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Joey
The final Countdown--last round heavweight thriller. |
| by Tom Campbell |
| posted on |
2005-01-16 04:01:15 |
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7 : last 2005-01-18 04:01:41 |
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4 : last 2005-01-19 03:19:44 |
| category |
Fiction » Science Fiction |
| rating |
Universal |
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Joey
Joey. Joey Massarelli. Joey in a dream. There appeared at least four heavyweight boxers before him, yet he knew there was only one. What made matters worse was that they all moved at different speeds, and struck him with different blows. Any fight strategies his trainer had made the very heart of him had long since been knocked out of every part of him. Even boxing by numbers was beyond him now. Joey, cut and bruised, red-raw and swollen, swathed in blood, and taking a beating. Joey in the opening seconds of a fifteenth, and final, three-minute round heavyweight world title eliminator, played out in an excited cauldron at Madison Square Gardens, New York, on a hot sweltering late summer’s night.
Joey hardly noticed the TV and Radio crews capturing the small paragraph of boxing history. More noticeable was the sea of flash photography flickering around the ring, as it followed and highlighted every one of his desperate moves. Moreover, he could hardly ignore the sea of screams, roars, whistles, oohs and aahs, cheers and jeers, which served to accentuate his beating. And even if he could ignore the world of sight and sound there was always the world of smell. The smell of the canvas stretched tight across the floor of the ring, of baked rubber from the cabling servicing the ring, of candy, of smoke, of perfume and coke. The smell of the blood. The smell of the ring.
Glistening with sweat as he toiled beneath the burning lights it seemed a genuine miracle, or at least a new phenomenon of Physics, that, so far, he had managed to stay on his feet. Joey was one of those guys that even the most powerful of hitters found impossible to put away. Indeed, it was this very quality that earned him the bout even though he had never appeared in the top ranks of the heavyweight scene. The Unstoppable Missile versus The Immovable Post—boasted the billposters in some quarters.
So here he was, taking the mother of all beatings, courtesy of John Dempster—past holder of the Golden Gloves, Olympic Gold Medallist, and heir apparent to the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World. Moreover, as Joey did not possess a knockout punch of any consequence there could be only one winner. Nevertheless, it made for a terrific media spectacle as his efforts forced Dempster to exhibit a full repertoire of his skills.
It wasn’t all bad news: just for turning up and losing, Joey was due to take home his biggest ever pay packet—enough to pay off all his debts. For sure, like any man, he had fantasized about winning; an impossible event that would set him up for life and enable him to give up boxing forever! And what it would mean to little Ellen! But he was man enough to accept that fantasies were just that—fantasies.
As the final round reached the thirty-second mark, unanswered blows ripped through Joey’s hapless defence, and his mind drifted. For a split second, a heavy blow battered and forced his face to the side causing his vision unexpectedly to focus into crystal clarity. He saw little Ellen through a fine spray of his blood. A statue of terror. He felt guilty. Embarrassed. For it was she that had: helped to prepare his pre-fight drink, climbed onto the massage table to give him a hug, and knelt beside him in prayer just minutes before the fight. And it was she that had cried out behind his back as he headed to the ring, ‘You gotta win, Uncle Joey—I don’t wanna be put in no home.’ It had broken his stride; and it had almost broken his heart.
And he drifted...
He took a fierce left to the cheek. Nevertheless, he looked around, determined, and somehow found little Ellen again. He knew she didn’t understand—how could she? It angered him that she was sitting there near the apron of the ring sandwiched between a hooker and Percy the Pimp. A cute little girl like that shouldn’t be in such a place—a pretty little angel forced to sit in Hell. However, there were no other seats, and she had insisted on watching him—her dearest Uncle Joey. If only Daddy were still alive, he would have taken her home. Joey did not know how to discipline little Ellen; he only knew he loved her. She was family. He was the toughest man in the world. He was the softest man in the world. He was Joey Massarelli. Suddenly, he was forced back against the ropes and he lost sight of little Ellen.
And oh, how he drifted...
But letting your mind wander in the heat of such an intense battle is a dangerous game to play, as Joey would have known only too well. Still, it was out of his control.
