On Saturday night, for the first time in my life, I went to watch live boxing. The cab driver who took us to the Bloor Boxing Club was a small and thin Jamaican man who liked to talk. In a natural and completely unforced manner, he managed to tell us his entire life story, including the terrible problem he had gambling on the horses while a younger man living in London, England. But he beat the habit, moved to Toronto and married the love of his life, with whom he raised three children, each one, he proudly told us, who now has a university degree. Leaning back, he showed us a wallet photo of his wife, “just as beautiful as the sun, she is,” he said.
Upstairs at the club there was an incredibly diverse assembly of about 100 people, mostly family and friends of the fighters. The ring announcer, in his Saturday night finery, wore a pork pie hat that sported a rooster feather and a tight vest of the type you might see on Don Cherry. He struggled throughout the night with all the complex names he had to pronounce, but he started off fine, introducing a five year-old boy in a Gap sweatshirt who was to sing the National Anthem.
Everybody in the crowd rose, but for one woman in a beret, who looked around feigning incredulity that such a display of antique patriotism could be taking place in downtown Toronto, but she quickly relented, and stood with the rest of us. So accustomed am I to YouTube sensations and TV prodigies, that I expected the boy to be a vocal genius, but no, he was just a nervous kid singing in public for the first time. Just a bit out of key, he stumbled on the words, and the crowd, as if to lift him up and infuse him with some confidence and certainty, began to sing along, at first in almost a whisper, but then our voices grew stronger as the spine thickened.
The featured bouts were all amateur, ranging from panicked 14 year-olds flailing wildly at one another to grown men throwing heavy, carefully considered blows. On the rooftop patio hotdogs were being barbequed and bottles of cheap beer sold. The crowd, as if to help, shouted encouragements at the fighters, “ Give him the jab! JAB, JAB! JAB! That’s it, way to go!” and in between the rounds an Asian woman wearing stiletto heels and track pants walked around the ring smiling, holding up a sign the declared the round number.
Just outside of the club, sitting on some cinder blocks by the door, a man sat having a cigarette. It was raining lightly, but he didn’t seem to care. It was almost 10:00 PM and he was covered in soot, explaining that he had just got off work and had hurried down to see his son fight. He described his boy’s fight and I remembered him immediately—a wide shouldered Eastern European boy who kept his eyes wide open. He always moved forward in the ring, that boy, pushing the attack, expecting no quarter nor giving any.
“You must be very proud,” I said.
The father nodded, his cigarette now hissing out in a puddle.
“Dah,” he said, “dah,” just the faintest smile visible on his face.