I slowly opened my eyes and risked looking over my shoulder, and down the length of my body, toward the hallway. My little brother was standing there, a confused expression on his face.
I wanted to cry at that point. I was welling up. I needed to breathe. I couldn't though. I must have been going blue by that point. My little brother raised a finger to his mouth and mimicked saying hush.
I mouthed a thank you and he turned slowly and headed back to his room on his tiptoes. He didn’t close his door once he was back inside, probably too concerned it would make enough of a noise to wake the sleeping beast I was at the foot of. He was as much frightened of him as I was.
I slowly positioned myself back on my hands and knees and turned my butt to my dad’s chair. I locked my eyes on the door, my route to freedom. I placed the key between my teeth and started to work my way to the door.
I was halfway there when I heard him grunt and snort. I stopped dead in my tracks. I was in the open, if he had turned around at that point I’d have had nowhere to hide. I chanced a look over my shoulder to see what was happening.
I could only see the side of him from the position I was in. It looked like he’d adjusted his head on the back of the chair, but it thankfully seemed as if he was still asleep. I watched his chest rise and fall a few times, trying to figure if the pace of his breathing was enough to suggest he was still dead to the world. I had no idea what I was looking for though, so I decided to continue toward the door.
At the door, I sat on my butt, scooted my legs into myself, and used all the strength my legs could muster to stand. Once on my feet, I wobbled, there was an awful ache in my weak muscles. My whole body felt tense, as if every part of me was knotted and pulled taut. I was also going lightheaded from holding my breath for so long. If I didn’t make it out of the apartment soon I was liable to pass out.
I took the key out of my mouth, then I licked every inch. The idea being, if it was wet enough it would make less noise when I placed it in the keyhole. It worked like a charm. I turned the key as slowly as I could, my face crumpling every time I heard the locking mechanism click.
Once the door was unlocked, I performed the same trick I’d used on my bedroom door. I gave myself just enough room to slip out through the gap. Once I was in the hallway, I turned and pulled the door closed.
“Oh no,” I whispered, my breathing sputtering as I took in some air for the first time in a long time. I’d left the key in the other side of the door. That would have given the game away when he went to lock up before he went to bed.
I pushed the door open, just enough to reach my hand in. It was a fiddly procedure to remove the key, but I managed it. However, the wetness on it made me drop the damn thing. I heard the impact as it hit the wooden floor inside. My eyes went wide in a sudden shot of panic. My heart skipped a beat. My vision even blurred.
I was frozen to the spot. I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing, apart from waiting for the moment the door would be pulled open, snatched from my hands, then the hand that would grab my hair and pull me inside for my punishment.
But it didn’t happen. I don’t know how long I waited, it felt like ages, but it couldn’t have been. I let out a quick silent breath and took another one in. I got to my hands and knees again and edged the door open with little controlled pushes.
I could see the key, but not my dad. I didn’t want to see him, I was nervous enough as it was without having to see his looming and menacing presence. I stretched my arm through the opening, grabbed the key between two fingers, pulled it back into my body, kissed it, and pulled the door shut.
I got to my feet, placed the key in the lock, following a good extensive licking, and locked the door. I smiled. The first time I’d done so that close to home for a very long time.
I ran down the hallway on my tiptoes, cleared every four steps once I was on the stairs, with a little heel-clicking jump. I had a bus to catch and a comic book convention to go to. After I’d changed into my costume, of course.
BRAD
“Okay,” I said as I finished fastening on the Thai pads. “You’re gonna drive in a leading round house, follow with a right cross, left hook, then a right push kick.” I nodded at Sara.
Sara pulled tight the last of the Velcro straps on her pink boxing gloves with the use of her teeth. “Man, you know how to torture me.” She smiled.
I laughed as she got set in a fighting stance. “I know. I’m mean, aren’t I?” I raised the pads, held them into my stomach and positioned myself for the first kick. “Remember, to take a small step away from the pad before you kick. I want to see you using your hips to drive it home. Make sure you hit through the target, not just at it.”
“I know. I know.” She smiled, and then she geared up and drove the roundhouse in. The sound of the whack as her shin hit the pad echoed around the gym. It was a good shot. If I hadn’t been prepared the wind would have been knocked from me for sure.
The gym was empty, apart from the pile of pads and the beat-up boxing ring standing at the rear, the canvas ripped, some of the torn sections fixed the best I could with duct tape.
Times were tough. Money was tight. I didn’t have enough cash to do all the work that was needed. The white paint on the walls was dirty and flaking. The space was damp, cold and in desperate need of air-conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter.
I would have given anything for it to be summer again, you could feel the wind blowing through the building, and you could even hear it howl when it got up enough speed. Sometimes I wore more layers when I trained than when I was outside.
I got the pad on my right hand in position for Sara’s right cross. She snapped it out. “Good, but keep those hands up. You’re dropping them before you’ve fully retracted your fist from the punch. How many times do I have to tell you about that?”
I’d like to say it was the lack of students that had caused my money problems, and sure, it didn’t help, but it was far worse than that. I was in debt. I owed the wrong people the wrong amount of money. The amount was wrong, because of the amount it was. It was an amount I couldn’t make teaching. The people were the wrong people, because they were the gangster type, the break-your-thumbs-if you-can’t-pay type.
“Now, the hook.” I twisted the left pad and she hit it with the hook. “Good. They’re getting better.” I placed the pads over my stomach. “Push kick!” She got me with a good one. I stumbled back. “That’s it. They’ve really improved. Now we have the combination down, I want you to up the pace, rattle them in and rattle the pads. Use your emotional anchor point to link each strike with the feeling needed to cause more damage, do it a split second before they hit. They might not be as accurate, but I’ll feel them more.”
