Brawler

by Neil Connelly

  Badder rolled him over and propped him up sitting, then knelt behind him, belly to back. He snaked his forearms around Maddox’s neck and leaned in close, ratcheting the chokehold tighter. Maddox jerked to life. His body spasmed as he tried to escape, but it was no good. Without air, his cheeks glowed even redder and his eyes went wide. It was like watching somebody drown. He slapped at the straw with his right hand. This was a signal I knew from watching mixed martial arts on TV, even Olympic judo — it was a sign of submission, a universally understood way to say, “I surrender. No more.” But Badder didn’t seem eager to acknowledge this. Instead of letting go, he cranked a bit harder, sticking out his tongue and bulging his eyes into a mad, taunting grimace.

  Finally a chubby guy, maybe Maddox’s manager, broke out of the crowd into the fighting space and Badder relented. Maddox’s body slumped. Badder got to his feet and stomped the ground a few times, banging his fists into his thighs. Next to me, Khajee glanced at her watch and said flatly to Blalock, “Almost ninety seconds. The over/under was a minute.”

  When I turned back to Badder, he was striding our way and he asked Blalock, “What’s this now? Fresh meat?” He bumped his chest into mine and starred without blinking into my eyes. “You out past your bedtime, Baby Blue?”

  Blalock stepped back and put a hand on my shoulder, trying to draw me away. But I stood my ground, raised my chin, and didn’t break eye contact. Up close, I was struck by how detailed the tattoos were that covered his forehead, his cheeks, swirling designs making his face a living mask.

  Badder eased back a half step, then made that crazy grimace again, with his eyes huge and his mouth open, wide fat tongue extended. “To my people, this means, ‘Be warned! I am going to eat you!’ ”

  “You might try,” I said, these my first words. “Muscle’s a bit chewy though.”

  Everyone tensed, and then, from above, a voice said, “Not tonight boys. Bahadur, the show’s over! Clear out everybody!”

  I looked up and saw Mr. Sunday rubbing his bearded chin, studying me.

  Obedient, Badder backed down, skulking away. He made sure to actually step over the body of his fallen opponent. As the crowd dispersed, we followed the flow outside, and Khajee said to me, “You sure know how to make friends.”

  “I got all the friends I need,” I replied.

  Outside at Blalock’s SUV, the three of us stood by the busted grille. I propped a foot on the fender and waited expectantly. Blalock said, “Here are the particulars of my current situation. I’ve signed for a fight next Sunday, six days from now, but my fighter is no longer in a position to fulfill his contractual obligation.”

  “How come he’s not available?” I interrupted.

  Blalock frowned at being cut off. “He contracted the plague. He has jury duty. He joined a monastery. That isn’t your concern. The purse is six thousand if you win, two thousand if you lose. I get twenty percent either way. I also cover your expenses.”

  I did the math in my head. Forty-eight hundred bucks could at least get Mom in a decent used car. “And after that?”

  “If you’re half as successful as I suspect you’ll be, there will be other opportunities. Some even more lucrative.”

  Khajee was eyeing Blalock hard, like he was holding back something. I dipped my head in her direction. “And what’s her deal? She’s my designated cheerleader?”

  “Your trainer,” Khajee cut in, with more than a bit of heat. “Plus you get to crash on my couch.”

  I chuckled. “How exactly you think you’d train me?” I asked.

  The grin on her face and a mischievous spark of green in those eyes gave me pause. She said, “Like you’ve never been trained before.”

  “Agree and I’ll drive you back to your place,” Blalock explained, “let you gather some essentials before dropping you at Khajee’s place.” I was still trying to read her expression. Was it warning me? Inviting me? He went on. “Or I can return you to the life you had and tomorrow morning you can roll the dice with the police.”

  I looked around the barnyard. Almost all the other cars were gone, but the white limo was idling over by the silo. Its engine made a low rumble. I pictured my mom crying through the trial, my fingers tightening around the cold bars of a jail cell. And then, in some hazy alternate future, Mom and me unloading a U-Haul, carrying cardboard boxes into a new home. These images didn’t feel like one of my visions — they didn’t come with the same certainty the others did. I had to pick a path on my own, without the benefit of clairvoyance.

