Interview with the Monster

Prequel to The Death Pledge by Jeff Carroll

 

 

When I first got the assignment to cover the story of Jefferson Washington, the barnyard boxing sensation known as the King of Africa, I was taken aback.  Me, Hirum Langston, award-winning writer assigned to cover a story about a brutal, illegal sport.  Bare-knuckle fighting or boxing without any gloves or whatever you want to call it’s pit fighting.  I would have much rather been investigating one of Gravel T. Woods’ new inventions or spending some time with Fredrick Douglass talking about ways to end slavery.  However, Reginald Small is a man with great purpose, so even though this is something I do not understand, I will approach it with the utmost respect.  I have only been to the South one time in my life and the experience there was life-changing.   Reporters for the north, especially of the abolitionist school of thought like me, were never invited to newsworthy occurrences on the Plantations of the South.  I guess they are scared we will find out about some hideous slavery activity.  That makes this opportunity all the more sweet.

 

Arrangements had been made for me to stay at a rooming house or, as they say, a bed and breakfast.  I have heard stories about this fighter, the King of Africa, that make him seem like a terror.  All of these stories are relayed orally, of course.  Barnyard boxing and any form of boxing is against the law in all of the Northern States.  Human fighting is barbaric and inhumane.  Even when these fights were held up North before the laws were passed, they were held in secrecy.  The South maybe filled with cornhusking hillbillies, but even they aren’t primitive enough to celebrate this savagery.  On second thought, with all of the reported incidents of slave labor and its hideous atrocities, fist fighting is a step up.

 

 

Saturday, October 7, 1851

The ride to the bed and breakfast was treacherous to say the least.  I have never rode for so long on an unpaved road.  The carriage reached South Ridge, Virginia, well past midnight – about two a.m. Even after a decent night’s sleep when I was coming downstairs I was still trying to settle my nerves by thinking about what good stuff these country folk would have for breakfast.        

 

“Say, is this your first fight?” a man said to me.  I was holding a spoon serving myself a helping of grits.

 

“Ah, I ah. I’m not a fighter,” I said.  Not knowing what to say.  I didn’t really want to tell people who I was.  “I’m just here with a friend.”

 

“Well, I hear that the wager man is running late,” the man said in a lower voice than he had the first time.  “On account of people placing so many bets.”

 

“Is that so?  Well, I don’t expect to be betting any money on this fight.”

 

“Well if you do wanna make yourself some take home money.  I’m taking bets on Haymaker Hazlitt.  He’s going to show that jungle ape the proper order of the food chain evolution.”

 

I walked away from the man whose excitement over the fight caused spit to fly out of his mouth while he was talking.  So as not to have his oral fluids fly onto my plate I walked around him to find a seat at the end of the table.  While I didn’t mind a breakfast buffet, it does demand a certain etiquette that I just don’t think these Southern fight fans are capable of.

 

The fight was set to start after noontime, leaving enough time for the main fight time to finish before sunset.  The rooming house was filled with nothing but travelers like myself.  Everyone was here to see the African King fight.  The dining room table quickly filled up with an assortment of characters.  Men came from as far south as Atlanta and Savannah.  I met a group of men from Newark.  They owned a shipping company and rode their company’s coach down to South Ridge.  There grass outside the house was filled with coaches and horses from the porch all the way out to the road. 

 

The breakfast was good.  Nothing like fresh eggs and cheese.  I talked to the men about as many subjects as I could but the subject of the fights always took over.  I must admit people are certainly excited about these barnyard fights.  “I heard that African King fella punched a white man in front of the mayor and ain’t nothing happen to him,” one man said.

 

“I heard he punched a horse for looking at him the wrong way,” another man said. 

 

“Knocked the horse out cold with one blow.”

 

I heard so many stories, which I think were a bit exaggerated, just at the breakfast table that I started to get a little excited myself.  I excused myself and went back to my room to take a nap.

 

“Come on out! They just bringing the African King out,” a voice screamed.  It startled me.  I looked at my watch and it was 11:30 a.m.  I guess that carriage ride took a little more out of me than I expected.  Anyway, time to go to work and get this story.  So I ran a rag over my face and skipped down the stairs.

