Decisions, decisions
Ain’t life grand
For a large portion of my life, until I settled down and had my daughter, I took outrageous risks that drew much of the content from the possibility of injury or even death.
In my early twenties, I faced a decision in the middle of the third round of a fight at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Incredibly, I had been walking a tightrope since the first few seconds of the fight, as the future heavyweight champion of the world — Larry Holmes — broke my nose with his first or second jab. The remainder of the round convinced me this was not luck, as he consistently beat me to the punch by half a second, which is plenty of time in the fight game.
Through sheer tenacity I surprised myself, Larry, and the crowd as I fought back and even managed to back him into a corner a couple of times. Yeah… a couple. There, after landing a blow or two on Larry, he would tie me up until the ref stepped in, and I would find myself in the center of the ring getting pummeled again.
Apparently Larry’s corner noticed I had a tendency to stiffen my gloved left fist before throwing a stiff jab, and their observation proved prescient. In the middle of the third, noticing Larry taking a moment to catch his breath, I loaded up my jab (the left, duh), and the moment I shot it he slipped inside it while firing his right fist over the top of my outstretched arm.
The result was like two cars crashing head-on as I momentarily blanked out, hearing the cracking sound as three front left teeth were broken from their moorings. The fight continued as I struggled to place the teeth in a position around my mouthpiece.
The bell sounded, and my corner, seeing the problem, removed my mouthpiece and blocked the referee’s view. As my teeth dangled from their roots, Tony Canzi, my New York trainer, asked me, “What do you want to do?”
Being me, I grinned and, leaning over the water bucket—out of sight of the referee—bit into the roots and spit three teeth into the bucket.
In the spring of 2018, after fighting (there is no better word) the Serbian government in court for ten years, I was ready for the return of my family’s property taken in 1947 by the Yugoslav Communist Party under Tito.
The first few years were spent trying to prove my father had not been a Nazi collaborator — which was akin to proving something that did not happen.
What eventually broke the case in my favor was this: because my father had returned to Belgrade in 1954 and died there in 1968, it was deemed that even the mighty Tito could not have spared a Nazi collaborator.
The remainder of the time was all Kafka.
They wanted proof that I was my father’s son and that he had escaped Canada and not been compensated previously — again, proving a negative.
Finally, late on a Friday afternoon, I got the decision in my favor. Too late, though, to have the funds wired to my bank; the money from the sale of the house would be deposited first thing Monday morning.
I returned to spend the last three nights in my parents’ house.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep, but around 4 a.m. I woke to a house filled with steam. Racing downstairs, I found the bottom floor looking like a sheet of ice — only it was giving off wisps of steam.
Determined to find the connection to the outside pipes that supplied the water and to save the house, I jumped in — but managed only a few paces before the pain of flesh rolling off my legs forced me back.
Decisions.