Hardway

Tika was leading class. Mr. Arellano was busy helping Creepshow, who’d brought in a contract he’d been sent for his next tour of Japan. He wanted Papi’s help looking it over before he signed it. MJ wasn’t exactly sure why, but she knew enough to guess contracts for pro-wrestling jobs were probably complicated things.

There were a dozen students attending class that Saturday afternoon. They were split into two groups, and each group was put in a different training ring. They lined up in rows of three across the canvas.

Usually when they trained, MJ and Zina lined up next to each other, but after the argument they’d had, MJ found herself staring across the warehouse at Zina as they stood in separate rings.

They started out by doing stretches, twisting and bending at their waists, and then sticking out their arms and moving them in little circles. Tika had them all do twenty push-ups on their hands and knees. Through it all, she reminded them to keep breathing.

When everyone was properly loosened up, they all went through bump drills; running in place and taking front bumps, and then back bumps. Tika slowly walked in circles around each ring, calling out to them when she wanted them to bump, and then telling them to stand back up, which they all did as quickly as possible and then started running in place again.

MJ always tried to count the number of bumps they took during drills, but after the first few minutes she never failed to lose her place. It was hard enough just to keep moving and breathing, let alone to keep track of numbers in her head.

“All right, that’s enough!” Tika announced, clapping her hands together. “Everybody cool down!”

They all stopped pumping their legs and tried to catch their breath. MJ bent forward and put her hands on her knees.

“Who wants to do some sparring?”

That meant they were about to have a long practice match. Two of them would start out in the ring, and then they could tag in other students to take their place. No one would win and they didn’t work out any spots or moves beforehand; they’d just keep wrestling, making it up as they went along, until Tika told them to stop.

“MJ, Zina, you start.”

MJ blinked, frozen in place, unsure she’d heard Tika right.

The rest of the students around her climbed through the ropes and stood on the ring apron. The students in the other training ring leaped down and crossed the Academy floor to join them.

MJ was still so surprised that she didn’t move. Eventually, Zina rolled into the ring in front of her and stood up to face MJ.

Zina didn’t seem to be as shaken as MJ felt, but the other girl also couldn’t seem to look directly at MJ. She was sort of staring in her direction without ever meeting MJ’s eyes.

“Keep it simple,” Tika instructed them. “No big bumps and no high spots. I just want you to work on your flow together.”

MJ and Zina circled each other. That part was starting to feel natural to MJ. She was learning most of this was just repetition. You did it over and over again until you didn’t even have to think about it, your body and brain did it automatically. She did still have to remind herself to mirror what her opponent was doing as they circled; if Zina turned to one side and moved a foot back, MJ turned the opposite side of her body and moved the opposite foot back.

MJ and Zina locked up and started going through simple holds and reversals. MJ tried to catch Zina’s eyes, but Zina still wasn’t really looking at her.

After trading holds for a while, Zina grabbed her in a tight headlock. MJ felt pressure around her neck, but it didn’t worry her; Zina was simply a lot bigger and stronger than her.

MJ put her arms around Zina’s waist, and then pressed her hand against the small of the taller girl’s back. She tried to push her, which was supposed to signal to Zina to let go of the headlock, run into the ropes, and bounce back at MJ.

Instead, Zina only tightened her hold.

Confused, MJ tried to shove her off again, this time pushing her harder.

Again, Zina squeezed MJ’s head and neck like her arms were snakes choking their food.

Now the headlock was starting to hurt, and MJ knew Zina was doing it on purpose.

Instead of trying to shove her a third time, MJ tried to shake her head free of Zina’s grasp, backpedaling with her feet.

Zina just moved with her, refusing to let go.

Frustrated, angry, and in pain, MJ’d had enough. She wrapped her arms around Zina’s waist and, without thinking, lifted her up in the air. With Zina balanced on her shoulder, MJ tossed both of their bodies backward to the mat, dropping Zina with a suplex.

The impact was enough to force Zina to release the hold. MJ rolled away from her and popped back up to her feet.

“I said no big bumps!” Tika yelled at them, but then added, “That looked good, though.”

MJ looked down. Zina was still lying there. She didn’t look hurt, just surprised by the move.

Having Zina on her back staring up at her made MJ pause. Suddenly she didn’t know what to do next. She couldn’t think of a move, any move. It was a lot harder when there wasn’t a more experienced wrestler telling her what to do, guiding her through the match.

She heard Tika yell, “Don’t stop!”

Feeling her nerves rattle and her head buzz, MJ stopped thinking and just reacted. She dropped an elbow down on Zina.

The other girl moved out of the way, however. MJ wasn’t ready for that, and she landed awkwardly on the mat instead of breaking a clean bump.

When MJ stood up again, Zina forearmed her in the chest, hard. She was bigger and stronger than MJ, and the blow not only hurt, it knocked the breath out of her for a second.

