The Song of David (8 page)

“Henry, did you hear that? Mr. Tag—um, Tag says you can watch the game with him.” Henry slid onto a stool, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“Is he okay right here, David?” She just couldn’t get comfortable with my name. I wondered why.

“That’s fine. Go on. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you. Thank you, I . . .” She stopped, squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate it,” she said firmly. With her stick in hand, she tapped her way around the bar and disappeared down the long hallway that led to the restrooms and the employees’ locker room.

I put a bowl of peanuts in front of Henry, along with a tall Sprite, thought better of it, and replaced the peanuts with pretzels. Henry seemed like he might be the type of kid who would be horribly allergic to peanuts. That was just what I needed tonight.

“Kobe Bryant leads the league in free throws.” I had no idea if this was true. I just threw something out there to see if Henry would engage.

Henry’s eyes snapped to mine and he shook his head, indicating my stat wasn’t the case.

“He’s the tallest man in the NBA?” I knew this wasn’t true.

Henry started to smirk.

“He has the biggest feet?”

Henry shook his head.

“His best friend is named Shaq?” I asked.

Henry shook his head so vigorously I thought he was going to fall off his stool.

“Kobe Bryant is the youngest player in league history to reach 30,000 career points,” Henry informed me. I gave myself a mental high five that he was talking at all.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, nonchalant.

“He was also the youngest player to ever start in the NBA,” he added.

“Big deal.” I waved my hand. “Everybody knows that.” I winked, letting him know I hadn’t had a clue.

“Did you know he was named after Japanese beef?” Henry boasted, pulling his Sprite toward him and taking a long pull at the straw.

“No kidding!” I started to laugh. I moved away from him to take care of some customers a few stools down, and greeted Axel, my Swedish sparring partner, who slid onto a stool one over from Henry and said “tack”—thank you in Swedish—before guzzling back the beer I placed in front of him.

“Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant aren’t friends,” Henry said seriously, and placed a pretzel carefully on his tongue. He looked at his now empty glass despondently.

“No? Why not?” I asked, refilling his Sprite.

“Giants don’t make good friends.”

“Are you talking about Shaq or Kobe? They’re both pretty big.” I tried not to laugh because Henry wasn’t laughing.

“Giants don’t like when someone is bigger than they are.”

“I don’t know about that. Look at me and Axel. We’re both pretty big.”

“Who’s the biggest?” Henry asked.

“I am,” I said firmly, and at the same time Axel thumped his chest.

Henry looked at me owlishly, as if I had just proven his point. Axel started to laugh, and I laughed with him, but Henry didn’t laugh at all. He just wrapped his swollen lips around his straw and drank his Sprite like he was dying of thirst. I waited until Axel turned his attention to Stormy, who had stopped to flirt as she waited tables.

“Henry? Are you having problems with a giant?” I touched my lip and looked pointedly at his mouth.

“The Giants won the World Series in 2012,” he said softly. “In 2010 too. They’re very popular right now.”

I wasn’t sure if there was a hidden message in the popularity of the Giants or if Henry just wanted to change the subject. I tried again, using a different approach.

“You know the story of David and Goliath, right? David’s just a little guy, Goliath’s a huge warrior. David ends up killing him with just a sling-shot and Goliath’s own sword.”

“Your name is David,” Henry said, his eyes on the game.

“It is. Do you need me to slay a giant for you?”

“The Giants’ bench is deep.”

I narrowed my eyes at Henry. He didn’t look away from the television. It was like conversing with Yoda. Or R2D2.

I sighed and refilled his drink again. “When all this Sprite catches up with you, the bathrooms are down the hall on the right.”

I didn’t want to upset Amelie, but when she checked to make sure Robin had come and retrieved Henry, covering her dancing “uniform” with a Tag Team T-shirt and leggings, I pulled her aside and stressed once more that she should bring Henry by the gym. It wouldn’t hurt for the kid to learn how to take down a bully, or a giant, if that’s what was going on.

