by Dan H Kind
Chapter 13
A Dangerous Duel with the Dark and Deadly
Jack Whiskey crept into the New Shaolin Monastery Dojo at ten minutes to six, unsure what to expect next. It had been a weird day so far.
After finding himself out front of corporate and back in control of his own body, he had walked over to the C.E.I. Employment Offices to pick up his last paycheck, and then trotted next door to Jims River Bank. When he reached the teller's station, the man behind the booth had been made of gold and sported donkey ears. Jack had stuttered and stared, but somehow managed to convey the fact that he would like his paycheck cashed. The golden man gave Jack several haughty, annoyed looks while completing the transaction.
Jack had walked home in a daze from the bank, jumping at shadows. When traversing the sidewalk that led from Colonial Towne Road into his apartment complex, he passed a man and woman walking hand in hand. Neighbors he had seen around the area a few times. He began to raise a hand in greeting, but stopped halfway. Little people swarmed up, over, and about the couple. The pair were made of inch-tall people who jumped between them, whooping, and walked across wrists like a bridge between continents. Some of the minuscule multitude grinned at Jack, who ogled and said “Ga—ga—ga—ga.” When he turned and looked back at the receding couple, they had looked normal.
He had stayed inside with the lights off for the rest of the day. If he hadn't promised Master Mirbodi he would be here for kung-fu class, he would still be at home, peeking out the blinds and ducking down when something moved.
Most people in the Dojo paid Jack's entrance no mind, but one familiar pair of eyes turned his way. “Jack! Welcome to weekly meeting of Future kung-fu Masters of America!”
Master Mirbodi floated over, crooked his staff in his arm, and bowed.
Jack bowed in return. “Hiya, Master. Here I am, ready to do some kung-fu. Where’s my dueling opponent? I hope it’s not one of those kids, because if it is, they’re in serious trouble.” He laughed and indicated the assembled children seated in a half-circle on the blue-padded area. Gymnastics paraphernalia, cleared out of the way for kung-fu class, lined two Dojo walls.
Master Mirbodi grinned. “Ah, but you like newborn babe in eyes of kung-fu gods, and you must learn to crawl before you learn to walk, much less do good kung-fu.” His eyes went shrewd. “You got payment, or what?”
Jack handed over the dough, and the bills disappeared into Master Mirbodi's patchwork robe as if they had never existed.
Jack peered around the gym. “I guess I’m a little early, huh? All those kids must be in the class before this one coming up here at six o’clock.”
But the Zen master just smiled wider and handed Jack a loose-fitting white robe and a white belt. He pointed Jack in the direction of the locker room and told him he would see him out on the mat, barefoot, ASAP.
When Jack reemerged into the Dojo, the assembled children were sitting in full lotus position (it made Jack's legs hurt just observing this). Master Mirbodi motioned him to join the group, and Jack’s jaw dropped. This was the class he was to be a member of? He was thirty years older than any of these kids!
But not wanting to be the one who broke the perfect silence pervading the Dojo, he sighed and sat down between a tiny blond-haired girl with pig-tails, no more than six years old, and a dark-haired boy of perhaps eight, who both ignored him. There was no way he could pull off sitting in full lotus, so he crossed his legs, Indian-style.
Master Mirbodi stood before Jack and the kung-fu kids, who peered at the instructor with sparkling, eager eyes. “When doing kung-fu,” he began, making eye contact with each student in turn, “you must become kung-fu. You must leave behind self. You must come to awareness it is not you doing kung-fu, but it. And it simply is. It merely does. It acts and reacts, without thought.” He clapped his hands. “Now, we practice breathing exercises, then do light warm-up routine.”
The class practiced breathing exercises (Jack found this easy—after all, he knew how to breathe in and out) for fifteen minutes, then warm-ups began. These consisted of jumping around, twisting the body in ways the body was never meant to be twisted, punching and kicking at the air, yelling “Hwah!” as loud as possible, and then bowing to everybody around you.
Jack attempted to keep up with the kicks, punches, lunges, and leaps, but fell behind several times, whereas his pint-sized classmates were all following Master Mirbodi’s fluid movements to perfection. Jack took comfort from the fact that he screamed “Hwah!” much louder than anyone else.
When the warm-up ended, Jack's robe was soaked with sweat. His kung-fu classmates were peering at him and giggling. Jack ignored the stares, dropped his hands to his knees, and gasped for air.
But he straightened up and stood as the other students when Master Mirbodi called for attention: head raised, chin jutting outward, legs together, hands resting at sides.
Then Sam Waa walked into the Dojo. Jack sucked in a quick breath.
The C.E.I. veep walked over to the group and bowed to Master Mirbodi. “I would like to join the class, sensei.”
Master Mirbodi eyed him. “You got payment, or what?”
Sam Waa nodded. He produced an envelope from his white robe and handed it over, then took his place with the rest of the class. And he chose to stand right next to Jack.
“Mister Whiskey. Fancy seeing you here. Learning a little kung-fu, are we?”
Jack stared forward, refusing to look at him. “That’s right, mister big-shot executive vice-president of Who Gives Two Shits What. What’s it to ya?”
“Is this your first class? It must be. I saw you attempting—and I stress that word—to follow along with that warm-up routine. How does it feel to know that any one of these munchkins could kick your ass with both hands tied behind their back?”
Jack figured it was best to ignore Sam Waa, so he remained silent. The executive chuckled.
“All right, class,” said Master Mirbodi. “We gonna pair up and do some light sparring. When sparring, be aware of all around you, but at the same time let go of awareness. You and kung-fu not separate. Thought and action not separate. All is connected, so become connected, which mean become empty, and you will be it.”