MJ thought about hitting her back. A part of her said she should hit Zina back. MJ didn’t, though. She didn’t want to really fight with Zina.

Instead, MJ grabbed Zina’s arms and locked up with her, not knowing what else to do. She just wanted to keep Zina from landing another shot.

“Don’t lock up again!” Tika shouted at them from outside the ring. “That’s like restarting a story in the middle!”

Neither of them moved to untangle themselves at first. Zina finally looked straight into MJ’s eyes. There was something that felt so hateful in Zina’s stare. It made MJ mad, so she stared hard right back at her.

Zina grabbed MJ’s arm and moved to push it away. As she did, her elbow smashed into MJ’s nose.

MJ yelped, but more out of surprise than anything. It didn’t hurt, not really. There was a weird sensation on impact, like something hard pressing deep into her face. MJ realized it was the bone inside her nose. Then she felt warmth in the middle of her face, and she tasted pennies.

Zina stepped back and MJ touched her nose. That stung. She also felt something wet on her fingertips.

The wet stuff was blood.

Her blood.

It was like having a runny nose and not being able to find a tissue. MJ wiped her lips and pressed the back of her wrist just under her nose to stop more blood from leaking out.

“What happened?” Tika asked as she rolled inside the ring and stood up between them.

MJ narrowed her eyes at Zina, shouting at her like an accusation. “She elbowed me in the nose!”

“So?” Zina shot back at her. “It happens.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” Tika asked her.

“No,” Zina insisted.

Tika repeated the question, her voice unchanged. “Did you do it on purpose?”

This time, Zina didn’t answer right away.

“A little,” she admitted.

Tika frowned, and Zina looked down at the canvas.

“Hey! Look at me!”

Zina looked up at Tika.

“If you have a problem with another worker and you want to work it out by beating each other up in the ring, that’s fine, but you don’t try to hurt each other.”

“What’s the difference?” Zina asked.

“Broken noses,” Tika said.

“Her nose isn’t broken.”

“It could’ve been. Don’t get smart with me. Student.”

There was no room for argument in the way Tika said that, and Zina didn’t try.

It was weird. Watching that, MJ stopped feeling angry and instead felt sorry for Zina. She didn’t like seeing Tika yell at her, even if she had popped MJ in the face intentionally.

“I’m not even going to make you apologize, because I don’t care if you’re sorry. You’re not going to do that again. I do want to see you two shake hands, though. Right now.”

MJ offered Zina her hand. MJ wasn’t even mad about her nose; she just wanted this thing between her and Zina to be over. She hated the way it felt, like there was this sharp stick between them, and each end was poking and prodding them both. She just wanted to laugh and feel comfortable with her again. Zina was the first friend MJ made at Victory Academy, and maybe the first friend close to her age she’d made ever. To MJ that had come to mean as much to her as wrestling did.

Zina took her hand. She didn’t squeeze it though, and she didn’t say anything. The look on her face told MJ shaking hands wasn’t fixing anything.

She watched Zina leave the ring without either of them saying a word to each other. MJ sniffed and swallowed hard, raising two fingertips to dab at her face. She tried to make it look like it was her injury that was making her sniffle instead of her feelings.

She turned away and was nearly blinded by a sudden flash of light. She blinked, and when everything faded back into focus, Creepshow was standing there holding a Polaroid camera in one hand and waving the picture he’d just taken of her in his other hand.

“That’s totally going on the wall,” he announced with a big smile.

MJ flushed. She remembered there was blood all over her face which made her nose hurt more.

She covered her face with her hands. Fortunately, Tika had retrieved a towel from someone and she handed it to MJ.

“Knock it off,” Tika chastised Creepshow.

“It’s her first hardway!” he protested.

“Hardway?” MJ asked, not recognizing the word.

“It means you got busted open by accident and bled without meaning to,” Tika explained.

MJ was even more confused. “When do you mean to bleed?”

Creepshow stared at her oddly. “You’ve seen wrestlers on TV bleed before, right?”

“Yeah, but Papi . . . my Papi . . . he . . . he always said the blood in wrestling was fake.”

“No disrespect to your papi,” Creepshow said, “but he was wrong.”

MJ wiped the blood from her chin and mouth and pressed the stained towel under her nose. Doing that still stung a lot worse than actually getting elbowed. She looked past the students on the apron, watching Zina, who’d walked over to the vending machines.

“She’ll get over it,” Tika assured MJ. “Whatever it is, the heat will fade.”

“Did you have us spar on purpose?” MJ asked her.

Tika shrugged. “You two seemed like you needed it.”

MJ looked down at the bloody towel in her hand.

“I hope it worked,” she said.

Tika laughed, reaching up and gently stroking MJ’s arm to console her.

It helped, but only a little.

For something everybody thought was fake, at that moment wrestling felt all too real in more ways than one.