The Fighter (3 page)

‘Hit him! Don't feel sorry for the poor bastard. Just hit him!' Peter yelled. ‘I don't give a shit what you do, just hit him. Damn it. Hit him!'

5

It is still early when Henry is off in response to a call. Our conversation is over. The story can keep; there is work to be done. He hurries from the Port Diner, eases the Hyundai over the gravel and out into Footscray Road. It's a familiar route, the fifteen-minute drive from the roadhouse to the legal district in town.

Sara is waiting outside the Magistrates' Court. She is dressed in low-heeled shoes, a blue shirt and black pants. A pack of cigarettes is tucked inside her cuff. She wears lipstick and mascara. Her hair falls halfway down her back. She lights a cigarette and paces. There is an awkwardness in her movements. She is a sixteen-year-old trying to match it with grown-ups.

Henry greets her with a hug. He ushers her up the steps and
through the revolving glass doors. She has committed a series of thefts to support her drug habit and is scheduled to attend a bail extension hearing. If she doesn't get it she will be jailed.

‘Let's hope luck is on your side today,' Henry says.

‘Been off crack for months,' she replies.

He keeps an eye on her as they proceed through security. ‘Haven't seen you in ages,' says the officer stationed by the conveyor belt.

‘Always a pleasure to see you,' says Henry.

A woman greets him in the foyer. She is ecstatic to see him and he overjoyed to see her. They first met on the steps beneath the station clocks, when she was twelve, twenty years ago. Henry was serving in a soup van, and she was hanging out with friends, one of whom was to become the father of her three kids. She is in court to support him. He is on trial, and back in jail.

‘Haven't been in trouble for years,' she says.

‘Glad to hear it,' says Henry.

‘I want to become a youth worker.'

‘I'll write you a reference,' he replies.

He holds both her hands. ‘You'd make a great youth worker,' he says.

‘I know,' she replies. ‘I've been there.'

Henry is dressed in a dark-blue windcheater, worn jeans and runners, in contrast to the formal attire of the barristers, solicitors and clerks. He greets friends and strangers. He leans in towards them, and engages in banter.

He knows them all, the lawyers and magistrates, youth workers, and the conveners of prisoner support groups. This is
familiar terrain. He's been coming here for thirty years and knows every courtroom, cubicle and interview room, each branch of the court. He knows the holding cells down a flight of stairs, round the corner on Lonsdale Street, and he knows the jail interview rooms where prisoners attend hearings by video link. He's been coming here so long he's now supporting the children of those he first met when they themselves were kids.

He has spent hours waiting for cases to be heard, sitting in the foyers and corridors with an arm around a distraught friend. He's had urgent conversations with confused relatives, eased their anguish and their weary resignation to fate. He has helped as many as ten defendants in a single day, rushing from courtroom to courtroom, from one sitting to the next—while justice proceeds at its sluggish pace, prone to sudden adjournments, rescheduled hearings, hours of deliberation and talk.

He stops to speak to a barrister, and kisses him on the cheek.

‘Still at it I see,' says N.

‘Except now they've stopped paying me,' says Henry.

He takes Sara into an interview room and, after a briefing with her lawyer, accompanies her into court.

‘What can we do for you Mr Nissen?' the magistrate asks.

She has known Henry since she first worked here as an articled clerk. They chat before proceedings begin. Sara sits anxiously by Henry's side as her case is heard; he rests an arm on her shoulder and puts her at ease.

Henry is called on to provide a reference. He extols Sara's efforts to go straight. He argues she's on the right track and that prison will set her back. He outlines the extent of her support
network. She deserves a break.

‘That's what you always say,' the magistrate replies with a bemused smile, and she extends Sara's bail.

Sara's relief is obvious. She unclenches her fists and takes deep breaths. She is unburdened. Light. And disoriented; Henry reminds her to bow as they leave the court.

‘I'm happy,' she says. ‘I'm rapt.'

‘You've got a couple of months to sort things out,' says Henry. ‘Another chance.'

‘Grab it and make good use of it,' he adds.

