“That’s very polite of him,” Sam the Driver says, matter-of-factly.
“I was wondering if you would be interested in our martial arts program or massage. One of our other instructors is thinking of starting a class on photography and art direction—”
“No thank you, sir.”
“If it’s money—”
“It’s not money. Do not take offense, Mr. Ridley, but I do not wish to disclose my reasons. Your brother is teaching me just fine and I enjoy class with him. I thank you for the offer but I must decline.”
“Well,” I say, taken aback. “Fair enough.” I hold my hand out and he gives it a firm shake. While I stare into his eyes, shaking his hand with my own tight grip, I ask, “It is Sam, right?”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes, sir. And I do not wish to be late. Have a good day, Mr. Ridley.”
I let him pass. David’s inside the classroom but approaching the door, holding it open for Sam the Driver to enter. He shoots me a dirty look but I don’t notice.
My mind’s a mile off.
Sam isn’t his real name, of that I was certain.
For tax purposes, everyone has to provide a social security number when they enroll in any of our school programs; it’s also my backup in case I ever need to research a student, which I hadn’t needed to do until now.
With Sam the Driver, I knew there was more.
His identity was well-organized and it took my specialist a lot of back-tracking to find that he was actually Ryan D’Andrea – part of a generations-old crime family and nephew to a notorious, recently imprisoned Chicago criminal.
FAT BOTTOMED GIRLS
One night a week, we have an evening martial arts class with just David, Chris, Sadie, and myself. We don’t let others join because the class is more laid back, often vulgar, and we tend to break a lot of rules that would elicit a severe reprimand to any of my normal students.
I even keep the blinds closed.
Tonight’s class should break more rules than usual, and I sigh before saying…
“Alright, Chris. Have uh… have at it, I guess.”
I join David and Sadie on the floor. (Lizzy is at a friend’s house.) We sit cross-legged in comfortable clothing, one of the rules we break. Chris stands and begins pacing, hands behind his back. He’s in the same sleeveless karate gi as the Cobra Kai Sensei from the movie The Karate Kid – I don’t know where he got it (probably online) but he actually looks pretty good in the black with yellow lining; it makes him appear muscular and rough, his hair pulled back in a blonde tuft. He’s got a fake serious look on his clean-shaven face – I know it’s fake because he doesn’t have a genuinely serious facial expression; I also know that he is taking it seriously since he shaved, something I’ve only seen him do once or twice.
“We gather here today,” Chris begins with a deep, serious voice, acting as if he were a Roman general about to lead his troops into battle. He stops, brings his fist and the nail of his thumb to his lip, as if pondering deeply, then continues. “We gather here today for a war—what war? The war of the self. Sadie,” he addresses her and looks down, “I can clearly see your boobs.”
He’s right – Sadie has especially large, natural breasts and an especially tight, white sports bra, her dark red nipples clearly visible and incredibly inappropriate. She doesn’t much care as she’s usually naked when she’s home anyway; I see her naked most days (even saw her naked the first day I met her at Chris’ old studio apartment) so the sports bra is actually a step-up. She’s explained numerous times that this is how she feels most comfortable. To be honest, I don’t see many breasts so any breasts are a welcome visual – as long as the students don’t see.
“They are…spectacular,” Chris adds, with an extra moment to stare at her breasts before continuing. “But you’ve seen my meat carriage as well, and we all know what’s goin’ on down there. So…back to my original point,” returns to pacing, hands behind his back, “this is about war—what war? The…” he motions for us to join him and gets aggravated until we do as he wants.
“The war of the self,” we all say, lackluster.
“That’s right. Fuckers. Stand up and prepare to fight, Sadie.”
Sadie jumps to a standing position, pulling her dark, red-hued hair out of its long ponytail to redo it tighter and smaller. Her body is meaty enough to have mass without being chubby, 5’7 with firm arms and legs, and her fair skin always accentuates darkness; it’s not that she’s a dark person, more that her pale skin reflects the darkest of colors vibrantly. Her hair is practically black with just a glint of red, and her dark lashes reach out as if they were hands turned palm up and begging. The pallor of her white skin and the white see-through sports bra further emphasizes the darkest of her natural colors.