  “Okay,” I said, sticking out a hand for Blalock. “I’m in.”

  Khajee looked away while Blalock smiled and we shook. “Your father would be proud,” he told me.

  Just then the white limo pulled out, cruising slowly around us like a circling shark. Behind those tinted windows, I wondered just what Mr. Sunday saw.

  I’m not afraid of the dark, not like some bratty kid. It’s just that sometimes, especially late at night if I can’t sleep, I don’t like being awake in a room where there’s no light. I picture being in that mothball closet, tumbling in the blackness, curled up with my hands clamped over my ears. Nights when my mom’s at New Hope and I’m sleeping in the bed, I leave the lamp lit on the nightstand, something I’d never admit to anybody. Maybe it’s just habit, but it keeps the waking nightmares at bay.

  That first night on Khajee’s lumpy couch, I tossed and turned for nearly an hour. Finally I got up and went to the bathroom, conveniently forgetting to turn off the light and leaving the door cracked just enough to spill a white cone into the hallway. After that, the living room wasn’t quite as dark. Even so, I only slept in fits and starts, worried about my mom, alone in our home. The note I’d left behind read, “I’ll be okay,” but I knew that assurance would only do so much against her anxiety. I imagined her crying, and somehow this sound merged with an odd groaning coming from the only bedroom in Khajee’s place, down at the end of the slim hallway. Khajee hadn’t offered any details about who she lived with, so I wasn’t sure what the deal was. Regardless of the source, that sound was hard to ignore, and only my exhaustion finally coaxed me into sleep.

  Early in the morning, I woke in the shadows to something cold and wet nuzzling my neck.

  I opened my eyes and found a pit bull baring its teeth, inches from my face. It was tan with a white stripe running from its nose up to its forehead and its breath smelled like tuna. Deep in its throat, it growled low. My first thought was, How did a dog get into our apartment? Panicked for her, I called out, “Mom?” and shot up to a sitting position. Then I saw the unfamiliar easy chair, the antique boxy TV, and remembered where I was.

  I knuckled the sleep from my eyes and smiled. “I’m not afraid of you, doggo,” I said. It hesitated, then its stump of a tail wagged and the dog planted its front paws on my knees. It brought its face up to mine and licked me on the cheek. Since I was a kid, I’ve gotten along better with animals than most people. They tend to make more sense.

  Take this pooch for example. Who could blame him for protecting his turf and checking me out? I rubbed the scruff of his neck and head, where my palm rubbed over nubs in the spots where ears should have been. I couldn’t see too well in the half dark, but it struck me right away that this dog had been on the wrong end of a fight. I said, “S’okay, boy. I’m no threat. You’re a good boy.”

  “Girl,” Khajee corrected, emerging from the bedroom. At the whispered hush of a male voice in the shadows behind her, she paused in the doorway and responded in another language. I decided it was her boyfriend and she was apologizing again for the guy on the couch. A weird smell slid from the room, something antiseptic. The guy asked something, his voice rising in a question, then she said, “Kon mài.”

  Khajee closed the door and did the morning zombie stumble in my direction, pausing curiously at the lit bathroom. The dog trotted to her side. She bent and patted her head. “I see you met Roosevelt. We call her Rosie.”

  “She picked the wrong dog to mess with.�
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  “She didn’t pick anything,” Khajee said, correcting me for the second time in the brand-new day. “She was forced to fight, bred for it down in Baltimore. I found her at a no-kill shelter over in Reading a couple years ago.”

  I’ve heard of those illegal leagues, people making dogs fight to the death in cages just so they could bet on the action. They beat them to make them tougher, to teach them how to take the pain.

  Khajee dumped a cupful of dog food into a silver bowl on the kitchen floor and I stretched, my arms nearly hitting the ceiling of the apartment, even more cramped then the one at Creekview. “I could use some chow myself. Any chance you’ve got some eggs?”