 

“Easy, young fella.  They got him covered up.  His trainer Jim don’t want him to be teased by any of the boys here,” an old man said.  He was sitting in a rocking chair drinking a glass of lemonade on the porch looking at all the chaos from a safe distance.  “They’re going to be bringing out some pork sandwiches in a few.  You need to make sure you get yours first cause they are sure to run out today.

 

“Ah is that all they’ll have is pork?” I said. 

 

“Hell no.  She been frying chicken and making tater pies all week.”

 

Thank God.  I could eat some chicken, but I had a bad experience with a piece of pork when I was a child.  “Okay, thank you Sir.”

 

From a few feet off the porch, I was able to see the big wagon carrying the African King roll in.  It looked like a big box covered with a show curtain like the ones they use on stages at the theater.

 

I noticed the fighting area was filling up quickly, and I also saw they had started selling the sandwiches.  I rushed over and got a box of chicken and three fluffy biscuits.  I took an end seat on a mid-level bleacher.  The announcer was already talking to the crowd by the time I got situated.

 

“Today we got a treat for you fight lovers.  I ain’t talking about no cock fights or no dogs fights.  I’m talking about two big ole giants fighting.  Men so big there ain’t no place for them in the world but in this here ring.  First we got two scrappy young fellas that promise to give you something that you ain’t expecting.  They both say they’ve got killer in their blood, so it sure to be a pleaser.  Then we got what you all came here for.  We got a fighter who’d make the gladiators in Rome run home and get their mammas. He’s all the way from England.  It took him two weeks to get here, and I bet he ain’t happy about that.  Haymaker Hazlitt,” the fat announcer said.  The crowd screamed and cheered so much you would have thought he had already won the fight.  “He told me yesterday that he heard Virginia had a colored problem and he wanted help us solve it.  Hahaha.”

 

Then the crowd got quiet.  Real quiet.

 

“Now you know we’ve got this fighter trained by Old Jim.  This fighter is half animal and half monster.  He started in the fields of North Carolina.  You know picking cotton and sugar cane.  Now he’s been chopping down every man we’ve put in front of him. All the way from Africa, we’ve got the African King!”  This caused the crowd to boo and scream curses.

 

The first fight was a spectacle to say the least.  Both men about the same size traded punches and slaps at each other for over 5 rounds.  They knocked each other to the ground.  Each time they got up before the bell rang and got back up with new energy.  By the tenth round, I could barely predict who would win.  The fighters both looked to be within an inch of their lives, yet they still fought.  Every time they fell to the ground, I couldn’t help but think “Why get up?”  One time I yelled, “Stay down, dummy!”  That made all of the men sitting around me turn and look at me.  I wouldn’t say that again.  But why?  Why do they get up?  This was the stupidest way to display courage.  Then by the fifteenth round, out of the blue and totally unexpectedly, one of the fighters threw a right-handed punch at the other fighter’s head and misjudged the other fighter’s distance.  The other fighter, seizing an opportunity he had been waiting for, followed with a devastating uppercut which connected with the jaw of his adversary.  The blow knocked the fighter off his feet and into the first row of bleachers.

 

When they finally got a word out of the laid-out fighter, all he said was “Where am I?”

 

They quickly cleared the ring and the announcer pronounced the fighter the winner.  He then called for two volunteers and stood them on both sides of the ring.

 

“Now you fellas will get the first shots at the African King,” the announcer said.  He stepped aside and in walked Old man Jim, an old man with wrinkled skins and a big round belly.  He was followed by what seemed to be just what they said: a monster.  The African King.  Dressed in overalls and wearing a straw hat, he looked normal, except he was twice the size of a normal man.  He had large muscles – not defined, just large.  His chest was big like a wooden barrel of ale.  He looked around at all of the people and offered what almost seemed like a smile.  The two men in the ring were each given a piece of wood.  Following the instruction of Old man Jim, they swung the slabs over the head and back of the African King.  While each piece of wood broke over the African King’s body, he barely flinched.  Holy cow, he was strong.  I’d only seen men this strong at the circus.

 

“You see.  He’s got no feeling,” someone screamed from the audience.

 

“No soul,” the announcer said.  “And now I bring you this animal trainer all the way from England, Haymaker Hazlitt.”

