Caged Warrior (9781423186595) Read online

  The cage girl stared at my father with a look of, Uhm, you talkin’ to me?

  “Let’s go,” my dad snapped, clapping his hands together. “Chop, chop, bitch. You lookin’ at a future title belt holder. Multiple weight classes, too.” My father handed me three hundred dollars. “Love your heart, M.D. That shit is what real champions is made of.”

  FIVE

  I had no idea how many Priests there were in the entire organization, but I did know that there was only one High Priest in all the land. He was a black man with a permanent scowl who always wore sunglasses, even indoors at night.

  I waited off to the side, a towel draped over my shoulders, while my father had a private conversation with His Holiness. Once they were finished talking, my dad approached and informed me of some news.

  “Tonight, we eat steak.”

  I laughed at his enthusiasm. “Steak?” I said. “Come on, you know I don’t really eat much red meat.”

  “Bullshit,” my dad replied. “A fighter needs his iron. A good hunka flesh in your belly is just what the doctor ordered for that eye.” My dad slapped me proudly on the back and then squeezed my shoulders with an affectionate pinch. “My treat, bay-bee.”

  The victory over the out-of-town brawler with the big rep followed by the conversation with the High Priest had put my father in one of his good moods. He knew that my walking through one door would lead to others being opened. Already the Priests were talking about raising the stakes for my next fight.

  And raising the stakes, of course, meant raising the payouts. Raising the payouts would raise my profile. And all that raising raised my father’s spirits. According to my dad, it was time to celebrate.

  “We done earned it,” he said. “Go get yo’ ass cleaned up.”

  I showered and changed, but instead of heading home to relieve Mrs. McCullough, Gem’s babysitter, my dad and I jumped into his dinged-up four-door Lincoln, its black paint scratched, the passenger side mirror held on with strands of silver duct tape, and we drove into downtown to enjoy a late-night meal fit for a soon-to-be cage king.

  “You know, one day,” my father said to me as he sipped a freshly refilled glass of Chivas Regal, “we gonna own us a li’l beach house on the Cayman Islands.”

  “The Cayman Islands?”

  “Yep,” he said. “The Cayman Fuckin’ Islands.” Dad leaned back in the steakhouse chair like he owned the whole damn restaurant. “I tell ya, the beaches there got white sand and water so warm the ocean feels like a bathtub. Not polluted or no shit, neither. We’re talking double-clear blue with fish swimming by your toes, like the kind you only catch sight of in one of them rich people’s tropical tanks.”

  “You been there before?” I asked. A sandy blond waitress wearing a tight black dress served me spinach salad. Dad, in additional to a second scotch, was presented with a chilled lump meat crab cocktail.

  And cracked lobster claws. Since he couldn’t make up his mind which appetizer he wanted when we first ordered, he’d simply ordered both.

  “Been there once,” he told me. “Went there to be a sparring partner for Meldrick Taylor when he was welterweight champ. Brought in by Don King.”

  “You knew Don King?” I asked. “THE Don King? The guy with the crazy hair who used to manage Mike Tyson?”

  “Now, I didn’t say I knew him,” my dad answered as he dunked a hunk of white-and-red lobster meat in a dish of melted butter. “But his peoples brought me in to work out their boy.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “I mean, like, did ya take it to him?”

  “Never got the chance,” my dad answered. “Flew me all that way and their fighter never even made it to the compound. Some shit about training camp changing locations or whatever. But I did get to see a glimpse.”

  “A glimpse?” I asked. “Of what?”

  “A glimpse of the life,” my dad responded, a dreamy look in his eyes. “I saw the way a world champion gets to live. Traveling by private jet. Changing cars like other men change shoes. Houses, clothes, giant suites in luxury hotels with butlers and servants and shit. That’s what I want for you, son. The best.” He reached out and tapped my cheek affectionately. “’Cause the best deserves the best.”

