Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

by Kwame Mbalia

  That left me with only one other choice: luring out Anansi. What if he didn’t come? What if he did?

  I didn’t want any of this. I’d never asked to become an Anansesem.

  All those thoughts grabbed and pulled at my brain, slowing me to a stumbling walk.

  “So, you’re a boxer, hm?”

  The question took me by surprise. I’d expected a lecture, or an interrogation, not idle conversation. After wondering for a moment whether this was a trap, I shrugged.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess? You either box or you don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it. I’m surprised. Heard you gave a pretty good show in the Drowned Forest.”

  “It didn’t help,” I said, with a hint of bitterness. “Couldn’t rescue Brer Fox. Lost Eddie’s journal.”

  “Is that your friend? Eddie?”

  I nodded, and John Henry pursed his lips. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “He’s…not here anymore.”

  I looked down and shoved my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. It smelled like outside, and my sneakers were muddy, and all I wanted to do was worry about what Nana and Granddad would say when they saw how stained everything was. I missed my old problems.

  “So, you have any bouts yet?” John Henry asked. I was glad he’d moved on.

  I kicked a loose twig. “One. Lost it.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wasn’t prepared,” I said after a second. “Couldn’t focus. Didn’t sleep well the night before, and I felt tired and couldn’t get any energy. So yeah, I lost.”

  John Henry glanced at me. “Ayanna said you moved like lightning in the forest. Said your fists were a blur.”

  My neck grew hot. “She said that?”

  “Mm-hmm. And that don’t jibe with how you say you did in the ring. So you probably ain’t as bad as you think. Who holds the bag for you?”

  “My dad.” I kicked the twig again, sending it flipping end-over-end all the way up the tunnel. “Alvin Strong. Two-time middleweight champion. Boxer extraordinaire.”

  “Okay, okay. So it runs in your blood.”

  I shook my head. “Only thing running in my blood is disappointment. Dad was set on me being the next champion in the family. He never lost a professional match. Me? I can’t win one fight against a tiny sticky loudmouth.”

  We walked on and continued to talk about boxing. I stayed away from anything too personal, and eventually we got to discussing favorite boxers.

  John Henry whistled in awe. “So this Ali…they stripped him of the title?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Disrespectful, right? All for not wanting to shoot anybody in a war. But anyway, he did his stint in the doghouse and came out smelling like roses. Won back his title and did it in style. ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’”

  “That’s what he said?”

  “That’s what he did.”

  “Well, I’ll be. I like that. Like a butterfly, huh? Well, I’ll be.” As he said that, a few of the colorful insects flapped lazily around his head, almost as if summoned. I stared at my fingers in suspicion.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Did you have a favorite? Did they even box back then?”

  “Boy, hush. We boxed. Didn’t have your fancy equipment, either. Knuckles and heart was all we had, knuckles and heart.”

  “So who was your favorite?”

  John Henry didn’t answer. Instead, he held up a hand and eased over to the Thicket wall. He stopped, put his ear as close to it as he could without getting jabbed by thorns, and listened. After a second he moved on, shaking his head.

  “Thought I heard something,” he said. I began to ask what, but he brushed me aside. “Where were we? Favorite boxer, right? That’s easy. Old Man Rawlins, hands down.”

  I snickered. “Old Man Rawlins? Quit playing—he don’t even sound like a boxer. What was his record?”

  John Henry stopped walking and held my eye. “One hundred fifty-three and zero.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m telling you, he was one hundred fifty-three and zero. No losses.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Old Man Rawlins was a bit of a story. See, he was never given a choice in the matter. He had to box, plain and simple.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I grumbled.

  But John Henry shook his head. “No, sir, you may think it’s the same, but it ain’t. Not like that. You reckon you were forced into the matter, but at the end of the day, I bet your folks would’ve let you be.”

  My folks maybe, but not Granddad. But I kept that to myself.

  “See, we worked on the rails, and all of us, we worked for a man we just called Boss.”

