As we turn into yet another side street, I see a body lying on the sidewalk, huddled against the wall of a building, and three huge guys standing over the body and pissing on it. Drago accelerates, drives two wheels onto the sidewalk, hits the brakes, jumps out of the car, and within a split second is throwing down one of the guys and knocking out the second one with a strike to the jaw. The third one pulls out a gun, but Drago grabs the guy’s wrist and locks it out. A shot issues, hitting the wall of the building. I think Drago breaks the guy’s arm, because I hear a shrill cry of pain as he sinks down on his knees.
While two of the guys struggle to get up on their feet and their knocked-out companion is still lying down, Drago picks Danny up in his arms, throws him on the back seat of the car, gets in, and we drive off. I think the whole incident on the sidewalk did not take more than two or three minutes.
I unfasten my seat belt and turn toward the back seat and try to check on Danny.
“Leave him alone,” Drago says. “He’s fine. Not injured or anything. Just passed out. Fucking drank himself into oblivion.”
“What happened with the gun?” I ask.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
When we get back to Roosevelt Island and are about to go into our building, Drago suddenly pauses, leans Danilo’s semiconscious body against me, runs across the street and disappears in the direction of the East River. He comes back in two minutes and we all go inside.
In the apartment he puts Danny in the shower to wash and revive him, then helps him out of the bathroom and lays him down on the couch in the living room. I put a pillow under his head, cover him with a blanket, and sit by his side for a long time. Drago puts a movie on and stares at the screen, but I know he is not really watching. He has this expression on his face that I know quite well by now and know that I should not even try to talk to him at the moment. After a while he shuts the movie off, throws the remote control on the table with a loud bang, and turns to me.
“Your brother is an alcoholic. We should check him into some sort of a program.”
“He won’t go.”
“We won’t ask him. I’ll take him to a rehab in Nassau County on Long Island. They also offer treatments for gambling addictions. I’ll drive him tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll come too.”
“No, better that you don’t.”
“But Drago . . .”
“You are not coming with us.” And by the tough and resolute tone of his voice, which I have already heard on numerous occasions, I know that it would be useless to argue with him.
Chapter 16
Like a guillotine over my head. This is what my life feels like now. Every day I dread being summoned to do my next Dark Fight. I am intensely aware that on any of these occasions I might get severely crippled or killed. This awareness makes my senses heightened, my nerves overstrung, and every moment of my existence overly bright and full. I wonder if it also has an effect on my feelings for Drago. With each day, with each night they intensify. I think about him constantly. Every time we have sex I give all of me, as if it were the last time, and in the morning I wake up filled with aching tenderness and desire to hold him in my arms and never let him go.
I do not think about the future though. My life after the Dark Fights just seems too remote, behind the line of the visible horizon. I guess I’m superstitious and don’t want to tempt fate, so I chase away dreams of what it would be like to get out of the last Dark Fight alive and well. I live day by day, hour by hour, being with Drago, falling more and more in love with him, and training, training, training. All I know is that for me to have any shot at a possible future I must become a better—a much better fighter.
“Listen, girl, you are so fond of that historical, legendary martial arts stuff,” Drago tells me one evening when we are sitting on the mat in the little gym in our building, taking a break from practicing a combination of a takedown followed by juji-gatame, a perpendicular arm bar. “Those beautiful fairytales of honor and valor. Listen, they did not originate from real battles. No, they were invented during peacetimes in Japan, when armed fights were outlawed and your beloved samurai had nothing to do but sit around, organize friendly matches from time to time, and invent stories of high standards and moral codes. This is all pretty and nice but does not work on the battlefield. You understand?”
“Are you saying a fighting cage is a battlefield?”
“Yes, once you step into it, the rules and values you learned at the Dojo do not exist. You understand?”
“How do you honestly feel about the Dark Fights?”
“It’s a dirty, fucked-up business, and you should not be doing them. You’ll do the three remaining fights, we’ll get you so well-trained that you win them spectacularly and not get injured in the process, and then you are done with the whole thing and will not step in the cage again. You understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And since you love all that old Japanese martial arts stuff so much, here’s one advice a legendary Japanese martial artist gave to his students after a long grueling day of practicing techniques. He said, ‘When you are in a real fight—every technique your body executes must be reinforced with your mind’s unwavering strength to inflict pain and damage.’ Now, you see, he was a smart guy, and understood the reality of the world. All right, girl, get your butt up. Let’s get back to training.”
As soon as I am up on my feet Drago attacks me and throws me down and gets me in a choke hold so fast that I have absolutely no chance at resisting or countering. Hell, what am I saying, “resisting or countering!” He moved so fast, I couldn’t even see his arms reaching for me, let alone even think how to resist or counter. If the words “faster than the speed of light” can be applied to the execution of a throw, then that’s how fast he threw me.
I tap out and he lets go and gets up. I remain lying on the floor and probably have a rather astounded expression on my face. Drago smirks, gives me his hand, and pulls me up. “Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get there.”
