“Now, what I’m worried about is, I might knock you over the railing. It’s sure as hell going to drop you. I don’t want to hurt you-it goes against all my training, my entire commitment to nonviolence-but if you don’t move your ass?” He shrugged. “You’ve forced me. I have no choice. And know what the funniest thing is, Professor? There isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop me.” He paused, giving it a few beats, as if speaking lines for the camera. Then: “Final warning. Get out of my way. Now. ”
I heard Amelia and Claudia, their warning words melding together: “Ford, I don’t think he’s kidding. I’ve read about him. Me, too… he’s got all kinds of black belts, he really does… His hands, he had to, like, register them as weapons or something… It’s no big deal, just let him go… Doc!”
Camphill liked that. He puffed up a bit, his smile broader. “Do us all a favor, Professor. Listen to your little girlfriends. Move.”
Without looking at Amelia or Claudia, I said, “No, I don’t think so. That kick he just described? I’d kind of like to see if he can really do it.”
“Okay, friend, I warned you. Everyone here’s a witness.”
“I’ll testify on your behalf,” I said softly.
Then I watched Camphill take a half step back, knees bending, fists clenched low for balance, and I knew he was preparing to do a spinning back kick, my head as his target.
A few years back, I was having dinner at Mack’s bayside home, and he talked me into watching one of those pay-for-view extravaganzas. It was the “world championship” of something I think they called “Extreme Fighting,” as if there were any other kind, or maybe it was “No-Holds-Barred Fighting.” I didn’t pay enough attention to remember.
Mack was very excited about it because the “Professional Bracket” included six of the world’s most famous and feared martial arts experts from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Films and documentaries had been made about two of the masters; one of the experts supposedly had a cult following. There was also one heavyweight boxer who was ranked in the federation’s top five. The hype was massive, the purse hefty, and the ring an enclosed cage from which only the winner could exit.
The promoters made a very big mistake, however. They allowed four “amateurs” to buy their way into pairings against the number-one seeds.
Apparently, it was a feed-the-Christians-to-the-lions gambit in the minds of the producers-a way of feeding easy meat to the audience before the real fighting began.
One of the amateurs might have been another boxer, the other might have been a martial arts expert, I don’t know. Two, however, were mildly successful former collegiate wrestlers, one from the University of Wisconsin, I think, and the other from a little Pennsylvania school by the name of Slippery Rock.
In the first bout, Mack was shocked when the kid from Slippery Rock-he couldn’t have weighed more than 170, 180-had the famous Ninja on the mat, gasping for air, within less than a minute. The Ninja couldn’t breathe and tapped his lone free hand on the canvas in pain and for mercy.
The kid seemed a little surprised. He’d hardly broken a sweat.
Then the wrestler from Wisconsin-big guy, two hundred plus-had the heavyweight boxer down and unconscious before anyone had time to understand what had happened, and the boxer might have died if doctors hadn’t come charging into the caged ring.
Neither of the wrestlers used holds that were legal in amateur wrestling, but every experienced amateur wrestler soon learns all the illegal stuff, all the dangerous and dirty little tricks, and they know how to use them.
It went that way all night. One martial arts expert after another was quickly eliminated and unfailingly humiliated-a big letdown for the promoters, but no surprise to me. Out of all the so-called “fighting” disciplines, there are only two groups who actually fight. They fight it out, toe to toe and hand to hand, day after day after day. Those two groups are wrestlers and boxers. The other disciplines pose, they practice and play-act-which is why they are sufficiently naive about actual combat to take themselves too seriously.
Boxers work hard, but no sport requires more discipline, courage, or mental toughness than amateur wrestling (and that’s why it’s a national tragedy that colleges are eliminating wrestling because of a misused but well-intended piece of legislation called Title IX). Only wrestlers and boxers actually fight for a living. The rest are interesting and often stylish pretenders.
Which is why I did not take Amelia’s advice, why I did not move aside.
When Camphill shifted his weight toward me, preparing to jump, spin, and kick, I reached across and grabbed his right wrist and bicep, moving with him. I pulled and ducked under his arm and leg, then came up behind him just as his feet returned to the deck.
My hands on his shoulders, controlling his body, I said into his ear, “You missed,” as I reached around and pried his mouth open, avoiding his teeth by using only the middle fingers of my hands.
Then I hooked a finger into each corner of his lips, applying pressure, pulling his mouth wide, until he arched backward, and I heard him making a hoarse, gasping noise, shocked and in agony, his nails scratching at my wrists as I kneed him hard, twice, on the coccyx at the base of his spine, the very sensitive and easily bruised remnant of our primate tail.
The next morning, I knew, Camphill would have trouble walking. If he could walk, and it would probably be impossible for him to sit.
Had I wanted to rip his face from ear to ear, I could have done it easily. Drunk as I was, mad as I was, that wasn’t my intent. I was giving him a signal-letting him know that, if he continued, the consequences would be serious. There is nothing pretty, heroic, orderly, or theatrical about a real fight. It is brutal, messy, and damn dangerous.
Pointed-face and tennis player were screaming at me. It seemed as if I were in a vacuum, yet a few of their words and phrases pierced through: “Kill him, Gunnar… what are you waiting for!… My God, Gunnar, your face… there’s blood. You’re hurting Gunnar’s face!”
The harder Camphill tried to pry my fingers out of his mouth, the more pressure I exerted, so there was some blood, a slight ripping of tissue, but not much, and, finally, he stopped struggling.
Still speaking into his ear, I said, “I’m going to let you go. If you try to fight back again in any way, I’ll put you down on the deck. Then I’ll put you in the hospital. Count on it.”
I slid my fingers out of his mouth.
I thought he’d heed my warning. He didn’t.
As I released him, wiping my hands on my fishing shorts, he relaxed and shrugged-a decoy posture-then exploded, side-kicking me hard on the left shin, which hurt like hell, and tried to spin his right elbow back into my ribs. I managed to catch the main impact of the blow with my arm. Even so, it put a little wheezing sound into my breathing, caused me to double up momentarily. It also infuriated me.
When he came at me again, I locked my hands on his right wrist, got myself behind him once more, and, without giving him time to react, bear-hugged, lifted, and launched him up over my head, as I arched backward steering his body-a potentially deadly wrestling throw called a “suplay.”
Had I continued arching backward, I would have pile-driven the top of his skull into the floor. Instead, I did a fast quarter-turn so that only the side of his face slammed down onto the wood. Then I pinned him there, using my right elbow to burrow into his neck until I finally heard him wheeze, “ Enough. No more!”
I stood and waited to make certain he wasn’t going to leap to his feet. Then I turned and limped toward the steps, hearing pointed-face say, “You’re going to let him do that to you, Gunnar? He got lucky, for Christ’s sake. Go get him!” as Amelia took my arm, helping me.