And he drifted...
BOOM!
A woman’s scream punctured the gasps that rose from the crowd. Dempster’s hammer-blow had caught Joey squarely on the jaw.
The Immovable Post began to move. Joey’s huge defiance melted. He sagged, he wavered, and he started to sink as if he were a huge battleship that had taken a direct hit in heavy seas. His vision folded into nothingness. His right knee gave way and sent him toppling forwards with increasing momentum. Down... down... down... Finally, like a slab of meat slammed onto a butcher’s cutting bench, he splattered belly-first upon the bloodied boxing-ring floor. And as his chin smacked and bounced off the floor, his gum-shield shot from his bruised and torn mouth, flipping about with a life of its own on the canvas as if it were a die casting a final losing number.
But was Joey’s number really up?
Spread-eagled and as lifeless as a drunk lying head-down in the gutter, Joey had lost contact with the living world... Dempster looked down a little concerned, perhaps not for Joey, but more for himself, because he would have known, as did everyone else, that his opponent had a history of rising from the dead.
Suddenly, somehow, within a matter of seconds, Joey’s mind awakened into a maelstrom of silent vision. At first, he couldn’t quite focus on things as they swirled around him, and he wondered where the world of sound had gone. He knew he was on the floor because he could feel it—like a mattress of stone. He felt as heavy and fixed as the stone he was lying on. Nevertheless, with a determined effort he managed to tilt his battered face a little to the side. As a consequence, his arm began to move in an effort to shield his swollen, half-closed eyes from the intense bright lights searing down from high above the ring.
Dempster frowned slightly, and his eyes narrowed, as he ogled Massarelli stirring and squirming beneath his feet mid-way through the referee’s count.
Joey’s predicament, somewhere deep within him, began to crystallise. He had to get up! He had forgotten why, but he knew it was something to do with little Ellen. Where the devil was she? That Percy the Pimp had better keep his hands to himself. He rolled himself onto his back, and then manoeuvred himself into a sitting position. He still couldn’t hear anything. His limbs were moving this way and that, almost contradicting one another in an effort to get up. Effort struggled upon his punch-drunk face—he was trying his damnedest to get up.
Dempster’s frown took on an element of uncertainty—would this Lazarus beat the count? None of the excited commentators huddled around the ring thought so.
All of a sudden, a cacophony of sound came rolling and crashing down upon Joey like a huge tidal wave, smashing his silent world to pieces, and almost threatening to flatten him once again. The frenzied clamour of the crowd, slurred, and magnified by huge reverberations, came thundering into the ring. He shook his head at this sudden burst of unwelcome noise, and at last managed to steady himself. However, almost immediately, a noise began inside his head. And if the noise outside his head was disorientating, it was nothing compared to that inside. An intense high-pitched hum grew that was determined to turn his head inside out. And as this peaked and died away there followed an eerie metallic clanging—so loud and mournfully discordant that for a second or two he thought his skull was a huge church bell tolling for the death of his wretched soul.
Fortunately, despite the avalanche of sound consuming him from both inside and outside, his fighter instinct allowed him to single out the referee’s count.
‘E i g h t!’ said the referee, the word taking an age for Joey to perceive. By now, the exaggerated and painful experience of sound and vision had subsided enough for him to glimpse the world around him—albeit as one experiences an out of focus, slowed-down video. His world was out of kilter. But it was there.
Joey’s limbs, all of a jelly, started to move with urgency and a greater orderly determination.
Dempster retreated a little, half in respect, half in disbelief.
‘N i n e!’ said the referee, the word being so close to ten that it had a marked effect on the urgency of Joey. It seemed that the world around him accelerated to normality, as if God had rotated the speed dial of life to its rightful position. And even as he heard the word nine he thought he heard a little-big voice shouting, ‘Uncle Joey!’
The referee started to say, ‘Ten!’ but—
Defying gravity and logic, ominously, Joey rose like a vampire from its coffin—ascending from a nightmare world, black and dismal, very real, yet very unreal. He even managed to pick up his gum-shield, and shovel it, almost as if he was going to swallow it whole, into his tortured mouth.
