The Clinch

by Nicole Disney

  “You’re the only one crying about me being new. You’re just scared.”

  “Make no mistake, Brooklyn. You didn’t get this fight because of what you’ve done, you got it because of what I’ve done. I’ve crushed everyone else. That’s the only reason you’re here.”

  “Then why do they all think I’m going to win?”

  “The odds are heavily in my favor last time I looked. They don’t think you’re going to win. You’d know that if you paid attention to anything other than your own delusional Twitter feed.”

  “All right, ladies, let’s get to the next question,” Dana says, and points to the next reporter.

  “This one’s for Brooklyn. Your family has achieved so much in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but you’re the first to have a chance at an MMA world title. Do you feel a lot of pressure to uphold the family name?”

  “My family name carries itself. I’m not going to destroy Eden because of pressure, I’m going to destroy her because I’m a Shaw and that’s what we do.”

  “Another for Brooklyn, your commitment to competing is clear. It’s all we ever hear you talk about. Do you make time to have a personal life?”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Brooklyn says.

  “Like, do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Jesus Christ, next question.”

  “Or maybe a girlfriend?”

  I smile at the unexpected question, interested in this press conference for the first time. It’s refreshing to see her off balance. I glance across at her to see how she’ll answer.

  “Next. Fucking. Question.”

  “Eden, I see you chuckling over there,” the reporter says. “Same question?”

  I laugh and pick up the mic. “Look, if you’re poking around about whether we like girls or guys, I’ve been very clear and open that I’m gay. I’ll agree with Brooklyn on one thing though, we’re here to talk about the fight. You would never ask one of the guys if they’re dating.”

  The room fills with applause, the first time I’ve felt them overwhelmingly on my side in a while. I’m usually a fan favorite, and though I’ve tried not to give it too much weight, it sucks that at least half of the fans seem to be team Brooklyn.

  “All right, it looks like you’re out of real questions,” Dana says. “Let’s wrap this up.”

  I’m all over his invitation to bail. I give a short thanks on the mic and am up from the table before someone can try to start a new series of questions. Brooklyn does the same, still looking significantly miffed, and I can’t help but be tickled. She does have a soft spot.

  Jin is waiting for me backstage and nods when we make eye contact. We unceremoniously head for the door. Some competitors love the lead up, the spotlight, the attention, but I hate being pulled away from training to prance around for the cameras. When we go out the front door, there’s a fairly large crowd gathered, prevented from getting too close by a waist-height metal fence.

  “Eden, we love you! Kick her ass!”

  As much as I hate the pony show, I love the fans and never feel right blasting past them. I accept the first Sharpie that’s offered to me to start signing. One person asks me to sign a Brooklyn shirt. I could write across her face. I’ve seen other martial artists do things like that, but I don’t.

  “If I sign this, you have to trade it in for one of mine when I beat her,” I say.

  The guy holding it out for me is a super thin kid in green shorts and a yellow shirt, probably Brazilian judging by his color choices. The Brazilians adore Brooklyn.

  “You got it,” he says. It’s not like he’ll follow through, but it doesn’t matter. Fans like who they like, often with little to no reason why. I’m not exempt.

  A wave of cheers flows through the gathering, which must mean Brooklyn just came out. I glance over my shoulder and confirm it. She’s walking down the stairs in sunglasses and a leather coat, looking sharp and deadly. Samson Shaw, her father, is at her left, and her brother Théo is on the other side, each of them world renowned Jiu-Jitsu competitors.

  Samson is still trim and toned, showing his age only in his refined air. Théo is a beautiful young man with a masculine, defined jaw and a glowing complexion. But Brooklyn still steals the show. She’s a gorgeous creature with a smile that makes her instantly approachable, but she’s also a well-tuned machine of an athlete to be feared. I reluctantly admit it’s hard not to be a little starstruck by the martial arts royalty on parade.

  “Brooklyn, take a picture with me?”

  “Théo! Sign my chest!”

  They show no signs of hearing the crowd.

