High life
Knock-out
Taki
New York C. E. Montague said that 'war hath no fury like a non-combatant'. His words come to mind as I am writing this exactly 40 minutes after a three-round boxing match which I won by a TKO over my opponent, who just happened to be 26 years younger than yours truly. I feel a bit fuzzy in the head, and have a pain in my chest which worries me a bit, but once again I feel lucky to have got away with mixing it in the ring with someone young enough to be my son, and to have lived to tell the tale.
Every year since 1960 I have been taking part in the amateur championships of the New York Athletics Club, a club that promotes and sponsors athletes who don't have shipowners as fathers. Two years ago I was exceptionally lucky and won the 160pound class against a young opponent, and afterwards I swore it was the last time I would fight. My nocturnal habits, the foreign toxic substances and liquids that find their way into my body, and the fact that I am past 40, convinced me that, no matter how desperate I am to stay young, the time had come to call it quits. Well, about a week ago I was approached by the organisers and told that, as one of the boxers had contracted mononucleosis, would! take his place. I answered 'No way', especially when told the age of my opponent. That night, however, I went to a party given by a friend for David Macmillan, Supermac's grandson, who was leaving the States to return to England. Unfortunately, I was by far the oldest at the dinner, and worse, a lady by the name of Natasha Grenfell was seated next to me. She politely inquired what I was up to these days, and feeling insecure but flushed with lots of Dago red wine, I told her that I was training for a fight. 'Oh good,' she cooed, 'I'll be here. Can I come and watch?' I spent a week of agony wondering how to get out of it, but with the sun shining and feeling full of beans I was reluctant to wear a cast and pretend I had been injured in training. The fight was to take place on Tuesday. On . Monday I told the organisers that I would take part. Being too nervous to sleep, I rang up Natasha, Macmillan and Jane BonhamCarter, and we went to a night club.
At nine o'clock on Tuesday morning I was still up and by now very twitchy indeed as the idea that I might really injure myself began to dawn on me. Natasha and David advised me to forget about the fight and get some sleep. When I woke around mid-day I realised there really was no way of getting out of it — the night before I had invited everyone, including the bouncers, to come.
I am going to leave it to someone with more talent, and less of a fuzzy head, to describe what goes through an athlete's mind before a contest. Suffice it to say that it's something like walking the last mile toward the electric chair. Bowel movement• is constant, the heartbeat very fast, the mouth dry and the breath bad. One tries to warm up but is already out of breath and feeling weak after shadow boxing for, less than 15 seconds. From the corner of one's eye, one looks at one's opponent. No matter how weak or small the man is, he looks invincible. My young opponent was hitting the speed bag and trying to work up a sweat. I walked over and introduced myself. He looked away, and so did I, and I went back to my side of the room wondering if he could possibly be a little bit nervous. He certainly didn't look it (though he told me afterwards that he had thrown up twice). Then we were called upstairs and told to fight cleanly. The bout started and! was hit, and hard. I lost the first round. In the second I got a lucky uppercut in and gashed the kid's nose rather badly and the fight was stopped. So the crowd got its money's worth, I once again can pretend to be young, and my opponent has learned that the hardest thing in sport is to be ahead.
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