Free The Egyptian by Layton Green

first fight took place in a glorified basement. He remembered the sickly lighting, the leering faces, the pumping fists stuffed with yen, the wood-floored ring stained with blood.
    Grey’s opponent was twice his age and twice his size. There was no bell, no ring girl, no referee, no rules. Grey vomited into a cup from nerves, then his father pushed him forward.
    The other guy moved like he had some judo skill, maybe some karate, but Grey knew from the cruel light in his eyes that he was a thug. True masters would never dishonor themselves like this. Grey took him down with a sweep, but the guy grabbed onto him and brought Grey to the ground with him. Grey was scrambling to get position when the guy grabbed his hair and bit him on the neck.
    Whatthehell?
    Grey was so shocked he lost concentration. The guy scrambled on top of him and started throwing elbows to Grey’s head. Grey fought back with a vengeance, but the guy was far too big for Grey to have a chance with wild swings. Grey’s blood slopped onto the floor like tomato sauce.
    Grey finally hooked his legs and rolled his opponent to the side, face-to-face. The next five minutes, an eternity in a fight, consisted of spitting, pinching, striking, slipping in blood and sweat, avoiding eye gouges, the dead silence in Grey’s head, the bestial roar of the crowd, wondering if he was going to survive, seeing his father’s iron stare and crossed arms.
    His training didn’t save him that night. What saved him was his fierce will, and his past. As hard as this brute was hitting him, his father hit him harder at home. Grey could see it in his opponent’s eyes: why wouldn’t Grey quit? It gave Grey an obscene energy, the knowledge that he could
take it
more than this guy could. What was this kind of pain compared to being hit by your own father?
    Something in Grey snapped and then fused together that night, a cold hot focused forging he’d never experienced before, the welding of his prodigious Jujitsu skills with his inner rage. He scrapped and clawed and fought his way to a side straddle, his chest on top of the other guy’s chest, legs splayed out to the side. His opponent reached up to throw him off, and Grey grabbed his arm and spun into an arm bar. He saw the shock in his opponent’s eyes at the speed of the move.
    Grey stopped himself at the last second, back arched, knees locked, his arms pulling and extending his opponent’s right arm. Grey’s hips extended against the bottom of the isolated elbow, his whole body concentrated on one arm, negating the size advantage. The essence of Jujitsu.
    Grey’s opponent tapped the mat to avoid the break, and his corner threw in the towel. The crowd booed. They wanted to hear the limb snap.
    Grey vomited again, on the street outside. His stomach churned with the dopamine that was coursing into his pores like a white water rapid. He learned later that it was genetics, nature’s reward to the king of the jungle, the primeval enemy of man’s moral conscious. Right then, he only knew that he hated the part of himself that liked it.
    When they got home, Grey risked addressing his father. Maybe his dad had just been trying to help his son in the only way he knew how. Grey knew it was twisted, knew it didn’t account for a lifetime of physical and mental abuse, but maybe, just this once, it could be okay. Grey asked him, eyes hopeful and flush with victory, what he thought about the fight.
    His father turned to him, coldly.
What do I think?
Why didn’t you break his arm?
    Grey licked his lips.
I… I didn’t need to
.
It was over.
    You’re a goddamned coward, son. When you have an opportunity to end a fight, you take it, you hear me? You don’t wait for a towel, or some damn referee. In the real world that shit doesn’t exist. A real fighter would have ripped you apart when you hesitated. You have to be able to finish it. Why do you think I took you?
    But he tapped—
    His father grabbed him by the throat and pushed him