User:Chelsey.brantley/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Line 127:

Who do you think I am, Norm? Didn’t I travel half a world with no hope

of writing a book about it to watch Ali lure George Foreman to the ropes? Not for me, Norm, is your coy ease along the top strand. I’ll wait and take you in the open. You see, I learned more than you did in Africa. While you holed up in an air-conditioned hotel and resurrected those eight rounds for your half a million advance, I thumbed my way to what was once called Biafra. I went to the cemetery where Dick Tiger lies dead of causes unknown at age thirty-five in newly prosperous Nigeria. How did you miss Dick Tiger? You who were the first white negro, you the crown prince of nigger-lovers, you missed the ace of the jungle. Yes, he was the heart of the dark continent, the Aristotle of Africa. A middleweight and a revolutionary. While you clowned around with Torres and Ali and Emile Griffith, Tiger packed his gear and headed home to see what he could pick clean from the starvation and the slaughter. He went home to face bad times and bad people and was dead a week after his plane touched down. Where were you and the sportswriters, Norm, when Dick Tiger needed you? I at least made the trek to the resting

place of the hero, and it was there in the holy calm of his forgotten tomb that I vowed to come back and make my move. No one offered me a penny {{pg|511|512}}

place of the hero, and it was there in the holy calm of his forgotten tomb that I vowed to come back and make my move. No one offered me a penny {{pg|511|512}} for “The Dick Tiger Story” as told to me, so you won’t get it now either. Come out to the middle, Norm. No, you’re still coy, relaxed; well, two can play that

one.

I sit down in the corner opposite him; I fan myself with the mouthpiece.

To the audience it looks as if we’re kidding. He sloping against the ropes, I twenty-five feet away pretending I’m at a picnic in the English countryside. Real fight fans know what’s up. There is only a certain amount of available energy. In the universe it’s called entropy; in the ring it is known as “ppf,” punches per flurry. Neither of us has the strength at this moment to muster the necessary ten to twelve ppf’s to really damage the other. Fighters trained in the Golden Gloves or various homes for juvenile delinquents will go through the motions anyway. They will stalk and butt and sweat upon each other. But Mailer and I, knowing the score, wait out the round. Archie Moore leafs through the Texas Boxing Commission rules. Some fans boo, others take advantage of the lull to refresh themselves.

[[Category:Short Stories (MR)]]

@@ Line 127: / Line 127: @@
 Who do you think I am, Norm? Didn’t I travel half a world with no hope
 of writing a book about it to watch Ali lure George Foreman to the ropes? Not for me, Norm, is your coy ease along the top strand. I’ll wait and take you in the open. You see, I learned more than you did in Africa. While you holed up in an air-conditioned hotel and resurrected those eight rounds for your half a million advance, I thumbed my way to what was once called Biafra. I went to the cemetery where Dick Tiger lies dead of causes unknown at age thirty-five in newly prosperous Nigeria. How did you miss Dick Tiger? You who were the first white negro, you the crown prince of nigger-lovers, you missed the ace of the jungle. Yes, he was the heart of the dark continent, the Aristotle of Africa. A middleweight and a revolutionary. While you clowned around with Torres and Ali and Emile Griffith, Tiger packed his gear and headed home to see what he could pick clean from the starvation and the slaughter. He went home to face bad times and bad people and was dead a week after his plane touched down. Where were you and the sportswriters, Norm, when Dick Tiger needed you? I at least made the trek to the resting
-place of the hero, and it was there in the holy calm of his forgotten tomb that I vowed to come back and make my move. No one offered me a penny {{pg|511|512}}
+place of the hero, and it was there in the holy calm of his forgotten tomb that I vowed to come back and make my move. No one offered me a penny {{pg|511|512}} for “The Dick Tiger Story” as told to me, so you won’t get it now either. Come out to the middle, Norm. No, you’re still coy, relaxed; well, two can play that
+one.
+I sit down in the corner opposite him; I fan myself with the mouthpiece.
+To the audience it looks as if we’re kidding. He sloping against the ropes, I twenty-five feet away pretending I’m at a picnic in the English countryside. Real fight fans know what’s up. There is only a certain amount of available energy. In the universe it’s called entropy; in the ring it is known as “ppf,” punches per flurry. Neither of us has the strength at this moment to muster the necessary ten to twelve ppf’s to really damage the other. Fighters trained in the Golden Gloves or various homes for juvenile delinquents will go through the motions anyway. They will stalk and butt and sweat upon each other. But Mailer and I, knowing the score, wait out the round. Archie Moore leafs through the Texas Boxing Commission rules. Some fans boo, others take advantage of the lull to refresh themselves.
 {{Review}}
 {{DEFAULTSORT:Inside Norman Mailer}}
 [[Category:Short Stories (MR)]]