Head Kick (The Dojo) Read online

  A smiling Shawn gets up. He offers me a hand, but I ignore it and stare at the mat.

  Mr. Hodge isn’t happy. “Nong, someone in your weight class would have grounded and pounded you, but you grounded yourself. You can’t give away anything—am I right?” I can only nod in agreement.

  “All right, everybody here,” Hodge says, gathering us in the center of the dojo. “As you know, we have four fighters almost ready to enter their first amateur competition. They’ll be taking on fighters more experienced, but I guarantee you, not better trained. So, to get our fighters ready, I’ve organized a scrimmage of sorts. We’ll take on fighters at the MMA Academy next week, and then the week after, they’ll enter our cage.”

  “Who fights first?” I ask.

  “Next week, you and Hector, and then Meghan and Jackson the week after.”

  I bump fists with Hector. Mr. Hodge talks more about the challenge of fighting people who don’t know your strengths or weaknesses, but I’m not listening. I’m too busy hearing the cheers in my ears as I imagine my devastating victory.

  “Nong, do you want more chicken?” my mom asks as she pushes the plate toward me.

  “I told you, I have a fight in two days. I just barely made weight today.”

  “You could stand to gain a few pounds,” Mom says.

  “He always was the runt of the litter,” Dad says and laughs too hard. People say that lies hurt, but the truth hurts worse. I’m almost eighteen but still weigh less than 145 pounds. My older brothers, Ywj, Tha, and Vam, were bigger than me at this age. And none of them were athletes, unless beating up their little brother counts as a sport. Even Ywj’s wife, Kia, is bigger than me.

  “I’m not a runt,” I say. “I’m a Ninja Warrior.”

  “Whoever you are, eat!” Dad scolds. I take the smallest leg and pull off the greasy skin. Dad puts the biggest piece of chicken left on his plate. “Kia wanted to have dinner with us because she had something to give you,” he says to me. “But she said Bao was sick.”

  “Bao seems to get sick a lot since they moved back here,” I say softly.

  “She dropped off the present and wants you to call her,” Mom says. I nod and pick at the meat.

  “So, we can’t see your fight?” Dad asks. “I’d love to tape it to show the guys at work.”

  “No, Mr. Hodge doesn’t want families or friends at the dojo. He says it distracts.”

  “Then get one of the other fighters to video it for me,” Dad demands, as if I should’ve thought of that. I give another nod.

  “It won’t be much of a fight,” I say. “I’ll take him out in less than a minute, I predict.”

  “You’ve got such confidence and aggression. I don’t know where it comes from,” Mom says to me, although she shoots Dad a look.

  I don’t answer. Instead I finish my salad, all the while staring at the remaining chicken. My stomach’s in a civil war: half of it empty with hunger, the other half full with anxiety.

  After dinner, Dad and I go into the living room. He smokes, and I roll my wrists like Wanderlei Silva used to do. Everybody’s got their habits to work out their nerves.

  “How’s school going?” he asks.

  “It’s hard.”

  “Anything important is hard,” Dad says. “If it’s easy, it’s not worth doing.”

  “Thank you, wise old owl.” I bow my head and then break out in laughter. Dad joins in.

  “What’s so funny?” Mom asks as she walks in with a present under her arm.

  “Nothing,” I say. “What’s that?”

  “This is from Kia. Remember, she wants you to call her when you open it.”

  I pull out my phone and call Kia. She answers, but there’s a lot of noise in the background. It sounds like Bao is crying. I have a pretty good idea why.

  “I embroidered something for you,” Kia says. Embroidery is one of her part-time jobs. “Go ahead and open it.”

  “Thanks, Kia.” I rip open the wrapping paper. There’s a gold robe with the words Ninja Warrior stitched in black on the back of it. “Kia, it’s great. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t need to say anything. Good luck in your fight.”

  “Put it on!” Dad says. I don the robe. It feels right.

  “Send me some pictures, okay?” Kia asks.

