Brandon Faulk, a 32-year-old accounts payable specialist and three-stripe white belt at Forge Jiu-Jitsu in Catawba County, spent the better part of his Saturday morning at the Mid-Atlantic Submission Open convinced that a 16-ounce bottle of room-temperature spring water on the volunteer table was a psychological warfare operation directed personally at him.
Faulk, who had already paid $89 to register, $14 to park, and $7 each for a wristband replacement, a chair rental, and a reissued bracket printout after losing the original somewhere between his car and the door, approached the volunteer table at 9:14 a.m. and gestured at a stack of plain white-label bottles labeled COMPLIMENTARY — PLEASE TAKE ONE.
“How much,” he said.
“They’re free,” said Brittney Halverson, 27, a brown belt at Forge’s parent affiliate working the volunteer shift in exchange for a discount on her own competitor entry.
Faulk paused. He looked at the bottle. He looked at Halverson. He looked back at the bottle.
“How much, though,” he said.
“They’re free,” Halverson repeated. “It’s water. We have a sponsor. Take one.”
Faulk did not take one. He stepped to the side, removed his phone from the inner pocket of his gi top, opened the calculator app for no reason, closed it, and got back in line.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just to confirm. The water. The water bottle. That one. How much.”
Halverson, who at this point had been working the volunteer table for 71 minutes and had already explained to seven different competitors that the wristband replacement fee was non-negotiable, attempted to clarify the situation a third time.
“We have free water,” she said. “The hot dogs are seven dollars. The folding chairs are seven dollars. The wristband replacements are seven dollars. The reissued brackets are seven dollars. The water is, for some reason that none of us can explain, completely free. There is a sponsor. The sponsor is a chiropractor. We do not understand why the chiropractor is sponsoring water. We just know that the water is free. The chiropractor’s name is Dr. Brad. He has a card. You can take a card. The card is also free.”
Faulk took one bottle. He did not break eye contact with Halverson. He took a second bottle. He still did not break eye contact with Halverson. He took a step backward. He turned, slowly, and walked away holding two bottles of water as if they were fragile artifacts whose value had not yet been established by experts.
Within four minutes, Faulk had posted a 9:18 a.m. Instagram Story to his 187 followers featuring a slightly out-of-focus photo of one (1) of the two bottles, captioned “they’re giving these out????” followed by eight thinking-face emojis and the geotag “Mid-Atlantic Submission Open.” Three of his teammates from Forge replied. One of them said “wait fr??” Another said “no way bro.” The third said “is it real water.” Faulk did not respond to any of them.
For the next forty minutes, Faulk did not drink the water.
He did, however, return to the volunteer table.
He returned at 9:34 a.m. to ask, in a slightly lowered voice, whether there was a “limit.” Halverson said there was no limit. He returned at 9:47 a.m. to confirm that the bottles on the table were “the same as the ones you put on the medal stand” — they were not, but Halverson said they were because at this point she wanted him to leave. He returned at 10:02 a.m. holding a third bottle, opened, and asked whether he had been observed taking it. Halverson said she had not seen him take it. Faulk thanked her, sealed the cap with the kind of care typically reserved for evidence handling, and walked off.
At 10:11 a.m., Faulk’s name was called for his first match.
His opponent was Donovan Esquibel, 34, a paving contractor and three-stripe white belt out of Riverstone Combat Academy, who had paid $7 earlier that morning to rent a folding chair for his wife, who had taken the chair and gone to find Wi-Fi. Esquibel was, accordingly, holding a $7 chair under his arm when his name was called. He carried the chair to the warm-up area. He set the chair down. He walked onto the mat. He shook hands with Faulk. He hit a single-leg, passed to side control, set up an Americana, and got the tap.
The match took 19 seconds.
Faulk, asked afterward whether the water situation had affected his focus, declined to comment on the water but did volunteer that he felt he “had it” with about ten seconds left.
Esquibel, asked after the match what his strategy had been, said “I just wanted to get back to my chair.”
By 11:30 a.m., Faulk had filed a formal request with tournament administration to confirm that the second-day brackets had been printed, that the printing was free, and that taking a printed copy did not constitute “another seven dollars.” Tournament administration confirmed that the brackets were free. Tournament administration also confirmed that the wristband replacement was, in fact, still seven dollars. Faulk took two copies of the bracket. He requested a third. The administrator gave him a third. He folded all three brackets into the chest pocket of his gi top, looked around the room as if he had recently committed a crime, and walked away.
He did not drink any of the three water bottles.
At 1:42 p.m., about five minutes after Faulk was eliminated from his second-day single-elimination bracket via a 0-0 referee’s decision in which his opponent stalled for the entire eight minutes, Faulk posted a second Instagram Story. The Story featured a photograph of all three sealed water bottles arranged in a row on the dashboard of his Hyundai Elantra. The caption read: “great event. respect to everyone who came out. learning every day.” Below this, in smaller text: “@drbradchiro thank you 🙏.”
Halverson, who by the time of publication had been working the volunteer table for nine and a half hours and had explained the difference between the seven-dollar items and the zero-dollar item 41 separate times, was reached for comment by text message Sunday morning.
“He came back at 4 p.m.,” she said. “He took two more bottles. He didn’t say anything.”
Dr. Brad, the chiropractor, did not respond to requests for comment.
The water remains free.