I stopped on the rusty metal steps leading up to the trailer house. Gramps and I still called it “the trailer house” like we needed to specify which house we meant, even though he’d lost his farm when my dad skipped bail and the bondsman took it forever ago.

Before I went inside, I checked my face in the window of the screen door. Skinned chin, right ear swelling and red, a big ugly splotch of blood on my t-shirt. I hurried up and swapped it out for my gym shirt, stuffing the bloodstained one down in my bag. With Gramps’s eyesight, he probably wouldn’t notice the chin and ear, and the shirt would hide the bruises on my ribs.

As soon as I stepped inside, I heard the familiar sound of snoring and the TV in the living room playing Gunsmoke. It’s weird how easy it is to relax as soon as you walk into your own house. Like, you think you’re relaxed most of the day at school when no one’s paying attention to you, but once you’re back home, surrounded by all the familiar smells and sounds you’re used to, that’s when it really kicks in.

“Hey Gramps, I’m home,” I called, letting the screen door swing shut behind me.

The snoring cut off and recliner in the living room creaked. Gramps let out a growl as he cleared his throat.

“Grady?” he croaked. “How was school?”

“Fine.” Instead of heading straight for the fridge like usual, I went down the hall and shoved my bloody shirt into the washer along with my gym stuff. I peeled off the replacement shirt and threw it in, too, because it actually did stink like pits. “I’m out of gym clothes, so I’m going to wash some stuff. Got anything you want me to throw in?”

The linoleum in the kitchen crackled, and something slammed down on the table. Gramps started cussing under his breath.

I hurried up the hall back into the kitchen. The old man had almost tripped over that piece of flooring that was curling up at the corner. Thank God he’d caught onto the table.

“Piece of crap,” I muttered. I went to the junk drawer and rummaged around until I found a utility knife.

“Don’t worry about it, Grady,” Gramps insisted. “I’ll get it later.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal.” Except it could’ve been a huge deal. I should’ve cut that crap up yesterday when I saw how bad it was getting. Gramps could’ve killed himself while I was at school, which made me feel like a jerk for leaving it. I sliced off the curled-up piece of linoleum and threw it in the trash.

“What do you think I am, decrepit?” He grinned his tootheless old man grin and gave me a weak shove. I managed not to wince at the flare up of pain in my side. “I’d still kick your ass in a foot race any day. So don’t go getting no ideas.”

“You want to settle this right now, old man?” I hooked a thumb at the door. “I’ll race you to the mailboxes and back, then we’ll see what’s what.”

“Ah.” He stopped to hock up something and spit it in the trash. “Your comeuppance can wait ’til after Gunsmoke, I suppose.”

“After supper,” I said. “I need some clean clothes so I look good when I beat you.”

He let out a froggy, phlegmy laugh. “Keep flapping them gums, Grady. See if you don’t get a mouthful of knuckle sandwich.”

Gramps is the only person who calls me Grady. Ever since elementary school, everybody else had been calling me Hake. When they weren’t calling me names, anyway. I’d insisted on it, since my dad’s first name was Grady, too, and I didn’t want people to associate me with some loser wasting away in jail.

After I got the laundry going, I started some freezer burritos in the microwave. They weren’t on the list of approved foods Gramps’s nutritionist had magneted to the fridge, but they were his favorite. Anyway, she only came around once a month, so she wouldn’t know. Then we ate and watched westerns while I did my homework. Between shows, I got Gramps riled up by suggesting that Gene Autry might be a pansy.

Basically, the exact same evening we’d been having since I moved in with him. Sometimes the routine got boring, but that night it was great. Right after getting your butt handed to you by somebody bigger, better looking, and richer than you, having that familiar stuff to fall back on is a relief. Like you should be thankful for it.

Paladine ended at nine-thirty. Just like always, Gramps slammed down the footrest and, with a groan, shoved himself to the front of his recliner. But he must’ve been feeling kind of pensive that night, because he didn’t head straight for bed like usual.

“How the lessons coming?” He squinted my Calculus book. His sight was getting worse all the time. I wondered whether he could see the outlines of stuff or if everything was just a blur to him.

“Almost done,” I said.

“Good deal.”

He clapped his hands a couple times in a rhythm I didn’t recognize. He always did when he was thinking.

After a second, he asked, “Need any help on it?”

“No, I got it.”

“Damn smart punk.” He slapped me on the knee. “I never did have a head for books when I was your age. Your dad, neither. Must’ve got it from your mom, God bless her.”

“I think you’re smart.” Gramps was faster with a comeback than anybody I knew, and he could tell a joke like nobody’s business.

“Nah, I’m just an old stump who never should’ve come outta the hills,” he said. “You’re on the fast train, Grady. Gonna do something with that brain of yours.”

To Gramps, “doing something” translated as “become a doctor or lawyer.” He didn’t say it, but I knew he wanted me to make something respectable out of the family name my dad ruined, so doing something awesome like martial artist was out. I wasn’t sure what I’d go to college for—that was still a couple years off—but whatever it was, I wasn’t going to be majoring in drug dealing with possibility of parole in eight years.

“Well.” Gramps groaned again as he stood up, then gave me a weak noogie, aggravating a spot I hadn’t realized was bruised. I smacked his hand off, but not real hard. That was part of the business. He laughed. “Don’t stay up all night watching them kung fu wushu shows, buddy boy.”

“I won’t.” I ran my hand through my hair, smoothing it back down.

“All right.” He shuffled off down the hall to the back bedroom.

I threw the clothes in the dryer, then hurried back to the living room to finish my Calc homework. As soon as that was done, I turned on Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.

Ong Bak is my favorite movie. Everyone in it gives Tony Jaa crap about being poor hillbilly trash, but he shuts them up by beating everybody and taking back his village’s holy statue. I was watching it for the millionth time because it had a form at the beginning I was trying to learn.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’d always wanted to take a martial arts class, but Gramps and I have never been swimming in dough. I couldn’t ask him to waste some of his fixed income on it when he already fed and housed me on the little he had, and if I had started a class over the summer while I was working, I would’ve just had to quit over the school year when I didn’t have any money coming in.

So, I went through the elephant form with Tony piece by piece, trying not to stomp—sound carries like crazy in a trailer house—and then did it on my own for a while. When I got tired of that, I switched over to YouTube and practiced some muay thai kick-elbow combos.

Why the heck hadn’t I used any of those on Blaise?

That was an easy one. Because I was busy getting my butt kicked. I’d never been in a fight before, and even though I’d known it was coming ever since third period, Blaise had caught me off guard. The instructors on YouTube were always saying that you couldn’t prepare for an ambush, but I’d always sort of figured I would do better in a real fight than I had.

While I watched the rest of the movie, I got the stick bundle from behind the couch and started scrubbing it up and down my shins. The first time I’d done that over the summer, it made my shins bleed. But the skin there was definitely toughening up. Or at least I was killing all the nerve endings. And the bone had gotten a lot knobbier underneath, like it was growing stronger.

I was about to shove the bundle back behind the couch and get ready for bed when I heard it.

Glass breaking out in the kitchen.