by J J Knight
I watch the two boys jab and punch for a moment. They do not strike me as particularly energetic or talented. There’s no fire.
The trainer seems to be studiously ignoring me, but I stand next to him anyway. After a moment, I say to him, “You’re aware that these boys vandalized my house?”
His expression doesn’t change. It’s like I haven’t spoken at all. I feel rage starting to build. “Seems like anybody trying to build a solid team would stay on top of the criminal actions of their fighters. They can’t earn much money behind bars.”
With that, he pushes away from the ring. “Good work, boys,” he says. He still doesn’t look at me. “I’m heading out.” He pulls a set of keys from his pocket and tosses them to the towel boy. “Clean up when you leave.”
Then he turns on his heel and walks out the front door.
My heart hammers. There is no mistaking that he’s left to avoid witnessing what’s about to go down. I breathe slowly and deeply, drawing strength for what’s ahead. I strike from my thoughts that there are three of them, that it’s night and we’re in a deserted part of town.
The lights are on. Passersby can see inside the building.
Still, tension makes my chest tight.
Exterminator and his partner strip off their pads. They aren’t even breathing heavy. Their workout was minimal. I can’t rely on them being tired. The equipment hits the floor of the ring.
“Axel, kill the front lights,” he says to the guy with a towel. “No sense giving people a show.”
Axel heads toward the door and shuts off the majority of the overheads. Only some strip lights in the back are still on. The room goes gray. The front windows change from a reflection of the interior to an outside scene. I know this means it’s not easy to see inside anymore.
“You ready to get in this ring with me?” Exterminator asks.
I observe them all. The towel guy is nothing, hardly any muscle on him. I could probably get a knockout blow with one quick move. Exterminator and his sparring partner, though, are more formidable. They weren’t doing much in the ring, but that doesn’t mean they can’t. Unless I go full hurricane, they might be able to take me down.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.
I decide to surprise them and as soon as Axel makes it back, I swing with a sharp elbow strike to the right side of his jaw, diagonal, designed to create a concussion. Sure enough, he’s not prepared for that sort of blow, and staggers.
“Nice one,” Exterminator says. “Taking out the towel boy.”
I don’t flinch. I know he’s a fighter, although he probably is low on the roster.
I grasp the ropes and pull myself up even with the ring. I watch the two of them warily, trying to anticipate their first strike. I wish I could do something clever like spin on the ropes and kick them both, but I’m not trained to be a showman. Just straightforward, powerful fighting style.
I don’t want to duck between the ropes, as that makes me vulnerable, so I push down and leap over them. When I land, I’m ready, but the two of them still don’t move.
Exterminator leans his elbow on the other guy’s shoulder, like they’re having a casual chat. “Whatcha think, Joey? Can you take her?” he asks.
“I don’t know, X,” he says. “She clocked me the other night.”
Exterminator laughs. “That’s right. She bloodied your nose. But can you take her?”
I have a feeling I know what he means, and now the lights make sense. They want to put me in my place as a girl.
No way.
He thinks I won’t see it coming, but when he spins at me, I’m ready. I duck under and step-slide to the opposite corner.
“Oh, she’s quick,” Joey says. “Kind of cute too.”
My blood pounds in my ears. I refuse to think about how foolish this idea was. That I should have backup. Somebody should know I am here. But I told no one.
I have to do this. I try to push back the fear that trickles like ice through my heart.
They come at me, slowly, deliberately. I need the hurricane. But I don’t know how to make it come. It just does, on its own. I can’t simply tell it to.
Joey comes at me like a boxer, moving his feet, punching. His hands are wrapped from sparring, but then so are mine. We will be able to hit harder without risking our fingers.
When he gets close, he drops his arms. “I don’t know, X. Hitting a girl. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He laughs.
“Then let’s get on with the lovin’ part,” Exterminator says, and charges me.
He’s more clever with this move, making a sharp pivot right as we’re about to collide. I swing at him and miss, so I have to just take the jab that comes at my gut.
It knocks the air out of me, but I don’t show it, keeping low and quick. I duck away before he gets another one in.
“Now that you mention it,” Joey says, “the fighting does look sort of fun.”
Exterminator steps back to let him have a crack at me. I feel like a mouse being toyed with by two cats. And I will be, if I can’t find the power to take them on.
Axel stirs on the ground and rolls over. I see it from the corner of my eye. He’s gonna be pissed, but he’ll probably be too out of it to join in.
Joey gets low and works his feet, punching air. He’s going to tire himself out. I assume it’s some sort of distraction technique. I keep myself loose and ready.
But when they both come at me in tandem, a move that seems perfectly timed and practiced, I know they’ve done this before. Probably this is their intimidation tactic. Like bullies.
When I dodge a front hook by Joey, Exterminator grabs my waist and throws me down. Joey spins right out of the move and drops onto my legs.
I kick and throw elbows, feeling a satisfying crunch on Exterminator’s face, but they have me down. With two on one, I’m pinned. Axel grasps the ropes and tumbles onto the floor of the ring. “Let me at the little bitch,” he says. “I’ll teach her what girls are for.”
