by B K Stevens
“And Ted Ramsey,” Graciana said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Good idea. I’ll call her and ask if we can come over tomorrow. I’ll call Berk and Joseph, too, and bring them up to date.”
I headed out with the posters. At every store, every restaurant, people agreed to put up posters, said it was a shame about Coach Colson, and promised to come to the bake sale. We’re going to raise a lot of money, I thought.
When I got down to the last poster, I realized I wasn’t far from Wendy’s World. At dinner, Mom hadn’t said much about the fire, only that cleanup was coming along smoothly. The store stays open until eight—I could make it there in time to see the damage for myself and put up my last poster.
But Wendy’s World was closed, with a big red-and-white sign out front saying, “Freshening up! Open again soon!” Mom hadn’t told us the damage was so bad the store couldn’t stay open—but then, when do Mom and Dad ever tell us anything? From the front, the store looked almost okay, except the windows had been covered with brown paper—Mom’s boss must not want people looking inside. When I drove around back, I got a jolt. Blackened brick, boarded-up windows, three dumpsters brimming with charred shelving and bags of trash. How much merchandise had they been forced to throw away? How long would it be until the store could be “open again soon”? Would Mom get paid in the meantime? And her boss might’ve lost so much money she couldn’t afford to keep all her employees. If neither Mom nor Dad had regular paychecks coming in, how would we manage?
I sat in the car, brooding, staring at the singed walls of the once-cheerful store. Was this my fault? I’d done what I’d thought was right, and I’d tried to be careful, never imagining anyone in my family could be hurt by anything I did. Now this had happened, and who knew what might happen next? Everything felt beyond my control.
A slow drizzle started, and I thought back to last night, to facing Bobby Davis in the pounding rain. That had been beyond my control, too. When the guy at the fight club tried to punch me, I’d remembered the right technique and used it with no problem. But when Ted Ramsey swung at me, I’d frozen, and when Davis attacked me, I’d fought back for maybe ten seconds before he flattened me. Even when it came to defending myself, the outcome seemed to be up to chance.
Maybe I could at least do something about that. I looked at the last poster, propped up in the passenger seat. Eye of the Tiger Martial Arts was only a few minutes from here. Aaron would let me put up the poster. Maybe he’d give me a few minutes, too, and give me some advice.
When I got there, he was leading some middle-schoolers in a side-kick drill. He spotted me, put Linda in charge, and walked over to the exercise area.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah, something happened. I’d like to talk. Can I come back when class ends?”
“Linda can handle class. Tell me what happened. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Me, too,” I said, and told him about our run-in with Bobby Davis. “It’s frustrating, Aaron. This time, I remembered the technique. He was on his knees, out of breath. It stopped him for thirty seconds, tops. You said to avoid dangerous situations, and I’m trying, but we were just driving home. What if he comes after me again?”
He took a moment, biting his lower lip. “Look, what if I went to Lieutenant Hill with you, and you told him about last night? Davis is definitely guilty of assault, and he may be guilty of arson. If we can get him arrested and jailed, you’ll be safe.”
“For a little while, maybe. But I don’t think Hill would listen to me. It’d take too long to tell you about all the other lousy stuff that happened yesterday, but I’m not going to him. Maybe I should, but I won’t. Can you show me some really good technique I can use to defend myself?”
“It’s not primarily technique. It’s attitude.” He paused, then shrugged. “Okay. I’ll show you something. I still think you should tell the police, but if you won’t, you won’t.” He went into the office and came back with what looked like half a broomstick. “You said he had a tire iron. This’ll do. It’s an escrima stick—we use these in weapons classes. People usually use two, one in each hand, but one’s all we need. Careful—a full-force strike could do serious damage.” He raised the stick in the air. “So I’m Bobby Davis, this is a tire iron, and it’s a dark and stormy night. Defend yourself.”
I took a fighting stance, and he ran forward. I brought my left hand up in a rising block to deflect the stick, fake-punched him in the stomach, and stepped back into my stance.
