Chapter 9

The next morning, Michael and I arrived early. Michael and Sifu Chen talked while I cleaned off the tables we had used the day before. As people started arriving, I talked with as many as I could but when Marci got there, just the two of us talked. She shared that she was really anxious about going to school so far away. She was ready for the adventure and couldn’t wait to see Paris, but was concerned about the unknown. I didn’t blame her. Going to Atlanta, less than five hours away, and making that move together with Kim was anxiety-inducing enough.

I reminded her that she was super smart, knew how to stick to things, with wing chun being an obvious example, and that she could always book a flight and come home. I tried to be encouraging but she was having serious second thoughts about the decision. I don’t know why I was surprised. I guess it’s because I thought of Marci as being extremely confident.

“Good morning, everyone. If you would please, come forward into a circle, and we will begin,” Sifu Chen said and we all moved closer.

“We’re going to work on knife defense today. You’ll use some of the same principles that you learned yesterday. Jack, why don’t you help me with this.” Michael motioned me forward and handed me an Escrima stick. “Hold this out at waist level, please.” I did so and he stretched a ribbon out at eye level, then dropped it. It fluttered down and came to rest on the stick.

“I think you’ll agree that was truly unremarkable,” he said and we all laughed. “Let’s try it again.” He took the stick and tossed it aside, then drew a knife from a sheath and handed it to me. “It’s sharp. If you would, please, hold it, blade up, just like you held the stick.”

I did that. He held the ribbon stretched out at eye level, once again, then let go. It fluttered down toward the knife, made contact, and fell to the floor in two pieces. Once again, the weight of the ribbon applied enough pressure to cut it. I still wouldn’t have believed anything could be that sharp if I hadn’t seen it myself.

“Interesting, but hardly a practical example. This,” he said, holding up a brown piece of leather, “is cowhide. It’s the same material used to make baseball gloves or shoes.” He held it with one hand and slowly sliced through it with the knife. The cut was straight and clean. “It’s thicker than your skin.”

“I’ve taken up the hobby of making knives. This is a traditional Japanese tanto blade knife, similar to the kind Samurai would have carried. The odds of you being attacked by someone carrying a knife this sharp is almost infinitesimal. However, this is something anyone can buy,” he said holding up a folding knife. “It’s going to take a bit more work.” He cut through the leather, but the cut took more effort and the slice wasn’t nearly as clean.

“As we practice with rubber knives today, it’s important that you don’t lose sight of what we are really doing. Against a skillful practitioner, with a sharp blade, your best chance of survival is to shoot him. If you don’t have a gun, run. The results of knife fights are nearly always gruesome and frequently fatal, or at the very least, require a lot of stitches.”

He had our attention. He reiterated that the concept of knife defense was to divert, control, and disarm, just as it was for a stick. Unlike the stick, the knife didn’t need to be moving quickly to do damage and it could slice you both on the way in or out. He showed us a half dozen grips and stances. Each grip or stance our adversary favored told us about his style or skill level. If he held the knife close to his body with his empty hand forward, we should expect him to be more highly skilled. If he held the knife in front of him, there was a better chance that he had less, if any training. There were no guarantees.

We got a quick and dirty lesson on anatomy. We learned which arteries and which organs were most vulnerable, and therefore most important to protect. There was a lot to protect.

We practiced attacks. We worked on four different methods of attack. The first was the easiest to perform and the easiest to defend against. We finished by learning how to lead with our weak, empty hand, engaging and turning our opponent to open a line of entry for the knife. That worked a little too well and was easily the scariest thing I’d done in the martial arts. The tone of the class had dramatically changed from Friday’s fun with sticks. It was quiet and focused.

By noon, I was mentally exhausted. I considered sitting with someone I didn’t know but thought better of it. Marci would be leaving for France in two days. I thought she might need to talk with a friend. She probably had a lot of friends in the class but none who had spent as much time with her as I had. You learn a lot about someone when you share lunch with them for an entire school year. She was still a mystery, but at least I thought I had some clues.

“What’s your biggest concern, Marci?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know enough to know. My French is pretty good, and a lot of Parisians speak English, so that helps. I have a sponsoring family that is supposed to help me adjust and get settled in. I didn’t find out about that until a week ago. I have contact information, but there wasn’t enough time to write to them.”

