Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 11

I was still upset that afternoon when Hanna drove me to the Blue Ridge for my daily training with Chef. She picked up on my bad mood and let me vent to her the whole way up until we parked, talking about Rhonda and my frustration with the two versions of her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t get what Rhonda was doing. Everyone adjusts their behavior a little bit to fit in with the people around them, it’s a natural way people socialize. It was how stark the contrast was and how she would hide what she thought or did to be accepted, and worse, how she let what others thought dictate how she acted even when they weren’t around.

“Didn’t Jordan warn you about that before you got involved with Rhonda?” She asked as we sat in the parking lot, waiting to go in.

“Yes, and I get it, I didn’t listen. The thing is; one on one, Rhonda’s really great.”

“Charlie, everyone you ever date will have something; no one’s perfect. Sure, some people’s things are worse than others, but it’s always there. They may drink too much, they could be a pothead, they could be over-ambitious. Whatever it is, you always face the same choice. Is it worth it? You have to either accept that side of them and learn to deal with it or break it off.”

“That simple, huh?”

“I didn’t say it was simple. Dealing with other people is hard. I’m no expert, hell Marcus is the first person I’ve gone out within over a year, and I haven’t found out what his thing is yet, but at some point, I’ll find it and will have to decide if it’s worth dealing with. That’s if we go beyond a couple of dates. You have to make the same decision about Rhonda.”

“That’s not the advice I was looking for.”

“I know, but it’s what you need to hear. The sooner you realize that any relationship is about accepting people as they are, instead of hoping they become someone else, the happier you’ll be. Look, I’m not all that much older than you, but I had some really screwed up relationships a few years ago that messed me up and taught me some hard lessons. This was one of them. You don’t have to listen to me, but you’ll save yourself some pain in the long run if you do.”

“Okay,” I said, noncommittally as we got out of the car and I headed in to do my training.

Chef could tell I wasn’t focused and worked me twice as hard to ‘motivate’ me. I left feeling like a wrung-out noodle. He promised if I came back with my head not in the right place, he’d up the workout yet again.

Surprisingly, it actually did help. I’d been wallowing a bit, both about Rhonda and Coach Bryant. Chef worked me out to the point where, for a little while, I forgot about both and cleared my head.

While that didn’t help me with the Coach Bryant situation, since there wasn’t much I could do there besides try and avoid situations where he could lash out, it did give me some time to think about Rhonda. Specifically, if I was willing to put up with her desire to fit in dictating how she treated herself and me.

I managed to avoid any confrontations with Coach Bryant the next day, thankfully. While his class wasn’t exactly fun, I at least got graded based on my performance on the work that day and not on something I had no control over.

On the way to the cafeteria after English, I grabbed Rhonda lightly on the wrist, stopping her before we could go inside.

“Can we take our lunches outside by the bleachers today?”

The night before, after my training, I’d ended up at Hanna’s house to eat dinner. For whatever reason, Mrs. Philips had decided to take it upon herself to make sure I was well fed. It had started last week when she had me start eating at their house after I finished training with Chef on weekdays. This morning when I made it over to their house to go to school, Hanna handed me a lunch her mom had packed. I felt a little guilty about it all, but I also hadn’t eaten this well in as long as I could remember.

Between this and eating at the Blue Ridge on weekends, while I was working, I was actually putting on weight. It was too early to really see serious results from the workouts chef was putting me through, but I think I could see some hints that those gains were becoming muscle. Enough so Mom had made a comment on it when I left for school. I didn’t tell her about Mrs. Phillips feeding me, though, since Mom was very much anti-charity and would feel like we’d need to make a big gesture in return.

It was during dinner the night before that Hanna mentioned the area of picnic tables outside the part of the cafeteria closest to the track and practice fields. She also mentioned that kids were allowed to sit on the bleachers and eat too, as long as they picked up after themselves.

I had made up my mind the night before what to do about Rhonda, and I didn’t want to have the conversation in front of her friends. Rhonda seemed confused but allowed me to redirect her.

“What’s up?” she said as we went outside and headed towards the bleachers.

“It’s nice out, so I thought it’d be fun to eat out here.”

“Ohh, okay,” she said, her tone changing from one of worry.

We sat on the bleachers, and both pulled out our lunches. I found Mrs. Philips packed me a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, a bag of chips, an apple, banana, and, best of all, a homemade brownie. While I felt bad about taking advantage of her generosity, I could definitely get used to this kind of treatment.

