Chapter 7

Scott Brown had told George before that the beach was nearly an hour away when George arrived in Vacaville nearly twelve weeks ago. George had forgotten until he was in a car driving for the coast. “Not every city in California is on the beach,” Summer said.

            “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been told,” he replied.

Summer had arranged a beach day with her friends some weeks ago before she’d ever met George, but after two dates with him she decided to bring him with her. It was a gorgeous Saturday morning, and the two of them were enjoying the feeling of the wind on their skin through the open windows. Summer’s car was nothing fancy, a peeling champagne Toyota, but to George it was perfect. He’d been immobile for so long any form of transportation seemed to be something to be envied and cherished.

Summer pulled the car into a parking spot some four blocks away from the beach. As she started pulling towels and bags from the trunk, George paused to check his phone. There was a text message, one he’d been waiting for all morning: “I won. First round rear choke. Wrestling did the trick. Thx.”

George smiled and put his phone away.

“Who was that?” Summer asked. She was trying to pull a blue cooler that had been wedged into the trunk like an abductee.

“It’s nothing,” he said, and he helped her with the cooler.

It took them forty-five minutes to find the beach and Summer’s friends. They’d all arrayed beach towels into a round cluster with scattered coolers and bags between them. The sand was hot and soft and relatively clean. Every so many feet there was evidence left from previous beach-goers: a pull tab from a soda can, a decaying piece of watermelon rind, or a cheap, broken sandal. The air smelled like salt and fish and car exhaust. It sounded like sea gulls and a social gathering. Not a bad beach at all.

George meshed well with Summer’s friends immediately. He didn’t say much about himself, thinking his circumstances for coming to live in California might sound strange to most people, but Summer’s friends were like her: energetic and chatty. The subject didn’t come up until her cousin arrived.

He came with four others and bags of footballs and volleyballs and Frisbees to throw around. George had been sitting in the middle of a gaggle of Summer’s friends laughing and making them laugh until they saw the newcomers. Then they all swarmed the sports equipment and began playing aimless games in small groups. Summer ran to her cousin to give him a hug. George followed her.

He was built somewhat like her. He was tall and blonde, but he had narrow, sloping shoulders and a crooked nose. He was built, though, and lean, and the girls seemed to like him. He was in many ways George’s visual opposite. George was shorter than him by nearly four inches and had broader shoulders and a darker complexion. He also had a softer look than her cousin. Despite all the grappling and running, George never did look cut. Summer introduced him as Traxton.

“Oh, you must be that Jiu-jitsu guy she told me she was dating,” said Traxton. “I told her you need to switch styles.”

George suddenly remembered Summer mentioning her cousin was an MMA competitor. He thought when he met him he would like him. He was finding that he wasn’t so sure. “Why?” George asked. “I like Jiu-jitsu a lot.”

“’Cause that rolling around on the ground stuff is totally bull-crap. And it’s gay.”

George was shocked. He was too surprised to even be angry. He was just confused. He had no earthly idea why this guy would think Jiu-jitsu was worth slamming like that. Or why he would even care. George just looked at him, unsure of what to say or how to react, though to others it must’ve looked like the two of them were staring each other down.

“Okay boys, chill chill chill,” interrupted Summer. She’d stepped between the boys with her hands up in the peacekeeper gesture. “We’re here to have fun. Not fight.”

“Fighting is fun,” said Traxton. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to beat up your little man. I was just messing with him.” He turned away and joined in a game of catch with two other boys and a girl who were tossing around the football.

Now George was sure of it.  He definitely didn’t like Traxton.

“Sorry about my cousin,” Summer said to him. “In fact, I’m pretty sure we’re not blood related.” That made him laugh. She grabbed his hand and led him to join the others in a disorganized, pointless game that resembled volleyball.

