by Jeanne Winer
“Is there anything else?” she asked Carla.
“Isn’t that enough?”
Her investigator was right. Mrs. Weissmann was the kind of witness every lawyer dreams about and almost never finds.
“So, what do you think?” Carla asked excitedly. “She’s everyone’s dream grandmother. Ten minutes into the interview, I wanted her to be mine. And she’s willing to help. Can we use her? She thinks Jeremy acted under duress. Why can’t we argue that?”
“Two reasons. First, our client has never indicated that he acted under duress. And second, duress is not a defense to a charge of first-degree murder.”
“Oh.”
“But you found us a great witness, and if there’s any way to use her, we will.”
“Shit,” Carla muttered.
“Are you almost home?”
“Yeah, I’m two blocks away.”
“Go home and go to sleep. We’ll talk some more on Monday.”
“I can’t believe this. I just found the best character witness in the world and we’re not going to be able to use her.”
“We don’t know that yet, Carla. Let’s discuss it on Monday.”
“Are we screwed?”
“No, we’re just stalled. There’s a big difference.”
“If you say so.”
“Good night, Carla.”
Lee hung up the phone, turned out the light, and slipped back under her down comforter. After circling around, Charlie dropped onto the pillow beside her—Paul’s pillow, but for the past five years, Charlie’s. “Just stalled,” Lee repeated, settling into one of her two favorite sleeping positions. A few seconds later, she tried the other. Okay, so they were stalled. Which simply meant that nothing was happening at the moment. Things always changed, not necessarily for the better, but they changed; and when they did, she’d act. In the meantime, she would keep the faith, work the case, and wait.
When the alarm beeped at seven, Lee ignored it. At eight-fifteen, she scrambled out of bed, splashed some water on her face, fed Charlie, and made a fruit smoothie to go. There was no time to shower. She was supposed to meet Michael at nine.
A few minutes later, she was speeding down Broadway heading for the dojo, which had relocated a few years earlier to a building in the back of the Table Mesa shopping center. Although it wasn’t quite nine and most of the stores didn’t open until ten, Lee noticed a large number of shoppers already wandering along the Pearl Street Mall. It was the Saturday before Christmas. Five more days to go.
As she passed the shoppers, Lee thought about Mrs. Weissmann, wondering if the old woman had any other friends or relatives who would visit her during the holiday season. Lee hoped so.
The first three weeks of December could be a bit strange for a Jew. In every American city, it was hard not to feel like an alien from outer space wandering through an unfamiliar landscape where huge red and white candy canes affixed to lamp posts lined the major roadways, where thousands of box-shaped houses lit up spectacularly when the sun went down, and trees that were ordinarily leafless in winter were strung with dozens of tiny colored light bulbs. Where eight hundred variations of a song about jingle bells played continuously wherever you went. And all day long, determined-looking earthlings hurried in and out of stores searching for scarves, toys, sweaters, ties, and jigsaw puzzles to exchange for similar presents on December 25th, the day it all suddenly ended.
Once, when Lee was nine or ten, her father brought home a Christmas tree, which he set down a few feet away from the beautiful bronze menorah in their living room window. Lee’s mother was livid when she saw it.
“No,” she told him, “it’s too confusing. Our daughter needs to know who she is.”
“What’s the big deal?” her father asked. “We’re not religious.”
Her mother pointed toward the door through which she expected the tree to exit.
“The Nazis didn’t care that my Uncle Joseph and his family weren’t religious.”
Her father conceded the point and the tree was donated to a neighbor down the street. It was the Isaacs family’s one and only attempt to assimilate.
Like most of the Jews they knew, Lee and her parents spent Christmas day eating lunch at one of the many Chinese restaurants in Boston (thank God for the Chinese), and then off to a four-star movie where there were plenty of empty seats to choose from. Lee hadn’t minded any of it. She’d never wanted a tree, never cared about fitting in, which seemed boring. Aliens from outer space were different; she liked being different. Separate from the herd. Of course she was aware of the Holocaust, where the last thing you wanted was to stand out, but growing up Jewish in cosmopolitan America didn’t feel dangerous. So as far as Lee was concerned, December 25th was an odd pleasant day when the earthlings did one thing and she did another.