  “After,” she said, pouring a glass of water and handing it to me.

  I took a drink and asked, “After what?”

  “I’m taking you for a run. You got some workout clothes in that bag?” There was more than a hint of challenge in her voice, cockiness too. The duffel I’d hastily gathered the night before, while Blalock’s SUV engine rattled at the curb, sat on a patched armchair. It was the only other piece of furniture in the living room besides that square TV, my couch/bed, and a weird corner table crowded with knickknacks. I stepped over to it, and in the dim light from the kitchen, I saw a bronze statue sitting cross-legged, the stub of a candle, a bowl of sand, and some dried flowers.

  “A jog sounds good,” I told her. “But I run pretty fast.”

  “Fast doesn’t matter,” she said. “Far is the thing.”

  I glanced at the window, still black with night. According to the microwave, it was 4:55. “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

  “So we’ll run in the dark.”

  After I changed in the bathroom, I followed her into the morning, cold enough that I could see my breath. Her place was on the edge of Midtown, less than a mile to the eastern side of the river. Creekview Court — home — was a couple miles off the western bank. Beneath streetlamps, we headed away from the city, following a winding bike path along the Susquehanna that led to Wildwood, a nature park on the outskirts of town. Before the death of her beloved Subaru, which she nursed for years, Mom used to bring me out here sometimes, pack PBJ sandwiches and a bag of pretzels. Later, we rode bikes to get here. We’d wander the paths looking for birds and unusual plants, chasing frogs and turtles into the water. Wildwood offered two traits Mom looked for in any mother/son activity: It was peaceful and free of charge.

  I figured Khajee would turn around once we reached the entrance, but she kept going, right from sidewalk to parking lot to forest trail. It was still dark, and I had to follow the sound of her feet scattering leaves, the dark silhouette of her slim frame ahead of me. At one point I joked, “What are you, part shadow?”

  She just kept jogging.

  We crossed a series of wooden bridges and at one point spooked a couple deer, something Mom would’ve loved. One magical morning when I was thirteen, we stumbled across a fox and Mom said it was a sign of good luck, that a bright future awaited us. I totally believed her. Finally, Khajee came to a sudden stop beneath the Highway 81 overpass. She turned and regarded me with those judging eyes. I tried not to seem out of breath, but that wasn’t easy.

  I bent and let my hands settle on my knees. “How long do these matches go?”

  “Till there’s a winner. That means a knockout or a submission. There are no points, no judges. Most are less than five minutes, but a couple months back, we had two guys go half an hour. Mr. Sunday doesn’t like long matches. The longer we transmit, the better a chance of someone tracking the signal.”

  “Right,” I said. “The signal.”

  Overhead, cars and trucks buzzed by. Through the still leafless trees, the horizon glowed with the initial hints of sun. With that light, Khajee’s green eyes shined in the gray morning. She said, “Okay, let me see you ready to fight.”

  I straightened into a simple sugar foot position, crouching a bit with my left hand extending just past my right, palms open. Her face soured. “Oh yeah, you’re a wrestler for sure.” It sounded like a verdict.

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “Just hold that pose,” she said. Khajee positioned herself directly in front of me. In slow motion, she angled a stiff fist into my chest, right between my hands. Then she leaned back and, balancing on one leg, brought her free foot up to my jaw, tapped it, bent that knee and tapped me in my ribs, under my arms. She hopped once, switched legs, and spun around, then brought her other foot to my knees. After exposing my obvious vulnerabilities, she explained, “Brawlers can kick, punch, use their knees or elbows. You’re wide open to a good striker, and we’ve got plenty of those.”

  She stepped in and lifted my hands up nearer to my face, pressed my elbows closer together. “Your forearms are shields, okay? Block blows to your head or torso.”

  I nodded.

  With her sneaker, she shoved my forward foot back a few inches. “You need a better foundation, and try to stay on your toes not your heels. You’ve got to be mobile.”

  She stepped back and appraised me, not sold but content. Then she said, “Make a fist.”

  I did like she asked and held it out for inspection. She shook her head. “You don’t get into a lot of real fights, do you?”

