The Quadruple Knockout! (Donkeyland Fight, 1960)

The Quadruple Knockout!
[Donkeyland; and the Cayuga Street Gang; 1960]




I really couldn’t say for sure, but what I remember was we all stopped playing baseball in the empty lot, and walked over to the new kid standing somewhat in the way of the players; he had moved in by Ernest Brandt’s house, his first name was Buddy, can’t remember his last name. He had a white tea shirt on (a muscleman shirt), looked pressed and even, real clean. We were all dirty from playing baseball, all but him that is, and he looked too clean for us, so we tried to ignore him, but he wouldn’t let us. It was the summer of 1960, I was thirteen years old, almost fourteen, in three months that is. And Buddy was all of fifteen and half a-foot taller than I, but I was weight lifting, and had fourteen inch biceps. It was a hot and dusty day there in the empty lot, and somehow we all were called into Buddy’s little interruption, he wanted to tell us something, and he did:
“Anytime anyone of you guys want to fight me, I’m ready,” and he said it loud and he said it clear and he said it with a smirk on his face, and he looked ready, but he wasn’t ready, at one moment he even looked as if he was going to walk away at the same time, everyone talking among themselves over who got to fight him, and here is this guy standing there, as if he was Bruce Lee.
All of us boys were saying amongst ourselves, almost as if in a football huddle talking who was going to tackle that guy:
Voices in all directions saying: …me, me, I’ll fight him. No, let me fight him; meee…let me have him…. Echoes from all directions
Jack, my close friend at the time, wanted to fight him bad, he was always hyper, and he was real comfortable with the idea at first, but he didn’t do anything. The train of guys (or so it seemed), were all standing in that empty lot around him now, I among them, Indian’s Hill to the side of us, Cayuga Street in back of us, and him in the front of us, everyone gambling for the right to punch him out, or try.
Jack said, “Let me take him on,” then started cussing as he usually did, but he didn’t throw a punch, as he listened to the other boys argue with their hands gripping into a fist mode; the lucky guy would be me, and I was heated up, and I was ready to go, to do it.
Doug, and Roger, were there, Larry (the tough guy of the neighborhood) was not, he most likely—had he been there—most likely would not have hesitated, and the guy would have been hamburger, he would have thrown the first punch, and the fight might have been over before the guys stopped arguing. And so the dispute was with us. And the more the confrontation went on, the more I wanted him, as if he was the prized bull and I the matador, and he stood there like a bull, wanting anyone to charge, to come to forward, not waste his time. So I figured—it should me be.
Now there was a circle around him as I said before, and he stood quietly, stone-still, as everyone wagered for the right to fight him, and everybody wanting the right to fight him, but nobody fighting him, and I looked, just stared at him, saying to my mind’s eye, what am I waiting for. I had been weight lifting, had several fights before, but was no tough guy, not like Larry Lund, anyhow, but was getting a reputation—somewhat.
“Can’t I have him,” I said, and everyone looked at me, I mean everyone, and they looked at one another, and Buddy looked at me, and he shook his head okay, as if it was okay for me to fight him, and when he took one step forward before he even put up his fists, just that one step, I grabbed him and threw him on the ground like a runaway chicken who knows his head is coming off with an ax soon; and I never stopped punching his face-in until someone grabbed me off of him (I think it was Jack): lest I make him hamburger.
I suppose I was waiting to show the boys what I was made out of; this was a chance, they’ll tell me later how I was—I figured. But I had lost control somehow, a light went off inside my head, I didn’t like that, it was dull youth telling me to fight I presume, and I had won the fight, light on or off it didn’t matter to me, yet in years to come this would be repeated somewhat in other fights, to win was the main thing, and once you started, took that leap forward, you didn’t stop until your opponent was down and out. But was it unfair? I mean I jumped the gun; didn’t give him a chance. I didn’t look at the Golden Glove Rules, and I think Buddy did, none of us neighborhood guys did, I just punched, grabbed, and I didn’t squander any time in the process. He was perhaps a better puncher than I and he expected me to punch his way, so he could march on to victory, and I knew my fight would have to be by strength, surprise, push and force, and then a relentless number of punches, perhaps four, or double even that, but as most fights are, it is that first solid punch often, and if he was a puncher, I’d never get a second I knew that, and down he flee like a raging bull to the ground.

July, 2006 (Note: Donkeyland was what the St. Paul, Police called the area where he Cayuga Street Gang hung out); Revised and reedited June 5, 2009