Gustavo slapped me a few times and asked if I was all right. He told me later that I kept saying, “Everything’s normal, everything’s normal.” He wasn’t sure everything was normal, and the fact that I kept repeating it certainly didn’t convince him, but he decided that if everything was normal for me then, when you got down to it, it had to be normal for him, too.
If I had to choose the worst time of my life, if I had to isolate one time in my existence and give it the stupid label of the worst time of all, I’d give it to those six or seven minutes up there in that ring, those fourth and fifth rounds. The Goat was no longer that deaf boy with the forehead like a wall and the dark eyes who liked to box, the Goat was suddenly Life itself, which had taken me outside that world of playthings where I was a sensation who could see punches coming in slow motion, and in the form of that boy had started hitting me so often I wanted to beg for mercy. I skipped round the ring, risked a few straight punches, and that knot of muscle followed me like a mad dog, bending and hitting me with punches as heavy as wood, in the liver, in the ribs, on the chin, or on the gloves or the shoulders when he missed. He would be there in front of me, panting, then he would take half-a-step to the side and fire off an explosive series of three punches that would have knocked down a door — luckily not all that accurate most times, and luckily that part of me that was still playing the role of a boxer managed not to lay itself open to that surge of anger.
Two rounds, and a lesson to last a lifetime. But he got things wrong, too, and by the sixth round he was tired. His fists had rained down on me, and yet I was still there somehow, skipping in front of him — I hadn’t gone down, and I had demonstrated, whether I had the body for it or not, whether I had a neck like a chicken or not, that I was capable of staying on my feet.
There are some who claim it was the best fight they ever saw in their lives. I don’t know about that, I somehow doubt it, but if ever I suspect it might be true, it’s because of those last two rounds. I had strutted like a rooster for three rounds, he had punished me for another two, and now he was tired and I had come back to reality, and suddenly we looked at each other from the centre of the ring like two boxers, sweaty, stinking, scared, tired, angry, ready to lose and to give our all to win. We both realised it, because we touched gloves again. We found ourselves in the centre of the ring, me skipping and him looking straight at me after another of his three-punch combinations: we looked each other in the eyes for a moment, and I’m sure that even though our lips didn’t move, we both smiled, put out our hands and slammed our gloves together. The voices and shouts around us vanished again, but the punches didn’t start coming in slow motion again, they came just as they were launched, strongly and accurately. I started doing again what I knew best, but like anyone else now, working hard: one straight punch after the other. Left, left, parry, turn, turn, left right left. He would be in front of me, moving his head from side to side, waiting for me to launch another wave of punches; he would come in from underneath and fire off two punches as hard as wood; as he moved away I would land two more straight punches, without even breathing, hoping to recover my strength from somewhere, hoping that those two lead poles attached to my shoulders continued to do their job and didn’t leave me standing there like a burst tyre. Punch, parry, punch, straight, straight, left-right, take it, take it, take it, parry, step back, straight punch.
The audience were on their feet, and when the bell rang for the end of the sixth round and we went back to our corners for the last time, they applauded in a composed way, as if they were at the theatre. I like to think my mother was there, too, somewhere at the back of the hall, and that she started crying.
Gustavo kept saying, “You’re a sensation, you’re a sensation. Come on, it’s the last round. You’re a sensation, son, just one more round.” I wasn’t listening, I was looking at those people clapping and when Gustavo’s back moved out of the way, I peered at him in the other corner, Mugnaini the Goat, and wondered if I would ever again in my life share something as big as this with another person.
The referee ordered the seconds out, the bell rang one last time, and we went back into the centre of the ring to touch gloves again. And we started again, going for broke, doing what we were there to do, me firing off my straight punches and dancing and him coming towards me head down and pounding away. I took a couple of nasty lefts to the stomach and he caught a few worrying lefts and a strong straight right to the chin, which for a moment almost made him stagger. We didn’t give each other time to breathe, it was one punch after another, parry, right, left, right, left, left, parry, parry, bull’s eye, step back, left right. Our arms were as heavy as anchors and our legs were like logs newly planted in the earth. I had stopped dancing, I was walking round the ring firing off straight punches as best I could and trying to keep my guard up and parry whenever he came towards me.
Giano taped the fight. I must have watched it five hundred times, and every time I wonder if that thin boy up there who looks as if he’s fighting for his life is really me. I wonder if I still have that courage, or if I fritter it away every day minute by minute, or if I’ve lost it, scattered it somewhere among the bricks of my house or in the fat around my waist or in my mother’s grave.
But Gustavo was right, the Goat fell into the trap of wanting too much. It had been a great fight, and we were in the hands of the judges now. I had understood that, but he hadn’t, he wanted the killer punch, he wanted to guarantee the result for himself and make it clear once and for all which of us really was the stronger of the two: he tried to get me where I least expected it, with a long, fast straight right to the chin. And I have to be honest: a few rounds earlier I might have been rattled, I might not even have expected that straight thunderbolt to the chin, as fast as a train. But not at that point, not a few seconds from the end; not now when it really didn’t matter if I was expecting something or not, because I was protecting myself from everything; not now when he was slower than he thought, and predictable. I almost saw him launch that right, and I’d like to be able to say I was quick-witted enough to pivot on my foot and land the decisive combination, but, although that was exactly what I did, it happened purely by automatic reflex, as if someone else was giving the orders. I don’t know, maybe that’s what talent is: something that’s out of our hands, something we’re slaves of, whether we like it or not.
The Goat waited for two of my lefts, parried to the side, delivered a left uppercut to my liver, took a small step back and fired off that textbook straight right with the full force of his arm. I moved my right leg, pivoted on my left foot and sent a sharp left uppercut straight to the Goat’s chin, under his arm, followed immediately by a right hook that sent the Goat flying back against the ropes. I wish I hadn’t then launched that final straight punch, I really wish I hadn’t, but it came just like that, by itself. If I could turn the clock back, I would stop myself firing off that final thunderbolt, I really would stop myself, I wouldn’t let one stupid punch determine the future of two people forever. I would let that right hook run its course and watch the boy bounce against the ropes, would make it clear it was a mistake, then take two steps back and let the last few seconds run on in all their glory. But when you’re there you don’t have much choice, and anyway there are moments when you can’t really control what happens to you. So I landed that right hook and then, just as the Goat slammed into the ropes, a missile was launched from somewhere near my face and hit my opponent’s chin like a thunderbolt, flinging him from the ropes and laying him out on the canvas a metre from me.