The day had been good, despite George’s obnoxious encounter with Traxton, and George thoroughly enjoyed himself as he played games, ate dry sandwiches, and tried to body surf. And he enjoyed being with Summer. She was funny, smart, and relaxed. It had been the sort of day he’d been hoping for ever since his father said he would send him to California, or even since he’d made plans to go to Virginia Beach with his friends back home. He felt like the day was absolutely perfect, and was somewhat disappointed as he noticed the sun setting over the ocean. In a few short hours it would be time to go back. As he helped the others stack wooden pallets on the sand for a bonfire, he decided he would try to convince some of the Jiu-jitsu guys to come out here soon.

One of Summer’s friends singed the ends of her long hair lighting the huge pile of wood. The flames were huge, almost certainly huge enough to attract a policeman or some other authority figure, and George was sure they would soon come to tell them to extinguish their fire, but none came. They all sat happily around the fire and joked and told stories and a few even sang songs. They’d brought hotdogs and marshmallows, but no one had brought anything to roast them on, so they sat unopened and forgotten as they all passed around the last few cans of soda.

When the bonfire finally shrank to a guttering pile of embers, some of the more responsible ones decided it was time to go home. George was not surprised to see that Traxton was not one of them. While everyone had been gathered at the bonfire, he’d managed to get his arm around one of the girls, making him louder and more obnoxious than ever as he tried to impress her. George was only too happy to leave him behind, and happy he hadn’t had to directly interact with him beyond their initial greeting that morning. He grabbed his things and started following Summer back to the car.

“Hey, Summer! Bring your boy toy over here. I want to ask him something.”

Summer turned and rolled her eyes. “Goodbye, Traxton. C’mon George. It’s getting late.”

George stopped. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he was going home now, and he’d want just one last shot at her cousin for irritating him on his otherwise perfect day. He walked back to the fire. Summer asked what he was doing, but he didn’t answer.

“What?” he asked.

Traxton was lounging in the sand with his arm around the girl. George couldn’t remember her name. M-something. She was, in his opinion, a nice girl who was perhaps a little low on self-esteem. He thought this was maybe why she was so keen on being with Traxton, and almost certainly why he chose her.

“So this is what I was talking about,” Traxton said to the girl, ignoring George’s question. “I get into a cage with guys like this and I smash ‘em till someone makes me stop. And then I win.”

George stood and listened and waited. His chance was coming, and it would be there soon. He just had to be patient.

“So, how would you ‘smash’ him?” asked M-something. She was enjoying this. She’d probably never had a boy so physically dominant try to impress her before. George could tell that Traxton was not the only one anymore who wanted to see some action. Now she did, too.

Traxton stood up. This made George bristle with excitement, though he tried not to show anything. Just a few more moments.

“Well, this guy,” he said as he jerked his thumb towards George, “does Jiu-jitsu. It means he’ll try to trip me and hold me down on the ground to keep me from hitting him.”

“And what would keep me from doing that?” George asked with a straight face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, boys,” said Summer, once again trying to insert herself between the two of them. “This is not the octagon. And Traxton, stop trying to show off. You’ve been in, what? Two fights? Stop trying to make everyone here think you’re tough. George, please don’t humor him.” But she was too late this time. Traxton was almost certainly committed to action now. George was.

M-something was now giddy with excitement, and was quickly clapping her hands like a delighted child. “I want to see them do it. This is so cool!” she squealed.

Traxton waved everyone back to a safe distance and assumed a fighting stance. George watched patiently, hungry to know what would happen next.”

“Okay, Jiu-jitsu man. Let’s see if you can get me to the ground. I bet you fifty bucks you’ll never make it.”

George lowered himself into a grappling stance, his hands open.

“George, please,” pleaded Summer.

George lunged low towards Traxton’s legs. And then he stopped suddenly and pulled back. As he thought he would, Traxton threw a hard knee straight into the space where George’s head had been a fraction of a second before. George had known it was coming, since Traxton had been running his mouth about how George would never get the takedown. George had figured that this was what Traxton had been planning all along. It was almost exactly a scenario he drilled in class two weeks ago.