  “Boss?”

  “That’s it. One word. It’s the question and the answer. End and the beginning. Boss wanted you to work a little later, you worked a little later. Boss wanted that mountain drilled before noon, well, you’d better start hammerin’ by dawn. And if Boss said you were gonna box for the evening’s entertainment, well, you just hoped the other fella was as tired as you were.”

  “That doesn’t sound…” I broke off before I could finish, and John Henry grinned.

  “I know you wasn’t gonna say fair. Is life fair?”

  I pictured Brer Fox being hauled away by a fetterling. “No. Life ain’t fair.”

  “Good. ’Cause that’s what Old Man Rawlins figured out. But he also figured out a way to get by. Every time Boss told him he had to fight, he just grabbed these thin cloth gloves with the fingers ripped away and went to the middle of camp. Ten minutes later, it’d be over. Another win.”

  “How?”

  John Henry winked and tapped his head. “Let’s see if you can figure it out. You the boxer. No rush. Just some brain food for you to chew on.”

  I ran through boxing tactics in my head. How could a man go 153 and 0? Especially a man named Old Man Rawlins. He sounded ancient. Older than Granddad, probably. Socks-with-sandals ancient. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

  We reached the entrance to the hidden glade and headed for the hill where I’d been interrogated before. John Henry stayed at the bottom and I climbed to the top so I could face him eye to eye. His hammer was slung across both shoulders, and he draped his arms over it. The head was worn and dented, but John kept it polished, and it gleamed in the warm sunshine.

  He saw me eyeing it and smiled. “Must seem silly, me carrying this here hammer everywhere.”

  I shrugged. “No, it doesn’t seem silly. If it means something to you, you should hold on to it.” Then I added, “As long as you don’t bring it in the shower.”

  “In the what, now?”

  Wow. I started to stammer something, but he cut me off with a laugh. “I’m foolin’ with you, boy. And yes, that’s a surefire way to find your tools rusted.”

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Tristan,” John Henry started, then stopped, and started again. “Your friend’s book. It meant something to you?”

  “Everything,” I said right away. I rubbed the side of my pants, feeling the pocket where the journal should’ve been. “It meant…it meant everything.”

  John Henry nodded, then fished around in the front pouch of his overalls. “One of Sis Crow’s brood spotted this—they always got an eye for something shiny, and this little thing glows like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, they found this in the trees, and, well…I thought you might want it.”

  He held out a tattered leather cord, and the breath caught in my throat.

  “Is that…?”

  “It ain’t much, but it’s something, and hopefully it helps a little. Doesn’t seem right that an adinkra like that should get lost.”

  He dropped the tassel from Eddie’s journal into my palm, and I lost the ability to speak for a second. The charm—Anansi’s symbol—was still knotted on the end. I held it up and watched it spin in the light.

&n
bsp; “What did you call this?”

  “An adinkra. Something else that got carried over from your world. Symbols that held great meaning for the people who wore them. Our people. Kings and queens. If it came off your friend’s book, the one all this hoopla is about, I expect you might want to hold on to it.”

  I looped the cord around my wrist, using my teeth to knot it, and took a deep breath. “Thank you. I thought…Well, thank you.”

  “Aw, it wasn’t nothin’. In fact—”

  “Ouch!” I shook my wrist and stared at the charm. The wood was blazing hot, like it was on fire.

  Wait a minute.

  I brought the charm close to my face, then cupped my hand around it. Sure enough, the adinkra was glowing, a soft green light that confused me for a second.

  “Why…?”

  A rusty squeal sounded from across the glade, and then another.

  John Henry’s face went pale, and the hammer was in his hands in a blur.

  “It’s them iron monsters.”

  SUNLIGHT WINKED OFF METAL IN the distance. A lot of metal.

  And then the screeches started.

  Iron monsters sprinted in our direction, and though they were still some ways away, I could tell their numbers were greater than before, back in the Drowned Forest. Their collars clacked together like crab claws, and they let out this awful squeal as they ran. Like old car brakes. Or metal on a sidewalk.

