by Eva Luxe
“Oh, baby, I don’t know how that could ever work,” Ruth explained, taking both of her nephew’s hands in hers and turning to face him directly. “I know this week has been exciting, and Mr. Gavin has been so good to us, and we’ll definitely visit again, and he’ll visit us at home, but everything you know is in the islands. You have so much family there. Your roots run so deep. And your uncle has such a busy life here, he wouldn’t have time to- “
Gavin interrupted, gently placing a hand on Ruth’s arm. “I do have a busy life, that’s true. And I’m honestly caught completely off-guard by the idea, but it’s not a bad one. Solomon is my blood. He’s the best thing I have left from my brother. And my parents. If it’s what he really wants, I could make it work. We could make it work.”
It had been something Gavin had been thinking of ever since he first laid eyes on his nephew. Solomon was the first thing to make him happy in a very long time. They were connected by more than just DNA. There was a bond there and Gavin didn’t want to see it end here.
Ruth cradled Solomon’s face in her hands, her thumb wiping away a tear from his cheek. “You’ve been my son your entire life. I couldn’t take losing you.”
Solomon collapsed into her arms, choking back sobs. Gavin put an arm around his nephew’s shoulder.
“Whatever decision you make, you’re mature enough to make it on your own. I believe that and I support your choice, but you have to keep in mind the hearts you’d be breaking. I see so much of Jack in you. He had a wanderlust, he wanted to see the world, to experience everything, even when it maybe didn’t make perfect sense to most other people. You’re more than welcome to come live with me, you are. I want you to know that. But weigh everything. And if your heart tells you that you should be here, my door is always open,” Gavin said. “Nothing would please me more than to have you in my life every day.”
After a tumultuous two weeks back home, and with Solomon’s American ardor showing no signs of fading, it was decided that he could relocate to Cincinnati to live with Gavin for the upcoming school year. A distant cousin who lived in Dallas was convinced to transfer with his job and move to Cincinnati as well to help ease the transition, but after spending the time he had with his father’s brother, Solomon didn’t fear his new surroundings.
And he couldn’t wait to start training.
* * *
After suffering the humiliation of being clearly beaten by Elliott when the pair sparred, Solomon was determined to get into the gym and start working his way up the judo ladder. He wanted a rematch with Elliott, then he wanted a shot at Tyler, Elliott’s teacher during Gavin’s absence. If he could beat those two, how proud would Uncle Gavin be? And how proud would his father be, looking down on him?
Solomon enrolled in the public school nearest Gavin’s home, to widespread curiosity. Naturally, there was some teasing from the eighth grade boys, as there would be for any newcomer, especially one with long hair, an ever-present tan, and an unmistakably island way of pronouncing things that marked him as different.
The girls, however, were instantly smitten by him. Which also did nothing to endear him to his male competition for their attention. His muscular build deterred physical bullying, but he didn’t make friends easily.
He channeled his social frustration into the dojo, working with a fury that surprised Gavin and instilled fear in his training partners.
With balance honed on a surfboard and a physique blessed by the genetics of two athletic parents and sculpted by formative years spent running on beaches, climbing trees, and swimming against ocean currents, Solomon excelled as a judoka. In less than a year he was competing in tournaments, winning more than he lost, and quickly climbing the judo ranks, first locally and then regionally. By seventeen, he competed for the first time at nationals in Orlando, winning three matches before being thrashed by a tall, lean opponent from Sacramento named Adonis DeCarlo.
Everything Solomon tried against Adonis was countered effortlessly, and when Solomon found himself in the taller boy’s clutches, he was helpless against a grip like iron. Following his defeat, he watched Adonis finish off two more opponents en route to what Solomon learned was his third consecutive national championship.
