Dark nothingness….then the slightest glimmer…then BANG-BANG-BANG went the door. Ignore it, just ignore it - go back to the darkness. BANG-BANG-BANG.

“Devo! DEVO! Wake the fuck up, man. It’s six o’ clock. Ya told me to wake you up at six so that’s what I’m facking doing!” came the gravelly voice.

 

The voice was not to be ignored.

 

“Yeah, yeah – well FACK ‘AWF THEN,” Damon shouted back.

“WELL, FACK YOUSE, YA UNGRATEFUL CANT!”

“WELL FACK YOURSELF AND YOUR WHORE OF A MOTHER!” Damon roared as his eyes now flashed open letting in far too much of the harsh light.

 

BOOM-BOOM – the cunt on the other side of the caravan door was now apparently trying to put his boot through the flimsy fibreglass. The door hinges just about held – but Damon’s didn’t.

 

“FOR FACK’S SAKE, MAN! WHADDYA DOING? I’M GONNA COME OUT THERE AND TEAR YOU A NEW ONE AFTER I’VE SMASHED YOUR HEAD INTO CANTING GLUE, YA FACKING DOG!”

 

Now his rage was pitted against his nausea, but the adrenaline merely fuelled the nausea making it win out at a canter. With the first oesophagus spasm, he leapt off his mattress, smashing his shin on the table stem in the process, provoking another squall of expletives as he crashed through the narrow doorframe, flinging the toilet lid up and projecting a torrent of dark brown fizzing spew into the blue chemical pool.

“Devo? Devo? What the fack’s going on in there? Ya giving it the purple yawn, mate? Well it facking serves you right, ya mongrel.  You keep going on like this, you’re out the facking tent, ya hear me? The punters want to fight proper fit fighters, not fat boozy cants like them what waddle around like a bush pig with a pineapple stuck up its arse!”

 

Damon groaned before his stomach violently turned itself inside out again.  After he’d finished spitting out the last semi-digested bits of food from his mouth, he shouted,

 

“YA WANNA THROW ME OUT THE TENT? WELL GO ON THEN, YA CANT – YOU’LL GO BUST IN A MONTH. YOU AIN’T GOT NO FACKING SHOW WITHOUT ME AND WELL YOU FACKING KNOW IT, DICKO!” Silence. “YEAH YA BEST THINK ABOUT THAT DICKO – IN FACT WHERE’S THAT FACKING RAISE YOU TALKED ABOUT? I AIN’T DOING THIS FOR FACKING CHARITY YA, CANT – I CAN PICK AND CHOOSE MY MANAGERS YA KNOW? YA DON’T THINK I’LL WALK UNLESS YA TREAT ME RIGHT? YA SEE IF I DON’T…DICKO…”

 

Silence again. Finally the penny dropped, Dicko was long gone. His rage flew out of its corner and smashed his nausea into smithereens. He sprung up from his kneeling position at the altar of vomit and launched a fist at the flimsy fibreglass wall. “FACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!” he bellowed as his fist went straight through the wall.  Dark red blood immediately started pissing from his knuckles where he lacerated them on the jagged edge of yet another hole in the interior of his caravan, that was fast resembling a war-torn unit in down-town Gaza.

  

Sweating, swearing and seething, he grabbed the thee-quarters empty bottle of vodka from beside his bed, screwed the lid off with his teeth and liberally doused his cut hand with the spirit. Searing white pain and anger knifed through him and he instinctively held the bottle to his lips and chugged down the remaining contents of the bottle. Despite retching heavily again with the mule kick to the guts the spirit delivered, he was able to hold it down and the warmth that coursed through his body brought momentary relief from the swarming discomforts which racked him. He found an old tea towel in one of his draws, ripped it, not giving a fuck about dripping more claret onto the stucco floor in the process and wrapped it around his hand. It wasn’t the most sterile of bandages, but it would do.

 

Hand wrapped, he plonked himself down on the sole remaining rickety chair he hadn’t smashed up in a pissed-up rage. Fuck this hang-over, it wouldn’t beat him. No cunt would beat him.

