The Savage Gentleman

by Harlan, Christopher

  “No, man. I don’t want that. Last thing I need is to lie down on some pedophile’s couch and have him talk to me about my feelings. I didn’t want to hurt them. That’s the truth. I just wanted them to stop. That was the only thing that worked.”

  “I see. Listen, I can’t change the past and neither can you. What happened, happened. You can tell me about it or not, but regardless, I’m going to teach you how to be confident—how to trust yourself, and how to be humble. If you stick around, you’ll be around enough confident people that maybe you’ll learn what it looks like. You can fake it till you make it. I’ll help you make it real.”

  That was ten years ago.

  At twenty-five, I’ve learned most of the lessons that Matt has tried to teach me, but I can still be stubborn and pig headed.

  Master Splinter approaches me in the back when I’m getting into my gi and tells me to sit down. “I’m covering your class today. I need you to do something for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to take on a special case.”

  “Case? Of what?”

  “There’s a kid out there—twelve years old—he’s being bullied at school and his parents brought him here so that he could learn to defend himself against the kids who are harassing him at school.”

  “We have a bullying class,” I tell him. “Why can’t he just take one of those? Kelly can. . .”

  “Like I said, this is a special case. He wasn’t just bullied, Lucas, he was beaten—badly. The whole thing was caught on his schools’ security camera.”

  As soon as I hear that, it makes me angry.

  I hate bullies.

  I’m going to say that again. I-fucking-hate-bullies.

  And I don’t hate them just because I was bullied myself, I hate how they mess other people up. In some cases, they mess them up for life. People walking around thinking they’re less than what they are, all because some prick in the 8th grade made what should have been normal days into living hells. I’ll do anything I can to help this kid.

  “I want to meet him,” I say.

  “I thought you might. He’s waiting in the lobby with his parents.”

  Chapter Five

  Lucas

  I can tell the kid has no confidence before I even meet him.

  He’s not standing with his parents, he’s standing behind his parents. It’s a weird visual because he’s a big kid—almost as tall as his father, yet he’s cowering behind them like a scared five-year-old. I know right away that I have my work cut out for me.

  Matt walks me over to the family, and I read the look of concern and frustration on the mom’s face. I extend my hand right away and smile so that I can put them at ease. I can tell that they dragged their kid here out of desperation.

  “I’m Lucas, pleased to meet you.”

  “Steven Bauer,” he says, shaking my hand firmly. “This is my wife, Emily.”

  “Nice to meet you as well. And who’s this guy?”

  The kid is still hiding. That was my gentle way of trying to get him out from behind his father, but nothing. Dad takes a step to the side and basically pulls the kid out in front where I can look him in the eye—only he won’t look me in the eye. He’s staring at the floor, and his shoulders are rounded. Everything about this kid screams victim.

  “This is our son, Matthew.”

  I put my hand out again. Matthew takes it, but just barely. It feels like a dead fish in my hand—soft, weak, and more than a little sweaty. He must be nervous. “Welcome to our gym, Matthew. How can I help you guys?”

  “I assume Matt told you about our son’s. . . about the situation.”

  “He did. I’m sorry that happened to you all. But you came to the right place.”

  I try to use a calm voice—calmer than I usually use. I’m not this sweet, and even though I can relate to the idea of being bullied, I was never as much of a victim as Matthew seems to be. He’s soft, timid, afraid to angle his head up from the mats. I may have been insecure when I was his age, but not this bad. I feel terrible for the kid.

  “Are you going to, like, teach me to fight?” he finally asks.

  “I’m not going to teach you anything if you can’t look at me, Matthew. Or do you like Matt better?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Matt, then. It’s shorter. I like saving time. From now on you’re Matt, whether you want to be or not.” I get the slightest hint of a smile, and finally he looks up and meets my eyes. “There we go. I was playing a guessing game of what color eyes you had. I win.”

  “What color did you think they were?”

  “No idea,” I tell him. “I bet myself that you’d look up before I had to actually guess. So, like I said, I win. But I didn’t answer your question, did I?”

  “What question?”

  “You asked if I was going to teach you how to fight, and the answer is no, I’m not. You’re not a fighter.”

  “I’m sorry,” his dad says, interjecting. “But if you’re not going to teach our son how to fight then why did we come to a martial arts gym?”

  “Because you’re scared for him, and I would be too. I’m going to help your son, but I’m not going to teach him how to fight.”

  “What then?” the mom asks. “Why are we here?”

  “Because I am going to teach him how to defend himself. That’s not the same thing.”

  “Wait, I’m confused.” I turn to the sound of Matt’s voice. “What’s the difference?”

  “The difference is huge,” I tell him. “Look at me, Matt. You see me? I’m a fighter. I came in this gym around your age, well a few years older than you are now, and I learned how to hurt other people—to fight other fighters in a cage for money. I love what I do, but it’s not for everyone. You teach people how to fight when you want them to fight. You teach people to defend themselves so that they don’t have to fight like me. I learned how to defend myself long before I learned how to fight. That’s what I can help you with, but you have to be willing to learn.”