  “Fetterlings,” I whispered.

  John Henry’s eyes grew big and his head jerked back, like the word was a slap to the face.

  Fear.

  John Henry, the strongest man I’d ever seen—a folk hero, a god—felt a flash of fear. I saw how it momentarily twisted his face and forced beads of sweat to pop up on his forehead. He plunged the haft of his hammer into the ground, gripped the metal head, kneeled down, and closed his eyes.

  “Brer,” his voice rumbled.

  My eyes went back and forth between him and the fetterlings, which were splashing across the stream. Then, to my amazement, the bark on the tree roots near our feet began to twist and swirl.

  “Brer!” John Henry called again. His voice seemed to echo, and I could feel the vibrations.

  I swallowed a scream when a face formed in the dirt around the hammer. Somehow, Brer was looking out at us.

  “What is it?” Brer asked.

  “Iron monsters have broken into the Thicket.” Now John Henry’s voice sounded way too calm. “We need help.”

  “Hold on, hold on, big guy. Let me check…. There’s no switch for this, you know. Now, let’s see.”

  John Henry clenched a fist as he kneeled there, waiting for Brer to finish whatever he was doing. We just had to trust that it was going to bring help, and quickly, before we were swarmed. I understood the giant man’s frustration. God or no god, Brer rubbed me the wrong way.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Brer. “Something’s off—the Thicket isn’t talking to me.”

  I frowned, puzzled, but John Henry’s fist clenched even tighter as he pounded his leg softly.

  “The Thicket talks to him?” I whispered.

  John mumbled, “Brer hears it like you hear that drumming. It’s part of the spell he used to build this place. He’s been having trouble with it lately, though, and I—”

  “Bad news, Johnny Boy,” said Brer. “This will take some time. You’re going to have to hold them off for a while.”

  “Brer—”

  “No time, no time. Got to get this going. Keep them back. Don’t let them reach the tunnels!”

  With that last instruction his face disappeared, and John Henry growled. He leaned back, reached into the back pocket of his overalls, and pulled something out. He tossed it—no, them—at me. Simple fingerless brown leather gloves. The kind a rail worker might wear. “Put these on,” he said.

  I did as he said and was surprised to find that they were a perfect fit.

  Then he grabbed his hammer with both hands.

  “Give me strength,” he whispered.

  I was confused until I realized it was like a prayer before battle, and I gulped. When gods prayed, things were about to get real.

  He stood, pulling the handle…and the wood stretched. It grew longer and longer—three feet, five feet, ten!—and my jaw dropped as John Henry’s hammer hummed with energy. Symbols rippled up and down the shaft, and the metal head glowed dull orange. He swung it through the air a few times and it whistled past my head, smelling of heated steel and polished wood.

  “Follow me.”

  He took several long strides back toward the valley before I could even begin to follow, and by the time I caught up with him, he was at the sloping trail leading back up to the tunnel entrance. John Henry took two giant steps to the right, then nodded at me.

  “Hold up your hands,” he said. He brushed each glove gingerly with the hammer, and steam hissed from them. Strangely, I didn’t feel any warmth. “There,” John Henry said. “I reckon these might do the trick. That is, if you wanna help me defend our home.”

  When the smoke coming off the gloves cleared, I could see a symbol now branded on the back of each one, just below the knuckles. A hammer.

  “You can go back if you want,” John Henry said. He kept his eyes on the fetterlings, not on me. “Back into the tunnels with the others.”

  I swallowed and glanced at the entrance we had come out of. It was dark, yet it looked safe, like when you pull the covers over your head in the middle of the night. I could slip inside there and run as far away as possible….

  But then what?

  Still no way across the Burning Sea.

  Still no way to reach the tear in the sky.

  And could you look at yourself ever again? I asked myself. At Nana?

  When I stood, the decision was made. Taking a deep breath, I moved to John Henry’s side. “Maybe we should back up to the tunnel entrance,” I said. “Just in case one of them gets past us.”