AMELIE AND HENRY didn’t come by the gym the next day. On Saturday, I thought I saw them once, beyond the wall of windows along the front of the gym, but when I looked again they were gone. I shrugged, deciding Henry must not have been as excited by the idea as Amelie thought he would be. A few minutes later I looked up to see them hovering near the speed bags, Amelie holding firmly to Henry’s arm, Henry looking as if he was about to bolt like a runaway seeing-eye dog and drag his poor sister with him. They were garnering some strange looks—Henry with his crazy bedhead, his darting glances, and jittery hands and Amelie because she stood so still with her eyes fixed straight ahead.

I called a quick halt to my bout, escaping Axel, who was trying to pummel me into next week, and slid between the ropes that cordoned off one of the octagons.

“Amelie! Henry!” I called, noting how Amelie’s face was immediately wreathed in a relieved smile, a smile so wide it spread to her eyes, giving the illusion of sparkle and life. But Henry started backing up, pulling his sister with him.

“Yo, Henry. Hold up, man.” I stopped several feet from them and lowered my voice. “Did you know that Jack Dempsey versus Jess Willard was the very first fight to be broadcast over the radio?”

Henry stopped moving and his hands stilled.

“Do you know what year that was, Henry?”

“1919,” Henry said in a whisper. “The first televised fight was in 1931. Benny Leonard vs. Mickey Walker.”

“I didn’t know that.” Actually, I had only known about the Dempsey, Willard fight because I’d seen a biography on Dempsey on Netflix the night before. God bless Netflix. The mention of the radio had made me think of Henry and the sportscast blaring from his bedroom. “You wanna tell me more?”

“David ‘Tag’ Taggert, light heavyweight contender with a professional record of eighteen wins, two losses, ten knock outs.”

“You checked up on me, huh?”

Henry’s mouth twitched, and he looked away shyly.

“You did! What else did you find out? That all the ladies love me, that I’m the best looking fighter, pound for pound, in the universe?”

Henry looked confused for a second, and I realized he was searching his mind for that stat. I laughed. “Just kidding, buddy.”

“Six-foot three, 215 pounds, most often compared to Forrest Griffin and Michael Bisping?” Henry’s voice rose on the end, clearly seeking approval.

“I’m more charming than Bisping, and I have better ears than Forrest. But they could both probably kick my ass.”

“He said ass, Amelie!” Henry whispered, half shocked.

“Yes he did, Henry. It’s okay. That’s how fighters talk,” Amelie soothed.

“Can I say ass?” Henry whispered again, curiously.

“You can,” I cut in, “after you learn how to fight.”

“I don’t like to fight.” Henry started backing away.

“That’s okay, Henry. There’s a lot of different ways to fight. I can show you some stuff when you’re ready. Some moves are just about protecting yourself. But right now, I’m gonna introduce you to my team.”

“Tag Team?” Henry’s voice lifted with excitement.

“That’s right. We’re missing a few people, but a bunch of my guys are here.”

Henry had already met Axel, my Swedish sparring partner, at the bar, but Amelie shook his hand politely and Axel shot me a pointed look over the top of her head. He’d seen her dance, obviously. Mikey, with his powerful forearms and his missing lower left leg, greeted Henry and Amelie with a smile and a handshake. Mikey is always a gentleman in front of the ladies, but reverts to a foul-mouthed marine in front of the guys. He lost a leg in Iraq and works out his demons in the Tag Team facilities. He’d taught me a few things about hand-to-hand combat you can only learn from someone who has actually fought for his life more times than he can count.

I moved on to Paulo, a Brazilian, and a better grappler than all of us, and then to Cory, the youngest on the team. Cory Mangum was a wrestler, an NCAA heavyweight champion his junior year. But he threw it all away his senior year and ended up at Montlake Psychiatric Hospital after trying to escape his drug habit by jumping off a bridge. My old friend, Dr. Andelin, had sent him my way. So far, he’d managed to stay clean and pin me daily. I was learning a ton from him.