Chris plugs in a small stereo at the back of the dojo and hits a few buttons.
“I have some appropriate ambiance,” he informs us, returning.
Chris and Sadie bow to us, each other, and then assume fighter’s stances.
The stereo comes to life with Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”.
Sadie is testing for her brown belt.
Chris is safely a black belt, one belt higher than she will be, if she succeeds.
During the intro, there’s an exchange:
Sadie moves her neck in stretch and it cracks loudly. (Once I found that cracking joints didn’t actually cause cartilage damage or arthritis, I taught Sadie a rule I didn’t teach many – the loud snap of a cracking knuckle is awfully intimidating, so do it at the start of a fight, as loud as possible, and without hands.)
Then Sadie gives the most evil grin I’ve ever seen on the face of a female.
Chris gives a head tilt similar to the one Sam (Ryan) the Driver did when I asked for him to remove his glasses – except Chris’ expression is less curiosity and more worry. On the slightest scale – one only his close friends would recognize – Chris’ face shrinks into its center. His mouth purses as if to the taste of sour. His eyebrows lower as if to the threat of danger. And his head tilts as if an animal caught unaware.
What follows is best described as an “interesting beating”:
Interesting, as their movements are unequivocally fluid. They are symbiotic in their combat. They’ve destroyed their house (not just a room, or a floor—the house they share) having violent sex; I’ve heard it through my walls enough times to sound-proof. As often as I hear them say they’re not a couple, and as often as I see them leave the bar with strangers, watching them fight is inspiring. They have a back-and-forth, a knee for a fist for a back-step for a forward for a low block/jab for a low block/inner-thigh kick distraction/back-hop for an elbow advance/elbow advance/elbow advance for a block/dodge/block.
And beating, as they…are…brutal – in class, I would never let two students give and take the beating Chris and Sadie give one another. Beating, as it…is…vicious. Chris’ nose is bloody and flowing directly into his mouth not even halfway into the battle. Sadie’s left eye will swell and turn black, probably her right as well. There’s a foot-lock Sadie does that was demonstrated to show accurately a move I consider to be improper and a plain ole’ dirty-ass move. Chris screams and twists his way out of it.
David has popcorn and he stuffs a handful into his mouth – we’re both as far from the battle as possible, leaning against the far-wall mirror. He hands me the unbuttered, Healthy Pop popcorn (the only kind I carry in the dojo) and I shove a mouthful into my mouth.
I let it get brutal to equally judge their performances.
Real fighting is brutal – it’s ugly and nasty and unfair. To train someone honestly, without the threat of pain and danger, would be to train a soldier without the sound of gunfire and chaos all around them. The purpose is to defend, to know what you are doing when it needs to be done. And there’s an honest quality that shows when people have no rules. When David was testing for his black belt the second time, I broke his left tibia. The third time we fought, he broke
my left wrist and I was out of commission as a music instructor for two months – but David got his black belt. Chris broke his arm in two places testing for his black belt, and he still finished the fight one-handed – the fact that he lost didn’t matter, the fear of pain had passed, and neither is the point.
Just persistence.
Just a disregard for everything except survival – that was the point.
Well, that and to see a fight through to the end…
Even if it was a losing battle.
THE HOLE IN THE SHIP
“Sorry, sweetie,” I tell her. “It’s my fault, I should’ve planned better. But look at it this way – you get a later bed time.”
“Is Sadie gonna be there?” Lizzy asks, perking up for the moment.
Shit.
“Um, no. Sadie probably won’t be there. She got…” bruised so bad that her face was going to be swollen into a ball by morning. (She won her belt.) Chris accepted the challenge of teaching the final two (state-mandated) hours of her massage class with a broken nose. David was still expected to be the musical guest of the evening at Pairadice, as we couldn’t find anyone else on such short notice (and the bastard actually brought in a crowd). All of this left me the job of filling in as bartender for Chris since the only other bartender was out of town.