The knee strike missed, propelling Traxton forward and even closer to George’s waiting hands. George shot low again, this time colliding hard with Taxton’s stumbling legs, and he squinted his eyes to avoid being blinded by the low cloud of sand the two of them were stirring up. George locked his grip around Traxton’s hips and lifted him high in the air, swiveling of Traxton’s legs to one side of his body in a motion that looked like a swing dancing move.  Traxton’s back slammed hard into the muffling sand, and George crouched menacingly on top of him with a knee in his abdomen.

The whole beach was silent. Friends were still and quiet, some of them with their mouths open as though to say “oh”. M-something was in shock, and then her face fell in disappointment. Least quiet of all was Traxton, who lay wide-eyed and wheezing, nearly unable to breath with George’s knee bearing down on his midsection. Most quiet was George, who sat perched on top of him, satisfied with himself.

“George,” said Summer.

“Okay,” George finally answered her. “Let’s go.”

No one said much to them as they grabbed their things and left, though some started whispering and snickering to each other.

As the car pulled away from the beach and started winding its way through the hills back to Vacaville, George turned to look at his girlfriend. “Sorry I didn’t listen,” he said.

Summer shrugged. “I’m not upset. Actually, I thought you were going to go nuts on him and hurt him. But I was pleasantly surprised. That was really cool.”

“Yeah. That was really something,” he agreed. They held hands as she drove them home.

Brotherhood Jiu-jitsu Academy was dark and quiet as George walked in. The headlights from Summer’s car briefly illuminated the walls and reflected off of glass photo frames of Jiu-jitsu masters as she left. Enemigo’s face was lit up for a moment and to George it seemed as if he were alive and menacing, but then it went dark again.

He didn’t feel like going to bet just yet, so George wandered the halls and rooms and offices of the Academy, half searching the countless wall-hangings for anything interesting, half running through his short lived scrap with Traxton again in his head. He’d wanted so bad to continue that conflict, to let it be more than just a glorified shoving match and let it become a real fight. Hector’s words came to him again. About how Jiu-jitsu wasn’t enough to win fights anymore. But hadn’t he just fought an MMA fighter? He hadn’t won, not exactly, but he’d certainly gained an advantage. Who knows? Had the fight gone on, could George have won?

He couldn’t stand not knowing. He paced the halls and studied photo after photo. He had to find something, anything, that could tell him he could have won that fight. He knew full well that this didn’t make any sense, nor did it actually matter. In every way that it did matter, he had won his exchange with Traxton, but George was looking for something more.

He did find something. George had wandered into Ricardo’s office, which was never locked, and saw a photo there that made him wonder. It was a photo of two men facing each other in fighting stances, preparing to fight. They were standing in a dojo of some kind, perhaps a previous location of the academy. One of the men was quite obviously a younger Ricardo. He might not have been much older than George when that photo was taken. The other man was quite obviously from a different martial arts school. George could tell by his stance, by the cut and color of his gi, and by the look on his face. That man had obvious intentions to fight Ricardo.

But what grabbed George’s attention wasn’t the men facing off in the photo, but something in the background behind them. There were other people there, probably Ricardo’s students at the time, and they were holding up a banner. It read: “Gracia Family Challenge Fight #84”.

 

It was Monday again when George next went to eat at Ricardo’s home. Pablo wasn’t there, nor any of Ricardo’s other grown children, and George was alone with him and Mrs. Gracia. She’d made some kind of chicken in a thick, dark, brown sauce with rice and steamed veggies. They were nearly finished before George decided to speak his mind.

“Ricardo,” George began, “I’ve been looking up some of your family’s history.”

“Our family’s history,” Mrs. Ricardo corrected. “We’re related, remember?”

