Don't Read in the Closet volume one (13 page)

“I’ll see you
tomorrow, Evan.”

Jesse swung by
the Rehab Hospital, and Evan was waiting out front, hands in the pockets of his
jeans, listening to some cranky old man in a bathrobe fuss at him, banging away
at the concrete with his cane. Jesse laughed when he saw the relief in Evan’s
face. He climbed into the car and fastened his seat belt. “Jesus, get me out of
here! He was telling me about all the ways doctors had screwed him up over his
lifetime, and we were only up to 1987.”

Jesse looked at
him, felt the way the air in the car seemed to change, like something in this
man’s Qi caused his own to sit up and take notice. Not that he was completely
sold on this idea of Qi, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that when Evan sat
next to him, something electrical seemed to happen to his body. Something
electrical, something hard started softening in his chest, like warm caramel,
some beautiful clarity filled his head. It scared him a little. “I’m happy to
see you.”

Evan reached
over, squeezed his thigh,
left
his hand there. “I’m
happy to see you, too. Where are we going?”

“I’m gonna show
you where I’m from. Show you why I boxed my way out.”

Evan studied
him. “I don’t want you to think I’m passing judgment on you, Jesse. You don’t
have to prove anything to me.”

“I know you
don’t get it. You don’t get why I do it still. I saw the look on your face last
night when you were watching the match. I’m not brutal, Evan. I’m just…
hungry.”

Evan was
chewing on his bottom lip. “I don’t really understand what it means to be a
world champion. Of anything. I can’t imagine the focus, the concentration it
took for you to keep your eye on that ring all this time. Seems like you’ve
given up what I would call a normal life. And it is a big deal to be the
champion of the world, the responsibility and the pressure. I’m trying to
understand.”

He hesitated.
Jesse put his hand over Evan’s, still sitting on his thigh, and laced their
fingers together. “But?”

“But boxing? I
did some reading last night after I got home. You know eighty percent of boxers
have brain damage that affects their cognitive ability? All the major medical
associations in the world have called for a ban on the sport.”

“Boxing’s been
an Olympic sport since 688 BC. That’s a long time for a sport to survive in the
world. We aren’t just a bunch of thugs slugging it out.”

“I know, Jesse.
I do, really. It’s just… I never cared before. I don’t think I’ve ever even
seen a boxing match. But now it’s different. It’s personal. I know you. I don’t
want you to get hurt. I don’t want to think about you hurting anyone else.”

“Most people in
my life just want me to win.”

The landscape
outside the car was changing from urban to urban blight, block after block of
old buildings with their windows boarded with plywood, scrawled graffiti and
broken glass, the corners held by hard-faced boys wearing their gang colors on
their sleeves, menacing as predators in the jungle. Evan kept hold of his hand,
watched out of the window.

They turned
down Second Street and Jesse pulled the car over, pointed to a boxy red-brick
tenement on the corner. There was spray paint on the door, a gang’s tag, and
the windows were covered with rusting steel grilles. On the second floor, one
window was broken, the hole patched with duct tape.

“See that
window with the duct tape? That’s where I lived with my mom until she died. We
shared it with another woman, Patsy, and her two kids. I was little then, five
or six. I stayed with an aunt for a year after that, but then they put me in
foster care.”

“Who were you
close to when you were little?”

“I loved my mom
so much. I didn’t believe she was dead for years after she was killed. I kept
pretending she’d been kidnapped, and she was going to come get me and take me
out of there.”

“How’d she
die?”

“Drive-by
shooting. She was at the bus stop, coming to get me from day-care.” He looked
around, smelled that bitter, burnt smell coming from the streets. It had always
smelled like despair, though when he was a kid, Jesse couldn’t have given it a
name. He recognized it, though. It smelled like his childhood.

“I know in my
head I’m not from here anymore. I’ll never come back here. I won’t end up
walking these streets. But I can still feel it in my stomach, Evan. It’s like
the possibility of this place sits in my belly, and I have to fight my way out
of it. Over and over and over.”

Evan took
Jesse’s hand, pressed it against his chest. “Maybe if you went to bed with
someone you loved every night, and woke up with someone you loved in the
morning, you wouldn’t feel like you had to do it all alone.”

“I don’t know
what that’s like, depending on another person. Spending all your love on
somebody who could get shot at the bus stop.”

“I don’t know
either, Jesse. I’ve just been playing around, trying not to get hurt, and I’ve
never been that scared, or lost. But don’t you think it might be worth it?
Don’t you think we could give it a try?”

CHAPTER
FIVE

“I’ve got a
surprise for you,” Evan said. Jesse was driving one handed, his fingers laced
through Evan’s. It made him feel a little strange, like this was a skill he
should have mastered when he was seventeen. “I’m gonna take you to my favorite
place tonight, since you showed me yours last night. It’s a dojo, with several
different masters, but my Qigong teacher does an advanced class there. I asked
him if he would look at you. You don’t mind, do you? I’m not convinced we’re
doing everything we need to do for your balance. The Chinese way is different,
but in some ways complimentary—it looks at different parameters than Western
medicine.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“He’ll probably
have you do the class, check your form. I’ve been bragging about how good you
are, so don’t embarrass me.”

“I’ll do my
best.”

The dojo was in
an unimpressive strip mall, with a plain beige door, but inside the air was
cool and still, with the whisper of sandalwood and lemons. The practice room
was paneled in golden brown wood with a polished dark floor.