He accompanies her back to the street, hugs her, and then returns to the car.

He is back on the move, the white rabbit, always out and about. His mind is on overload, thinking ahead, calculating who needs what, where to get it, where to find donations of food, furniture and clothes, where to store them, and how to dole them out.

His wallet bulges with business cards—his name attached to a network of agencies: Kids off the Kerb, Emerald Hill Mission, Open Family, the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, the First Step Program, Beacon of Light. The entire city is his beat.

He knows the short cuts, along Wurundjeri Way to the southern suburbs where he lives, back to the city at dawn on a Saturday morning to run round the Botanical Gardens, and to the Domain Cafe for a coffee with his jogging mates. Mid-afternoon, he leaves for South Melbourne, his main youth-work territory for the past thirty-five years. He steps out of the Hyundai, hurries up the stairs of a public housing high-rise to deliver a carton of
vegetables and fruit. He stops for a quick chat, and dashes back down to the Hyundai; the port company has called, and hired him for the night.

He heads for Docklands, and drives past the sculpted white eaglehawk standing on a black pedestal that rises from the grass verge. He turns left into Footscray Road and pulls up at Appleton Dock. Opens the boot and changes into his work gear, then trots by the cyclone fence. He works through the night, and returns to the Port Diner the following morning, parking the Hyundai beside a road train.

He orders breakfast and sits down. He spreads out photographs, newspaper clippings and magazines:
Fighter Book
,
Fighter
,
Boxing Illustrated
,
The Ring.
He has kept every scrap written about him: excerpts from anthologies of boxer biographies recounting the exploits of the Nissen boys; news snippets and fight previews, post mortems on every bout; features and magazine specials on his street work. He has photocopied the yellowing originals many times over and laminated them, just in case.

No matter how many times he recounts his tale, he will tell it again, to anyone willing to listen, stranger or long-time friend. It can never be enough. He is desperate to show you who he is, who he once was. Driven by a fierce desire to be known.

To be loved.

‘Mum, poor girl. Mum, poor girl.'

Even now, ten years since her death, she is always nearby.

6

She lies on the living room sofa. Henry and Leon are approaching, but their voices are receding, drifting: ‘Mum, you've got to go. It's for your own good.'

The entire world is distant—beyond oceans and rivers, and fields of ice as hard as crystal. She is in flight from villages on the Black Sea coast to the Siberian flatlands and through cities reduced to rubble, in search of refuge. Until the vastness reduces to the tiniest of havens, a sofa with a view of a locked front door at the end of a passage.

But the front door is opening and they are making their way towards her, medics and police. Even here, at the ends of the Earth, the threat is imminent. The uniformed men are coming
for her, and Henry and Leon are in on it. They are twelve years old, becoming tougher and stronger, and she suspects them.

‘Mum, they're here to help you.'

They are trying to calm her, but she's onto them. She knows they are complicit. Oh yes, she knows.

Henry is stepping forward, reaching for her. He is confronted by her distracted eyes, her dishevelled hair.

She is shrinking back.

He takes her hand. He coaxes her to her feet. He is surprised by her lightness. His confidence is growing. He grasps her more firmly.

The signs are promising. There is little resistance.

And as she rises he sees her, as he has seen her so often: making a cheese sandwich after school, plain food, nothing fancy, serving it at the kitchen table with hot milo or a glass of lemonade. This is how Henry and Leon like it. She is preparing dinner. The pots are simmering. She is sweeping the floor; she is at work, forever at work. The boys are talking, their voices are loud and free, they are laughing, and she is laughing with them, but the laughter is rising, and their voices are getting louder, more strident.

She is warning them, don't talk too loudly. People can hear you through the walls. Don't raise your voices. Don't make so much noise. Be careful. There are people out to get you. Why were you late? You should come straight home from school. You shouldn't wander the streets. Who knows who is watching, who is waiting? Who knows who is out to fight you? Stay home. Don't you know the world is a dangerous place?