“Call them.” She looked at me as if I’d just suggested she put ketchup on steak. “What’s the time difference? It must be about five or six hours, right? When we finish today it will be too late but you can still call them tomorrow.”

“How much does it cost to call France?” she asked.

“What difference does it make, Marci? Less than the flight over. Your family has money. If it’s that big of a deal, come to my house and call from there. What if it’s two bucks a minute? So what?”

“I just thought it would be too expensive but you’re right.”

“Absolutely. Find out before you go. Maybe they’re super nice people and they’ll meet you at the airport or maybe they’re jerks but it wouldn’t cost that much to find out. And besides, if you call them, they’ll know you care and that’s got to be worth something.”

She smiled. “You’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“How much was your ticket?”

“Six-fifty, why?”

“I have that much saved up. Want me to see if there’s room? I’ll go with you.” I have no idea where that came from. Concern for Marci, I guess.

“You’d do that?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it until just now, Marci, but yeah, I guess I would.”

“Wow, Jack. I don’t know what to say.” We ate quietly for a minute. “No, I need to do this by myself. That’s really sweet though. I’d kiss you if I didn’t think Kim would kill me, ha-ha.”

“Marci, you’re practically a ninja. Kim couldn’t kill you.”

“Ha-ha. There’s no ninja defense for the look she’d give me. I’d die of unknown causes but you’d know.” It was quiet for a moment. “Jack, you don’t speak French.”

“No.”

“Ha-ha-ha.”

“I’d figure out some way to help.”

“And people think I’m a weirdo. I know you would, and that’s the crazy thing. I’ll be fine, as long as someone doesn’t attack me with a knife.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to become knife proof but it was tough going. We had all brought white T-shirts and we put them on when we had about an hour left. We each had a chance to defend ourselves from each other. One at a time, we’d take our place at the front. Sifu Chen would pick a random attacker and we’d try to survive. The training knives had blue chalk on the edges and if the attack was successful, it would leave a blue line where we’d been ‘cut’. It wasn’t pretty. All but a couple of us had at least one blue line on our shirt.

“My turn,” Michael said. We repeated the process but this time, he was the attacker and his knife had red chalk on it. Blood red.

One by one, we were marked with blood red lines of failure. I watched as Michael destroyed person after person with his rubber knife of death. There was no way to succeed. None. There were only two of us left when Sifu Chen called my name. We squared off and it dawned on me that we hadn’t tried the one thing Sifu Chen had tried to teach us all along. Take away the opponent’s reason for fighting.

“Ready?” Sifu Chen asked and I nodded. “Begin.”

“You can have my wallet,” I said. Michael slowed. “There’s a lot of cash in it. It’s yours,” I said with my hands up.

“How much?”

“I’m not sure. At least a couple of hundred. Maybe more.”

“Toss it over. No funny stuff.”

I reached toward my hip as though I was going to grab my wallet but I was wearing Chinese pajamas and I didn’t have a wallet. What now? I held my hands in front of me and said, “My wallet seems to be in my other pajamas.”

Michael laughed and then turned to face everyone. “That’s about as good a defense as you’re going to get. Against each other, some of you would have survived. Against a skilled, trained assailant, you don’t have much of a chance. The best weapon you have is your mind. The best defense you have is distance.” Michael handed the training knife to Sifu Chen.

Sifu Chen said, “Every opponent must have three things; opportunity, ability, and intent. If you can take away any of those, he cannot fight you. If you can give him what he wants without being hurt, it’s a victory. Jack, tell them about your encounter with Peanut and his assailant.”

I was uncomfortable about it but I did. I gave them the short version. Then Sifu Chen and Michael both commented about it and how there was more than one way disarm an opponent. They were about to wrap up the class, but I hadn’t had a chance to defend myself against Michael’s attack.

“I’d like to give it a try,” I said, pointing at the training knife.

“You’re going to get killed,” someone said and everyone laughed.

“Probably.”

“Ready, begin,” Sifu Chen said and two seconds later it was over.

I looked at my formerly white T-shirt. It looked like I had been stabbed in the kidney and then gutted. There was only one line but it was long and continuous, connecting all the parts I was supposed to protect with red.

“Well, I’m going to have to do laundry,” I said, not really believing how devastating his lightning-fast attack had been.

“The Filipinos understand violence at an entirely different level. You, Aquaman, can sleep with the fishes.” Everyone laughed while I assessed the damage. My kidneys were toast. I was pretty sure he had cut out my heart and spleen.

