Pride Of The Lion

“And his fighting ability?” Alfredo asked, having already formulated a good idea of Jones’s skills. Still, it was important to ask lest there was something he was not aware of.

“Phenomenal,” Willie replied gravely. “He can box right handed, he can box southpaw, he has power in both hands and he is quick on his feet. He has the ability to stand in the middle and slug it out or dance like a ballerina and peck away at you.”

This latter case, Alfredo assumed, did not occur often. A man of Lucifer’s size and power would rarely have to dance and jab; still, it was impressive that he had the ability to do so.

“He trains like a Spartan preparing for war,” Willie went on. “His social life is almost non-existent and he never loses his conditioning between matches. It is said his shape a month or two before a fight is better than many boxers are in the day before the fight.”

Alfredo knew this to be factual. In all of Jones’s title defenses, not one had gone past five rounds. Jones’s conditioning and training had to be nothing short of sensational. Alfredo listened now as Willie spoke slowly, quietly, almost whispering...as if he was describing a force he could not really comprehend.

“He fights with a demonic passion,” Willie stated in a guttural near-whisper. “It is as if he has extra strength, for he is never tired, never weary, and he is never satisfied when a fight is finished and he has won. He has that insatiable urge to go on, to continue meting out punishment, like a hungry man who can never get enough to eat.” And now, Willie’s voice was almost inaudible. “Lucifer Jones . . . ” he breathed, “. . . Lucifer Jones...a man without a heart, without a soul, a mechanism tuned only to its function...the ultimate fighting machine.”

Willie stared vacantly out the window. He picked up the bottle off the floor by his chair and sipped a slow drink without knowing he had done so.

For a moment there was only silence, as both men tried to contemplate a human force so inhuman in nature. Finally, Alfredo looked up at the old man and asked what was perhaps the most honest question of his life. It was the question of a man who himself was a magnificent warrior, a soldier finely honed and edged, a fighter who had prepared for his mission since childhood, but also a thoughtful and sensitive man who knew that perhaps, this time, he was accepting a challenge that exceeded his vast limits...that maybe he was attempting to scale a mountain with a peak that touched the clouds. Though such a peak posed a vivid and majestic scene from below, it was a place where the air was too thin for a man to breathe when he was actually there.

“Do I have a chance?” he asked.