It is beginning, her eyes are narrowing, her face is changing
from benign to suspicious; she is spiralling downwards, and moving away, backing into the living room.

The boys are pleading, imploring, but in her eyes their faces are distorted, and she is sinking down onto the sofa, lying back, cocooned in the maroon fabric. The cushions are soft, and they enfold her, but Henry is extending a hand, drawing her up.

Tricking her.

Ah, she knows what they are up to, her boys and the uniformed men. She is no fool. She knows the ways of the world, and she knows the ways of men. Their appetites, their insatiable desires. She is on full alert. A warrior. A fighter. And she is not about to give up. She will not go quietly.

She wrenches her hand free.

Henry retreats. He doesn't know what to do.

‘It's for your own good, Mum.'

They are her boys, and she loves them, but they're on the other side. They are with the uniformed men. Their voices are rising, becoming sharper, and they are singing: ‘It's for your own good, Mum.'

The uniformed men are stepping forward. Taking over. They are taller and stronger than the boys. She watches them keenly. She turns from the sofa and darts across the room. She backs into a corner. There is no way out, and the men are closing in.

She guards her space fiercely, but the men hold her and a medic injects her. She is swaying; the room is swaying. She wants only to sleep, blessed sleep.

The medics are supporting her by the arms, holding her
gently, and she is moving with them. They pass by the sofa and step into the passage.

It is longer than she has ever known it. The walls are gliding by and the front door is approaching. It is gaping open, and she is led through it. Her feet brush the doormat, and she is guided into the night towards a whirl of blue and red lights, distant faces. For a moment the fight returns. She wrenches and twists, but the men are stronger. She is tiny and she is so tired, and the boys are behind her, pleading.

‘It's for your own good, Mum.'

She loves them, and she suspects them. She wants to embrace them, and she wants to repel them. And they love her, and they fear her; and she loves them, but they are of
them
, and they are with
them
.

The ambulance is backed up to the kerb, beside it a divvy van. There are weeds in the gutter, dirt between the bluestones, and there's a patch of bitumen on the roadway, a black scab on asphalt. The ambulance doors are opening. She is on the steps, and the medics' hands are on her back, pressing her forward.

‘It's for your own good, Mum.'

She is inside, and the night sky has vanished. The space is as confined as a womb, and she is stooping forward. Falling. The sheets are white and crisp and the pillow is inviting. The straps are being fastened and there are faint voices outside, a car door closing, and an engine revving.

The ambulance is moving. The straps restrain her, and her hands rest on her belly. A medic is looking down on her. Above him is the white roof of the ambulance. And the chorus
is singing, forever singing: ‘It's for your own good, Mum, it's for your own good.'

And years later, in the Port Diner, Henry piles up the journals, the laminated articles and news items. He spreads them over the table, sorts through them, shuffles photos, rearranging the order. He is reliving key fights, stopping to explain, jumping up to demonstrate moves, shadow boxing.

Mum, poor girl.

Mum, poor girl. Keeping the ghosts at bay.

7

The boys rose quickly through the boxing ranks. They were a unit, the inseparable Nissen Twins. They posed with savvy in their publicity shots—black eyebrows raised, foreheads furrowed. Bodies tensed, gloves up in classic defence, identical in stance and intent. Dark features accentuated by white satin shorts and white singlets.

They did not fight each other, except for sparring routines and demonstration bouts. It was a rule they never broke, and a rule that helped engender the Nissen myth. If one fought flyweight, the other took on the bantamweights. If one was in the ring, the other supported him. They took pride in each other's wins and commiserated the losses. There were times when
they stood in for each other—their names got mixed up and they went along with it.

They fought all over town—in makeshift rings, in regional centres and municipal halls that had known better days, the venues of lower-grade championships, tournaments for beginners. They were willing upstarts with cheek.

As their wins mounted, they moved on to Earl's Court Ballroom and Festival Hall. And to regular bouts on Channel Seven's
TV Ringside
, a weekly national program, and
Golden Gloves
stardom in the spotlit studios of Channel Nine. They became household names in an era when boxing was an esteemed sport.