Kung Fu High School

by Ryan Gattis

  Open sesame.

  "Melly!" I said it real loud in front of the whole Wolves council: Aunts, Uncles, even a few high-ranking kids gathered around two shambly tables in the room filled with sewing machines and big white stoves. I hadn't called her that since we were twelve.

  "You lookin' to get transferred? Because you're in the right place then, missy." Her voice was raw when she said it. Girl had some power. Melinda put her pen down and stood up. She rolled her shoulders forward and then extended her arms straight back behind her to stretch them. Maybe she just did it to show me that her breasts were still bigger than mine. Of course, Mark and Rico stood up and grabbed her arms to help her stretch better and mostly to look more intimidating. Mark and Rico were her boys. They could roll. Mark was the Wolves Pop but really, he was just Melinda's lapdog and everybody knew it.

  I didn't say anything. It was her show.

  "Don't make me get the paperwork to put you out of here, because we can put you somewhere nice and sunny, real sunny."

  The Wolves laughed at Melinda's sarcasm.

  "Wolves only." She was walking toward me, slow but purposeful. She put her hands in her pockets and came out with extra rings: one for every finger and thumb.

  Cue used to tell me I could take her, just as long as I didn't lead in with my chin. I had to be ready for more lateral movement and less front-foot fighting. But Melinda was much, much quicker than me. My only chance would've been to go for the diaphragm with my first punch and hope I hit gold. If anything though, I'd get it bad.

  If it was anybody else, I would have. Melinda, though, she knew about appearances and she knew about alliances. I just had to ham it up a little more.

  "The Waves are gone," I said.

  She needed us. We needed her. She wasn't going to let ego get in the way, but she was going to save face for me disrupting the meeting, even if I did have valuable information.

  "I didn't have to hear it from you to know that," Melinda said.

  "We wish to strengthen the Wolves, we will not retain our name." I said what was traditionally said in blending situations, when one family joined another. Cue taught me the right words just in case I'd ever have to say them. He didn't tell me they'd burn a little when they came out.

  "Last I heard you didn't have the power to do that." As the punctuation to the sentence, Melinda hit me, hard. I knew it was coming but I didn't really spot it. She was standing right in front of me and I didn't even see it. Tough to say she hadn't gotten even quicker. I didn't flinch though. I didn't duck. It crashed me right in the jaw, underneath the joint. I felt my skin tear but still I made it look good because the Wolves laughed and did their stupid howl.

  "I do now. Alfredo got a flyer." I said it looking down at the carpet. Between the sentences, I spat blood. My back tooth was loose but not too bad. My right ear was ringing, but only my right. I didn't get hit again.

  "Leave." Melinda wasn't talking to me, she was talking to the Wolves. They didn't argue. Every single one of them knew she could take me.

  "What happened?" Melinda asked, completely different now that we were alone.

  "Ridley transferred him. Did it right in front of me and Jimmy."

  "How'd he do it?"

  "Throat."

  "Figures." Melinda grabbed me a towel from the nearest stove door handle after she said it. I was bleeding all over the table.

  "Cue was good." That was the closest Melinda got to sympathy and it was the closest she got to saying that she was the next target. She knew it, I knew it, and pretty soon, everybody at Kung Fu would know it. I understood I'd have to stand with her. Our fates were tied together like a lead balloon with two tail strings. She was probably happy I'd done what I did. The Wolves were by far the largest family now, but for how long?

  Melinda opened the door with her arm around me. She was twice the leader I was and everybody there knew it.

  "I will absorb the Waves." She said it more for her family than for me. "I will stand for Jimmy too."

  Her eyes lit up when she said his name. Mark and Rico hunched their shoulders at the exact same time. She liked her boys, Melinda did. She kept them in line. It stung bad though, that look in her eyes. It shouldn't've. I mean, I knew he could never be mine. Cue always used to say that there was no such thing as survival without compromise. And when I walked out of there on a sore knee, with a new family name and an aching jaw, I was beginning to understand what he meant.

  CHANGES

  I didn't see Jimmy at lunch. I asked a couple people about him but no one had seen him. Apparently he wasn't in his geometry class either, that was the word. At least it made my getting punched in the face worthwhile. As a Wolf now, no one could touch him. He was safe again, at least temporarily. Some stupid Blade would probably challenge him at the first circle after classes but Melinda would stand up for him, she had to. That was the first act of any new Mom or Pop.

  Overall, lunch was pretty rough. I walked in from the building entrance to the cafeteria to see that the back right corner was empty. There are three entrances, one from the outside, one from the building, and a one-way in from the swimming pool that was basically forbidden. Where you entered was real important, crossing into another family's area was strictly not done, unless you wanted to challenge. The cafeteria was the one place in the school where families tended to group up a little more than usual, not too much though, Dermoody was watching. Our place, Cue's and mine, was empty. One of the big fluorescent lights above the section was out too but I definitely didn't want to read anything into that. The section would stay officially off-limits for one day out of respect. After that, Melinda could move in if she wanted. It was her right now.

