<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

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# Chapter #5

Fede followed Tonx inside the hallway. The walls were a cheap poly-plyboard coated with a peeling latex. The composite they had used had fat chunks of plastic that didn’t hold the paint well, leaving sagging, discolored pockets over its surface. The lights overhead flickered as they went, the growling hum of old transformers shuttling electrons through grime-coated wires.

“Listen, Fede” said Tonx, “I got practice tonight. You’re welcome to stay, and you’re welcome not to, but I don’t want Mom riding down here on her broomstick either way.”

“Don’t worry about it” mumbled Fede. There was a blackness growing in his belly, an anger spreading over the tofu and fried vegetables and up through his throat. Tonx had been gone for two years, and in those two years Fede had spent almost every waking moment goggled in, sweating blood over prefabbed lessons and newsgroup HOWTOs. He’d lived and breathed code, and Tonx had been out... here.

“Fede.” Tonx had stopped at a doorway set into the end of the hall. “I’m sorry.”

“I always meant to come back and explain things to you, but whenever I talked to Mom she made it sound like you didn’t want to see me. I don’t know what changed, or why you decided to show up, but... I’m glad you’re here.”

Tonx had his hood pushed back, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. He looked at his dirty shoes, at Fede. “Listen, why don’t you come in and after practice we’ll talk some more?”

“What practice?” asked Fede.

“Aikido” said Tonx with a sudden smile. “It’s an old martial art based on joint locks. With all the free muscle you can buy out there these days it’s one of the few arts left that’ll still take somebody down. It doesn’t rely on strength.” Tonx stuck his arm out in front of him. “Here. Grab my wrist.”

“You’re doing kung-fu now?” asked Fede, raising an eyebrow.

“No, dude. ‘Eye-key-dough.’ I told you, it’s an old martial art. It’s sweet shit, for real. Relies on knowledge of physiology and timing instead of raw strength. It’s for people with brains. Come on, try to grab my arm.”

Fede grabbed his brother’s wrist. Tonx’s smile widened, and he gently put his free hand on top of Fede’s. “It’s easy,” he said. He slipped the fingers of his bottom hand on top of Fede’s and pressed softly.

“Fuck! You! Bitch!” yelled Fede, falling facedown on the concrete floor in front of Tonx’s shoes. Tonx was laughing, doubled up against the wall holding his belly. The door behind him opened and the Chinese girl from earlier looked down at them. The floor she stood on was a foot higher than the floor of the hallway, thick blue mats covering its surface. She looked at Tonx and then down at Fede, now on his knees pressing his wrist between his thighs, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Tried that shit-ass nikyo on your brother, Tonx?” she asked. She turned toward Fede. “Don’t worry about it, man. Your brother’s the biggest wuss we got on the mat. Stick around and you’ll see him get his.”

Tonx reached a hand up and let her haul him through the gap, his hand lingering against her hip as he stepped in. “Hey there sweetheart” he murmured. “You dissing my nikyo?”

“Your nikyo ain’t shit, baby,” she murmured back, hopping down into the hallway and helping Fede to his feet. “Give me that,” she said, grabbing his hand and pushing gently against the inside of his wrist with the ball of her thumb. She ran her fingers up his arm, pushing deeply into the muscle. Fede felt his arm relax, the pain dissipate. “One of the rules is, ’you break it, you fix it,’” she informed him. “So I guess this means your brother owes me.”

She still smelled like smoke, and up close Fede noticed she was about his height. He pulled away, his cheeks hot, mumbled a thank-you as he scrambled up into the room. He heard her chuckling softly behind him.

The room was roughly forty feet square, no windows. Bare concrete bore witness to a poor job done steaming off wallpaper and paint, tiny knobs of colored polyplasticines clinging here and there. The blue mats covered the entire floor, and two plain white doors stood on either side of the far wall. There was a low shelf on Fede’s right with a little picture of an old guy and a huge scroll with a single Japanese character splashed on it hanging above. Fede flipped on his goggles, scanned the scroll and ran a query, got a quick answer.

“Love” the scroll said. Fede wrinkled his nose.

“What’s this?” he asked Tonx.

“You mean the kanji?” Tonx asked, waving his hand at the scroll. “It’s Ai, means love. Aikido is called the art of love. Kind of funny at first, but it makes sense once you’ve been doing it a while.”

He swung around, his arms taking in the whole room. “This is our dojo — it’s actually the back of the shop. We’ve got practice later, you can try it out. But first I want to show you something.”

“You going to show him your fishies, Tonx?” asked Cass, letting her hair down and pulling it up again into a ponytail.

“Yeah” said Tonx, turning to give Fede that familiar half smile. “I’m going to show him my fishies.”

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