  “He is,” his dad says.

  “No disrespect, Steven, but I need to hear it from your son. You can’t commit to this for him. He has to be willing to put in the work. Otherwise you’re wasting your time and mine. So,” I say, looking back at Matt. “How about it? Are we going to do this, or do you want to be a punching bag for the pricks at your school for the next few years?”

  “I. . . I want to be able to defend myself, Mr. . .”

  “Professor,” I say, correcting him. “That’s what we call our teachers here. Professor.”

  “Okay, sorry. I want to be able to defend myself, Professor. Will you please help me?”

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear, Matt. And of course I can. Now, first lesson, are you ready?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Stand up straight.”

  Chapter Six

  Mila

  The Following Friday

  I get out of my therapy session in just enough time to meet Holly and Sophie at the bar downtown. It’s the last thing I feel like doing, but Dr. Chase keeps telling me that I need to get out more. That’s not how he says it though. Shrinks have their own language for things that are supposed to be simple. Instead of telling me that it would be good for me to get out of my apartment more often, he tells me that I need to “push past the trauma to get back to a place of self-actualization.”

  That’s shrink code for, you’re still fucked up from your ex-boyfriend nearly killing you, and you might be slightly less fucked up if you grab a drink with friends every once in a while. I wish he’d just say that to me—I’d respect him more for it. No matter how it comes out, the message is the same, and I’m going to try to be a good patient and follow his advice. That, and the fact that Holly and Sophie have been there for me through this whole ordeal means that the least I can do is sit with them for an hour and sip some wine.

  The Uber drops me off at this upscale new bar called Wine-O—I really can’t believe they ca
lled it that, but at least there’s no false advertising going on. There’s already a line to get in, like it’s a club or something, but I get to feel glamorous and skip the line since Holly texted me that they’re both inside at a table already.

  Being out is still difficult for me. I start to feel some anxiety rise from my stomach into the rest of my body, and I have to stop walking and remind myself of the self-affirming phrases that Dr. Chase has been working with me on.

  You’ve got this, Mila.

  When my heart slows down enough to let me move again, I grind my teeth and just push through the crowd standing in front of the place. Touch has been a trigger of mine since the incident, so I try to avoid any situations where someone touches me. That’s why I stopped taking the subway and buses and started dipping into my savings to pay for all the Ubers and taxis. There’s no way through the door without touching someone, so I say “excuse me” loud enough to sound rude, and turn my body to the side to avoid anything that might set me off. Once I’m inside I look around and see Holly waving at me.

  “We got a table in the perfect spot for you,” she tells me after we hug. For some reason the touch thing doesn’t apply to Holly and Sophie. They can hug me all they want, or touch me in general, and I don’t feel triggered. Probably because I’ve known them since we were in middle school. She leads me away from the door and continues, “Far back and you can see everyone.”

  “Perfect. You two are the best. What would I do without you?”

  “Shrivel up and die.” Sophie realizes what she said as soon as it’s out of her mouth. I feel bad that she feels bad. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean. . .”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can’t dance around me forever. I’m a big girl, and I’m getting better. It’s been a year.”

  “That isn’t enough time. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  “It’s okay, Soph, you know I love you.” I hug her tight to emphasize my point. “And you’re not wrong. I might shrivel up and die without you two. You’re the only thing keeping me sane these days.”

  “Us and lots of wine, right?”

  Holly isn’t wrong. I’ve been drinking a little too much, and I know it’s a coping strategy. I never used to drink at all. What started as a glass of wine with dinner became two glasses, which became a glass whenever I felt like it. It’s not doing anything negative in my life—I’m not some drunk who’s crashing her car and stumbling around the street slurring words, but I have been using it as a way to numb the pain I still feel. I guess meeting at bar called Wine-O wasn’t the best idea.

  “Too much,” I say. “I’m only having one right now. Red.”

  “Pinot, we know,” Sophie says, finishing my sentence for me. “We have a bottle on the way. Drink your one glass, we’ll have the rest.”

  I smile. It’s been a year since I was involved in the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. My boyfriend at the time—now my convict ex, Brett—nearly beat me to death in the apartment we shared downtown. He’d never laid a hand on me before that, and he never showed any of the classic signs of an abusive partner. Brett never tried to isolate me from my friends or family; he never tried to destroy my self-esteem or put me down; and he never even tried to control what I did or who I saw.

  Dr. Chase is still baffled by it, but he has an alternative explanation.

  Mental illness.

  When it came up at trial, introduced by Brett’s defense attorney, I thought it was bullshit—a legal trick like you’d see some slimy lawyer pull on an episode of Law & Order—not guilty by reason of mental defect. But it turns out Brett had a psychotic disorder that went untreated for years. When his defense team tried to claim mental illness, my lawyer insisted that we have him evaluated by an independent, third party psychologist of our choosing, and the results were clear. On top of that, it came out that Brett did a stint in juvie for assault in high school for beating one of his teachers to a pulp in front of the entire class. His records were expunged because he was a minor at the time, but my lawyer found out about it.

