He thanked me, and we packed up to go work at the dojo.
When I got there, I found they’d brought in a boxer from State who was smaller than I was.
“I wanted you to box against Jesús. He’s a middleweight or 160 pounds,” Coach Hope said.
Jesús had a cocky grin on his face as we squared off. He was quick, I’ll give him that. I was used to quick sparring with Cassidy. Coach Hope’s bombs had me cautious, so at first, I tried to out-quick Jesús. In the first few minutes, I discovered that Jesús didn’t hit nearly as hard as Coach did, but if we were scoring this as a fight, I would lose. He was very good at weaving in, hitting me with a quick jab, and then dancing out of my reach.
“Don’t let him dictate the fight,” Fritz coached.
I thought about what Fritz was trying to tell me and smiled. I had 45 pounds on the older boy and a reach advantage of at least three inches. Why was I trying to dance around and go speed-on-speed? I stepped forward and let Jesús hit me, shrugged it off, and then used my power. The cocky grin left his face when I threw a right hook into his ribs that caused him to hunch over. Hunched over, protecting his ribcage, didn’t give him a chance to dance away. Jesús did try to lunge at me to tie me up, but I stood him up with a straight left. I was about to finish him off with an overhand right when Coach Hope jumped between us.
“Where did that power come from?” Coach Hope asked.
“Cassidy said I couldn’t hurt you. She never said anything about him,” I said with a smile.
Fritz about doubled over laughing at the look on Coach Hope’s face. Cassidy just nodded at her dad to confirm what I said. Coach Hope shook his head as he realized I hadn’t been hitting him with full force. I only hit him hard enough to get the point across or keep him off me.
“Anyway, lesson learned. It’s sometimes okay to be hit. If you’d let Jesús snipe away at you, he would have cut you up,” Coach Hope said.
I should have let Jesús out-quick me. Cassidy decided that today, she needed to teach me that she was still light years ahead of me as we sparred. I took my ass-kicking like a man and used it to motivate myself to work harder. Brook’s class always loved to see Cassidy take me down. I guess I would too if I were them.
◊◊◊
Hana made us a hot noodle dish called ‘soba.’ It was a buckwheat noodle in a broth. Cassidy said there was also a cold version that you dipped into a sauce, called ‘zaru soba.’
Shiggy announced that during dinner, we had to speak Japanese only. What it showed me was I needed more work, because I understood about one in every six words. It looked like today was my day to get my ass kicked. This just made the competitive side of me come out like it did when Cassidy took me down on the dojo mat.
For our lesson after dinner, I was focused.
◊◊◊
When I finally got home, I found Pam and Coby in my apartment. Pam was studying. She needed to make up for the week she was out of school, plus we had finals coming up. I’d gotten my test results from last week back, and I was on track to pull down all ‘A’s again.
This was really the first time in a while that Pam and I’d been alone. I picked Coby up out of the crib and sat down next to Pam on the couch.
“We need to make some decisions about Coby,” Pam said.
While my parents had the final say on what happened to Coby, they hadn’t stopped us from deciding what was best for him, yet. My parents only asked that we run stuff by them. I liked that we had a safety net, so to speak. We’d decided two things. The first was not to have him circumcised. Both my brother and I’d been circumcised, and Greg had had both his boys done. When we talked to the doctor, there were pluses and minuses both ways.
The other thing we decided to do was delay the first hepatitis B shot. They usually did it within a few days after birth. When we talked to the doctor, she explained that hepatitis B was spread by having sex with an infected partner; by sharing needles; by sharing razors or toothbrushes with an infected person; or by contact with blood or open sores of an infected person. Since we didn’t think Coby was going to have sex or share a needle, our doctor assured us he didn’t need to get the vaccination right away. We planned it for his two-month checkup. Now, if Pam had hepatitis B, our doctor would have told us to do it on the original schedule.
“Have you talked to my parents?”
“I wanted to talk to you first.”
“I’m on board. You better explain it to my mom, because I’m sure she’ll have questions and I won’t have the answers. You’ll end up talking to her anyway,” I said.
“Sometimes, you’re not really a ‘stupid boy.’ I’m an even smarter girl. My mom is having lunch with your mom tomorrow, so I don’t have to be grilled,” she said with a smile.
That was a better idea.
◊◊◊
I was getting ready for bed when I received a group text from Moose. We’d been seeded second for Regionals and would be playing Lakeview. A minute later, my phone rang, and it was Moose.
“Hope it’s not too late,” Moose said.
