Joey Cloudy online

chapter 3

TRAMP: For Those About to Die, We Salute You

“You start a conversation you can’t even finish.

You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.

When I got something to say, my lips are sealed.

Say something once, why say it again.”

—Talking Heads

“Point, white!” shouted the black gi-clad referee, taking a step back as he pointed at the lanky blonde kid opposite Aaron in the ring. He could see the fear crawling into the kid’s eyes like a date rapist.

The same skinny blonde kid had spoken to him earlier in the locker room as he taped his wrist and knuckles.

“You a boxer… eh?”

Aaron, still wrapping his knuckles, looked up from his seat on the narrow wooden bench in front of the lockers. He eyeballed the boy next to a balding, middle-aged black man with a bit of a paunch who was obviously his instructor. Not sure which one of them had spoken—or if they were even talking to him or about him.

The old man glanced at Aaron, sizing him up, and repeated himself in the same ambiguous tone. Aaron still wasn’t sure if it was a question or a declarative statement.

“Yeah. Sparred a little in the military,” replied Aaron.

As the old man turned his attention back to the kid’s gloves, he asked,

“What branch of the service was you in?”

“Marine Corps. Got out of the suck in eighty-four.” Aaron grinned at the old vet.

“How’d you know?”

“You wrap your hands like a boxer. These cats don’t tape their wrist and knuckles.”

“Oh,” said Aaron without looking up, still wrapping his wrists and knuckles.

Ahmaad, Aaron’s nine-year-old son, sat in front of his father, watching and listening. Ahmaad was beginning his kung fu phase, just like every other suburban boy in America, having grown up on a seedy diet of bad martial arts flicks and video games. This phase was as inevitable for him as cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers had been for his old man. Violence was a rite of passage, a mark of manhood, as primal as losing one’s virginity.

Ahmaad’s old man had grown up in the age of the god of movie kung fu, Bruce Lee, classic Shaw Brothers films from Hong Kong on Saturday nights at the old Texas Theatre on Jefferson, watching ultraviolent flicks like Master of the Flying Guillotine, The Big Brawl, and The Kid with the Golden Arm.

Ahmaad had come of age in the time of Brandon Lee, Steven Seagal, Street Fighter on the Super Nintendo, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mortal Kombat (the video game, which he was forbidden to play), and movies like Soul Blade, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tekken on the PlayStation, and Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. All of this led to this moment.

He wanted to take kung fu lessons, but his mother didn’t know whether the instructor was any good. Aaron volunteered to go to this event to check out the instructor and be sure he trusted him with his son’s training. There was no point if it was a McBelt factory that just passed people through the system if they could limp through the kata and pay their monthly fees.

“Where’s your sensei?”

“Can’t find him.” Aaron shrugged. “Cut this for me, son.”

Ahmaad pulled the Swiss army knife his father had given him for his sixth birthday from his jeans pocket and flicked out the blade with practiced ease. He cut the tape, then checked his dad’s hands, fingers, and wrists to be sure the wrap was smooth and even, like a thin cast.

When he was sure the wrap was tight, he patted his father’s forearms with his palms to signal that the tape looked good. Ahmaad pulled the gloves over his father’s hands, then tied and taped the laces so they wouldn’t cut his opponent. Once he finished, he picked up the black canvas bag that held his dad’s street clothes as they left the locker room.

He had never seen the old man in his gi before. He worked out in sweats at the dojo, and he sensed that the old man thought it pretentious to go around in a gi outside of the dojo or a tournament.

Dad had dropped over twenty pounds that summer to fight in the lighter weight class. He had been lifting heavy all year while training. Although he wasn’t up to his max bench of 280 pounds, he was in the ballpark with the 260 pounds he was pressing regularly after sparring at the dojo. He had been eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for six weeks to drop weight.

Now, at a lean 146 pounds, he was ripped to shreds and hard as a brick. Ahmaad couldn’t wait to grow up so that he could have muscles like his dad’s.

The blonde kid’s coach whispered something to him as they were leaving the locker room. The kid caught up to Aaron and Ahmaad as they sat down in the bleachers, watching the action before his weight class began their rounds. The floor was split with a dozen different events going on simultaneously: different weight classes, age groups, sexes, styles, weapons, and levels of expertise.

“This your first martial arts event?”

“Never fought for a trophy before.”

“What do you weigh?”

“Featherweight.” Aaron replied, never taking his eyes off the action in the middle of the arena.

“Cool, we’re in the same weight division.”

Aaron sat down in one of the seats and eyed the arena. “I was heavy enough to fight as a welterweight, but I thought it would be more fun to hit the featherweights.”

