Sunburnt Speculations

Another Novakovich exercise. This time, I am sourcing a story from a memory of a childhood fight. Some elements are true; some are made up or altered.

There was no reason why it happened. At least, no reason that I knew. Though in later years I speculated that it might have been this or it might have been that. But speculation can be misleading, and perhaps it was because of neither this nor that. It might have been because that day I wore shoes. We didn’t all wear shoes. It might have been because it was tuck-shop day and I had sixpence for a pie, or even for no reason at all but just because he could.

I had never been in a fight. Squabbles yes, but never fight. Never with someone fuelled by menace so that I had to defend myself. And that was how, one little lunch in Year 1, at Clangatoona State School, I was pushed down – Noel Kane sitting on my chest and pinning my arms to the ground.

It was bewildering to me — without purpose or precedent. He might have been shouting. If he was, I cannot recall now, or even knew then, what he was shouting. I can recall the sharp stones in my back as I lay in the dirt just inside the school gate. I can recall the crowd of eager kids, ringing us in and egging him on. I can recall looking all topsy-turvy at their bare legs and knees as they leaned in for a closer look at my misfortune. I can recall the side of my head being pushed into the fine dust. And the taste of it on my mouth. The smell of it in my nostrils.

And then Noel Kane spat.

Maybe that was the object of it. The bell rang. The circle of onlookers dispersed. Kane got off me and left with them. I rose. I went into class. It might have been reading. I liked reading.

At big lunch, I went home. We lived across the street not 20 yards from the school gate and I was allowed to go home for lunch. I told Father and Mother what had happened. A boy had pushed me to the ground and spat. I had no reason to hide it. I didn’t know what it meant.

But Father knew what it meant. He taught me, in that lunch hour, how to box. How to hold up my left hand in front of me and how to cock my right back against my chin and how to punch with a clenched fist.

Thus armed, I went back to school. I found Kane riding with a group of admirers on one of those long wooden swings like a plank that travels backwards and forwards, so you feel you’re on a boat.

Left arm extended, right fist cocked, I marched up to the swing. Kane came within reach. I punched. He might have fallen off. He might have cried. It made no difference. It was not vengeance or spite that moved me. In that moment, I was Justice. Our account, however it stood, was squared.

The Headmaster called me out of class that afternoon and stood over me on the veranda. He stood too close. I couldn’t see him properly — only his belt buckle. It had a bull on it. Strange, the details I recall. I was an animal. I was evil. Why did I punch Noel Kane? He had to know.

There was only one answer and it had nothing to do with cause or excuse. It had to do with higher authority — higher than the Headmaster with his seven different canes – some of them curly and vicious for punishing wicked boys. I did it because Father told me to. What could have been more simple than that?

Perhaps he spoke to Father. Perhaps Father spoke to him. But I heard no more about it. We left Clangatoona the following year for Northport. And, from then on, twice a week I trained at Rocky Love’s Boxing Camp.