Davo's Little Something (19 page)

The book on Hapkido seemed to concentrate more on throws
and counter blows combined with brute strength. The kicks looked alright but compared to the Thai style—especially to the Thai hand movements—it looked wooden and confined. It was deadly and efficient, there were no two ways about that, but it was obvious that to be proficient at it you would have to practise for years. There was a method of kicking straight out with the ball of the foot though that looked easy enough and a method of punching with a back-fist, something like a backhand serve with a tennis racquet that definitely had possibilities. Yes, he liked that one alright.

Halfway through the third cassette Davo finally put the books down and settled back on the lounge to think. He figured that between the three books, if he practised hard enough, he could master enough of those punches, kicks and techniques to suit his needs. But in all practicality, he realised that anyone could look good and feel like a world beater bashing away at a punching bag, because the punching bag didn't hit back. He was going to need some sort of experience, possibly sparring, and without anyone knowing, and that was going to be a different story altogether. He settled back a little further into the lounge, capped his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling while the track he was taping played softly through the speakers; already the basics of another plan were starting to form in his cool calculating vindictive mind. It was just after eleven when he finished the last cassette, the latest he'd been up since he got out of hospital. He yawned and switched everything off then after going to the toilet got into bed. He decided to have a bit of a sleep-in in the morning; Tuesday promised to be a busy and hopefully rewarding day.

It was eight am and still quite cold when Davo got up the following morning and had a light breakfast. If it was cold in the unit it seemed twice as cold when he stepped into the garage and closed the side door behind him. He switched on the light, walked over to the workbench and placed the ghetto blaster next to the power point, along with the three cassettes, the books on martial arts and an old alarm clock he had taken from the kitchen. He turned the radio in the ghetto blaster on fairly loud and went back outside to see how loud it sounded;
though it was roaring inside you could scarcely hear it, even just a few feet from the door. He went back inside, closed the door behind him again and switched off the radio. He took his tracksuit top off, got the skipping rope from where he'd left it hanging on the wall and draped it around his neck then, with his hands shaking slightly from a sinister kind of excitement, he wound the old clock up and dropped one of the tapes into the cassette ready to go. Well he thought, as he stared absently at the old alarm clock ticking away on the workbench, this is it. No more bullshit. Like they say in the movies—this is where the story really starts. In the cold silence of the garage the ticking of the old alarm clock sounded more like a drum beat and seemed to echo off every wall right up to the ceiling. Do I really want to go through with this? Do I really want to turn myself into some sort of a superfit, superstrong punching kicking machine just so I can go out smashing people to get some sort of revenge. Is it really worth it? Is it? He gave a contemptuous chuckle and grinned evilly to himself. Is it bloody what. He placed his hand over the ghetto blaster and as he did the words of an old Doors song flashed into his mind.

 

The time to hesitate is through.

No time to wallow in the mire.

Come on baby light my fire.

 

It was just on 8.30 when Davo hit the play button and Rose Tattoo's Bad Boy For Love started pumping through the garage and he started skipping. And Davo's fire was well and truly lit and roaring inside him like a furnace and what it would take to put it out no one knew—least of all Davo.

He was naturally a bit clumsy at first. The rope caught under his feet a few times and it would also hit him across the back of the neck both stinging and annoying him. After about six trips and several whacks across the neck he felt like getting the skipping rope and flinging it across the garage in anger. But he persevered and before long it all started coming back to him and gradually he was making less mistakes and skipping along fairly smoothly; a little slowly perhaps but at a steady constant pace. The loud driving rock 'n' roll tracks peeled off
in the background—Dragon, Hoodoo-Gurus, Dropbears, Cold Chisel—and before long he could feel the sweat forming across the sweatshirt covering his chest and seeping into his sweat band. It was tough going but he didn't falter, he could feel a soreness starting in his shoulders but he wasn't puffing all that much. His head ached enough to annoy him but if anything the pain, and the memory of what had caused it, drove him on, making him more determined than ever to achieve his goal. Whatever that was.