“…She got what?” Lizzy asked, worried because I didn’t finish my sentence; I was stuck on the wording.
“Oh, nothing bad. Just injured. A little, she’s fine. But uh, we’ll get you some chicken fingers and a Shirley Temple, and you can do your homework and watch your dad until he’s done. Sound cool?”
“Did’ya just say ‘cool’?” she smiles, looking up at me.
“What’s wrong with that? I’m hip—”
“You’re more like, uh…like, replaced hip.”
She laughs, and she laughs hard. Her sense of humor is identical to David’s, which in turn is similar to Chris’. God—she’s solid, a sturdy growing female. She’s only ten years old and I respect her more than most; the world is for her.
“Far-far-far,” I mock laugh, “you’re so funny. Get your stuff.”
Lizzy is slender, skinny for her height. If she had been David’s biological child, it wouldn’t have been a problem considering David and I were always within 5 lb. of the weight/height ratio of being exactly average – always, even currently. We were exactly average for men age 30.39/5’11 (me; sadly, I was born on Groundhog’s Day) and age 27.4/5’9 (him; his birthday is in December). I asked David about her heritage which, in this case, was only her mother’s side. He didn’t know anything about her real father; that asshole had been out of the picture since the beginning. Sarah (Lizzy’s mother) had always been vague about Lizzy’s father, David told me. She only ever said two things about him: he was successful yet still a loser; and, he liked to use the word “pernicious” often and incorrectly. David never thought farther than that he was Lizzy’s father; if he had, it could have become the hole that sank the ship.
That’s a term I’ve come to use a lot lately:
The hole that sinks the ship.
Meaning, the detail that ruins everything.
It’s a feeling deep down, one that occasionally whispers, This will all end One Day, ole’ buddy ole’ pal…One Day, this will end. Luckily, it stays distant – a buoy to signify underwater hazards, one lazily bobbing up and down, just barely visible on the horizon. It’s a feeling I’m aware of, a warning of the One Day when this—this life, this peace that has far exceeded my expectations, when it all ends; there’s got to be a One Day – a One Day when the plans come crashing, when a hole sinks the ship.
But, for the moment, the feeling was in the distance.
And – at least until the occurrence of a hole, until that One Day – this will be my period of happiness, one that will be unsurpassable…even if it ultimately amounts to nothing more than a mutter through gray bars when another inmate asks why I’m smiling.
COCONUT SKINS
I park the car in a vacant parking lot. David’s car is in the same spot as earlier, in front of his classroom on the opposite end of the lot; Sadie’s car and her students’ cars are also there. Lizzy jokes about the emptiness of the parking lot as we walk into the bar, which is also vacant, empty, desolate – and not in a slow-night, figurative kind of way.
Devoid of people entirely.
We enter the empty bar. There’s a stretch of bar tables to the right, their chairs disorderly strewn. I ask that they’re always tucked under their respective table, in their respective spots, as the chairs are exact to the amount of empty spaces. The bar itself, to the left, is minus a tender or customers. Lining the outer area are three high top tables and, just past, the empty dance floor and stage.
I pause, cautious, on high alert. My first thought is always the worst – someone’s here to kill me, a fear that hasn’t scared me in a long time. Only thing that scares me is family – specifically Lizzy in this case – getting hurt. My body grows tense and ready. I tuck her behind me, keeping her close as I slowly move forward along the bar toward the stage area.
Silence.
Nothing.
No one inside, no one outside.
There’s a shuffling in the small room behind the stage.
I pat Lizzy and signal for her to stop as I advance in a crouch. There’s movement and something falls (sounds like a mess when it hits the ground), two pairs of footsteps fumbling, moving.
Fuck! swims forefront my mind as I realize what it is.