Lately, though, after having weathered fifty-nine holiday seasons, Lee felt more like a tourist than an alien—the way Mark and Bobby felt standing off to the side in Allahabad, India, during a religious festival when millions of Hindu devotees plunged into the Ganges River to wash away their sins and break the endless chain of reincarnation. They’d planned to take pictures, but hadn’t. “It would have been intrusive,” Bobby explained.
Lee felt equally respectful, but still for the month of December, a tourist.
Mrs. Weissmann, on the other hand, was a true alien as well as a Jew. Did she ever feel at home? Hard to imagine, but at least the skinheads on her street were gone. That must have helped, although her faithful young friend had been swept away with them.
Lee finished the last of her smoothie as she pulled into a parking space in front of the dojo. She was ten minutes late. After grabbing her workout bag, she hurried to a side door she knew would be open. Michael had brought a friend’s son to work out with them. The son, who’d studied Muay Thai since high school, was in the military now, had done two tours in Iraq, and was due to leave for Afghanistan on Tuesday. He’d wanted to spar with a couple of black belts before returning to his usual job teaching basic kickboxing to new recruits.
“Hey, Lee,” Michael called as she entered the dojo.
“Hi, Michael. Sorry I’m late.”
A young man in his twenties was stretching on the floor beside Michael. The man, who was obviously strong and fit, wore a black muscle T-shirt and gray sweatpants. His hair was very short. Michael nodded at him.
“Lee, this is Cary.”
“Hi, Cary,” Lee said. “Welcome to the dojo.”
“Thanks,” Cary grunted as he widened his legs to more than a hundred and twenty degree angle and then slowly bent forward until his chest was touching the floor.
“Christ, were we ever able to do that?” Michael asked.
“Sure,” Lee said. “About a hundred years ago.”
Cary straightened up and smiled.
“It’s been a while since I worked out with civilians. This is nice.”
“He says he’s going to go easy on us,” Michael assured her.
“I certainly hope so,” Lee said. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve changed.”
When she returned, Michael and Cary were doing Japanese pushups, a variation of a regular pushup but much more strenuous. Cary was faster than Michael, but each of them moved smoothly and effortlessly.
“Come on, Lee,” Cary said, “it’ll warm you right up.”
“I’ll say,” Lee muttered, but she dropped to the floor and kept up with them. Finally, after about forty of them, Cary ground to a halt. Lee and Michael gratefully stopped when he did, and when he wasn’t looking, exchanged mock looks of horror.
“Youth,” Michael mouthed.
“We’re in the army now,” Lee mouthed back.
A few minutes later, Cary started doing jumping jacks.
“Come on, guys. We do five hundred of these every morning.”
“Do we have to?” Michael asked.
Cary laughed but didn’t stop.
“I leave for Kabul on Tuesday. I’ve got to be in tiptop shape. Ke
ep me company.”
“Let’s go, soldier,” Lee said to Michael. They both started jumping. After five straight minutes, Lee and Michael stopped and began to stretch. Eventually, Cary joined them.
They were quiet until Cary asked, “So, when do we get to spar?”
“Let’s throw a few kicks first,” Michael suggested. “I need to warm up my hamstrings. We usually fight at the end.”
Lee walked over to a cardboard box in the corner of the room and pulled out a kicking shield, a large pad made of thick foam with handles on the sides and back.
“Let’s use this. I’d like to work on my turning kicks. My timing’s been off for weeks.”
