The Over Hand Right Incident

Benny held the old Polaroid print in his hand. Its white border was stained with dirty fingerprints. An old piece of Sellotape had been wrapped around its top right-hand corner, holding a tear together. On the back, written in black biro it said "Crackpot and the boss, 81".

It was him alright, in the image, although much younger. He recognised the old wood paneling from the gym. They had ripped that down about twenty years ago when they expanded. He would stand on the other side of that wall now, where they had knocked through. 

In the photo, he stood with an arm on the shoulder of what looked like a featherweight, maybe a lightweight, holding a trophy that looked about the same size as the young lad. Benny, with his right fist cocked in front of him in the classic old school boxing pose. Unmistakable with his trilby hat on, losing his hair even back then. He loved a trilby. 

“Aye, its me alright. And the fighter?” said Benny. A thousand kids passed through the gym over the years, many of them amateur champions. He didn’t recognise this one.

“Thats me Da.”

What the boy lacked in symmetry he made up with menace. He had a head shaped like an orangutan. Narrow eyes that averted any contact, ginger hair cropped down tight on a skull that looked like it had been modelled out of clay by an amateur potter. The dents and contours around his cheeks and forehead looked all pressed in with heavy thumbs. His ears pointed east and west that made Benny think of a radio antenna, but he could tell the boy wasn’t tuned into any signals. 

“And yir da, did he have a name?”

“Conlan”

“Conlan what?” 

“Conlan O’Connell” The boy’s nostrils flared with a heavy breath after each sentence. 

Benny handed the photo off to a breathless Mick, who wiped the sweat from the top of his head with a towel, having just finished pads with one fighter. 

“Christ almighty, that’s some tash, boss,” said Mick.

“Must have been the eighties. The ladies loved a man with a tash in the eighties,” said Benny with a wink to the young O’Connell boy, but the tongue-in-cheek reference went over his head. Back to Mick. “You recognise him?”

“Well, the Burt Reynolds look a like is definitely you. The other kid is the Conlan boy, as the kid says. Good featherweight. Had potential,”said Mick, handing the Polaroid back to Benny, who took a second look. “Troublemaker, though, ended up inside. Yir Da, he still in jail?”

“He’s dead,” said the O’Connell boy. Benny couldn’t see any hint of remorse or emotion. The absent father wasn’t an uncommon narrative around kids who came to the gym. 

“Sorry to hear that, son,” said Benny, taking back the picture and taking a second look. He still didn’t recognise Conlan O’Connell. 

“I see it now, young Conlan. He was a good fighter, sir da. Great right hook on him,” said Benny.

“He was a southpaw,” said Mick

“Aye for a southpaw, a good right hook. Whats your name, son?” said Benny. 

“Conlan,” said the kid.

“Of course it is,” said Benny, expecting the answer. The kid, probably unwanted by the father, the mothers’ names the child after them to keep them interested. Didn’t always work. 

“Why do you want to learn to fight?”

“Im being bullied”.

“By who? Older boys?”

“My teachers”.

“Your teachers?”

“They laugh at me, call me an idiot, n I’m not.”

“How is learning to fight going to help you with your teachers?” said Mick, confused at the kids reasoning.

“I want to know how to knock them out.” The kid was an idiot, thought Benny. 

Mick couldn’t stifle the laugh. He looked at Benny and gave him a shrug of the shoulders. Why not?

All kids were given a chance. Mick lead him into the ring, laced him up quickly with a pair of 16 oz gloves while Benny stood crossed arms at the side of the ring watching. The kids that came in with nothing were the ones that had the most to fight for, and this kid looked like he didn't have a pot to piss in. He wore a white vest with lunch stains down the front and black school trousers. His laces were un tied on old trainers that looked a size too big. 

He stood about the same height as Mick, an ex semi pro who fought in the qualifiers for the Olympics about 15 years ago. Mick was a better trainer than he was fighter and finished with a mediocre record of ten wins, ten losses. The kid lacked the body mass and weight training Mick had put on over the years, but had decent sized shoulders that might make him intimidating in his weight class. He was probably a lightweight, same as his dad. 

Mick slipped into the pads and took training stance in front of the kid. 

“Okay, lets see…” is all Mick got out. The kid rolled an over hand right through the pads and cracked Mick in the temple that slept Mick. He landed nose first on the canvas with the brain temporarily shutting down for a moment and being unable to signal the hands to prevent the fall. Mick would have a headache for a week, but the story of being knocked out by the kid who walked in off the street would last a lifetime. 

The kid shuffled on his feet across the canvas that looked more like Irish dancing than it did boxing training. His elbows tight in against his sides, the big 16 oz gloves came up to protect his face it reminded Benny of choreographed fights in the 1950s Hollywood movies, as if the kid had been watching and learning a style from the likes of Wallace Beery in the Champ, or Errol Flynn in Gentleman Jim. 

Benny stepped under the ropes into the ring and cautiously put his hands on the kids gloves and lowered them down.

“I think you got him, kid,” said Benny. “Let’s not use what you 're taught here on any teachers”