“I looked out back and didn’t see you,” his mom said.
“We came in the back door; we must have missed you,” Rubin said.
Mr. Lopez and Dad shared quick stares, as if telepathically comparing notes of what they just heard. But neither said anything; they only started filling their plates.
Before we dug into our steaks, Dad stood at the end of the table holding his glass of red wine in the air. “Son, you’re one step closer to a black belt. Congratulations.”
Mr. Lopez said something in Spanish which his wife echoed, and I assumed it was also congratulations.
After what had just happened in the closet, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I couldn’t look at the other end of the table and make eye contact with Rubin because I was afraid something would give us away; as if Dad would see Rubin and me looking at each other and know what we just did, or almost did. But what did almost happen in the closet? Did this mean Rubin was one of the queers I heard Dad speak of? But a queer would have shown me a picture of a naked man, not a woman. Wouldn’t he? My knowledge of queers came from Dad who said they mainly lived in California (though Boston had its share) and they had a funny smell about themselves. Rubin didn’t smell funny. In fact, he didn’t have any smell really, other than body odor when he sweated at tae kwon do practice. But all the older boys at the dojo had that smell, and they couldn’t all be queer. Could they?
CHAPTER 9
“What the sam hell are you trying to pull, Bollars?” Dad was angry, and I was confused.
It was our first class after the belt test and Donnie was there sporting a brand new yellow belt just like me. “That boy didn’t take the test, but he’s got a yellow belt?”
“Mr. Royal, he did take the test...”
“When? I didn’t see him there and I taped the whole damn thing.”
They stood in front of Mr. Bollars’s office; Dad’s hands were shoved in his back pockets and Mr. Bollars had on his gi and sweat sparkled on his forehead.
“Donnie came in and took the test on Sunday,” Mr. Bollars said. His eyes moved around and never landed directly on Dad, whose own gazed burned a hole into Mr. Bollars. The rest of the class was in the workout area stretching and supposedly readying for class, but once Dad began talking everyone focused their attention on him and Mr. Bollars.
“Who’d Donnie spar against?” Dad asked.
“Me.”
“But you’re the damn teacher. How the hell’d he spar against you?”
“I don’t have to explain my ways to you, Mr. Royal.”
“Like hell you don’t. I pay you and that entitles me to some explanations.” Dad’s chest puffed out like one of his pigeons. “You playing favorites, Bollars?”
“I don’t do that.”
“Then why’d you let that Donnie boy come in and take his test separate from everyone else?” Dad’s hands now hung at his side.
“Why don’t we discuss this after class, Mr. Royal? Right now you’re disturbing my dojo.”
“And just giving a boy a yellow belt in private ain’t disturbing the ones who showed up for the test and passed it in front of everyone?”
“Wesley,” Mr. Bollars said, “go get in formation. Mr. Royal, if you like, we’ll discuss this after class.”
“No we won’t. Me and my son won’t be here after class. Come on, boy.”
I looked to Mr. Bollars who stroked his mustache; I looked to Rubin who called formation. And there was Donnie with his shiny new yellow belt tied around his dingy gi, and as Dad led me by the hand out of the dojo, I swore that the freckle-faced boy’s eyes watered up.
“I’ll have Rubin teach you at home,” Dad said in the car.
Rubin teach me at home. Which home? The Lopez’s or ours? If it was at the Lopez home, I feared that Rubin would spend more time luring me into the closet than teaching me forms.
“Why y’all home so soon?” Mom asked.
“That damn Bollars went behind everyone’s back and gave that Donnie a yellow belt even though he didn’t take the test.”
“He took the test,” I said.
“You believed that shit?” Dad said. “Bollars was lying, and I ain’t gonna deal with no liar.” Dad got a Michelob out of the fridge and sat in his recliner. “Boy, if you believed what Bollars was saying, you’ve got a long way to go at understanding people. And what’s worse: you let Bollars beat you to the fuck.”
“But why would he lie?”
“Some people’d rather climb a tree to lie than stay on the ground and tell the truth,” Dad said.
Dad’s comment was funny but didn’t make sense.
I took off my gi and hung it in the closet and joined Mom and Dad in front of the big screen TV. The TV was still big but it was beginning to develop a black streak across the top of the screen. It wasn’t enough to block our view and Dad hadn’t said anything about it, but the streak did seem to be getting bigger, little by little.
We were quiet through the evening news and M*A*S*H, but after that Dad began his nightly flipping of the channels, and broke his silence: “I’ll pay that salt-water nigger to teach you at home. He knows tae kwon do just as well as Bollars.”
Dad flung his leg over the arm of his recliner and told me to get him another beer. By Dad’s actions, I knew he’d reached a decision, one which I wasn’t totally happy with.
There was more silence while Dad flipped channels and drank his second beer. Mom sat in her recliner, chewed stick after stick of Freedent, and appeared as if she wanted to say something. Finally, after her pack of gum was finished, she said: “What are you gonna do about the lessons you’ve already paid for?”
“I’ll make Bollars give me a refund. If he doesn’t, I’ll sue him.”
“This ain’t gonna help Wesley get a black belt,” Mom said.
“He’ll get one, but it ain’t got to be from Bollars.”
Pal and Mountie barked and Dad told me to go see what they were barking at. Dad, ever fearful of having something taken from him, had floodlights mounted by the front gate and over the birdhouse and greenhouse, and with all these lights it was never truly dark around our house.
Pal and Mountie barked and jumped a little off the ground at the gate, and when I stepped from the house, I saw Mr. Lopez and, Rubin who was still in his gi, so I knew they had come straight from the dojo.
“Good evening, Wesley,” Mr. Lopez said. “Is your father home?”
I was happy to see Mr. Lopez, but was mixed about Rubin, who walked in behind his father while I had hold of Pal. Pal was the older and meaner of the two dogs, and I considered letting him attack Rubin. But despite what had happened in his closet, I still wanted to take tae kwon do and keep Rubin as a fellow student, not my teacher.
I led them into the living room and Mom, after saying hello, went to the bedroom.
“Did Bollars send you?”
“No, Señor Royal. I came because of Wesley,” Mr. Lopez said. “I don’t want you to waste what your son has earned. He went from not punching straight to almost knocking out that Donnie boy. All in a few weeks. After him showing such improvement, do you really want him to stop tae kwon do?”
“Hell no I don’t want him to stop,” Dad said. “That’s why I thought Rubin could teach him. It was Rubin who taught him the form, not Bollars.”
“But Bollars got him to straighten out his punches,” Mr. Lopez said.
“But Rubin would have too.”
“But Rubin is still learning himself,” Mr. Lopez said.
“He’s a black belt, ain’t he?”
“Yes, but a first-degree black belt,” Mr. Lopez says. “Bollars is a fifth-degree. Which do you want teaching your son: a first-degree or a fifth-degree?”