Haiku (3 page)

My mother, a lowly prostitute, had surrendered her own life to save that of her child. And the temple had traded that child’s life to prolong its own.

Who was more holy?

As that understanding filled my spirit, I knew I had said my last prayer to false gods.

The temple was nothing more than a factory, a training ground for those whose life would be spent in service to whoever purchased the product. Because I had not yet learned
this truth, I never disclosed to the Army that the prior decade of my life had been a total immersion in the martial arts. By concealing this, I believed I was honoring my mother’s sacrifice. I believed I was showing her spirit how deeply I valued her only legacy: humility.

To the authorities, my age was no impediment. There was no need for me to lie. I was
told
that I was seventeen, an orphaned child who had to make his own meager way in the world.

In the military, my physical skills were almost cosmically superior to those of my compatriots, but my worldly wisdom was inferior to an equal degree. Even boys my own age who found themselves in the military were highly knowledgeable about a world I did not know even existed. The world of my mother.

Silence served me well. I wished only to appear obedient, but quickly learned that a blank expression and no apparent desire to speak gave me a certain status. A low status, to be sure, but one that enabled me to learn much more than had I asked questions. Because I was considered dull and stupid, others spoke in front of me as disrespectful teenagers might make rude gestures to a blind man.

I was not dissatisfied with this treatment. The temple had trained me to equate submissiveness with humbleness. But, one foul night, an older man, who was my superior in every way but one, ordered me to accompany him. I acted as if I did not notice the knowing looks exchanged between some of the others as he led me away.

Those looks changed when I returned. I had been gone only a very short time. And I had come back alone.

I slept undisturbed.

In the morning, the others walked around the sergeant’s body lying on the field, avoiding contact as if it were a dead rat.

This was before our training was completed. Later, we were all transported into the combat arena.

War alters one’s perspective forever. Near the end, no soldier would walk past a dead rat lying on the ground. What once had been regarded as a symbol of odious filth was now a cherished source of desperately needed nutrition.

I merely accepted this, never realizing that I had been granted a foreshadowing of my own future.

When the war ended—or, if you prefer, when my country’s defeat was finalized—I returned to the temple. To this day, my true motive is unknown to me. I was not returning “home.” I had nothing in my heart. Perhaps I had wished to show my teachers what I had learned. I knew only that I must return, and I trusted that knowledge.

But the temple was gone. Not merely damaged—vanished. Vaporized, as if it had never existed.

I made my way back to what was left of the city of my birth. Perhaps I was sleepwalking, dreaming I could somehow find my mother. I was soon cured of that delusion.

Avoiding the occupiers was virtually impossible. Those who found ways to make themselves useful to the conquering forces were tolerated. Some even flourished. But only the darkness of the alleys welcomed those such as me.

It was not long before my skills became known to those who wished to put them to use. The war had taught me much, but the temple had taught me more. So I knew better than to refuse. Instead, I merely vanished. The gods may not have blessed a man who has nothing, but they do allow him to disappear at will.

After many false starts, I began to teach. My youth, which would have counted heavily against me with Japanese students, actually proved to be an advantage with the American servicemen I trained. They assumed I was too young to have been a soldier. The tale of my being a child prodigy of the arts, raised in a remote temple that had been destroyed during the last bombing—that was a much more acceptable legend to those who created it. And spread it, widely.

As I taught, so I learned. Two decades passed. Twenty years during which I had no desire other than to perfect my art, and pass this knowledge to my students.

I could not search for the remnants of a temple that had never existed, so I created one of my own. Those who called themselves priests had trained me as one would a Tosa—a large dog to be placed in a raised cage, where it would fight to the death for the entertainment of the high-borns.

I would not call myself by their name, but I did seek purity in all things. I lived very simply. I never tasted sake, I never ate animal flesh, and I never knew a woman as a man would.

I became a monk without a begging bowl. A monk without gods. A monk with ice encasing my heart.

I served only my art.

The Southeast Asian wars of the late 1960s brought a large influx of American soldiers to Japan. By then, I had acquired a perhaps exaggerated reputation. I had also developed a working command of English, albeit a somewhat pedantic one.

Immediately following the nuclear-ending war, many opportunities to learn the language of the conqueror had emerged. The privileged classes, the merchants, even the criminal organizations all saw the value of being able to converse in the foreign tongue.

I had educated myself through dictionaries and encyclopedias, studying any “high literature” originally written in English by using its Japanese translation as my Rosetta stone.

The Japanese people of that era reveled in accounts of American racism. Much of our news media highlighted the struggle of those who had been denied full citizenship merely because of the color of their skin. Images of American government brutality were commonplace. The deaths of those who had stood against their oppressors were duly—even smugly—reported, as if Japan were a society in which all were equal.

Hypocrisy became our national pastime, feeding our voracious appetite for evidence of cultural superiority. We
were well aware that our country had no need of racism; we allowed only a single race to be “Japanese.” Instead of skin color, we separated our citizens by an equally immutable factor—the status of their birth. There will never be an election called to determine the next Emperor of Japan.

So, although my classes were open to all, none were interracial. Eventually, it became universally believed that I taught Japanese students special techniques which I would not share with foreigners. This would seem quite logical to those who spread the myth, since it was accepted that Japanese servility toward our conquerors was a mask. A mask that would be removed in the fullness of time.

In Japan, respect is granted both by and within one’s social class. Over the years, I had trained many Yakuza. One day, a man who had been with my school for quite some time requested a private audience. I sat patiently through his lengthy recital of the noble roots of Yakuza, their adherence to a centuries-old code of honor, and how they had successfully resisted all attempts by the high-born to extinguish them.