Davo skipped for about twenty minutes—though it seemed more like an hour—then stopped for a while mainly to give his shoulders a rest. Apart from that he didn't feel too bad. He stood there for a minute or two then flicked the rope up again and continued. After another ten minutes the last track on that tape played so he sat down on the wooden bench, head slightly bowed, his arms resting across his knees; perspiration dripped off his chin and steam rose off his face as he contemplated the small pool of water formed by the drops of sweat landing on the concrete floor just in front of his feet. His chest was heaving now but that hadn't been a bad effort, thirty minutes almost nonstop. He sat there in the exaggerated silence after the pounding of the ghetto blaster and let the old alarm clock tick loudly away for a good five minutes. He wasn't out to break any records and so far he'd gone pretty well, better than he'd expected.

His breathing returned to normal and with his head aching only slightly he walked over and dropped the other side of the tape into the cassette then sat back down on the bench with the two 30 pound weights at his feet. Just as the tape cut in and Richard Clapton started thumping out Getting to The Heart of It, he did his first set of repetitions: ten presses above his head, which he marked down carefully in a notebook he'd had in a drawer of the workbench. He followed this with ten curls then ten bent over pulling the weights up to his chest. He did fifty of each, marking it all down while the music pounded away filling the garage around him: AC/DC, Divinyls, Non Stop Dancers. Although at times he thought his arms and shoulders were going to break and his lungs burst the driving beat of the music seemed to take his mind off the pain he
was going through. He started singing along with the words of some of the songs then started trying to lift the weights in time to the beat but Cold Chisel's Goodbye Astrid suddenly came on out of nowhere and nearly crippled him so he soon gave that idea away. Before long another half hour had gone by and that side of the tape had finished so he sat back on the wooden bench, easing his back against the wall to have another think while he rested in the surrounding silence. He couldn't believe the change that was already coming over him, it was great. He could feel the muscles in his arms, chest and shoulders straining beneath the warm dampness of his sweatshirt and when he squeezed or pressed them they were hard and firm. The newfound strength seemed to be flowing through every sinew and vein right down to his fingertips. It was exhilarating, a feeling like he'd never felt before. It was hard, even exhausting work, but unlike having to lift heavy things around in the butcher shop it was enjoyable and if he felt this good after one session how was he going to feel in a couple of months. An evil grin spread across his sweat-stained face and a sinister gleam began to radiate from his slightly narrowed eyes. Now for the hard part.

He left the music off for a while, while he sat there and studied the three books on martial arts. After a few minutes he concluded that it was no good trying to do everything at once so he decided to have a go at the boxing one first. He spread the book out on the workbench and placed a screwdriver across it to keep the pages open. The stretching exercises and the blocking and side-stepping he didn't need at the moment—what he needed to know was how to throw a punch. Righto, here we go. Straight left.

He popped another cassette into the ghetto blaster, put the bag mitts on, and just as the first crashing bars of Church's acoustic guitar filled the garage with Unguarded Moment he threw his first straight left.

It wasn't very good, in fact it was terrible, he might as well have hit the bag with a lamington. But he kept his right hand tucked up under his chin and threw another. And another. And began walking around the bag throwing them one after another, stopping to check the book now and then till gradually he
could feel the shock increasing, as it vibrated up his arm into his shoulder, and see the punching bag being driven further and further back. The punches were getting straighter, he was punching through the target and twisting his knuckles just at the right moment as the punch landed. Even above the noise of the ghetto blaster Davo could hear the sounds of the punches as they landed going from a ‘slap-slap-slap' to a definite ‘thumpthump-thump'. He kept circling the bag slowly and methodically, throwing punch after punch, however, after about fifteen minutes of this Davo felt like his left arm was going to fall off, so he stopped, checked the book again and began throwing rights.