  “Sure. Thanks again, Kia.” I hang up and hand my phone to Mom. I explain to her for the hundredth time how to take a picture. As the camera flashes, I imagine it’s photographers surrounding me before my first UFC fight. I’m not the runt of the litter; I’m the Ninja Warrior. I am strong and fearless.

  I send the photos to Kia. I think about sending them to other people at the dojo but decide against it. None of them except maybe Meghan seem to realize that while MMA is a sport, it’s also a show. The best fighters possess skills, courage, and charisma. I decide to send the best photo to May Li, too, and I wonder when I’ll find the skill and courage to ask her out.

  Like most nights, I head down to the basement to work out. My dad bought me a secondhand weight set, and Lue’s father, Uncle Huaj, gave me some martial arts training gear that Lue was finished using. While I lift, I think about how it would be if Lue joined our dojo. Like me, he’s done karate and tae kwon do since he was a kid. When we were smaller, we trained together. But he got bigger while I stayed small.

  After a strong workout and a shower, I head back to my room and look at my phone. There are missed calls from Hector and Jackson and some texts from Kia commenting on the pictures, but nothing from May Li. I know she tutored me last year for NHS service points, but I could tell she enjoyed helping me. Once I retire from MMA, I’d maybe like to help people in the same way. I open my physics book and use some of the tricks I worked on with May Li to review what we did in class and finish the homework.

  I end the night studying the arts: mixed martial arts. I bring the laptop over to the bed, click on the MMA folder, and open a can of Mountain Dew. I have thousands of files nicely organized. If studying for school was more like studying MMA, I’d ace all my classes.

  I open the file “Head Kick KOs” and watch some of the greatest kicks in MMA history. Many feature Mirko Cro Cop, the retired Croatian heavyweight Pride fighter, who threw one of the most devastating head kicks in the sport.

  After each fight, I close my eyes and try to visualize me in Cro Cop’s bare feet. I see how he sets up each kick with other strikes and how he uses feints to fake out his foes. I listen to the commentary as the announcer raves about Cro Cop’s perfect technique.

  I’m deep into the fights when a message from May Li pops up.

  “Thanx 4 pix,” it says.

  I pause to think of something funny to say back, but it’s too late. She’s offline before I can answer. When I return to the videos, it’s Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga from UFC 70. Cro Cop was a huge favorite, and the bout was thought to be just a tune-up before he got his first UFC heavyweight championship match. It’s tough to watch what really happened. Gonzaga destroyed Cro Cop on the ground with elbows and then, after the stand-up, finished him with the head kick knockout. Cro Cop was never the same after this fight. One humiliating loss turned a once-unbeatable superman into a normal fighter filled with doubt.

  I turn off the computer and head to bed. I close my eyes, visualizing my upcoming amateur fight. I see myself, the Ninja Warrior, as Cro Cop—the Cro Cop from Pride; not the one with his pride taken from him by Gabriel Gonzaga. I plan out my moves in the cage and imagine the roar of the crowd. But as the scene blends into my dreams, an unsettled feeling flickers through my mind.

  “I’m not feeling well,” I tell Mr. Hodge just before I climb into his car to go to the scrimmage. I had wanted to say I couldn’t make the fight because I was sick, but my dad said I looked okay to him, and besides, if I was as good as I claimed, I wouldn’t even need to be 100 percent to win.

  “That’s just nerves, you’ll be fine,” Mr. Hodge says. I climb in the backseat next to Hector. Hector just stares at the back
of the seat. I try to talk with him, but he’s not having it.

  “So, Mr. Hodge, tell me about your first fight,” I say.

  “You should be thinking about your fight, not mine.”

  “I am.” My stomach churns again. “But I’m also thinking of the first MMA fight I ever saw.” I tell Mr. Hodge what I remember so vividly, stumbling across MMA on television when I was six. It became my refuge. After one of my brothers would bully me, I’d watch MMA and pretend I was one of the fighters. I guess, in some ways, I never grew out of that.

  “Nong, shut up,” Hector hisses, but I don’t listen.

  The MMA Academy is bigger than our dojo. “We can warm up over there,” Mr. Hodge says.