“I need an ambulance.”

“You need a hearse.”

“My turn,” Sifu Chen said. He hadn’t had an opportunity to defend himself against Michael.

They squared off and Franklin said, “One, two, three, go.”

“You can have all the money in Jack’s other pajamas,” Sifu Chen said but they were serious and no one laughed.

Michael circled, trying to move him toward a wall but Sifu Chen wasn’t having any of it. Michael changed how he held the knife and Sifu Chen adjusted and they did it again. Michael was finally able to close the distance enough to strike. Sifu Chen trapped his knife hand and was about to disarm him when there was a flash of movement and it was over. Michael had moved the knife from his trapped hand, then sliced him up with his left.

They parted and we looked at the bloody mess Sifu Chen would have been. “Hearse,” I said, but no one laughed.

“Scary, huh?” Michael asked. “Best defense I’ve seen outside Mr. Inosanto’s school. Hearse is right though. It’s highly unlikely that you would encounter someone with the skill to send Sifu Chen to the morgue, but the odds are never zero. If we passed each other on the street, would you suspect that I could? Gentlemen, Marci, it’s scary business. At best, you’re a little better prepared, but in the words of Han Solo,” and we all finished, “Don’t get cocky, kid.”

“I’ll stick around and answer questions but that’s the end of the clinic. I appreciate the attentiveness and the effort put in. Sifu Chen, you have students to be proud of and that reflects well on you. Nice job, everyone.” We all gave a round of applause and that was it.

“Sleep with the fishes, Aquaman,” Marci said, shaking her head, sadly.

“I’m not going to see you for a while, huh, Marci?”

“Probably not. I may come home for Christmas. I don’t remember what the schedule is, but I’ll swing by Porter-Gaud if I get back when school is still in session.”

“If not, call Kim or me. I want to hear all about it,” I said and she gave me a big hug.

“That was nice, Marci.”

“Thanks. I have...” she hesitated.

“Fascinating tits, Marci. You have very fascinating tits.” She laughed, smiled, and was gone. We both remembered our conversation from the start of the semester.

I helped restore the school to its pre-class condition while Michael answered questions. I talked with Franklin for a couple of minutes. Despite being in the same two-day class, we hadn’t talked much. He asked about my plans for the following weekend and I reminded him that I had a triathlon.

When Michael and I left, mine was the only car left in the small parking lot. He tossed his bag in the trunk and slid in. “Top down, please. I need to suck in some of this wonderful humid air.”

“Good thing, because that’s what we’ve got.” I unlatched the canvas top and dropped it, securing it behind us. We rolled our windows down for the short drive home.

“I’m beat. Good group. You know Marci from outside the school.”

“She and Kim are both cheerleaders so I had lunch with her almost every day for the last year. She’s leaving for Paris on Monday. College. Sorbonne.”

“Interesting. Franklin is your brother. Did you know anyone else before the clinic?”

“Not really. I got to meet most of them in the last couple of days, though. They’re all older than me.”

“Story of your life, right?”

“Pretty much. Are you two going to stay another day?”

“Fallon wants to, and I haven’t seen much of the city, but you probably have other plans.”

“I had planned on doing my own mini-triathlon but that would only take a couple of hours in the morning. I can do it on Tuesday, though.”

“How far?”

“I thought I’d swim a mile, bike thirty or so, then run eight to ten, something like that.”

“Done by noon. Any chance you have another bike?”

When we got back to the house, I called Coach Miller, then Marty, then Coach Miller again. We had a plan. As soon as I set the phone down for the third time, it rang.

“Pierce and others residence, Pierce.”

“You’re going to need to figure out a better way to answer the phone.”

“If you’re selling something, ma’am, we’re not buying.”

“It’s your mother, you bonehead. I’ve been trying to call. We’re all at SNOB, holding two seats for you. How soon can you get here?”

“Are you hungry? How long would it take you to get ready?” I asked Michael as he stepped into the library. “Slightly upscale.”

“If we’ve got the time, I’d like to take a quick shower. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops.”

“We can be there in thirty minutes or less, depending on parking.”

“Cumberland Street Garage had plenty of parking. Want us to order for you?” I relayed that to Michael.

“You know what I like and Michael says Fallon can order for him. See you shortly.”