It was like a goddamned three-ring circus out there. One section had weapons katas: swords, spears, and staff fighters. Ignoring the blonde, Aaron and Ahmaad watched the weapons exhibition for a moment before shifting their attention to the girls. A couple of red belts were mixing it up directly in front of them.

One of the girls, a Muay Thai fighter, stunned her opponent with a hard straight right to the head that caught the other fighter flat-footed, snapping her head back. Smelling blood, the Muay Thai fighter delivered the coup de grâce: a roundhouse kick delivered with such savage velocity that everyone gasped simultaneously as her opponent’s headgear flew fifteen feet into the air. Aaron, Ahmad, and everyone else thought that she had kicked the girl’s head clean off.

Blondie’s punches had no power, and his speed was unimpressive.

As the referee stood between them, Aaron stretched his neck in a slow circle, rolled his shoulders, then tapped his gloves against his chest twice before charging straight at the kid. When the next round started, the kid caught him with a weak jab to the chest before Aaron beat him out of the ring. This wasn’t a fight; this was prison sex, and it was clear who was getting punked out.

Next round, Aaron twisted at the hips, slipping the left jab but catching a crescent kick on the ribs.

“Point, white!” shouted the referee.

Aaron glared at the kid as if he’d merely sneezed on him, then pummeled the kid out of the ring again.

The next round, Aaron parried the kid’s jab with his left and delivered a solid right hand to the kid’s gut for the point red, then pounded him out of the ring again. At the beginning of the next round, he charged the kid, catching his best jab straight to the face, followed by a hard right hook to the side of the head.

Aaron could feel the blood seep from his ear as it trickled down the side of his neck. It was an illegal hit at this level—head shots were forbidden until red belt. Blondie seemed shocked to see that his punches had no apparent effect. He had imagined they would knock him out or at least stun him. The kid realized he was out of luck today as Aaron freight-trained him, driving him out of the circle again. He had failed to even slow Aaron down.

The blonde kid lost a point that round. Ahead two to one, the next round, Aaron kneed the kid in the ribs and elbowed, smashing his face. He didn’t mind losing the point, which tied them at one each. Aaron watched the kid’s eyes; he was hurting. These weren’t the kind of blows he was accustomed to taking—speedy little flicks for the fast point. These blows were delivered with a deliberately monstrous force designed to break bone and shatter spirit. He was halfway there. Now for the bones.

The final round found them tied with two points each again. The first one with three points would be declared the winner. Aaron charged the kid again, determined to finish him. The kid, now completely freaked out, cowered, covering his face with his forearms and raising a foot to block Aaron’s final attack.

“Point, white!” shouted the referee. Aaron had bumped into the kid’s foot as he charged, and they counted this incidental contact as a point for the kid.

Aaron beat the blonde kid out of the circle one last time.

“White three, red two, white wins!”

Aaron ripped off his headgear and glared at the referee, then turned to face the judges incredulously. They all shook their heads in disbelief. Everyone knew Aaron had won the fight, and outside of the dojo, the only prayer the kid had against Aaron was with a gun.

Aaron slapped the palm of his gloved right hand over his bicep, bent his left arm at the elbow, spat on the floor, snapped to attention, gave a curt bow at the waist, and exited the arena.

Several of the judges just hung their heads; others shook their heads in disgust—they were all instructors. After raising his arms over his head in celebration of his victory, the kid shook gloves with Aaron.

“Good fight, man.”

Bullshit!” growled Aaron as he continued towards the stands where Ahmad sat watching. Aaron exited the floor of the arena, then sat down next to his son and let him take off the gloves and cut off the tape.

“So, what did you think of the fight?”

“I don’t need to take Taekwondo.”

“You want to stay and watch any more of these fights?”

“Nah, I’m ready to go.”

Aaron pulled on his black Chuck Taylors, took off the stiff white blouse to his gi, rolled it up neatly, and stuffed it into the black canvas bag with the gloves, then pulled on a ragged Black Sabbath tee-shirt.

“You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, here’s the plan: we head over to the Medallion, eat Ci Ci’s pizza until we’re ready to puke, play some video games at the arcade, then see what’s showing at the dollar movie. Sound like fun to you?”

“Yeah, Dad, that sounds cool.” Ahmad grinned up at the old man.

“Alright then, that’s settled. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

As they walked down the concrete ramp towards the outer hallway that circled the building, Aaron tried to take the bag, but Ahmad held on to it, determined to carry it.

“I got it, Dad. I got it.”

About the Author

-JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.