Collected Short Fiction by V. S. Naipaul

now.’
    Boyee said, ‘But they not big like the Germans. All the Germans and them big big and strong like Big Foot, you know, and they braver than Big Foot.’
    Errol said, ‘Shh! Look, he coming.’
    Big Foot was very near, and I felt he could hear the conversation. He was looking at me, and there was a curious look in his eyes.
    Boyee said, ‘Why you shhhing me so for? I ain’t saying anything bad. I just saying that the Germans brave as Big Foot.’
    Just for a moment, I saw the begging look in Big Foot’s eyes. I looked away.
    When Big Foot had passed, Errol said to me, ‘Like Big Foot have something with you, boy.’
    One afternoon Hat was reading the morning paper. He shouted to us, ‘But look at what I reading here, man.’
    We asked, ‘What happening now?’
    Hat said, ‘Is about Big Foot.’
    Boyee said, ‘What, they throw him in jail again?’
    Hat said, ‘Big Foot taking up boxing.’
    I understood more than I could say.
    Hat said, ‘He go get his tail mash up. If he think that boxing is just throwing yourself around, he go find out his mistake.’
    The newspapers made a big thing out of it. The most popular headline was PRANKSTER TURNS PUGILIST .
    And when I next saw Big Foot, I felt I could look him in the eyes.
    And now I wasn’t afraid of him, I was afraid for him.
    But I had no need. Big Foot had what the sports-writers all called a ‘phenomenal success’. He knocked out fighter after fighter, and Miguel Street grew more afraid of him and more proud of him.
    Hat said, ‘Is only because he only fighting stupid little people. He ain’t meet anybody yet that have real class.’
    Big Foot seemed to have forgotten me. His eyes no longer sought mine whenever we met, 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