Chapter 15

It was a Wednesday evening. It had been two days since Hector had left the academy. George sat with summer in her car in a movie theatre parking lot with the windows down. The two of them had originally thought to catch a movie together, but before they even left the car George started to talk and everything suddenly came out about Hector and Ricardo and having to choose what he was going to do next. Summer held his hand and listened as a light breeze moved her long, blonde hair towards him, and the longest strands brushed against his shoulder as though to comfort him.

            When he was done, she smiled. “I think this is good for you. Ricardo’s right. You can’t just hang around here. I’m not.”

            He looked at her, knowing that what she was going to say next would hurt. He was just surprised she hadn’t said it already.

            “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he asked.

            She said she was, and that she’d been accepted to UC Davis, and that she’d finally saved up enough money to pay for a few semesters. When he asked, she said she was going to study to be a veterinarian.

            There were no hard feelings between the two of them. George still very much liked her, and he suspected she still liked him. But it seemed like everything was moving on in his life. Everything was changing and going to different places. Even Summer. And somehow it wasn’t quite as sad as he thought it would be.

            They went out for dinner instead of the movie. George decided they should celebrate Summer’s acceptance to the school. In George’s opinion, it ended far too quickly.

            The night still felt young when she dropped George off at the academy later that night. His cell phone told him it was already nine thirty, but he felt like it was going to be a long night yet full of the thoughts that bounced around his mind already. Summer was leaving. Hector had gone. And George had to decide where he was going next.

            He was so deep in thought he didn’t notice his phone buzzing in his pocket until the caller had tried a second time.

            “George, I need to talk to you,” said Ricardo.

            So, George thought, his few days were up. And he didn’t have the slightest clue what he was going to do yet. He decided to ask Ricardo to give him until morning.

            “This isn’t about that,” said Ricardo. “It’s something else. We need to meet at my house. I’m sending someone to come get you.”

            George thought it was odd that Ricardo said “we”, and wondered what was happening and who else it involved besides George and Ricardo. He was even more confused when it was Scott who came to get him instead of Ricardo or his son, Pablo.

            Despite George’s many questions, Scott was unwilling to talk about what it was Ricardo wanted to talk about. It wasn’t until George had finally set foot in Ricardo’s living room that he finally realized this was something to do with the academy.

            Ricardo stood in the center of the room with his arms folded over his chest. His son, Pablo sat quietly on a couch and Scott took a seat next to him. Mo Al Nahyan stood leaning against the back of a chair where Roy Roads sat. Roy was another of Ricardo’s black belts who ran another academy in southern California. While all the other black belts saw each other regularly throughout the week and often socially, George had only seen Roy on a handful of occasions. He realized whatever matters had summoned Roy up from Ventura County must be very important.

            “George, have a seat,” said Ricardo.

His tone told George he wasn’t in some sort of trouble, and so he relaxed as he took a stool from the kitchen bar and sat near the couch. Mrs. Gracia appeared beside him with an identical stool. She was apparently going to be part of the conversation.

            “I want to thank you all for coming. It means a lot to me to have so much of your trust and friendship that you’d all drop what you’re doing and come to my home so late at night. I called you all here because something is happening for our academy, and I need all of you to help.” Ricardo paused to look around the room. He was met with friendly nods and shrugs. Apparently, no one, not even Roy who must’ve had to drive for hours to get there. “You all know the policy I’ve had for the past sixteen years on competition. I said I did not approve of any of our students participating in any martial arts competitions or combat sport events because I felt that such contests hurt the reputation of our academy and our art. But this last January I decided to temporarily lift my ban on competition to renew the Gracia Family Challenge, which I felt was very successful. Through that competition we renewed people’s interest in our art, and made great progress in our relations with other martial artists in our area, many of whom not only respect us but wish to incorporate our art into their training.”

            Several of the men around the room gave light applause or nodded with approval. George clapped his hands as well, wondering what Ricardo wanted to tell them that was so important and related to that event. Was he going to hold another larger challenge?

            “We’ve just been presented with another opportunity to prove the value of our art, but this time to the world,” he said. He looked at both his wife and his son. “A couple of you remember the last time I said this was when we decided to start the first Elite championship. We’ll, we’re going back.”

            The people in the room, including Ricardo’s wife, had been quiet as he spoke, but now they were buzzing with surprise and questions for him. Ricardo’s wife seemed to be trying to shush everyone so her husband could continue.

            “I know I promised that we would never go back. And for a good reason. I felt that the mixed martial arts culture and their fans’ tendency to praise or criticize single fighters rather than the arts or training centers they represented were an insult to my father’s legacy. But I have been speaking with the owner of Elite, Kelly Bairde, and he is organizing a new form of MMA tournament with different rules that I’m very interested in. It’s team MMA. School versus school. Team versus team. These teams will be a lot like high school wrestling teams.” Ricardo shot a look at George. “Each team supplies one fighter per weight division, and every victory earns your team points, depending on the manner of your victory.”

