Old Blue Hauler looked at Whiff as if wondering at the nature of ‘Mister Texas’; a highly articulate, intelligent, and fearless outsider, half the weight of any of his prospective opponents and a mere third the girth of the massive simian President.
Whiff, too distant to converse as he was off to the side and Old Blue was holding a an open hand up to each of the antagonists, gave the one-shoulder ringer nod with the wink; a signal of old among men of the carnival boxing stage that a professional fighter had embedded himself in the crowd and risen to challenge the Carnival Champion.
Old Blue lowered his eyes knowingly as he looked to the floor and held his hands symbolically out to the side, staving off the much anticipated joining of the combat until every betting soul quieted his mouth and stood at respectful ease:
The vibration of the bullet glass all around stopped as the guards ceased their glass-knocking form of communication—hence the cacophony lost its base drum.
The shouting, bickering, snarling and spittle-laced handshakes soon ceased among the whites in the concrete slab world surrounded by the guard’s bullet glass—depriving the strident chorus of the Ignorant-damned of its many voices from bell deep to snare shrill.
At last, not a moment before Whiff began to shake with embarrassment, the low base fiddle hum of the negro boys on the yard—still gathering in their curious way, forming a human bleacher section of laying, then sitting, then kneeling, then squatting, then standing, and then sitting on shoulders, and then standing on still broader shoulders, so that all 300 bound souls might peer through the 20 foot gap in the circle of white bodies—finally ceased.
Whiff turned and considered the faces of his own kind through the glass, being at leisure to study their character, as they had eyes only for the combatants. He could tell that—as was usually the case when his fellow negroes fell to developing an interest in the affairs of whites—that they were unevenly split and discordant of mind.
Isn’t that always the sad way with Us, breaking ranks to support this Colonel over that Major over that Captain over that put upon Sheriff, who puts it upon the dumb white brute, whose wretched station we covert as it is yet better than ours.
Well boys, I suppose this is no time to break type!
A third had their eyes fiercely on Red Ned, favored by the negro inmates as their champion who had once killed an NBA marshal with his bare hands. This man was strongly built at six and a half inches tall, must have scaled 300 pounds, and had a wide watermelon shaped head topped by an unruly shock of red hair. His skin, though, in Whiff’s keen estimation, seemed soft.
The other two thirds of the negro boys had their eyes hopefully on the dark-skinned Mister Texas, no doubt hoping that there was some mammy in there accounting for the dark cast of his features. This man appeared puny and childlike before his opponent, standing but six feet and weighing no more than 160 pounds. His body was riddled with healed bullet wounds and scars, was barren of hair like an Indian, and had a label on the breast, where a law officer would have his badge.
Whiff had seen boxing men of this size fell many a lumbering carnival challenger. But this was rough and tumble rules—no holds barred. Even though he had seen the man butcher three others in the hobo stick versus knife fight that transpired at his feet as he hung at the end of that readymade rope, and additionally had felt the thunderous crack of his sneaky right hand and woke up hours later as testament to its power, Whiff did not see this fight going the way of Mister Texas—except, the man seemed too eager and confident by half.
Silence now achieved, Old Blue looked to the hulking figure of the President and his five other burly ‘senators’, winked at Whiff, looked up to the Warden’s perch, to see him on his swivel chair, and then, when the Warden gave a nod, stepped back in a low sweep and clapped his hands, signaling the beginning of the fight.
Red Ned came straight on, hands extended for the grapple, chin tucked, knees snaking before his groin with each step to protect his groin from the cruel kick that would be the smaller man’s lone hope.
Rather than circle or back up Mister Texas stood his ground. When the outstretched hands of Red Ned lunged high and low for a fireman’s carry, the wiry man leaped into the air and slammed his knee into the face of Red Ned, forming of it an instant catcher’s mitt as the nose exploded in a shower of blood and snot. The man then grabbed a hold of Ned’s head with both hands as his hips rose to the level of the staggered giant’s head.
My Lord that is an acrobat’s trick worthy of Little Greaser Akimbo himself!
To the amazement of one and all, as the pale red-coated gorilla stood bent-kneed trying to dislodge the hairless brown monkey from his back, his smashed nose gushing blood, his red oozing mouth spilling teeth as he bubbled his fury and snarled, the evil Mister Texas made snake legs out of his wiry pedestrian members and locked the head and neck of Red Ned as in a vice, then jerked back to fall with a sickening smack on the concrete.
