Super Born: Seduction of Being (11 page)

Clean kick? It sure felt like
contact
. Let me give you a clean kick right
in the…
I thought. I got ready for the
second point.

Sensei lowered his arm and grunted to start the
second round. This time I wasn’t going to let the little twerp have
a clean shot, so I easily blocked all of his screaming attempts at
kicks and punches with my forearms. I was trying to figure out how
to tactfully get a point without breaking the poor kid’s spirit
when Sensei through up his arms and said, “Punch point white. White
leads two…” He pointed at me. “…to zero.”

I wanted to yell, “What punch point white? Are
you watching this match, the one right here? He never came close to
hitting me!” I briefly glanced over at Amy, who had a surprised
look on her face. She gestured a punch technique for me to try. I
knew she wanted to shout, “Hit the little munchkin!” but she
didn’t.

Sensei readied us again and signaled for the
fight to start. I knew Michael was a kid and I would eventually let
him win, but my pride made me certain it would be hard for me to
let him do so. Quickly, I slipped past his charge and delivered a
hammer fist to within a inch of the back of Michael’s head and held
it there, waiting for the sensei to call “Punch point red!” But I
heard nothing. Michael began a wild attack, all of which I blocked
while I maintained eye contact with the Sensei.

“
How about punch to the head, point
red?” I asked as I continued to defend myself against the little
tornado.

“
I said,
use
everything I have taught you so far.
Hammer
fist is an advanced technique that I have not taught you. Therefore
it does not count. Try something you know instead.”

I turned to the Sensei and was about to say, “I
don’t believe this!” when Michael gave me a front kick in the
crotch and I heard the dreaded, “Kick point white! White wins three
to zero.”

Michael pumped his fist madly while his mother
leapt to her feet and cheered. Amy sat with her mouth open,
partially in shock at my defeat and partially stunned by Sensei’s
treatment of me.

“
Beaten by an eight-year-old. See,
you need to come more than once a week,” Sensei scolded
me.

I couldn’t contain myself any longer. Fire
burned in my veins and my brain. “Maybe I just need to fight
someone my own size, someone I wouldn’t mind hitting!”

Sensei caught the implication and smiled. “I’m
your size. Would you like to spar with me?”

“
Love too,” I said, pulling up my
loose white karate jacket and pants, which badly needed tailoring,
and tightening my white belt.

Sensei put the white flag on his black belt. He
gestured slightly to Amy to come and judge the fight. Amy stood
beside us then signaled us to begin, her face full of concern for
me. Sensei circled around me, changing his stance before yelling
“Iceeeea!” and leaping a spinning round house kick at the spot
where I used to be. It was beautiful, athletic, quiet majestic,
really, just not very effective, as I was no longer where his foot
had targeted. He found me suddenly behind him saying, “Hammer
fist,” and tapping him lightly on the head.

Amy erupted, “Punch point red!” When she saw
the sensei’s reaction, she repeated meekly, “Punch point red, one
to zero.”

Sensei steamed. Robby stood on his head. James
got knuckle-deep into his nose. Megan blinked. Michael said,
“Ohhhh,” dejected. And Amy tried to contain her smile while
signaling for round two.

This time Sensei decided to use less flair and
try to overpower me. He came at me in aggressive, deliberate
strides, throwing punches at a remarkable speed as he came, sort of
like a bull on speed. I side-stepped him and delivered another tap
to his head saying, “Hammer fist.” Again Amy erupted, “Punch point
red! Two zero.”

The sensei pushed my arm away from his head
with a bitter, powerful sweep of his arm and stormed away for a
moment. He snorted and wiped his nose with the back of his hand as
he circled around the mat.

“
You ready to quit?” I asked, while
Amy struggled to contain her all-out laughter. Sensei waved to her
that he was ready. I checked my fingernails and the clock before
taking a ready stance.

