The Dark Fights

by Alexandra Vinarov

  Copyright © 2020 by Alexandra Vinarov

  E-book published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Sean M. Thomas

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced

  or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the

  publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters, locales, and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental

  and not intended by the author.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-982683-12-2

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-982683-11-5

  Fiction / Action & Adventure

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  For my parents and for my brother

  Chapter 1

  There are no more than ten people in the ER waiting room. It is past eleven at night and rather quiet, NY1 News humming drowsily somewhere in the background. Danilo is sitting with his eyes closed, taking careful, measured breaths. I suspect he has broken ribs, and I hope he doesn’t have any internal bleeding. He cannot move his right arm—the shoulder must have been dislocated or separated. I look at his face and have to blink rapidly to control the tears. A broken nose with crusts of dried blood, huge bruises, cuts. His beautiful face is now almost unrecognizable.

  “It’s all right,” Danilo says with difficulty. It hurts him to move his lips. He is not the type of man to withstand pain. I am not sure if it’s true that some people have naturally high pain thresholds, but I do know that you can train yourself to raise your tolerance. You acknowledge the pain, take it in, and deal with it. Danny cannot do that. He feels the pain acutely and does not know how to cope with it, how to process it, and so he is suffering now. I can see it, and I wish it was I who felt the pain instead.

  “It’s all right,” he says. Damn it. Nothing is all right. I clench my fists and breathe deeply, in and out, trying to calm down. I feel so bad for Danny. I can’t remember the last time I cried, and now it’s all I can do to hold back the tears—but I’m also angry with him. He promised he would stay away from 2 Gild Street.

  When the bartender from Wolf Flannigan’s pub called saying Danilo had been dropped off there in rather bad shape and I’d better come get him, I got a cold spasm in my stomach. Wolf Flannigan’s is right around the corner from 2 Gild Street. I do not believe in coincidences.

  Ah, damn it! He promised. He looked me in the eye and promised. But then again, Danilo is not the type of man who can keep his word. He never could. I have a few questions to ask him, but now is not the time.

  In an effort to divert my thoughts I look around the room, take in the silent figures sitting here at this late hour. One man in particular catches my attention. He is perhaps in his thirties, has a muscular build and cropped hair. He’s wearing old jeans and a fisherman’s sweater. He frowns and glances at his watch every few minutes. He looks very tired and you can tell he hates this waiting. I wonder what brought him here. Must be his hand, which looks very swollen. I bet one of the bones is broken. He glances at me several times and smiles—a weary, barely perceptible sort of smile. He then shifts his gaze to Danilo’s face, frowns again, and shakes his head slightly.

  I lean back in the chair, close my eyes, and go back to my breathing exercises. Breathe in deeply, imagine the air moving to the back of my head, then swallow, bring it down to a point just below the navel, hold it, and then breathe out very slowly. This helps me to relax, and I probably doze off for a minute or so.

  The next moment the room seems to explode with deafening shouts and chaotic movement.

  I am not sure if the person causing this has just come in from the street or from the inside of the hospital. He was definitely not one of the people in the waiting room. He’s a big guy in his twenties, now moving around in a frenzy, kicking chairs, and screaming. He then turns toward an older woman who is sitting by herself on a cushioned bench positioned somewhat away from the other seats. He removes a switchblade from his jeans pocket and goes straight for the woman, all the while shouting a mixture of threats and obscenities. Panicked, the woman jumps up and steps back until she is backed into a corner.

  Fixing my eyes on the knife, I have gotten up and moved in close, and I’m now standing barely a few feet away, not letting the hand with the knife out of my sight. But my interference is not needed.

  The following sequence of events occurs within a span of no more than two or three seconds. It all goes so quickly that, for an untrained eye, it is hard to grasp what has just happened. One moment the aggressor is standing up wielding the knife, next he is flat on the ground, and the man in the fisherman’s sweater has him in a choke hold. In slow motion it would look like this—

  “Hey asshole,” the man in the sweater shouts to divert the attacker’s attention. The latter jerks his head and freezes for a moment but doesn’t change his course.

  The man in the sweater rushes over and positions himself between the attacker and the woman in the corner.

  Next, he intercepts the hand with the knife and twists the wrist until the knife falls out of it.

  In the finale of this perfectly executed sequence, he throws his opponent down, landing on top of him, and puts him in a choke hold.

  The security guards are at the scene already, and soon thereafter NYPD officers arrive. They talk to the man in the sweater and thank him for neutralizing the attacker. When the man replies, I can hear he has some kind of an Eastern European accent, but it does not sound Russian.

  His hands handcuffed behind him, muttering something unintelligible under his breath, the aggressor is led away. After this, things quiet down surprisingly fast. I look around, and except for the old lady, nobody seems all that rattled—not the patients, nor the hospital personnel, who return to their work almost right away. Maybe the danger of the incident has not quite sunk in yet, or perhaps we have been New Yorkers too long, for better or for worse.