Beyond Axel, Mikey, Paulo and Cory, who provided training but didn’t compete, I had a handful of MMA fighters in a bunch of different divisions who all fought under the Tag Team label, and they greeted Henry and Amelie politely, with side-long looks at Henry’s crazy hair and Amelie’s blinding smile. I wondered if Amelie knew how appealing she was. Probably not. There were plenty of women in and out of our facility. Some came to see me or one of the guys, some came to work out with us. I had two female Tag Team fighters who were ranked in the UFC. Amelie was a novelty, though, and I was positive the guys had all noticed her sweet figure, her shiny hair and her pretty mouth. The thought bothered me. Just wait until Axel told them she danced around a pole several nights a week at the bar. That
really
bothered me.

“This part of the gym is for fight training. The rest of it—the weight room, the exercise equipment, and the classes—is for Tag Team fitness members. For fifteen bucks a month you have access to everything on that side of the facility. We have classes over here a few nights a week too, the classes that need the mats like judo and some of our self-defense classes, and those things are extra.”

“Maybe you’d like to try out a judo class or a self-defense class, Henry,” Amelie spoke up. “I took judo classes for a while. There’s a division for blind athletes. Pretty cool. But my heart wasn’t in it unless the music was blaring and I could do kicks and spins, which doesn’t work in judo.”

“Yeah. Not unless you’re throwing someone while you’re spinning.”

“Would I have to punch a bad guy?” Henry asked doubtfully.

“Nah. Judo’s all about throws. An MMA fighter uses a lot of throws and submissions, so judo is a pretty big deal around here,” I said. Henry seemed overly worried about having to punch someone. Which meant I probably needed to teach him how.

“You don’t have to punch anything. Except maybe that bag. Do you think you’d like to punch that bag over there?”

Henry halted and looked suspiciously at the punching bag a couple of feet to the left of where we were standing.

“You could punch the speed bag too. It’s fun. And it doesn’t hit back.”

Amelie was still holding onto Henry’s arm, her stick nowhere in sight. I reached out and gently grabbed her elbow, pulling her beside me so that Henry wouldn’t hurt her if he attempted a jab. I was doubtful Henry had ever punched anything in his life. He was a small, skinny kid, and he clearly had developmental problems. He sounded a little robotic when he talked, and I wondered if he was autistic. On the one hand he could spit out sports trivia like he was a walking record book. On the other, the kid asked for permission to say ass. Not your average teenager.

Henry walked toward the long punching bag, eyeing it like it might transform into something deadly. His left hand darted out and slapped the bag, and he jumped a foot in the air.

Amelie clapped. “Was that you, Henry? I heard that!”

“Try again, Henry. You can kick it too,” I instructed.

Henry’s leg shot out as if he were kicking open a door, and the bag swung back and bumped his upraised leg, sending him sprawling.

“He got me, Tag,” he groaned, and Amelie gasped. I guess I was wrong. Apparently the punching bag could hit back.

“Stand up, buddy. You kicked it hard. You gotta watch out for the swing, make sure you step back a little, time your kicks and your punches.”

Henry rose to his feet as if the bag was going to take his legs out from under him at any minute. He jabbed at it, jabbed some more, kicked a time or two without falling, and then moved onto the speed bag while I threw out instructions. Amelie stayed quiet, listening intently, and I realized that I’d kept my hand on her elbow all along, clutching her to my side as I coached Henry. When Henry seemed to get a bit of a rhythm going on the speed bag, and began chortling happily to himself, she spoke up.

“David?”

I almost looked around to see who she was talking to and then remembered my own name. It sounded different on her lips.

“Yeah?”

“You’re so nice. I didn’t expect you to be so nice.”

“Why?”

“Because all the girls at the bar are either in love with you, and they want to sleep with you, or they hate you, and they still want to sleep with you. I thought you were one of those bad-boy types.”

“Oh, I’m plenty bad. I just try not to be an asshole to people who don’t deserve it. I guess you could say I’m a nice bad guy.”