  We’re already in our fighting clothes. Mr. Hodge and Mr. Matsuda didn’t tell me not to wear Kia’s robe, but I know from their frowns and furrowed brows that they’d prefer I not. I take the robe off when Jackson, Meghan, and Mr. Matsuda arrive.

  Jackson holds up a blocker, and I start warming up, throwing hard strikes. He’s encouraging me while Mr. Hodge goes over the game plan. I’ll start with jabs and then, as he puts his hands up, I’ll move to leg kicks. When he drops his hands to defend, it’ll open up the head kick. If I’m on the ground, I’ll look for a choke submission.

  “Nong, you’re up first,” Mr. Hodge says. Jackson and Mr. Hodge follow behind as I start toward the cage. Shawn and some other fighters from our dojo sit in folding chairs, applauding. It’s only a few hands clapping, but I imagine a huge roar.

  The fighter from the MMA Academy enters the cage, followed by one of his coaches. My opponent, Alex Taylor, is a muscular white kid with a wrestler’s body. He’ll kill me on the mat, so I need to avoid his takedowns. As the MMA Academy ref gives us instructions, I close my eyes, visualize the fight, and become the Ninja Warrior.

  “Gentlemen, you know the rules. You’ll be fighting three two-minute rounds. If there is no clear winner, I will act as the judge to decide one. Obey my instructions at all times. Protect yourselves, and have a good fight. Let’s make this happen.” Let’s make it quick is all I can think.

  We touch gloves and return to our corners until a whistle blows. I charge out and start throwing jabs. He returns with punches of his own, but neither of us connects. He’s in the center of the cage, circling me. I step forward, and he answers with a strong front kick. He tries to clinch and throw knees, but I slip out and get distance. I connect with a low kick and follow with a solid left jab. When he tries a takedown, I defend with more kicks: head, body, and one that cracks loud against his left elbow.

  “Work the plan!” I hear Mr. Hodge yell.

  I fake an overhand left and a takedown. I follow up with more leg kicks. He’s still circling, but he’s limping. He dives for a double leg. I sprawl, looking for a choke, but he defends it well, so I push away. He’s better than I thought, or maybe I’m worse.

  When I try for a head kick, he grabs my left leg, shoulders into me, and takes me down. I close guard, but he hits hard with elbows from his right arm. He tries his left, but I grab it and pull him toward me, looking for an arm lock.

  “Alex, stick him!” his corner yells.

  From half guard, he throws knee after knee into my side. He’s really got me jammed against the cage. I hear Mr. Hodge yelling something, but I can’t concentrate with these elbows smashing against my face. Mr. Hodge yells again, but I hear only the sound of people laughing at me as I’m getting dominated. I make a panicked attempt to escape, but in doing so, I give him my back. He locks in the rear naked choke.

  “Ten seconds,” I hear. Two seconds later I tap out in the first round.

  We both stand and tap gloves, and the ref raises my opponent’s hand. I hug him as a show of respect. He takes out his mouthpiece. “Those are some mean kicks,” he says.

  “Alex Taylor, I predict that one day you’ll be a famous fighter.”

  “Thanks, but—” he starts, but I cut him off.

  “As the fighter that got lucky and beat future UFC champ Nong ‘Ninja Warrior’ Vang!”

  “You’re cocky for a guy who just got beat,” Alex says. I don’t disagree. As I walk out of the cage, I recall something I heard once in history class: the bigger the lie, the more people believe it.

  “Are you hurt?” May Li asks. We’re walking home from school on the first nice day we’ve had in months.

  I point to the small cut over my eye. “You should see the other guy.”

  She laughs. “I’d be so afraid of getting hurt.”

  I shrug. The hurt goes away, but the humiliation of losing stays like some huge stone around my neck. Just like how the old bruises from the poundings my brothers gave me in the past have healed. But the panic and terror, I doubt they’ll ever go away.

  “Well, I admire you for having so much determination to do something like that.”

