by Alison Ryan
The American judo community began to take notice of the Fijian kid from Cincinnati over the next few years. Adonis DeCarlo abandoned age group tournaments, much to Solomon’s chagrin, but it left the throne vacant and Solomon was eager to claim it as his own.
Gavin ran out of things to teach his star pupil, and he had to turn him over exclusively to Sensei Shinji, who, despite his advancing years, was as eager to teach as ever, and had a flexibility and iron grip that left Solomon awestruck.
Solomon’s time in America transformed him from a boy into a man, growing to six-foot-two with a thickly-muscled frame. His dark hair was long and wild, and on a visit home to Fiji he’d acquired his first tattoo, the word “kailoma” on the inside of his left forearm. Gavin wasn’t crazy about the ink, but he understood that Solomon wasn’t fully American, nor Fijian, and that it was his way of reconciling the two cultures, the two worlds, by writing it on his body.
As a concession to his nephew, Gavin got his own tattoo, the word “BULA” in block lettering on the left side of his chest. Beneath the word were five capital letters, each with a small halo floating above. P, T, L, J, and K. For the five souls lost in the terrible tragedy in the South Pacific.
As soon as Solomon saw what his uncle did, he knew he’d made the right decision, coming to America. Gavin was his family. More than anyone else he’d ever known.
Solomon spent his school years with Gavin in Cincinnati and his summers in Fiji with his mother’s family. He felt like his heart was always in two places, a fact that often made him feel guilty no matter where he was.
When he was a senior in high school he was accepted to Xavier University. They didn’t have a martial arts team, but they did have a very active martial arts club that his uncle had recently taken over as a sponsor and coach.
Despite now having the best of both worlds, Solomon ached for something more.
He’d always assumed it was for his parents. Or for his need to excel in judo, to be the best.
Little did he know, it wasn’t any of those things that his heart was missing. But he couldn’t have known that at the time.
He hadn’t met Logan Lowery yet.
Chapter Eleven
Logan
“How is this possible?”
Logan was sitting in a silk upholstered chair next to her father and mother in the office of Dr. Warren Heflin, a pulmonary specialist that Chuck Lowery had been referred to by his doctor when his CT scans had come back with abnormalities. And he’d just given the Lowerys the worst news of their lives.
Chuck Lowery had stage four lung cancer.
“He’s never even smoked,” Logan said, leaning forward. “He runs every day, eats well. There’s just no possible way this is happening.”
She said it more to herself than to anyone sitting around her.
Chuck grabbed his only daughter’s hand. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Sometimes there’s no explanation for why this happens.”
Logan looked at her father, tears stinging her eyes. She should have been comforting him, and here he was comforting her. It was his way. It broke her heart.
Her mother leaned forward, her face pale.
“So what happens now?” Tracy Lowery said, grabbing Chuck’s other hand. “Can we beat this? We have to try, right?”
Dr. Heflin looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. “Your husband has a non-typical type of lung cancer. It has something called an ALK gene mutation. This means that an abnormal protein is forcing the cancerous cells to divide and multiply. We do have medication that can stop the proteins from the nasty work of spreading the cancer.”
Logan interrupted. “So that’s good news, right?” Logan looked over at her father, suddenly hopeful. “They can cure this!”
Dr. Heflin held up a hand. “There is no cure for this, Logan. We have two medications that can fight this, but over time your father will develop a resistance to each one. And unless we can develop new ways of combating the protein, it will still be a tough battle.”
“How long until I become resistant to the drugs, Doc?” Chuck’s voice was solemn.
Dr. Heflin sighed. “It’s hard to say. Usually about 8 months. I have seen it happen in as long as 10. That’s what we hope for. But within less than 2 years of treatment, there is not much else we can do.”
Logan couldn’t help it. She lashed out.
“You don’t know my father,” Logan said. “He’s stronger than most of your patients. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose. Did you know he played in the majors? He’s a hell of a man and my hero, so I know he can beat this.”
Logan was saying it to herself as much as she was saying it to everyone in that room.
Dr. Heflin nodded. “That’s the kind of spirit he’ll need, Logan. And I hate to tell you this but cancer doesn’t care what we’ve done with the time we’ve had. If only it did. People like your dad would be the last ones I’d expect to get this kind of news.” The doctor looked at Chuck. “It’s not a good diagnosis, Chuck. I won’t lie. This is probably going to get you in the end. But you can still fight it and lengthen the time you have left. I believe in you.”
Tracy Lowery couldn’t hold it in anymore. She started to cry, her sobs full of anguish. Logan couldn’t bear this. Of the few things she couldn’t take, her mother’s cries were at the top of that list.
“I’ll leave you alone. Take all the time you need. I’m truly sorry. I’ll do everything I can…” Dr. Heflin didn’t finish his sentence.
No one was listening to him anymore.
“It’s going to be alright, Logan,” her father said as he drove her back to her dorm at Xavier. “Look, I don’t want you worrying about me. You’ve got your first game ahead of you. This is the beginning of so many great things.” He pulled over in front of the main entrance to the school. Logan leaned her head back against her seat, not wanting to get out of the car; afraid to leave him.
