by Rob Hart
Seemed like a win-win.
“You know the rule,” Ethan said. “We punch Nazis. We don’t make friends with them.”
Ophelia breathed in through her mouth. Felt air expand in her chest. Breathed out slow through her nose. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m not just here to learn how to fight. I thought taking these classes might give me the confidence to become more… socially emboldened. Does that make sense?”
“I thought you were just doing it for the cardio.”
“Stop it. Every time I open Twitter and I see people linking to stories about him, I’m just like, why,” she said. “Why him? I want to look this asshole in the eye and ask him how he could hate me without even knowing me. Maybe someone needs to just get through to him. Maybe breaking bread with him…,I don’t know…”
“I will give you this,” Ethan said. “You are a kinder person than I am.”
“Well, that’s the point,” she said. “Being kind. It’s like, right now, the country feels like a pot that’s about to boil over. I don’t know that the answer is to turn up the heat.” She turned, watched cars rolling down Chambers Street. “I don’t know what the answer is. But I’m tired of sitting around and waiting for it to fall in my lap. And I don’t want to live in the world where the answer is always violence. That just begets more violence. Doesn’t that mean we’re no better than them?”
Ethan zipped his jacket to his throat. “It’s too cold for a debate and I expect I’m not going to win anyway. Please be careful. And call me? I live nearby. My husband and I can be there in a few minutes.”
“If anything bad happens, I’ll call,” she said. “We’re meeting in a restaurant. In New York City. In public. It’s sweet of you to worry but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
THE RESTAURANT WAS on an empty block in a pool of shadow, the blinds on the windows down so she couldn’t see inside. She thought it might actually be closed, until she caught yellow light peeking through the cracks.
She’d checked out the menu online. At least the food looked good. They had a cod dish that would be high in protein and low in carbs and fat, the perfect post-workout meal, and if things really went bad, she’d get it to go.
As soon as she entered the restaurant and the warm air enveloped her, she got a feeling in her stomach like she’d eaten something too heavy for her digestive system to handle. Like a brick pressing down on her insides.
The place was bigger than she would have guessed from the street. Narrow but deep. A thin wooden bar along one side, a rainbow of liquor bottles glittering behind it. The space gridded by small wood tables—the kind where it’s a struggle to fit all the plates that come with dinner.
Candles on the tables. Exposed brick walls. Edison bulbs. It was a handsome space.
There was a bartender and a few other diners and Spector, seated in the corner, smiling and waving, like he’d been watching the door, waiting for her to arrive. She was three minutes early.
Socially-emboldened, she reminded herself as her stomach flopped.
Ophelia strode across the restaurant and removed her coat, dropping it, along with her gym bag, onto an empty chair at an unoccupied table next to them.
Spector stood as she approached, bowing a little at the waist, not taking his eyes off her.
“Ophelia,” he said. “I’m glad you made it.”
It was hard to square what she’d seen in the media with the man standing in front of her. He was dressed well, as was his trademark: slacks, white dress shirt, argyle sweater over it, bow tie, hair perfectly in place.
His voice was soft. His eyes, too. They weren’t doing that hundred-yard-stare thing he did in all those magazine profile photos. More than that, his smile wasn’t the smile of a monster. There was no smoke, no brimstone. Just a smile. The kind of smile that makes you want to smile back.
And yet, it made her think of a bad patch job on a blank wall.
He stuck out his hand. “I’m Roger.”
She reached forward and took it. She hadn’t meant to take it, but it was a reflex. Someone offers you a hand and the polite thing to do is shake it. She cursed inwardly, then reminded herself this was the start. Treat him with dignity. Show him the meaning of the word.
He gripped her hand tight, maybe almost too tight, or it could just have been his handshake was firm. His palm was a little sweaty, like he’d been holding it over the candle.