His mouth was drier than a dead dingo’s donger, but. He spied the red and white tin underneath his bed – bent down furiously ignoring the waves of dizziness and nausea that rushed back in and picked it up. Shaking it from side to side he was gratified to find it was still half full of beer. He chugged it down lustily not giving a fuck the liquid was warmer, flatter and less flavourful than used bathwater. He let out a satisfied “ahhh” and then a cavernous belch and was ready to go about his day.

 

He scraped on a pair of battered old boardies and pulled a ripe vest over his shaved scarred head. Grabbing his battered trainers, he was again forced to hold back the retches as the footwear’s foetid vapours perverted the air around him. He manically pumped the water tap pedal with his foot with the vim and vigour of a thrash metal drummer. Plunging his head beneath the tap he massaged the water over his skull, scooped some water in his mouth, sluiced it around and spat. He made for the dented door, but caught himself in the cracked mirror, as he reached for the door handle.

 

The sight that met him was….confronting. The yellowed hued skin stretched over his angular cheek bones was pock-marked with scars and indentations. His cracked lips were a putrid purple and his chin coated with iron filings stubble. The thickset jaw clenched and unclenched almost uncontrollably and  his nose was scar-striped, squashed and broken as if someone had splattered a fat slug with a baseball bat…and his eyes – dark darting spheres sunken back in the dark recesses of his eye sockets. If the eyes really were the windows to the soul, then Damon was in purgatory right now. A business card on the shelf under the mirror caught his bloodshot eye. He picked it up and studied it intently for a moment. Tapped it on the shelf and tossed it down again. He let out a long deep sigh, looked upwards and shook his head vigorously as if trying to shake away a wasp.

 

“FACKIT!” he exclaimed as this time he wrenched the handle and threw the door open. He jumped down off the step slammed the door shut and pushed off into a jog padding gingerly around the perimeter of the boxing tent – being extra careful not to trip on the guy ropes. As he bounded out of the vacant lot at the back of the pub where they’d pitched the tent and set up shop, the pain began to shoot through every inch of his body. His legs ached dully, his neck and shoulders felt like they’d been massaged with concrete bollards and it was a given his head ached from the short hairs on his head right down to the inner most cell of his cerebral cortex. But his arms and ribs shared today’s top prize in the pain stakes. They felt like someone had given them a going-over with a lump hammer and it was then that he remembered last night and the last body of the night he’d been up against – a Serbian slab of a man off and of a building site – still in his work pants, boots and with no shirt under his fluoro-vest to reveal sun-burnished skin inked large with the depiction of the devil fucking an angel from behind on his back. It nicely offset the Frankenstein skull joins inked on his forehead and the almost 3-D tattooed bolts in his neck – clearly “Gorgo” as his mates bayed in support of him from around the ring called him – was not without a sense of humour to go along with his penchant for Satanic pornography. Or at least more likely his mischievous mates had talked him into the ill-advised Herman Munster-esque inking after one or half a dozen Slivovitzes too many.

 

Gorgo had brought a truck-load of thirsty Serbian mates along with him to see him fight, so it was up to Damon to put up a good show, keep them interested and most importantly to keep them drinking at the make-shift bar long into the night celebrating their mate’s heroic battle. So Damon couldn’t just use his honed evasive skills to dance in and out of Gorgo’s clumsy haymakers, picking him off on the counter; he had to make the big freak look like he could actually land the odd punch – so he’d let Gorgo pound away at his arms tucked tightly around his torso as he rolled back and forth on the ropes. But the man-beast could punch! And each shot that detonated into his arms brought jolts of dull pain first to his arms and then to his ribs as his elbows were pile-driven into his sides. Ducking the big swinging headshots was easy enough – a seasoned pro like Devo could see them coming about half an hour before they were thrown – but he had to just clam up and take the body shots on his arms waiting for him punch himself out before going to work on him. He had to give the Serb credit he could bang and he was fitter than most – working on the sites clearly kept him in good nick – but he was still carrying a stone or two of flab too much – the piss and pies looked like they’d seen to that – and by round five of the six, sure enough he was wasted.