Amy signaled us to begin round three. This time
I shocked him by charging aggressively while punching, driving him
back. Then I threw a spinning kick that placed me behind him and to
the side, where I delivered another tapping blow to his head.
“Hammer fist,” I said, finishing his humiliation. But this time it
was not the bare touch of a tap I delivered, but a punch that sent
his head jerking forward.

“
Punch point red!! Red
wins!”

Surprise, surprise, I no longer attend classes
with Sensei. Nor do I imagine us exchanging Christmas cards any
time soon. It’s okay, though. After all, I figured if I could
easily defeat an ex-Marine black belt without using all my speed
and strength, I already knew enough to handle the garden-variety
street thug.

I did go to Amy’s tournament a few days later.
When I had called Amy’s house to confirm the time of the
tournament, I got her mom, and actually convinced her to meet me
there. We sat on bleachers in a crowded gym where sparring matches
were going on simultaneously on four different mats. Amy won her
age and rank class, defeating a number of young men and women along
the way.

When she stepped up to the presenter to accept
her trophy, I could she her with uncertainty on her face scanning
the crowd. Then she saw me, and a little smile came to her face. I
pumped my arm in the air and cheered wildly for her. But then some
people in front of us sat down and she saw her little mother
standing beside me in tears of pride. A gigantic smile, unlike any
I had seen from Amy, took over her entire face.

I knew Amy’s mother was glad she had come.
Seeing her cringe or cheer at every punch and kick her daughter
made or received, I knew she had come to realize the extent of
Amy’s skills and the importance of karate in her life. I just hoped
I could do the same for Paige.

Chapter 8

My Website Is Born: But No Seconds
on Meat Loaf

Looking back now, had I known that the B.I.B.
had started showing herself during the day only because she needed
to be home at night to keep peace with her daughter, I might have
acted differently. But under the bold assumption of a shift in the
B.I.B.’s attitude, I took a radical approach.

I contacted all the fledgling beat
writers who had each written a separate piece on the B.I.B. and
offered them some of Jones’s cash to turn over any item to me that
they might come across regarding a woman dressed in black doing any
kind of unusual deed. I greased palms at any bar of consequence for
any sighting of a woman in black, offering further grease if they
notified me in time to get there before she left. I created a
website, www.
thebib.org
.
On the site, I placed copies of the articles about
her, a blog, a bulletin board, an email exclusively for sightings,
and propaganda I had written about “Scranton’s True Superhero.” As
time went by, trying to keep the site updated with the latest
events and respond to all the emails became a job in and of
itself.

The beat writers remained greedy, and they fed
me like Jabba the Hutt. By the time I had posted a beat writer’s
article about the arrest of Tony Turtulio, “The Tool,” on
Valentine’s Day, the site was starting to get a lot of hits. A
local news channel then picked up the article from the
website.

“
Scranton police received a
Valentine’s Day gift today as Tony Turtulio, also known as ‘The
Tool,’ was escorted by a delivery woman to Third Precinct
headquarters. To the amazement and delight of the officers, the
Tool was delivered—as seen in this brief amateur video—unconscious,
dressed as a strawberry, and wearing a floppy, leafy-green hat, and
red clothes, with his torso dipped in chocolate, apparently in
keeping with the holiday,” read the female anchor.

“
Not just any chocolate, Maria. It
was Gertrude Hall milk chocolate, made right here at their Scranton
plant,” added the male anchor; apparently Gertrude Hall Candies was
an advertiser.

“
Thanks, Tom. The Tool has several
outstanding warrants for his arrest and is reputed to be the number
four man in the Scranton mob. With some of the federal warrants
carrying twenty-year sentences if he’s convicted, it looks like The
Tool will be spending a number of Valentine’s Days to come behind
bars, where chocolate-covered strawberries will be hard to
find…”

“
Gertrude Hall chocolate
strawberries, that is,” added Tom.

The video was priceless. That, along with my
commentary attributing The Tool’s capture to the B.I.B. and
speculation on how she had done it—the chocolate-dipping, I
mean—the site began to flourish. Sure, most of the people
contacting the site were whackos, but the sheer volume of hits was
building.

