Gogi

Guys at the Boxzentrum are intriguing. They all come from walks of life I have not even been in vicinity of, so far removed from my reality. They're tough street kids, many are from Serbia, Bosnia, or Albania and their life stories sound like jaw-dropping fairy tales to my pampered, spoiled, over-educated self.

Goran is one of the advanced boxers. When we, beginners, jump back and forth like a sack of potatoes spilt on a staircase, throwing imaginary punches in every which direction but straight, he's up in the ring, sparing with another meister, both glistening with sweat, barking out jugular groans. Or he's punching the daylights out of a heavy bag for what seems like hours. His is the first life story that I want to jot down.

Goran is always serious. Workout is his mass, he trains religiously twice a day except for Sunday. He's always either in the ring or around the bags, that's why I haven't really registered him before today. After the workout today he was hanging at the bar and got me and Magda a drink. Everybody calls him Gogi.

Gogi comes from Serbia. I don't know whether he was there during the war or not, I need to ask him that. His father was a boxer, a European pro champion, as was his grandfather. Gogi has pictures of himself being three years old, punching mittens his dad held up for him. He trained until he was ten. But he was no good for boxing. He was a crybaby, breaking into tears for every hurtful punch or when success was not anywhere in sight. He stopped after that, getting himself into the troubled waters of teenage life. Gogi was on the streets, doing what the tough street kids do on the streets (don't ask me, I wouldn't know). He became a bouncer at a night club, and got mixed into a fight. He knocked a guy out. He knocked him out cold. Gogi got half a year of jail time for that.

Prison was a turnaround point for Gogi. He thought a lot about his father, and about God, with both of whom he parted years ago. He spent hours shadowboxing to keep his body and mind in tune. Shortly before he was released, he made a promise to God. If he can become good in boxing, if he can become the European Champion in professional boxing like his father one day, he will in devote all the rest of his life to helping kids like himself. He will coach young boxers and reach out to street kids and do anything in his power to help out. Gogi has not steered away from this path once.

Goran came back to boxing in 2000. He threw all his time, will, and heart into the sport. His dream is getting more and more palpable, it's looming right above him, just one or two reaches and he's there. Gogi made it through the amateur matches and became the amateur welterweight European Champion in 2004. He started hi pro boxing career this year. He's made it victoriously through six matches already. He has to win the next four as well, otherwise he won't get ranked for the European pro championship. That is not in the plan. There's no alternative scenario, musn't think about that. Next match is in two weeks, another one in January. I sure hope I can report that he won.

Gogi will box for another six years. Not more. He showed me his hands, scarred all over. He cannot straighten his fingers anymore, tendons in his fingers shrunk. There is a barrier up to which you can push yourself. Once you cross it, you'll become a useless wreck. He'll be thirty two in six years. By then he hopes to be rich and get behind the scenes of boxing. If you use your brain, boxing can be a profitable business. But he also wants to be a role model, work with troubled kids.

Gogi sure keeps an eye out for the newcomers at the club. There were two rowdy boys that joined some time ago. Both were orphaned, wreaking havoc on the streets. Johann had to eventually kick them out, as things kept being broken or disappearing. Gogi's mouth-guard went missing once. Sure enough it was found in one of the orphans' pocket. Kid wanted to hang onto something that belonged to Gogi, the champion. Gogi is the God to these two. They come to every single match, no matter how far it is even though they're not training in the club anymore. They do whatever Gogi tells them to do. He will surely be able to do a whole lotta good with his charisma and following. But until then, keep your fingers crossed on November 26. Gogi needs to win. He needs to keep saving himself. The two kids need him to win. They need it to start saving themselves. I'm not religious, but if some of you go to church, can you please tell the Man upstairs next time you're in to keep an eye out for this one? It is really important. Thanks.

Sweat covered walls

It isn't easy to take pictures in the Boxzentrum. Air is moist with sweat (and, like I said, also with testosterone). Camera lens fogs up quickly. Magda and I contribute our part. Johann ruins our bodies and minds in training. I guess he confuses us on purpose. It's a sign of progress. All those technical steps we learned seem useless when he throws new combinations at us and makes us shadow box and spar. He puts us through the usual sets of torture - running in place and punching air as fast as possible - minute on, few seconds break, another minute. Rope jumping, launches, I don't even wince anymore. Except that my legs feel as if they were broken after the training, and even walking is an excruciating pain.
Kostas once explained to me that such pain (and the cramps can last for days) is a good thing. It's a sign of growing muscles. Oxygen doesn't get in as much as it did before the muscles swell and so it hurts. That's also progress.





















