PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Chapter Two – Knowing Your Surroundings

by Steve Hufford

Bethany’s parting comment clinched it. It used to trouble him when women discounted his ideas, but he had learned over the years. Some women just can’t see talents and powers below the surface. Others can. So be it.

Remembering Kim’s quick wit and welcoming smile, he found her card and began texting:

Coffee?

Who is this?

Chris – u gave me ur card, can we hit tmrow?

Wow. U r relentless

Coffee b4 my first lesson?

When is ur lesson?

Whenever u can teach me

Haha lol ok. Coffee on u, lesson on me

Mayb 8am at Star$ next 2 club?

Gr8. C u then

Sweet dreams!

He drove to his apartment, willed his stiffening legs to propel him to his bed, and slept the sleep of the just.

Even so, his dreams were far from sweet.

Truly, Christian’s powers of observation were exceptional. That was why he could so easily diagnose Bethany’s squash problem. Her ball was landing mid-court. If she hit higher she would hit deeper. If she hit deeper, she would force her opponent into the back corners and actually have a chance. Christian could see patterns. He could also extrapolate from other parts of his life, like from tennis, or krav maga.

Without the last two years of practicing that discipline, he surely wouldn’t have survived Kyle’s assault. But with it, he had been a match for the big man’s hostility, strength and murderous intent.

As Christian slept, his dreams replayed the run and battle as his brain integrated the day’s events, well below the level of his conscious mind. Park at the northern end of the neck, then run down toward the point. A slight wind coming off the water, waves about normal, and lowish tide. Not a crowded day, yet pleasant for running in shorts and tee shirt. The car going slowly along the shoreline road, roughly at his pace, then accelerating when he looks over.

The run feels good and his ‘runner’s high’ kicks in -- one benefit of being a regular runner. This is when he thinks about big topics, with his body set on cruise, flowing smoothly with no appreciable effort. Then a big guy is blocking the path, looking out over the water. Considerate of whatever the guy was doing, Christian runs around him, skirting inland a bit, and onward. Minutes later, the car goes past again, and parks down at the point.

At the halfway mark, Christian picks up the pace, so as to arrive at the point winded, do some stretching, then tackle the return trip. The big guy was down at the turnaround point -- the wooden pier. Christian went to the waterside bench to stretch, and was surprised to be addressed as the man approached closer:

“You Christian?”

“Yes, how do you know my name?”

“Because I know the name of every a..hole who sleeps with my wife. Every dead a..hole.”

Christian registered the threat as the big man grabbed his left wrist.

“We’re going to take a short ride together.”

From the strength of his grip, Christian knew he had no chance in a brawl with this man. And there was no doubt a gun in the car. Or a knife. But he had neither.

“I don’t think so,” said Christian, struggling to recover his arm. The big guy, taking handcuffs from his left pocket, slammed them onto Christian’s wrist and then his own. “Wrong again a..hole.”

Situational awareness can be learned, as can counter-attack, and that’s where the Israeli self-defense discipline came in. His krav maga instructor’s first principle was avoidance of battle; but Christian was already chained to a man who meant him serious harm. Principle two -- rapid, efficient and brutal counter-attack, appropriate to the surroundings. A land battle was not winnable, but they were near water. About three feet deep.

Christian’s lunge caught Kyle off balance. They toppled from the pier into the water. As they righted, chained together, Christian was first to orient, widen his stance, and hit as hard as he could into the man’s solar plexus. Kyle’s reflexive crouch brought his head back down into the water, only to be quickly scissored and held between Christian’s legs. His first deep gasp, after the punishing solar plexus blow, was of naught but water. So was his second, and his last. A final shudder from all his muscles, and Christian was astride and handcuffed to a corpse. A large one, at that.

No one around on the pier, no other cars at the point parking lot. All to the good. He didn’t want to drag the body out of the water, so he fished in Kyle’s pockets. Car keys on a big tag from a rental company. In the other pocket, small keys, like for handcuffs! Christian undid his cuff and thought to hide the body. He saw old pilings nearby and moved toward them, keeping the body underwater. He was able to hook the handcuff onto some driftwood tangled in the piling below the water line. Not permanent, but it would keep the body stationary and underwater for a while. He climbed the boat ladder back onto the dock, and tried to decompress from the adrenaline jolt of the fight. It took three miles to do it.

It all played in his mind as he slept. The run back to his car, awkward in wet shoes. The dawning realization that his name might be written somewhere on the body or in the car. The second run back down to the solitary point, capped by the effort of removing a sodden wallet from the submerged corpse. The ransacking of the car for evidence, like the backpack he removed, and the difficulty of jogging back encumbered.

All these scenes and thoughts played in his mind, his sleep riddled with images of the confrontation and its watery ending. Jolting awake, and then tossing once again in his bed, he yearned for real sleep, the kind that knits the raveled sleeve of care.

At 7:30 am he arose with less feeling of dread and an extreme need for coffee. At the coffee shop, Kim couldn’t resist teasing him about his appearance, but his ebullience when the coffee kicked in made up for it. She led him on court, showed him a typical stroke, put him on the ‘T’ and fed him easy forehands. As he hit deep to her in the back corner, and as she expertly fed the next ball off each drive, he appreciated her skill and began to feel the pleasure of repeating the shot along the right wall.

“This is a comfortable room, isn’t it?”, he said. “It seems very predictable. The ball comes off the wall just like you’d expect. Except for any spin, of course.”

Kim’s answer surprised him a bit in its honesty. “With a good opponent, squash is anything but predictable, but yes, it’s a real retreat. I come here to hit by myself whenever my life is out of control. It’s where I go for simplicity and consistency. The walls and the ball never lie.”

Christian began to see that squash, and Kim, might fill some yearnings in his life.