Sara nodded, I got set again and she delivered the combination. “That okay?” she asked as we reset.
“Yeah, I could really feel those through the pads, just be careful of your balance. You looked kinda wobbly. Don’t be tempted to throw your arms out though. You do that and you’re gonna get a punch in the face from an opponent. You need that guard high and tight.”
She assaulted the pads again. The echo on each hit seemed to punch at my brain. That’s what happens when you decide to teach with a hangover. Plus there was the small matter of the fight I’d had.
I’d gone for a few drinks at Jimmy-Joe’s Bar the night before. I’d had three private students that day, so I had the cash to spend. Maybe I could have put it to better use, but when the world feels like it’s falling down on you, being drunk can soften the impact when it hits.
I was pretty drunk when it happened. A guy knocked my drink out of my hand. He’d said sorry, and it did seem like an accident. I didn’t let it go though. He offered to buy me another drink. I told him I didn’t want another one. I wanted the one that was now soaking into my jeans. I called him a dick.
That’s when things got heated. He said some shit about it being an accident and that he’d said he was sorry, that he’d tried to be nice, that I was the one who was being a dick. I didn’t take too kindly to that.
He’d turned to head back toward his friends, who were sitting at a table a little ways from us. I tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned I powered my fist into his jaw. He was unconscious before he even hit the floor. His friends stood at that moment.
I didn’t even give them a chance to come over to me. I walked to them, flipped the table they were sitting at. I was able to comatose one of them with an elbow to the face before I was dragged from the premises.
When I got home, I cried. I held my head in my hands, and cried. It was my new all-time low. I’d become what I’d been teaching people for years to defend against, what I’d been warning them to not become.
I was a failure. I’d failed at marriage, at being a dad, at being a businessman, and worst of all, being a martial artist.
My ex hated me, which is fine, but she’d hated me when she wasn’t an ex. My kid was embarrassed of me. He’d called me a loser and said he didn’t want to see me ever again. And he hadn’t, for years. That was fine too; I wouldn’t have wanted me as a dad either. The business failure was to be expected. When you gambled as much as I did, how could you manage money?
The martial arts failure wasn’t acceptable. Everything had been in place for me to be set for life. All I had to do was win a belt, get a title, place that belt on a wall in my gym, and people would flock to have a champion train them. It was all I knew, all I’d ever wanted to be, and it was me that undid everything I’d spent my life building toward.
I’d lost a marriage and a kid because of my dedication to training, and as soon as the promise of a large sum of money to take a dive … a few dives … more than a few, came along I’d jumped at the disgraceful opportunities. Now I was beating up people in bar fights. I hadn’t trained for that.
FAILURE!
Sara blasted out another combination. “You okay?” she asked, as she got ready for another go at it. “It looked like I lost you there for a moment.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, while she hit the pads again. “I had a rough night … Once more through the combo and then we’ll have a little rest before we work the other side. I want this one to be the best yet.”
The roundhouse was good, solid, I felt it through the pads. The right cross had speed on its side, she remembered to snap the hand back to keep her guard up too. The left hook was quick to follow. Too quick. I was lost in my own thoughts again and hadn’t turned the pad. The punch connected with my face.
I stumbled back, my legs going like jelly. I was lucky I didn’t fall. Sara pulled at the Velcro straps of her gloves with her teeth and ripped them from her hands as she dashed to me, repeatedly saying, “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“It’s okay, it’s my fault.” She helped me remove the pads. I went and sat on the side of the ring. “It was a good shot.” I forced a smile, my jaw aching as I did.
She sat down on the side of the ring with me, “I’m so sorry. I feel so embarrassed.”
“I should feel embarrassed. I’ll throw you a lesson for free, my head’s not been in the game today.” I shook my head and tried to clear it. It didn’t work. I wasn’t sure if it was the shot I’d taken or the whiskey that was hammering my skull.
“You don’t need to do that.” She placed her hand on my leg. I swallowed as I looked at it. It was the first time a woman had touched me like that in a long time. Now women mainly hit me. Ones I was teaching and the ones I wasn’t.
“I do.” I coughed and cracked my neck. “That really was a good shot.”
“Sorry.”
“You sure you don’t want a free lesson? It’s the least I can do.”
“I’m sure. You need all the paying students you can get.”
“Do I look that desperate?”
“No, don’t be silly.” She squeezed my leg tighter. “I do have something to tell you that might cheer you up.”
“Do I also look that miserable?” I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t realize I was so transparent. She punched me in the arm with her other hand. “Ouch! Please enough. I can’t take much more.”
She laughed. “Then stop being an idiot.”
“You sound like my wife, well, ex-wife.”
“Is that what’s bothering you, are you having trouble with her again? Do you want me to punch her for you? Apparently, I have a mean left hook.”
I laughed then. “You do, I can testify to that, but no, it’s nothing to do with her, well not directly. Having said that, if you do happen to bump into her, a punch would be nice.”
“Noted.”
I bent the top half of myself under the bottom rope and lay my back on the inside of the ring. Sara did the same. She removed her hand from my leg as she did. I instantly wished I hadn’t changed position.
“So, what’s the problem?” Before I could answer she added, “Man, the canvas is cold on my legs. I think I need to start wearing something other than the Thai shorts and a vest, until you fix all the holes in the building, anyway.” She nudged me with her elbow.
“That won’t be happening any time soon.” Some water dripped on my face. I squinted my eyes to try and find the spot in the roof it had fallen from. “Great, now I have to stand a bucket in the ring.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
“The roof?”
“Money.”