NORTH HOLLYWOOD
The next morning he taught her how to take a punch.
“Today is going to be hard,” Nate said to her as she sat across from him, sheened with sweat from their warmup. He was talking to himself as much as Polly. He tried to say it calm and easy. He remembered the day when he’d been the one on the receiving end of this.
“Are we going to watch that woman today?” she asked. They’d followed her—the woman with the green eyes that struck Nate right at the centerline—from the ocean to her house the night before.
“Soon,” Nate said. He finished wrapping her hands with cloth. He hadn’t been able to find boxing gloves her size. She knocked the padded fists together. She had changed in the few weeks they’d been together. She moved like she wasn’t thinking about every single move before she made it. It was a start. It wasn’t enough.
“Put up your fists,” he said. She raised them. Some of the meek girl still there inside her. That was what Nate had to burn out of her if she was going to stay alive.
He fixed her shoulders, tucked in her elbows.
“The hardest thing about a fight is learning to get hit.”
“You mean how not to get hit?”
“You’re going to get hit,” he said. “Life ain’t a video game or a school test. There’s no doing it perfect.” Word for word the way Nick had said it to him. “You’re going to get hit. When you do, your body thinks what’s happening is that you’re being murdered. And who knows, maybe you are. So your brain dumps a bunch of chemicals into your body, like rocket fuel.”
“Fight or flight,” Polly said. She was smarter than Nate had been at eleven, or fourteen when Nick had done this to him. Sometimes he thought maybe she was smarter than him now.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “Either fight back or run, your body says. Only we aren’t cavemen anymore. The world wants to teach you to not fight back, or even really run away. The world wants you to stand there and take it like a punk. So your brain dumps this rocket fuel into you and you don’t do anything and all it does is make you burn right where you stand. You know what I mean?”
He listened to himself, to his tone. He couldn’t hear the wavering he felt inside. He hoped she couldn’t either. A thing like this was dangerous. You get it wrong the first time and you might not ever get it right. You might break something inside them.
“So when you’re in a fight, a couple of different things happen. You get that crazy boost. That rocket fuel. It makes you wild, or it freezes you up. Either one is bad. You got to learn how to ride the rocket.”
He put on his boxing gloves. He looked over to the bear, who she’d positioned to watch over their training. He nodded to the bear like what up? He’d been catching himself doing shit like that more often. The girl had a trick of making you forget the bear wasn’t alive.
Nate hunched down close as he could to her eye level. He lifted his fists. She did the same. Polly mirrored him.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
He didn’t say it. He couldn’t even show it on his face. He had to keep his face calm, so she’d think this was okay.
He shot out a feather jab. It just touched her face. He watched it set off earthquakes inside her. He felt them too. He saw her lock her breath up inside her.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Then don’t act like it. Put up your fists.”
He raised his fists. Polly raised hers. He flicked out the jab again. A little harder this time. He felt the connection. Her eyes went wide.
“That burn you feel inside you, that’s the rocket fuel dump.” He cut an angle, popped another light jab. She swatted at it, wild.
“That’s adrenaline. That’s a gift from the deep down part of your brain.” He double-pumped the jab, first a high feint then a low jab, tapping her stomach with the second. Animal panic in her eyes. He pushed past the voices telling him to stop. He listened to the ghost of his brother.
Either you teach her how to take a punch or the world does.
“Adrenaline isn’t bad,” he said. “Just don’t let it use you.”
He bopped her on the nose. She slapped away his fist. Still wild, but better.
“When the bullies came after you, when they hurt you, it wasn’t the hurt that you were scared of. It was what you wanted to do, what you could do, that’s what scared you.”
He threw a left to her ear, harder than he meant it. Her breath clicked fast as a sewing machine.
“Get mad if you’re mad,” he said.
He threw a jab. She moved her head so it just grazed her cheek.
“That’s right,” he said. “You got to get free of it. Whatever it is that’s stopping you from fighting. You got to climb out of the cage.”
He one-twoed, let her catch them both on her forearms. He felt her breaking point coming. He didn’t want to push her past it. He didn’t want the lesson to be lost.
“The world wants you to sit on your hands and take what it gives you.” He popped jabs at her, stinging her, stinging him.
“The world wants you scared of yourself. You have to let the blows come. You have to take them. You have to be ready. You can’t go crazy. You can’t freeze up. You got to take the punches. And then you got to punch back.”
He pop-popped her on the eye. Saw rage bloom. He threw a light hook to her belly. He left his other hand low. He gifted her his face.
She swung. Her left fist fit in his eye socket. His teeth clipped in his skull. He sat back on his ass and caught her next swing. He watched her come back to the world.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Eyes wide and deep.
“No,” he said. “That’s just how you do it. But don’t let the mad take you.”
She swayed on her feet.
“Breathe,” he said.
She broke and ran for the bathroom. He listened to her empty her stomach. With her out of sight, he let himself cover his face with his gloved hands. He stood like that until he heard her flush the toilet. He knocked his gloves together loud to let her know he was coming. He walked into the bathroom. Polly sat facing the toilet. She wiped a wrapped hand against her mouth.
“We’re doing it again tomorrow,” he said. “And the day after that. Until you learn that a punch don’t kill you.”
She had tears in her eyes. But behind them, fire.