They sat, the air heavy between them. She placed her phone on the table, face up. Normally, she’d put it facedown—she thought it was rude when the screen lit up with a text or an e-mail notification, because it invariably drew her attention away—but she had Ethan’s number queued up.
Just in case.
Spector looked around the restaurant, then patted his knee and laughed. “I imagine this must be surprising.”
“A little. I mean, you are a celebrity, after all.” She put a little mark of disdain on the word celebrity. It had the intended effect, and his smile flickered.
He nodded. “I know what people think of me. I’m not perfect.” He shrugged. “The way things are right now, people need a villain. I’ll tell you what, a lot of what people claim I’ve said has been taken out of context. Too many journalists these days are just aspiring fiction writers who thought j-school was a way to earn a paycheck.”
“So you’re saying people are wrong about you?”
Spector’s lip curled. “I have some strong opinions. But they aren’t as vicious as they’re made out to be.”
“They seem pretty vicious to me. You’ve said that the number of dead reported from the Holocaust is grossly exaggerated. Was that taken out of context?”
“We haven’t even ordered our drinks yet,” he said, throwing up an eyebrow. Then he shrugged. “The simple fact is, there’s no official record of the number of people who died. How many Jews died, would you say?”
“I believe the accepted number is six million.”
“Whose number is that? Who reported that?”
“I don’t…I don’t know exactly.”
He held up his hand to punctuate his point.
“See?” he asked. “Exactly what I mean.”
“Wait, no. That’s not how it works. You can’t demand sourcing on every little thing and if a person can’t give it to you, pretend like it’s not a real fact.”
“Why not?” he asked, sitting back in his chair. “People say things about me that aren’t true. Why should I believe anything that anyone says?”
“See, this is the problem,” Ophelia said. “You can’t back anything up except to play mind games with people. You win through obfuscation. Which really doesn’t count as winning.”
He took a sip of his water. Ophelia wished a waiter would show up. Some kind of distraction. She looked around, didn’t see one. She did notice each table included a basket of rolls, a mix of beige white bread and dark brown rye. She wished there was a bread basket on this table. Something to do with her hands.
Where was that damn waiter?
Roger put his glass back down on the table, brought his eyes to her without taking his hand off the glass. “I’ve seen the kinds of things you post on Twitter and Facebook. Just a little recon. Obviously, you did the same on me. You seemed pretty excited to share that video of me getting decked.”
Ophelia’s breath caught in her chest. She had forgotten about that.
It had happened at a rally, months ago. Spector was giving an interview and some person—who Ophelia referred to in her post as a “hero”—leapt out of the crowd and planted a haymaker across Spector’s jaw, knocking him to the ground.
“It was a sucker-punch,” he said, bringing his fingers up to his chin. “Pretty low, if you ask me. Hit a guy when he’s not looking.”
“The way you rile people up…”
“I don’t rile people up,” he said, his voice frosting over. “I tell the truth, and people are afraid to hear it.”
The conversation was off the rails. The two of them stared at each oth
er. Ophelia’s mouth ran dry. This was a mistake. She never should have come. She picked up her glass, took a small sip. Formulated some kind of plan for a graceful exit, then wondered why she owed him even an ounce of grace.
Spector nodded toward her bag. “Just come from the gym?”
“Krav Maga.”
“Ah.” He nodded, like he was impressed, which made Ophelia feel a touch stronger. Hell yes I train in one of the world’s deadliest martial arts. What now?
“You know the origins of Krav Maga, surely,” Spector said.
“Of course.”
“Founded by Imi Lichtenfield,” he said, as if she said she hadn’t. “As the Nazi party rose to power in Bratislava, he sought to train his fellow Jews, so that they could defend themselves. Eventually he went on to train the IDF.”
“As I said, I’m aware of the history.”
“What did you think?” he asked, leaning forward. “That you’d show up here tonight, maybe show me a little of what you’d learned?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I showed up tonight because I thought it would be possible to have a rational and human conversation with you. But I’m starting to get the sense I was wrong.”