  The situation does bring us closer for a time. All of us perfect strangers only a few minutes ago, there is now a sense of almost-camaraderie in the waiting room. Someone opens a box of granola bars and passes them around, someone else comments on the increased number of knife attacks in the city and in the world, and other people pick up the topic, talking in hushed, knowing voices, nodding at each other’s statements. The man in the fisherman’s sweater, however, is standing apart, still engaged in conversation with the remaining police officers, holding his swollen hand at a conspicuous, unnatural angle. I notice how tall he is, must be around 6'2", and how very straight his posture is, his broad shoulders even turned backward slightly.

  A nurse calls Danilo’s name and we follow her into the triage area. I cast one last glance at the man in the fisherman’s sweater. He does not look back at me, and I catch myself wishing he would.

  *****

  After a speedy drive through nighttime streets, the cab stops at the corner of 82nd and 1st and the driver thanks me for paying cash. I help Danny out of the car and then up the four flights of stairs to the top floor of the old walk-up. The brownstone was built in 1910 and the ceilings are very high. I am counting the number of stairs we have to climb as I feel the first big wave of tiredness roll over me.

  Danny is pumped full of painkillers and it seems as though he could fall asleep at any moment, and I practically carry him up the last flight. While I fumble with the keys, I have to lean him against the wall and then steady him when he s
tarts sliding down. Finally inside, I lay him on the bed, take his shoes off, and make sure his head is comfortable on the pillow.

  The heat is on, and the air is hot and stale in this tiny one-bedroom apartment. It is a hole of a place but it is rent-stabilized, and, with the recent rent hikes on the Upper East Side because of the new Q train, perhaps the last affordable place in the neighborhood. When I lived here with Danilo, I worked two jobs—teaching kids’ martial arts classes during the day and bartending at night. I was saving money for the future, in the hopes my dream would come true—that Sensei would accept me to be his uchi-deshi, I would be allowed to move into the dojo and practice martial arts full-time.

  Back then Danilo would only spend an occasional night at the apartment, coming in half-starved, with huge dark circles around his eyes, unwilling or unable to speak from exhaustion. I let him sleep for fifteen to twenty hours and fed him oatmeal. And then he would disappear again, for months on end, into his own life. If I questioned him, he would give evasive answers, saying he stayed here and there, at hotels or with friends and such, but I highly suspected he was more or less homeless. It’s true that on his good days, after an especially well-paid modeling gig, he had money to stay at the Carlyle, party with models, and eat in the best restaurants, but on his bad days . . . well, I once found him sleeping on a bench at Pier 16. When my dream came true and Sensei allowed me to move into the dojo, I made Danilo promise he would live at the apartment more permanently. The rent here is very reasonable, yet on some months he does not have enough, and I have to pay, out of my savings.

  I open the window to let the fresh cold air cut through the heavy atmosphere inside. I stand for a few minutes looking out into the dark courtyard. I am tired. The heavy pressure that originated somewhere behind my eyes is spreading all over my body. Up since five in the morning, training the usual long hours . . . and now I am starting to feel a bit like a zombie, staring at a single, indistinct point somewhere outside the window, not thinking anything, unable to turn away. I tell myself to focus and get it together.

  I go to the kitchen and open the fridge. Just as I thought, it is absolutely empty except for a carton of expired almond milk. I pass my finger on the table surface and there is a visible trace left in the coat of dust. By the overall look of the place I can tell no one’s been staying here the last couple of weeks at the least. The bathroom has heavy mildew on the sink and stains from the dripping water in the toilet bowl—a clear indication. Ah, Danilo, didn’t he promise? Well, I should not be surprised.

  I go down to the twenty-four-hour corner store and get some almond milk, cereal, orange juice, and a few other things for Danilo. I bring everything up to the apartment, moving my legs slowly, counting the stairs at each flight again. I consider for a moment cleaning the place up, but I am exhausted. I only have enough energy to clear empty chip bags off the couch, put the dirty liquor glasses with solidified dark substance on the bottom into the kitchen sink, and pick a pair of jeans and a sweater off the floor and hang them in the closet.

  I check on Danilo. He is sleeping, breathing heavily out of his mouth, his broken nose stuffed with plastic inserts and gauze. I cover him with a blanket and sit at the foot of the bed for a while.

  The already habitual sadness about my brother has intensified to the point of squeezing my stomach and making me almost nauseous. His injuries turned out not as dangerous as I had feared—no internal bleeding, no damage to internal organs—but that does not cheer me up a whole lot. Two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a messed-up face are bad enough.

  He turns on his side, moans, and then opens his eyes.

  “You all right, Danny? You in pain? You need anything?”

  “What time is it?” he asks, slurring words and struggling with pronunciation.

  “Quarter to five.”

  “Evening?”

  “Morning.”

  “You should go back to the dojo, Sash. You’ll get kicked out for breaking the rules. You are an uchi-deshi. Dojo is important to you. That’s your home now.”