I procrastinated talking to Rhonda, choosing to listen to her talk about her classes and some drama that had happened at cheer practice the day before. While I was confident I was making the right choice, there was no guarantee that this conversation would go over well. If this was going to be my last lunch with Rhonda, I wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could.

After finishing my brownie, which I split with her once I saw her eyeing it, I put my trash back into the brown paper bag and decided to get down to it.

“So … umm … there was another reason I wanted to come out here, actually.”

“I thought there might be.”

“I wanted you to know that sometimes I will keep eating lunch with you, and sometimes I’m going to go back and eat with Hanna and those guys.”

“Why? I mean, you can eat with who you want, but why don’t you want to sit with me?”

“I do want to sit with you. What I don’t love is how your friends treat you and how you let them do it.”

“What do you mean?” she said, starting to get a little heated.

“I mean this. How did you like our date the other night?”

“I liked it.”

“Me too. You liked the bowling and eating there and everything, right?”

“You know I did. It was probably the most thoughtful date I’ve been on in a long time. I liked that you found out something I’d really want to do.”

“When you were telling your friends about it, you completely omitted what we did; you realize that, don’t you?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I may not have said we went bowling, but I talked about our date.”

“Think about it honestly, Rhonda. Why’d you really not say anything specific about where we went? It’s more than that, though. When Camille started talking about her date, you let her get in your head. I could see the confident, funny, sarcastic girl I like shrivel up and try and hide. Do you really think that her going to a frat party was a better date than ours?”

“I didn’t compare them,” she said, annoyed.

“You did. Think about your reaction. You shut down basically, for the rest of lunch. Look, I don’t want to argue about this. I still want to spend time with you, and I’m not saying I’m not going to sit with you ever again. I’m not saying I don’t still want to go out with you. I do want to go out again, and I will sometimes sit with you and your friends. What I’m not going to do is subject myself to watching them tear you down or taking shots at me, which you know they’ve also been doing. It’s up to you if that’s a deal-breaker.”

“I don’t think you’re giving them a fair chance.”

“Maybe. I think I have, but maybe you’re right, but I’ve made a decision. I’ll leave the ball in your court about what you want to do next.”

“Do I have to sit with my sister and her friends?”

“No. You can if you want, and I promise I’ll make sure they treat you right, but you don’t have to. You can decide what you want to do. How about this. Most of the week, I’ll sit with them, but I’ll sit with you and your friends at least once a week. Maybe we can even sit, just the two of us, out here and eat once a week if the weather's nice.”

She was quiet for a minute, and I thought maybe I’d gone too far. Not that I was going to backtrack. Hanna had been right. I needed to decide what was best for me. I’d offered a compromise, and if Rhonda wasn’t willing to meet me partway, then this wasn’t meant to be.

Finally, she said, “Okay, I can live with that.”

“Good! On the subject of going out again, can we go out again on Saturday?”

“Yeah, although after this week games start, so Fridays and Saturdays will be kind of tough.”

“We can figure that out then. We could find time during the week or maybe even after games. We’ll deal with that when it comes to it. Actually, I don’t know how many Saturday’s I can manage to get off. I just started working at the Blue Ridge, and I don’t want to start asking off every Saturday. That could be a problem.”

“Will they let you get off work this Saturday?”

“Maybe. I need to check. If not, I’ll find another day this week we can go out. I’ll talk to them today and see what I can work out.”

“Good.”

I leaned down and gave her a peck on the lips before we started gathering up our stuff. All in all that had gone better than I’d expected it to.

I told Hanna about my conversation with Rhonda, and she agreed I’d probably handled it the best I could if I wanted to keep going out with her. I’m sure in hindsight I’d find better ways to deal with it, but I was happy with the outcome and was out of the funk I’d been in the day before.

That was a good thing because Chef had a surprise for me. When I went out back, I saw a large metal contraption with wheels on the back and currently held down by a bunch of sandbags. On one side of it hung a large punching bag, and on the other, near the top, was a smaller roundish punching bag.

“You’ve done good with the conditioning so far, but I think it’s time to take things to the next level,” Chef said by way of greeting as he sat me down on a bench and started wrapping up my hands in some kind of tape. “A lot of fighting is muscle memory. In a fight, you don’t have a lot of time to think. You must react on instinct and muscle memory. You have to make the right move without thinking about it. You have to just do it. This is the first step on the road to that. I know we’re limited on your mobility, but we can start working on your upper body and hand work, at least. Also, don’t think this will get you out of conditioning. That will be happening today as well.”

“I was pretty sure you were going to say that.”