Master Mirbodi then went down the line and assigned each pupil a sparring partner close to their ability. When he reached the end of the queue, the only two left were Jack Whiskey and Sam Waa.
“You two. Bow and begin sparring.” Master Mirbodi then began making rounds around the Dojo, staff in hand, checking up on the students' forms.
“Well, this should be easy,” said the huge-skulled veep, and bowed.
Jack did likewise, taking his eyes off Sam Waa for a split second.
The impact on his skull knocked him a good five feet backwards, right onto his ass.
“Hey!” called Jack from the padded floor. He stood up, clutching his bruised forehead. “That’s not fair! You can’t kick me when I’m bowing to you!”
Sam Waa laughed. He then began to . . . dance, it seemed. He skipped, whirled, twirled, and jumped about the mat, performing elaborate punch-sequences and making roundhouse kicks look easy, his body under perfect control. His face was a stoic mask and his burning eyes never left Jack's (even though this should have been quite impossible, since he was doing back-flips and 720s when leaping through the air). Whatever martial-arts style Sam Waa practiced, it wasn't your standard kung-fu. It was more . . . native, more . . . indigenous than that.
And whatever it was, he was clearly a master.
Sam Waa bobbed and weaved towards Jack, his arms and legs flying about the Dojo at a blur.
As he had no real clue how to stand in any sort of true kung-fu stance, Jack tried to relax, Zen-like, as per the instructions of Master Mirbodi. Become empty, become kung-fu, become it. As he mentally voiced the mantra, he came to the grim realization that this was not going to be fun.
Sam Waa's dance slowed for a moment, but then sped up to light-speed. A smudge of a fist whipped towards Jack's he
ad. Jack raised his arms to block—and then he was laying flat on his back, staring at the spinning Dojo ceiling. He had been fooled by the feint at his upper body, and Sam Waa had taken his legs out from under him with a single sweeping kick.
Jack summoned energy from some unknown well of spirit and forced himself to stand up. Sam Waa laughed in his face and lunged at him, a whirlwind of deadly limbs. Two blows to the stomach later, Jack was on his knees with his forehead pressed against the mat, clutching a throbbing kidney.
Sam Waa stood over him, smiling down with sadistic amusement. “Have we had enough yet, Mister Whiskey?”
Jack did not reply, because he could barely breathe. But again, he stood up and raised his fists.
Sam Waa feinted right. Jack lifted his left arm to block, and a sharp blow to the right temple sent him reeling. He spun around, leading with a feeble roundhouse punch that was countered by Sam Waa, who grabbed his arm and pulled. Jack went sailing over the veep's shoulder to the other side of the gym and crashed into a balance beam, which fell over on top of him.
“I think that enough sparring for today, class,” announced Master Mirbodi, his eyes on Sam Waa. “We work on solo forms for rest of evening.”
The last hour of kung-fu class consisted of practicing solo forms, which meant mirroring Master Mirbodi's every movement as best one could. Jack took a few extra minutes to crawl from under the beam and rejoin the class, but nobody was offended, given the circumstances.
“Good job, kids. Class dismissed.”
Master Mirbodi bowed to his kung-fu charges, who returned the favor. The children whose parents were picking them up filed out of the Dojo, giggling and teasing each other. Some monks came in and hustled off the rest of the kids; many Future kung-fu Masters of America were orphans who lived on the grounds of New Shaolin Monastery.
After the Dojo cleared, Master Mirbodi said to Sam Waa with a note of authority that must have been similar to the Buddha himself when correcting a wayward monk: “Leave now, kachina man, and never come back to New Shaolin. I see you as you are.”
“And why should I leave? I could be the best student you’ve ever had.” Sam Waa chortled. “Master.” He lunged at the monk, his face a stoic mask.
But Master Mirbodi barely moved as he parried the flurry of attacks. Sam Waa soon realized his approach was not working and backed off. “Who are you, monk? Are you like he and I?” He motioned at Jack, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Or are you merely human? Either way, you’re bound to taste defeat against the likes of me. (SO LOSE ALREADY!)”
The veep unleashed a Bruce Lee-like flying jump-kick intended for the Zen master's head, but Master Mirbodi effortlessly dodged the deadly strike. Ninja-like, the monk grabbed Sam Waa's outstretched leg and yanked. The executive went flying across the Dojo to slam head-first into a pommel horse with a sickening crunch of bone.
But Sam Waa jumped to his feet a second later, unfazed. A breeze blew across the infernos embedded in his skull. “You do have some power, monk, I'll admit it. But I can do this all day!” He sprang towards Master Mirbodi.
The old monk deftly parried the fists and feet of fury, and Sam Waa was repulsed by a swift punch in the gut that sent him reeling backwards. Blue light exploded when Master Mirbodi's fist made contact. Half-blind, Jack rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
“Urgh,” said Sam Waa, and collapsed to the mat.
A few moments later, the veep raised himself from the floor and limped out of the Dojo. He did not look back, and the door slammed shut behind him.
“Wh-what the hell just happened?” asked Jack.
“Those who proclaim their power great . . .” Master Mirbodi shrugged. “Well, usually it not so great.”
Jack stared at the monk in awe. “But I’ve never seen anybody move like you just did! Aren’t you over a hundred years old?”
But Master Mirbodi just smiled. “Maybe you keep coming to kung-fu class, you learn much good kung-fu, and then you understand.”
And Jack, astonishing himself, said, “Same time next week, then?”
Master Mirbodi grinned and nodded. “Jack, me and Art want you stop by his place tonight. I collect novice from dormitories and meet you there, 'kay?”
Jack nodded. After all, he had nothing to do tonight except feel aches and pains in bodily areas he hadn’t even realized he possessed before two hours ago. He said goodbye and walked out of the Dojo in a daze.