Caged Warrior (9781423186595) Read online

  “You still got some charge in those batteries, don’t ya, schoolboy?” he taunted, wanting to spar.

  The truth is, for years Seizure had always gotten extra rough with me whenever we went at it. Being that my natural body weight would one day take me into about the hundred and eighty-five–pound range when I was fully grown, he long ago realized we were on an eventual collision course for the middleweight title. That’s probably why he always dished me out a few extra servings of “cage love” whenever we trained together, trying to get in my head early and plant seeds of doubt in my mind for later on down the road.

  Loco would call him out on it too, telling Seizure to “stow that low-rent shit,” but Seizure would just laugh it off, telling anyone who complained on my behalf that he was just doing me a favor by toughening me up for the big time.

  However, a few months ago while Seizure was “toughening me up” with dirty-boxing elbows to the head, I caught him flush with a straight right hand that crossed his eyes and gave him an unobstructed view of the ceiling tiles.

  “Seizure done been stunned!” Klowner hooted after I’d landed the big blow. “And it looks like the student is now the teacha!”

  Even Loco, all five-foot-two, hundred and thirty-five pounds of him, smiled at the sight of his least favorite fighter in the gym lying flat on his back in the middle of the room, having been put there by the kid who mops the shower floor.

  It wasn’t a sexy punch that tanked him. In fact, the straight right hand is probably the most primitive, instinctual punch in human history. But I’d spied a weakness in the way Seizure used his aggressiveness, and everybody has a “button,” a spot on their chin that if you hit it just right, night-night…they go down.

  I’d simply found Seizure’s button. However, for him to have a kid like me knock him from Detroit to Pluto in front of everyone was a big blow to his ego. Whipping my ass publicly had since become an itch for him that he desperately wanted to scratch.

  “I still got plenty of juice,” I said, even though I’d just finished up my third hour of training with two human tanks.

  “Then let’s go,” Seizure said smashing his gloves together. “I got a little sumptin’ sumptin’ I wanna show ya.”

  Seizure began to shake his body as if he were mocking an epileptic, then he ripped his hand across his throat making a sinister “slicing the jugular” gesture.

  “Ready, punk?” Seizure jumped into my face and stared with menace, hungry to spill my blood.

  He moved close. Too close. So close that I could smell the nasty garlic noodles he’d had for lunch on his warm, horrid breath.

  “Can’t,” I said maintaining eye contact with him for an extra second before glancing away. The clock on the wall read three forty. “Maybe another time.”

  I took off my gloves, stepped off of the mat and grabbed the laundry hamper filled with towels, figuring I’d empty them for Loco before I left to go pick up my sister. Didn’t matter what kind of trash talk Seizure threw at me, there was no way I was letting a kindergarten-age little girl walk home alone from school down East Seven Mile by herself.

  “Aw, where ya goin’, Bam Bam?” Seizure teased. “Afraid to dance with a sexy li’l partner like me?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “’Cause you know what I’m gonna do to ya once we go back at it, right? Right? RIGHT?”

  Not answering seemed to get under Seizure’s skin, so I remained quiet. Why not play a few head games with him, really piss him off, I thought. Silently, I lifted the dirty towel basket.

  “Yo, one sec, schoolboy,” Seizure commanded. Then he grabbed a towel, placed a finger over his right nostril and blew out a stringy, slimy booger from his left.

  A moment later he switched sides and horked out a nasty yellowish line of snot from his right.

  Then he gargled up a loogie, spit into the towel, wiped all the foulness from his face, and called out, “Bank shot.”

  Seizure tossed the rag. It bounced against my chest then dropped into the laundry basket.

  “Two points, schoolboy,” he said with a smile.

  I glared.

  “Wut? I’m right here, bitch. You want some of dis?”

  I glanced at the clock again. Three forty-two p.m. Dealing with Seizure would have to wait. Towel basket in hand, I turned and left.

  “You’re d-d-d-disgusting, Seize.”