George had never thought about that. The Gracias, he’d found as he searched the internet for information on MMA, martial arts, and Jiu-jitsu, were an internationally recognized and revered family for their art. After all, they’d invented their unique style of Jiu-jitsu and started the EFC and began a revolution that changed martial arts forever. He’d never before considered the fact that he was related to the Gracia family. George’s name was Peligro, and so he kept forgetting that the great legacy of one of the world’s most famous fighting families extended to him in some way. All the better. George felt encouraged to talk now.

“Ricardo, I’ve been looking up those old Gracia Family Challenge Fights. I think we should start doing them again.”

Mr. and Mrs. Gracia stopped eating and looked at each other. Then Ricardo wiped his mouth with a napkin and leaned back in his chair. “That’s great that you’ve taken an interest in the history of our Jiu-jitsu, but we just don’t do challenge matches anymore. Not since we created the EFC.”

“We don’t compete anymore. Not in challenge matches or anything else,” added Mrs. Gracia.

“That’s right,” Ricardo continued. “We only train Jiu-jitsu for self-defense and to enrich the lives of the practitioners.”

George was confused. He thought this had been a great idea. “But I really want to see for myself what we’re training to do,” he said. His voice was beginning to rise a little. He was frustrated. “I mean, there are tons of people out there who disrespect our art. Don’t you want to prove to them it works?”

“Which people?” Ricardo asked.

“I don’t know…a lot of them,” stammered George. He’d wanted to say Hector, but he thought better of them. “I met this Muay Thai guy the other day.”

“You didn’t fight him, did you?” Mrs. Ricardo asked. Her voice was soft and concerned.

“No. I mean, not really,” George answered. He really was frustrated now. He didn’t want this conversation coming back to him.

“George, you are not to be fighting outside our academy unless you are in real danger. Only for self-defense.” Ricardo’s voice was raised now. “We are not trying to start trouble with other dojos by starting fights with their students. That was a very foolish and selfish thing to do.”

George’s fists clenched under the table. “Why don’t you let other people compete, Ricardo? Is it because you were beaten?”

Ricardo slammed his palms on the table.

“George, this isn’t like you!” said Mrs. Gracia.

“That’s enough,” growled Ricardo. “You are not allowed to compete with my family’s Jiu-jitsu in any way. You want to do it? You can do it in Virginia. But not here. And not as a student of this academy.” His eyes burned into George, who didn’t meet his gaze. George was staring down at the tablecloth. “I don’t want you becoming a selfish, glory-seeking bully just because you think that being able to beat up other people makes you feel special.”

No one said anything for a moment. Ricardo soon sat down again, and Mrs. Gracia began clearing their dishes.

“Sorry,” George said.

 

The next day, George called Hector.

“I respect Ricardo, too. But he’s wrong.”

George was pacing his apartment above the academy. His room was cluttered. There was a pile of clean, unfolded clothes on a chair beside his bed. He had a stack of dirty dishes on top of his small refrigerator. His bed clothes were a tangled mess.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. I’m not even sure why I thought it was so important anyway,” he said.

“Guys like us need to be challenged,” said Hector. “We thrive on challenges. And guess what? Ricardo’s no different. Why do you think their family started those challenge matches in the first place? And then the EFC? Because they’re just the same as us.”

“Then why doesn’t he want us to compete?” asked George.

“Like I said before,” answered Hector, “He’s bitter that he lost. I know, that’s awful to say, but he’s not perfect. He’s an awesome guy, but that’s his big flaw. You know?”

George agreed. Ricardo was imperfect, just like everyone else. His feelings towards competition were just one flaw in an otherwise incredible man. George somehow felt better because of this.

“George, we can’t let this go.”

“What do you mean? We’re not going to change his mind,” said George. Ricardo was like his father. Once they’d made a decision, they’d see it through to the end. There was no convincing them to do otherwise. Like his dad’s decision to send his son to California.

“No. What I mean is this: we should do this ourselves.”

George paced the floor again without saying anything. Hector was silent too.

“I’m listening,” George said.