by Sheena Kamal
Finally, she lets me out of the car so that I can work up a decent sweat and try to forget about how pink dresses look on my dark skin. Plus, I don’t really like being at the house when Dad is around. I think Ma knows it, too.
* * *
Whoever said The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice never met me, or my sparring partner Amanda Finch. Amanda, with her hair forever pulled back in neat cornrows and her limbs so long and strong that if you let her get a lock on you, you’d be on the mat forever, being squeezed to a pulp. Sweetness never even comes into the picture. I’m having serious doubts about my own levels.
“I don’t know about you, but she’s sweet,” said Ricky, her sometimes gym boyfriend, when I shared my thoughts on the matter with him. “But only if you hit that spot, if you know what I mean.”
I don’t, so I ask Noor, my other training buddy. We’re in the locker room and she’s fussing with one of those new-fangled sports hijabs that never comes undone; when she puts it on her eyes turn into dark pools so gorgeous that every now and then you’ll get trapped in them, and that’s when she’ll unleash a combo on your ass that will leave you vowing to never look in her eyes again. But you won’t be able to help it.
“How the hell should I know?” Noor says, but she also spent an hour in her fiancé’s BMW last week after class, so you’d think she’d be a little wiser than me. “Engagement doesn’t mean marriage, Trish. What do you think I am?”
Who does she think she’s fooling? Those windows steamed themselves up? Yeah right, girl.
I am as dark as Amanda, but Indian, so it’s a bit different. Amanda is from Jamaica and I’m from Trinidad but Indian Trinis are as good as black even though we’re not, according to the Desis I play cards with during lunch at school (sometimes dominoes when somebody is feeling dangerous). The lunchtime Desis are actually from India and can spot pretenders immediately, the people who are sort-of but not-really. The in-betweens like me with Indian blood but without any of the culture steeped into me. We’re lumped together in their minds, Amanda and me. They show me pictures of saris that they wear to Indian weddings and sometimes speak in Desi-slang around me, so I won’t feel like a complete outsider, but I know I am. I’m only Indian to those who don’t know the difference.
Maybe this would all matter if I didn’t have the gym, but I do, so who cares?
When I get back home, I’m still thinking about all this plus my skin. Especially since Ma laid the dress on my bed for me to look at some more, I guess. Pammy’s son, Christopher, is also on the bed. I like to call him Columbus because of his desire to “discover” every girl he sees who puts the brown in brown sugar. He hates the name but knows it’s true. Plus, him and Pammy are the only white people on this block of co-op townhouses, so he’s surrounded by people who know what good curry tastes like. Noor’s theory is that all the spice in the air has infected his brain.
“You’re not that dark,” he says, when I tell him about Ma’s comment at the mall. I don’t want to ask about the juice thing because he’ll probably say something disgusting and I’ll have to throw him out of my room. Besides, I’m pretty sure my juice isn’t that sweet on account of all the fighting I do. Not MMA, because I don’t like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and never want to be face down in anyone’s crotch or trapped under a stank armpit. You want to roll around on the ground? Fine, go ahead. I’m gonna stay on my feet, thanks. So Muay Thai is where it’s at for me.
Punches like a boxer.
Sharp elbows and powerful knees.
Teeps with all the force I can muster behind my right leg, a push kick that can knock you on your ass.
Swing kicks that’ll sweep your legs from under you.
“Yeah?” I say, moving the dress aside and sprawling out beside him. “You’re the palest guy I ever met. What would you know about it?”
Columbus punches me in the shoulder, but not that hard, even though he knows I can take it. He’s not offended. Neither of us have been offended by each other since we were eight years old, when we were walking home one day from school and brushed arms. He shot away from me like a bullet and called me a dirty Paki, which upset us both. Me for obvious reasons and him because it just came out and he knew it was a bad thing to say. I forgave him after a week of sullen silences but neither of us ever forgot that I could have made it much worse for him. I could have told one of our teachers at school or (worse) Pammy, who does not tolerate that kind of shit from anybody.