He charged again, grazing my knees with the stick, then swinging it and tapping it against the side of my neck, so fast and intense I felt confused, unsure of what had happened. Even though he’d barely touched me, I felt literally weak in the knees. I couldn’t even try to fight back.
“You’re in trouble,” he said. “It was a good block, and a full-force punch to the stomach would’ve winded me. If I’m as tough as Davis, though, I wouldn’t stay winded long. So I attacked again. Maybe I broke your kneecap, or maybe your neck hurts so much you’re stunned and can’t respond. If I want to finish you off, I can. What did you do wrong?”
“I didn’t know a technique to counter the strike to the knees, and I didn’t know—”
“No. You made your mistake before then.” He tossed me the escrima stick. “Now you’re Davis. Attack.”
I raised the stick. Before I could do anything, Aaron shouted “kadima!” and rushed me, holding both arms forward in a wedge. He pushed his arms between my shoulder and the stick, trapping my right hand in his armpit. Still shouting, he wrapped his right arm around d my neck to control me, fake-kneeing me in the stomach and groin many times, pushing me back. Then he reached underneath my arm to grab the stick, using it to tap my knees and the back of my head, again and again, low and then high, rapid blows, until I fell to the floor.
The middle-schoolers stopped practicing and stood in a cluster, watching. Aaron tossed the escrima stick in the air and caught it.
“So much for Bobby Davis,” he said. “If those had been full-force blows, you’d be unconscious, with broken bones. And I didn’t use any techniques you don’t already know.”
I struggled for air, for clarity. “How did you do that?”
“Attitude.” He turned to the middle-schoolers. “Did anyone tell you to stop practicing? I didn’t think so. Back to work.” He helped me up. “The first night you came here, Joseph asked what kadima means. Do you remember?”
I thought back. “Forward.”
“Right. In some ways, krav maga isn’t actually a martial art. It’s a survival system. We emphasize deflecting and disarming, not attacking. You get the bad guy’s weapon and make him lie on the ground until help arrives. You escape from the hostage-taker, step back, and let the police take over. In most situations, that works. In some situations, it doesn’t. Do you know now what you did wrong when I attacked you?”
I nodded. “I blocked your strike and punched you once. Then I went back into my stance and stood there like an idiot, waiting for you to attack again.”
“Don’t be too rough on yourself. You’re a nice guy—you don’t want to hurt anyone. Last night, all you could think about was helping Berk. But when you’re up against someone like Davis, with no help in sight, you need a different approach. That’s where kadima comes in. You don’t wait to be attacked. You attack, and you keep pushing forward until he can’t fight back.”
“So I should’ve kicked Davis while he was down?”
“Absolutely. He’s a killer. You’ve seen him kill, and you’ve got every reason to believe he’d kill you. I’m not saying you should kill him. But hurt him so much he can’t get up until you’ve had time to get away.”
“You really think I could?”
“I think you’d have a decent chance. You’re not good enough yet to kill with one kick, the way he can, but you don’t need to be that good. Among ot
her things, as far as he’s concerned, you’re a kid, you’re a green belt, you’re a strictly defensive fighter who backs off too soon. If you press forward, you’ll take him by surprise.”
“And I should shout ‘kadima’ while I’m doing it?”
“Why not?” Aaron grinned. “I bet he doesn’t know what it means. Confuse the hell out of him.” He lifted the escrima stick. “Want to try again?”
He didn’t make it easy. He countered every move I made, he kept moving forward too, and he shouted as loudly as I did. But it felt different now. This is it, I kept telling myself. Forward. No matter what Aaron did, I didn’t stop. On the third try, I got the stick away from him, backed him against the wall, and aimed what would’ve been a skull-crushing blow at his head.
He lifted his hands. “That did it. I’m unconscious now—if I’m lucky, I’m just unconscious. Good work. How did that feel?”
I let my arm drop to my side, let the stick go limp in my hand. “Scary. I’d never want to hurt anybody that much.”
