Bullies Targets The Wrong A Waitress — Unaware She's A Karate Black Belt Working Part-Time
Chapter 9
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"I think about it sometimes," Joe admitted to Harold now. "Not because I did anything against the rules. Because I know why I did it. I wanted her to feel what losing felt like on the inside, not just on the scoreboard.""And now?" Harold asked."Now I just try to remember what winning is actually supposed to feel like," Joe said. "Not like beating someone.""Like protecting something," Harold nodded slowly. "That's the difference between a fighter and a warrior," he said. "A fighter wants to win. A warrior wants to protect. You're closer to the second one than you think."Joe turned that thought over the whole walk back, letting it settle somewhere she could return to later when she needed it most. She left the dojo that night a little steadier than she'd arrived, though the unease never fully left her.Most people in town had no idea Joe trained the way she did. Even fewer knew what she did every single Sunday morning before the diner even opened.That Sunday came four days later. Joe left the house at 7:00, a duffel bag over her shoulder, and walked to the community center on the edge of town. Inside, folding chairs had been pushed to the walls and a wide-open space cleared in the middle of the room. Seven people were already waiting for her, all of them over sixty:A woman named Ruth, small and sharp-eyed, who had been mugged outside a grocery store two years earlier and never quite gotten over the fear of it.A retired mail carrier named Gene, heavyset, slow-moving, who wanted to be able to protect himself if his knees ever failed him at the wrong moment.An older married couple, the Hendersons, who came together every week, more for the company than anything else, though they took the training seriously all the same.There was also a quiet man named Stanley Pruitt, seventy years old, who never said much but never missed a Sunday either. He used to work with computers and cameras back before he retired, and he tended to notice small technical things nobody else in the room ever thought twice about. He liked to sit near the back before class started, tightening the strap on his watch, watching the door.Beside him, most weeks, sat a soft-spoken widow named Carol, newer to the group than the others, still a little shy about raising her hands to block anything, though she showed up faithfully all the same.And Walt Higgins. Joe hadn't expected to see him there, not that first time weeks ago, and she still felt a small flicker of surprise seeing him now, stretching his shoulders by the window."Didn't take you for the type to sign up for this," she'd told him once."An old cop doesn't stop wanting to protect people just because he retired," Walt had said. "Figured I could still learn a thing or two."That Sunday, Joe walked to the center of the room and set her bag down. "All right, everyone," she said. "Let's warm up."