After that first failed training session, when we ended up on the ground doing other sorts of ‘techniques,’ the following sessions have been going a lot more according to a plan. We both take this very seriously and do not let ourselves get distracted again. I am in absolute awe at Drago’s teaching abilities and absorb his every word of instruction, every move he shows me.
He makes me work hard on breaking certain fighting habits that are not practical in the cage. Relearning can be very difficult and even frustrating at times, and it takes great patience and determination on both Drago’s and my side. He starts by retraining me how to do a number of basic throws on an opponent who does not wear a gi. Without being able to grab gi sleeves and the collar, some of my throws in the cage will not work. Drago shows me how I can still use them effectively. For example, ouchi-gari—major inner reap—can be done very well in a standard clinch situation using underhook and overhook instead of grabbing the gi. One of the highest scoring techniques in judo, seoi-nage—shoulder throw—can also be executed with great force in the cage by grabbing the opponent’s arm instead of the gi. It turns out that pretty much most of the throws with the exception of a few can be done without the gi, and once again I am amazed at Drago’s great expertise in all matters concerning real fights, where no rules, uniforms, or score cards exist.
He identifies my weak and strong points and we work for hours and hours until the weak points become strong, and the strong ones turn into a formidable force able to end a fight. When we just start out, I feel frustrated because my favorite juji-gatame—perpendicular arm bar—seems to be ineffective on Drago, or rather I fail most of the times to overcome his defense and get his arm into the right position where his elbow would be vulnerable. As the training progresses, I am able to get him into a successful juji-gatame with more and more frequency, and later on I hit an almost nine out of ten rate
.
We practice various throws and take downs, ne waza (groundwork), and strikes to vital points such as the eyes, throat, back of the neck, and a number of highly effective choke holds and joint locks. We work on moves which are illegal in regulated fights, such as downward elbow strikes. Drago also teaches me some extreme techniques, for example the brutal grab with the fingers under the ribs reaching for internal organs, which are perfect for a no-rules bout. We work a lot on my defense, so that an opponent cannot execute a te guruma or the like on me, or kick me in the head, or put me to sleep with a choke hold.
“What about defense against sneak attacks, like the one with the Bengay?” I ask at one point.
Drago frowns and shakes his head. Even he, with his skeptical view of martial artists’ code of honor and his very realistic ideas of what goes on in the fight cages . . . even he thinks that such tricks are a complete disgrace. “Fucking cheaters,” he mutters under his breath and proceeds to train me how to take control of my body and mind, to continue fighting, and to not panic in extreme circumstances.
I have no doubt that Drago has a natural talent for teaching, and he seems to think I make a rather good student. We train at the little gym for several hours almost every day, and I also continue sparring with my tattooed friend and other partners at 2 Gild Street and practice on them the skills I learn from Drago. All in all, I get in as much, if not more, training as I used to when living at the dojo, only now the training is geared specifically to the no-rules Dark Fights. I try not to dwell on the past or the future at all. It is a strange life, existing intensely in the present moment only, and at times I feel there is something unnatural about it, but I try not to think about that either.
*****
Drago bought an espresso machine, and on the day of my next Dark Fight I make a mistake of drinking strong black coffee throughout the morning and afternoon thinking it would keep me alert in the evening and at night. It’s almost midnight now and I am crashing. The driver turns toward me and says I look awful.
“Here, take this.” He hands me a small plastic bag with two pills in it.
I deliberate for a moment, but then give it back. Instead, I find pressure points on the inside of my elbows and massage them as hard as I can. After a few minutes I feel somewhat more energized.
The car drives up to an impressive building on Fifth Avenue. Baldy meets me at the curb. Before we go in I pause for a moment. Wait a minute, I know this building. This is one of the oldest private clubs in NYC, The New Amsterdam Club. It’s extremely exclusive, and you can only become a member if you are recommended by a member. Women were not allowed in until about twenty years ago. Membership costs some twenty grand a year and you have to spend another five grand a year in the club’s restaurants and bars. They have amazing training facilities for various sports, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a decent-sized judo dojo, and besides that a formal dining room, a grill room, bars, lounges, a conference room, and a number of guest rooms for members and their guests.
I’ve been inside once, when years ago I was presented with a ticket to a judo tournament. And just like now, I had to go in through the side door. The club has a very strict dress code and only those in formal wear may use the front entrance.
Baldy and I take the athletic elevator, the one for people not in formal attire, and go up to the ninth floor. Buzz Cut meets us in the elevator vestibule, and then hands me over to Head Tattoo, who leads me to the door of a locker room. Inside, Ricardo the Stylist is already waiting, absolutely excited about how big and beautiful the room is. It is indeed the most impressive locker room I have ever been in. A faint smell of raspberries hangs in the air. There are big soft armchairs, floor to ceiling mirrors, stacks of soft white towels, bottles of lotions, and numerous hair products on the sink counter.
Ricardo is ecstatic, “Oh, I wish all the Fights could be held at this location. It is so luxurious.”
Sitting in a comfortable armchair while he is working on me, I almost fall asleep. Ricardo tells me he can go get something that will help me stay awake and be super alert and, in his words, “a few other things.” I know now what he is referring to and say no again and massage the pressure points on the inside of my elbows once more.
