Hank stumbled backward from the yank, dropping his toolbox. Sockets and wrenches clattered loudly across the concrete. Hank caught his balance. He stood perfectly still for a long time, looking down at his scattered tools. Then, he let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of decades.
He slowly turned to face Brad. The flat, dead look in his eyes was gone. In its place was something terrifyingly focused. It was a look that made Sam, standing twenty feet away, subconsciously take a step backward.
"You want a lesson?" Hank asked quietly. The acoustics of the silent room carried his voice perfectly. "Fine. But we do it in the ring. Not on the concrete. I just cleaned this floor."
A collective murmur ripped through the gym. Men started whispering frantically to each other. Is the old man crazy? Brad is going to literally kill him.
Brad’s aggressive sneer faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by genuine confusion. He had expected the old man to cower, to apologize, to maybe even quit on the spot. He hadn't expected him to accept the challenge. But Brad's ego quickly paved over his confusion. He grinned, a nasty, feral showing of teeth.
"The ring it is," Brad said. "Someone call an ambulance in advance. I want him out of here before he bleeds on the canvas."
Hank ignored him. He calmly walked over to a nearby wooden bench. He sat down and began untying his heavy, steel-toed work boots. He pulled them off, setting them neatly side-by-side. He peeled off his thick, gray wool socks, revealing gnarled, heavily calloused feet. He stood up, rolled his shoulders once, and walked toward the rusted boxing ring in the corner. His pronounced limp seemed suddenly less like a handicap and more like a calculated, energy-saving stride.
Brad vaulted over the top rope of the ring, bouncing aggressively on the canvas, shadowboxing, throwing blistering combinations into the air to intimidate his opponent. He was putting on a show.
Hank ducked awkwardly between the middle and bottom ropes, stepping onto the canvas. He didn't bounce. He didn't raise his hands. He just stood directly in the center of the ring, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his posture slightly slouched. He looked entirely vulnerable.
The crowd of fighters swarmed around the ring, pressing against the apron. Sam stood near the ring post, his heart pounding in his chest. He debated stepping in, calling the police, doing something to stop this impending murder. But he was paralyzed by the bizarre, electric tension in the air.
"No gloves. No wraps," Brad declared, tossing his wrist tape out of the ring. "You wanted this, old man. You get the raw deal."
"No gloves," Hank agreed quietly. "Whenever you're ready."
Brad didn't wait for a referee to start the match. He didn't touch gloves. He simply exploded forward.
He launched himself across the canvas with terrifying speed, closing the distance in a millisecond. He threw a devastating one-two combination: a stiff left jab meant to blind, followed by a crushing right cross aimed directly at Hank's jaw. It was a combination that had knocked out three men in the professional cage.
But Hank wasn't there.
Hank didn't block. He didn't retreat. With a movement so slight, so economical that most of the crowd didn't even process it, Hank merely shifted his head two inches to the left.
Brad's left jab grazed the air next to Hank's ear. Brad's right cross sailed over Hank’s shoulder, carrying the heavy fighter's momentum violently forward.
Before Brad could pull his punch back, Hank moved.
He didn't throw a counter punch. He didn't throw a kick. He simply stepped inside Brad's guard, placing his lead foot directly behind Brad’s heel. At the exact same moment, Hank raised his right hand. He didn't close his fist. Instead, he extended his index and middle fingers, pressing them with terrifying, pinpoint accuracy into a specific cluster of nerves located deep in the brachial plexus, just under Brad’s injured right armpit.