Her father smiled and pointed at the giant X that greeted students into Xavier’s sprawling metropolitan campus. “Look, kiddo. X marks the spot.”
Normally this would make Logan roll her eyes at her father’s silly “Dad” jokes. But instead it made her cry, a cry that shook her to her core.
“Logan,” her father’s voice was stern now. “There will be no tears shed for me. I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere. And you are always my daughter, even if… Even if for some reason I am not here anymore. And you are destined for great things. This is just a bump in the road, my little love.”
Logan stared at him, amazed that he was speaking to her like it was any other day, as if he hadn’t just been told that he was dying. “It’s not just a bump, Dad. It’s a meteor sized blast straight to my heart.”
Her father pulled her to him, allowing her to cry into his shoulders for a few minutes, to let the frustration and pain out.
He’d done it many a time. Logan had sobbed into his shoulders over lost games, unfair calls, fights with friends, and frustration over her own growing pains.
He was her father after all. And even cancer could never change that.
Chapter Twelve
Solomon
With the Rio Olympics not far away, Sensei Shinji sat down with Gavin and Solomon to discuss the chances of their young judoka qualifying for the games. Solomon’s best weight was just below two hundred pounds, which placed him just at the top end of the under-ninety-kilogram weight class for international judo.
The process for qualifying was a time consuming and financially-challenging process. Performances in tournaments all around the globe counted for points which went toward a judoka’s world ranking. Each nation could send only one athlete in each weight class to the Olympics, and Solomon would likely struggle to accumulate enough points to surpass some of his older, more experienced peers.
Gavin felt he could get the bank which employed him to sponsor Solomon, defraying some of his travel costs and allowing him to train and compete full-time, but the 2020 Tokyo Olympics seemed like a be
tter opportunity for Solomon. He’d be twenty-six, in his athletic prime, and competing in the birthplace of judo, Japan.
If Solomon somehow reached Rio in 2016, all the better, but the three men decided that Tokyo would be the ultimate goal, and that they’d game plan accordingly.
Until Solomon spoke up.
“What if I were to represent Fiji rather than the United States? Fiji has never won an Olympic medal. I want to be the first. How could I qualify as a Fijian?”
Sensei Shinji and Gavin looked at each other and at Solomon incredulously.
“That’s so perfect!” Gavin replied. “Why didn’t we think of that sooner? If you can get yourself ranked in the top twenty-two in the world, you’re in. Assuming no Fijian judoka is higher ranked. Let me research it a bit. You haven’t represented the US team anywhere yet, so why not?”
“And that way, I can get into Worlds and stuff like that and get another crack at Adonis. He won’t be able to hide anymore,” Solomon added.
Sensei Shinji laughed. “Fight him with rage and revenge in your heart and I promise you’ll lose, kailoma. ‘Ju yoku go o seisu’. Softness controls hardness. When the time is right, he will appear before you, and you will use what you’ve been taught. You won’t pursue him, give him reason to pursue you. Be so good that he has to face you to keep from slipping into obscurity.”
“And then can I crush him?” Solomon asked.
The three men laughed.
“Yes. Then you can crush him,” Sensei Shinji assured his young student.
Gavin made a series of phone calls and sent out e-mails over the following days and discovered that Solomon could certainly represent Fiji in the Olympics, but that he’d have to surpass the performance of several strong judokas from the islands in his weight class. By sheer force of numbers, his road through Fiji would be easier than trying to fight his way through the bevy of higher-ranked Americans, and Solomon was enthusiastic about winning Fiji a medal. If Solomon was to march in the opening ceremonies in Rio or Tokyo, it would be under the sky-blue banner of the Fijian flag.
Weeks later, after spending an afternoon at the gym doing cardio and leg work, Solomon met his friend Elliott, the boy who had painfully introduced him to judo on his first visit to Cincinnati, for an early dinner near his apartment adjacent to the Xavier University campus. Elliott still trained, but Solomon had long ago surpassed him, in both physical stature and kyu-dan rank, achieving a superior belt within two years of his first visit to the dojo.
Elliott had a test for which to study, but Solomon was itching for something to do, and his legs were too sore to consider spending any more time in the gym. As he walked on the Xavier campus, he noticed a crowd filing into the soccer stadium.
A bus parked on the street was decorated with Notre Dame Fighting Irish colors and signage. Solomon watched the teams warming up on the field from behind a chain link fence, and he stopped a pair of Xavier students decked out in Musketeers shirts as they walked by.
“Hey, is Notre Dame any good?”
“Yeah, dude, they’re ranked like in the top five in the country. One of their girls is on the national team, Tara-something. But we’re undefeated. That’s why the crowd is so big. These games usually just get a couple hundred people. But I heard this might be a sellout!”
“Cool, thanks,” Solomon replied, and he plunked down seven dollars and bought his first-ever ticket to watch a soccer match.
Solomon listened closely as the starting lineups were announced, and thankfully Notre Dame had only one “Tara” on the team, number nine, so he knew who the star player to keep his eye on was. She had shoulder length brown hair, tied back in a ponytail, and right away, even as a novice soccer fan, he could see something about her was different. She had a calmness about her with the ball, slow and cool, but ready to explode at any time. Like watching a lion stalking prey, only what she was hunting was goals.
