The Greatest (2000) by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley [Mosley, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: FIC000000, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780759500518
Google: 7bI3AQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0759500517
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2000-12-14T11:00:00+00:00

• • •

The announcers talked for another forty

minutes before the fighters were in the ring

and fifteen minutes more while a fight that

broke out on the floor was being stopped. It

was a full hour before the first bell rang.

In the years since, the first minute of that

round has been discussed, watched over and

compared to other great fights in pugilism

history. The only way to see it is in slow

motion.

Zeletski came out quickly with his hands

up and his jab pumping. He hit Fera’s nose

seven times in less than five seconds. Each

blow jolted her dirty blond hair. Each blow

landed because Fera kept her hands down,

not protecting herself. Zeletski gained

confidence and threw a left hook into Jones’s

side. The blow could be heard at ringside.

Fera smiled and waved her hands for him

to do it again.

He did.

Fera flinched and buckled some but her

smile remained.

The referee was worried. The announcers

were too.

Zeletski grinned and nailed Jones with a

straight right hand. While she fell back he

sent a roundhouse left.

That was his mistake.

Or maybe the mistake was getting into the

ring that evening. Maybe there was no

beating Jones that night.

Fera moved gracefully under the looping

left hand and then rose delivering a textbook

right uppercut. Most analysts say that that

was the end of the fight. The impact threw

Zeletski back so violently that his left fist

boomeranged, making his own glove the

source of the second blow of the

combination. The third, fourth, and fifth

blows were left jabs, and even though Jones

missed the following right cross there was a

left hook that Zeletski himself says caused

the blindness in his right eye and the loss of

hearing in his right ear.

By that time the referee was jumping to

save the Russian’s life. Fera Jones’s punches

were so hard and fast that they kept the now

unconscious Zeletski from falling. The

referee had to wrestle Fera to the floor to

stop her. Pell ran to his aid and sat hard on

his fighter’s chest.

She threw them off, but by that time her

bloodlust was waning. Zeletski lay on the

canvas, surrounded by parmeds and bleeding

from his ear and mouth. While he was

carried from the ring on a stretcher, Fera’s

hand was being raised in victory.

And when the camera crews came to get

her statement, to hear what was next for the

invincible Fera Jones—millions around the

world and some in the front row froze to

hear her answer.

Sweat was pouring down the twenty-one-

year-old’s face. She was breathing hard and

smiling.

“First I want to thank Diana for my

strength and Legba for my man . . .”

Lana Lordess rose to leave.

“. . . but this win is for my daddy,” Fera

said.

“I’ll be the first to admit that I never

thought I’d see this day,” Billy Bonner said

during the postfight interview. “Zeletski is

the best we men have to offer and you

finished him in under a minute.”

“It was meant to be,” Fera said. She was

looking into Pell Lightner’s eyes.

“I know that your father is being operated

on at this moment. You must be worried

about him.”

“I’m not worried. I’m a fighter. He is too.”

“What’s next for you, Fera Jones?”

“Luna Land. I’m going to Luna Land.”

9

At three the next morning Fera and her

boyfriend were

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