The first looping great haymaker he threw almost missed the bag completely. It was ridiculous and he realised he was trying to hit like Jack Dempsey from the start, so he settled down a bit, consulted the book once more and began circling the bag again. Pivot at the waist, swing the shoulders like a gate closing, bend the right knee a little, punch through the target. Before long the rights were starting to thump in too; a little wooden perhaps and maybe a little slow, but they were definitely there. Davo was starting to feel quite pleased with himself, he was picking this up easier than he thought and the book was written by an English boxing coach and England was the home of boxing . . . so. He gave that another fifteen minutes, having a bit of a breather every now and again, then when that side of the tape finished he flipped it over and started throwing his first combinations. Straight left—short right: the old one-two.

These too were slow and ponderous at first and there was a hesitant awkward pause between the two blows landing, but the power was there now, he could definitely feel the jarring in his shoulders and forearms increasing and gradually the gap between the two punches landing began to lessen. Also slapslap had disappeared, seemingly forever, and even above the pounding music whack-whack, bang-bang was echoing round the garage every time.

Davo kept this up for another twenty minutes or so until in the end it seemed like his arms were going to drop off. With his last ounce of strength he slammed another left and
right into the bag then slumped down on the wooden bench in a lather of sweat; exhausted, but nonetheless exhilarated at the same time. He sat there for a few moments, chest heaving, wisps of steam rising from his forehead as his breathing gradually returned to normal and decided to finish off with a few sit-ups. He removed the mitts and placed the sit-up board against the wooden bench and with his feet above his head did sixty: two sets of twenty and two of ten. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done any sit-ups and these hurt; the last few felt like his stomach and the tops of his thighs were on fire. But with that layer of fat gone from his stomach, even though it hurt, it was still easier and when he ran his hand across his abdomen already he could feel the hardness and rippling starting to form.

The last tape finished and the click as the cassette cut out sounded like a hammer falling in the sudden silence. The now pronounced ticking of the old alarm clock made him switch his gaze to the workbench where a quick glance showed he'd been training for just on two hours; straight through two sixtyminute cassettes. He left the music off and lay there relaxing on the sit-up board with his feet still up on an angle, perspiration running down his arms and legs and his sweat-sodden hair forming a gritty, wet patch where his head rested on the floor. He couldn't quite believe what he'd just done. Two hours of hard fairly solid training, the first he'd done in . . . how many years? And hard as it was, he'd enjoyed it! Normally he was the world's laziest whenever it came to doing any training but something kept driving him on almost like a robot. He shook his head, aggravating the slight throbbing behind his temple. He still couldn't understand it. He was tired alright, almost to the point of exhaustion, but at the same time he felt good, better than good, he felt great, it was a sense of accomplishment. Or was it something else? Like he was well on the way to achieving some goal. He pulled the tail of his sweatshirt up and wiped some of the sweat from his face and suddenly a sinister augural smile lit across his face. If he felt this good after one session, what was he going to feel like in a month or two from now? Especially if he started training twice a day. Unbelievable.

Davo lay there in the silence for a few more minutes then decided he'd better make a move before he cooled off too much. He stacked the sit-up board back against the wall, put the tapes back in their cases and with his tracksuit top draped across his shoulders and the martial arts books under his arm locked the garage and went back upstairs for a well-earned shower and shave. He washed his gym gear under the shower and hung it out on the balcony to dry. Standing there in the bright clear winter sunshine, out of the chilly westerly wind, Davo couldn't believe how good he felt. His skin was tingling after the hot shower and already there were muscles starting to appear on his once overweight body that he never knew he had. The only thing slightly wrong was a bit of soreness around his shoulders so he went back into the loungeroom and rubbed them with some liniment he had in the bathroom while he listened to the radio. By then it was almost midday so he decided to have some lunch; the last of another barbecued chicken he'd bought, made into sandwiches, and a good, big pot of tea. He made a mental note that now he was right into heavy training he would get off the fish and chicken and start back on some steaks and chops with plenty of potatoes and onions. He'd taken off all the weight he needed to and now he was going to put on muscle so he'd have to have protein and a certain amount of fibre and bulk. A big jar of honey would come in handy for energy too, plus plenty of fruit and vegetables. He rubbed his hands together with glee; the more he thought about the coming weeks the more he liked it. He locked the flat and with his wallet in the back pocket of his tracksuit decided to go for a walk up to Dover Heights and back.