Dempster looked impressed, but he had a smirk on his face as if he knew that his skill and mastery of the gentleman’s art—his personal contribution to the sweet science—would soon put Massarelli back to sleep, and for good.
The referee gripped Joey’s wrists firmly and pushed them down asking him to push them up. He was testing Joey’s condition to see if it were reasonable for him to fight on. Joey pushed desperately upwards, with all his might. As ordered, he returned the referee’s stare with his bruised, swollen, and bloodied eyes. Joey could see that the referee was trying to reach some sort of crucial decision. Perhaps he would stop the fight?
He didn’t.
Consequently, Dempster crept towards Joey with all the certainty a fast approaching shadow of death—the Devil’s own perfect fighting machine. He was precise, slick, artistic, and deadly with it. Dempster—the Lion King of the Boxing Ring. He was omnipotent—terminal to those foolish enough to stand in his way. Yet there stood Joey.
Suddenly, Dempster hurled himself feverishly upon Joey. The final onslaught had started.
Joey weaved, bobbed, parried, and sidestepped in an effort to circumvent Dempster’s indefensible attack. He even summoned the barefaced cheek to launch a counter-attack—but it was as futile as it was ephemeral. No matter how hard he tried, he could not escape from the deadly fists of Dempster. If truth be told, he had a better chance of escaping from his own shadow. Nevertheless, he tried for the sake of little Ellen.
A right-cross pulverized Joey’s left cheek—a gash seeped a little more blood. A left-uppercut crunched into his right cheek—a tooth fell like a marble snowdrop to the canvas below. A bowling-right to the temple. A straight-left to the solar plexus. Left, right. Left, left, right. The flurry of blows continued unabated.
Joey had become a living punch-bag. And all he kept thinking of was just how horrible it must be for little Ellen to see? He wanted to be her hero—but he knew damn well that heroes usually fail.
Dempster executed combinations almost as fast as he planned them, and certainly faster than Joey could handle them. To the boxing purist Dempster’s performance was as sweet as honey and as rich as plum cake. However, Joey was, somehow, still a question that Dempster needed to answer if he was to receive a purist’s full marks.
Blows rained down on Joey, threatening to sweep him away into the oblivion of washed up fighters. The rain got heavier—bomb after bomb after bomb.
The fight was nearing its end, and such was the intensity of the fever-pitch atmosphere that one would be forgiven for thinking that the whole Universe was packed right there into Madison Square Gardens. It was truly electric—a remarkable theatre of blood and guts, transcending fiction as only sport can do. Real heart-attack stuff. But it was one-sided; and Joey was doomed.
Joey back in a bad, bad dream. Back in his darkest nightmare. Black and dismal. Soulless. Painful. To be, or not to be. A man boxing on instincts directly traceable to the time he spent in his mother’s womb. On and on, relentless. Gloves weaving, darting, and swooping—angry giant bees delivering their mortal stings. Dempster was dancing. Dempster was smiling. The mastery of his interlacing blows decimating the last residues of Joey’s brave but pathetic resistance. Dempster was the drummer, Joey the drum.
Then it came...
CRACK!
Dempster’s booming straight-right came from nowhere to crash into Joey’s jaw. A crack of broken bone rolled around the feverish cauldron of Madison Square Gardens like a roll of thunder.
Joey, the victim of an elephant hunter’s gun, fell, lifeless, onto the ropes behind him; his brain momentarily severed from his nervous system. Nevertheless, his body did not entirely crumble. His legs were his rock—and it was them that did not buckle, even if the rest of him did. He was folded back double, perched on the ropes, swaying lifelessly, with only the whites of his eyes showing through the slits of his swellings on his upside down and battered face.
‘Massarelli is all washed up,’ said an excited radio commentator. ‘He’s been smashed to a pulp. Beaten to standstill. He’s bent back double on the ropes, soaked in sweat—he looks like a giant rag doll that’s been hung out to dry on a washing-line. Talking of giants, that last blow by Dempster hit Joey Massarelli harder than Thor’s hammer hit any of the giants in Thrym's hall. There’s never been a mightier blow in the history of boxing—of that I’m certain. Oh, but that chilling, cracking, sound of broken bone—this might be serious? Was it his jaw? Perhaps, it was his neck? Something’s broken—that’s for sure. Boy, it was so loud a crack! Did you hear it on your radio? It must have been heard from here to 42nd Street. Man, what a punch! He might even be—no, let’s not even go there!’
