Vegas. Hilton. Lobby. Pouffe.
On one third sat the referee Mills Lane, he of the well-known bald head who places a finger along side his nose when introduced in the ring. On the second third were two large guys from one of the camps. On the last third I played it cool as a turnip seed with a dilettante notebook in my pocket, part of a literary rube goldberg scheme to get a great seat for a second rate championship fight.
The carpet was republican. Some entries in my 3×5 spiral: from Wes at poof 2, “He didn’t pay me and then he calls me to bail him out. 6:00 a.m. Wes? Yeah. Get me out. What?” From somebody else over there, “you question my ability to put together the money for a big fight?” From a t-shirt in the Holmes entourage seated back over my shoulder to a turned out Spinkster: “Tomorrow night I’ll be dressed.” From Mills: “Last night, Frisco, Name Name, Freddie Roach, four cuts. Couldn’t get away from the punches. Wanted to, but…that’s it for him. No more.”
Jersey Joe, honorary elder with Spinks, came through in tow. At one point Don King’s hair could be seen. Then, quickly surrounded and lumbering like a trick bear, came Ali. He stopped in front of a beautiful woman in a chair and mimed a witty exchange while the crowd grew. It was lights out over at the poof, and I joined the flock and soon was sticking out a small folded over page for him to sign without looking till I put a hand on his shoulder and he psyched me in my tracks with a raised eyebrow glance of mock surprise.
I continued the charade the next day at the weigh-in, the rules discussion, and the long press room where I managed to get placed fifth on the waiting list for opens seats in the ringside press section, but as the hour drew nigh late arrivals from NY aced me back and it came to the last seat and to my eternal shame as a hustler I didn’t nail it, and settled for a special feed next door, followed by a press conference and parts of the victory party for the guy I thought lost.
My alt editor had the mainstream common sense to throw my pedestrian account straight in the circular file. There were two sides to my writing problems: I had 1) enough respect for the underclass visiting tv heights prizefight world not to figure it on the spot, and 2) insufficient regard for the week’s gonzoid appetite to gloss it.
In short I lacked the bar wit that is my sole reason for a life-long habit of reading the sports page. News that seldom stayed news. Hem said a certain amount of it is good for you, Walter Benjamin said something about its effect on story-telling. A bony, slow, misshapen, ex-reform school white guy on the under card held his own against a sculpted black heavy.
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Chris Daly resides West Coast, USA, and is an ad hoc sports fan. His work has recently been published in Stone Coast Review, Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Dumbo and Blue Mountain Review.
