|
Carnation Dive was a black man but his skin was as pink as a pink carnation. When he was on a job he was expected to wear one, and usually did. He travelled everywhere with a clarinet which he could not play. He was 87 years old and 6 feet 5 inches tall. No stoop. He moved like a slow basketball player. But boxing was his game. He was a trainer of a sort, a specialist in a bitter aspect of the sweet science: he trained boxers how to take a dive, how to throw a fight and arouse no suspicion. He choreographed his first dive in 1952. Sometimes he imagined all his tutored dives diving at once, like an army throwing a battle. Those were his biggest smiles.
Dive's real name was Jack Square, but it sounded strange when he announced it when booking a room or a flight - not him at all, but a version of himself who had died long ago, before his curls went white. His best friend, Bad Jesus, the Mexican cut man, with whom he had discussed all things since Joe Louis was champion, had long ago forgotten the name Jack Square. That person was now Carnation Dive. Carnation from his pink glowing skin. Dive from his secret profession. Sometimes he was referred to as 'The Man with the Clarinet'. His secret identity of a venerable jazz player covered his comings and goings and fooled mostly people who did not need fooling.
It was amazing to Carnation Dive that the situation in which he now found himself had not occurred years earlier. It nearly did in the 60s, three times. But people were more forgiving then. He was walking across waste ground towards a ruined canning factory followed by two squat gentlemen. They would return to the world. Idea was, he would not. No pink carnation today. But he carried his clarinet case as usual. He was dragging his left leg.
"What's wrong with his leg?"
"He was twitching it in the limo. Must be scared."
Carnation Dive then made a calm observation that showed he was not scared: "You know, when churches are not used no more, they still pay for their upkeep. People come, look around. Why not the same with places like this? Why not keep the whole world neat and tidy?"
They were in the shadows of the canning factory now. Close up, it was not so untidy. Just empty. It had been closed over twenty years but only one broken window, high up. It caught all their eyes.
"Maybe some guy comes and fixes the windows," said one of the gentlemen to Carnation Dive, picking up on his earlier observation.
"Don't talk to him," ordered his colleague. "It's not the way it's done."
So conversation stopped. The crunch-crunch-crunch of their footsteps was like a devil reciting a list. The two squat gentlemen looked like they could once have been useful middleweights. But they did not ask the usual questions of Carnation Dive. Pugilists were always keen to get the truth of some old boxing controversy out of the old man. These two had no such curiosity.
Mr. Dive was not told where to go. He just headed towards the centre of the factory complex. Eventually he would stop, turn around and they would start punching him. He was limping badly, dragging that foot, scratching the shine from his shiny black shoe. He dropped his clarinet case. One of the gentlemen picked it up and carried it for him.
"He ain't scared. Look at him. He ain't scared."
"Who cares if he's scared? I don't care. You don't care if he's scared. Just keep quiet, won't you!"
Just like those times in the 60s, Carnation Dive's present predicament was caused by a double-fix. - He had tutored two fighters to take a dive in the same fight. They each threw a phantom punch that knocked out their opponent in the middle of round one, the boxers hitting the canvas simultaneously. However many times you played the video to watch them go down, it still looked convincing. But there were those who were irked and pointed irked fingers at the puppeteer of their puppet show.
It was not Carnation Dive's fault that people's business was so convoluted. He saw the situation coming but was not free to comment. If he was asked to tutor a boxer to dive, he did so. He had no power of refusal. The fix itself was nothing to do with him. But it would be too public an act to kill one of the boxers, trainers or managers. Killing Carnation Dive, who nobody cared about, showed that something had been done. It was a miracle it had not happened already. Years ago. After a forgotten fight between long gone fighters.
As they entered the building through a doorway with no door, Carnation Dive started talking about the second Clay-Liston fight. His patter was quick, studious, amused, full of chuckles. But when he switched to an expert's appraisal of the first great dive - Jack Johnson's in the Johnson-Sharkey fight in Havana in 1912 - his voice became slurred. There were no chuckles now, barely any words that could be made out. His foot was turned inwards. It kicked but did not tap the ground. It returned to its first position and kicked air again.
The two gentlemen did not know what to think about Carnation Dive's behaviour. They looked at each other to see if the other was wiser. But no. Not wiser. When Carnation Dive made a choking sound, bent over and slowly, so, so, slowly fell onto the dusty floor, one of them said, even before Carnation Dive had finished his dive: "He's having a stroke. I've seen this before. My old man. He's having a stroke."
Carnation Dive brought up his hand to shade his eyes from the sudden bright sunlight glinting through the rows and rows of dirty windows. Then he seemed to go to sleep. Or die. Or something.
"Should we beat on him anyway?"
"I dunno! Why kill him if he's dead already? Easier this way."
The one who wanted to beat on him anyway was the one carrying the clarinet case. In the end his only violent act that day was to throw the clarinet case at the factory windows. It did not reach. It landed with surprisingly little sound. The two men walked away back to their limo, leaving Carnation Dive pinker than any carnation as he lay in the bright spring sunshine.
A couple of days later a number of individuals with an interest in the noble art received a pink carnation in the mail. A number because Carnation Dive was not sure exactly who those two gentlemen were working for. Fact was, one was working for one side of that double fix, the other for the other - a simple alliance born of twirling convolutions. Everyone who received a carnation was already in on the story, thought it pretty funny, and forgave Carnation Dive, but never the two squat gentlemen.
Carnation Dive and his very old pal Bad Jesus sat on the porch of Bad Jesus's place looking at the clarinet in its open case.
"You should learn to play," said Bad Jesus. "I always said you should learn someday. Maybe that someday, I think, has come."
They looked out at the gulf and talked of various matters till it turned dark. Then they sat in silence for a long while. Bad Jesus was about to break the silence by trying to make a noise through the clarinet when Carnation Dive said through one of his biggest smiles: "Without even a punch thrown."
|
