by Jon Scieszka
“We Slovaks,” Mom continued, “we are slow to thicken. We start thin. Like Johnny Little Pea. Like the oak tree, we take time to put down roots. Weeds grow fast and stay small. Trees take time and get big.”
I know Mom was trying to build me up. She knew, as did everyone in the universe, about my recent dismal athletic failure.
The football team I’d tried to join that fall had been so full of weeds—older boys and kids my age with twice my bulk—that I was choked out from the first moment I set foot on the field. Maybe I would have found a way to fit in if I’d been allowed to stick with it longer than the two weeks I suffered being dissed by everyone, beginning with the equipment manager. When I held a tackling dummy, I was not only knocked over by the first guy who hit it but sent rolling for a good twenty feet with my spidery arms and legs wrapped around the dummy. The line coach looked at me with a combination of pity and contempt that made me feel lower than a gopher’s basement. And when I not only failed to catch the ball that was tossed to me by the second-string quarterback, but also allowed it to hit me square in the forehead, leaving a red mark that morphed into a big purple bruise, the offensive coach wrote me off like a bad debt.
The head coach took me aside after that.
“Son,” he said, “I admire your spirit. I’ve never seen a kid less athletic who’s tried harder. But you are going to have to quit now. Otherwise you are going to end up getting really hurt.”
“Why?” I asked. “You mean my blood isn’t good enough to keep fertilizing your football field?”
The coach almost laughed, but he shook his head instead. “There it is,” he said. “Your mouth. The way you keep making remarks like that. That’s what really makes this too dangerous for you. If I don’t kick you off this team, someday one of those other kids who’s not as smart as you is going to kill you because of something you said.”
It was when I was coming out of the back of the building on the other side of the field after turning in my ill-fitting uniform that I ran into Tipper Sodaman, stocky, simian-shaped starting right linebacker.
Several of his buddies were behind him. All of them equally anthropoid.
“What’s the matter, fish?” Tipper said. “Quitting ’cause you’re scared?”
I spread my arms to show I had no intention of responding in an angry fashion. “No,” I said with a friendly smile, “I just seem to have too much crane in me and not enough gorilla.”
He took my remark as sarcasm. Which, to be fair, it was. Sadly, perhaps because Rise of the Planet of the Apes had just hit the theaters, he knew what a gorilla was.
“You calling me an ape?” he said, stepping forward and throwing me down before I had the opportunity to reply. The fact that my mouth was open to make said reply meant that I more or less ate a good bit of the pile of dog doo-doo in which my face was thrust.
As I sat up, spitting it out, he and his gang walked away from me in disgust. I doubt that they heard me say “But I prefer Alpo.” Nor did they see me sit there for at least five minutes more, my chest heaving as I cried my heart out.
When you have been undone by your lack of physical prowess and your overabundance of quick repartee, it helps to have understanding parents. If they weren’t incredibly understanding, they would not have signed the waiver that has allowed me, underage as I am, to step into this ring to take part in an amateur mixed martial arts contest.
“Dad,” I said, “I need to learn how to fight.”
My father took one look at me—and probably one smell, for I had failed to get all of the poodle poop out of my hair—and understood.
“Want boxing lessons?” My father had boxed in the navy and, though he never bragged about it, had been good. I’d found the medals he’d won one day by accident when he asked me to bring him a shirt from his closet and I accidentally tipped over the cigar box he had them stashed in. Gold and silver every one of them.
“More than that,” I said. “I want to be like Anderson Silva.”
“The Spider?”
“You got it, Dad!” I’m pleased he knew my reference to the Brazilian MMA fighter. He’s the best in the world, pound for pound.
“Want to take a ride?”
I’m always a little surprised at the number of people my dad knows. Maybe it’s because his job as a news editor at our paper takes him around to so many places. And maybe that job is why his conversational style is invariably interrogatory. The next thing I knew, we were pulling up in front of the storefront of what once was a neighborhood corner grocery but now had the words EAST COUNTRY MMA on the window in small letters.