“Very wrong,” he said. “Very, very wrong.”
His smile changed. The warmth vanished. It took on that jagged edge she recognized in all the photos, peaks and valleys like a broken beer bottle. That heavy feeling returned to Ophelia’s stomach. She realized the restaurant was too quiet. No music playing.
Still, nobody had come over to take their order.
Even to ask if they wanted drinks.
She turned to look around.
There were four men and two women.
All of them were silent, staring.
She turned back to Spector.
“What is this?” she asked.
“When you were matched with me, I wasn’t planning to respond,” he said. “I figured you chose me as a joke. Then I thought maybe you wanted to play some kind of trick. Which I can see now is true. I can play games, too. The owner of this restaurant is a good friend of mine. He’s a true believer. A patriot. And he…lent us the place for the night. And after I saw you shared that video of me…”
His hand flashed out and he slapped her across the cheek.
She saw the hand, too late to block it, but it sparked the fight-mode section of her brain. She rolled with the blow, leaned forward, and threw a jab into his mouth. She felt his teeth on her knuckles, then pushed away from the table, but he was fast. He knocked the table aside and pushed her hard into the exposed brick wall behind them.
She should have left.
Should have listened to Ethan.
Should have done a lot of things, as the other “diners” got up from their seats and advanced on her.
USE YOUR ENVIRONMENT, Jason would say. Pick something up.
As the redhead writhed on the floor in the aftermath of her elbow, Ophelia reached for a candle, whipped it into the face of the bartender. It caught him in the eye and he yelped. The second woman in the crew veered off course to check the bartender, who was on his knees, gripping his face, bawling.
The other two men pushed around them. Ophelia kicked a chair into their path. It caught one of them in the legs and he went down hard, his chin slamming into the table in front of him. It made a sharp crack. The kind of crack where you don’t need to check to know he’d just broken some teeth.
She threw a glance at Spector, who was standing off to the side, watching. Happy to let his minions do the work.
The other guy managed to make it around. He was a little taller than Ophelia. Solid. Swimmer body. Shaved head. Gleam in his eyes. Red shoelaces in black boots. He swung, arc wild. She bladed her left forearm to block the blow, and simultaneously drove her right fist into his face.
The trachea was a beer can. About as much force as it took to crush the aluminum, you could crush a windpipe. It would probably be enough to kill him. Still, she aimed high. Went for the nose. Something to make his eyes tear up. She wasn’t ready to cross that line. Not yet.
The skinhead absorbed the blow and drove himself into her, pushing her toward the wall. He was trying to grab her around the waist. She leapt forward, throwing her hips back, pressing down on his shoulders. It served the dual purpose of creating distance, preventing him from getting a good grip on her, while using his own momentum to drive him into the floor.
She landed on him hard, rolled off, then tried to stand but bumped into the underside of a table, lost her footing.
She tried to breathe. Found she couldn’t.
Too much was happening.
As she got to her feet, an arm wrapped around her neck. Rear armbar. At least that one was fresh. She scratched at the face of her attacker, felt something give under her fingertips. Eyeball? Then she gripped his arm, made her elbow a lever. Hit it once. Twice. Nothing happened. His grip was too strong. Damn it, Ethan. She balled up her fist and snapped it back into her attacker’s groin. He exhaled hard, and that gave her the window she needed. She yanked herself out of the man’s grip, threw her foot between his legs, felt his balls give under the point of her toe, then pushed him hard into the wall.
That’s when the chair hit her.
As pain screamed through her body, as she fell to the floor, she thought: didn’t search and scan.
She hit the floor hard, oxygen knocked out of her lungs, but before she could draw another breath, a boot pressed down on her back.
“Impressive,” Spector said. “Pointless in the end. But impressive. We were going to make it quick. Now…not so much.”
Ophelia froze. She was scared, yes, but worse than that, she felt like she’d let so many people down.