Xavier’s central defender, however, a girl he confirmed via his program was named Logan Lowery, kept getting in the way. Tara Rourke would receive the ball, spin, cut back and try to create distance to shoot or pass, and Logan just seemed to always be right there with her, no matter what she tried.
Logan was hard to miss on the field as one of the taller girls with a curly head of bright blonde hair, and Solomon found himself transfixed by her. She never stopped running, breaking up a play on the left side of the field one moment and jumping between two Fighting Irish players to win a head ball seconds later. She was constantly chattering, encouraging and positioning her teammates. Solomon found himself applauding her efforts, clapping and cheering, getting swept up in the energy of the crowd. And especially mesmerized by Logan.
Long after the match ended, a spirited 0-0 draw, Solomon remained as others filed out of the stadium. He flipped his program over to the back, checking for the date and time of Xavier’s next home game. He knew he’d need another Logan Lowery fix as soon as possible.
Chapter Thirteen
Logan
Logan had started off her soccer career with Xavier on a high note, helping to clinch a draw against Notre Dame and the famous Tara Rourke. Ordinarily she would be on top of the world, especially since her parents had been at the game, rooting her on from the stands.
But life had a lot less color in it these days. It was hard for her to focus on anything that wasn’t soccer. She was angry at the world; her usual sunny disposition and can-do attitude replaced by bitterness and frustration over things she couldn’t control.
Her father had begun his treatments, the ones Dr. Heflin said would help battle his cancer. Chuck Lowery was usually a man with boundless energy (some would say, that’s where Logan got hers) but he had now become someone who was easily fatigued, and who needed a lot of rest.
Logan had day-dreamed in high school about her father coming to all her practices at Xavier and even all her away games, now that he was retired.
But it wasn’t possible. As much as he wanted to do those things, he just couldn’t.
And that made Logan angry. So angry that her play on the field, while still otherworldly, was filled with a fury and aggression that wasn’t customary to her. And it had been noticed by everyone, including her mother.
“Logan,” Tracy Lowery had called her daughter after watching Logan get her first red card in her entire career, in a game against Ohio State. “We need to talk.”
“If this is about the game, I don’t want to talk about it,” Logan replied. “I already got chewed out by Coach Hiddink.”
“Logan Grace Lowery,” her mother said, and suddenly Logan knew her mother meant business.
“Yes?” Logan said meekly.
“I know you’re angry about what’s happening to Daddy,” Tracy said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “And I don’t blame you a lick. I’m angry too. Life isn’t fair and your father doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him. The good Lord has His ways, I suppose, but I struggle to understand the purpose in the pain we have right now. And I know you struggle with it too, baby. And that kills me. I’m your momma, I’m supposed to be able to fix it. But Logan, I can’t fix this. I would if I could. I would take on the cancer myself…” Tracy was crying now. “But I can’t. And I’m so sorry, sweet girl. I’m sorry that you’re angry and that you don’t know what to do with that emotion because… we aren’t used to being angry people, Logan. And that’s because of your father. What’s there to be angry about when you have a man like him in your life?”
They were both sobbing now, Logan shaking in her grief on the other end of the phone call.
“Mom,” her voice shook. “I’m so sorry. That I let you down. That I let Dad down. I don’t know how to handle any of this. I wake up every morning praying it’s all a terrible dream or some kind of misunderstanding.”
Tracy nodded, blowing her nose into a handkerchief. “I know. I feel the exact same way. I pray all the time for a miracle.”
They were both quiet for a moment.
“I promise,�
�� Logan said. “No more red cards. I had a bad day. But it won’t happen again. Dad raised me better. You both did.”
“You make me proud,” Tracy said. “Every day, Logan. And your dad too. Maybe come by this weekend and visit?”
“For sure,” Logan said. They said their goodbyes and hung up.
Logan lie on her bed for a long while, looking at the ceiling fan whirling above her.
“I need to get out of here,” she said to herself. “I need to run.”
Logan ran every day. In practice, in games, from one class to the next. It’s what she did, there was something in her blood that constantly urged her to move forward, to go.
There was freedom in it. And she loved it, more than anything. So even at night, even after hours of practice and long days, her way of winding down was actually by moving quickly in one direction for at least an hour.
She’d thrown on some Asics and a pair of old running shorts. The evenings in Cincinnati were getting cooler, but once she started going, she knew she’d warm up.
Normally she ran alone, every now and then a teammate or a classmate would join her, which was okay. She preferred to be alone in her thoughts, listening to her feet hit the pavement, the rhythm and dance of it soothing to her ears. She wasn’t someone who ran with headphones or music blaring. She didn’t need that kind of motivation.
She just loved running for the sake of it.
That evening, she seemed to be alone in her endeavors. Which in this case, was a bummer since she would have loved to have fallen into a conversation with someone to distract her from the sadness brewing in her heart.
But oh well. She began her pace, tuning out the world around her for a while, focusing on what lay ahead. She had another home game coming up and this time she needed to make sure she was in the right head space to compete.
