Chapter 14
Chapter 14 Differential Edit
14.
Faltering trees whipped past the BMW as it shot down Elliot Road. They passed the entrance to the Sillas River park where Freya had almost drowned and she couldn’t help but turn to look. Lassa caught her stare for a moment, then turned her eyes back to the road. For a terrible moment, Freya was afraid Lassa has found out somehow. Her hand slipped into her pocket and closed on the Starball for reassurance.
It was just a stupid thought, of course Lassa didn’t know. They hadn’t even spoken today, Lassa had just held up the car keys when it was time to go. Her mother’s eyes were a little bleary and hung-over, Freya could tell she was ready for a fight, maybe even wanted one. Freya had simply gone to the car, got in the front seat and buckled the seatbelt.
The time to do something about this had been last night, when Lassa was out on her date. Freya had gotten her suitcase out of the closet and laid it open on the bed, with all her money and her passport. Her phone said it was nine hundred dollars to Paris, and she’d hovered over the BOOK button for a long time, willing herself to press it.
As Freya hesitated, she’d felt increasingly nauseous. Next had come the clawing feeling behind her left eye that heralded a migraine. She’d felt lousy before, but just the normal amount of awful. This new sudden sickness had to be psychosomatic.
Her gut wasn’t wrong. She had nowhere to go in France, nowhere to stay. She couldn’t work there, her money would run out and then what? She’d be right back here, and things would be worse than before. She had put the suitcase away, slipped the passport back into her desk, and erased the history on her phone. Then she took the Lunesta.
Now she was stuck. Lassa was pulling into a strip mall on Thoreau street, not far from Grayson. The gym was sandwiched between Blackwater books and Bella Reña Pizza.
RENANIN KRAV MAGA was written in on the door in golden faux-Hebrew letters. Above them was an image of a giant bird clutching the world in its talons, with its head thrown back, as if it were screaming at the ceiling. Standing beside the door were two upperclassmen from Grayson. They were listening to a man with long gray hair and broad shoulders talk. As he spoke, his hands were in constant, emphatic motion.
Freya and Lassa got out of the BMW and approached the gym, they’d been instructed to show up a half hour early for her first class. The boy closest to Vitko was clocking them as they walked up, until Vitko clapped him in the back of the head.
“Open the door, stupid!” he demanded, and Dan complied at once. He didn’t seem too upset about getting bopped. Freya recognized both Dan Gregulus and Cameron Kowalski, they were both seniors who ran track. Cameron had light hair and blue eyes, Dan’s were chestnut and green. They were best friends.
Freya knew both of them because Jane Yang had a huge crush on Dan, she was always pointing him out. Cameron’s mother was a policewoman, she’d sent over a really nice card and a tin of homemade cookies when Randall died.
“Hello Mrs. Jokela! Hello Freya! Welcome! Welcome! Come inside please!” Vitko was in flowing pants that were elastic at the ankles. He was very tanned. He wore a Gracie Jujitsu t-shirt and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. He reminded Freya of the Fremen from Dune.
Freya complied with Vitko, feeling a sinking certainty she would be the only girl in class. Before she even stepped inside she was assaulted by a miasma of gym pad funk that hit her like a jab in the nose. She tried to breathe through her mouth. How could Lassa do this to her? The same way Lassa did everything, unilaterally. She didn’t care what Freya wanted.
“Welcome to Renanin! Leave your shoes on!” Freya was bending to remove her sneakers, she thought that was what you were supposed to do when you went into a dojo or whatever.
“When you are using Krav Maga, you will most likely be wearing shoes. So training is also in shoes! Do not worry about the floor, the mats are tough.”
Freya nodded ok, this was actually a good thing, people wouldn’t see her bandaged toes. Lassa was looking around the gym, she seemed to find everything satisfactory.
“Does she need anything else?” Lassa asked.
“She has a mouthguard?” Vitko asked and Lassa shook her head. Freya head drew back.