  “Brooklyn, marry me!” a woman yells from the front row. Samson stops on a dime and turns, picking out the woman who shouted it, deliberate and careful, then rips off his sunglasses. He steps closer to her, direct and intimidating, but not quite threatening. I still have the T-shirt I’m signing in my hands, but I’m locked on what’s happening down the rail.

  “Get this straight,” Samson says, loud enough for everyone in the immediate area to hear, though he’s only addressing the one woman. “My daughter is no fucking dyke. You got it?”

  He turns and walks away, catching back up with Brooklyn and Théo, who show no signs of the horror I would hope to see on their faces. The crowd is silent, like they’ve all been collectively knocked off their feet.

  “Fuck you!” someone finally yells, but they’re already fifteen feet away and don’t turn back.

  It takes me a second to snap out of it. It’s not totally shocking that he could have anti-gay sentiments, but they’re so aggressive. People yelling out at celebrities of all kinds to marry them is beyond common. That he would respond to something so lighthearted so viciously feels like a glimpse behind the Shaw veil. Is that how he acts with his children? Is that how he turned them into combat machines?

  I finish scribbling on the shirt in my hands and give it back, then walk over to the young woman Samson yelled at. As I get closer, I realize she’s younger than I thought, not yet twenty-one, maybe not even eighteen, and I’m hit with a new wave of disgust for Samson. Her expression is hard and angry, but her eyes have a watery look.

  “Hey,” I say. She looks over, on edge like I may yell at her too. “I know I’m not Brooklyn, but I’ll take a picture with you if you want. Or sign something or whatever.”

  She looks down bashfully at the Shaw shirt in her hands.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t care if you like her.”

  “I don’t anymore.”

  I wave her closer. “Come on, selfie it up.” She leans in and snaps a few pictures of us in different poses smiling and pretending to fight. I sign the shirt and hand it back. “Chin up.”

  She nods and shows her friends her signed shirt, holding it tightly. I return to Jin and wave at the crowd one more time as we move toward the car. That reporter started unnecessary trouble, but she isn’t the only one to misjudge Brooklyn. I certainly had her pegged as a lesbian. Apparently, Brooklyn’s either homophobic or in the closet. Or both. Not inspiring options.

  Chapter Seven

  Arlo bends his knees and lunges his shoulder into my hips hard, knocking me back a couple of steps, a takedown maneuver called shooting. His hands wrap around my calves and he yanks up. I sink my weight, trying to sprawl my feet behind me, but his grip holds and prevents me from launching them backward. He shoves his head into my ribs and blasts forward until I lose my balance and slam to the mat. He scrambles to get on top of me while I struggle to put distance between us.

  “Get. Up!” Jin’s voice vibrates through the mats. He has a remarkable way of sounding like he’s coming through a speaker, so loud yet never yelling. He’s losing patience, a hard thing to make him do. I grab Arlo’s ankle and pull it out from under him. He crashes to the mat on his side even as he tries to keep a hold of me. I pull back and toss his leg away, then spring to my feet as his heel whooshes past my head in an up-kick, narrowly missing. I couldn’t blame him if it connected. With only two weeks to go, we’re
drilling hard.

  “Good. Switch!” Jin yells. Arlo sprints off the mat and Laila jumps in. She comes at me with a lot of forward pressure, mimicking Brooklyn’s style the best she can, then throws a bomb of a punch at me. I duck it and land a counterstrike combination. One punch connects extra hard. I feel a jolt of remorse, but Laila eats it like a champ and marches forward, leaving me no time to think on it any further before she shoots at my legs. I try again to sprawl out of it, but she switches the double leg hold to a single leg, picking my front foot off the mat and turning.

  “Get out of there, Eden. You have to get this!” Arlo yells. Laila’s still holding my front leg in the air with both arms, but she doesn’t have the position to pull me down yet. “Move your foot to the outside of her leg, push the head away, and stomp.”

  I know the steps, and I’m trying like hell to do it, but she has my leg in a vice grip. I can’t stomp down hard enough to break it. I focus on pushing her head down, trying to ruin her posture, but Laila slips her right foot behind the one foot I have on the ground and trips me, landing on top and going straight for a flurry of punches. I wrap my arms around her neck and pull her head down, then try to maneuver a hip out from under her so I can sweep her onto her back.