 

Then it was the usual script of Devo dancing in and out and peppering him with light punches neither hard or frequent enough to make the Serb look like the lumbering, spent drongo he was – and just when he was and truly all over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast in the last round, Devo feinted a shot to his head, ducked down and nailed a short vicious left rip into the Serb’s solar plexus. Gorgo let out an audible grunt adding to the collective “oohs” from the crowd – every last one of them thinking at that moment how glad it wasn’t them in there who’d been on the wrong end of that rocket punch. The Serb knelt down on the canvas sucking and blowing air like a stuffed carp. Devo went back to his corner and had one foot on the rope ready to exit to the changing rooms, get showered down and get to the bar, it being the last bout of the night – he knew the Serb wouldn’t get up after that…they never did after one of Devo’s trademark body-shots. That was how he’d got his ring name, “Damon Devastation Donnelly” – or just “Devo” to that dwindling number who called him a friend or at least an associate. He might have schooled the Serb in the ring, but Gorgo had given him a bloody good run for his money in the bar afterwards getting into a drinking duel of Olympian proportions. Devo never stood a chance against a man half as much again his size and he could remember getting up to about round 10 of the vodka shots (with beer chasers of course) – after that…it was as if he’d been knocked out – not that had ever happened of course – he was Devastation Donnelly after all, but he had no recollection at all of how he’d ended up back in his caravan. 

 

And here he was pounding the tarmac with a biblical-sized hangover in the early morning Western Australian sun already cooking his seamy skin with the azure water of Shark Bay shimmering off into the distance across the road as he jogged along the main drag through the town. The more achingly beautiful the setting, and there were a lot of beautiful settings in WA and no mistaking, the worse his hang-overs felt. He felt like a perversion, a greasy, booze stinking blot on a pristine landscape –and if he wasn’t careful he could find himself questioning the whole nature and point of his existence. But he kept his head down gritted his teeth and dutifully did his k’s – sweating out the toxins and the endorphins beginning to take the edge off this horror show hangover.

 

Now he found himself at the jetty. It was gone seven now and the heat of the day was already beginning to build in earnest. He remembered his da had taken him up here to Denham one winter after one of his mates had leant him a boat. They’d caught two enormous glistening snapper from the gulf – almost surreally pink with iridescent blue spots on their flanks, a spiky dorsal fin, a bulbous clown nose and big disbelieving staring eyes. His da cooked up the pink snapper for him, his ma and his sister and it tasted heavenly. Outside of boxing and booze, it was one of the few happy memories of his childhood. He ran to the end of the jetty ripped his vest off, chucked his trainers off and feeling half human again whooped gleefully and plunged into the cooling, crystal clear water – maybe everything was going to turn out just fine after all.  “No facking wuccas, she’ll be apples,” as Dicko would say.

 

It was the last fight of the night – he’d pretty much cruised through the four bouts he’d been assigned, even turning on a bit of slapstick for the penultimate one – it had been a raucous bucks’ do and the buck was something of a portly chap who wanted to have a go. Damon had played for the crowd – turning into a hit and run keystone cops affair swaying in and out as the fat bloke – pissed as a fart – came staggering after him. Damon ducked under his punches with consummate ease, then tapped him on the head, before darting out of range again. In this instance it was fine to take the piss because that would keep his mates happy, who were the ones critically paying for the booze. Damon finished the fight by rolling under another pitifully slow haymaker spinning low past his opponent and pulling his shorts down. The bloke lumbered forward and fell over. He fumbled pathetically at his shorts’ draw-string with his gloved hands, slowly writhing around on the floor like a fat sedated snake. Dicko dramatically counted him out with the whole tent crying with laughter at the ridiculous spectacle.