“Good. Now, you know what this is?”

“It’s a punching bag.”

“Right, but do you know how to use it?”

“You punch it,” I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Sort of. What we use it for is knowing how to time your punches and learning how to deliver the right power at the right points. When you’re fighting, you aren’t going to be able to wind back and build up power. Not only will you not have the time usually, but it also tells your opponent exactly what you’re going to do. Come up to it and hit it.”

Since my crutches were leaning against the back door, I hobbled over and got a good stance with my weight on my good leg. I drew my right arm back and gave the bag everything I had. It swayed back a few inches.

“Okay, now watch.”

I watched as he stood next to the bag, knees bent slightly. His hand didn’t seem to go back at all. Instead, it exploded straight out, smashing into the cloth and leather exterior of the bag, causing the metal of the stand to rattle as the bag swayed backward.

“Do you see what I did that you didn’t?”

“You hit it with a lot more power than me.”

“Sure, but, anything else?”

“Not really,” I said. Then I added, “You didn’t draw your arm back as much as mine.”

“Also true. The main difference in what you did and what I did is where our power comes from. You know who Bruce Lee was, right?”

“The martial arts guy in the movies.”

“Yes, him. He was famous for using what’s called a ‘one-inch punch,’ which is exactly what it sounds like. When asked how he was able to hit so hard without moving very far, he said, ‘moving your whole body one inch hits harder than moving your arm one foot.’ The mistake amateurs make, is they just use their arm.”

“So, how do you use your whole body?”

“It starts with your legs, which are some of the most powerful muscles in your body. You get a solid stance, with your knees slightly bent and push up. Next is your core and back muscles. Not as strong as your legs, but very big muscle groups. Let the force from your legs travel through, twisting slightly, adding the energy bound up there to what you started with your legs. At this point, your ninety-percent there. Now use your shoulder and arms as a continuation of the energy already in motion. Now you have all the muscles down one side of your body behind the punch, along with the kinetic energy of moving up from the knees and twisting.”

He did it again, making sure I was paying attention to the right things this time. The last time I’d been watching his hands. This time I stepped back and tried to see what he was doing. Sure enough, he was moving all over in almost a quiver. He didn’t so much punch, as his arm just exploded out.

“The same thing applies when throwing combos. After you throw the first punch, you’ll find yourself balanced towards the punch you just threw, which leaves you room to do the same thing using the other leg and waist. There’s more to throwing combos than that, specifically in the footwork, but we’ll get there later. For now, I just want you to work on getting power in your punches.”

He had me throwing punches for almost forty minutes until it felt like my arm was going to fall off. At first, I was having trouble getting it. I’d focus on one body part and couldn’t switch focus to the next, making me stumble or hit the bag weakly. Chef made small adjustments each time, correcting my form. After about ten minutes of not really getting it, I landed a punch that sent the bag rocking back a lot further. I could feel the difference and kind of got what he was talking about.

From there, the more punches I threw, the better I was able to do it as I worked out how to control my body in the same way he had.

“Good work,” he said when he put a stop to it. “Besides your conditioning, I’m going to be adding this and the speed bag, which I’ll explain in a minute, to your routine every day. We’ll be adding more to it later, but for now, I want you to build up the muscle memory of how to throw a good punch. This alone will make you a better fighter. The goal of a fight is to end it fast. The longer a fight goes on, the more chance there is of you getting hurt. You do that by making the punches you land, count. Now, let's move to the speed bag.”

We spent the rest of the time working on the speed bag, which was all about the coordination of my hands. I had to hit the bag with power and speed, alternating hands each time it rebounded. The catch was, the faster and harder you hit it, the faster it rebounded. You had to get into a rhythm to really get it going. While it wasn’t as practical as the heavy bag, since you wouldn’t be punching anyone like this, it helped with coordination and hand speed, which were apparently also important.

By the time we finished, my shoulders and sides felt like they were on fire. This was different than weight work or pushups or crunches. The repetitive motion of using power and holding up my limbs for long periods really fatigued the muscles. Chef promised this would help to build muscle also, but I knew I’d be incredibly sore the next day.

“Chef, I appreciate you giving me last Saturday off,” I said as I pulled the tape off my hands.

“You did seem to be in a good mood the next day.”

“I really was, but I was wondering …”

“Why do I feel like you’re going to start asking for every Saturday off?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that. Honestly, I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, and I’d never try and take advantage of that. I was hoping I could have a girl come up and eat with me and maybe play her some guitar on the side porch where Willie usually teaches me. That way, I could work my full shift, so I didn’t put you in a bind.”