The commentator’s voice fell from its hyperbole and settled into one, more or less, matter-of-fact: ‘Joey Massarelli has not actually hit the canvas. He’s bent back double in an ungainly fashion on the ropes but his feet are planted firmly on the floor. The referee can still technically call a standing count; but I think he’s waiting for Dempster to throw another punch first—which doesn’t quite make sense to me? However, Dempster’s doing nothing.’ His tone then shifted to one of nervousness as it was obvious a serious situation may well be unfolding, ‘Er, Dempster looks very scared, doesn’t he.’ A hint of desperation crept into the commentator’s voice, ‘Oh my God—Massarelli is so lifeless. Oh no, no, NO! This looks like it’s turning into a tragic night for the sport of Boxing.’
There were nervous looks on the faces of the officials crowding around the apron of the ring.
Joey looked lifeless. Nevertheless, although his nervous system, save for his legs, had given out, his mind was still there—and for some particular reason it had never felt so clear and resolute. Even so, he was hurt badly. In fact, he had never suffered such a powerful blow in all his miserable life—it was harder than the one that had knocked him to the canvas earlier in the round. Luckily, on this occasion, the ropes had saved him from falling, and there was, of course, some particular reason why the blow did not have the same effect. Moreover, because of this some particular reason he knew that of all the times he had risen from the dead this was the one last time he needed to do it again. Every atom in his body, every reason in his being, told him that.
However, right now, he felt himself inverted; swinging on the ropes ever so slightly, such was the momentum of the original blow. Part of him got to thinking that he was lying on a raft, lilting serenely on a gentle stream beneath a lazy summer sky. But fortunately, the greater part of him got to thinking that he was in the ring, and there was some particular reason why he had to get to his feet. His eyes rolled to a conscious position, and quite by chance he saw little Ellen, even if upside down. She was jumping on her seat, shouting and sobbing. And amongst the surrounding din he could not hear her little-big voice, but, even upside down, he could see it repeatedly mouthing, ‘Uncle Joey!’
He felt the ropes burning into his lower back. It was time.
‘The ringside doctor is being helped into the ring,’ said the commentator soberly. ‘It looks like—wait a minute here!’ he interjected into his own commentary, his voice suddenly coming alive. ‘Wait a goddam cotton-picking minute! Joey Massarelli is rising! Like a phoenix rising from the flames of Hell! I just don’t believe it! He’s upright on his feet! Massarelli has risen from the dead! This guy cannot be human!’
Dempster was standing very still, dejected, with his arms by his side, open-mouthed, his green gum-shield trying its best to escape from his mouth. His head began to droop to the canvas.
‘Joey Massarelli is smiling,’ said the commentator with an air of incredulity. ‘He’s actually smiling. But why? Aha! Yes. I see what’s happened now. This – is – a – sensation! Massarelli is pointing to Dempster’s right arm. It’s hanging limply by his side like a badly broken twig. Man, look at it—his whole goddam arm is broken. His dream is broken! He is broken!
‘And here comes the towel, flying into the ring from Dempster’s corner. Extraordinary! My, oh my. And with less than twenty seconds to go. That’s it folks. It’s all over. The Unstoppable Missile has hit The Immovable Post and exploded—the Post is still standing. The referee is raising the Post’s arm high into the air. Joey Massarelli has won!’
At that moment, Joey latched on to the tiny figure of little Ellen scrambling eagerly into the ring.
‘Uncle Joey! Uncle Joey!’ she cried, as she flew headlong into his welcoming arms.
Tears mixed with blood fell down a face of granite, dripping freely to the canvas like a heavenly rain. A face the hardest punches in the world had failed to break yet now was breaking...
Joey. Joey Massarelli. Joey in a dream.
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© Tom Campbell, 2005, All Rights Reserved. |
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