  My father then spun around in his chair to address the nearby busboy. “Oh hey, boss man, send our waitress on over here a sec, would ya.”

  The restaurant’s busboy, dressed in a white shirt with a black tie and black pants, stopped midway through setting down a fork on a table behind us and replied, “Right away, sir,” then dashed off.

  “That’s what I like about fancy restaurants—they know how to properly talk to a mothafucker.” My dad took another sip of Chivas then turned his attention to the crab.

  “Oooh-weee, and the women,” he said continuing his train of thought. A large, delicious grin crossed his face. “You can’t believe the way a world champion gets poontang. You gettin’ yourself a good taste of tail, M.D.?”

  “Dad,” I said a little bashful.

  “What, I’m serious,” he responded. “A fella like you should have all kinds of bitches throwing themselves your way.”

  I think he could tell by the look in my eye that I wasn’t too big a fan of guys always referring to girls as “bitches.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” he said apologetically catching wind of my disapproval. “I mean hos.” He smiled and then stabbed a bite of the lump meat crab with his long silver fork. “Nah, just kiddin’. But you know what I’m talking about, M.D. Don’t avoid the question. You gettin’ laid or what?”

  Yep, I did know what he was talking about. Knew it too well. Girls threw themselves at me all the time. Had been doing it for years now, too. Hell, I’d lost my virginity at age twelve to a sixteen-year-old, all because I was Bam Bam the cage warrior.

  “Girls are crazy these days. I mean, just so aggressive,” I said to my dad. Using my fork I flipped an unwanted crouton out of my salad. “Truth is,” I reluctantly admitted, “it kinda turns me off.”

  “What?” my dad said, semi-shocked. “Oh, lemme guess, you want a re-lay-shun-ship?” I could tell the pricey booze was starting to get to him by the way he teased me.

  “Look,” he said, getting more serious. “You and I never done had no talk about the birds and bees and shit, so I’m gonna give ya some advice. Not about fucking, of course,” he said. “’Cause Mother Nature will take care of that. A blind ass monkey can fuck. But about women.”

  Our waitress approached the table. “Yes, sir?”

  “Another one of these, please,” my dad said holding up his near-empty glass. “And one for my boy, too.”

  She paused.

  “That a problem?” my dad asked.

  “Uhm,” the waitress said. “I think I’m gonna need to see some ID, please.”

  “He don’t need no fucking ID. Just get his ass a drink.”

  “Sir, I, uhm...” The waitress fumbled for a polite response. “Without ID, we’re not allowed to serve...”

  “Look, bitch...”

  “Forget it, Dad,” I interjected before his temper could kick in. “You know me. I won’t drink it anyway.” I waved my hand up and down my body. “Keepin’ the temple pure, that sorta thing.”

  “You sure?” my father asked. I could tell he was ready to slap the waitress across the room if that’s what needed to be done in order to get me my glass of scotch. After all, it’s not like he hadn’t hit women before.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said.

  “All right, suit yourself,” he replied. “But I still want mine.” My father raised his eyes and glared at our server. “Unless you think you need to see some ID from me, too.”

  “Right away, sir.” The waitress in the tight black dress scampered away. My dad watched as her ass wiggled across the dining room floor.

  “Man, I’d like to eat a bite of that. Mm! Now, where was I?�
� He finished the last of his crab, gulped the last of his lobster, reached for a piece of bread, covered it with butter and then chomped. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Relationships. They’re for suckers. Only get a fighter in trouble and make him lose his focus.”

  “Well, no worries, ’cause I ain’t in one.”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s real good. ’Cause remember this, son, and remember it good.” He downed the last of his drink. “Relationships’ll just fuck a man up.”

  “I’ve got another Chivas Regal, neat, splash of lime,” the waitress said, setting down my father’s drink. “A filet mignon, medium-well in peppercorn sauce, side of baked potato, loaded, extra bacon bits, extra sour cream.” She set down my father’s plate. “And a grilled New York strip rare, side of steamed broccoli, no sauce, no salt for the young gentleman.”