Chef was quite a moment, his jaw working. I wasn’t sure if I’d overstepped my bounds or if he was just thinking.

“Go shower,” he said as he pulled the sandbags off the frame holding the punching bags.

He didn’t sound angry, but it seemed almost certain I’d overstepped myself. I didn’t argue, just headed up to his apartment to shower like I did most days after working out. While I cleaned off, I considered how I could walk back out of my request. It would be harder with the workouts, but I could arrange something on a weeknight with Rhonda. Mom was never around at night, so permission on that end shouldn’t be a problem, but I didn’t know how Rhonda’s parents felt about weeknight curfews.

When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to find Chef and Willie sitting in Chef’s living room. He was almost always back in the kitchen when I finished taking a shower, so I was surprised to see him clearly waiting for me. More surprising was seeing Willie sitting with him.

“Chef?” I said warily.

“Sit down,” he commanded, pointing at a chair across from the couch.

I perched on the edge of it, back straight, waiting to hear whatever brought them both up to talk to me.

“It’s ballsy to ask for two Saturdays off in a row, especially when you’ve only been with us a few weeks.”

“Chef, I didn’t mean …”

He held up a hand and said, “Don’t interrupt me.”

I did the smart thing and shut my mouth.

“I understand you weren’t asking for this Saturday off, not exactly. However, I can imagine, you being a young man, being here until late every weekend night will make it hard on your social life. Now, normally I’d say that’s tough and make you work. However, you’ve given your all pretty much every time you’ve come up here, so I’m taking that into consideration. Honestly, even with that, I’d probably still say tough and make you work. You are in luck, however.”

He paused, and I remained silent, not sure what to say to that.

“Vincent normally comes in early mornings to do the market run with me and then comes back for dinner, but his mom’s gotten sick, and he needs the mornings to take care of her. This leaves me in need of someone to help me on runs. Here’s what we’re going to do. From now on, Saturdays I’ll pick you up at home at six in the morning. You’ll go to the markets with me so we can get fresh meat and whatever else looks good to make the weekend menu. You’ll stay and do prep, then work lunch. After lunch, I’ll release you to Willie here, who’s agreed to come in early to give you lessons. Willie?”

“Like Chef said, I don’t mind teachin’ you before we set up fo’ the night. It actually might be a sight easier, since I won’t have to take such a long break between sets. You’ve actually been coming a long way lately, and I don’t know if you realized it, but I’ve started working you up on some of the songs the band plays, and you’ve picked it up great. On nights when you have nothin’ better to do, I’m gonna let you sit in with the boys and me and play backup. It’ll give Ronnie a chance to take a break sometimes.”

“On Saturday, after working with Willie, you can help me prep for dinner, then come up here and get ready. You can have your date eat here and, if you want, afterward she can listen to you play with the band.”

“Really?” I said, stunned.

The idea of getting to play with the band some nights was a shock. I’d just started taking lessons with Willie. Admittedly, I’d already been playing for most of my life and didn’t feel like a novice, but still, there was a big difference between playing on your own and with a full band.

“Yes, really,” Willie said. “You’ll need to stay a bit late Friday and practice with us, just to get comfortable, but I’m confident you’ll do fine. You’ve got serious talent, Charlie, and I’d be a fool not to use some of it.”

“I don’t know what to say. You two have done so much for me since the day I met you. I honestly feel a bit guilty about all this.”

“Don’t,” Chef said. “Willie says you’ve got real talent, and from him, that’s saying something. As for me, I’m going to work you to make up for it.”

“I won’t let you down. Either of you.”

“I know you won’t,” Chef said. “Or else, I wouldn’t have made the offer. Now get going. Hanna’s waiting to take you home.”

I could barely contain myself on the drive home as I explained to Hanna what the new plan was. To my surprise, she already knew. Apparently, Chef had talked to her the day before about moving her to the lunch shift on Saturdays and me doing mornings and lunch, which surprised me. He’d already started things in motion before I asked anything. I didn’t know if that was because he just needed a replacement for Vincent or if it had something to do with playing with Willie, but either way, it was surprising.

For Hanna, she was happy with the change. She had the same issue as me, now that she had started dating. Working every evening was going to make it harder to go out. The prospect of still getting hours and having Saturday nights free worked for both of us.

More importantly, I was going to get to start playing with a real band. This was an opportunity I couldn’t have even imagined getting, and a real chance to see if music was really something I wanted to do. 

Of course, first I had to convince Mom that this was a good idea.