For the next twenty minutes, they each took turns holding the pad while the other two practiced their kicks. When Lee held the pad, she took as strong a stance as possible, but was still shoved backward, especially by Michael’s jump-turning back kicks. Cary was fast and powerful, but his kicks weren’t nearly as polished as Lee’s and Michael’s. Occasionally, he missed the pad or lost his balance. Which meant he didn’t have as much control as they did. Lee would have to be vigilant when she fought him. She knew Michael was thinking the same thing. The most dangerous people to spar with were always strong, fast, limber, and sloppy.
Although she could have made numerous suggestions that would have improved Cary’s kicks, Lee decided to remain silent. Some guys reacted badly to feedback, especially from a woman. They’d bide their time and then take it out on her later. She didn’t know Cary. Better to be safe than in an ambulance heading for the hospital.
Finally, at Cary’s urging, they stopped and got ready to spar. Lee searched through the box until she found extra hand, feet, and shin protection for the young man. Everything she touched smelled slightly rancid—an old familiar scent of blood, sweat, and tears. The whole place reeked of it, but no one seemed to mind. It smelled like effort, triumph, courage, and defeat: the universal dojo smell.
Michael volunteered to fight Cary first. They decided on three 15-minute rounds, which seem short if you’re watching and long if you’re fighting. Lee stood to the side, acting as the referee/time keeper. When they were ready, she had them bow to each other. Then she checked the clock and said, “Go.”
Michael fought Cary the way Lee planned to: thoughtfully and conservatively, dancing just slightly out of the younger man’s range, and moving in with a flurry of well-placed kicks and punches. Toward the end of the fight, Cary got lucky with a knee to Michael’s stomach and an ax kick to his shoulder, but mostly Michael eluded him. When Lee called time, she could see that Cary was winded and frustrated. He needed a break.
“I want to fight Michael while he’s tired,” Lee told them. “Then it’ll be Cary and me.” She turned to the younger man. “You don’t mind, do you?”
After the briefest hesitation, Cary said, “Of course not. I can use the rest.” He took a couple of steps back, perfectly polite.
Michael might have been more tired than Lee, but he was looser and, after a few minutes, their fighting settled into a fast and elegant duet, each of them throwing full power kicks and punches, sidestepping when they could, blocking and counterpunching if they couldn’t. It was one of their magical days when everything worked and they flowed around each other like water. When the round was up, they were grinning. At least something in her life wasn’t stalled, Lee thought.
“That was beautiful,” Cary said. “It looked almost as if it had been choreographed.”
“Well,” Michael replied, “we’ve been sparring together for ages. I guess we sort of know what to expect from each other.”
“Not always,” Lee said. “You surprised me with that side kick to my face. I thought you were done after you faked high and stepped up with a kick to my solar plexus. Then, suddenly, there was this heel heading straight for the bridge of my nose.”
“Yeah,” Michael laughed. “That kind of surprised me too. And your crescent kick came out of nowhere. You almost never throw them. I was completely caught off guard.”
“See,” Lee said, “we don’t always know what to expect.”
Cary nodded but was obviously impatient to fight.
“Do you need a few minutes to rest?” he asked Lee.
“Nope,” she said, slipping her mouth guard back in. “I feel great. Let’s go.”
Cary walked up until he was about two and a half feet away from her.
“Bow to each other,” Michael said.
As they bowed, Cary murmured, “I don’t think I’ve ever fought a woman as good as you. This should be fun.”
Lee said nothing. She bowed deeply, keeping her eyes on the younger man. A split second later, she leapt backward so that his very first kick, a come-around spin, missed her by a foot.
“You’re very fast,” Cary said.
“When I have to be.”
Eventually they settled into it, Lee playing it safe the way Michael had. She bobbed and weaved, staying just out of range, skipping in occasionally to tag him. Nothing too hard because she had no desire to antagonize him. Halfway through the fight, Cary threw a powerful spin kick to her front leg, catching her right below the knee. She froze for a moment, wondering if her knee was injured. Cary immediately stepped up and hit her in the side with an uppercut.
“Break!” Michael shouted.
Cary looked surprised and upset.