  “Stop!” Jin says. We break apart. Laila offers me a hand, but I don’t think I can stand. Four hours ago, I was nailing this exercise, but I have nothing left, and Laila and Arlo are switching out so they’re always fresh.

  “Get up,” Jin says. He’s said little else since we walked in this morning. Get up, get up, get up. I hesitate for less than a second, but he’s on me like school of piranhas. “Stand up, jeja.”

  Jeez, it must be bad. He hasn’t called me that for a long time. It means student, not a derogatory term, but a reminder of my position. I peel myself off the mat. My shirt is soaked with sweat. Everything aches and weighs a thousand pounds. I force myself to stand up straight even though doing so spots my vision with black. Hopefully, I don’t pass out, but at this point I’d rather go ahead and do that than fail to stand before Jin. He comes close, looks into my eyes with an expression that seems to be anger, but then he gently puts his hands on either side of my face.

  “This is the difference between victory and defeat.”

  “Yes, Kwan Jang Nim.” Grandmaster. “Ahlge seoyo.” I understand.

  “You’re sloppy,” he says. “You know the movements, but you don’t do them. Do you not respect Professor Ruiz?” Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts are called professors. Jin knows I respect Arlo, but he also knows attacking me like this works.

  “I’m sorry, Professor,” I say to Arlo. This isn’t his world, but all martial artists understand this kind of interaction.

  “Then why don’t you do what he says?” Jin asks, a bit of a trap. I know better than to say I can’t or I’m trying. There is no can’t. There is no trying.

  “I’ll do better, Kwan Jang Nim.”

  “You’re tired,” Jin says.

  “Yes, Grandmaster.”

  “Are we to stop training once you’re tired?”

  “No, Grandmaster.”

  “You must defeat yourself first. Then your enemy.”

  “Yes, Grandmaster.”

  “Again.”

  He nods Laila back in. She faces me, pausing to meet my eyes.

  “Don’t you dare go easy,” I say.

  She explodes down and forward, smashing into my hip with her shoulder and reaching deep around my calves. I pull reserves of energy I didn’t realize I had and force my entire body into action to resist her, blasting through her grip so my feet are well behind my hips and out of reach, then shove her down face first as I escape backward. As she stands, I throw a spinning back kick, pulling it so it goes right over her head instead of connecting, but we all know it would have knocked her out cold if I wanted it to.

  Arlo whistles. “There it is!”

  Laila smiles and bows, an unofficial way of saying, “Thanks for not taking my head off.”

  Arlo puts his hand on my shoulder. “That was it. Once she realizes she’s no match for you on her feet, she’ll try to take you down. If you do exactly what you just did, you win.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, still in danger of passing out or puking. Fight camp is always such a blend of teammates bolstering your confidence and coaches putting the fear of God in you. Each is essential. It may be the exhaustion, but I’m teary with gratitude for each of these lunatics who are willing to spend hours breaking their bodies with me.

  “That was sick,” Laila says and hugs me. “You good?”

  “Of course.” I’m barely okay and too hot to be hugged, but I don’t want her to know that. Jin has a way of finding my breaking point no matter how hard I try to wear a poker face.

  “Take an ice bath.” Jin’s voice cuts through the chatter. “You run hills in the morning.”

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  The last week before weigh-ins, Jin starts to take it easy. My body needs to recover, it’s too close to the fight to risk an injury, and I have to start cutting weight, which means I won’t have much energy. As much as my team has been saying Brooklyn doesn’t deserve this fight, they’re behaving otherwise. All through camp I could feel it in the air, though they would never say it. They knew I could lose this. I don’t feel that anymore.

  “You see the latest?” Laila asks while holding the focus mitts in front of me, her left hand slightly forward to indicate my combo should start with a jab. I throw a simple jab, cross, hook, exhilarated by the hard thwap of each blow landing in the sweet spot before I pull it back.

