your aching shoulder. Six! Not the sweat in your eyes. Seven! Just the punch. Eight! The punch. Nine!”
My training, especially the extra training I’ve been doing for a few weeks, is helping to bring order to the chaos that’s been my life these last couple of months. It’s been more helpful than the sessions with the police shrink. Neither is working as fast as I’d like, but I’m better now than I was.
Okay, practice what you preach, Sam: focus.
“Ten!”
WHUMP!
I’m pacing in front of them. A student once said that I pace like a panther at the zoo. Maybe I walk like one, but I don’t feel captive here. I have at home recently and I was starting to on the job. But here in my school? Here I feel free. Here is where I can be me.
“Full-rep punches! You just put all you had in those half reps and they were fast. Now let’s bring that same speed to your fully extended ones. It took a quarter of a millisecond to punch out half way. Now let’s punch all the way out in that same quarter of a millisecond. Think half punch, but extend all the way. You can do it!
“Yes, sir!”
I again center myself on them. “Nothing else exists right now. Not the half reps you’re still panting from or all the other drills we did tonight. Your drive home doesn’t exist, nor does that welcoming shower. There’s only the punch that you’re doing right now. Got it?
“Yes, sir!”
“Reeeeady… Explode! One!”
WHUMP!
Two minutes later, we collectively ram out the last punch with a sharp exhalation and then come to attention. They’re exhausted but they know that if they were to sag their posture or blow out a gush of fatigue, I’d give them more. Since they were white belts, I’ve drilled in them the old saying “Hide your broken arms in your sleeves.” Never show that you’re hurt or tired.
“Very good, everyone. Thank you for teaching me.”
“Thank you for teaching us!”
“Fred, would you please close up?”
“Yes, sir,” he says, though my asking and his response is merely a formality since I’ve been asking him to see everyone off for several weeks.
“Ready!” We simultaneous slap the sides or our legs. “Salute!” In unison, we cover our right fists with our open left hands and extend them forward.
“Thank you, everyone.” We applaud.
As the group moves toward the dressing room, chatting affably and teasing one another like the old friends that they are, I head quickly toward the small room next to my office. In the twenty-some years that I’ve owned this school, it’s a first not to always be available to my students or be able to teach all my classes. I’m missing fewer than I was a month ago and I’m guessing—make that, I’m hoping—that I won’t be missing any by the end of the month. I’m feeling better, a lot better than last month, and a heck of a lot better than in those awful days right after the shooting went down.
I step into the room, close the door behind me, and stand motionless for a moment to collect myself and enjoy the feeling of being in my private space. I like the sparseness and simplicity in here. A hundred-pound heavy bag hangs from a low beam in the center of the room and a large mirror covers most of the opposite wall from the door. That’s it. I might not have a simple life outside my school right now but I still have it in here, and I savor it.
Within a minute or two of coming in and locking the door behind me, I get a small bump in my pulse rate and begin sweating. The only time I’ve experienced that outside of class was two weeks ago when I drove through that intersection for the first time since the shooting. The power of the mind never ceases to amaze me.
Being in here is all about my head. When I attack the bag, I do so with all the frustration, rage, fear, and pain that I can bring up from the depths of my being—“the bowels of hell”—as my friend Mark calls it. Five minutes into the sessions, I feel an explosion of emotions coming from somewhere deep, fueling my punches and kicks with high-octane energy. Ten minutes in, I’m a machine, one with arms and legs slamming my bulk into the leather with blows that, in this empty room, sound like bursts from a sixty-caliber machinegun. When I can’t punch or kick any longer, I clinch the bag and slam it with my forehead, elbows and knees, and I keep going until I collapse to the floor or power vomit into the toilet. When I’m fresh, it takes an hour before I slump into a heap. Times like tonight, when I’ve trained hard along with two classes, I’ll crash after about thirty minutes.
After the first couple of these insane sessions, I realized they weren’t for my body; they were just too harsh to be of any physical benefit. Head-wise, they were helping me to… what? Cope? Yeah, that’s it, and to not dream the dream so much. To not see the man’s exploding face every damn night.
I strip off my sweat-sopped T-shirt and drop it to the floor. Seeing my reflection reminds me of a line I heard Bill Cosby say once on one of his TV programs. He looked into his bathroom mirror, nodded smugly, and said to himself, “Not bad. Not bad at all.” Well, these extra bag sessions have been etching in a nice six-pack on my two-hundred pound frame. Actually, I’ve lost some in the past weeks, so I’m probably more like one ninety. Yup, not bad at all for a dude pushing thirty-five years old.
The face, well, that’s a different story: skin tight, dark circles under the eyes, a couple days growth, and a head in need of a haircut. On the positive side, it’s an improvement.
What does the other guy look like? Not so good. He’s covered with six feet of dirt.
I step over to the big bag, give it a little push and commence to go totally ape shit all over it.
*
“If you’re a burglar,” Tiff calls from the kitchen as I come in the front door, “please don’t hurt me. I’m not wearing a bra.” If she hadn’t parked her Honda in the driveway I would have probably jumped a foot. I forgot she was coming over tonight. She steps around the corner, wiping her hands on a red hand towel, wearing blue sweat pants, a brown tank top and, yup, no bra.
“Have you no decency,” I ask, shooting her a mock evil smile.
She bobs her eyebrows. “Nope.”
“That works for me,” I say, following her back into the kitchen. Two months ago we would have done the hug and kiss greeting. Not doing it feels awkward. Doing it would feel even more so.
“How were your classes tonight, Sam?”
She doesn’t give a rip about my classes. She used to be a little interested; at least I think she was, unless that was just more role-playing. I was role-playing, too. Looking back now, I’m amazed at how easy it was to slip into pretending, to be both the performer and the audience. My shrink said that a couple pretending does not make for a meaningful relationship. Got that right.
I drape my jacket over a kitchen chair, move over to the sink, and begin washing my hands. “Classes were good.”
“You stay after to beat the bag?”
“Yes. Sorry I’m late.” I hope my tone hides the fact that I completely zoned about her coming over. We made plans for it on the phone just this morning, but when I got to my school, it escaped my mind, ffft, like that. It’s not that I have a bad memory, it’s just that my brain has been bouncing around like a ball on a spinning roulette wheel these last few weeks, and when it stops—sometimes it doesn’t—it lands on whatever my head is going through at the moment. It skips over other things, even critically important ones, like a booty call.
She shrugs. “It’s not a problem. I just got here, anyway.” She looks at me for a moment, somehow managing to get curiosity and disapproval on her face at the same time. Thing is, I don’t care about the disapproval part. I used to, at least until it became abundantly clear to both of us that we were the mismatch of the century. Still,