  “You are important to me”

  He mutters something under his breath. I can make out “I don’t want you to have problems because of me,” but the rest of the phrase is unintelligible. He then remains quiet for a while and I think he might have fallen asleep again.

  “You must go,” he says all of a sudden. “Please, Sash,” he adds in such a gentle supplicating voice.

  “All right, I am going,” I say but just keep sitting there. Then I finally get up. “How much do you owe him this time?” I ask on my way to the door. I pause, waiting for an answer.

  “Danilo?”

  “Ten grand.”

  I close the door carefully behind me.

  Chapter 2

  It’s not yet 6 a.m. and it’s both very cold and still dark outside. Coming out of the subway on Union Square West, a chilly gust of wind hits me in the face. The slush from the last snowfall is still on the ground, and my boots alternately sink into the boggy mess of the dirty snow and slip on the icy patches that have frozen overnight. There is not a soul in sight and the square is really quiet. Lights are on inside some businesses on the ground floors of the buildings encircling the square, but the upper floors are almost all dark.

  Soon the morning rush hour will start and throngs of New Yorkers will emerge from the numerous subway exits at Union Square, jostled by the opposing crowds of those wanting to dive in. Right now however the square is as empty as can be, the only person in sight is a homeless guy in a sleeping bag huddled against a building wall.

  At six the Pret A Manger on the northwest corner opens. I walk in quickly and ask for a cup of their freshly brewed dark roast. “Nah, you’re good,” the guy at the counter says when I’m about to pay. “First customer of the day—coffee’s on the house.”

  The coffee warms me up somewhat as I walk west on 16th street, cross 5th and 6th Avenues, and approach a three-story brick building. The first floor is rented out to a parking garage. A tiny plaque above the front door reads Dojo. The plaque and the door itself are quite overshadowed by two huge park signs of the adjacent business.

  By the building wall, my friend, Amadeus the Homeless Guy, stirs under his numerous blankets. He is a prominent fixture of the neighborhood and has been around for as long as anybody can remember. Sometimes he sits on the corner asking passersby for an exact sum of ninety-nine dollars. He says his calculation is that people would pause to wonder why precisely that number and would give him something anyway. Other times he stands by the local café opening the door for the customers and wishing them a good day. But most often he just lies down reading paperbacks. Even in the winter, when most other homeless are spending nights at Penn Station or elsewhere, he sticks around, saying he is impervious to the cold and that he even likes the snow.

  Amadeus sticks his hand from under the blankets, pointing at my coffee. I realize he is reminding me not to take it inside the dojo, a clue that can reveal my outing. I give him the cup, and he wants to chat a bit, but I apologize that I really must hurry now.

  I punch in the code to unlock the front door and then go up the narrow creaking stairs. The lights are still out on the second floor, where the training area, the reception, and the changing rooms are. Good. It means neither Liam nor Hiroji have come down yet. I go right up to the third floor. Everything is quiet here. The door to Sensei’s rooms is still closed. I tiptoe along the hallway and get to the common area of the uchi-deshi quarters. Here I walk with even greater care—Liam is sleeping on the couch. He has his own room of course, but he always prefers to sleep on this red couch.

  I take one careful step after the other maneuvering in the narrow area between the back of the couch, from which Liam’s measured breathing issues, and the antique armoire. I am almost past the tricky zone when I glance around to check the surroundings, and suddenly I freeze, barely able to contain a gasp. A white sil
houette is suspended in the air in the corner of the room. For a moment I am glued in one spot peering into the darkness.

  I exhale slowly as I realize that the white shape is not a ghost or a flying burglar. I know exactly what it is. Liam’s gi. The top part of it, that is. I can’t see the pants. After the last class of the day, Liam didn’t put his uniform in the laundry but decided to just hang it up on the bathroom door to air-dry the sweat out of it. He does this sometimes, the lazy pigeon. According to the dojo etiquette, we are supposed to wear clean training gis for each practice and wash the dirty ones every day. Liam insists with great firmness that lower ranks like me should follow the rules and etiquette to the dot. Due to his own high rank and position of power, he cuts himself some slack, especially when Sensei is not watching.

  I am already in the hallway and thinking that perhaps it might be all right and my absence has not been noticed, when Liam’s morning voice greets me from behind, “Pack up your shit right now and get the hell out of here.”

  “Liam, come on,” I start saying as I turn around and face him. He has gotten up from his couch and is standing there looking pretty livid. He is wearing his gi pants and I am guessing he was not asleep at all—just lying down quietly, waiting for me to come in. He doesn’t have anything else on other than his gi pants, which sit extremely low on his hips. In the past, this habit of male uchi-deshi walking around in nothing but their gi pants without even any underwear underneath made me a bit uncomfortable. I guess I got used to it during my time here at the dojo, but I still cannot help but be aware of it.

  “No!” Liam interrupts me. “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. Uchi-deshi are not allowed outside the dojo without permission. Spending a night out is strictly forbidden. You broke the rules. You don’t give a damn about being an uchi-deshi. Dojo means nothing to you. So just get the hell out.”