  “Thank you,” I replied as she set down my food. “And some more water, please.”

  “Of course.” She looked toward the busboy and he dashed off. Within moments, my glass was full. “Will there be anything else?” our waitress asked.

  “Yeah,” my father said. “Your cell phone number, sweetie, ’cause after this steak you lookin’ mmm-mmm good for dessert.”

  My father cackled. He was serious.

  “Enjoy your meal,” the waitress replied coolly, trying to remain professional.

  Not caring one bit that she knew he was watching her ass, my father’s eyes followed the wiggle of her butt all the way across to the other side of the dining room. Once she was out of view, he picked up a large, silver, extremely sharp knife and cut his perfectly grilled meat.

  “But you bein’ the relationship type,” he said as he carved himself a hunk of the restaurant’s most expensive dish. “I gotta say, M.D. that shit makes me worried.” He jammed a two-inch piece of wet with blood, reddish-pink, charcoal striped steak into his face and chewed with his mouth open. “Makes me wonder if you got the killa instinct.”

  “You ain’t gotta worry about that,” I replied.

  “I don’t?”

  “You don’t.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes, and there was a pause.

  “Yeah, well,” he said. “We’ll see about that.”

  Indeed we will, I thought. Indeed we will.

  SIX

  At school on Monday my eye felt better. Spending Sunday on the couch watching football with a few squirts of contusion cream and two bags of frozen peas pressed against my face had reduced the swelling, and since I hadn’t been cut, there were no lacerations or gashes to worry about. Aside from a nasty bruise that was still tender, my vision wasn’t blurry, and the headaches, though pounding, weren’t the worst I’d ever had to deal with. Overall, aside from the fact that it probably wasn’t too good an idea to do any upside-down handstand push-ups this week—because inversions could cause internal eye pressure that might give me problems down the road—I’d escaped from Saturday night’s war in fairly decent shape.

  Not all cage fighters can always say the same. Once I saw a kid get carried out of the coop with a pool of blood flowing from their head and one eyeball dangling from an empty, hollow socket attached by only a few thin shreds of meaty string. Though being in the MMA game teaches a warrior not to let the injuries of other brawlers get to you emotionally, when I saw how this fighter’s face had been pummeled into dog food, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

  Guy fights get brutal; girl fights get savage.

  “Yeah, uhm, like they need one of yo’ students down in the ’ministrative center,” said an office aide who had just entered my second period class without bothering to knock. The girl, tight jeans, tight sweater, about sixteen, wearing a fluffy pink scarf, took a moment to suck her cherry lollipop. “You gots a...” She paused. “Oh, damn,” she said, almost as if speaking to herself. “They want Bam Bam.”

  Apparently, the girl hadn’t bothered to read the name on the blue note card the office had handed to her until now. And now that she’d realized who it was she’d been asked to go get out of class, her whole face lit up.

  “Who do they want, young lady?” asked Mrs. Dooley, my hunched-over, white-haired history teacher. Mrs. Dooley was so old, I think she’d actually witnessed the Civil War.

  “They want McCutcheon,” the girl replied, smiling big and bright. “McCutcheon Daniels.”

  Without getting up from behind her desk, Mrs. Dooley pointed in my direction and then pointed at the door. “And take your stuff,” she ordered.

  I grabbed my things and headed out.

  “What do they want?” I asked the office aide.

  “Probably just some stupid shit,” the girl said as we exited the room and walked the halls. “I means I ain’t even realize till just now that it was like you they wanted.”

  “But you don’t know what it’s about?” I said.

  “Nope,” she replied taking another suck off of her lollipop, slow and suggestive. “Hey, lemme ask you a question,” she said as we walked side-by-side toward the office. She was practically batting her eyelashes at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you believe in horoscopes?”