  He put me in the hospital for over two months. I still have weird physical issues including some memory problems. I’d tried to defend myself, but realized really quickly that when you don’t know how to do that, and a man twice your size wants to hurt you, there isn’t a whole lot to do except cover up and hope that you wake up when it’s over.

  I did wake up, just not the same as I was before.

  Our wine comes, and Holly and Sophie do their best to do what they always end up doing when we get together now—ask me how I’m feeling. I’m sick of being treated like a patient of theirs instead of a friend, but I know that they’re just concerned for my well being. Sophie has had a glass already—I can tell—and she’s the more loose-lipped of my two best friends.

  “How was therapy?” she asks. “Are you better yet? When can we meet guys again?”

  “Jesus, Sophie!” Holly yells.

  “No, it’s okay.” I’m actually happy to hear a normal question for once. “Ummm… I’m not dating anyone yet, Sophie. Brett was only convicted five months ago. I’m having trouble even leaving my house, and my anxiety is through the roof. I’m not sure any guy would find my being an anxious hermit attractive.”

  I’m pretending like it’s a real answer I’m giving her—I’m playing along with what’s socially expected of me—to be normal. But the real answer to her question is something I’m not ready to say out loud. Something I’m not fully ready to admit to myself.

  No, Sophie, I won’t be meeting any new guys because Brett fucked me up so bad that I’m scared of almost every man I meet—literally. The barista at Starbucks, the men who pass me on the street. Shit, even my own therapist took some getting used to. I think every man is going to hurt me now, so I either need to avoid them altogether, or go live on some all female island like Wonder Woman. Other than that, I’m totally fucked when it comes to men!

  I take a sip of my Pinot and think about what she just asked me. The truth is I do miss being with someone, even though it’s not on my radar at the moment. But the feeling of having someone in my bed—having that sense of security and being in love, I miss that. I take another sip.

  “Moving on. . .” Holly says, shooting Sophie a look of irritation. “How are things, otherwise? Not dating, but just you. How are you?”

  I take a deep breath because it’s a hard question, but I’m going to do my best to answer it. “I’m doing. . . better. If I’m being honest, I’m still a little south of good, but I’m north of terrible. Wherever that is, that’s where I am.”

  “That’s great, Mila. I wish I could program my GPS to that location all the time. Being super happy all the time is overrated—it’s a fantasy we tell ourselves. I’m happy to just be okay.”

  “That’s the thing, though, Holl, I still have so many of the after effects of the attack that I wish would just fucking go away. The worry, the stress, the anxiety, even the paranoia. I want it to just stop so I can feel like myself again. I miss me.”

  “I miss the old you, too. I miss going out, spending more time together. But we both get it. All of that is secondary to you getting better. It’s a process, Mila—and you’re doing great.”

  “She’s right,” Sophie says. “We love you, and you’re doing really well.”

  “I love you guys, too. And thank you for being there through all of it.”

  “I was about ready to have my mail forwarded to that hospital room,” Holly says. “I spent more time there than I did at my place.”

  “You guys really are the best.”

  “Question,” Holly says suddenly. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course I do, why?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Sophie says. “Here it comes. She was talking about this before you got here.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “You know how you said you need your confidence back? How you’re scared and wish that you weren’t?”

  “Yeah.” />
  “Well—I know you’re doing great in therapy and all, but I have another idea to help you.”

  I see the look on her face and I know she’s up to no good.

  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucas

  I can’t sleep.

  I should be sleeping. But what happened in my last fight is still fucking with my head. Every night, when the lights go out, it’s all I think about. Not only do I relive the experience of being woken up, but I’ve seen the footage of the fight more times than I can count. I’m obsessed with my own defeat. I haven’t stepped back in that cage in a year, and I’m itching for a fight.

  A lot of people use the expression ‘it keeps me up at night’, but for me it’s literal. I run through the fight in my head—what I could have done differently, what I did wrong, what I would do if I had that opportunity again. All of those thoughts equal no sleep or bad sleep, which isn’t the best thing for training, but I can’t help it.

  I fucking hate to lose.

  Not only is my pride and ego still hurt, but I feel like I let my team down—Matt, and all the guys who put countless hours into making me into a champion. I let them all down by not keeping my hands where they should have been. Amateur hour stuff. Fuck, I owe them more than that. I owe them my destiny—a championship belt to hang on the gym walls. That’s what I deserve. That’s what this gym deserves.

  It’s late, but I call up Matt.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey man, it’s me. Sorry to bother you so late.”

  “What fuckin’ time is it?”

  “Umm… three fifteen.”

  “Are you dying?” he asks. “You’d better be for waking me up at this time.”

  “I want another fight.”

  “Lucas. . .”

  “No, man. I want another fight. I need to get back into the win column.”