Head Tattoo leads me to a large beautiful chamber with a direct view of Central Park. The setting could not be more glamorous, with what I guess is real antique furniture, marble sculptures, genuine paintings . . . all of that combined with the most stunning and authentic decoration of all—the park just outside. The crowd is more elegantly dressed than during the other Dark Fights events. All men are wearing dinner suits and bow ties, and the few women that are in attendance are dressed in elegant gowns and exquisite jewelry. The expressions on their faces are the same though. It is that mix of excitement, exhilaration, and almost hunger for the bloody spectacle to start.
I am the first one inside the cage this time. The announcer calls “Martial Marty” and the audience reacts right away, a number of voices chanting, “M-M! M-M!” with great enthusiasm. Hmm, this mysterious MM must be quite a crowd pleaser. By now I am familiar with the tastes of these people and can’t help but wonder what kind of brutal stunts MM has pulled in the cage in order to gain their approval.
When my opponent appears and takes off her hoodie, for a few moments I am not sure if my eyes are not deceiving me.
Could it be? Is it really? Yes, there is no doubt about it. The girl I am fighting tonight, this MM, is in fact Martine, my best friend from the dojo.
She has always been strong and very muscular, but now her muscles, especially her biceps and triceps, look almost abnormally huge. Besides working out like crazy, she must have been taking steroids. After stepping into the cage, she starts doing side jumps, not stopping for a second. She seems wired and hyper. I wonder if this might be the effect of those pills that the driver offered to me and that I refused. I bet Martine didn’t refuse them.
For a moment, a deep sadness permeates my whole being. How is it that we have come to this, my friend and I? I must push this feeling away though and only focus on the bout ahead. I take several deep breaths in and out.
“Fighter, ready?” the referee asks me. I nod.
“Fighter, ready? He turns to Martial Marty.
“Ready!” she shouts.
“Fight!”
Martine keeps jumping around the cage in almost a frenzy. I watch her motions with attention. She attacks with a high kick going for a KO. No doubt she knows that was how I lost my previous fight and thinks that defense against high kicks is my weak point. Her kick does not connect, and for a moment she loses balance but then does a backward flip and lands on her feet. After an exchange of strikes we move into a clinch, both attempting a takedown.
“What are you doing here, Martine?” I ask while we are fighting in a tight embrace, our bodies wrapped around each other, every gap closed, our sweat mixing.
“Did you think you were the only one good enough to be invited into the Dark Fights?” she shouts into my ear.
It feels more than strange for me to be fighting Martine. I am so used to sparring with her at the dojo, to her being my training partner, not my opponent.
“This is weird,” I say to her. “We’re friends.”
“Friends? How can you be so fucking stupid? We are not friends. I’ve always hated you.” She spits out these words and I catch a glimpse of her contorted face, and immediately afterward our faces are pushed together by the force of the fight and our lips land on each other in the creepiest kiss ever possible.
“What?” I manage to pronounce when there is an inch of space between our mouths again.
“You came prancing into the dojo, all pretty and innocent, and Sensei loved you and chose you to be an uchi-deshi. You! That position should have been mine. You took it from me!” At this she sweeps my leg and throws me down on the canvas and goes for a kimura arm lock from side control, ly
ing across me, her hips pressed against my chest. I do not allow her to get a full control of my arm and to crank my elbow, so she abandons the kimura, and tries to assume a position for a choke hold. At one point her eyes are only a few inches from me and they are full of such deep hatred. Suddenly it dawns on me.
“Was it you who threw me down the stairs?” I pronounce with difficulty, fighting off her attempts to get me in a choke.
“Who else?”
“And the tanto switch during my examination?”
“Yesss,” she hisses into my ear. “I switched it. I also slipped you something in the water before your test. It slowed you down.” I don’t know why she is confessing this stuff now. I guess she’s out of control, all fueled up on the natural adrenaline or the drugs.
“And you told Sensei about my Dark Fights!”
“Oh, yes. Sergey ordered me to. He wanted you to be kicked out of the dojo.”
We get back on our feet and she continues her attempts at kicking me in the head, going for a KO. I know that, at all costs, I must avoid another terrible concussion. I remember Drago’s words that the fighting cage is a battleground and the other person is not my training partner but my enemy. Martine is my enemy now.
A punch to her solar plexus. An elbow to her sternum, a strike to a pressure point on her neck, and a full-force strike to the eye. “Every technique your body executes must be reinforced with your mind’s unwavering strength to inflict pain and damage.”
She seems quite disoriented now, and I throw her down and go for the juji-gatame arm bar, her trapped elbow tight against my hips, extending her arm, arching my hips to overextend her elbow. She does not tap out. Does she not feel the pain? I know her elbow is being severely injured right now. It’s possible that those pills, aside from giving her an extra boost of energy, also numb the pain. Still, she must be aware that her elbow is about to break. I relax my grip a bit, and she tries to get out. We struggle, and she hisses, “I will kill you.”
The Dark Fights Page 19