All could see the cruelty in it, the deadly intent, for the wiry fiend could have rolled loose to save his skin and ribs. But he kept the leg lock tight on the thick neck and watermelon head, and even twisted his hips inward so that the whites could see the face of their man, as his neck broke on impact. To add insult the sly fiend, having ridden the poor fool fighter like the devil riding a duped soul to hell, posed on one elbow for a moment of silence that followed the “Ooooo” of shock. He then leapt up and cavorted like a vaudevillian in black face once again and looked to Old Blue—the mammy rag still wrapped about his head—as he had not been so much as touched—“Oh my Referee on High, it appears this one is done; en I needs me some eats!”
Silence still reigned for not a soul had imagined such an outcome, or such a cruel jest.
The wiry Mister Texas then paced around the circle of bloodstained concrete, looked at each of the remaining five bruisers that stood between he and the President and raised his voice in a military baritone, “It seems I have killed your man, which prevents me from taking his place—so which a you corn fed boys is goin’ to avenge him, so as I can get my eats?”
Three of the brutes shrunk back, but two, Cat Claw Able and Rat Swallower Cobb, began arguing with each other over which deserved to lay the interloper low as Old Blue called for ‘bearers’. The hulking figure of Gill Saint then stepped forward, and addressed the three shirkers with a finger the size of a woman’s wrist pointed meaningfully, “Y’all zhirgers ‘aul off ole Ned en zday off!”
With those words the three lesser giants converged on the bleeding body of their slain fellow, certain—much to Gill’s disgust—to step a respectful distance around the taunting figure of Mister Texas, who grinned menacingly at the massive President, who was the only foe here among these brutes that he seemed respectful of.
Old Blue, over his momentarily lapse of composure, then stepped forward and checked the straws of Cat Claw Able and Rat Swallow Cobb.
“It’s the Cat Claw!” he called, and a roar of approval went up—suddenly silenced by a ruckus in The Yard.
All Eyes turned to see the collapsing human bleacher stand in the yard as the huge form of One-eyed Haystack plowed through the ranks of the negroes and came to the bullet glass to press his face for a view, those behind him content to reform their miracle arrangement of cooperative human compression. The big man glared at Gill Saint with his one eye and the empty pit as well, and raised a carton of cigarettes, Virginia Slims by the look of them.
Gill patted a boy on the back, gave him a handful of food tokens, and sent him scurrying for the cat walk guard above the gate jockey, who it seemed, as an unofficial duty, held the stakes when wagers were made between The Yard and The Slab.
Whiff looked out toward the one searching eye-wide-in-anticipation, and met the gaze of the legendary negro inmate, who greeted his silent regard with a three-toothed grin.
Whiff tipped his long lost hat to One-eyed Haystack and bowed, as Old Blue recited the terms of combat once again, this time amid a bedlam of “Cat Claw” and “Mister Texas”.
The concrete slab that was the surface of this insane flat earth, with no heaven above, but a hell below, vibrated under his shredded soles, and for once since that readymade rope had been draped over his hard hustling neck, he felt like a Carney again; like back in the day, on the fifth of May, of 1998, when he laced on the gloves for Mighty Mo Wilson for his record-breaking thousand man bout over in Turner Station, as men plunked down a CSA dollar piece or a Yankee Ten Note for their chance in the ring with the mightiest midget fighter he ever managed…
This is a sign Whiff, a sign from Good God Above that he heard you sing that song from the tailgate of that devil-sent Union Motors rig; a sign that light looms ahead at the end of this goshdarned white tunnel!
I suppose that is the problem with bright possibilities in this man’s life, muted as they are by the white hostilities before and between.
Never fear Whiff, these slacks pockets are still packed with the promises and debts of honor accumulated over a lifetime of whip-smart hustle and honest shuffle. You just need to find the angle in this mess, and for what’s it is worth, it will be yours.
The Slab, the Tiers above, and The Yard without, reverberated with the ecstasy of men enthralled by the Prizefight Spirit; one of the patron saints of Whiff Gleason’s own close-held cosmology; the pagan God of Strife that the Good Lord Above, for some unfathomable reason, saw fit to give free reign at special times such as this; such times as Whiff had always treasured as belonging to every man, no matter his station.