  A giant hand patted my shoulder, and he grinned, but his eyes were hard.

  “Nothing’s getting past us.”

  The fetterlings stepped out of the stream. Twenty. Thirty. A hundred. They swarmed the hill like locusts.

  John Henry and I waited, him holding the hammer in both hands, me with my fists clenched inside my borrowed gloves. My blessed borrowed gloves.

  The screeching grew louder. So loud it drowned out everything else. They saw us now—they had a target, and the air filled with their hateful calls.

  “Don’t let them scare you,” John Henry murmured. His fingers tightened on the hammer’s carved wooden handle. “You are fighting for something bigger. Something stronger. Trust in that, and we’ll be just fine.”

  I snorted. “You should’ve been a corner man.”

  “I was. For Old Man Rawlins.”

  I stared at him, then at my hands. Were these the same gloves Rawlins had worn? I wanted to ask, but now proooobably wasn’t the best time.

  The fetterlings clawed their way to the top of the hill and flooded the valley. Butterflies took flight in a dazzling display of colors, and I tried to focus. The first of the iron monsters ran up to us, only to have its eyeless collar head removed by a single powerful swing of the hammer. The fetterling exploded into bits of metal and that same weird white fluff that floated up into the sky.

  “Keep the tunnel entrance at your back,” John Henry declared. “The glade is narrowest here—either we repel them, or the Thicket is lost.” He took up a wide stance. “If I hold the valley, can you hold the hill?”

  I eyed the incline, and how the path narrowed as it got closer to the top. On my left was a Thicket wall, and on my right there was a steep drop-off to where John Henry’s hammer awaited. The fetterlings could only come one, two at a time at most.

  I pounded my fists together. The gloves felt electric, like I was wearing lightning on my hands.

  “Strongs keep punching,” I said, and John Henry smiled.

  “That’s the spirit. The demons won’t take a
nother soul, not while we stand here!” He laughed, a great booming sound that rolled like thunder, and when the first wave of fetterlings leaped forward, his hammer was there to greet them.

  One swing crashed into a group of three, sending them flying back into the crowd, and the return blow crushed two more. The air filled with screeches and floating white fluff.

  But I couldn’t just stand and watch. I had my own battles to fight.

  A fetterling sprinted up, its collar open wide and its shackles snapping. I ducked one attack and slipped away from another. Bob and weave, I could hear Dad shouting. Then attack! I feinted, then made a quick jab. I thought it was a decent punch, nothing special, just something to give me more room to operate, but the metal monster shrieked in pain and staggered back like I’d landed a haymaker.

  The fetterling and I stopped to stare at the gloves I wore—the hammer symbol glowed an angry orange-red, and the air turned wavy above them, as though my fists were on fire.

  The fetterling chittered something.

  “You’re telling me,” I said, and swung a right hook at its head.

  It exploded, showering me with broken bits of chain and fluff. Some of it got on my face and lips, and I wiped my mouth.

  “Y’all are nasty,” I mumbled through my sleeve.

  “Tristan, look out!”

  The hammer whistled inches from my head, and I ducked just as a fetterling leaped forward. The hammer met it in midair and sent it back in pieces. John Henry pivoted and forced another group to stumble backward.

  “Focus!” he rumbled, and I jumped to my feet, embarrassed.

  Two fetterlings tried to trap me, but I batted away their snapping manacle-claws, a grin spreading across my face as the arms disintegrated, and a fierce joy exploding inside me as I landed a combination that literally blew them away.

  This was nothing like my first boxing match.

  Back then I was drifting. I didn’t have any purpose.

  But now?

  Now I had a goal. Pop. An objective. Pop. One mission, should I choose to accept it, and that was to defend the Thicket. Pop pop. Protect this house. Pop pop. They—the enemy, the fetterlings, the Maafa, Uncle C, and whoever else—they wanted to win, but I wanted it more.