  “That’s right, Neck. I’m one hell of a nasty man!” Seizure threw a mock right-left combo then made another slashing sign across his throat. “We gonna have our dance date, Bam Bam,” he yelled at me. “That’s a fuckin’ promise.”

  FOUR

  When I showed up at school the next day a bunch of people were wishing me “Congrats.” Wasn’t sure why though. My next fight wasn’t till Saturday. When I got to fourth period, however, Mr. Freedman filled in the blanks.

  “Looks like you are better at bingo than you thought, son.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Guess who won a spot in the charter school lottery.”

  “Give it to someone else.”

  Disbelief flashed across Mr. Freedman’s eyes. “Pardon me?”

  I took my seat. He’d heard me. Far as I was concerned, our conversation was over.

  Two girls sitting behind me sharing a bag of chips laughed at an inside joke about a bucktooth girl sitting in the front row. A skinny boy on my left wearing a blue-and-orange striped shirt put his head down and prepared to take his regular, late-morning nap. I took out a pencil and my notebook and got ready for the start of class. It’d be stupid for me to accept something like that, I thought. Let it go to someone who could do something with the opportunity, someone who could make something positive come out it.

  My path was set. Had been for years and there was no changing it. I wasn’t complaining. It was just a cold, hard fact.

  Mr. Freedman’s eyes locked in on me from the front of the room. I avoided his gaze and stared at the marked-up wall to my left. Someone ought to paint this dump, I thought. How’s a person supposed to concentrate on science when it says LICKY MY BALL-BALLS two feet away?

  Of course, my dad would never let me go anyway. Hell, he wants me to drop out right now. What does a kid like you need with school? he says. Being that I’m gonna make a living with my fists, the sooner I start to train full-time like a real professional, the better.

  In fact, the only reason I’m still going to school is because the truant officers for tenth grade are such pains-in-the-asses that my dad doesn’t want them “gettin’ all involved with his bizness.” What he means by that is he doesn’t want them calling social services on him like they’ve already done a bunch of times before. One more bad visit from a city social worker, and I could find myself in some foster care situation.

  Separated from Gemma.

  No way I’m gonna let that happen. However, come eleventh grade, next year, he wants me the hell outta here.

  “A high school dropout in D-town? There be a million of those,” he says, his plan already figured out. “Ain’t no truant office gonna blink an eye next year ’cause it ain’t really even about the parents then. It’s about you, and if they come here askin’ questions, I’ll be like, ‘But I wanted him to stay in school, too, Officer. Me and you, we’re like, on the same fuckin’ side.’”

  My father chuckled. He had the kind of chuckle that only sinners at the devil’s dinner table possessed.

  I’d actually stumbled across this idea about my dad’s sinister laugh one day when my mind was drifting in church and I found myself about to nod off while staring at a colorful painting on the wall. See, my mother used to take us to Holy Grace Church every Sunday morning at nine. In the picture, I noticed that all the good people were hurting and sad and crying in pain and all the bad folks were laughing and having the time of their lives.

  Just like my dad, I’d thought.


  I’d stopped going to church after my mom left, though. Been thinking about going back but then again, been thinking about not goin’ back, too. Really, why bother? Did I really need a weekly reminder that people who tried to be good always got screwed over?

  When it came to school, however, my dad was spot-on. With budget resources so limited in Detroit, tenth grade really was the last year the system could afford to even try to keep a kid like me in class. Come eleventh grade, they stopped pretending to try to prevent kids such as myself from falling through the cracks.

  Naw, no way was I attending some fancy charter school where sissy-boys got manicures and ate fruit-flavored yogurt during nutrition breaks. My road belonged to the hard asphalt of the caged warrior.

  I could see by the way he was staring at me that Mr. Freedman wasn’t happy about my decision. Not happy one bit.

  I just hoped he could see that I didn’t really give a damn. What the hell did he know about all the problems I was sweatin’ anyway?

