“Tracy’s been depressed. We’d hoped she was getting better. Her self-esteem was better, she was more engaged, and she was having more good days than bad," Tom said as he looked at the floor.
“What happened? I never had a clue she was having problems this serious,” I said, concerned.
“None of us did. She hid it well. Dr. Hebert said she admitted to having insomnia and some other symptoms,” Tom said without looking at me.
“Dr. Hebert said there’s never usually a single reason someone might try and hurt themselves,” Tom continued. “The hard part is we may never know what really happened. Part of the problem with depression is it also affects concentration; it makes it hard to learn. We got her grades and they’ve suffered. Who knows what the tipping point was, but she took the pills. She was lucky Mary went to check on her. She spent the majority of the holiday getting better. The last few days she seemed to start to come out of it.
“Dr. Hebert encouraged us to let her come back to school. She seemed eager to see you, and the doctor felt that being around her friends would be positive,” Tom said, and then seemed to gather himself. “I need to go check on her. I’ll call you if we need you and I promise to keep you in the loop.”
I wondered if Tracy’s mental illness would ever get any better. It scared me to think she might hurt herself, or worse. I was a little pissed no one had told me sooner. I would have come home to be with my friend if I’d known how serious it was. Tom left me to my thoughts.
MY LAST PERIOD WAS study hall. I grabbed Jeff and we went to my house so I could let Duke out. He did his business but didn’t want to go back into his crate. I wasn’t going to leave him loose; there was no telling what he would get into. Instead, we grabbed his leash and a blanket for the back seat of the Jeep and I grabbed my baseball glove. Jeff and I could play some catch before it was time to work out.
We swung by Jeff’s house so he could get his glove. We snuck Duke into the school and changed to work out. He was being surprisingly good. He hated the leash but was okay if I carried him. He would become a big dog, so I needed to stop hauling him around before he figured this was how we did things. We went into the gym where we found Pam, Mona, Kim and Sammie sitting in the bleachers, talking. They saw me with Duke and fell in love with him at first sight. I had an epiphany that Duke might be an even better chick-magnet than Kyle. They volunteered to watch him.
Jeff and I were doing some long tosses to warm up when Coach Hope came into the gym with my new neighbors.
“David, Jeff, come over here,” he called to us.
We jogged over and they all saw the puppy. Coach Hope looked at me.
“Whose dog is that?” he asked.
“He’s mine,” I said. “He’s a service dog.”
I thought I had pulled a fast one.
“Yeah, right,” Coach Hope said, and then turned to the new kids. “This is Britanie, Brock and Bryan Callahan. They just moved here from Sayreville, New Jersey. Brock and Bryan play football and baseball, and Brit plays basketball. This is David, one of our captains from last year’s football team, and Jeff, one of our starters. Can you guys introduce them around and help them work out this afternoon?”
“Sure, Coach,” Jeff said.
Coach Hope ignored Duke and went to his office.
“Are you twins?” Jeff asked the guys.
“Actually, triplets,” Brock said.
“How’s Precious doing?” I asked.
“I think she’ll survive,” Brock said, then explained what I was talking about to Jeff. “She’s Brit’s cat. I was rooting for your dog to take her out.”
“You just shut up, or I’ll drop her on you when you’re sleeping tonight,” Britanie threatened.
Jeff wanted details, so the triplets filled him on the excitement this morning. People started to arrive for our workout. Jeff took the triplets around and introduced them to everyone. I caught up with everyone I hadn’t seen yet today. Yuri told me he was still working on getting a girlfriend. Cassidy came in and put us to work doing our forms.
After she was done with the workout, the Callahan triplets looked like something Duke would drag into the house. I personally felt good. It looked like I’d soon be back into the routine of working out.
Jeff said he wanted to go with Cassidy and me to the dojo. When we arrived, I went looking for Mr. Yamamura, the owner and main trainer. Jeff was put in charge of Duke. I think my dog liked having so many babysitters.
Mr. Yamamura insisted he supervise Cassidy as she trained me. It was his dojo and hence it was his rules.
Cassidy was teaching the basics of joint manipulation. She demonstrated what at first looked hard, but turned out to be really easy, in theory, until Cassidy used the countermoves on me. All I needed to do was bend a joint into an unnatural position. She demonstrated and put me into an arm bar. She basically tossed me on the ground, and once she was on top of me slid to the side. She then grabbed my arm as she placed pressure on my face with her foot. She made a believer out of me when she pulled back and my elbow felt like it was going to pop.
Cassidy demonstrated how you could gain an advantage using the joints of the shoulder, elbow, hip and knee. Jeff flinched when he heard me squeal like a little girl. I offered to allow him a turn. He was such a wuss.
“A commonly overlooked technique is attacking the small joints,” Mr. Yamamura told us. “You can easily neutralize an attacker by breaking his fingers. It can cause a lot of pain and will affect his chances and usually even his desire for attacking you.”
Cassidy was all smiles. I started to shake my head.
“No, you don’t. I need my fingers,” I told her.
It didn’t stop Mr. Yamamura from demonstrating on me. I soon found out he could make me do about anything once he had my thumb. He let me practice on Cassidy. I tried to keep the grin off my face when I got a little payback.
At the break, I went to get a towel out of my bag. I had to pull my glove out and Mr. Yamamura saw it.
“You play baseball?” he asked me.
“Yes, sir. I play shortstop and pitch,” I said, and then nodded at Jeff. “He plays right field for us.”
“I used to coach pitching when I was younger. In Japan baseball is taken almost as seriously as martial arts. My brothers and I played in high school. Our team made it to the semifinals of Kōshien,” he shared.
“What’s that?” Jeff asked.
“Twice a year there’s a big baseball tournament, played nationwide. The finals are played in Hanshin Kōshien Stadium. I played pro ball for six years and then went into coaching after I retired. When I came to America, my brother bought a dojo and I switched to martial arts. I love teaching. You Americans could learn a few things.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“In America, you rely on power. You use big sweeping motions with your whole body to whip the ball as hard as possible to the plate. Everyone seems to have the same pitching motion, as if you’re trying to standardize or mimic a particular pitching form. In Japan, there is much more deception.”
We went back to the mats to train. Mr. Yamamura seemed to understand what Cassidy was teaching me. He had a few pointers on how to make the same moves but with minimal effort. His approach was the same as Cassidy’s, just smoother. She was all quickness and explosiveness. He was much smoother and more deceptive. With his approach, you suddenly realized you were in trouble, and by then it was too late. Of course, Cassidy liked it and had to have a practice dummy. I wondered what a boyfriend was for if not to take the punishment.
PEGGY HAD COME OVER for dinner and I found she and Dad were cooking. It brought a smile to my face as I remembered Greg and I had done the same thing with Dad. I let Duke go into the house so he could say hi to everyone. I went up to my apartment, took a shower, and came back to find dinner ready. Dad and Peggy had made blackened chicken breasts, baked sweet potatoes, and a big salad.