Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul Page B

and he no longer stopped to talk to me.
    He was the terror of the street. I, like everybody else, was frightened of him. As before, I preferred it that way.
    He even began showing off more.
    We used to see him running up and down Miguel Street in stupid-looking maroon shorts and he resolutely refused to notice anybody.
    Hat was terrified.
    He said, ‘They shouldn’t let a man who go to jail box.’
    An Englishman came to Trinidad one day and the papers to interview him. The man said he was a boxer and a champion of the Royal Air Force. Next morning his picture appeared.
    Two days later another picture of him appeared. This time he was dressed only in black shorts, and he had squared up towards the cameraman with his boxing gloves on.
    The headline said, ‘Who will fight this man?’
    And Trinidad answered, ‘Big Foot will fight this man.’
    The excitement was intense when Big Foot agreed. Miguel Street was in the news, and even Hat was pleased.
    Hat said, ‘I know is stupid to say, but I hope Big Foot beat him.’ And he went around the district placing bets with everyone who had money to throw away.
    We turned up in strength at the stadium on the night.
    Hat rushed madly here and there, waving a twenty-dollar bill, shouting, ‘Twenty to five, Big Foot beat him.’
    I bet Boyee six cents that Big Foot would lose.
    And, in truth, when Big Foot came out to the ring, dancing disdainfully in the ring, without looking at anybody in the crowd, we felt pleased.
    Hat shouted, ‘That is man!’
    I couldn’t bear to look at the fight. I looked all the time at the only woman in the crowd. She was an American or a Canadian woman and she was nibbling at peanuts. She was so blonde, her hair looked like straw. Whenever a blow was landed, the crowd roared, and the woman pulled in her lips as though she had given the blow, and then she nibbled furiously at her peanuts. She never shouted or got up or waved her hands. I hated that woman.
    The roars grew louder and more frequent.
    I could hear Hat shouting, ‘Come on, Big Foot. Beat him up. Beat him up, man.’ Then, with panic in his voice, ‘Remember your father.’
    But Hat’s shouts died away.
    Big Foot had lost the fight, on points.
    Hat paid out about a hundred dollars in five minutes.
    He said, ‘I go have to sell the brown and white cow, the one I buy from George.’
    Edward said, ‘Is God work.’
    Boyee said to me, ‘I go give you your six cents tomorrow.’
    I said, ‘Six cents tomorrow} But what you think I is? A millionaire? Look, man, give me money now now, you hear.’
    He paid up.
    But the crowd was laughing, laughing.
    I looked at the ring.
    Big Foot was in tears. He was like a boy, and the more he cried, the louder he cried, and the more painful it sounded.
    The secret I had held for Big Foot was now shown to everybody.
    Hat said, ‘What, he crying?’ And Hat laughed.
    He seemed to forget all about the cow. He said, ‘Well, well, look at man, eh!’
    And all of us from Miguel Street laughed at Big Foot.
    All except me. For I knew how he felt, although he was a big man and I was a boy. wished I had never betted that six cents with Boyee.
    The papers next morning said, ‘ PUGILIST SOBS IN RING.’
    Trinidad thought it was Big Foot, the comedian, doing something funny again.
    But we knew otherwise.
    Big Foot left Miguel Street, and the last I heard of him was that he was a labourer in a quarry in Laventille.
    About six months later a little scandal was rippling through Trinidad, making everybody feel silly.
    The R.A.F. champion, it turned out, had never been in the R.A.F., and as a boxer he was completely unknown.
    Hat said, ‘Well, what you expect in a place like this?’

VIII
THE PYROTECHNICIST
    A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say ‘Slum!’ because he could see no more. But we who lived there saw our street as a world, where everybody was quite different from everybody else. Man-man was mad; George was stupid; Big Foot was a bully;