“That kid is a machine,” Solomon’s uncle, coach, and now de facto father figure, Gavin explained. “His dad was an Olympian in judo years ago. He hasn’t lost to an American in a sanctioned competition since he was something like twelve years old. He even went to senior worlds with the USA team last summer. Youngest American to ever compete at the world championships. He didn’t fare too well, but he had to beat grown men to make that team. There’s no shame in losing to him. I don’t know why he even does age group tournaments these days. Just to stay sharp, I guess.”
“He’s not so great,” Solomon countered. “I’m going to beat him. Not today, obviously, maybe not next time we meet, but I promise you I’m going to beat him.”
“I believe you, big fella,” Gavin said, slapping Solomon on the back.
As the pair rose and headed toward the exit, they passed Adonis, celebrating with his family.
Solomon leaned over the barricade separating competitors from fans and extended a hand, balled into a fist, toward Adonis. “Nice job, brother. Hope I get another crack at you next year.”
Adonis, drunk on his victory, looked first at Solomon’s face, then his offered hand, then back up to meet his gaze, making no effort to return the fist bump. “My best advice to you is to change weight classes, bud. Unless I do. In that case, stay right where you are.”
Solomon was floored by Adonis’ refusal to shake his hand, to acknowledge him as any sort of peer, and he let his arm sink slowly back to his side. Gavin was stung by the champion’s words, and he tried to ease Solomon away from the DeCarlo family; Adonis, his parents, younger brother, older set of twin sisters, and an assortment of extended family. “Let’s go get something to eat, Solomon.”
Solomon, however, was having none of it. He dropped his bag to the floor and in a fluid motion put a hand on the barrier and vaulted over it, landing and taking a step so that he was directly in Adonis’s line of vision, inches from the taller boy’s face.
“I’ll never run from you. I’ll be back next year and the year after that and I will beat you,” Solomon snarled.
“If you’re lucky enough to get back on the mat with me, I won’t take it easy on you next time, punk.” Adonis replied, and he punctuated his remark with a two-handed shove to Solomon’s chest.
The flurry of activity drew the notice of security, teammates of both Adonis and Solomon, and meet organizers.
“Throw that team out of here! They should be banned!” bellowed Adonis’s father over the buzz of the growing crowd.
The ruckus was quickly defused, but the gauntlet had been thrown down; any future rematch between Solomon Kano and Adonis DeCarlo would mean more to both fighter’s pride than whatever tournament titles might be on the line.
* * *
The American judo community began to take notice of the Fijian kid from Cincinnati over the next few years. Adonis DeCarlo abandoned age group tournaments, much to Solomon’s chagrin, but it left the throne vacant and Solomon was eager to claim it as his own.
Gavin ran out of things to teach his star pupil, and he had to turn him over exclusively to Sensei Shinji, who, despite his advancing years, was as eager to teach as ever, and had a flexibility and iron grip that left Solomon awestruck.
Solomon’s time in America transformed him from a boy into a man, growing to six-foot-two with a thickly-muscled frame. His dark hair was long and wild, and on a visit home to Fiji he’d acquired his first tattoo, the word “kailoma” on the inside of his left forearm. Gavin wasn’t crazy about the ink, but he understood that Solomon wasn’t fully American, nor Fijian, and that it was his way of reconciling the two cultures, the two worlds, by writing it on his body.
As a concession to his nephew, Gavin got his own tattoo, the word “BULA” in block lettering on the le
ft side of his chest. Beneath the word were five capital letters, each with a small halo floating above. P, T, L, J, and K. For the five souls lost in the terrible tragedy in the South Pacific.
As soon as Solomon saw what his uncle did, he knew he’d made the right decision, coming to America. Gavin was his family. More than anyone else he’d ever known.
* * *
Solomon spent his school years with Gavin in Cincinnati and his summers in Fiji with his mother’s family. He felt like his heart was always in two places, a fact that often made him feel guilty no matter where he was.
When he was a senior in high school he was accepted to Xavier University. They didn’t have a martial arts team, but they did have a very active martial arts club that his uncle had recently taken over as a sponsor and coach.