“Why?”
Lee put up a hand to keep Michael from talking.
“That was a little too close to my knee.”
“But very effective,” Cary argued. “In fact, it’s the first technique that worked on you.”
“You’re right. It’s an excellent street technique, but it’s too dangerous. We don’t kick to the knee in our dojo. If we did, we’d all end up crippled.” She bent down and palpated her knee. The joint felt slightly tweaked but okay. Later, she’d take a few Advil as a precaution. Finally, she straightened up.
“How is it?” Michael asked.
“I think it’s all right,” she said, nodding.
“Great,” Cary said, smacking his fists together.
Michael shook his head and frowned.
“You were lucky. Should we call it?”
“Are you kidding?” Cary asked. “Come on, man. She’s fine. There’s more than seven minutes left.”
There was a part of Lee that knew she ought to stop, that it was the prudent thing to do. If Cary had something to prove, let him take it to Afghanistan and prove it on the enemy. Calling it now would be wise; it would be mature; it would be boring. Lee was tired of waiting, tired of playing it smart. It’s what she did all day long as a lawyer. Gravity be gone. Today she wanted to fly.
“I’m happy to finish the fight,” she told them.
“It isn’t worth it,” Michael said.
“Probably not, but what the hell.”
“As you wish. Bow to me. Bow to each other.”
“Wait a minute,” Lee told Cary. “Neither of us can afford to get hurt. You’re heading off to Afghanistan, and I want to last forever. Let’s just take it easy and have fun.”
“Sounds good to me,” Cary replied.
“Just stay away from my knees, okay?”
“Or what?” Cary asked.
“Don’t be an ass,” Michael said.
“I was just kidding, man. I’m not going to hurt her.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about.”
“What? You’re worried about me?” The young man looked incredulous.
“Let it go, Michael,” Lee said. “We’ll be fine.”
After bowing in again, Cary smiled at her. A big open smile that was meant to disarm her. Lee smiled back, wondering if she’d made a mistake. Maybe yes, maybe no. They started slow but things picked up quickly. Cary was mixing it up, using his elbows and knees as often as possible. Lee had to block and kick almost continuously just to keep him away. About five minutes into it, they were both sweating profusely. Lee was beginning to relax. Finally, she saw an opening and threw a pe
rfect turning heel kick that she pulled at the very last moment. If she hadn’t, she’d have broken his nose.
“Nice control,” Michael called.
“How many more minutes?” Cary asked, sounding tired and frustrated.
“Two,” Michael answered. “Might as well take it easy now. Cool down a little.”
“You’re right,” Cary said, but Lee had been a lawyer too long. She looked in her opponent’s eyes, at the wild blue yonder behind them, and saw the words “fuck it.” He’d been good for as long as he could. A lot of her clients were like that; they just couldn’t help themselves. It almost wasn’t their fault. Although she was ready, he skipped in so fast she could barely react. When his foot was an inch from her knee, she raised her leg high and side kicked him hard in the stomach. She pulled it, but not as much as she could have.
The kick shoved Cary backward until he lost his balance and fell down. He immediately rolled to his feet, his hands clutching his solar plexus.
“What the fuck?” He was panting a little in order to control the pain.
Michael looked at him and shrugged.
“Hey, she warned you.”
Cary’s face contorted with rage.
“She’s just a girl,” he cried, lunging toward her.
Ah, the real Cary—Lee wished she felt more surprised. Good thing she’d practiced her timing. Instead of turning too quickly, she waited until he was close enough to punch her, and then in one smooth motion executed a turning high knee side kick that caught him squarely in the chest. She didn’t pull it this time. Fuck it.
Cary flew back about twelve feet into a wall and then slid to the floor. At first, he made no sound, which was worrisome, but finally he began to groan. Lee and Michael walked over to him.
Michael spoke first and said, “You’re an idiot, Cary.”
“She broke my rib, man.” His voice was hoarse, his breathing shallow.