Open Writing

‘Stay together. Don’t freak on me now.’ Dixie’s voice echoed from somewhere close by. Sweat trickled in a cold river between broad shoulders as the confused combatant felt a threadbare towel being thrown over his naked chest. Amidst swirls of confusion the familiar voice of his son was saying something. ‘Come on Dad. . . Steady up. Jel, bloody jel, will ya? We’ve got to get out of here . . . There’s nowt to be done – his neck’s broke. He’s dead.’

Joe swallowed the bile gushing into his dry mouth. Nothing made any sense. Through the haze of bewilderment Joe felt the youth pulling at his biceps pushing him out. He heard their feet echoing on the concrete and the sound bouncing round the derelict warehouse. Every step closer to that shaft of daylight filtering in through the gap in the shuttered doorway. As they stumbled forwards falling over each other’s feet Joe’s backwards gazing eyes remained riveted on the fallen figure and the screaming boy.

Slack jawed, Joe was horrified. The youth crouched over the body was banging both fists into the chest of the prone figure. That scene would haunt his dreams: Manny Lidderdale’s face would stay imprinted on his memory forever. The dead fighter’s brother was doing everything he knew to save any breath of life.

The distraught lad was anxiously watched by a couple of youths, who didn’t know what to do, and by two middle aged Gorgis: one holding a long lens camera, the other in a battered felt hat was chewing on a fag-end with one hand in his pocket and the other to his ear. Dixie and Joe both knew what that meant.

‘Bastard,’ cursed Dixie. ‘If that reporter. . .’

‘The one you’ve just dissed,’ interrupted Joe.

Dixie ignored the put down: ‘is using a mobile to call the muskras we’d better shift fast.’

A voice screamed out of the gloom as they reached the daylight. ‘I’ll get y’ . . . .y’ bastard. I’ll get you,’ the lad on his knees was breathless, his cry echoed into the oily darkness at the retreating figures silhouetted against a shaft of citrus cutting into the interior gloom through the half open door-way.

As the two men fell out into the watery sunlight of that Sunday morning, it dawned on big Joe Bosley the boy probably would at that; they’d have him over. He was already a dead man walking; he was on borrowed time.

‘Travellers don’t threaten lightly Dixie. I’ll be forever looking over me shoulder. If the lad hisself don’t have me, one of the jeal will.’

Dixie said nothing. His mind was in enough turmoil as it was without thinking beyond the immediate future.

‘Whatever happens me one last shot at the championship’s finished,’ added Joe as the full enormity of what he had done began to hit home. ‘I’m a marked man. They’ll bury me deep and move on without a second thought.’

Dixie pushed hard between Joe’s shoulder blades: ‘Never mind all that now . . . move will ya. Run.’

Joe stumbled after Dixie his mind turning circles. The kingship fight was lost. He’d never get to fight Vanno Botham. Dixie wrenched the door open. As the victor slumped dazed into the front seat of the off-roader he stared down in amazement at the bloodstained bandages pulled tight across rows of bruised knuckles; he just couldn’t understand it.

Joe’s stomach knotted: ‘He was winning,’ the half naked fighter whispered to no-one in particular. A thin trickle of blood dripped relentlessly into the gory mess that was his swollen right eye in confirmation. He traced the split across the eyebrow ridge, with a wet finger. The split was a deep one, just on the temple, the result of a cracking good shot from a low left which had sent him reeling across the concrete into the straw bales. Dixie had watched it from behind his fingers. The impact on the ringside bales caused a clump of angry spectators to jump headlong out of the way cursing and grabbing their wallets. The wound was just starting to seep crimson. It needed a stitch. Joe sighed: he was so tired.

‘Never been much of a thinker.’

Dixie snorted: ‘Got that right Dad. Not your thing eh?’

His mind in turmoil, thoughts vied for supremacy: ‘I reckon every man Jack at the ring side knew I was out-matched.’ Joe paused. ‘The speed and the strength of that youngster . . . I knew right at the start.’

Dixie changed up a gear. Joe was only saying what he knew himself. ‘I’m stating the bleeding obvious aren’t I?’ pressed Joe. ‘Everybody knew I was in for a right pounding after only a minute in that ring.’

‘Looked that way – yeah. He was fit enough,’ agreed Dixie reaching for a packet of smokes from the glove box.

‘What went wrong? Do ya know son? What the hell went wrong? Tell me in the name of God. It’s doing my head in.’ The words faded away as the fighter was racked by a bout of shivering. He was gripping at his biceps with bloodied hands as if to hold himself together as his body shook with tremors. The youth in the driving seat blanked Joe out as the 4x4 screeched to a stop at a red light. Dixie had enough problems of his own to contend with. He was drenched in sweat and trying hard to control his breathing desperate to slow down the adrenaline rush. Fear was making him blink too often. His back teeth were clenched so hard it hurt. These difficulties made conversation somewhat stilted.

‘I’m a bit busy now Dad. Talk about it later. Just let me get us off this main road. All right?’

‘Good thinking. Driving too fast’ll be a dead giveaway to the Shaydicks,’ nodded Joe, glad to be on a safer topic. He could leave the getaway to Dixie. No need to worry about that. Dixie knew all about avoiding the Shaydicks with their yellow coats, cold shiny buttons and cold shiny eyes. He knew them and they knew him; it wasn’t a love match.

‘Easy does it. Calm and quiet, a nice quiet drive on a Sunday morning. No rush, no panic,’ soothed the younger man drawing heavily on the king-size and sending a plume of blue grey smoke down his nostrils. With a previous form sheet reading like a serial the last thing Dixie Bosley needed was his old dad drawing the police on to him. Why go Rambo on him? Why couldn’t the daft bugger have just lost the carib like he usually did?

‘Da, don’t just sit there, for Jesus sake, put ya shirt on will ya. The Shaydicks’ll be everywhere in no time at all sure they will.’ Dixie Bosley cursed softly, it was all his own fault he should have spiked Joe’s pre-fight pint of char with a big shot of vodka just like he usually did.

As a betting strategy vodka worked. He knew that a spiking his tea worked. Buckled his dad’s knees in no time – never could hold drink on an empty stomach.

Why hadn’t he done it? Dixie pulled his mouth into a tight smile as he nodded across at the slumped figure, all the while mentally berating himself for his own stupidity.

‘I blame meself. It were my fault – I should have been with you last night. Bloody nesting that’s why. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. With so much at stake, I should have left her alone.’

Joe nodded in agreement, even though he always fought better when Dixie wasn’t there for some peculiar reason. For all that he lived for those all nighters when his son sat up with his old dad all night.

Dixie frowned. It would have been a piece of piss to knobble the stupid sod. Now look at the bloody mess. And he was down two hundred quid. Bollocks. Who in their right mind would have put folding on his dad to win?

Not him at any rate.