I turn to Lizzy, realizing it’s too late.
David stumbles backwards out of the room and onto the stage, his face attached to Kate, the British pop-star he’s been seeing. They’re making out while he’s trying to leave the backroom and she’s doing her best to prevent him. He gets his lips away from hers, takes a step back, then she smiles and giggles and walks a step and extends her neck and kisses him more.
They both appear disheveled.
“Ah, shit,” David guiltily whispers, stopping their fun game. David looks down before he turns to face the inevitable. Kate lets out a tiny, startled yelp when she realizes there are people in the bar.
“Lizzy,” he says, looking at her, “this is Kate.”
Kate’s mouth and eyes widen.
“Kate,” he turns to her, “this is my daughter, Lizzy.”
“Hey, Kate,” Lizzy says, smiling. She waves from halfway across the room.
“Hello, dear,” Kate calls from the stage.
“I thought we were being robbed,” I tell David in an almost scolding manner.
“No, there’s a promotion and open bar in town. Big event.”
David looks around.
We all stand there for a moment.
“Stop makin’is awkward. Dolt,” Kate elbows David in the ribs as she makes her way off the stage towards Lizzy. “’ello dear—” she says to me, nodding in passing without much acknowledgement. We’ve met before and I’m pretty sure she’s made it clear she is neither intimidated nor impressed with me; it’s why I like her, but I don’t know much about her besides that I don’t impress her and the results of an internet search to check her fame: aside from several paparazzi up-skirt pictures, there’s several studio albums with singles that reached high on the U.K. charts, each with moderately good reviews – the most noticeable of which was an album that received four out of five stars in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Kate reaches Lizzy.
“Hello, sweetie. Yer dattie’s told me so much abou’ ya.” They touch hands and Lizzy lifts her head to stare the foot difference between their eye level. Kate’s a bit short, maybe 5’4, and Lizzy’s average at 4’3.
“My ‘dattie’ hasn’t told me about you at all,” Lizzy answers in a fake British accent, still smiling.
They both shoot David an accusatory glance.
He’s frozen on the stage.
“Huh ahh-ummm,” he makes several noises without forming a single word.
I’m already behind the ba
r opening a 24 ounce bottle of Kitsamura; if I was going to drink, it would be a good beer.
And it was obviously going to be a slow, interesting night.
My brother seems to grow into his looks as he grows older, I note, watching him finally just apologize as he crosses the room to join Lizzy and Kate. David turns 28 in December and his features are still youthful; it’s the reason he maintains a cropped, short beard and hair always parted to the right. Professional but not young – he hates being called young even though he’s the youngest of all of us. He has two pairs of glasses that he switches between – thick-rimmed “nerdy-writer glasses” and thin, sexy/smart glasses (his descriptions of them, not mine) – and they do change his appearance in a significant way: the nerd glasses give him a shy impression, like he’s intelligent but probably awkward; the second pair he wears when trying to attract women, something he doesn’t ever really do. We know when he’s searching for companionship because he changes his glasses but 95% of the time he’s content single. And it’s by choice – when David plays the stage, he can pick up almost any female in a block radius. Lately, though, it’s appeared that he was doing it more out of respect for Lizzy than for his own happiness. Enter Kate – and a one night stand with a British pop-star had extended three and a half weeks.
I overhear one bit of conversation before patrons walk in and sit at an end of the bar cattycorner to the table where Lizzy, David, and Kate sit:
“Kate has to go back home,” he says.
“Whatcha guys want?” I ask the two young, college-aged gentlemen at the end of the bar, flashing the rectangular thumb/index symbol for identification. They prove they’re old enough to drink and order two draft beers. I hand over their drinks, accept their money, return the change, then wipe down the bar in the general direction of the original conversation.
We all knew Kate was supposed to return home but she was supposed to return home a week previous. She was staying in the area and we (including David) didn’t know if it was for him or something else, something we didn’t know about. As they had seen each other most nights, we now just assume it’s for David.
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