After the torture that we pay for, we work out on the machines and stretch. The boyz in the club are now accepting us. Except for My Boyfriend, who still attempts to flirt shamelessly and desperately with Magda, they treat us on par. We sit behind the bar and chat. Some of the older guys - Number 18, God, and few others, are not here today. But Master and Donnie Darko are. It's nice to see them tending to the younger boys, teaching them how to work the heavy bag and coaching them on the machines. The Good Boy, who cannot be more than 12 or 13, got a new earring in his left ear. He gets teased mercilessly for it. I showed him how to doublejump rope the other day - swinging the rope twice in the air during one jump. We're now buddies. He's very eager and will surely become a killer one day. Master sits with us at the bar, where Klaudia puts stickers on some energy drink that comes in unlabeled cans. Suspicious looking, but they probably make a buck or two on the side this way, selling the drinks at the club and at boxing matches. We talk to Klaudia about her career.

Klaudia met Johann sometime in 1980s, it must have been. She was a girl in her twenties and she was in love with a boxer. She came to the training with him once. She came again, and after a few times she thought :"Why do I just sit here, let me give this thing a try. I'm no wuss." And she did. Johann trained her, she was the only woman training in Vienna at the time. She became good fast, training every day, aiming for the world of matches. But, as things happen, she got pregnant, and that was it for awhile. Working full time, rasing a kid, and running a boxing club, she had little time to train herself. When their son started school and she had a bit more time, she came back to the ring. By the time she was good enough to compete again, she was over 35 and thus out of amateur competitions which have an age cap. She could only do the professional matches. "Are you kidding? Those monsters would kill me instantly!" she opines. So that's it for Klaudia. She trains and runs the club, tends to her kids and works full time. Watches the boys rise to fame and takes her pride in that. She looks so girly and timid. The quiet water that washes away the banks. Don't mess with Klaudia or she will mess you up in a jiffy. She's still got it in her.

Dušičky or All Saints Day

All Saints Day is among the most important events of the year. It's a day when you are supposed to show off in front of your neighbors how you uphold traditions and how you stick together as a family. You have to bring the most flowers and candles to the graves of your deceased relatives, after you have spent hours scrubbing the graves clean the previous weekend. Fun times. I have both sets of grandparents burried by now, thus two cemeteries to visit and tend to this time of the year. On Saturday we go to Krnča, my maternal grandparents' village. Aunt Marta, mother's sister still lives there. Uncle Palo does too, but we don't talk to him. I don't quite remember why, but that's how things are. Uncle Palo, like most men in the village, is a raging alcoholic, which is perhaps among the reasons why we don't visit his family. Marta's husband is another one, he has been restricted to the basement part of the house, and he doesn't eat at home anymore either. Marta cannot stand him. You don't divorce in the village, but you can sort of separate, within the same household. Aunt Jara comes with my cousin Eva. Eva is a more-or-less cured alcoholic (damn, I better watch my own drinking!) and anorectic, her brother is socially challenged - sleeps during the day, watches TV throughout the nights, does not do much more than that. Both aunts are cool though. We have Marta's famous schnitzels (which she soaks first in milk for hours and then breads them twice. Deep fried in lard. You haven't lived if you haven't had Marta's schnitzels) and even more famous pickles, and head out to the cemetery. We have 7 or 8 stops. We have to place flowers at Marta's first child's grave (died when he was just a few months old), at grandmother's sister's grave, great-grandfather's grave, neighbor's mother's grave, mother's neighbor's grave, and god knows who else. Since absolutely everyone in the village is either Varga or Remeň or Kačina with but a few first names variations (Ján or Pavol for males, Katarína or Anna for females), it is awfully hard to keep track of who is who. We stand around my grandparents grave (Katarína and Pavol Varga, of course), being checked out by the village folk. We are evaluated for our dress code, for flowers and wreaths that we brought, how we aged or gained weight since the last time we were visiting. That sort of a thing that a city dweller has to count on upon visiting the ancestral village. My mom was born here, but me and my dad, who also happens to be a publicly known figure, draw attention. We're outsiders. Looking for a quick way out. Mom has to stop every five meters and chat with distant cousins, classmates, friends she forgot but has to pretend to remember. Me and dad scuttle away to a distant part of the cemetary where the oldest graves are. We are considered weird - nobody goes to that part. Those grave stones are all crooked and folding in, what do we want there?
Funny thing, this village cemetary obsession. People can not afford a car or a house, but they will spend hundreds of thousand of crowns on the graves, which has to be made of polished marble with gold lettering. The more kitch you can squeeze into one grave, the more esteemed you are. Aunt Marta has already spent hours scrubbing the grave away, so luckily we're at least spared of that. Grandma was doing that before her. Yes, grandma. She and granddad bought their grave years before they died. She personally lamented since she was forty that she has one foot in the grave and was getting ready to die any minute. She died when she was in her eighties. They used to bring flowers to their own grave. Funny in a sick way, but that's how things are in the village. No dispute.
Anyhow, after we are liberated, we drive home to Bratislava. There we have to tend to the faternal grandparents' grave (say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Kusy on the picture below). Aunt Daška, father's sister, has already been there - cleaned around, put flowers and lit candles. She's always first, it's a sick little competition we have going on each year. Well, less work for us. We add flowers and candles, readying the place for Tuesday, All Saints Day.