Jason. Ethan. Her classmates. Her friends and family.
All because she thought she could reason with a rattlesnake.
She tensed herself, preparing for a moment where she might slip away, counterattack, something, anything to take a chunk out of this asshole before he delivered a debilitating or fatal blow.
Then she heard a yell.
The pressure came off.
She was able to get to a knee.
Ethan had Spector against the wall and was wailing on him.
The restaurant flooded with more people. It took her a second to recognize them. They weren’t wearing gym gear and covered in sweat. They weren’t lit by the harsh white glare of the Tribeca training studio.
But all the same, they were her classmates.
Stick Defense Guy. Push Kick Girl.
Rounding up the others, holding them down.
Most of Spector’s crew didn’t have much fight left. The bartender was sobbing, the two women retreated behind the bar. The skinhead tried to launch an attack. But then Jason appeared. So fast she could barely make it out, he put the skinhead in an arm lock. The one he demonstrated for class once, where, if he applied just a little more pressure, he’d rip the guy’s arm out of its socket.
The skinhead screamed, then cried, twisting to find a less painful position, finding there was none.
Ophelia stood. Spector was scrambling to get to his feet. Ethan moved in again, fists balled up. Ophelia grabbed his arm, pulled back hard.
He turned, shook his head like he’d just broken out of a trance.
“Mine,” Ophelia said.
Ethan nodded. Bowed, and held out his hand, palm up, like a waiter presenting an empty table.
Spector’s eyes darted around the restaurant. Shaking. Lip quivering.
“Real tough now that you’ve got a group of people behind you, huh?” he asked.
It was enough to make Ophelia laugh. She considered giving him some kind of rebuttal. Point out the pot-kettle-blackness of his statement. But he wouldn’t get it. And he wasn’t worth it.
“Hold on,” Ethan said.
Ophelia paused. He took out his cell phone, turned it sideways, and hit the record button.
“Okay, go ahead,” he said.
Ophelia threw a jab and
a hard cross, not bothering to open her palm, which would have been safer. With her fist balled up, even if it meant damaging some of the delicate bones in her hand, it would hurt Spector more.
That was worth it.
She followed it up with a left hook and then a hard elbow. Spector’s head snapped back and hit the brick wall. His eyes went vacant and he slid down, collapsing into a heap, like a pile of dirty laundry.
Ophelia breathed in through her mouth. Felt air expand in her chest. Breathed out slow through her nose.
Ethan put his hand on her shoulder.
Asked, “Are you okay?”
She smiled. Jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, nearly pulling him to the ground.
AFTER THE COPS arrived, after arrests were made and statements were taken, Ophelia wandered to a nearby bar, most of her classmates close behind. She ended up at a small, high table with Ethan and Jason, where Ethan explained what happened: he was worried, he mentioned it to a few other students, and word got around until everyone agreed to take a walk over to make sure she was okay.
Ophelia hoisted her glass of wine toward Ethan. “That was some good timing. Gandalf at Helm’s Deep in Two Towers.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Ethan said.
“Seriously though,” Ophelia said. “If you want to say ‘I told you so…’”
Ethan shook his head. “Not the time for that.”
Jason leaned into the conversation. “Ethan told me what you said. Your instincts weren’t wrong.” He took a sip of his beer and put it down, and held his hands out. “The first rule of every martial art is: don’t fight. Krav is no different. You should do everything you can to de-escalate. But sometimes.” He shrugged. “Sometimes you can’t.”
“I just feel so…naïve,” Ophelia said. “To have thought…”
“Kindness is never a mistake,” Ethan said. “Some people, you can’t reason with.”
Ophelia put her hands on the table, around the base of her wine glass. Jason reached over, put his hand on hers. She looked up, saw he was searching for some kind of sign, for whether this kind of contact was okay. She smiled at him. He smiled back. His hand was warm, and softer than she thought it might be.