Free Landing by J Bennett

dazed. Then I force all the shaking pieces of
myself together and demand that the cogs of my mind get back on the track.
    This is going to be bad though. That
dark part of me, Monster Maya, purrs inside my head.
    One hour , I think to myself.
I don’t consider the hour after that or the rest of the day or, you know, the
rest of my life. Just one hour. One hour, one hour, one hour.
    Gabe changes into long shorts and a
tight muscle shirt and pops in a mouth guard while Tarren practices by himself
against a punching bag. In the proper spectators area, the teens’ overweight
mothers sit in folding chairs and flip through beauty magazines. I don’t need a
frown from Tarren to know I should stay away from them, so instead I sit Indian
style against the wall on a strip of hardwood floor next to a lot of gym bags
that assault my sensitive olfactory sense.
    When Gabe is ready, the brothers
stand apart from the classes and spar. Facing off against each other, they
hardly look like brothers at all. Tarren is tall, thickened with long, lean
muscle. He so often reminds me of granite or steel or some other unbending,
impenetrable element. Gabe is at least five inches shorter and fifty pounds
lighter than his brother, but seems unconcerned by this discrepancy. He is a
whirl of energy, amazingly quick and flexible. His speed and agility seem to
always get him out of trouble. It’s really his lack of discipline that hurts
him the most. I can see it now — how he fixates on the attack and lets his
guard down — and I think I understand why it worries Tarren so much.
    Today, Gabe is distracted, and
Tarren methodically breaks through his defenses and gets him down onto the mat
into a submission hold. As soon as Tarren releases his grip, Gabe bolts up, and
they go again. Gabe ends up back on the mat in short order.
    “Concentrate,” Tarren tells his
brother. “You’re slow today.”
    Gabe’s eyebrows knit together and
his energy flares enough to make me wince. They begin again. Faster. Without
warning, Gabe latches onto Tarren’s arm, pits his shoulder into Tarren’s
sternum, and, with a sharp jerk, sends Tarren sprawling onto the mat. Before
Tarren can recover, Gabe is on top of him throwing hard punches. Tarren takes
two in the jaw before he brings his arms up and twists from beneath the
windmill of Gabe’s arms. The brothers scramble away from each other to recover.
    Gabe’s whole body vibrates with
anger. His aura is polluted with electrified hues of yellow and red —anger,
frustration, ferociousness. It’s more than a little terrifying. Gabe doesn’t
get angry. Gabe doesn’t lose his cool. Gabe’s energy is always waves of
beautiful blue.
    Tarren stays crouched on the
ground. His eyes run over his brother’s face. The tides of his energy smooth
out, the colors flattening as he recalibrates. He gives a tight little nod,
accepting that their practice has turned into the real thing.
    The adult class is over. The
fighters break up and meander off the mats. Gabe waits. Tarren stands up and
relaxes into his fighting stance. As soon as the adults are off the mat, Gabe
moves in, and suddenly my brothers are fighting. Really fighting.
    No one leaves.
    Gabe’s energy is bright, erratic,
and violent, like when he’s playing a really hard level in a video game.
Tarren’s energy is low; fluid and controlled.
    The fight is not beautiful and
continuous like some choreographed movie caper. They start and stop and grunt,
grapple then disengage. They end up on the mat a lot, twisting around each
other in little knots; pulling limbs, wrapping legs, breaking holds, rolling
away, and jumping back up. Within the choppy rhythm of the fight, there are
bursts of synergy where they move in harmony with and against each other so
that it looks like a dangerous, violent dance. And sometimes it looks clumsy
and dirty, but even this, I know, is highly skilled.
    I watch and absorb and lean back
against my hands because their auras, the collective