“You want to go inside?”
“Only as much as I want to keep breathing.”
The wide floor was covered with blue mats. The walls that had once held display cases were covered with mirrors. And there was a boxing ring in the far right corner, an MMA cage in the far left.
The rangy man who came loping up to shake my dad’s hand had a craggy face that looked like it had been through more than one storm but still emerged like a peak from the clouds to reflect the sun.
“Jao, how are you?” my father said, holding out his hand as Jao took it with both of his.
“Good, Frank. This your boy?”
Dad nudged me, and I stepped forward.
“Johnny,” I said, holding out my own hand.
Jao took it, again with both hands. His grasp wasn’t one of those crush-your-fist grips that so many men use to prove their strength. But it was firm enough to make me feel that if he held on, there was no way I could pull away. He’s a jaguar, I thought. Don’t ask me why. Then, with the lazy certainty of one of those big predatory cats, he locked his eyes on mine. I felt as if he were reading my mind. Something like an electric pulse ran down my back. He let go and then clapped both hands on my shoulders, punched my chest with the flat of his right palm, and then stepped back.
“Hmm,” he said, looking me up and down.
And even though this was the point where the usual me would have made a sarcastic remark—like maybe “Be careful you don’t cut yourself on my ribs”—my mouth stayed shut.
“Think you can do something with him, Maestre?” Dad said.
“Sure. If he wants.”
“You want?” Dad asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You know you’re going to have to pay for it out of your own savings?”
“I know,” I said, thinking there was no better way than this to spend the bucks I’d earned packing groceries at the Saveco.
“Tomorrow,” Jao said. “Beginner’s class. Six p.m. You bring mouthpiece, shorts, cup. Okay? Now we fit you for gi. Make it nice and roomy so you grow into it. Thirty-five dollars.” Jao held out his hand and I took it again, realizing as soon I did so that I was being my typical stupid self because he was clearly asking me for payment rather than another friendly handshake.
But instead of making fun of me, Jao pulled me closer so that our chests bumped and laughed in a way that made me laugh along with him.
“I think you got a good boy here,” Maestre Jao said.
“You think?” my dad said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the thirty-five dollars that he counted into my new teacher’s hand.
“Pay me back when we get home?” Dad asked as we walked toward the back of the room, where a small shop was set up offering various martial arts gear including a rack of white gis.
“Yes, sir,” I said. This was the longest I had gone since I had learned to talk without saying more than two words at a time. But also knowing I was saying just enough.
To say that first class I attended was the hardest workout in my life would be like saying that the sea was somewhat moist. We began by running in place for five minutes, then did about fifty thousand stomach crunches (I lost count after twenty), a million push-ups, and twenty or thirty more muscle-building and stretching exercises I had never heard of before. Somehow I stuck it out, even though I felt alternately like a limp dishrag and a rubber b
and about to snap. The room was full of people—twenty-four others in addition to me—and they ranged from kids my age or younger to people with graying hair. Mostly men, but a few very determined-looking women, too. And no one I knew, thank the gods.
I’d learn later that most kids my age preferred to study MMA at the Pit Bull Fight Pit way on the other side of town, where the motto was “Bite my leg off. I’ll just use it to club you to death.”
That workout took us forty minutes. I collapsed on my back feeling pretty good about having survived my first MMA lesson.
“Okay,” Maestre Jao said. “Good warm-up. Now we start class.”
