The pain was a distraction. A useful one.

I thought about the video.

Someone had been recording. I’d seen David with his phone. The accountant. The one Khloe had humiliated at the start of class. He’d had his phone out the whole time.

Track Sleep

 

The video was probably already online.

I didn’t have a smartphone. I didn’t have social media. I’d never seen the point. But I knew how the internet worked. I’d seen it consume people before. It would chew through this story like a dog with a bone.

Janitor punches black  belt. Working-class hero humiliates arrogant instructor. The headlines would write themselves.

I should have felt something. Anger. Fear. Relief.

Instead, I just felt tired.

I finished my peas. I checked on Lily one more time. Then I lay down on the couch and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.

Book Cleaners

 

—

The next morning, I dropped Lily off at school and drove to Miller’s Auto Salvage.

The yard was a sprawling graveyard of twisted metal and broken dreams. Rusted cars stacked three high. Engine blocks scattered like tombstones. The air smelled of oil and rust and the faint sweetness of antifreeze.

I’d worked here for five years. It was honest work. Loud work. The kind of work that left your hands calloused and your back aching and your mind empty in the best possible way.

I clocked in and headed to my station. A 2012 Honda Civic was waiting for me, its catalytic converter rusted solid.

Browse Reference

 

I lay down on the creeper and slid under the chassis. The cold concrete seeped through my coveralls. A drip of icy water landed on my forehead.

I picked up my wrench and got to work.

For a few hours, I managed to forget about Khloe Baxter and viral videos and the $350 hole in my monthly budget.

Then Hank Miller kicked the wheels of my creeper.

Arty. Roll out here.

I sighed and pushed myself out from under the car.

Hank was standing over me, built like a brick wall that had been left out in the rain. He was holding an iPad, the screen smudged with grease.

Study Anatomy

 

Why is my best transmission guy on the front page of the internet? he asked.

My stomach dropped.

I stood up, wiping my hands on a rag. He turned the iPad toward me.

The screen showed a video thumbnail. Blurry. Pixelated. But unmistakable. My faded flannel shirt. Khloe’s crisp white GI.

The headline read: “Fake Black Belt Meets Real Life: Janitor Delivers Devastating One-Punch Karma.”

Below it, the view count: 1.4 million.

I felt something cold settle in my chest.

Stream Fights

 

I don’t have a smartphone, I said. I don’t do social media.

Well, you’re doing it now, Hank said dryly. This thing’s been up for twelve hours. It’s everywhere. Fight blogs. News sites. Some guy on YouTube did a twenty-minute breakdown of your footwork.

I stared at the screen. Someone had slowed the video down, frame by frame. They’d drawn lines on my stance, arrows showing the rotation of my hips. The comments were a wall of fire emojis and demands for more.

Elite kinetic linking, Hank read from the screen. That’s what they’re calling it. Apparently you’ve got textbook form.

I handed the iPad back.

Pick Accessories

 

It was a lucky punch, I said.

Hank raised an eyebrow. Was it?

I didn’t answer.

He studied me for a long moment. Hank had hired me five years ago, right after I got out. He’d seen my discharge papers. He’d seen the way I flinched at loud noises and the way I never talked about where I’d been.

He’d never asked questions. That was one of the reasons I stayed.

You want my advice? he said finally.

Not really.

Browse Reference

 

Too bad. Take the day off. Go home. Figure out what you’re going to do before this thing gets any bigger.

I’ve got work to do.

The work will still be here tomorrow. This won’t.

I looked at the iPad again. At the frozen image of my fist connecting with Khloe’s chest.

He was right.

I clocked out and drove home.

—

The next three days were a blur.

Study Anatomy

 

I didn’t have a phone, but the world found me anyway. Hank started getting calls at the yard. Reporters. Podcasters. Someone from a local news station who wanted to do a human-interest piece.

I told Hank to tell them all the same thing: No comment.

But the story kept growing.

By day two, Khloe’s sponsors had released a statement. They were “deeply concerned” about the incident. They were “reviewing their relationship” with her.

By day three, that relationship was over.

I found out about it from Hank, who found out about it from the internet. Khloe had lost her supplement deal. Her gym had suspended her. Her social media accounts were being flooded with hate.

Stream Fights

 

The comments were brutal. People were calling her a bully. A fraud. A fake black  belt who’d finally met someone who wouldn’t take her crap.

I should have felt satisfied. Vindicated.

Instead, I felt sick.

I knew what it was like to be torn apart by strangers. I’d come home from overseas to a country that didn’t understand what it had sent me to do. I’d been called things I won’t repeat. I’d been spit on. I’d been told I deserved what happened to me.

The internet was just a bigger, faster version of the same cruelty.

Khloe had been wrong. She’d been cruel and arrogant and entirely deserving of consequences. But watching her get destroyed by a million people who’d never met her, who didn’t know anything about her beyond a thirty-second video…

Pick Accessories

 

It didn’t feel like justice.

It felt like a feeding frenzy.

—

On the fourth day, Mr. Henderson showed up at the salvage yard.