Fifty-Nine

The bell tinkles.

Crankson moves to the center quickly.

Chris moves slowly.

Referee Odamten holds down a stiff hand, and then slashes it sideways in the air.

The bell tinkles again.

"GojuFists, fight, trust!"

The two men stare at each other.

"I'm gonna retire you forever, old man," Crankson says with mean eyes.

"You shouldn't have touched my son," Chris hisses venomously. "Nobody touches my son."

Crankson is soon a motion of fast blinding movements, spinning for the savage turning kick, but his foot slashes empty air because Chris is no longer there. It takes only a minute for Crankson to realize that he has met a master and that finally, he has met that one man who is quicker, faster and more skillful than he is.

No matter what he tries – punch, kick, butt, spin, smash – Chris is always a step ahead, moving, blocking, locking. He is like air, and so agile and quick that Crankson only sees him in blurs.

"My God! Chris is even better than before!" Ken Kedem whispers with awe. "Have you ever seen anything like that? It is as if Crankson is fighting a ghost!"

Effe smiles a little easier this time. She has never liked Chris fighting and had made him stop, but watching him, her heart glows, because it is her man who is exhibiting that magic inside that ring, and drawing all that admiration from the crowd.

Rupert leans forward, barely able to breathe.

"Damn! Didn't know he's this marvelous," he whispers with admiration.

Afful shakes his head and leans back.

"Do you still think Micky is gonna kill your man for you, Stevo?" he asks indignantly.

"Fuck off, Jon!" Steve says angrily. "But you're right, it's time to fight for the love of my life, and I'm going to do it."

Steve gets up suddenly, and without a further look at the ring, he walks out of the VIP Lounge.

Everyone watches in awe as Chris exhibits incredible reflexes and skill that they have not seen in a GojuFist fight for a long time. At long last, panting and beginning to taste the horrible tang of fear and desperation, Crankson stands in a fighting stance and looks at Chris with something akin to absolute panic.

The bell tinkles.

Chris speaks slowly.

"Just wanted to show you how a true Grandmaster does it. If you give up now and do not respond to the second round bell, you'll be disgraced, but you will be whole. If you come for the second round, I'm gonna hurt you bad."

He turns and walks to his corner, leaving a trembling Crankson staring after him with a level of confusion.

Crankson goes to his corner.

He sees the fear in the eyes of Nana Bosomtwum.

"What did the bastard say?" Bosomtwum asks softly.

"Says I can choose not to answer the bell for the second round," Crankson replies warily. "If I do he will hurt me."

"What you wanna do, Micky?" Bosomtwum asks uncertainly and with fear, and Crankson laughs shakily.

"Well, I've never been a coward. I can't be one now. He's good, damn good, but I'm going in there. Maybe, in his complacency, he'll give me an opening, and I'll kill him."

The second round begins.

Chris gets up and moves to the center of the ring.

Crankson meets him.

"Alright, asshole, let's see what you've got," he says with a sneer.

What happens next is a fine exhibition of martial arts artistry at its finest, perfected by the mysterious Chris Bawa. Crankson does not see Chris moving, but he feels the crushing blows...his head, his legs, his ribs, his arms.

Crankson grunts with pain as Chris twists and turns, attacking with such relentless brute force that Crankson is reduced to a punching bag, and blood streams from his face and nostrils. He feels the punishing blows and moans with a mixture of pain and horror.

Chris spins, sinking a fist in his guts, making Crankson wheeze, and then Chris is in the air, swinging a haymaker that almost tears Mike's head off. Then Chris gracefully turns in the air with a head-crushing side-kick that hurls Crankson into the ropes.

Crankson manages to stand straight, but he is wobbling, and there is blood in his mouth and around his nostrils.

He stares at Chris with his horror complete.

"Yoush shmucking fuckishy brabrashbush shucotip pusharapash!" he mumbles in his acute agony and panic.

His lips are so swollen and smashed that his words are not coherent.

There is no mercy on Chris' face.

"Nobody hits my son. Nobody!"

And then his hands move like pistons, the blows raining down on Mike with terrible precision... fast, hard, damaging, unstoppable!

"Oh, God, Chris is going to kill him!" Effe screams with fear. "No, Chris-Love! Stop, Baby, stoooop!"

Up in the VIP Lounge Ira jumps to her feet in alarm.

"He's killing him! My God, he's killing him!" she screams.

The crowd is suddenly silenced at such brute punishment.

It is no longer a fight. It is torture, a macabre thrashing as primitive as it is beastly. Nana Bosomtwum looks around for a white towel to throw in into the ring and concedes defeat, but his frantic eyes fail to notice any.

A spinning blow from Chris sends Crankson crashing against the corner, his legs gone, his hands down, unable to defend himself. Chris goes into his fatality stance, the one he uses to deliver knockouts.

He extends his right hand, and crouches a bit low on his left leg, gathering all his brute force into his left fist for a straight chin-crushing explosive punch that no opponent had ever survived. Referee Odamten tries to stop the fight because it is evident Crankson is gone, and cannot defend himself, but the referee is behind Chris, and he slips on the canvas and falls.

Nana Bosomtwum throws in a white towel finally, but it lands behind Chris, and he does not see it in the midst of the fury consuming him.

Effe is screaming, Wailer is screaming... the crowd is silenced as Chris begins to zone in with that deadly left fist toward Crankson's sagging chin.

And then Junior is through the ropes, and suddenly he is standing in front of his father, holding his father's right thigh, tears streaming down his face.

"DADDY! NO, DADDY, NOOO! THIS IS THE DREAM I SAW!" the boy wails in anguish. "I COULDN'T SEE THE PEOPLE WELL, BUT I SAW THIS PICTURE, DADDY. YOU'LL KILL HIM IF YOU HIT HIM, DADDY!"

Chris freezes then.

He sees his son through the mist of his murderous fury, and slowly he begins to shake, and that horrible mist of fury slowly leaves his eyes. Junior now wraps his arms around his father's waist and weeps silently. Referee Odamten has gained his feet, and has picked up the white towel, and he moves forward and strikes downward with a right fist...

Submission!

Chris has won!

He is once again the Grandmaster of GojuFist.

Crankson tries to move, and he crashes to the canvas hard and remains still.

Chris picks up his son and hugs him, and Junior hugs him back. Odamten motions to the doctors to attend to Crankson as he walks up to Junior and pats him on his back.

"Trust, young man, you're as brave as your father! Thank you, thank you very much, trust. That's a great kid you got there, Mr. Bawa, trust."

Junior giggles through his tears.

"What's with him, Daddy, trust? Trust, trust, trust! What's wrong with him, trust?"

Father and son giggle.

"I don't know, trust!"

"Trust, he's trustworthy, trust!" Junior says as his terror slowly leaves him.

This time they begin to laugh.

Wailer Vroom enters the ring, shouting and punching the air with extreme happiness. There is deafening screaming all around. Crankson is carried out on a stretcher, still unconscious. The sound is deafening as Chris' name reverberates around the arena.

He is a hero once more.

The beast is gone, for now, for a moment.

This moment, as he hugs his brave son, and the image is beamed across the continent, Chris Bawa knows only happiness, and he prays deep down, that it will stay that way!