‘Your fameis beginningto travel. But I willput an end to it.’

‘Don’ttalktoomuch,’Dadsaid,takingup asouthpawstance.

It worried me that I couldn’t see the man’s eyes. The two men circled one another. Dad lashed out at him and the man grunted. Dad hit him again on the face and this time Dad cried out.

‘You’re like wood!’ Dad said.

‘Now you’re talking,’ the man said, and struck Dad in the face.

Dad fell, rolled over, and landed in a puddle. The man waited for him. I still couldn’t see his face. Dad got up slowly, his head hanging. Suddenly he rushed the man. The three lights dispersed at the assault. Then I noticed that many other lights of different colours had appeared. The two men fell in another puddle. They picked themselves up. Dad hit the man with all his might. The man grunted again and Dad cried out.

‘You’re like a tree!’

The man launched a barrage of punches at Dad. And I saw Dad ducking, parrying, shuffling, blocking with his elbows, bobbing and weaving, but he didn’t give way, or give ground. Then Dad, planting his feet solidly, let out a continuous animal cry, a wounded cry, and unleashed an onslaught of wild blows. He rained them down on the man. He released a veritable hurricane of combinations, of swinging punches, wild hooks, vicious crosses, crackling upper cuts. I saw the man rush backwards, I saw his head lower, his arms helpless. Dad didn’t stop his cry till he had beaten the man into theswamp.My spiritsliftedwithpride.Andthenthedarkness,seemingtorisethicker from the swamp, covered them both. There was silence. I waited. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. Then after a while I heard feet trampingthrough mud. Dad emerged and slouched towards me.

‘Where is the man?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Dad said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. ‘He disappeared in the swamp.’

And then I heard someonekickingin themud. Then amighty voice,speakingwith the power of the darkness, rose and said:

‘I have just started!’

And the man, all thunder and density, came rushing back into the fight. As he pounded towards Dad, emerging from the darkness, two things struck me about him: he was covered completely in mud, and his eyes burned yellow. He descended on Dad like a whirlwind, a mistral, a tornado. He shattered Dad’s defences. He anticipated Dad’severy movement.AndheknockedDadabouttheplace,cuttinghimdownwith swift punches and combinations, merciless blows, blinding and accurate counter-punches. Dad fell under the savage assault like a puppet. The man had become a ferocious energy, an unnatural force of nature, a storm. Like the five fingers of lightningover theforest, heappeared everywhereat thesametime.

‘Your eyes are too bright!’ cried Dad.

And then I realised that the yellow pair of eyes had joined on to the man.

‘I amamad Jaguar!’ theman boasted, andpouredafrighteningtorrentofblowson Dad.

The man went on beating Dad, pulverising him, crushing him with an avalanche of ceaseless punches. I could see Dad falling around in exhaustion and bewilderment. There was a terrified and cowardly look in his eyes. Blood poured down the sides of his noseand thecorners of hiseyes.Dadwastakingacruelbeatingbuthedidn’tturn around and run. He took the blows. He absorbed them. He withstood them. He soaked them into his body and spirit. I heard the wrenching of his neck. I heard the rattle of his teeth whenever the man’s knuckles connected with them. I heard the grinding crunch of fists on bone. Dad cried out and groaned. And then he cowered. With his fists barely held up, Dad bent low, as if he were grovelling. The man towered over him, his yellow eyes steaming in the darkness. And then Dad crouched. He made the movements of a trapped wild animal. Then, slowly, he moved this way and that, swaying, hands in front of him like a praying mantis. Then I saw how Dad was transforming. Hewas goingback to simplethings.Hewasgoingbacktowater,tothe earth, to the road, to soft things. He shuffled. He became fluid. He moved like a large cat. Sliding backwards, he entered into the midst of the gathered arabesque of lights. I felt a great strange energy rising from him. He was drawing it from the night, and the air, the road, his friends. The man closed in on him and Dad went on dancing backwards, shuffling, floating on his agonies, into the darkness. The lights followed him.Andwhenhisbackhit thebody oftheburnt,rustingvan,Dadstopped.Hehad nowhere else to go. Then suddenly, and I don’t know why, and it may be one of those riddles of theLivingthatonly theLivingunderstand,suddenly,Icriedout.My voice, sounding a moment after I had uttered the words, floated on the wind. My voice sounded too thin and frail for what it helped unleash.

‘Black Tyger, USE YOUR POWER!’ I cried.

And Dad, dead on cue, utterly surprised the man with the unrestrained and desperate fury of his own counter-attack. Dad rose miraculously in stature. And with all the concentrated rage and insanity of those who have a single moment in which to choose between living and dying, Dad broke the chains of his exhaustion and thundered such blows on the man as would annihilate an entire race of giants. I don’t know if it was the sheer monstrous accumulation of all the blows and punches, the howitzer combinations, or if it was just one that connected with the right place, but suddenly, amidst the blur of Dad’s madness, the man let out a terrified howl. He staggered backwards. Dad followed him, baffled, arms raised. Then the man stood straight and still, his bright yellow eyes askew. The wind sighed above his head. The yellow eyes dimmed. Then they shut. When his eyes closed it became darker all around, as if a mysterious lamp had been blown out. Then like a tree that had waited a long time after its death to fall, the man keeled over slowly. And when he hit the earth with an unnatural thud, the strangest thing happened. The man disappeared. Into the earth. Into the darkness. I have no way of telling. Steam, tinged with yellow, like low-burning sulphur, rose from the wet earth. The gathered lights had all gone. The night was silent. And then a hyena laughed in the forest. We looked for the man in the dark, but couldn’t find him. Dad was mystified, crushed with exhaustion.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.

We waited. The wind moaned over the sleeping ghetto. Branches creaked. We felt around on the earth and then I came upon a hole. Dad went in and fetched a match. It wasn’t a hole, but the full imprint of a grown man on the ground, as if he had fallen a long way. Dad was covered in mud and blood. His mouth had been beaten out of shape and his lips had grown monstrous in a short space of time. His nose was all cut up and the swellings on his forehead frightened me. Blood drooled from the cut near his eyes and from the corner of his mouth.

I began to feel cold.

‘What was his name again?’ Dad asked, blowing out the match.

‘Yellow Jaguar,’ I said.

Dad gripped mein asudden horrifyingrealisation.

‘Yellow Jaguar used to be a famous boxer in this area,’ he said, lowering his voice fearfully.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died three years ago.’

A shiver ran through my bones. I heard the wind draw a breath. Dad had beaten a boxer from the spirit world. He trembled. Then he held on to me, as if for support. I could feel him quaking.

‘It’s cold,’ I said.

‘Let’s go in,’ he said, hurriedly.

Then he lifted me up, ran back into the compound, and into our room. He locked thedoor. Hesatonhischair.InthedarknesswelistenedtoMumsleepingonthebed. Dad lit a cigarette. He smoked, his eyes blazing. I could smell the mud, the sweat, the fight, the excitement, the terror, and the blood on him. I could smell the fists of Yellow Jaguar on his spirit. I could smell Dad’s rebirth in advance. Sulphur stank on his breath. It was a mystery. When he finished his cigarette he went and had a wash. He came back and swiftly got into bed. I heard him tossing, turning, and creaking his body all night. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about the dead boxer. And neither could I.