on, the boxers must front up. The bell is ringing. It draws them out of their corners, all tensed up and raring to go, relieved it's finally on, the build-up over. They are aching to gain their little slice of boxing history, moments of glory to store away for tales that will be told over and again at boxers' reunions years later.

They start with caution, test the feel of the canvas, intent on occupying the centre. There are ten rounds, and they're in it for the long haul. They are sizing each other up, pawing and leading, keeping the other at arm's length, working the ring, finding their balance. Easing their way into the contest, lulling the crowd into a reverie.

When it comes, it comes suddenly, in the second round, earlier than expected—an abrupt shift in rhythm, a flurry of
punches, a clash of heads and torsos, the brutal collision of flesh and leather, and the heavy thud of boots on canvas. The boards are shaking, and in a flash the Golden Boy is back-pedalling, and the Ripper is all over him, with his advantage of height and reach, driving his opponent against the ropes, edging him into the corner.

The spectators are alert. They are moving in from the bar, dropping out of conversations. Sensing blood, they're up on their feet, wolf-whistling and bellowing. The Ripper is stalking and jabbing, throwing vicious combinations, but the Golden Boy is no slouch and fights his way clear with instinct and sheer willpower.

He lets down his guard with blessed relief when the bell signals the end of the three minutes, and Queen are back on the speakers with their insistent rhythms and strident lyrics, and again the crowd is singing along with them, high on the momentum; and the conversations are resuming and an old enthusiast is leaning forward shouting above the tumult.

‘I've been going to fights since 1947. I've seen the lot: the shysters and heroes, the hungry and the willing, legends and bullshit artists. I'm nearly eighty, would you believe it, and I don't look a day over seventy-nine, do I?