“And I hope to God you never have to. Remember, you’re not trying to kill him. You’re only trying to incapacitate him for two or three minutes so you can get away. Are you sure you won’t go to Lieutenant Hill? I’ll come with you.”
He’d arrest me for beating up Marie, I thought. “No thanks. But thanks for the offer—and for the lesson.”
Back in the car, I took a moment to think about what had happened. An hour ago, I’d felt helpless. Everything I did had consequences I’d never intended, consequences I couldn’t control. But when Aaron and I were sparring, even when he was winning, things had felt different. They’d felt different because I was fighting back every second, thinking every second, trying to move forward. I wasn’t just watching things happen and or leaving them up to chance, and that had made all the difference.
That’s the most important part of the lesson, I thought. If I’m up against Bobby Davis again, at other crucial times, all the time, that’s what I have to remember.
Twenty-seven
In English on Friday, Ms. Nguyen said lots of people had trouble with the test, so she’d give us a new one Monday. I wondered if it was because of me. If she thought I’d messed up because I was missing Coach Colson, would she want to give me another chance? I felt guilty, because that wasn’t why I’d messed up. Not studying was why. Maybe I wouldn’t feel as guilty if I studied this weekend. I’d think about it. Before lunch, I ducked into an empty classroom and called the hospital. No, Marie Ramsey still couldn’t have any visitors. No, the receptionist couldn’t say anything about her condition. So much for that.
Berk had a dentist’s appointment after school, so he couldn’t come along when Graciana, Joseph, and I went to see Mrs. Dolby. She greeted us with butterscotch brownies, happy to talk. She didn’t know much about Ted Ramsey, though. She knew the name, and she remembered her youngest son sometimes coming home from school with stories about Ted getting into fights. She also remembered seeing his name in the police reports from time to time after he dropped out. Then, she’d heard, he’d left town. No, she didn’t know where he’d gone, but she knew about a year ago, when his father got sent to prison, Ted came back.
“One of my friends told me,” Mrs. Dolby said. “He showed up at his stepmother’s door one day and simply moved in. She probably wasn’t happy about it, but she probably didn’t have the courage to throw him out. He’s a nasty one, my friend said. She didn’t know if he had a job, or if he lived off his stepmother. And I’m sure she was already struggling to make ends meet, trying to support two girls on a short-order cook’s salary. Plus people did always say she has a drinking problem—that can’t be making things easier, either. That’s all I know about Ted Ramsey. Jefferson Davis Roberts, though—I remember lots about him. It was in the newspaper for days, and on television, too. The beating, I mean. That made quite a stir.”
According to what Mrs. Dolby had heard, Jefferson Davis Roberts—or Jeff, as everyone called him—was a quiet, intense boy. He wasn’t much of a student, but he was fiercely dedicated to track and trained all the time. Some people thought he had Olympic potential.
Then, toward the end of his sophomore year, several boys at the school started picking on him. No, Mrs. Dolby didn’t think Ted Ramsey was one of them, and she didn’t know why they’d decided to target Roberts. Maybe they envied all the attention he was getting, or maybe something else had been going on. Apparently, they kept after him for weeks, and it kept getting worse—knocking his books out of his arms in the hall, jumping him in the boys’ room and forcing his head into a toilet, grabbing him when he was out alone running and roughing him up so much he missed the last track meet of the year.
Not that Mrs. Dolby knew about any of that while it was going on. Maybe some people at school knew, but nothing became public knowledge until the next fall, when two of those boys attacked Roberts while he was walking home from school. This time, he fought back. One of the boys ran off after getting a black eye and a broken nose. The other one wasn’t as quick, or maybe not as smart, and Roberts nearly finished him off, leaving him bleeding on the sidewalk with multiple injuries. When the police came to Roberts’ house to arrest him, he’d disappeared. No one saw him again.
