THUNDERBOLT

by Jeff Carpenter

Down in the ring, he felt the last sting
Stay down, they said, stay down and live
They knew he hadn't got any more fight to give
Why get to his feet when he knew he was beat?
He could trade the belt on his waist, the blood on his face
For a hard canvas bed, take the dream home instead

But his eyes wouldn't shut, tight thread stitched the cut

So he stared at his blood, his heart met the count with each thud
He pushed up to his knees, his ears deaf to the pleas

The pain flooded back, each nerve strained to snap

He was up, he was up, he was UP!

He took the hit, again and again and...

Each time he faltered but did not miss a step

Never give up, never give up, never give...

-- Thomas “Thunderbolt” Faso, from his unfinished poem “Boxer's Blues”

A Zambian railway station at the end of a red dusty road.

Dirty, rundown but busy.

A man carrying a gold-plated championship belt shoulders past Mumba and darts off, disappearing into the crowd.

Mumba spots another man sprawled on the ground-- a compact, muscular man-- coiled like he's ready to strike. Sweat sheens his arms in the hot sun.

Clothes are strewn everywhere-- t-shirts, underwear, socks... and a towel emblazoned with a jagged lightning-bolt with the name: "Thunderbolt" Faso.

Mumba stops and stares at the man.... his shadow falls across the man's battered face.

The man looks up. But he can't see. His eyes are big black plums, swollen shut.

“You... you RIGHT THERE!”

Mumba takes a step back.

“YOU!”

Mumba freezes.

(softly)

“ ...yes?”

“You're a kid. A kid, right? I can't see you. Speak up!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Could you...?”

He nudges an emptied Army surplus canvas duffel bag. An old t-shirt peeks out of the opening.

“My belt. Do you see my belt?”

Mumba looks back into the jostling crowd, noisy but anonymous.

“I... think it's gone...”

Thunderbolt Faso sinks to the ground.

Mumba edges back, his shadow receding from Thunderbolt's face.

“Why you wanna go? Can't stand to see a grown man crawl on his belly?”

Mumba stops.

“Don't feel bad for me. I'm not your father and I'm not your brother. It don't mean a damn thing what I do!”

Brother. Father. The AIDS disease had gotten his papa a couple of years ago. His mom was next. Orphaned at 7, but he still had his brother. Daniel. Holding Mumba's little fingers in his big brown hand. He still had Daniel. Until the mining accident. Up at the Chingola copper mine. Now all he had was in his tin lunch box.

Thunderbolt clears his throat and spits phlegm shot with blood. He wipes his mouth but ends up smearing it across his face.

“What.... what happened to you?”

“Fight last night.”

Mumba picks up a pair of boxing gloves stained with sweat and blood.

“You lost?”

Thunderbolt Faso smiles ruefully through split lips.

“No. Not in the ring, anyhow.”

He throws his arm wide like he's clearing the ring.

“Filthy dogs got me in the bar afterward. You see a red sock?”

Mumba looks around, staring at the floor.

“A red sock. Is it there?”

Mumba finds a rolled-up sock under a bench. Mumba hands him the sock. Thunderbolt Faso unrolls it and feels the kwacha bills between his fingers. He counts them silently, carefully.

“Ha! They didn't get this!”

(to an invisible audience)

“Filthy dogs think they can school a Chingola-boy at the beat-down game? Not in Kitwe they can't!”

Points at his swollen-shut eyes.

“Wait til these grapefruits shrink down. Then you'll get a real education.”

He turns to Mumba.

“I see you didn't take nothing from the sock. You got enough for a ticket?”

“Almost.”

Thunderbolt pulls out a couple of bills.

“This should make up the difference...”

He holds it just out of Mumba's reach.

“... as long as you point me in the direction of the train.”

***

The scrub and open grassy plains of the Zambian plateau rush past the window.

Squeezed to one side of the hard benches of a 3rd-class passenger car, Mumba watches Thunderbolt tell his story with eyes locked.

“I skipped back from the hook, and it just missed my chin. I mean I could hear the wind whooshing past... feel the power... we called it the Right-hand Rocket Launch. But like I said, he missed. So I moved counter-clockwise on the guy...”

Mumba frowns in puzzlement.

“Counter?”

“You know what clockwise is, don't you?”

“No.”

“You can tell time though, can't you?”

“Yeah.”

“How about analog time, on the old round clocks?”

“Dunno.”

“A tick-tock clock.”

“No, sir.”

He brightens up.

“But I've got a tick-tock watch.”

Mumba opens the lunch box and pulls out the gold Rolex.

The gold watch from the road at the mining camp. Where all the confusion and craziness had blackened the sky. The accident. The strike. The mobs with machetes. The man in the Mercedes who lost his watch. But kept his arm. Rolled up the tinted window. Fast. He drove fast. But Mumba locked onto the license plate: AAK 4753. AAK equalled Lusaka. The Big City. Which was where he was going. To collect his reward.

A guy in a green cap sitting in the corner of the train car takes notice as Mumba pulls out the watch.

“Got numbers on it?”

“Nope”.

“Well, it's easy.”

He takes the watch from Mumba.

“It's the little hand you gotta take notice of. I know the other one looks big and grabs you by your eyeballs. But don't let its size fool you, the little hand is the important one.”

He taps the watch-face twice.

“The top-- that's 12 o'clock.”

“And around the circle this way...”

He traces his finger around the dial.

“... that's called "clock-wise", so clock-wise it goes: 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock and so on, up to 12.”

“The reverse...”

Thunderbolt Faso traces his finger backwards around the dial.

“The other way is called "counter clock-wise". See? Easy.”

“Six o'clock.”

“What?”

“Six o'clock. It's six o'clock right now.”

“No wonder I'm hungry. It's time we got something to eat.”

The train stops, letting passengers disembark.

The whistle blows once.

A group of food sellers boards, carrying baskets of fruit and homemade meals in styrofoam containers and paper bags.

Thunderbolt waves a kwacha bill in the air.

“Nshima with ndiwo, right here.”

Thunderbolt starts licking his lips as they hand him his cornmeal mash with relish. He digs in hungrily. Mumba folds his empty hands on his lap and watches the food sellers scurry down the car.

Amid the bustle, the guy in the green cap appears beside them.

“Do you know what time it is?”

Mumba lifts up his watch to take a look.

The guy in the green cap grabs Mumba's wrist and tears off the Rolex.

“My watch!”

The thief backhands the boy knocking him to the floor.

Thunderbolt stands up, but doesn't know which way to turn.

The thief grabs his nshima and pushes him back down.

“Stay down, blind man.”

Mumba looks up as the thief moves away.

“Five o'clock!”

The thief and Thunderbolt look at him, confused.

Mumba says it again, more insistently.

“Five o'clock. Rocket Launch.”

Mumba stomps on the thief's foot. He cries out.

Thunderbolt jumps to his feet, spins to the five o'clock clockwise position and decks the thief in the chin with a powerhouse right hook.

The thief hits the ground and Mumba snatches the watch from the thief's failing grip.

Thunderbolt steps on the thief's arm and grabs the nshima back.

“He knows what time it is... “

The train whistles twice.

***

Mumba sleeps the rest of the way. Mostly to forget his growling stomach.

The train holds a sustained whistle to announce its arrival at Lusaka station.

Mumba opens his eyes and turns to thank Faso for his company, but he is already gone.

He opens his lunch box. His watch is still there.

He looks outside. It's getting dark now. What time is it? He keeps looking for the big hand. To guide him. To show him the way. But it is the little one that is important. The little one.

***

END

***

© Jeff Carpenter