By now, I was in love with her sense
of humor; the giant strawberry on Valentine’s Day cracked me up.
She was just doing it for fun, and to embarrass the crime boys.
Having all that power and hiding it in her day-to-day life had to
be amazingly difficult. Everything she did was so remarkable and
significant, yet humble. By now I had to confess I was in love with
her, all of her…crap.
Did I just say all
that? What’s wrong with me?

No way I’d let her read that, risk
her saying something crushing like, “I’m sorry, I never thought of
you that way.”
Ouch!
I remembered the six months and years of emotional energy I’d
wasted on courting Karen, just to hear that one. When she got the
flowers I sent to her office on her birthday she told me how
I’d
embarrassed
her
in front of everyone. Or how about, “You’re just not my type.” That
came from Mia, the bitch. For a full year I was her type. Three or
four nights a week, she screamed I was her type. Then a doctor
winks at her and I’m no longer in the picture. Crap, if I wasn’t
even Mia’s type, how could I be a superhero’s type? I was risking
rejection by foolishly hanging out my feelings like that. If
revenge is a dish best served cold, then rejection is a dish I just
wasn’t prepared to even order. In fact, I make a point of leaving
any restaurant that has rejection on the menu….even as a side
dish…even if I have a discount coupon. No way, Jose, she’ll never
read this.

* * *

I stood fifth in line at my bank like a
regular, everyday woman dressed in black. As the line moved slowly,
I glanced at my watch, not wanting to be late for work and earn the
wrath of Old Prune Face. She had already written me up once for
being late. One of the tellers was busy counting rolls of pennies
and dimes for an old man, while the other was arguing with a man
over bounced check charges. I sighed. No lunch again
today.

That was when three men ran into the bank with
ski masks, shouting, ordering everyone to the ground. One thug
stood by the door and the other two moved toward the tellers.
“Tellers, hands in the air where I can see them. Anyone touching a
silent alarm is the first shot. Everyone else, get on the floor.
Anyone who doesn’t get down right now is dead!” said the leader
nearest the tellers.

People screamed and dove to the ground. The
tellers nervously held up their arms and looked at one another for
a clue as to what to do.

The leader seemed to be getting off on watching
all those he commanded. When he saw me defying him, standing with
my back to him in front of a fake potted palm tree, he was first
surprised, then pissed off.

I dropped my bag and my deposits. When I turned
to face the leader, I had the black mask over my face and said,
“You’re gonna make me late for work. Do you really have to do this
today?”

The leader’s eyes turned to fire. “You don’t
wanna listen, do ya, bitch?” he said, determined to make an example
of me. “Just who do you think you are? Maybe you think you’re that
woman in black everybody’s talkin’ about…What da they call her?…The
Bib. You the Bib lady?”

“
It’s not Bib. They call her
B.I.B.,” the thug nearest us corrected.

“
My mistake,” the leader said
sarcastically, moving in closer to me and raising his gun, “You the
B.I.B. lady? If not, you’re in big trouble. Now, sit your ass
down!”

I moved slowly toward him. “Oh! This must be
what they meant by ‘stupid is as stupid does.’”

He aimed his gun at the center of my body. With
his veins full of adrenaline and a sadistic grin on his face, he
pulled the trigger of his 9 mm four times. His shots totally wasted
the plastic palm tree and pot that had been behind me. As he felt
his wrist break and watched his gun drop to the floor, his
expression changed to shock and amazement. After I delivered a
hammer fist blow to the back of his head, he slipped down to the
floor.

The thug by the door watched in horror. Seeing
what I had done to his friends, he tore off his mask, pulled open
the bank door, and was gone in a flash.

The third thug looked at the limp body of the
leader with his badly mangled wrist as he lay unmoving on the
floor. He dropped his gun and put his hands out in front of him.
“Hey, I don’t want no trouble!”