“Make him stop,” Cassidy told her dad.
“Do you want to stop?” Coach Hope asked me.
I gave him a determined look.
“No,” was my one-word answer.
“How about you, Bud? You want to stop?” Coach Hope asked.
“No, I’m good,” Bud said.
“He’s going to hurt him,” Cassidy pleaded.
I expect Coach Hope thought she was talking about Bud hurting me. She needed to work on her communication skills. I hadn’t been this pissed since I learned Brandon had raped Tami.
This time, when Bud charged in, I hit him with two left jabs that snapped his head back. He shook his head and pressed forward. I hit him with another jab and followed that with an overhand right that slowed his progress. That was when I unleashed a left hook to his ribs, followed by a tremendous right-handed uppercut. Bud staggered back, but I pressed forward and pounded his abs with a left-right-left combination. The punches caused Bud to drop his guard, and I hit him with an overhand right, breaking his nose.
Bud retaliated by throwing an elbow at my face, but I just shifted my head. His momentum caused him to stagger past me. If this guy was going to fight dirty, I wasn’t holding back. I threw a right hook to the side of the head that took him off his feet.
He rolled over onto his back and laughed at me.
“I’m done,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” I said menacingly.
“David, Bud was supposed to fight dirty. I wanted to remind you that in the real world, there are no rules. I think we’re done with boxing lessons,” Coach Hope said.
“You’re done with boxing,” Cassidy said.
“What? You mean for just tonight?” I asked.
“No. I mean forever. You’ve started to act like there’re rules in a fight. The only rule is what?” Cassidy asked.
“Kick their ass first.”
“Before I’m done with you, you’ll quit taking it easy on people. If you’re forced to fight, end it as fast as you can. If you have to pull a gun, shoot to kill. Boxing has a referee and is scored on points. It’s a sport. Boxing is
“I thought this was about self-defense,” I pushed back.
“At no point did I say you needed to start a fight, but if it happens, you’d better end it,” Cassidy said, not backing down.
“Kid, she’s right,” Bud said. “If someone like me would meet you in a dark alley, you’d have to put me down, or I’d do whatever it took to kill you.”
“I just find it hard to hurt someone if I don’t have to,” I said.
“David, we know that. I would hope you could talk your way out of it or even run to avoid it. I look back at when you were attacked by that gang in LA, and how you didn’t finish them off right away,” Coach Hope said.
“They weren’t really a gang. No one can be a gang when your leader’s known as ‘Baby Dick.’ They were just high school kids,” I said.
“Who had baseball bats and used them on you,” Fritz reminded me.
I don’t know why I was arguing with them. When I was on vacation, Cassidy and I had protected my parents, Brook, and her parents. If I had held back, they could have been hurt. What I got out of the dojo was more than just self-defense. I learned to control my body and prevent injuries. It gave me self-confidence. Not that I needed more of that, but it was true. It was also a way for me to work out my frustrations. I’d always said one reason I loved football was because it allowed me to hit people and not get arrested. I didn’t mean that in a negative way. It was a guy thing; it gave me an outlet for my aggression that wasn’t negative. The work with Cassidy helped with that.
I think that was a big reason I never wanted to hurt anyone on purpose. It was because this was supposed to prevent me from getting so frustrated, I ended up pounding someone in a park. Coming full circle, Cassidy and her dad were trying to get me to realize that what I was doing was no joke. I needed to take this as seriously as I took learning to shoot a gun in self-defense. If you pulled the trigger, it was no joke. This was every bit as serious.
“Okay, I get it. Sometimes it takes me a few times to learn my lesson,” I said, and then turned to Bud. “You sure you don’t want to go again?”
“Hell, no!”
“How about you?” I asked Coach Hope.
“Cassidy, you can hurt him,” Coach Hope said.
Aw, shit!
◊◊◊
After Japanese class at Shiggy’s, I called Ridge.
“What’s up?” he answered.
“I need a favor,” I said.
“No, ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ You go straight to, ‘I need a favor?’”
“I’m finding my friends dates to Prom. I need you to take Pam, my baby mama,” I said.
“Are you serious?” Ridge asked.
“No doubt. Pam specifically asked for you. She says you’re cute and can dance, and she thinks you’ll make some fine arm candy,” I shared.
“No shit?”
“No fecal matter involved.”
“What about our boy Bill? Is he going?” Ridge asked.
“No.”
“I think we’re a package deal. If I’m going to have to go to Prom with your baby mama, I want my boy there, too.”
“Okay. I’ll find him a date.”
“I take it I can’t do anything fun with your baby mama,” Ridge teased.
“If she’s unhappy in any way, you’d better hide.”