 

Damon was actually enjoying himself, but looking forward to hitting the bar afterwards – once again forgetting his ritual post-training vow that morning to quit the booze for once and for all. After the bucks’ mates had helped lift their stricken mate out of the ring – Dicko announced the last fighter of the night. “LAAAAADDDIESSS AND GENTLEMAN, PLEASE GIVE IT UP FOR ASNEEEEEE ‘THE DRAGON’ DAVIS’”.  A skinny and slight Asian-looking guy emerged impassively from the back of the tent wearing golden Thai boxing shorts embossed with silver lightning and Thai dragon emblems. He couldn’t have been much over 130 pounds. A couple of people clapped, but generally his entrance was met with indifference  and didn’t appear to have brought any mates along with him. Damon looked at Dicko and nodded him over. “What the fack, Dicko? This kid shouldn’t be fighting me – I’ve got 40-odd pounds on him and I’m about a foot taller - whaddya want me to do fight him on my knees with a blindfold on?”

 

“I facking know, I facking know!,” rasped Dicko  furtively with his hand covering his mouth.  “What can I tell you – the kid asked for you especially.”

“For me especially? What the fack’s that about?” said Damon now having a proper look at the kid across the ring from him for the first time….now he properly looked there was something vaguely familiar about him.

“Buggered if I know, but he was insistent it had to be you – he gave me a wad to make it happen – 500 facking bucks. We can’t turn down that kind of money. So look you know the facking script, give him his moment in the sun, go gentle on him to start, let him land a few digs, get the crowd going and then put him down in the last round.”

“Well oright, but fack me, Dicko, there’s something weird about this.”

“Just do what you do and she’ll be roight.”

 

The bell rang and Damon nonchalantly made his way out of his corner – not even bothering to put his hands up in a full guard. But the Asian kid fair flew out of his corner. “Here we go,” thought Damon to himself, “another twat who fancies himself as the next Jackie Chan.” Damon went to lift his hands to throw out a gentle jab to keep Jackie Chan at bay – but suddenly the kid wasn’t there. The next thing Damon knew, his rib-cage was singing in pain, his head was swimming and he was kneeling down and sucking in air and a huge roar of approval went up from the crowd.

 

In the blink of an eye the kid had machine-gunned Damon’s torso with a volley of body punches – the last one catching him flush on the solar plexus and totally knocking the wind out of him. Damon had taken harder body shots from sparring with heavyweights, but the speed and accuracy of the shots had completely disarmed him. He blew hard as Dicko gave him the count. He looked quizzically at Dicko – who just shrugged his shoulders. The kid stood back looking down at Damon with a contemptuous gleam in his eyes. What the fuck was going on here? On the count of eight, Damon got to his feet, shook his head and this time put his full guard up and brought his elbows tight into his side. The kid flew back at him and furious punches seemed to rain down from everywhere on Damon – he instinctively started pumping his jab just to get a bit of distance and to try to set up his right – but unbelievably the kid dropped down and moved low with the stealth and speed of an osprey and popped him with a looping overhand right. A small explosion went off in Damon’s right eye.

 

Now Damon finally realised he had a proper fight on his hands – the time for pissing about was over. As the kid came in for another assault, Damon smartly side-stepped him and turned and before he could dart forward he smothered him up on the ropes. Now he could start throwing bombs into the slighter man’s rib-cage. He let go with several evil rips into the guys’ sides – that should give him more than enough to think about. But he simply rolled with the punches like….like he was doing the rope-a-dope to Damon. After throwing several more thunderous shots, he paused for breath and the kid passively stared him in the eyes and said, “That all you got? My grandma punches harder than you.” Damon growled and launched a scud missile of a right cross at the source of the outrage. But again before his punch came anywhere near, his opponent’s face had vanished before him and a keening pain shot through his side and all over his body. Damon was forced to kneel again – floored by the little man’s scything counterpunch to his ribs. The little man was dancing back and forth around him as Dicko counted Damon who gritted his teeth shaking his head in disbelief. “Had enough, fat man, already? I thought you had more in you than a prissy little school-girl,” the kid taunted him. By now the crowd were firmly on the little Dragon’s side and the chant “DRA-GON, DRA-GON, DRA-GON!” went up.