3
At 7:43 pm, I jump into the car. A regular cab this time. Uber seems down today, probably another aftershock of the blackout. They’ve still been happening so often, but taking down one service at a time instead. So people are starting to ignore it, to rely less on these brain attachments of ours. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Brain attachments…where did I hear that before? Never mind.
This time, the empty seat next to mine bothers me. In the four months I’ve been fighting at The School, Jason has consistently refused to come watch. Why do I keep trying to drag him along? He doesn’t want to see me die, he says. Today is going to be a special day with or without you, Doctor Jason Sonderup.
We are there.
The driver seems concerned, as always. Not sure if I find it endearing or offensive. I jump out, give him a fat tip, head to the metal entrance.
The gate shakes and moves. The music blasts through the crack, and with the explosion of sounds, a giant man comes running. He dives onto me, I drop the bag, lower my stance, but it happens too fast. His chest hits my face, the arms wrap around my ribs, constricting me like a snake. I wheeze, begging for air.
“Kitty Cat!” says Buffalo, dropping me back onto the floor.
“Hi, Little Cow.”
The large man with muscles up to his cauliflower ears opens a broad, proud grin and pushes me away so I can see his new T-shirt. The School - keyboard warriors not allowed. “Pretty cool, right? The month you’ve been out, some rich weaks showed up. Gave the boss a lot of money for maintenance. It’s all different now. The keyboard-warriors thing’s the boss telling them he still calls the shots. Get it?”
I see.
“Am I hearing La Tigressa roar?” An obnoxious voice with a thick Italian accent comes from inside. The man himself, the owner, the one everyone calls Il Capo, has his arms open so wide, he must be impersonating either Jesus or an airplane.
I say, “I want to fight.”
“Prego! No more of the no-fight-in-the-fall thing, bella?”
“Not today. Want to do it.”
He nods and reaches out to the void on his side. In a second, without any communication or clue, another greasy being hands him a shapeless piece of fabric and he gives it to me without even checking. Did he know?
More hugs, a few kisses. His perfume gives me a headache. I wonder if the Capo pulled me that close just to feel my boobs or if that’s really an Italian thing. Not even sure he’s a real Italian. Focus, Yinyin. He’s not the target.
Buffalo is tasked to bring me to the locker room, as if I don’t know my way.
“A luchador mask?” I ask, confused. “He knows I’m not Mexican, right?”
“It’s a tiger mask, at least.” Buffalo says, trying to keep a straight face. What am I getting myself into?
The locker room is a moldy place and the lockers barely shut, which is Ok, ’cause no one dares to mess with the fighters’ stuff, anyway. Although if someone took that mask, I would treat that as a favor.
“Prepare for a big surprise!” Buffalo says, interrupting my wish.
The place is different indeed. More sanitary. Though it still stinks—just a different kind of stench. Fresh paint instead of mold. Cleaning products instead of piss. Is everyone wearing perfume today? “The sponsors,” Buffalo says. “They seem to be some sort of freaks for smells. I don’t think people like it, but the money was good.”
It doesn’t feel right.
“Going out with Jason after? Make sure you don’t get hit.”
No idea how to respond. “He refuses to come watch me fight, you know?”
“I wouldn’t want to see it either,” says Buffalo.
“Shup up, Little Cow.” It’s been a year we’ve been together, Jason and I. If he can’t see me work, maybe he shouldn’t see me at all.
“Fighting isn’t everything, you know?” he says on his way out.
It is for me.
Screw that. I shove the mask, my pants and big shirt into the duffle bag, make sure the phone is off. Then a quick stretch, a warmup to shake off the rust and grab a lipstick. Red, like death. I like to wear it sometimes. Gets the enemy confused. Horny and surprised. A little edge can help tonight. Besides, what’s wrong with a girl looking pretty on her birthday? One last touch: a black slash under the eyes and over the nose. That shit football players wear on their faces. Tigress stripes, to match the hair. Better than the mask. And actually, not bad at all.
Forty minutes pass in the smelly clean chamber. Buffalo probably doesn’t feel it, with his nose still crooked because of my knee. But I can. My head can. It pounds. It will get better when I’m in the open, I tell myself. So as the loudest of all music hits, he opens the door. “It’s time, dear,” he says. Buffalo could be made into one of those anime characters in Asia. Xiao Niu, the cuddly beast.
Outside, the beats, the scents, the strobes…they sting, but I tell myself it’s butterflies. I keep my stride. As we pass by the Italian, he makes a weird gesture around his own face and winks. “I liked the mask better, but that will do.”
Walk-ins at The School have no signature songs or focused light on the fighters, like we see on big promotions. Just a higher intensity of chaos. In their own drunk and dumb way though, the crowd still jeers. Waiting is over now, Tigress. The fighting. Pure. Raw. No rules, no rounds, no forbidden moves. Real combat. Real thrill. It all bubbles inside of me as I walk past the mob. Then it reveals itself. The shrine, the altar, the cage in the center of a former basketball court. The chicken wire is new—still rises ten feet up. Other than on a stretcher, nobody can escape. The announcer is new too. And gross—his gummed-back hair reminds me of everything I hate in a man. “Oh, a geisha!” he says. The stupidity of the white American male never ceases to surprise. Not that the folks outside the wire are much better, but at least the cage keeps me far from their grime.