            As Ricardo explained the simple point system, George realized it did sound a lot like a high school wrestling teams. Winning a match meant your team would be awarded points, with more points given for knockouts, submissions, and doctor stoppages. Unanimous decisions earn more than split decisions. The team with the most points by the end of the five matches won. Even if your team was losing after three or four matches without the possibility of earning enough points to win, fighters still had incentive to fight hard. Elite would still track individual fighters’ performance and award placement points at the end of a sort of season.

            “Our involvement in this sport will only be temporary, but Bairde is still interested because he believes Brotherhood already has many of the qualities of a cohesive team he wants all the teams to develop. He believes we’ll set the standard for this sport,” explained Ricardo. “And I want each of you to be my five fighters to represent the academy.”

            George was shocked, not only by how casually the other men in the room seemed to accept his call to arms, but also by the fact that he was one of them. Was there some misunderstanding? Was Ricardo actually just talking to his black belts and wanted him there so he could learn some weird lesson?

            But the longer George sat there, the more he was sure it wasn’t a misunderstanding. The men began planning training and diet schedules. They planned strategies and weight cutting. And through it all, they included George.

            “George, how much do you weigh now?” Ricardo asked.

            George shrugged still trying to wrap his mind around the fact he’d just been recruited to compete in a professional mixed martial arts event. “I don’t…um. One ninety-nine, I guess.”

            “You guess?” said Scott. “Ricardo, don’t you have a scale in the house?”

            Ricardo did have a rather nice bathroom scale, and immediately ordered George to strip down to his underwear and weigh himself.

            “Two-oh-two,” read Scott as the digital numbers came up. “You’ll need to lose seventeen pounds. But that’s nothing. No problem. Right?”

            George nodded, wondering what on earth was going on.

 

            “You’re wondering why I picked you for this team,” said Ricardo.

            It was late. The two of them sat in the living room, now empty of the other team members who’d gone home after the night’s conference. The only one who hadn’t gone home was Roy, who said he’d bunk with Scott until the event was over in about six months. George sat forward on the edge of the couch with his hands on his knees. He’d thought for so long about stepping into the cage, but as an amateur. This was a higher level of fighting he’d never quite imagined he’d ever be a part of.

            “I know it’s hard to take in, but I want you to know something, George. You are capable of stepping up to the level of these guys. I’ve seen you fight. I know how athletic you are. And you can do this.”

            George shrugged. “There are other guys in class who’re in shape too. Some who are better than I am on the mat. Why not them?”

            Ricardo put hand on George. “Because you’re family. And this is a family matter.”

            George didn’t feel any better. He started kneading the muscles in his forearm. The crawling feeling had returned, and he couldn’t stand it.

            “George, do you trust me?” asked Ricardo. When George nodded he said, “Trust me on this. There isn’t anyone more qualified than you to do this for our family. I know. I’ve been in the cage, and I’ve trained many fighters. And I know you will do this family proud in six months when it’s your turn to fight.”

            That did make George feel a little better. “When do we start?” he said with a resigned smile.

            Ricardo started to laugh. “Early!” he chuckled as the smile faded from George’s face. “We start very, very early!”

 

            Much to George’s sorrow, he found Ricardo’s promise of an early start to be true. It had been eleven at night when Ricardo had finally dropped the boy off at the academy, and it had taken George another hour to fall asleep. There was simply too much on his mind to nod off right away. So when George awoke to a pounding on his door at four thirty in the morning, George was immediately overcome with a sense of dread.

            “Get your running shoes on,” ordered Scott, who seemed as alert as ever in spite of the hour.

            George dragged himself out of bed and fumbled through his laundry for shorts and a hoodie. He already knew it was going to be a long day.

            The run, it seemed, was Ricardo’s way of testing the team’s cardio. He led the team through five miles of roads and bike trails, watching as everyone grew progressively winded and drenched in sweat.

            “This is going to be a regular ritual for us!” shouted Ricardo as the team made its way up a hill. George shuddered at the thought, or would have. It was the fourth mile and he was already feeling ready to drop. The only person behind himself, he saw, was Roy.

            Mrs. Gracia was waiting for the team at the academy with a breakfast of fruit smoothies and egg sandwiches made on a grainy, nutty-tasting bread. George realized as soon as the smoothie and sandwich had disappeared down his throat as if into thin air that he was incredibly hungry.

            “Give it a few minutes,” Mrs. Gracia told him when he asked if he could have more. “Your stomach needs time to recognize that it’s full. Besides, you don’t want to overeat before you start training.”

            “Before I start,” George repeated in a stale tone. He’d almost forgotten that the run that had made his feet feel as though they were made of lead was only a warming up exercise.