Despite now having the best of both worlds, Solomon ached for something more.
He’d always assumed it was for his parents. Or for his need to excel in judo, to be the best.
Little did he know, it wasn’t any of those things that his heart was missing. But he couldn’t have known that at the time.
He hadn’t met Logan Lowery yet.
Chapter 11 - Logan
“How is this possible?”
Logan was sitting in a silk upholstered chair next to her father and mother in the office of Dr. Warren Heflin, a pulmonary specialist that Chuck Lowery had been referred to by his doctor when his CT scans had come back with abnormalities. And he’d just given the Lowerys the worst news of their lives.
Chuck Lowery had stage four lung cancer.
“He’s never even smoked,” Logan said, leaning forward. “He runs every day, eats well. There’s just no possible way this is happening.”
She said it more to herself than to anyone sitting around her.
Chuck grabbed his only daughter’s hand. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Sometimes there’s no explanation for why this happens.”
Logan looked at her father, tears stinging her eyes. She should have been comforting him, and here he was comforting her. It was his way. It broke her heart.
Her mother leaned forward, her face pale.
“So what happens now?” Tracy Lowery said, grabbing Chuck’s other hand. “Can we beat this? We have to try, right?”
Dr. Heflin looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. “Your husband has a non-typical type of lung cancer. It has something called an ALK gene mutation. This means that an abnormal protein is forcing the cancerous cells to divide and multiply. We do have medication that can stop the proteins from the nasty work of spreading the cancer.”
Logan interrupted. “So that’s good news, right?” Logan looked over at her father, suddenly hopeful. “They can cure this!”
Dr. Heflin held up a hand. “There is no cure for this, Logan. We have two medications that can fight this, but over time your father will develop a resistance to each one. And unless we can develop news ways of combating the protein, it will still be a tough battle.”
“How long until I become resistant to the drugs, Doc?” Chuck’s voice was solemn.
Dr. Heflin sighed. “It’s hard to say. Usually about 8 months. I have seen it happen in as long as 10. That’s what we hope for. But within less than 2 years of treatment, there is not much else we can do.”
Logan couldn’t help it. She lashed out.
“You don’t know my father,” Logan said. “He’s stronger than most of your patients. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose. Did you know he played in the majors? He’s a hell of a man and my hero, so I know he can beat this.”
Logan was saying it to herself as much as she was saying it to everyone in that room.
Dr. Heflin nodded. “That’s the kind of spirit he’ll need, Logan. And I hate to tell you this but cancer doesn’t care what we’ve done with the time we’ve had. If only it did. People like your dad would be the last ones I’d expect to get this kind of news.” The doctor looked at Chuck. “It’s not a good diagnosis, Chuck. I won’t lie. This is probably going to get you in the end. But you can still fight it and lengthen the time you have left. I believe in you.”
Tracy Lowery couldn’t hold it in anymore. She started to cry, her sobs full of anguish. Logan couldn’t bear this. Of the few things she couldn’t take, her mother’s cries were at the top of that list.
“I’ll leave you alone. Take all the time you need. I’m truly sorry. I’ll do everything I can…” Dr. Heflin didn’t finish his sentence.
No one was listening to him anymore.
* * *
“It’s going to be alright, Logan,” her father said as he drove her back to her dorm at Xavier. “Look, I don’t want you worrying about me. You’ve got your first game ahead of you. This is the beginning of so many great things.” He pulled over in front of the main entrance to the school. Logan leaned her head back against her seat, not wanting to get out of the car; afraid to leave him.
Her father smiled and pointed at the giant X that greeted students into Xavier’s sprawling metropolitan campus. “Look, kiddo. X marks the spot.”
Normally this would make Logan roll her eyes at her father’s silly “Dad” jokes. But instead it made her cry, a cry that shook her to her core.