The dude they got me to fight…don’t like him much either. Mr. Soloaga, the supposedly Italian Capo, always picked the big and slow, for contrast, like Xiao Niu. This time, he chose a skinny white dude with a blond mullet and psychopath eyes. No problem. The choice to come tonight was mine. The queen of the cage doesn’t need to pick adversaries. A proud girl of yang should have nothing to fear.
Now, the consequences.
Sweeeeeeeenk! The mic feedback silences the mob. Sleazy MC raises his hand, “Gentlemen and Gentlemen, tonight we have a surprise fight for you! On my right, the man who sent his last three rivals to the ER, the invictus champion of the house, and meanest motherfucker on the planet, make some noise for The…Crusher!”
Crusher? I choke in disdain. We aren’t allowed to use our real names because the whole thing here is, you know, illegal. Still, they could have done better than a dumb wrestler name like that.
“And on my left, our long-time sexy sensation and crowd favorite, the one and only, also undefeated in this cage, the geisha, the assassin, the fiece…ce-cest…Tigress…Lee!”
No clue where “Lee” came from. But no time to whine. The bell will ring anytime and we’ll jump at each other’s necks.
“But before we start,” says slimy, “I understand it’s our sexy babe’s birthday today, right?”
Oh, no, he didn’t.
“So why don’t we all sing…”
Please, don’t.
“…Happy Birthday to her?”
They do. In complete scorn, a perfect mock Irish pub from a B movie. Raised hands, boisterous chanting and everything. I cringe till the end, ready to kill the man, or Camilo, whoever I see first after the fight.
The bell rings.
The Crusher and I move around, flipping legs and poking the air to gauge each other. He is cold, focused, and that’s dangerous. The one thing that makes me wary if I’m fighting a guy is if he treats me like a real fighter. Then I know I have a real bout. He prances. Feint jab high, threatens a takedown below. His hands slip on my overly moisturized skin. Nice trick, Tigress. I think of making a sexy face, like one of those women make in soap ads, but he wouldn’t understand. Never mind. He’s back. I raise my guard and through the gaps between my fists, he shoots me a kiss. I so regret the lipstick now. Is that him being a dude again or is he just trying to get into my head? We trade punches. None of that parrying bullshit this time. Just pure, simple aggression. We both hit some, dodge some. Now I know why Il Capo chose him. Punishment. For showing up unannounced. Little he knows, I love it better this way. A high kick zooms close to my head. I bend back to escape, and he uses the other leg to hit me hard above the knee. Noise, pain, then a flash. Really?
Shifu and I walk circles together, like when we condition our bodies to the whirling techniques of baguazhang. Even though this time it’s more than doing empty steps and palm changes. The intensity in his eyes…the fear in my guts. I gather my qi and leap in his direction, releasing it all into a single punch.3 But Shifu being Shifu simply holds my hand midair and waves his head in disappointment.
There’s a jolt in my soul and my joints. Then again, a flash.
Back to the cage. I charge at The Crusher. Not very Tai Chi, but worth the risk. One, two, three punches. He dodges each and every one with perfect head movements, then, with an expertly timed side kick, the fucker sends me flying.
Around me, The School spins and the barely padded mat hits me on the shoulder. Everything is upside down. Beyond the unforgiving sharpness of the wires, two familiar faces stare. They look different. From everyone else. Same polo shirts. Candy bars. Glasses. Are they regulars now?
Outside the cage, spotlights point in my direction. Shit, my head hurts. I stand up and go back to offensive mode. More careful this time. The Crusher fills his hands with his own crotch and offers me his imaginary dick. Gross, but the audience loves it. Now I want to kill the fucker.
Just finish this and go home, Tigress.
The flash hits me again. China. Against the wall, our shadows are fighting, mine and Shifu’s. I pounce, but it’s as if he’d been born on the wings of a hummingbird. Moving so fast I can’t track. He hits me on my back. “How?”
“Shadow Leap,” he says.
Of course. He always teased me with that legend of the magical skill that allows us to cross the Dao from one place to another. I get it. In the past, it may have frightened our enemies. In today’s world, it fools no one. Yet, I have no fucking idea what kind of fancy footwork he used. “You’ll learn when you’re ready,” he says.
“And when will that be?”
“When you learn to keep a secret.” Ok, now I need to know. But one more flash stuns me and China is gone; my left eyelid hangs half-way down. Oh no! That’s what happens when the headaches…The deep, blinding stab…Please not now! The smells of the place grow stronger and turn into stingers in my head. The Crusher can feel it, my sudden fragility. He jabs me hard, two or three times. No! I’m undefeated here. I need this record. He loads his elbow, and I feel the squeeze inside my skull, my eye being pushed out. His distant voice mocks me, “Happy Birthday, sweetie.” A vicious kick spins in the direction of my temple. Fast as a bullet, I know, but I see it in slow motion instead. If it lands, a knockout for sure. From an echo of memory, I hear Jason’s voice preaching, “If the headache happens when you’re fighting, you may die.” The stab hits me again. So be it. I lower my guard.
3. Qi is what the Chinese call the vital energy of the universe, a fundamental figure in their culture, present in martial arts like Tai Chi and other forms of kung fu, and in traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture. In Japan, it’s the same concept, and the name is spelled chi. In either place, it’s a very nebulous idea sometimes explained as a mystic force between us, sometimes as a simple technique of aligning brain and joints in harmony. In the geeky world, I have seen it explained as the concept that inspired “the force” in Star Wars. If you’re not into any of those worlds, there is also an important application of the concept, or at least of knowing about its existence, that is being able to use the letter q in Scrabble. Qi: 2 tiles, 11 points, plus the multipliers.