His recital perfectly paralleled the lies of the temple. In Yakuza legend, great men with deep humanitarian commitment would rescue abandoned children from lives of despair and bring them together to form families whose allegiance to one another was as powerful as the call of blood. Just as the monks we called “master” would address us as “son,” the leader of a Yakuza clan is
“oyabun.”
This means a father who has chosen his own sons, just as the high priests had chosen us.

In either case, those chosen must consider themselves to have been honored by the choice.

Perhaps this once was truth. A child without a family is an open vessel, eager to accept whatever is offered to fill its emptiness. There have always been such children. Perhaps, long ago, there truly were those who took them as their own, and trained them in their ways. Tradition is created only when practices outlive their practitioners.

But, although I was still a young man, by the time the Yakuza legend was recited to me I was aged in my understandings. I knew the lost children were still sought out, brought into families, and sworn to allegiance. But their “fathers” were no more worthy of the name than were the “priests” who had raised me.

Thus, I waited for what I knew was the actual purpose of his visit. And, as expected, the Yakuza finally conveyed the most humble request of his
oyabun
that I become the exclusive teacher of his family.

Not a word was said about
me joining
the Yakuza clan. It was clearly communicated that I would not be expected to mark my body, or to accept the “tasks” I was to train others to perform.

I was told only that the clan would be honored by my presence. No threat was uttered. But the cost of refusal was as clear as it was unspoken.

For years, several of my American students had been offering to finance the establishment of a school in their country. An investment, they termed it. I had always graciously refused. The evening following the Yakuza’s visit, I contacted those students … and gratefully accepted their offer.

Another two decades passed. I continued to study, to learn, and to teach.

I did not name the style I eventually created. This I considered the ultimate act of humility. My students were expected to follow that same path. Those who insisted on a “name” for the style I had synthesized from a hundred others were quickly culled, as were those who demanded any indicia of “rank.” I required all those who sought promotion within the system I had created to submit to testing of my own design, with myself as the sole judge.

I was far from the temple, both spiritually and physically. I rejected the Yakuza as I had the priests. From the moment my childhood died, I had ceased to regard submission as humility.

But, looking only in my own mirror, I could not see the rot that lived within me. This rot was not natural decay, it was a malignant visitor. Worse, it was an invited guest.

A living thing must feed or die.

The demon knew that to reveal itself would mean its death, so it acquired the perfect disguise. Unlike a demon of destruction, such as the one that dwelt within Michael, mine thrived as its host prospered.

Too late, I learned to call my demon by its rightful name: humble arrogance.

As master not only of my dojo but of the style I had created, I regarded myself as deeply centered, fully anchored in my
new home. But beneath my feet, the tectonic plates of American culture were shifting. My art, once known by very few, became the staple fare of movies and comic books.

Young men would come to my dojo demanding to learn “techniques” that had never existed. Each time I explained that I could not teach a man to fly, or to project his internal force so powerfully that he could injure another without contact, the applicant would nod sagely and depart.

After all, they would console themselves, a true ninja, descended from a long line of samurai, could not be expected to pass along the secrets of the dark arts to outsiders.

This brand of worshipful racism spread like flame in straw. The more I humbly disclaimed, the more was credited to me.

“Worshipful racism” has an oxymoronic ring only to those who have not subjected themselves to the harshest self-scrutiny. One need not look deeply to note that the same Americans who still worship Adolf Hitler are the strongest promoters of the myth that Jews are genetically superior in intelligence.

So it came to be for those of my race. In America, anything “Oriental” was automatically infused with an aura of “powers.” Herbalists once marginalized to ghetto existence became the object of chauffeur-driven pilgrimages. True celebrity status required a personal acupuncturist. “Spiritual guides” were a mushrooming fungus.

The “ancient ways” now symbolized some idol to be worshiped. “Asian” and “authentic” became synonyms, as if my race was incapable of producing charlatans.

Young people who could not spell “Confucius” quoted
him copiously. They marked their bodies with ideograms they were told symbolized “Truth” or “Honor.” It mattered only that the tattoo artist be a “real” Asian. Even though they could not distinguish a Cambodian from a Korean, the worshipful racists knew that skin color does not lie.

Marijuana-induced mumbling became “Zen.”

“Karate” became a unity of mind, body, and soul.

Who could deny such fundamental truths, especially considering their “ancient” source?

As our race—the human race—evolved, the love of blood sport has remained constant. What has changed is that such entertainment is no longer restricted to the privileged. Nor is there a need to compel the combatants to participate; today, those who excel are handsomely rewarded.

Because it retains its fundamental root—entertainment—blood sport must be packaged to be successfully marketed. Death is no longer a required outcome. Indeed, great efforts must be expended to
prevent
death if financial success is to be achieved. So such contests now have rules, protective equipment … even rest periods.

During the years just before I left my former life, I was often asked to train those who intended to participate in such contests. And each time I attempted to explain that warfare with rules was an antithetical concept, I would be referred to some movie, as if such “proof” would banish all doubt.

Because these children believed in “ninja” as their ancestors had in Jesus, they became easy prey for those who were
marginal in skill but masterful at self-promotion. Hucksters preached “Bushido” while selling black belts to six-month acolytes. Movie stars claimed to have fought in underground “death matches” on remote islands. “Grandmasters” told tales of secret missions for shadowy government agencies.

To the unknowing, their own lack of knowledge proves there
are
secrets. After many repetitions, the burden shifts on its axis. An inability to
disprove
even the most nonsensical claim proves its truth.