  “Well, you do the same with studying, right?” I ask. She nods and smiles. “I just don’t do so good with the alphabet. The only two letters I care about are K and O.”

  “OK,” she says. We both laugh.

  In the cage, I know the perfect time to shoot, to strike, and to circle, but one-on-one with a girl is like me in the ring with welterweight champion GSP. I’m overmatched and undertrained.

  “OK,” I repeat.

  “Do you think I could come to one of your fights sometime?” she asks in small voice.

  “I’ll fight a few days after my eighteenth birthday, so sure,” I say. The thought makes me pick up the pace a little. Despite May Li’s oversized book bag and her small frame, she keeps up with me. “I’ll get two tickets.”

  “Two?”

  “One for you and one for your boyfriend.”

  She blushes. “Nong, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “OK. So, do you—”

  “I’m so busy with orchestra, school, and planning for college, I don’t have time for one.”

  I nod and keep walking with my chin up, which is amazing considering the head kick I just took.

  After I finish walking May Li home—talking nonstop to cover the uncomfortable silence from her—I decide to walk over to Ywj’s place one block away. I want to thank Kia in person for the robe.

  I’m halfway there when my phone rings. Lue. I hesitate for a second before I pick up. I know what’s coming.

  “Cuz, what up?” I answer.

  “Hey. So, have you thought about me joining your dojo?” he says. “I want to make sure I have your blessing.”

  I pause. I can’t discourage him or stop him from joining, so why am I fighting this? “Sure. You got a belt in tae kwon do, right? Mr. Hodge only lets in people who already have some training.”

  “Black, also in karate. The dojo I’m in now doesn’t do MMA, and you’ve inspired me.”

  “The Ninja Warrior is an inspiration to many!”

  He cracks up. “Like that, cuz, I mean, you really believe that. I remember when we used to play football, you’d always get creamed. And how your brothers used to pick on you.”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is you’re a different person when you talk about MMA. You’re not that runt that Ywj always called you. You talk and act like you’re the Ninja Warrior. I want that.”

  “I’m a fighter and philosopher.” He cracks up again. “Call me Confucius Cro Cop.”

  “Cro Cop?”

  Lue doesn’t know what he’s in for as I start teaching him his first MMA history lesson.

  I knock on Ywj’s door. I called Kia, but it went right to voicemail. She works all the time since Ywj lost his job.

  Bao peeks through the bottom of the window. He opens the door, and I swoop him up in my arms, press him over my head, and gently lay him on the floor. He doesn’t stop laughing as he calls out, “Uncle Ninja Warrior!”

  “Is your mom home?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “She had to work late.”

  “Your dad?”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “You�
�re here by yourself, Mighty Bao?” He nods and smiles, proud of himself.

  I stare at his right eye, which sports an ugly bruise. “What happened to your eye?”

  He gives me this funny look like he swallowed his tongue. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  I sigh and pull him close to me. This is not happening in my family again. They say crap runs downhill, and the littlest person is on the receiving end. I’ve been on the bottom of that mountain. I’m not going to allow Bao to go through what I did. “Mighty Bao, you wanna wrestle? Would you like that?” He claps loudly and runs to his room.

  We play-wrestle in his room until I hear the back door open.

  “Kia?” I shout and make a break for the door.

  “Uncle Ninja Warrior, come on!” Bao shouts behind me. I look toward him, smile, and then turn back to the door. Kia stands there, looking tired and sweaty in her laundry uniform.

  “Hey, Nong, what’s up?” she asks.

  “I wanted to thank you for the robe.”

  “I heard it didn’t help.”

  “Well, not yet. But defeat brews the tea of victory.”

  She laughs.

  “Kia, can I ask you something?” She nods, and I point toward the kitchen. “Mighty Bao, I’ll be right back,” I call out. “That’s a promise and a threat.”

  Kia and I walk into the kitchen. She starts to pull out a chair, but I block it. “Kia, why do you let Ywj hit Bao like that? How can you let that happen?”

  She doesn’t look at me or speak for a few moments. Finally she says, “I guess I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  She pauses. “Everything.”