Living with Jackie Chan (16 page)

“Never mind,” I say. “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” she says firmly. And we drop it.

Larry comes bouncing over to us in his happy puppy-dog way. “Tonight’s the night!” he says. “Purple!”

After we do our stretches, Larry asks each person testing for a belt to perform the required katas. Jacob and some other black belts are there to help judge us and decide if we should pass. When it’s time to spar, I get nervous, as usual. Stella and I bow to each other.

“Remember, don’t think you have to win. Think you don’t have to lose,” Larry says, referring to another precept.

“We nod, then start our pivoting dance, waiting for each other to look the wrong way for a split second so we can get a hit.

“Come on, now, someone make a move!” Larry says as he pivots around us.

I feel a sharp pain on my shin. Stella grins at me. Larry blows his whistle and makes us step back.

“Stop treating her like a girl, Sammy,” he says to me. “Show us your skills.”

We go back and forth, each of us getting OK hits on the other after that. By the time Larry finally lets us stop, we’re both covered in sweat. But it’s over. One by one, Larry calls us each up and presents us with our new belts. After all the belts are handed out, we untie the ones we have on, drape them over our necks, and tie on our new ones. Then Larry gives a little speech about how proud he is of all of us, but especially me and Stella, which is embarrassing, but also nice.

I keep thinking about my old life and how I never, ever would have done something like this there. I would have said it was lame and gone out drinking with Caleb and Dave instead. But here, there’s something about Larry that makes me want to try harder. At everything. “You need to strengthen your hands, Josh,” he’s always saying. It’s part of the saying we do at the beginning of each class. I’m supposed to strengthen my hands so that I can “lift those who have fallen, no matter how low.” Larry always holds out his own hands when he says this. Just like my dad’s, they are enormous. Like baseball mitts. It’s like he was born to lift people. Even me.

Larry passes around a plate of brownies he made and we all congratulate one another. Stella punches me in the arm and says, “Great job.”

“You, too,” I say, punching her back.

“Save that for sparring,” Larry says. “Arms are for hugging.”

Stella makes a gagging gesture.

“Very ladylike,” Larry tells her.

“Don’t treat me like a girl,” Stella says.

“Touché.”

Yes. He really said
touché.
Unbelievable.

After the last kid gets picked up, the three of us finish cleaning up and head for home. At least Stella still walks home with us. Maybe Britt’s OK with it because Larry’s with us, so it’s not like we’re alone together. Who knows.

On the way home, Larry’s pumped about us getting our brown belts by the end of the year. There isn’t a whole lot more to learn to move up, and we both did really well on tonight’s test, so we’re pumped, too. “You guys are the best students I’ve ever had,” Larry tells us. “I’m not just saying that.”

Stella and I goof around, doing a bunch of exaggerated crescent kicks and blocks as we walk down the sidewalk while Larry cheers us on.

“That’s because we have the best instructor on earth!” Stella calls over her shoulder.

“Yeah, baby!” Larry yells back

When we get to our building, I notice my face feels weird. I rub my mouth and realize it’s because I’ve been smiling the whole way home.

Larry calls Arielle to say good night, and I head to my room and check my phone.

Caleb:
r u coming home 4 spring brk?


Dave:
SPRING BRK PARTAY!!!!!!


My mom:
Can’t wait to c u soon!


No, no, and sorry.

I told Larry I wanted to stay here for break. I expected him to say, “Of course. It’s part of your journey,” but instead he just said it was my decision. I get the feeling Larry is starting to wonder about my journey and where I’m headed. He tried to get me to start seeing a therapist back in December, but I refused. Then he tried to
be
my therapist, but that didn’t really work out, either. He showed me this picture book he loved as a little kid. It’s called
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
It’s about all these obstacles these kids come to on their journey to find a bear. Why they want to find a bear, I don’t even know. But basically they learn that they can’t go over some obstacle and they can’t go under it; they have to go through it.

“Josh,” Larry said. “This is where you are. You are on a quest to face your bear. You are trying too hard to get over something, but the whole point is that you can’t. You can only go through it.”

And that ended our one-and-only fake-therapy session.

Because I’m not five.

“Knock, knock,” Larry says, standing in my open doorway.

I close my cell and look up at him.

“Just wanted to say good night.”

“’Night,” I say.

“You doin’ OK?”

“Yeah.”

He always asks me. And I always answer the same, even when I don’t know if it’s true.

When he leaves, I open my phone again and find the picture of Rosie and the Christmas tree. I leave it open and put it next to the picture of Dave, Caleb, and me that I keep on the nightstand next to the clock. Then I get out Stella’s rock and turn off the light. I stare up at the stars and Larry’s smiley face. Sometimes if I concentrate really hard on something — anything — else, I can manage to get myself into a deep sleep and doze through the two o’clock wake-up. That, and Larry gave me this nasty-tasting herbal stuff that helps me sleep. He thinks the baby will start sleeping through the night pretty soon, and everything will get easier.

Maybe.

I close my eyes and picture Stella and me punching the air as we walked down the sidewalk. I picture her laughing at me. And me, finally laughing back. And I think, maybe there’s a chance. Maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow and realize there is more to life than
Britt.
Maybe she’ll see me as more than a karate partner and secret friend she shares a rock with.

Maybe.

But when I fall asleep, it’s not Stella I dream of, it’s Ellie.

Ellie behind glass.

Silently screaming.

No.

And I wake up the same way I always do. In a cold sweat. Shaking. Remembering that night, and all the awful ones that followed.

No.

The word she should have said out loud.

The word I felt, but ignored.

The word that could have saved us.

No.

Larry hired Stella and me to help him teach karate camp during spring break. I don’t think I’m very good with kids, but Larry says part of being a true karate man is sharing your skills and rising to the challenge. OK, then.

