The Fighter

PRAISE FOR ARNOLD ZABLE

‘Arnold Zable is a writer who turns the unnoticed and the overlooked into something fine and lustrous.'
Courier-Mail

‘A master storyteller.'
Australian Book Review

‘His ability to see the beauty in the ordinary in a world obsessed with the extraordinary informs every aspect of Zable's writing.'
Australian

‘The essential combined genius of Zable is that he can find a story of universal interest and tell it in such a way that it commands universal attention.'
Australian Jewish News

‘No one writes about the immigrant experience in Australia quite like Arnold Zable…His books have an ethereal, myth-like quality, complete with beautifully lilting prose and near-tangible warmth.'
Big Issue

‘Years of reflection and his own life experiences have contributed to the mastery with which Zable explores the themes of displacement, loss, nostalgia and homecoming in all of his books.'
Canberra Times

‘Zable's vision is ultimately optimistic and affirming.'
Sydney Morning Herald

ALSO BY ARNOLD ZABLE

Jewels and Ashes

Wanderers and Dreamers

Café Scheherazade

The Fig Tree

Scraps of Heaven

Sea of Many Returns

Violin Lessons

Arnold Zable is a highly acclaimed novelist, storyteller, educator and human rights advocate. He lives in Melbourne.

arnoldzable.com.au

textpublishing.com.au

The Text Publishing Company

Swann House

22 William Street

Melbourne Victoria 3000

Australia

Copyright © Arnold Zable 2016

The moral right of Arnold Zable to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

First published in Australia by The Text Publishing Company, 2016.

Cover design by W. H. Chong

Text design by Jessica Horrocks

Typeset by J&M Typesetters

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication

Creator:
Zable, Arnold, author.

Title:
The fighter : a true story / by Arnold Zable.

ISBN:
9781925355062 (paperback)

ISBN:
9781922253637 (ebook)

Subjects: Nissen, Henry.

Nissen, Henry—Family.

Boxers (Sports)—Australia—Biography.

Youth workers—Australia—Biography.

Social workers—Australia—Biography.

Dewey Number: 796.83092

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

A long ways from home

AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUAL

And that road was long—long—long amidst the

Solemn and crystal

Stillness

Of Siberia's earth.

ANNA AKHMATOVA,

‘POEM WITHOUT A HERO'

To the mothers of the neighbourhood

1

So it's come to this. Sixty-seven years old and he labours on the docks. Cropped grey-white beard, ex-boxer's pug nose, he is stocky, rotund and short. His strength is sensed rather than seen, belied by age and excess weight. Henry Nissen exudes vigour. His life force is strong. It animates his gestures, powers his determined walk.

Thirty-five years he's spent on the streets supporting wayward youths: he's vouched for them in court, lugged furniture to their homes, and accompanied them on hunts for jobs. He is on alert at all times, a doctor of sorts, his mobile within reach, ever ready for a call—from a pregnant teenager on crack, a family ripping itself apart, a kid on a bender stumbling in the dark—but the
meagre wage he was paid for street work has long run out, so it's dock work he's turned to now to make ends meet.

He drives to the port in a yellow Hyundai. Victoria Dock, South Wharf and Yarraville Dock are all on his beat. Tonight it's Appleton Dock—the night shift, eleven till dawn. He's hired as a general, a labourer in layman's terms, and a casual at that.

He loves it. What choice does he have? He delights in the camaraderie, the company of his workmates. And they love him, this gnome of an ex-pro who fought some of his most famous bouts not far from where he now works: two kilometres give or take—at the West Melbourne Stadium, also known as Festival Hall, locked away in industrial streets within walking distance of the port, evoking the ghosts of fights long past: the scent of liniment and sweat in the change rooms beneath the cavernous hall, and the long descent to the ring, running the gauntlet of a baying crowd.

Henry Nissen was once ranked number three in the world and offered a title bout, and was also once, along with Leon, his identical twin, the smallest and skinniest kid on the block. And because they were the smallest and skinniest, they were the ones who copped it most: two scrawny Jew-boys, easy beats, relegated to the lowest status of the schoolyard and the hierarchy of the street.

For a time Henry took shelter in numbers, running with members of the pack. He made his way to the city to meet them, a quarter-hour tram ride from home, via Lygon Street. They took him in, this little goer, who would prove handy in a stoush.

They huddled in each other's company, and spent nights hanging out, buoyed by the reflections of streetlights, and the companionship of city life. They loitered on street corners, on the footpath fronting the town hall, and on the steps beneath the station clocks—on the lookout for strangers they were certain they could beat.