Evan pulled him
back to the locker rooms. “I got you something. I think I guessed your size
right.” He pulled a bag out of his locker, handed it over. Jesse pulled out a
pair of wide-legged pants made out of heavy black silk, and a jacket that was
the same color, only thinner. “You don’t mind if I indulge myself and watch you
get dressed, do you? Just a little fantasy of mine.”

“It will be my
pleasure,” Jesse said, loving the feel of the silk in his hands. “I suppose
porn star is a good follow-on career if I keep falling on my ass. You can tell
me if you think I’ll make the grade.”

He reached down
for the hem of his tee-shirt, pulled it up over his head at about half speed,
flexed
his muscles just a bit so Evan could enjoy the show.
He tossed him the shirt, and laughed when Evan put it up to his face and did a
little deep breathing. The jeans were unsnapped, pushed slowly down his hips,
and Evan’s pretty blue eyes were huge and glazed with lust by the time Jesse
kicked the jeans off, and Evan bent over to pick them up off the floor.

“Oh, my God.
Can we play master and slave?”

“Sure,” Jesse
said, stepping into the silk workout pants. “I’m the master.”

“That goes
without saying. And that’s a yes on a career in porn, though I have to say I
think there are other options. I’ll start a list.”

“You do that.
Let me know what you figure out.”

Evan changed
into his pants, a match to Jesse’s only in ivory silk, and slipped the jacket
on. He led Jesse into the dojo and they took their place at the back of the
room. The class was filling up, with eight other students. When the teacher
walked to the front of the room, they all bowed. They started a routine without
speaking, and Jesse watched Evan and followed his moves. Evan was powerful,
too, but in a different way, quieter. Jesse studied him a bit, wondering how to
describe it. “You seem like you’re more powerful when you’re moving than when
you’re still.”

The teacher was
behind them, and he put a hand on Jesse’s lower back, moved his position just a
bit. “Moving is when you need to be strong. Feel the Qi moving up your spine,
into your shoulders and chest. Your strength, it is shaped like a lily.” He
moved his hands, sketching out the shape of a lily in the air, narrow at the
base, widening between his cupped hands.

He moved to
other students, and Jesse glanced at Evan, who was trying not to laugh. “Yes,
the force is strong in this one, Obi-Wan.”

After the
class, Evan waited for the other students to leave,
then
he brought Jesse to the teacher. He was wiry and strong, maybe fifty. Jesse thought
he was Chinese, but he wasn’t sure. “I’ve seen you fight,” the man said,
surprising Jesse. “I wondered then if you would ever learn to master your Qi.
You’re almost too
powerful,
your life energy whips
around like a weapon barely under your control.” He looked up. “Evan, will you
wait for us?” Evan nodded, but looked a little anxious, glanced at Jesse from
under his eyelashes.

Jesse followed
the teacher to a room behind the practice area. It looked like a small
treatment area, with a table covered in paper, just like at Evan’s PT room.
“And what can I do for the heavyweight boxing champion of the world?”

Jesse studied
him for a moment, wondering why he didn’t say what he always said—help me win.
Help me keep my title. I want to fight better. I want to fight stronger. “How
do I know when it’s time to walk away?” The man leaned back against the table,
and Jesse studied him. “You look familiar to me. Have we met before?”

The man shook
his head. “No. My name is Shan.” Jesse watched him a moment longer, looked
around the room. The row of medals was unobtrusive, hanging above his desk, but
Jesse recognized them. He had two like them at home.

“You’re an
Olympian.”

“Yes. At one
time, I was an Olympic gymnast. I know how it feels to be the world champion at
my chosen sport. And I know what it means to leave it behind, as we all must.
Before I answer your question, I wonder if I can examine
you?
”

“Sure. Of
course.”

“If you would
move onto that table behind you.”

Jesse sat on
the table, swung his legs over until he was lying flat on his back. Shan ran
his hands over Jesse’s body from about an inch above his skin. “Turn over now.”
He spent longer on Jesse’s back and neck, then he delicately put his hands over
Jesse’s head. Jesse could feel his hands, though he didn’t touch the skin, but
the heat, the electricity, was strong. Shan sighed, stood back, and Jesse
rolled over and sat up.

“You can keep
fighting,” Shan said. “But there is risk. The next injury will be dangerous. It
may change you forever, in ways you cannot fix. But in your heart you know this
already.”

“What I’m doing
with Evan, will it help my brain to heal?”

“Yes,
certainly. And it will help you fight, which you also care about. But you’re
thinking now about the next step. The rest of your life. Something about him,
it’s changed you.”

“I’m in
training for a title fight. I shouldn’t be, but, yeah, I’m thinking about the
next step. And I’m not going to
lay
this around his
neck.” Jesse rubbed absently over his chest. “Something’s changed in me. I don’t
want it like I used to. The possibilities of a different life are haunting me.”

“You wonder if
you’re leaving the best parts of yourself behind. But everything you care
about, everything that makes you unique, you keep. That hunger you feel, I felt
it, too. But you feel that hunger now for something else. Something besides the
kindness and charm of Evan, and what he could bring to your life. You have to
learn to look at yourself in the mirror.” Jesse stared at him, and Shan smiled
at him. “You were very good during class. How long have you been practicing
that routine?”

“About a week,
no, three days. I need to work on it more.”

“Huh. I look
forward to knowing what your next step will be, my friend. Tell Evan you are
welcome here any time.”

Jesse held out
his hand. “Thank you.”

Evan was
waiting for him in the locker room, and Jesse winked, pulled open the locker
and got his jeans. “He said I could come back.”