On Monday morning, the classroom is insane. All the little kids are running around, pulling on one another’s belts, making karate chops in the “air,” but actually making contact.

“There is no first strike in karate!” Larry quotes. But the kids don’t listen.

“Accidents arise from negligence!” Stella quotes back.

Larry looks like he wants to hug her. But the scene is still mayhem.

Two kids start crying within the first twenty minutes. Finally, Larry yells,
“Line up!”
in this huge voice I’ve never heard him use before, and all the kids practically jump out of their skins and start circling around because they have no idea how to line up. Larry explains.

Stella and I are the highest in rank for this class, so we stand in the front row facing Larry. All the kids are quiet as Larry talks them through how the class will run. Then he has us kneel, facing him. “Stella, what is a true karate man?”

“What is a true karate man?” Stella says.

“What is a true karate man?” we repeat. As we say the words, I watch Larry. Larry, the true karate man. I think about my life so far this year. How amazingly different it’s been. Back at home, the biggest excitement of the week was stealing beer from the fridge, picking up Caleb and Dave, and driving to some parking lot and getting wasted before we set out to find a party. For a while, that seemed to be all that mattered. Until last winter. Then it was all about finding a place where we could be alone. To drink and think and — in my case — forget.

Since I came to Larry’s, I haven’t been wasted once. I haven’t even missed it.

“The ultimate aim in karate, therefore,” Stella says, “lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.”

Larry beams at all the kids, like their characters are getting more perfect at this very moment. He grins at me, as if to tell me mine is, too.

Larry claps his hands, and we get to our feet. Then he has me and Stella demonstrate some basic moves from the first kata for all the kids to practice. Larry has us walk around the room and assist the ones who need extra help. One kid gives Stella a high block to the chest, and she falls over backward. Larry goes running over, but she’s OK. I make a point to keep my groin and the rest of my body out of whacking distance.

During lunch break, we sit on the floor and eat. The room smells disgusting once the various bologna and tuna-fish sandwiches come out. The few girls in the class all pile next to Stella and watch her eat as if she’s the girl version of Jackie Chan. Only one kid bothers to sit next to me. A little boy with glasses and a sniff.

“I have a pet rat,” he tells me.
Sniff.

Gross.

“That’s nice,” I say.

“No. He got his tail bit off from my cat.”
Sniff.

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“My dad likes rats.”

“Hmm. But I don’t think your cat does.”

“Nope.”
Sniff.

As we discuss the length of the rat’s tail, Stella looks up from her groupies and winks at me, like she approves of my sitting with the creepy kid. When she does that, it feels worth it.

For the second half of the class, Larry tries to liven things up by having the kids take turns sparring. All the safety equipment is way too big for them, and they look like backward Ninja Turtles behind their chest protectors. A few kids seem to have a pretty good natural talent, but most are so wound up from the cookies Larry shared with everyone at lunch that they kick and block like maniacs.

Finally, Larry tells me and Stella to suit up and show them how it’s really done.

We get our gear on and face each other. “Ready to go down?” Stella asks.

“Are you?”

She grins.

Larry gives us the signal and we start to pivot in a tight circle, watching each other for the “tells” we’ve both learned to look for. As soon as Stella’s eyes go to my fists, I know she’s going to swing. If she looks at my shoulder, I know that’s her target for a kick to the solar plexus. I block several attempts before I make a move.

“Remember what the outcome of battle depends on!” Larry shouts at us.

“How we handle weakness and strength!” recites Stella, then kicks at my head.

“Go after her, Josh!” Larry says. “Get some kicks in!”

I make a feeble attempt to get a kick at her side, but she easily blocks me.

“You won’t hurt me,” she says. “Just do it.”

But I don’t want to. This is the one part of karate that I really can’t stand. The only person I think I would get any enjoyment out of sparring with is
Britt.

The little kids start to chant our names. “Stell-a-Stell-a. Jo-osh-Jo-osh.” The
Stell-a
s are way louder.

Stella nails me in the knee with a kick when I’m distracted by Rat Boy pumping his fist in the air and screaming
“Go, Josh, go!”

Larry separates us and lets us catch our breath.

“See what happened here?” he asks the kids. “Sparring is all about anticipation and determination.” They stare back at him blankly.

“It’s not about fighting,” he says. “This isn’t fighting. Karate is an aid to justice.” Larry is a master at sneaking in the precepts today.

But the kids aren’t really listening. You can see the hunger for a fight in their little eyes.

“OK, you two, let’s go again.”

Stella lifts her fists and nods at me. “Just try,” she says.

We pivot back and forth in a jerky motion.

“C’mon!” she says, egging me on. The kids pick up their chanting.

The second Stella pauses to acknowledge her groupies with a cocky nod, I take the opportunity to get a nice kick to the hip. Only it feels like I kicked too hard.

“Sorry!” I say, without thinking.

“Remember, accidents arise from negligence!” Larry yells. He separates us again, and explains how I got that one off because Stella wasn’t expecting it. She let herself get distracted. The little kids who were cheering for her look at the floor, shamefaced.

Finally, we get to stop. As we’re taking off our gear, Stella punches my arm. “You need to get some balls,” she tells me. “I’m not some fragile bird. I can take it.”

I know that. I know it.

But I don’t want to hit her. Or kick her. I just want to move with her like we do when we’re practicing katas. Like we’re dancing some dance only the two of us know. A dance that brings us closer than if we were holding each other in a slow dance. There’s no touching. No danger. No risk. And even though there’s no music, there is a rhythm anyway. We are the only ones who can hear it. As we move, it’s like we’re gathering power together. Like we could take on the world.