 

The African King backed away from Haymaker as soon as Old man Jim climbed out of the ring.  Haymaker – a tall man, equal to the height of the African King – just starred at the big Black fighter.  When the bell rang, Hazlitt was all over the African King, throwing lefts and right punches.  The African King barely moved as he raised his arms to block.  The crowd cheered.  It didn’t seem like a fight at all.  By the beginning of the second round, Haymaker had thrown almost all of the punches while the African King just took a beating.  Midway through the second round, Haymaker landed a punch that caused the African King to stumble.  Haymaker, sensing an easy victory, released out a barrage of more punches.   The African King fell to the ground.  Well, not all the way.  He came down on one knee.  But you would have thought he fell out flat on his back, like the early fighters did, by the noise of the crowd.  I started to think that this was no fight; it was a rigged public beating.  This couldn’t be the guy people traveled so far to see. 

 

The African King blocked Haymaker’s punches from that position until the bell rang.  After that he got up and walked over to Old man Jim.  Jim splashed him with a cup of water as he sat down.  He offered the African King a jar of some sort.  It had green liquid in it.  The King took a big gulp and Old man Jim said something I couldn’t make out.  When the bell rang, the African King jumped up and dropped his arms to his sides and squatted down.  Haymaker paid him no mind and rushed in as usual.  This time the African King caught Hazlitt with an open-hand slap.  Haymaker stumbled back a step.  He shook his head and charged again this time he was slapped twice.  He tried to punch the King, but his punches were blocked.  The King jumped around on each side of Haziltt, slapping him on the side of his head and body.  His opponent turned his head as fast as he could, but that only added to the blows ‘accuracy.  Hazlitt snorted and gritted his teeth then rushed toward the African King.  The African King sidestepped and punched Hazlitt in the cheek.  Hazlitt, now mad and turning red, said “Come on you beast. Stop running and fight me.”

 

The African King stopped moving and just stood there with his arms to his side.  Hazlitt hauled back and aimed a blow at his opponent.  The African King lowered his body to the ground and let the punch sail over his head.  The move caught Hazlitt so off guard that he lost his footing.  The African King jumped up in the air like a frog and came crashing down on Hazlitt’s head.  Hazlitt fell straight down.  The big white fighter’s face connected with the ground so hard it thudded like it was a brick.  The ring man quickly rang the bell.  Hazlitt pushed himself back up to his feet and wobbled back to his chair.  The once-noisy crowd was quiet.  I dared not say a word.

 

When the bell rang starting the next round, both fighters looked refreshed.  The African King looked like it was the beginning of the fight, and Hazlitt looked like he was surrounded by a group of bandits.  He didn’t seem to have his earlier skilled aggression.  He held an arm out to keep the African King away from him.  He walked around the ring like he was looking for an opening.  The African King just stayed in his position with his arms dangling and in a squatted position. The crowd started cheering “kill him, kill him.”

 

Hazlitt, grinned to the crowd in acknowledgment of their love, it seemed like he’d been waiting for to charge the African King.  He blocked the first slap and almost tackled the King, a move which I thought wasn’t allowed.  I thought the rules were for fist fighting only.  Anyway, Hazlitt, having the African King pinned against the rope, rammed his knee into the barrel shaped ribs of the African King.  He pushed the King back with both hands around his neck choking him.  The referee just stood there watching.  The African King fell down to his knee and Hazlitt rammed his knee into the King’s head.  The crowd cheered.  Some men stood up.  Hazlitt punched the King, knocking him over onto the ground. 

 

Now with the African King finally lying on the floor, Hazlitt turned to the cheering audience and raised his arms.  When he turned back toward the African King, the King was almost back on to his feet.  Hazlitt rushed him with his stereotypical confidence and swung and the King.  This time the King was already on one knee and the blows were easier to block.  He blocked them both and followed with an uppercut to Hazlitt’s chin.  The blow stood Hazlitt up straight.  The African King punched Hazlitt in the stomach, causing Hazlitt to bend over.  As Hazlitt crouched to hold his stomach, the African King cupped both his hand together and swung them into Hazlitt’s face.  Hazlitt stood erect and motionless.  Blood dripped out of his mouth and his eyes were shut.  I couldn’t tell if he was going to fall forward or backward.  All I could tell was he was unconscious.  His head tilted to the sky and his arms dangling on his sides told the crowd who the winner was. 

 

This was by far the most thrilling event I have ever witnessed.  As barbaric as it was, these fighters are a cut above the rest of us.  I can’t wait to talk to Jefferson Washington, the African King tomorrow.

Check out the book with the story Sci-Fi Streetz