Submission by: Muslim Writers Society ( [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Topic:
A LOVE SUPREME [CHAPTER 2]
Text:
A LOVE SUPREME [CHAPTER 2] (read the text
of chapter one at http://www.oneummah.net/qalam/a_love_supreme.htm )
by
MALIK BELAL
It was July 15, 1971, and Malik felt the heat
of the ring lights bearing down on him like a token force, still another enemy
for his 19 year old body, mind, and spirit to conquer.
He thought it strange
how everytime the referee would recite the rules and fight instructions, his
mind would wander. Inevitably he would think of his mother, and of the
father he never knew.
The ring lights were
like stars just beyound his touch. Stars that beckoned him to a place that he
had only visited in his dreams. But tonight he belived that he would forge
his name in that beautiful firmament of stars. He had to. He had worked too hard for
this moment and dreamed too clearly of this time. It had to be his
destiny.
He focused and stared
into the eyes of his opponet. Bo Green, the reigning midleweight champion of the
world, stared back. His eyes were cold and methodical. For a moment Malik
thought of the bouts of old when slave was pitted against slave. But as suddenly
as the thought
came, it passed. Focus, he told himself. Stay loose ,
relaxed. Don't tense up. Tensing up drains energy.
Malik noticed that, as
usual, the champion was in superb physical condition. Even so, there was a 16
year age difference between them and Malik was certain that he, not the
champion, was the best middleweight
boxer in the
world.
''I want a good fight.
I want you to break when I tell you and to, and break clean. And remember
protect yourself at all times. Alright return to your corners, and when the
bell sounds come out fighting.''
Malik could barely
discern the words of the referee. His words sounded distant, as though he was
listening to them through a dense fog.
The bell sounded. The
champion circled to Malik's right, to avoid his jab, and to, perhaps, to land a
head or a body shot to Malik's right side. Malik had already decied that he
would initiate the battle by throwing straight rights at the champion's head. It
would be totally unexpected. No one throws straight rights at a professional
fighter. The
extra distance the punch has to travel leaves one too vulnerable for a counter
punch. But Malik was confident that he was fast enough to land them with
impunity. There! It worked! HIs first punch had landed solidly and spun the
champion's head around. He watched Bo Green for any signs of weakness or
grogginess. But the champion recovered quickly and slipped under a left hook,
then countered with a powerful round house right to Malik's midsection. Malik
stepped out of range, feinted, and fired a series of jabs at the champs head.
The champion bobbed his head and deflected most of the blows with his left hand;
like someone casually waving away an annoyance. Then he began to press forward,
in a single minded quest to close the distance and land a telling blow.
The bell sounded,
ending the first round. Malik could hear his cornermen shouting instructions.
But he only half listened. This was his fight, he thought, and he would make his
own stategy as the fight progressed.
Very soon the buzzer
sounded. Malik's mouth guard was slipped back between his teeth and the bell
rang for the second round.
Again Malik took the
initiative by racing up to the champion, faking a straight right , then pumping
away with a series of jabs. The champion smiled,as if to say; '' Welcome, young
man. Are you having as much fun as I am?'' And it angered Malik, that with
all his youth, with all his years of training,and with all his expertise; he was
unable to punch him with enough power and authority to wipe that smirk of a
smile off his face.
The bell rang. The stool was produced in Malik's corner, but he chose
to stand. Perhaps it was a foolish thing to dowhich he would have to pay for in
the later rounds when rest and endurance could make the difference between
winning and losing. But for now he would stand.
He would show the
world that he was superior in conditioning. And he would prove to those people
in the stadium with their manicured fingernails, their expensive clothes and
their priviledged and pampered lifestyles; He would show them in the raw
dialectics of the four cornered ring, that mam to man without embellishments and
stripped down to the bare necessities of heart and will, he was superior to them
all.
During the third round Malik was even more sure of himself; more
certain of the destiny which he seemed to wear like a cloak, invisible to nearly
all but himself. And again as the champion approached him, bullying in on him;
Malik led with his right. He ventured three consecutivesraight right punches and
amazingly every one connected.
The champion,
humiliated before the world, and in a blind fury charged forth swinging
powerfully, but unwisely. And then. There! Just for an instant, it was Malik's
time to smile. Yet at the very moment when the fight seem to pitch his way; Bo
rocked him with with a devastating blow to the body, in the area between
his navel and his rib cage. It was one of those punches that , to the onlooker,
appeared inconsequential. But Malik felt a tremendous bolt of pain as his
lungs where emptied of wind, and his legs wobbled,and barely carried him out of
range of Bo's anxious and cruel hands.
''Jab him, then hook
off the jab..tie him up when he gets too close''
Malik could here
the advice of his trainer reverberating within his mind. But of course, he was
the fighter and like all fighters in the searing heat of battle, he was
ultimately and uniquely alone.
Malik began to
back peddle, to seek the solace of open space in a desperate attempt to regain
his strenth and composure. And he heard the champion say to him, snarling
through the bit of his mouth piece; ''Where you going boy? Is you gone make me
chase you all night?''
Yet in spite of all
this Malik could sense there, in the ring, flowing through his blood and even
lodged within the marrow of his bones, the very presense of his father. A man
Malik had never
known or understood. And he could not tell if he was being praised or condemned.
But it did not matter now. Surely if he'd been able to convince himself all his
life that it did not matter, it should not matter here on the very cutting edge
of his hopes and desires. Yet ,the thought of his father seemed to fortify him
against the thundering blows of Bo Green. And his sense of balance and purpose
returned to him. And Malik ended the round with a brilliant display of counter
punching that had the crowd sceaming on it's feet.
At the start of the
fifth round Malik was caught with a left cross which opend up a gash above his
right eye. The blood flowed freely, obstructing his vision. As the round
progressed Bo Green continued to mercilessly pound away at the injured eye. The
blood poured down in bright red rivulets and settled in the corner of his mouth.
And it was then, with the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, that he began to
feel the championship- like a brilliant retreating sun on the western horizon-
slipping away from him. And again he heard Bo Green's voice like a parent
warning a frightened child, say;'' Don't you run from me.''
Between rounds,
Malik's cut man, Bruce Henri, worked fervently to close the gaping wound. But as
the fight continued the cut was again battered open and the blood ran down
seemingly limitless and unstoppable. In wild desperation, Malik lunged at the champion to
land the crucial blow that would turn the fight around, tilt the momentum, and
wrench victory out of the jaws of defeat. But the champion was an expert
craftsman; the consumate artist and professional, and there would be no dramatic
upset tonight.
Out of the
darkness of his blood stained vision, Mallk saw the punch land. A punch that
staggered him and sent him reeling on rubbery legs into the ropes. He was still
bleeding profusely from one eye, and with his other eye beaten and swollen
closed, he could barely see at all.
''Counterpunch
him,Malik...tie him up, spin him.!!! '' Came the feverish yet earnest
instructions from his corner men. But they were like crewmen on board a ship
giving suggestions to a man drowning in the middle of the ocean, And there
voices betrayed ther loss of hope as much as their concern.
And through it all
Malik could feel the eyes of his father upon him, and a smile like a grimace. A
smile of deep regret. A smile of one who has a strange familiarity with
disapointment and pain. Yet something more compelling than pain and more
vital than regret drove Malik onward through the fury of Bo Green's
punches. And something speacial and terrible was ignited within him which
lifted him beyond the roaring fire in his chest and the damp stigma
of his bloody and bruised
eyes. He was not even aware when his trainer through in the towel and the
referee stepped in with 57 seconds remaining in the 8th round, and stopped the
fight.
World Muslim Writers Society and Foundation
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