  The bell rang to begin class, and even though I was looking at the front board for the entire period, I didn’t hear one thing Mr. Freedman said. All I could think about was getting to Loco’z as soon as fourth period ended so I could go mash.

  Some days, a dude just wants to explode.

  “Leverage, M.D.!” my dad screamed between rounds of my next fight. “Find his vulnerability and exploit it.”

  “Dad,” I said sucking hard to regain my breath after the third round. “This dude’s got a beard.”

  “Life gives you cards, you play ’em. No excuses, son. Leverage, leverage, leverage.”

  Easy for him to say, I thought. I mean, why the hell would he even set up a fight like this for me, with some out-of-town, shaved-head muscle-monster from New Orleans, who musta had fifty pounds, five inches, and a giant reach advantage over me?

  Of course, I knew why. The answer was obvious.

  Money.

  In Detroit, local talent for me to face was starting to dry up. My rep had grown too big and I’d beaten too many of D-town’s best maulers, so the Priests had started to import guys for me to fight.

  “Find his vulnerability, apply leverage, and exercise your will on this orangutan-lookin’ mothafucker.”

  I sucked in another deep breath and prepared to head out for Round Four.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  In Round One between me and Beard Man, I’d decided to take him to the ground right out of the gate to try to neutralize his reach advantage, and almost all of our opening action was spent grappling, with me looking for a submission hold to try to force a tap out. I almost snared his left wrist at one point in a kamakubi, a gooseneck-style wristlock that bouncers use when escorting drunks out of late-night bar fights.

  Even King Kong would tap out if he got snared in a kamakubi. Fuzzy Face, however, had some decent wrestling skills, and I wasn’t able to seal the deal on the hold.

  I’d tried the same ground-attack strategy in Round Two, but again nothing stuck; so for Round Three I decided to stay on my feet and play the counterstrike game to see what might come of that.

  It had cost me. I’d taken two back-to-back heavy shots to my left eye during the round, and while I could deal with the pain, the swelling had started to cloud my vision.

  Worse, though, was that my cornerman didn’t have an enswell with him, that small piece of frozen metal used by cut men to reduce inflammation in facial injuries. If my father had had one, simply applying light pressure with it would have reduced the swelling and let me fight on without a handicap. However, my dad had “forgotten” to refill his supply bag after our last bout—truth is, earlier I didn’t even see him bring a trainer’s kit into the arena with him—and my eyeball was beginning to puff like a bloated purple water balloon.

  Without ice, it wouldn’t be long before my left eye was the size of a California orange. And entirely shut. Dancing with Grizzly Adams was hard enough with full vision, but if this match got into Round Five or beyond, I’d be fighting half blind.

  I had no choice but to take a risk. My eyesight was already blurred, and the involuntary twitches from my left eye easily telegraphed to my opponent where he should target his attack.

  The buzz of the crowd grew more and more electric. Could it be, they had to wonder, if this was the night that the undefeated Bam Bam finally went down?

  “Vulnerability!” my father shouted from behind the fence. “Find this testicle gargler’s vulnerability and leverage it to your advantage!”

  My dad wasn’t a man anybody ever accused of being intelligent in everyday life, but when it came to fighting, I had to admit, he knew his stuff. Between rounds, he talked to me about how openings always appeared for the patient fighter; but figuring out this guy’s weak spot would only come for me inside the heat and flow of battle. In fights like this, he’d said, fluidity, smarts, and improv were the keys to victory. My scripted plans would be out the window.

  With the twitching, cloudiness, and swelling growing worse and worse, I needed to do something quick. The clock was ticking on my eye.

  Yes, that was it. Suddenly, the answer came to me. I’d dangle my eye out there like a steak and lure the assface in to tempt him to go for a kill shot. His vulnerability would be an irresistible urge to attack my vulnerability.