Ma walks into my room and looks at us on my bed. Sees something between us that isn’t there. With that look we spring apart, even though it’s nothing because it’s Columbus and he’s a dork, a gamer, an animé nerd, which is the nerdiest kind. I’ve crushed on other guys, but never Columbus.
Even though he was my first kiss and, pathetically, my last.
It happened a couple years ago after we snuck some of Pammy’s wine from one of the ginormous boxes she drinks it out of. I shudder to even think about it. Though the kiss itself was nice, if a little dry on account of the alcohol dehydration. But it was Columbus, of all people. I mean…his pipe cleaner arms couldn’t hold a pencil longer than a minute at a time, whereas I can do fifty push-ups without breaking a sweat. Easy as breathing. I could break him with a flick of my wrist.
* * *
When Columbus goes home, I stop outside of Ma’s bedroom door and peek inside. Ma and Dad are both in there. Normally, I stay away from her room when Dad is around, but I want to ask if we can get the dress in another colour maybe. Looking through the gap between the door and the frame, I see Ma pulling on her nightgown, her skin dewy from the bath. A slip of satin flutters down over the purple bruise on her hip. Dad reaches for her and she goes into his arms.
I step away, avoiding the major creaks of the floorboards, wishing he would go back to Trinidad. He doesn’t come up that often, but when he’s here I can’t wait for him to leave again. Back in my room I pull the covers over my head and try not to think about how early it’s starting this time. The bruises, I mean. I bury my head, my rage, my fear. My hatred.
I hate him so much I could kill him.
four
I’m usually at the gym more when Dad is around. Ma thinks my Muay Thai obsession is insane but realizes that at least one of us should learn self-defence. Keeps me out of trouble and all that. She knows I train, but she doesn’t know I fight. She thinks it’s for exercise and protection. Sometimes I think about telling her, but I don’t want to make her feel bad that I can fight.
I can fight and she won’t.
Me, Amanda and Noor are the main girls that train here, though others cycle through. They get with the good-looking guys, do some kick-boxing-lite and push-ups from their knees. Other stuff on their knees, too, while the real fighters spar nightly until we almost pass out. Some of them flash big smiles at everyone and we know those are the girlfriends that are gonna end up as ring girls, and there’s no fate worse than being a ring girl in a sport that actually includes girls as competitors. But sure, be eye candy.
“What’s with you?” asks Amanda. Noor has gone home with The Fiancé and there’s only a handful of the fighters left, trying to get in that last bit of training for the night, trying to beat some sense into themselves or the other guy. Amanda gets behind my heavy bag and holds it for my push kicks. She bends her legs, takes the force on her flexed thigh rather than her belly.
“Nothing.”
She gives me a knowing look. Even though we’re the same age, she’s always looking at me like that. I’m beyond being offended by it, though, because it’s Amanda, and she’s almost a legend in our gym. She made the Canadian team last year, but a knee injury kept her from competing internationally. Still, everyone was jealous because she came off her injury even better than she was before, and how does that happen? There’s no chance of her not making the team again this year.
“Your dad’s back?” she asks now, out of nowh
ere.
How did she know?
“Don’t really want to talk about it.” The impact of my next kick sends her a step back.
“You train harder when he’s here. Might be a good thing since you can’t quit losing in the ring.”
My face burns. I’m so embarrassed I can’t look at her. My next few kicks are off, too. Like, I know I’m shit in the ring, but I can’t help it, and I can’t stop from going in there either. “You might as well quit before you get any worse,” she smirks. “Come on, I’ll take the train with you.”
Where we’re from, legends take the train, too.
Before I go, I look over at Kru, who’s doing his own drills on the speed bag. He doesn’t break rhythm but gives us a little nod of the head to say goodbye.