Coming to the cemetary on Tuesday is a major social event. One has to don the best clothing and funky hats and gloves if one has some, and walk through the neighborhood to the cemetery. Some people drive these days, but it's a tradition to walk, bringing more wreaths and flowers. Only lights at the cemetary is coming from candles. This year's fashion is however unfortunate. Instead of a bunch of candles and tea lights, people buy these red and yellow lanterns (and one has to have them to show that we can afford them and that we care that much about our deceased). They emanate much less light then plain candles, which used to line the cemetery paths in the previous years. We follow our usual path. First we stop by the grandparent's grave. Uncle Palo ( a different one, Daška's husband) is also buried there - kinda stuck on to the side of the grave. He, too was an alcoholic, as was grandpa. Oh boy. It is so common in Slovakia that I haven't even realized half of my family were alcoholics until I put it in writing.
Next we move on to Danuška's grave (left). Danuška was a 17 year old student shot dead by the Soviet soldiers during the Warsaw Invasion of 1968. During communism we were the only people visiting her grave, as it could have been (and was) seen as a protest and provocation. It was among the things held against my father when he was in detention, awaiting trial in 1989. He got Revolution and breakdown of the regime instead. Her grave was rediscovered after 1989, just as the church and other things were. Suddenly the land was filled with conscientious Christians. Who knows where were they during communism. Ah well.

Next stop is usually Dominik Tatarka's grave. But we have to pass the Slovak Nazi State's President's grave. Jozef Tiso was a catholic priest who is celebrated as the first president of independent Slovakia (independent my ass, it was a puppet state). He is still revered by many - mostly seniors and skinheads, but also Catholics and others, who might have a more complicated love and hate (at the same time) relationship with him. My father cannot come too near, nationalists would recognize him, but I sneak in to take a photo, a bit nervous whether the 'babky demokratky' (grandma democrats, term used for nationalist old country women following the populist politicians to mass meetings) that gathered around won't get upset and violent. They are armed with walking sticks and they don't hesitate to use them against the evil czechoslovakists, or Hungarians or other devils.





Dominik is among the best writers that Slovakia ever produced. He was a dissident, one of the three that signed the Charter '77 document, along with my dad. Third was a historian Jan Mlynarik, also dead by now. He has a beautiful simple grave with an obelisk that his children brought from High Tatras, mountains that he loved. Simple mount of dirt with ivy, grass, and wild flowers growing around.





Among the nicest All Saints Day traditions is putting candles under the cross in the middle of the cemetary. You light one for each of the close people in your life that have died but whose graves you cannot visit. By the end of the night the sea of candles is almost endless, from one end of the horizon to the other. It's among the few genuine moments of togetherness that this day brings. When I see kids gazing at the candle sea I remember the feeling of amazement and some sort of connectedness with universe and All Things Big and Important that it used to bring.
Despite the petty small town fogyism and hypocrisy that this day is surrounded with, I sure hope it doesn't die out in favor of Halloween that is gaining some ground in Eastern Europe in the past few years. It's nice, even if it has to be forced upon family members each year, to get together and remember those who are in the better place. I sure hope though that those red lanterns will have the shortest life span ever. Liberation to the candles from the wicked stained glass! Damn the silly graveyard fashion.