The Croatian Candidate

"Every time I'd look down and see her," Chuvalo said, "I'd say to myself, 'She ought to be on television.' "

"I was there for an hour and a half," Lynne said.

"Mitchell woke up," Chuvalo said. "He looked over the seat and saw his mommy down there on the floor. 'Daddy,' he said, 'when are we going to get a new car?' "

Chuvalo was asked whether he would have changed places with Lynne if she had had a license, which she did not.

"Sure," Chuvalo said. "She was pregnant at the time." They laughed. "But like Freud says," Chuvalo said, "whatever you say, even if you say you meant it as a joke or you didn't mean it, that's what you really believe."

"George reads Freud," Lynne said.

"Every time they meet you, they're surprised you can talk," Chuvalo said. "People think fighters are all dis-dat-and-dose guys. I read psychology." On the top of his bureau at camp, next to a bottle of Geritol and a collection of pinecones which Mitchell brought him, is a book entitled General Psychology. "I read Freud, Jung. I read philosophy. Confucius and a few other fellows. Plato. Aristotle. I like Socrates the best of the Greeks. I suppose I'm trying to understand life a little more. I left school in the 12th grade. I suppose I'm trying to make it up, get as much education as I can on my own. I'm interested in religions, too—the way they contradict each other, the mumbo jumbo, the way theologians don't agree. My father wanted me to be a tool-and-die maker. If I wasn't a fighter, I'd like to be a lawyer. There's quite a bit of a challenge there, too, like in fighting. That's the common denominator.

"When Mitchell was 2," Chuvalo went on, "a friend of mine, who has a boy about the same age, said let's put the gloves on them—big, 16-ounce pillows. They moved around a bit, didn't get hurt. Still, I was so scared. Then I understood why my father looked the way he did when he went to my fights and I used to see him sitting out there."

"I get terrible migraine headaches when I watch George fight," said Lynne. "I like a good, exciting fight. The best fight I've ever seen was Archie Moore and Yvon Durelle."

"She's not much of a Chuvalo fan," said Chuvalo, peevishly. "The point I was making about the kids is, if I make it fighting, they won't have to. If I don't—I try not to think of losing. But you have to. I've never been knocked down or really staggered. I've been quite fortunate. I guess you have to keep plugging."