Sometimes I try to tell how old Kru is, but this is almost impossible because of his amazing skin. He could be anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five and you wouldn’t be surprised at either end. Once, between rounds on a pad session, I asked him why he liked Muay Thai so much, being from the Philippines. He just sighed and gave me more push-ups to do. Kru doesn’t have time to explain personal shit to people, so unless you have a question about technique, you’re out of luck. Sometimes, though, he’ll bring pizza to the gym when we’re trying to cut weight the hardest, just to remind us what’s important in life. Cheese and happiness. So we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
I think I’ve loved Kru for years, but not like you’re thinking. I don’t want him to touch me or anything, you perv. I just want to spend most of my waking hours at his gym…but everyone has to go home sometime.
Right?
It’s not parka weather yet, so we’re in our standard sweats as we wait for the train together. Amanda’s wearing her Team Canada gear. I wonder if the situation was reversed whether I’d hold my success over her head. She’s got three belts to her name already and a social media following the rest of us could only dream of. If—in some kind of multiverse where there are an infinite number of mes standing here while the Toronto chill sneaks past the fabric of my clothes and pricks at my skin—if one of them is a champ and one of her isn’t, would that make me feel sorry for her?
I sneak a glance at her. Her eyes are on the tracks. Figures. Champs and almost-champs, they’re always looking ahead. So now I’m doing it, too, and feeling proud of my new focus on the immediate future. We stand there, not just waiting for the train but willing it closer. She doesn’t ask me any more about my dad, and it’s a blessed relief. The thing about the gym is nobody is all that interested in what your life is like outside its walls. It’s just not that important.
* * *
The next few days are brutal. I stand just outside the front door and listen before I walk in on anything. Ma is shouting less than she usually does. I wonder if he’s gone and done it this time, made her into the woman he’s always wanted her to be. That she sometimes tries to be when she gets that look in her eye with him. All soft and sweet, like one of those prim ladies from movies about the fifties who always have the house kept well, dinner ready, and still manage to stay out of everyone’s way. These days she actually tries to avoid him, step around him when he’s there, turn away when she sees him coming. Maybe she’s learning some defence of her own, but I think it just makes him angrier. I don’t mean to sound judgy…it’s just that her footwork needs some fine-tuning.
* * *
Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. One, two, three, four. Bap bap bap bap. It’s about the rhythm, see?
“Come on,” says Ricky, who’s holding pads for me. “Ten swing kicks.” So I give him ten, and we go back to combos.
Knee. Double knee. Push back, swing kick. Do it fifty times, then join conditioning class for some weight training.
I beg Kru to put me on for a demo coming up.
“You sure you’re ready this time?”
“I’m ready, Kru. I want this.”
He sighs. Rubs at the imaginary hairs on his jaw. “I’ll think about it.”
That night, Kru’s ex from last year comes in like it’s nothing and watches us train from the bench. Nobody can focus because we wonder what he’s gonna do about it. She won’t leave, just sits there painting her nails. In a Muay Thai gym. A drip of electric-blue polish falls on the mat and we hope he’s gonna throw down. But he doesn’t. He’s too busy helping us be the best fighters we can be to even notice that basic shit.
This only makes us respect him more. Train harder, even though it’s almost impossible to ignore the presence of this soft woman with her hard face. We want to be the best for Kru. To be ready to drop and give him fifty push-ups at any point in our day. Train harder. Be stronger. Faster. Control our emotions as he does—ignoring the ladies in our lives that make everything difficult.
Be ready for whatever life throws at us.
“You never know what can happen,” Aunty K said recently. She was talking about last year in Trinidad when someone tried to kidnap my dad, which happens to people there all the time, on account of all the drugs and general mayhem. We’d even knocked Colombia off the list for most kidnappings for a while. Congrats to everybody.