  The truth was, I hadn’t. “When you look like me, people tend to make peace or run away.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “But nobody’s running away from Brawlers, at least not without paying the price.” I could hear an edge in her voice, but I let it drop. She peeled open my fingers and then, from my pinkie down to the pointer, curled them one at a time into my palm. She smacked the ridge of knuckles where the fingers connected to the rest of my hand. “That’s your striking surface.”

  Next she stood back and held up an open palm. “Jab at this.”

  I tagged it lightly and she began floating on her toes, shifting backward and sideways. “Again.”

  I followed her and poked at the targets she put up one after another. She looked at my feet and said, “Don’t drag them — lift and plant, touch and go. You probably dance like a rhino.”

  “I don’t dance,” I explained. In the half-light, I thought I saw her smile.

  “When you bring your hands back, fall into that same guard position. Recoil. You’ll get counterpunched into next week.”

  I’d always been quick to pick things up from a good coach, and what she was saying made sense for the kind of fight I’d be in. But it was hard. My muscle memory had formed other instincts. After a while she stopped and held up a hand. “Okay, harder now. Hard as you can.”

  I shook my head at the idea of hitting a woman. “No way.”

  “You can’t say ‘no way.’ I’m the boss here.”

  “Nobody is my boss.”

  Her face sobered. “Don’t let Mr. Sunday hear you say that — seriously. Come on, you won’t hurt me, I promise. Step into it first with your opposite foot. Plant it and lean forward.”

  I went ahead and punched her hand, but I held back. Khajee slapped my cheek. “This is no game. Sunday night, this guy you’re facing can mess you up, hurt you for real. And Blalock, he might not bring you to any doctor you want to trust. Now do it like you mean it. Don’t aim for my hand, right? Aim for a spot twelve inches past it. Drive your first through the target.”

  “I’m not hitting a girl.”

  She flicked a foot into my gut, so fast I didn’t see it land, just felt the impact. Khajee said, “You sound like a caveman. I told you not to worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  My cheeks stung and my gut ached, plus my pride was sorely wounded, so I drew back my elbow and let fly. Khajee withdrew her hand as my fist connected, taking all the power out of the blow, but she nodded her satisfaction. We sparred like this for a while, then she paused and said, “Not horrible. You ever kick anyone?”

  I smiled. “I took karate at the YMCA back in third grade for a while.” Proudly, I took a stance and stepped forward, thrusting my angled foot into the air about waist high.
r />   Khajee’s face was expressionless.

  “What?” I said. “How’d that look?”

  She sighed. “About like third grade at the YMCA should look. Listen, for now, don’t kick anybody. Don’t even try, okay? We’ll stick to other attacks.”

  I frowned. “Like what?”

  She came in close again and tapped my elbows. “These are harder than your fists. Tougher to break too.” She bent me into a grappler’s stance, so our foreheads were touching. By instinct, I slid into a horse and collar tie-up, one hand on the back of her neck and one loose on her elbow. She slipped that free and drove it up, stopping an inch from my jaw.

  I snapped back. “Holy crap.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’ve seen plenty of guys get knocked out cold by a swift elbow uppercut.” She held her hands out flat, palm down, and said, “C’mon. Step into it and drive up, through the target.”

  We danced around and I tried a few times, but it was awkward throwing elbows instead of fists. “Doesn’t feel natural,” I told her. Then I wound up a punch and swung a full uppercut into her hand. “That’s got more wallop.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But with that windup it also takes twice as long to deliver. We’ll figure out your fighting style over the next couple days. For now, we got to just put together a basic arsenal.”

  She stepped back and assumed her own fighting stance, swinging her elbows from the side and below, stepping forward and driving her knees up. Timed just right, I realized such a blow could be devastating. In between, she mixed in some standard punches and kicks. She was fluid, graceful. When she stopped, I said, “That’s some crazy boxing.”

  Khajee shook her head. “Not boxing,” she said. “Muay Thai.”

  “Thai?” I said. “Like Thailand? Is that where you’re from?”