I buck hard against Joey and manage to get a decent kick to Axel’s chest. He curses again. “Hold her goddamn legs,” he growls at Joey.
Exterminator’s got my arms now, and no matter how I struggle against him, he has me pinned, his knees on my upper arms. My head is up against his crotch, so I lift it and ram it down.
But Exterminator just laughs. “I got protection, yo,” he says. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Axel shoves at Joey, who has my legs pinned. “You’re in the way, punk.” He jerks at the snap to my jeans.
I fight harder. My blood pounds in my head. I insist that my hurricane show up. But my fear is large, looming like a storm of its own. Images flash through my head of my stepbrother Rich, all the terror and loathing I held inside me most of my life. It took Colt a year to uncoil it. My will to fight hard has to come back. I need it.
I’m in a frenzy, jerking my arms and kicking as much as I can while Axel fights with the jeans to get them down. The boys are a blur as I writhe, searching for weak spots, for a pressure point I can exploit.
Of all the times in my life for the hurricane to desert me, why now? My rage is as internal as much as it is aimed at these boys. Panic starts to take over, but still, nothing comes. No strength, no wild spitting fire. I feel a burn in my eyes and I’m outraged. Crying? I do NOT cry. Never. No weakness. Not ever.
“Let’s see what this little pussy’s got going on down south,” Axel says, jerking on my underwear.
An explosive sound startles everyone, then another. The front glass shatters, flying into the room. The boys scramble away, ducking through the ropes.
Red and blue lights blur and light up the gym, flashing on the walls.
I cover my eyes with one hand and yank up my jeans with the other.
I can’t see anything in the blinding light, so I roll over. The glass hasn’t made it as far as the ring. I hear a slam and realize the guys have run out the back.
A woman steps through the glass, in unif
orm with a police cap. When she turns, I see the silhouette of her arms, and a gun. I slide through the ropes down the back side of the ring, shaking at the sight of a weapon.
I haven’t seen a gun since the night Colt got shot. Even the lights are a reminder.
No heartbeat, no respiration.
“This is the Honolulu Police Department,” she calls out.
I hunker down behind the ring. I have nothing to hide, but I can’t stop shaking.
“Come out,” she calls. I peer out from the edge of the base of the boxing ring.
Behind her, another officer appears, this one a tall slender man.
“Jo?” the woman calls. “Are you all right?”
How does she know who I am?
“I’m here,” I manage to say. “Behind the ring.”
“Did those boys turn tail and run?” she asks.
“Out the back,” I say. “I’m the only one left.”
She still keeps her gun high. The other officer hurries through the gym toward the back.
I have to remind myself that I don’t have to fear the police. I’m not a fugitive anymore. I don’t live under a fake ID or fear of being charged. Colt took care of all that. My past can’t come for me anymore.
Still, the anxiety isn’t easy to shake. The officer’s boots crunch the broken glass. I wonder if they’ll be in trouble for the damage they caused. They might force me to press charges to validate their actions.
The woman finds the light switch near the door and the room steadies, the white light dropping the intensity of the revolving squad-car flashers.
“I’m Officer Su,” she says. “You can come out.”
I stand up. I remember her now. She came out to Mom’s house after the first incident. The woman is Asian and petite, but her expression is tough. Bits of black hair peek out from where she has it stuffed inside her cap. “You all right?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “How did you know I was here?”
She kicks at broken glass and surveys the room as she says, “We were assigned to patrol your neighborhood. When you took off looking like you were heading to a fight, we followed you.”
“Did The Cure put you up to this?” I ask.
“The boxer?” She turns to look at me. “You know him?”
“He’s about to be my father-in-law.”
She pulls her radio from her belt. “Ahh. I don’t think he’ll have much pull in Honolulu.”
I wonder about that, but wait while she spouts a bunch of codes into the radio.
The other officer returns. “They took off.”
“One of their cars is still here,” she says. “They’ll be back.”
I look out the window. She’s right. Next to the police car is a beat-up Ford. The trainer must have left in the other one.
“I’m going to initiate the report,” the guy says.
“Thanks,” Officer Su says, and turns to me. “You really thought it was a good idea to take on a whole mess of local fighters by yourself?”
“I was only after the one,” I say.
She sighs. “We’ve been busting this place for illegal fights for years. Can’t seem to get it shut down. But this might be a start, if you want to file.”
I knew this was coming, but I still feel sucker punched. “I’m not sure.”
“You have police witnesses. They deserve it. At least one of them has priors, so he’ll probably get actual time, not probation.”
I want to ask her which one, if it’s Exterminator, but I figure she can’t tell me. Colt could find out. The Cure has ways. Or we could ask Jax, his spy friend. He knows everything. It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t seen this whole thing coming.
“You all right, Jo?” the woman asks.
I realize I’ve been staring into space. “I need to think about it.”
“We have to stay here due to the damage we caused,” she says. “Probably not one of Judd’s finer decisions.” She cocks her head at the other officer. “But once we get your statement, I can call another squad car to come for you. Or would you like your family?”