Before I go further, let me explain very carefully that I was not Daniel-san to Maestre Jao’s Mr. Miyagi. I was not taken on for any reason other than that I wanted to be a student and I could pay my monthly fee to his academy. Jao loved what he taught, but he also had to pay the rent and so he ran the academy as a businessman does. No pay, no play. And I was not his special student. I was just one of more than sixty students at various stages, each of us paying our hundred dollars a month. (I would be bagging groceries for a long time to rebuild my savings account.) No sentimental attachments. But that does not mean Jao did not care. To Jao, every student was a special student as long as Jao saw that the student’s heart was in it as much as his body. And his staff of instructors had that same philosophy, as well as a respect for every style of fighting. Max, the boxing instructor, was a Golden Gloves champ at light heavyweight. Phil, who taught wrestling takedowns and defenses, was a wrestling coach at the nearby junior college. And then there was Vikorn, who had a typically short but meteoric career in Muay Thai in his native land and had then immigrated to America to work as the manager of his uncle’s restaurant. All of them seemed to share that same aura of mutual regard and tough self-assurance that I hoped would someday be mine as well.
Unlike some Brazilian jiujitsu black belts who follow the old Gracie line of “our martial art is the best of all,” Jao had trained in many styles, from boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling to kickboxing and Muay Thai. His lineage and black belt were from Carlson Gracie—whose photo was on the wall of Jao’s office—but he had been a successful mixed martial artist and knew that jiujitsu was not enough. He explained that one evening as a few of us sat around with him after our evening two-hour training session. By now I was able to speak more than two words at a time in his academy. And it was that night when I earned a nickname from him, one that was not just from my skinny limbs—which were actually putting on some muscle—but also from the way I was able to wrap my partners up, especially in what were now my two favorite moves: the triangle and the rear-naked choke. I was still not strong enough to always tap someone out, but I was good enough to give a good roll.
“So what’s the best way to fight?” someone sitting behind me asked. It was a new student whose name I hadn’t learned, an eager guy from the nearby naval base who had been to two classes thus far and who—like 50 percent of the people who came to the academy—would quit before putting in a second month.
Jao lifted up his thumb. “Man know only boxing, he get beat by kickboxer, wrestler, Muay Thai, jiujitsu.”
He looked around our little circle. We all nodded.
Then he held up his thumb and his index finger. “Know only kickboxing, he get beat by wrestler, maybe, too, by jiujitsu fighter. Maybe beat Muay Thai fighter.”
He sat back, letting it sink in. But he was not finished. He held up two index fingers.
“Wrestler knows only wrestling, he goes against jiujitsu?” The pause was a question, and I dared to answer it.
“Guillotine choke,” I said in a soft voice.
Jao beamed. “Right. But what if a man who knows boxing and wrestling and Muai Thai and kickboxing goes against a man who knows only jiujitsu.”
“Oops,” I replied before I could stop myself.
It was the closest I’d dared get to my old sarcasm, but in response Jao leaned forward and patted my shoulder. “Yes, Little Spider,” he said. The name stuck. But that wasn’t all he gave me that evening.
“What if someone is a lot stronger than you?” Navy guy again, of course.
Jao chuckled. “Always assume that anyone you fight is stronger than you. Then you can find his weakness.”
I nodded. Jao may not be Mr. Miyagi, but he knew his stuff. He even lasted a round and a half against my idol, Anderson Silva, when he was a pro.
I filed it away in the long list of mental notes I’d made for myself. Like doing my best to not use what we learn in here in school or on the street. Like keeping my mouth shut and taking another route to my classes when I see Tipper and his buddies coming my way and bragging about all the MMA they’ve been learning at the PBFP.
The year went by faster than I’d expected. And not a single confrontation at school due to my new success at truly making myself invisible. Which is, I guess, why Tipper’s jaw dropped when he saw me in the opposite corner and realized who he was about to fight. But it only dropped for a second before it turned into that shark-like grin. Easy meat, he clearly thought.
As we advance toward each other across the ring, I’m crouched low, but not so low that I can’t move quickly to get out of the way.
No elbows, I’m thinking.
That was what the ref said in our instructions. Right after the ring announcer reminded everyone that this was an amateur bout, three two-minute rounds.
“Remember, guys, this is amateur, not the UFC. No elbows.”