  “Nope.”

  “Brooklyn released a training video. She’s just working the heavy bag, but at the end she faces the camera and says she’s going to shock the world and beat you at your own game. She threw a head kick and said you’re going to end up in the morgue if you don’t respect her striking.”

  I slip the jab Laila throws and snap into a cross, uppercut, roundhouse. “Her punches look any better?”

  “A little,” Laila says. “Worth looking at if you want to call it a night.”

  I glance at the clock and realize it’s already nine, much later than I thought, an excellent sign my cardio is where it needs to be. “Sure,” I say. I slip out of my gloves while Laila pulls off the mitts and finds her phone in her gym bag. She slides down the wall and invites me to sit next to her. I join her and look over her shoulder at the video.

  It’s just like she said, Brooklyn working the bag. She does look better. That’s to be expected. She’d be an idiot not to train striking just like I’d be an idiot not to train Jiu-Jitsu. I’m just not so attention hungry as to make the mistake of showing her. Brooklyn faces the camera and delivers her threat, then the video ends. I see a handful of comments, people encouraging her to kill me.

  “Does no one even think about what they’re saying?” I ask. “Don’t they know you really could die doing this?” I regret saying it the moment it comes out of my mouth. I don’t want Laila to think I’m afraid or being dramatic. No one has ever died fighting in the UFC, but it does happen in boxing every year, and that’s a bit close for comfort. “I just mean—”

  Laila puts her hand on my knee. “I know. She loves crossing lines.”

  “She’s scared,” I say. “She must be. To try this hard to get in my head, I must be in hers.”

  “She’d be insane not to be scared of you. You’re the greatest woman in the game. Ever. And you’ve held the title for four years without breaking a sweat. She’s either afraid of you or a complete idiot.” She refreshes to the top of Brooklyn’s Twitter page, and a brand-new tweet pops up.

  Eden’s team is a joke. Mr. Miyagi, a cashier, and a fighter with a 50-50 win/loss record. Hopefully they at least know how to throw in the towel when I’m smashing their girl. The Shaws are coming for you pussies. Iron sharpens iron.

  “Oh, hell no. This bitch.” Laila taps to comment back.

  “Laila, don’t.”

  “Fuck that, you can be m
iss Buddhist monk if you want, but she’s talking about me now.”

  I put my hand on her wrist. “It’s distasteful for someone of your caliber to bark on her own behalf.”

  Laila stares at me like I spoke another language.

  “I’ll take care of her,” I say. “I promise.”

  “Why does it matter to you so much? You should be relieved someone else can clap back without you breaking your whole enlightened thing.”

  “I care because you’re my student. You’re an Emerald Tiger black belt, and we’re better than that. You say more by saying nothing.”

  “I don’t know about that. I say a lot saying something.”

  I laugh and shake my head. She looks at her phone again and bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, I love Arlo.”

  “What?” I lunge to look at the screen. “What’d he do?”

  Arlo’s tweet back at Brooklyn reads, Iron didn’t sharpen shit. Your brothers are on steroids, and you probably are too.

  “Holy shit, Arlo.” I start hunting for my phone to text him.

  “Oh, you leave him alone. Someone had to do it.”

  “What’s the steroid comment about?”

  “Jesus, Eden, you really should know more about the Shaws. You’re a pro, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Jiu-Jitsu is not my world, so shoot me. Just tell me.”

  “Her brother Leandro is one of those repeat steroid scandal guys. He won a world title, but they took it away when he tested hot for like the fifth time. It ruined his career.”

  “God, that’s not fair game, come on.”

  “But what she said is?”

  “No, it’s not. None of this is. Why does competition have to be so nasty? Can’t we just find out who’s the best because we want to know?”

  “Oh my God, how are you so pure?” Laila laughs.

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m serious. It’s a miracle. You make me want to be a better person and shit.”

  “Whatever, you’re a good person. You just like to sound tough.”

  “Phf, I am tough,” she says with a smile.

  “All right, killer, you’re tough. I need to get to bed. Please be good. And lock up the front on your way out, yeah?”