“Mouthguard?
“Not a problem! They are ten dollars.” Freya hoped they wouldn’t have cash, but Lassa produced a crisp bill from her wallet.
“OK! Have fun,” Lassa instructed Freya, ignoring her seething glare. “I’ll pick you up at nine.” She departed and left Freya behind. Dan and Cameron were pretending they hadn’t listened to every word.
“You two, vanish. Privacy,” He ordered Dan and Cameron. “You, come with me,” Vitko said to Freya. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it.
There was a little table on the right side of the gym next to the water cooler. On it were a coffee pot and an electric kettle. Vitko first flicked the switch on the kettle base, then he took the pot and filled it from the cooler and set it on the base. While the water was boiling he took the mouthguard out of the packaging. Freya noticed how all the steps of what he was doing fit together so that he was always doing something. He had done this many times.
When the water was ready he poured it into the empty cup and then dropped the mouth guard into it. He counted to thirty aloud as he was filling another cup from the cooler. Then with a fork he took the mouthguard out and put it in the cold water, then he counted to three.
“OK! Take that and bite on it! Bite down hard, then hold!”
Freya worried it would still be too hot and burn her mouth, but Vitko seemed to know what he was doing. She took the warm plastic glob and bit down on it. It was weird, but not unpleasant. The plastic had a strange, squeaky feel as it molded against her teeth.
Vitko was writing “FREYA” on the white plastic case that came with the mouthguard with a sharpie. He was left handed.
“You can take out now,” he said, handing her the case. “After practice, always clean your mouthguard at home. Use toothbrush and toothpaste. Rinse well. If you forget your mouthguard, that’s ten dollars! Do not forget.”
“I won’t forget,” Freya agreed. “Am I going to get hit in the mouth a lot?”
“Ha! Not on purpose. But a mouthguard is cheap, a dentist is expensive! Training here is painful, we take many small pains so when the time comes you can avoid the big one.”
Vitko held up a finger and then started under his right jaw and traced the line of a scar that ran diagonally down his neck to beneath the collar of his shirt, and then he tapped his eye, mirroring her own black eye.
Oh god. For a moment, everything seemed like it was rushing away from her and she was about to pass out. Her ears were pounding, her heart was beating so hard, and it felt like everything in her was going to break loose. That scar.
Vitko didn’t seem to notice she was upset.
“You are sixteen, no? I was sixteen when I got this. In Łódź, Over a game of football. I lost so much blood they said an angel must have saved me. That was when I began to study fighting. In case the angel was busy next time.” Vitko grinned.
Freya realized Vitko didn’t know about Randall. She swallowed and tried to get through this. Hopefully he just thought she was creeped out by his scar.
“Now tell me, how you get this?”
Again he tapped his eye. She told him the story.
“Lay on ground, not so good. Could have gone very bad for you. What weapon could have saved you there?”
“Um. We’re not allowed to have weapons at school,” Freya explained.
“Ah, this is not true. I will show you how to defend in situation next time. Are you ready?”
Freya put the mouthguard in and nodded, bracing herself to get slammed on the mat.
“HELP! HELP! HELP!” Vitko yelled, so loud she was stunned. Then he began to run away from her, running around the gym screaming his lungs out.
“HELP!”
She took her mouthguard out. Dan and Cameron ran into the gym, both grinning.
“Very slow help! I could be dead by now!” Vitko yelled. “All of you, time to run! You too new student! Everyone runs!”
It was all so ridiculous, she had no choice but to join them running laps around the gym. They ran in circles until she began to worry she would throw up, but she kept pushing. She didn’t want to be the first to complain. Finally Vitko came to a stop and held up a hand. Dan and Cameron halted at once. They barely seemed winded, but Freya had to put her hands on her knees and wait for the room to stop spinning. She felt completely out of her league.
“You see? She’s good, I can tell. Already trying hard. Finnish people are very tough. The Winter War! Read about it! I talked with her mother, she is a lion! A woman slapped her while she was handcuffed, POW!”