They chased them for the thrill of the hunt, and laid into them for the sheer pleasure, the thwack of knuckle on flesh. It was never one-on-one, never an even fight, just some poor bugger on his own, easy pickings for the pack. It was, Henry soon realised, the same old cowardly set up, the mob dominating the weak.

Henry took to warning potential victims. He once jumped from a bus when he saw his mates cornering two younger boys. The sight made him feel sick. He didn't wait for the bus to stop. He doubled back. Stood in front of the distraught boys. Offered to fight in their place.

The leader was impressed at Henry's cheek. Besides, he knew him, and you did not turn on your own. He shrugged his shoulders and ordered his mates off. Henry had prevented a bashing, but his time with the pack had run its course.

There must be a better option, he reckoned.

He was an Amess Street boy and, as luck would have it, Peter Read—ex-Australian middleweight champ, newly retired—lived in the same street, on the very same block. He lived there, in a double-storey terrace, with his father, Mick, and with his wife, Merle, and their growing brood of kids. 1962. He'd set himself up as a trainer and was taking on a few select boys.

Henry knocks on the side-lane door.

‘I want to learn how to fight.'

Mick lowers his eyes to Henry's height. ‘You're too small and too skinny. Grow taller, put on weight.'

Henry returns the next night: ‘I want to learn how to fight…'

Henry persists.

Read relents. Invites him in. Puts him through his paces. Thinks, he's got a bit of talent, this kid. And his tenacity's a great plus.

So the story goes.

Perhaps the Reads sense something else: a restless energy, a wound not yet declared. They do not know what goes on in Henry's house, the rage that courses through the single-fronted cottage half a block away, a minute-and-a-half's walk. They have no idea of the woman bereft, in terror of shadows and ghosts.

To this day Henry is reluctant to recall that. Far better, he reckons, to reflect on what he loves most—his salvation in a backyard gym.

Peter and Mick see a ferocious will that can be honed, a boy desperate to please and a quick learner at that. And they will get two for the price of one.

Leon knew something was up. Henry was avoiding him, keeping his mouth shut. He was on a secret mission, vanishing at odd hours.

Leon follows him one afternoon after school. He does not let him out of sight. Henry tries to lose him. He leads him on a circuitous route to Princes Park, round Cemetery Road, doubling back to Elgin Street, via the university grounds. They are kilometres from home.

The little bugger ducks down back lanes, and through the rubbish dump off Curtain Square; he finds a path through wild grasses littered with abandoned couches and cars. He cuts through neighbourhood parks and vacant lots, and darts along the median strip gracing Canning Street; weaves between the poplars and palms, and the veranda poles of corner shops. He rounds entire blocks—to no avail. Leon sticks to him the entire distance.

Henry is late for training. He has no choice but to front up. Leon stays resolutely with him, as he makes his way along Amess Street to the Reads' house. He is with him as Henry raps on the side-lane door.

‘Dad, come quickly, there's two of them,' Peter exclaims.

It doesn't take Peter long to discover that Leon too possesses sharp wits, and a strong desire to climb out of the muck.

Years later Henry retains those traits. They have stood him in good stead—allowed him to wield influence, and make lifelong friends. Enabled him to prise open new doors when old jobs came to an end.

It was a contact of Father Bob, the renegade priest, who recommended him for the docks, and it was ‘The Shark' who taught him the ropes. Taught him how to lash bundles of timber and steel piping—how to tie them together with nylon straps—and how to chain them to a spreader and attach the load to the crane. Taught him how to secure machinery to the berths and how to unhook them from the deck. He had advised him to obtain a forklift and semi driver's licence; and told him to look out for his mates, and keep his wits about him at all times.

Henry can be assigned to the hold to steady the load and guide it into place as it is jibbed down from the deck or to steady it as it is lowered, unhooking it as it settles on the wharf. Either way, it's dangerous work. Ask the Shark. Ask anyone who has worked on the docks. Ask Henry and he'll tell you about the night he was lucky not to lose his life.

The Shark was the foreman on duty that night, supervising from the deck: instructing the crane driver with hand signals to lower the arm of the crane to the wharf where Henry was waiting, hunched over, preparing to hook up the next load.

The arm was poised over Henry's head. His feet were planted either side of the load and his back was turned to the boat when he made the wrong move. He stepped backwards, and disappeared into the crevice between hull and wharf. He fell three metres, landing in the strip of water by the boat. Just one slight surge of tide and one lurch of the hull and, curtains, he would have been crushed.

He'd fractured a shoulder, and he fought to stay afloat. Weighed down by work boots and winter woollens, he grabbed a pylon, but slid off and floundered between wharf and boat.