“I’m not sure.” Although I sort of want my mother right now.
“Let’s sit down,” she says. We move to the back, out of range of the shattered glass.
“Why were you patrolling near me?” I ask.
“Despite the impression my fellow officers might have given this afternoon, those boys tossing pyrotechnics in your house is a pretty big deal.”
“Really? They were just Black Cats.”
“We see the pattern. They’ve escalated from broken car windows to home invasion.” She gestures to the boxing ring. “And this was pretty serious, what they were doing here.”
I know this. “Have they done…that…before?”
“I doubt it’s the first time it’s popped into their seedy little brains.”
“I get the impression they don’t appreciate female fighters.”
She frowns. “Punks are punks.”
“Is the damage going to cause you a problem?” I ask.
“This place has a record a mile long. I’m not going to lose sleep over it.” She pulls out a small tablet. “I saw most of the interaction, but I’ll still need a statement in your own words.”
I go over what happened. I regret, now that I know people were watching, the potshot at Axel. “He might need medical attention,” I say.
“I’ll put out notice at the hospital and clinics,” she says. “They’ll lie low for a bit, but it’ll be hard for them to resist the underground fights this weekend. We’ll pick them up there if we haven’t before. That is, if we have something to pick them up for.” She looks at me pointedly.
When I don’t respond, she digs around and produces a card. “Call me if you decide to press charges.” She peers out the broken window. “Looks like Big Daddy has arrived to assess the damage. This’ll be fun. We have backup now. I’ll have Officer Jones take you home.”
She walks me out to a second squad car. Three male officers are talking. The man in the gray sweats from the other night jumps out of a pickup and starts cursing as soon as he sees the window. “What the hell have you done to my gym?” he roars.
“A crime was in progress at this address,” Officer Su says evenly. “We had to take necessary actions.”
He spots me. “I remember you.” His face turns mottled with red. “You caused that big scene at my fight.”
Officer Su turns her hard stare on him. “Your fight with illegal betting,” she says. “Your gym rats have been hounding Jo and her brother ever since. Tonight, they added attempted rape to their rap sheet, right here on your property. I think a broken window is the least of your problems if you want to stay open.”
He sneers at her. “You don’t know anything about my business.” He has an overconfident air about him, as though he knows somebody bigger than Officer Su has his back.
I have no doubt he does.
But then, I have The Cure.
Chapter Twelve
The jolly veteran Officer Jones drives me back to my mom’s house after a quick stop at my own place to pick up some necessities. He thinks it best if I stay with her until Colt makes it into town.
“She’ll keep you from going after those punk boys,” he says with a laugh. “I do believe if there hadn’t been three of them, we’d be taking their statements in the hospital.” He shakes his head.
I think, if I’d had my hurricane, it wouldn’t have mattered that there were three of them. I feel like a fraud. I couldn’t protect myself. The worst almost happened. My hands shake. I can’t seem to get the images out of my mind, their hands on me.
Officer Jones works hard to keep me distracted. “Who’s the biggest punk you’ve ever taken on?” he asks.
“I jumped two former heavyweight boxers once. With my arm in a sling.”
He chortles. I realize it’s nice, making him laugh. It’s definitely a relief from the horror of this night.
“I bet you did. How many fights do yo
u have under your belt?” he asks.
“Official ones, or back alley?” I ask.
He laughs again. “I’d say we could use someone like you on the force, but I don’t think we could contain you.”
“I might embarrass some of your hotshot cops,” I say, knowing this is what he wants to hear.
“If you went up against any one of them,” he says with a wink, “I’d put my money on you.”
We pull up in front of Mom’s house. “Thanks for the ride,” I tell him. Light spills out on the porch as Mom opens her door. I called her before we got to my place, letting her know I was coming.
“My pleasure,” he says. “You let us know if you see any sign of those guys. We’ll be patrolling this block pretty heavy.”
“Thank you,” I say, and open the door. “And tell Officer Su thank you as well. They went to some trouble for me.”
“Yeah, that window is not going to look great on their beat report,” he says. “One day they’ll give her somebody other than a rookie.”
I nod and step out onto the street. I shoulder my overnight bag and head up to Mom’s house.
“You going to tell me what happened?” she asks, holding open the door.
Hudson is sitting on the sofa below the window, leaning on his elbows. “Hey,” he says.
I sit down next to him and drop the bag on the floor. “They’re in big trouble now,” I say.
“Who?” Mom demands. “Those boys who busted up Hudson’s car?”
I decide to keep it simple. “Yeah.”
“What happened?” She drops into a rocking chair.
I glance over at Hudson. I have to figure out how to creatively edit the story. “I went to where they work out. I wanted to talk to their trainer, let him know that their criminal activity was going to jeopardize their competition.”
She nods, as if this sounds reasonable.
“But their trainer left with an unspoken approval that I was fair game.”
Mom stops rocking. “For what?”
I shrug. “We got into an altercation. The cops came.”
She grips the arms of the chair. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. “Nope. The police got there. The boys ran. But now they’ll face charges, if I decide to file them.”