“Logan,” her father’s voice was stern now. “There will be no tears shed for me. I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere. And you are always my daughter, even if… Even if for some reason I am not here anymore. And you are destined for great things. This is just a bump in the road, my little love.”
Logan stared at him, amazed that he was speaking to her like it was any other day, as if he hadn’t just been told that he was dying. “It’s not just a bump, Dad. It’s a meteor sized blast straight to my heart.”
Her father pulled her to him, allowing her to cry into his shoulders for a few minutes, to let the frustration and pain out.
He’d done it many a time. Logan had sobbed into his shoulders over lost games, unfair calls, fights with friends, and frustration over her own growing pains.
He was her father after all. And even cancer could never change that.
Chapter 12 - Solomon
With the Rio Olympics not far away, Sensei Shinji sat down with Gavin and Solomon to discuss the chances of their young judoka qualifying for the games. Solomon’s best weight was just below two hundred pounds, which placed him just at the top end of the under-ninety-kilogram weight class for international judo.
The process for qualifying was a time consuming and financially-challenging process. Performances in tournaments all around the globe counted for points which went toward a judoka’s world ranking. Each nation could send only one athlete in each weight class to the Olympics, and Solomon would likely struggle to accumulate enough points to surpass some of his older, more experienced peers.
Gavin felt he could get the bank which employed him to sponsor Solomon, defraying some of his travel costs and allowing him to train and compete full-time, but the 2020 Tokyo Olympics seemed like a better opportunity for Solomon. He’d be twenty-six, in his athletic prime, and competing in the birthplace of judo, Japan.
If Solomon somehow reached Rio in 2016, all the better, but the three men decided that Tokyo would be the ultimate goal, and that they’d game plan accordingly.
Until Solomon spoke up.
“What if I were to represent Fiji rather than the United States? Fiji has never won an Olympic medal. I want to be the first. How could I qualify as a Fijian?”
Sensei Shinji and Gavin looked at each other and at Solomon incredulously.
“That’s so perfect!” Gavin replied. “Why didn’t we think of that sooner? If you can get yourself ranked in the top twenty-two in the world, you’re in. Assuming no Fijian judoka is higher ranked. Let me research it a bit. You haven’t represented the US team anywhere yet, so why not?”
“And that way, I can get into Worlds and stuff like that and get another crack at Adonis. He won’t be able to hide anymore,” Solomon added.
Sensei Shinji laughed.
“Fight him with rage and revenge in your heart and I promise you’ll lose, kailoma. ‘Ju yoku go o seisu’. Softness controls hardness. When the time is right, he will appear before you, and you will use what you’ve been taught. You won’t pursue him, give him reason to pursue you. Be so good that he has to face you to keep from slipping into obscurity.”
“And then can I crush him?” Solomon asked.
The three men laughed.
“Yes. Then you can crush him,” Sensei Shinji assured his young student.
Gavin made a series of phone calls and sent out e-mails over the following days and discovered that Solomon could certainly represent Fiji in the Olympics, but that he’d have to surpass the performance of several strong judokas from the islands in his weight class. By sheer force of numbers, his road through Fiji would be easier than trying to fight his way through the bevy of higher-ranked Americans, and Solomon was enthusiastic about winning Fiji a medal. If Solomon was to march in the opening ceremonies in Rio or Tokyo, it would be under the sky-blue banner of the Fijian flag.
* * *
Weeks later, after spending an afternoon at the gym doing cardio and leg work, Solomon met his friend Elliott, the boy who had painfully introduced him to judo on his first visit to Cincinnati, for an early dinner near his apartment adjacent to the Xavier University campus. Elliott still trained, but Solomon had long ago surpassed him, in both physical stature and kyu-dan rank, achieving a superior belt within two years of his first visit to the dojo.
Elliott had a test for which to study, but Solomon was itching for something to do, and his legs were too sore to consider spending any more time in the gym. As he walked on the Xavier campus, he noticed a crowd filing into the soccer stadium.