Dad had the sense to defend himself and chase his attacker off, but sometimes I wish he wasn’t so very prepared for what life threw at him. I see the transformation in Ma when he’s around. She becomes smaller and fiercer. She cleaves onto me so tight. At these times, I know there’s a difference between smothering and mothering, but I can’t remember what it is.
I have this fantasy, right. Ma will come to see me fight and Kru will be there and they’ll fall in love and I’ll get a free gym membership forever, with a set of hand wraps thrown in.
This is some childish bullshit, I know. But I can’t help it. When I heard Dad almost got taken, that’s what I came back to first. Ma and me, Kru and the gym. Just us. No one else. Dad like a faded photo from the past, shoved into some dark corner where he’ll never bother us again. Like somebody we used to know. Memories fading with the bruises on her body.
five
My next fight, a demo fundraiser for the gym’s competition season, the one I specifically begged Kru to put me in, is a disappointment. The girl I’m up against doesn’t even show, so I’ve got to spar in the ring with Jason, a Mexican guy a year older than me. A college boy. He trained at another gym in the city before coming here to take advantage of a week free pass, and then never left. We’re the same height and he thinks he’s the shit but his conditioning is lacking at best. Even though he has abs of steel, apparently they’re just for show. He gets gassed in the first round and I just play him until I land a push kick to his stomach. He goes flying across the ring and Kru steps in with a giddy smile and throws both mine and Jason’s hands up in victory, even though everyone knows I won.
Jason wraps me in celebratory hug. He’s way too happy for a guy who just lost to a girl. I notice for the first time that he smells better than he should for a guy who just finished a fight. And I suddenly wonder how I must smell to him, which is not what I want to be thinking about after my victory.
Thankfully, the crowd is still cheering. I can tell that I made Kru proud.
Kru, with his shinbone like a blade that can slice right through you. Like one of those knives you order off the television, sharp and precise. Truly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Kru could have been a fighter in his own right, a contender, but he had woman troubles. That’s what some people whisper behind his back. Me and the other fighters couldn’t care less about that. The others tend to glare at those people until they shut up, but I mostly just ignore them. Who am I to listen to them, to judge Kru? I’ve got nuff woman troubles of my own.
Kru holds the ropes apart for me so I can slide through. Jason’s already out, so Kru follows me with a hand on my shoulder. He’s beaming and looks so happy that I start to feel happy, too. Maybe he’ll even let me fight next month against that girl from that west-side
gym, the one I lost to last year.
Because I’m no Jason. I can handle a hit.
The first time I took a kick to the stomach, full on with my belly relaxed, I thought I was going to die. Noor was the one that did it. It was a teep and the full force of her blow went ramming through me, an anvil of female power like you never knew existed. I dry-heaved over the bin for a good five minutes and she sat with me afterwards, her arm slung around my shoulders, while tears of frustration and pain streamed down my face.
Kru waited for me outside the ladies’ locker room and raised his slim self, corded with lean muscle, to his full height while he peered at me. He’s no more than an inch or so taller than me, so he can’t exactly do the looking down thing he sometimes tries to do. The looking down is implied. “You have to tense, Trish,” he said, rapping his hard belly.
By then I was all cried out. Only fourteen then, a baby. So soft. Pathetic. I nodded and we worked on it for the rest of the year.
Crunch. Medicine ball dropped on my stomach on the flex.
Crunch. Drop. Throw up. Crunch. Drop.
But I learned. In the end, I learned that it could feel so good.
Was this what Ma felt when my father hit her where nobody would see? A flare of pleasure in the pain?
“You let her hurt you too much,” Kru had said after my first fight, which was just after I turned sixteen. It was against a Brazilian chick from Buffalo I had at least five pounds on. I should have crushed her because her right crosses were like feather taps, but she knew how to land her swing kicks, right at the spot where my quads ended and a world of pain began. I lost, by decision. Kru thought I was too hurt to fight back, a girl that small. But he was wrong, wasn’t he? Because, for some reason, I found myself leaning into her blows.