Vitko lunged forward, mimicking the headbutt and clapping his hands to make the sound of the impact. “The slapper will never do that again.” Freya’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, but Vitko was too caught up in his story to notice.
“This is a lesson in Krav Maga, use whatever is at hand, even when you have no hands! Another lesson! Your most important weapon is your voice! Call for help! Scream and shout! Do not go quietly into that good night, sir! Weapon number two, run away! You cannot hurt what you cannot catch! If you get hurt while you’re running, you stub your toe. If you get hurt while fighting, you go to the hospital.”
Freya, Dan, and Cameron nodded their heads.
“OK! Orientation is finished. Now you are ready for class. Whenever we do something, if we are doing push up, pull ups, whatever, you do as much as you can do! Then, do a little more. Do a little more every time, and soon you can do much more. This is the way to always getting stronger. As long as you are trying hard, you are one of us. Hands!”
Vitko thrust out his left hand palm down and the boys stacked theirs over his. Freya put her hand on top of all of the others. The other students were arriving, and she was indeed the only girl.
The class began with a lot of push ups and stretching, then they began a lesson about dealing with being choked from behind. The technique was breaking their grip, trying to get the chin under their arm, and getting out of it.
Freya thought she might not have to do the drills since it was her first class, but Vitko shot her a disapproving look. She scrambled to find a partner, and picked the only person close to her size, a boy named Tate who was only a freshman. She had been worried the boys in the class would be careless and hurt her, but it was the opposite, Tate seemed afraid to do anything, she easily slipped out from under his hold.
“No!” Vitko called from across the room, and he came over to join them. “Do not be bashful, she will not break. Chokehold is like this, here.” Vikto put her in the hold, not actually choking her but the difference was enormous. His arm was like a steel band, there was no way she was getting out of it. For a moment she felt like she was going to panic.
“Now! Try to escape the way I showed!” he demanded, and she turned her chin and grabbed the arm, the way he’d instructed. Her head slid free.
“But you let me go,” Freya protested. “If you were really grabbing me there’s no way I could get out.”
“Yes! You are right. But this is training only. Not everyone who attacks you will be Vitko! You can feel leverage in the technique yes?”
She nodded.
“Now, try with Tate! Tate! Use your strength!”
This time Tate was actually trying, but again she was able to get free. The technique actually worked, at least on someone around her size. They reversed positions and she couldn’t hold onto Tate either. Despite his small frame he was actually quite strong.
After choking practice came more exercises and more running around the gym. Freya was always a few steps behind everyone else, but no one seemed to care. She had been dreading this all week and it was actually totally fine. She was almost enjoying herself, all the focus on physicality made it impossible to dwell on her thoughts.
“OK! Last drill! Knife time!” Vitko said with a grin. He started passing out orange rubber knives. She took one, it was heavier than she expected, the handle was weighted.
“Attacker do this!” Vitko made a quick stabbing motion and then gave the knife to Dan Gregulus. “Do it to me!”
Dan grimaced, but he dutifully tried to stab Vitko with the rubber knife and then too fast to see he was on the floor sideways.
“This is to defense! Ok, I will show you again! This time slow!” Dan seemed a little dazed by his sudden re-orientation, but was still smiling. Vitko showed the maneuver, which was grabbing the wrist with the knife turning the feet to throw the attacker off balance. It was more complicated than the other drills and Freya was concentrating hard trying to get it straight.
“OK! Now try! Go slow first!” Vitko said, and she turned with the rubber knife, ready to fake-stab Tate. But instead of the defense, he took a step back, and everything went blurry.
“Are you ok?” he asked, and when she went to rub her eyes, she almost jabbed herself with the fake knife. She didn’t understand what was happening, it took her a few seconds to realize she was crying. The harder she tried to stop the worse it got. Finally she was weeping on the gym mat, in front of the whole class.