  After all, I’ve seen Shark Week a thousand times on TV. When you hang bloody tuna over the side of a boat, you know it’s only a matter of time before the great whites come calling. Same thinking applied here. Instead of protecting my injured face, which would be the natural thing to do, I’d offer it up to the son of a bitch like a Halloween treat to set a trap.

  If my plan worked, I’d go for a shin choke and twist his neck like a piece of licorice. And if that didn’t work and I got jammed up, I was probably looking at a detached retina, maybe even a broken eye socket.

  Sometimes cage fighting boils down to risk versus reward. With my eye growing puffier and more swollen by the second, the time had come to take a chance. It was clear I’d have to gamble.

  Only problem was, I hated gambling.

  We began the fourth on our feet exchanging leg strikes, but to set my trap, I knew I’d need to get us to the ground with Whisker Man on top of me, thinking he held a superior position.

  Luring him into having an apparently dominant position wasn’t too hard, because most fighters will grab the top if they can. In a half butterfly guard, I lay on my back, playing defense.

  And I avoided taking any big shots on the way down, too. Thank goodness. One big strike to my already damaged face and I’d be done. My eye would pop like a zit.

  He threw an elbow. I blocked it.

  He threw a hook. I warded it off and countered with a short, straight right.

  On my back in a classic defensive position, I wrapped my knees around his midsection and held him close so he couldn’t get the space he needed to pummel me with a furious storm of fists and elbows. Then I turned my head slightly to the right and showed him my battered left eye. He lasered in on it like a tiger salivating for gazelle flesh, but being so tightly locked in my guard prevented him from being able to fire off any meaningful shots.

  I could feel his frustration grow as he searched for a way to create some striking distance. The more space between our chests, the more room he’d have to launch a hurricane.

  That’s when I went for the kimura, one of the most common submission holds fighters usually go for when you’re on the bottom.

  Or so I made him think.

  I tried to reach for his right arm, and he dipped his shoulder to prevent the kimura. Quick as a rattlesnake, I passed my leg over his shoulder, pressed my shin against his windpipe, and trapped the back of his head in a vise lock, making a figure-four with my legs around his neck.

  The crowd exploded! It was the first gogoplata I’d ever landed, a sickening choke hold that,
once owned, only ever offers one final chapter to any fight’s story.

  Tap out. Mister Face Fuzz slapped the side of my leg in surrender before I permanently crushed his windpipe. I released. My eye the size of a grapefruit, my head throbbing with pain, questions as to whether I’d ever even see clearly again from the left side of my face, victory was mine.

  My dad rushed into the cage. “Only a fool would bet against my son,” my father shouted, his arms raised as the crowd cheered. “Only a mothafuckin’ fool!”

  As the crowd still buzzed with excitement about the raw, violent drama they’d just witnessed, Weasel approached. “Top-notch fight, kid. Top-notch fight.” Weasel dipped his head and then inspected my eye. “Whoa. You wanna ice bag or something, Bam Bam?”

  “What he wants is his cash,” my father said, answering for me. Weasel, an unlit cigarette propped behind his ear, reached into his black leather jacket and withdrew a white envelope that my dad immediately snatched.

  “It’s all there, Demon, it’s all there.” Despite Weasel’s assurances, my father began counting the money. Five grand for an out-of-state conquest plus another six grand for my dad’s bets on the side. “Priests always pay. You know that, Demon. Priests always pay.” Weasel paused. “But the Priests always get paid, too. Remember that, Demon—the Priests always get paid, too.”

  My father stopped flipping through the stack of hundred dollar bills and glared. He knew Weasel was talking about the fact that my father had been flying naked on his wagers.

  Flying naked yet again.

  “Whatcha trying to say, Weasel?”

  “Top-notch, fight, kid,” Weasel responded, knowing he’d already made his point. “Top-notch fight.”

  One of the cage-side girls whose job it was to get beers, provide smokes, and flirt with big spenders by jiggling her jugs caught my father’s eye.

  “Hey,” he shouted. “Whose ass does my son have to kiss to get a hot-damn bag of ice ’round here?”