SNOB was short the name of one of my favorite restaurants, Slightly North of Broad. Thirty minutes later, we arrived just in time to enjoy some fried green tomatoes. The appetizers and most of the entrees were new for Michael and Fallon so we ended up sharing a lot. Fallon summed up their dining experience when she said, “I couldn’t live here. I’d get fat. Everything is just so good.” Of course, there wasn’t much chance that tiny Fallon could ever get fat.

Fallon and Kim shared about their day and some of the sights they’d seen. They went to the Charleston Tea Garden, which is probably the largest tea plantation in America, and took the tour. Then, they drove over to Angel Oak, which is an enormous live oak tree. Fallon told us it was five hundred years old and it covered about a half-acre. We knew that.

After that, they took a Gullah history tour. Catfish Row provided some inspiration for Porgy and Bess. Denmark Vesey was a free black man in Charleston who planned a huge slave revolt. They saw his statue and the house where he might have lived. I’d never been on the tour but after hearing Fallon tell us about our own city, I decided it might be a good idea. Mom had contacted a friend who had access to the Gaillard Auditorium and Fallon wanted to see that.

I shared Michael and my plan for the morning, and that I thought we would be done by noon, or one, at the latest. Everyone else had pecan pie for dessert. I had Death by Chocolate, which was only a slight exaggeration.

Back at the house, we talked about our plans for the following day. Dane had office hours the next day and Michael and I wanted to make an early start of it. I walked Kim out to her truck and we talked for a while.

“I like Fallon,” Kim said. “She seems like, well, at least a little like Sally.”

“I can see that. Michael and I get along like we’ve known each other for years. He’s older but he doesn’t treat me like a kid.”

“Maybe he had the same challenges. You know, seeming older than he was.”

“I think maybe that’s it. He said I should take advantage of it. Maybe that’s what he did. Tomorrow should be interesting. Do you know what time their flight is on Monday?” I asked.

“Early, that’s all I know. She’s pretty amazing on piano.”

“Maybe I’ll have a chance to hear on something more than the little electronic keyboard. It’s kind of weird but I know some classical pieces because of Sally. I wonder how often she plays those these days.”

“It’s probably good to practice, even if she isn’t performing them.”

“You know what else is good to practice?” I asked. She did, so we practiced kissing for a while and she went home, with a promise to continue practicing on a more regular basis.

It was still cool at eight the next morning and that was a good thing. Marty, Coach Miller, Michael, and I arranged our gear by the side of the pool at Porter-Gaud. We talked about the difference between a pool swim and an ocean swim. Three of us were very familiar with that difference and Marty would have to learn. We agreed on our plan for the morning. I planned to swim the one-point-two-mile ocean swim in about twenty-two minutes. I thought an eighteen-minute mile pool swim would be a pretty close equivalence in effort. Coach Miller could do that and Michael thought he could come close. Marty would swim as far as he could in that much time and we’d make a quick change for the bike ride. Marty would lead us out to Savannah Highway, and told us where we’d turn. After that, we’d run ten at our own pace, ending back at the pool.

Coach Miller swapped out pedals on his second bike so that Michael could ride it while wearing running shoes. Coach Miller’s second bike was a Basso, and it looked a whole lot faster than my Continental. I thought that if we were the only four people in a triathlon the following weekend, I’d probably come in fourth. Yikes. I guess it was a good thing to have such fast-training partners.

Coach Miller wheeled the giant clock out so we could see it as we swam. Michael suggested we take alternate side breaths every now and then, since we’d want to do that during our race the following weekend. We waited until the second hand reached the top and started our own private triathlon.

I settled into a pace that would allow me to finish in eighteen minutes. Coach Miller was right with me and so was Michael. Marty started falling off the pace pretty quickly. I remembered to almost drag my legs so they’d be fresh for the bike. It didn’t seem to make a huge difference on a swim that long. With a couple of laps to go, Michael had dropped back a bit. He’d catch us in the transition. It wasn’t a race, although it sort of seemed like it.

Coach Miller and I climbed out at the same time, with Michael and Marty right behind. Marty had done twenty laps to our thirty but that was okay. I imagined rinsing sand off my feet, then stepping onto my towel. We were all wearing Lycra shorts and didn’t need to change. I pulled my shirt on, set my helmet on my noggin, then slid my left foot into the shoe already clipped to my bike and waited for Marty. When all four of us were ready, he pushed off and we followed him through the gate.