So, of course, that is what my old lunch buddy Tipper tries right away. After feinting a jab, he steps in with a spinning elbow that would have split my face wide-open.
If I’d been there, that is. I step back as he is spinning and watch him lose his balance when his illegal strike fails to connect. He stumbles back into the referee, who grabs his arm and shakes a finger in front of his nose.
“No elbows, son! Got it?”
What Tipper wants to get is me. He pushes off from the ref and charges, to be met by the punch that both Max and my dad have told me is the best weapon in a long-armed fighter’s arsenal.
The left jab.
I pump it three times: head, chest, head again. It doesn’t do any real damage but makes Tipper step back in confusion. He circles me, a little warier after finding out that this guppy has teeth.
“Good, Spider! Keep your distance,” Jao calls to me from my corner. “Feel him out.”
Good advice, but Tipper charges me and shoots for a double-leg takedown so fast that all I can do is sprawl. In addition to his recent MMA training, Tipper is also the varsity 165-pound wrestler, so his try is no joke. But I hook under his arm with a whizzer, push on his head with my other hand, and I’m free. To my surprise, strong as I know Tipper to be, he’s not that much stronger than me.
He stares at me as I slide back. “I am going to bust you up!” he snarls.
I almost reply, “You and what army.” But I don’t.
Stay focused, my inner voice says, trying to be helpful. It’s not. Sometimes, like in a fight, thinking is the worst thing you can do.
“Spider, act and react,” Jao shouts. “You hear me, Spider? Act and react.”
Before I can do either one, Tipper hits me square in the belly with a side kick. It doesn’t knock the wind out of me. All those stomach crunches—about a billion by now—have made me rock hard there. But the leg sweep that he follows it up with takes my legs out from under me, and I land on my back.
Next thing I know, a screaming wolverine is on top of me, swinging one punch after another. Or maybe it’s a chimpanzee. No, it’s actually Tipper. But I have my hands up, block one punch after another, then grab his wrist, throw one foot over his back as I push against his thigh with the other foot, and pivot. Voilà! Tipper is swept, and I am on top in full mount.
And before I can do anything else, the bell sounds and the round is over.
I jump up to my feet and reach a hand down to help Tipper up. To my surprise—and his—he gra
bs my hand, lets me pull him up. Then he realizes what he’s done. He drops my paw like a hot potato and spins away from me as fast as he can, backing into his own corner.
Round two. Someone was talking to me in the corner between rounds. It takes me a minute to realize it was my father.
“Great job, son. Now use your range. Keep stuffing his takedowns and then pick him apart.”
Apparently that is what I do in round two, which is over before I can think about it. I must have been on autopilot, because the bell is ringing again, and I’m walking back to the stool again. As I look back over my shoulder, I notice that Tipper is limping as he walks. I vaguely remember having a leg lock on him right after I got knocked down by whatever it was that hit me in my right temple and left this lump there that Jao is icing.
“Even fight,” Jao says. “Win it in the final round.”
The bell rings again. As we meet at the center of the ring, Tipper is the first one to extend his gloves for us to tap at the start of this final round.
Think he respects you now? my inner voice asks.
I don’t have time to think back an answer. After stepping back, Tipper has just shown his respect in the form of a superhard roundhouse toward my temple. I just manage to block with a right forearm, and I bounce back against the rope. My arm feels numb. I wonder if it’s broken. Might be. But my left arm reaches up as Tipper closes with me. I hook my hand around his neck and kick at his inner knee with my opposite leg. Tipper goes down, me on top of him this time. We transition from one move to another. Him on top, then me again. If my arm wasn’t hurting so much, it’d be one of the better rolls I’ve ever executed. As it is, I’m not sure how long I can keep this up.
There’s just one last thing to try. My long legs lock around his body. Somehow I’m on his back, and my good arm is around his neck. It hurts, but I manage to reach up with my bad arm and lock my hand over the top of his head, my other hand over my right bicep. And squeeze.