            It turned out Mrs. Gracia had been wise to advise George to wait to eat again. After stretching and warming up hips, shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles for fifteen minutes, Ricardo announced it was time to begin rolling. George paired up with Mo and the two of them began grappling. It was not long before George found himself gasping as he tried again and again to change his angle from the bottom as Mo smothered him and constantly found small holes in George’s defensive posture.

            “Don’t leave your head out like that. This isn’t just Jiu-jitsu class, remember? I can punch you. Tuck it into your shoulder,” advised Mo.

            For thirty minutes George struggled and gasped as Mo took the top positions again and again and again. At one point Ricardo had ordered them to begin striking each other with open hands so they could grow accustomed to giving and defending against strikes on the ground. It wasn’t long before George’s head was throbbing and his cheeks were red from impact.

            George welcomed a four-hour break from training so he could go to work. Though he struggled to stay upright as he stacked chairs, pushed a dust mop, and polished hand rails, it was far less draining than the punishment Mo had put him through.

            “Wow,” his supervisor said to him after George had stumbled into his office after dust mopping a particularly long hallway. “You look terrible. Like someone’s been beating you with a baseball bat wrapped in a towel.”

            George nodded, smiled, and offered no explanation. He wondered what his employers at the school would say if he told them he was entering a mixed martial arts competition. He figured they probably wouldn’t believe him. After all, George figured they would be skeptical someone as young as nineteen years old could compete at one of the highest levels of MMA in the world, even if they knew what MMA was.

            George found more of Mrs. Gracia’s cooking waiting for him in a Tupperware in his apartment, and he fell on it like a starved dog. It wasn’t as filling as he was hoping. It was a sort of stir-fry of white chicken and dark, green vegetables, some of which he didn’t have a name for.

            “We’re going to revisit your basics,” Ricardo said when George went back downstairs after eating to rejoin his team. “This isn’t the old days. We won’t have gis on when we fight. Our big emphasis for the coming months will be our no-gi game. You need to know your basic sweeps, escapes, and submissions better than you ever have before, and you have to do it on an opponent who is stronger, slipperier, and better trained than anyone you’ve ever had to fight.”

            George noticed the faces of his teammates. They were all calm, especially Scott and Mo, who both seemed to be listening to some speech they had already listened to a million times before. Clearly, the thought of this kind of preparation didn’t bother them. It was just business. A day at the office as usual.

            George, however, found the training extremely difficult. As he drilled knee-elbow escapes from under the side mount, George found himself losing his grip, slipping, and giving up awful angles to Roy, his training partner that afternoon.

            Ricardo decided to begin the team on their striking drills, as well. This, George noticed, was going to be an area of focus for the already grappling-savvy team, since their training before had so seldom focused on punching or kicking. Jiu-jitsu was, after all, a grappling art. But George was still surprised to find that his team, especially Scott and Mo, seemed fairly comfortable with the drills. Mo, it seemed, was no stranger to Muay Thai kickboxing, probably something he picked up during his cage fighting days long before he ever began studying Jiu-jitsu with Ricardo. Scott’s range of techniques seemed less varied than Mo’s, but even so, his short jabs, low kicks, and vicious knee strikes seemed like something he’d done many times before.

            George, on the other hand, was having difficulty.

            “Don’t reach back before you throw that cross,” said Ricardo. “You’re just telegraphing your move and not gaining any power out of it.”

            But it was hard for George to not wind up for the punch like he’d seen in countless television shows and in comic books. It seemed like a powerful thing to do, to reach back and c**k your fist by your ear like Superman often did before punching a hole in a tank or evil robot or whatever. But he tried again, thrusting his fist straight from where it hung in front of his face when he was in a defensive posture. “Punch from the shoulder,” he reminded himself. “Straight, fast, punches.”

            “And pull it back,” reminded Pablo. “Don’t just leave that hand out there. Remember, this guy’s going to try to hit you back.”

            It was dark outside before the team finally finished drilling. They’d been at it for eight hours total that day. George’s body felt sluggish and dangerously close to dying. His mind was the opposite. It felt like it was buzzing with new information. Small details on basic techniques that made them work ten times better. Strategies for weight loss and muscle building. Rules. He wasn’t sure he could possibly remember it all.

            Ricardo addressed the fighters as they all took a knee around him.

            “Today was hard because I needed to see what all of you are capable of,” he told them. “Now that I know, I can start training each of you specifically to cover your weaknesses.”

            George had a feeling that if that were the case, he would be receiving a lot more training than all the others. It had been apparent to him all day that he was, by far, the least prepared fighter. The others had mastery of the art, athleticism, or both. George had what? Hopes and dreams? He wondered how long he should wait to admit to Ricardo that he couldn’t keep up with the others.

            “I hope you all aren’t too burned out,” Ricardo went on,” we’re going to keep up this pace for a while.”

            Scott clapped enthusiastically, and Roy grinned. George kept his face as still as possible. Great, he thought to himself, at this rate they’ll simply ask me to leave instead of me having to do it myself.