“The boy he’d injured was unconscious for days,” Mrs. Dolby said, “and in the hospital for weeks, but eventually he recovered. The police questioned Mr. and Mrs. Roberts many times, suspecting they’d helped their son leave town. But they always said that they hadn’t, that their son never came home after the beating. Eventually, they moved away—I don’t remember where. Why did you want to know about those two troublemakers?”
No point telling Mrs. Dolby Jefferson Davis Roberts might be the man who killed Coach Colson—it might get her worked up for no reason. “Curiosity, mainly,” I said. “I heard stories about them and wondered if you could tell us more. You sure did. Thanks, Mrs. Dolby.”
As we walked to the cars, Graciana reached into her purse and took out two folded printouts. “Here,” she said, handing us the first one. “A larger picture of Jefferson Davis Roberts—that was in a newspaper I looked at last night at the library. It was taken after he set one of those records. What do you think? Bobby Davis?”
Joseph squinted at it before shaking his head. “I saw him once only, from a distance. I cannot judge. You have seen him several times, Matt. Your opinion weighs more.”
I stared at the picture of a skinny, grinning teenager, trying to match it with the sneering man I’d seen in the gym and at the fight club, with the face that had pressed against my car window two nights ago. And the hair was so different, curly instead of slicked back, sandy instead of dark red. Well, the first time I’d seen Bobby Davis, I’d thought his hair was dyed. Now I knew why he might want to change the way he looked. And I still thought I saw something about the mouth, about the way he was standing.
“I can’t be sure,” I said, “but I think so.”
“I think so, too,” Graciana said. “And the stories could fit together. Jefferson Davis Roberts runs off to Richmond to avoid arrest, picks a new name based on his old one, changes his appearance, and makes a living as a tough guy, maybe as a collector for a drug dealer or a loan shark. He works on his martial arts skills, too, and gets good enough to star at the fight club. Then an old Ridgecrest High acquaintance, Ted Ramsey, finds out about him—or maybe they’ve always kept in touch. And Ramsey hires him to kill Coach Colson.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Can I keep this picture, show it to Berk?”
“Sure,” Graciana said. “This may be a crucial discovery, Matt. I’m impressed.”
I shrugged. “It was luck. Pure, dumb luck.”
“Luck, yes,” Joseph said, “but not pure, not dumb. You had luck because you noticed with alertness and pursued curiosities. Without this, there could have been no discovery. My mother says people can earn their luck. You have earned this, by pushing forward.
”
Forward, I thought. Kadima. So maybe that was a way of controlling chance, and of earning luck. “Bobby Davis has sure been pushing his luck,” I said. “He should be playing it safe, staying away from Ridgecrest. Instead he comes back to smash my windshield, comes back again to attack us and start a fire. If the cops had caught him doing any of those things, they might’ve decided they let him go too quickly last time. He could’ve found himself charged with murder after all.”
“One who is bold enough to kill in front of witnesses,” Joseph said, “is not one who plays it safe. As a young man, too, Davis was too bold.”
“If we’re right in thinking he was once Jefferson Davis Roberts.” I shook my head. “And even if he was, it still doesn’t get us very far. So we may have learned something about his past. Aside from possibly linking him to Ted Ramsey, how does that help us?”
“It might come in handy,” Graciana said, and handed me the second printout. “This is an article about the investigation into the assault on that boy. Look at the name of the detective.”
I looked. “What do you know? Our old friend, Lieutenant Hill, only he was Detective Hill back then. I bet he felt frustrated when Roberts got away from him. You think we could interest him in going after Davis so he can finally arrest Roberts?”
“Possibly,” Graciana said, “though I doubt he could press charges now. I don’t know the statute of limitations for assault, but Roberts was a minor at the time, and witnesses might be hard to find after ten years. But we still might find a way to use the information.”
That sounded good. I dropped Joseph off and headed home. Now for a boring dinner, I thought, and probably an equally boring party.
They weren’t as boring as I’d expected. Cassie didn’t say much while we were eating our quinoa patties and leek cassoulet. But when we got to the gluten-free trifle, she drew a sharp breath and looked up.