  “Horoscopes?” I asked. “Like astrology?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “’Cause, like, I was reading my horoscope last weekend and it said that love was gonna soon be walking right through my door and then like, this happened and wow.”

  “What happened?”

  “Me and you,” she answered as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world.

  “But I didn’t walk through your door,” I said. “You kinda walked through mine.”

  “Yeah, well, ain’t the stars funny?” She smiled in a cutesy, flirty way. “You wanna go somewhere?”

  “Go somewhere?” I asked. “What, like now?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Uhm, thanks,” I said, taking the blue hall pass from her hand. “But I better go see what this is about. Maybe another time.”

  “Not anotha time, Bam Bam,” she told me, putting her hand on her hip and leaning to her left in an unmistakably sexual way. “For you, anytime.”

  I cracked a smile, pretending I was flattered because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but the truth is I was glad she’d stopped walking with me and our conversation had ended. The bigger my rep grew, the more people were less interested in me, McCutcheon, and the more they were grabbing for any ol’ pieces of Bam Bam the warrior that they could get their hands on.

  Now I knew how that waitress from the other night felt, I thought as I made my way through the school halls. Just a hunk of meat.

  “Is that him?” asked an elegant-looking white lady wearing a powder-blue dress as soon I crossed through the large double doors at the front of our main office. Principal Porter, a plump African American man with a thin mustache and shiny silver belt buckle, wasn’t sure. He looked to his left for an answer.

  Mr. Freedman nodded. “It is.”

  “McCutcheon,” Principal Porter said, rising to his feet to greet me. “Step inside my office, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I was led down a skinny hall that looked like the last time it had been decorated was thirty years ago. A variety of rah-rah school posters, yellowed, with pictures of kids in clothing styles and haircuts long since outdated, hung on the wall. Before entering through the last door on the right, I spied a picture of a former cheerleader who had been murdered in a drive-by shooting seven years ago.

  Her front tooth had been blackened out by a dark marker and someone had scrawled SUCK ME on her forehead.

  Students at Fenkell just got no respect for nothing.

  “Please, sit,” Principal Porter said as he pointed to one of the worn blue chairs to the right of his large desk, covered with Post-it notes. This was the first time I’d ever spoken to our school principal, the first time I’d even s
een the inside of his office. Sure, every student in the school knew the principal’s name—but how and why did he all of a sudden know mine?

  Didn’t take Sherlock Holmes, though, to figure out that this musta had something to do with bingo.

  Each of the three adults took a seat surrounding me. Or at least it felt like they were surrounding me, even though I could sense that all of them were going to try to be nice. One by one, each took a good look at my banged-up left eye. My guess was they’d decided not to say anything about it in order to get the meeting off to a good start.

  I could tell they wanted to mention it, though. Thing is, with face injuries, after a few days they often end up looking much worse than they actually are.

  “McCutcheon, can you please explain something to me?” Principal Porter began. “You won a spot in the charter school lottery and yet you’ve informed Mr. Freedman that you are not going to accept it. I mean, you do realize the highly unique opportunity being presented to you, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. Mostly because it felt like it was one of those questions that wasn’t really a question at all, but more like a statement. And when any answer you give won’t be good enough, I think it’s best to just to keep your mouth shut.

  The well-dressed white lady, her spine straight, her blue eyes clear and focused, continued to study me.

  “Not a child in this city’s ever turned down an offer like this before,” Principal Porter continued. “Between the scholarship you’ll be given, the resources and the support you’ll be provided, you’re saying no? Pardon me for saying so, but it makes no sense.”

  The three of them waited for a reply. What could I say? Not really having an answer that would satisfy them, I played with the drawstring of my hoodie.

  “You know, I’ve done a bit of digging,” Mr. Freedman said as he took out a piece of paper with the school logo at the top and began to read from it. “An inspection of all your grades, McCutcheon, reveals an interesting pattern.”

  He handed me a printout of my records.