So the dojos started teaching a little of everything. The new kids coming up wanted to get into the UFC—they wanted to study jujitsu, boxing, wrestling, kickboxing,
in a combination that made sense. More and more studios that once offered only one discipline were changing over to MMA to survive.
Team Domination, for instance.
It seemed as if all the new dojos called themselves Team this or Team that, on the theory that it took a team of instructors, each with his own specialty, to train a mixed martial artist. Also, all the students trained with each other—a team of sorts for an individual sport, a “band of brothers” out to conquer the other teams.
So Boone walks into Team Domination.
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A real dojo smells.
Badly.
Mostly of sweat. Rank, stale sweat.
Team Domination reeks.
A circular ring dominates the center of the studio. As Boone walks in, two guys are rolling around on the mat in the ring, practicing their jujitsu. Heavy bags hang from the ceiling, and three other guys are banging away at them, alternating punches with low kicks and knee strikes. Another two guys straddle heavy bags on the floor and slam elbows into their downed “opponents.” In one corner, a student hefts kettle weights while another skips rope.
There are none of the trappings that Boone would recognize from the old-school Asian-type studio—no gis, no belts, no Chinese paintings of tigers or dragons, no single white chrysanthemum in a vase. Instead, posters of UFC stars are pasted to the walls, and slogans such as “No Gain Without (Other People’s) Pain.”
The students don’t wear gis but are decked out in a variety of Gen X gear, mostly cammie trunks and T- shirts. Some sport black “Team Dom” ball caps. A few are in plastic “sweat” suits, trying to cut weight. Most of the guys have tattoos, lots of them, all over their arms, down their backs, on their legs. The guy supervising the jujitsu practice looks up, sees Boone, and walks over.
“Hey! What brings you here?”
It’s Mike Boyd.
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Which makes two points of contact.
Rockpile and the dojo.
And two points of contact always make a cop or an investigator kind of edgy. Two points of contact is another way of saying “coincidence,” which is another way of saying “Easter Bunny.” You get the chocolate and the jelly beans and stuff, but much as you’d like to, you don’t really believe that a rabbit brought them.
“Corey Blasingame,” Boone answers. “Again. Funny you didn’t mention this yesterday, Mike.”
Funny and not so funny, Boone thinks. Pretty understandable: if you ran the place where the kid maybe learned how to throw a lethal punch, you might not like to talk about it either.
“You didn’t ask,” Boyd says.
“I’m asking now.”
Boone says it with a smile and Mike smiles back, but the look in the man’s eyes says he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like Boone showing up here, doesn’t like questions about Corey. Boone asks, “Aren’t I welcome here, Mike?”
“You’re welcome,” Boyd says. “But it’s not the water, you know?”
Boone gets it. This is Boyd telling him,
my
“Corey was one of your students,” Boone says.
“Not really,” Boyd answers. “He hung out a little. Corey was . . . how should I say this . . . more about the ‘about’ than the ‘the,’ if that makes any sense?”
“Yeah, it does.” You get it in surfing all the time—the dismos who like to put on the wet suit, carry the board around, paddle out, but don’t like to take the wave when it comes. It’s a good expression—“about the about,” Boone thinks.
“Corey didn’t like to get hit,” Boyd says. “And that’s what you do in MMA. You get hit, you get cut, you get your nose busted. You gotta be kind of a freak to enjoy that kind of fun, and Corey wasn’t that kind of a freak.”
“I’m just trying to get a sense,” Boone says, “of what this is all about.”
“‘This’?”
“MMA.”
Boyd goes into a speech that sounds practiced and a little defensive. MMA is a highly technical combat art that requires high levels of training, conditioning, and practice. Although it certainly can look bloody, it has a fine safety record—unlike high school football or professional boxing, there has never been a fatality in a sanctioned UFC bout.
“You wanna work out,” Boyd says, “I’ll show you a little. I know you can handle yourself.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Boyd says, “You’re the sheriff over at The Sundowner, right? I heard you can take care of business. You and your crew.”
“I don’t have a crew.”
Boyd smirks at this. “There’s that lifeguard, the big Sammy, the Jap cop.”
The “lifeguard” is okay, Boone thinks, but “Sammy” and “Jap”? He says, “I have a Samoan friend, who is, yes, big, and a Japanese friend.”
“I didn’t mean any offense,” Boyd says, still smiling.
“See, it sounded like you did.” Boone isn’t smiling.
Some of the activity in the room stops as the students sense an impending conflict. They have a nose for this kind of thing, an unerring radar that tells them of imminent violence. They’re into it, wanting to see what their teacher will do to this guy.
“Where are we going with this?” Boyd asks, feeling their eyes on him. He knows he can’t even look like he’s backing down. If he shies from a fight, or loses, half his devoted team will find a new school. The other half will stay and eat him alive—they’re pack dogs.
Boone has no such worries. “We don’t have to go anywhere with it.”
He hears a guy in the back of the room mutter, “Pussy.” A few of the others are smiling and shaking their heads. Boyd feels the momentum and doesn’t want to let it go. He says, “You came into
place, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Tell you what,” Boyd says. “Strap up, get into the ring with me, and I’ll show you what MMA is all about.”
Maybe because it’s been a sad day, or because he’s pissed off about a lot of things he can’t do anything about, maybe even because he let that kid at Rockpile mouth off to him, Boone decides it might be a good time to throw a little.