  My books squashed my sandwitch and the plastic bag popped so I got mustard on my take-home presidents test. It was starting to look like a dirty plate. Guess I'd have to turn it in tomorrow when I had a real civics class instead of a conversation with Ridley. It figured after all that hard work I went through just to get Jimmy's blood off the paper. At least mustard was less conspicuous and my teacher wouldn't say anything about it. Or maybe she'd just give another empty speech about being conscientious citizens and taking pride in our work. Nobody ever listened to her before but she kept saying the same speeches. Must've been automatic.

  While eating I didn't really taste my food, it was enough just to move my jaw up and down through the sharp soreness. Once I even had to use my hand to push my chin up and down to chew the last of it. Melinda had got me good. Cue was the only person who punched harder. Mostly I kept thinking about sitting next to four Wolves, two who used to be Waves, and not Cue.

  He had the most annoying habit of shaking whatever leg was next to mine, bouncing it up and down and bumping me while I was trying to eat. He said it was because he had a high metabolism but I think it used to be a joke that became a habit after years of doing it. Whatever it really was, my leg missed it when sitting at a new table where all I could feel was the cold steel of the table leg through my nonbloodied khaks. The coldness did make my swollen knee feel slightly better though.

  Compared to the stress of the morning, the rest of the day was clear sailing. I made sure to explain to every Wave I came across what happened in the least words possible. Nobody liked it but what were they going to do, argue with me? They could tell I'd taken a shot for them, for all of us really. Nobody said anything about Cue, not in words. But I got a lot of looks that told me they were sorry about what happened. The only blip of discomfort that hovered on my radar screen prior to the end of the day was when Ridley surprised me after my chemistry class.

  "Well, Miss Jen, you are good. I'm impressed how you took care of big brother's business." Ridley got close enough to touch me.

  He smelled like expensive cologne. It went straight to the front of my brain and gave me a headache on the right side of my head, behind the ear. So he'd already heard. That was quick. I'd probably done exactly what he'd wanted me to do, consolidated the last of his two enemies into one, slightly more
predictable, and manageable, body. Roll over it. Dress it up. Put a flag in it. Us against them. Only two sides now.

  I couldn't be sure but he must've been waiting for me to say something and when I didn't, he traced the rough shape of a corsage—or maybe a heart—on my flannel, from my shoulder to my collarbone to just above my left breast. I could only look over at his little brother when he did it. Fred smiled that super-innocent smile of his and then looked away, all shy. That was when I realized that maybe one of the reasons why Ridley kept him around all the time was that they balanced each other out so well. Somehow Fred had a way of bringing out the best in people.

  "Just think about it. That's all I ask. I know you thought I was joking just to be cruel but I really was serious about the prom."

  And then he was gone, with his whole posse in tow. Even though he hadn't looked me in the eyes and basically talked to my chest, I could see actual loneliness there in his movements. We can smell our own. But who really cared if an extremely dangerous sociopathic drug kingpin was lonely? I didn't. He'd have to find someone more afraid of him than me if he wanted to bully someone into a date or a fuck. I knew he was playing some kind of angle. I just couldn't figure out what that was just yet.

  Really, I don't know what boys see in me. My nose is too big and it's crooked. My face is too round and I have a hard jawline just like my dad's. Puffy is the best way to describe my lips and my cheeks sort of hang down low because I don't seem to have cheekbones, not like the kinds the magazine girls have. So no, I'm not classically beautiful and I'm not even beautiful. And that's before you factor in my scars. Only one is from when I was a kid. I fell over on a potted plant and got a big one (for a kid) across my forehead, eight stitches, or was it seven? I really can't remember, that was so long ago. I got that one scar beneath my lips where a girl put her fingernail through that thin skin and tore. It's kind of a half moon but ragged on the inside. Cue called that raggedness my crater, said I was the woman in the moon, Artemis, with a wicked left hook. My best scar is on my left eyebrow ridge though: it's two inches long and extends down vertical onto my cheek like someone drew a straight line past my eye, but really it was the chipped metal edge of a table I got slammed into, opened my face up like a book. I never wear makeup because that stuff stings when it gets into a cut or my eyes: poison, all of it. I never do anything with my hair beyond tying it back. There are lots of girls more attractive, lots.

  Jimmy wasn't at the circle after school, so he missed the big announcement before anyone got called out. I probably should've been worried, but I wasn't. I carried my pack in front of me as I crowded in behind Mark and Rico. Melinda was in the middle and she walked toward me.

  "The Waves are Wolves now." She surprised me after she said it though by taking my hand, making me in charge of the changeover in a real public way. Whispers sprang up but it was nothing much. I followed Mark's and Rico's glares across the circle.

  "But the Hunters are Blades," came the call from Merrick, keen old 'Fredo's next in line. If they had any more than forty, they probably would've tried to start a new family all by themselves. That's how stupid they were. They'd fit right in with the Blades. Second bananas in the best family to second bananas in the worst family. A step down and they didn't even know it.

  "So be it, but anyone who wants to roll a Wave has to roll me today." Melinda just smiled.

  This was tradition as well. If a new family stepped in, the Mom or Pop had to take care of business and settle some scores. Anyone challenged could still accept of course, but the Mom or Pop could still step in if a point needed to be proven.

  I knew I was a target, especially with Jimmy gone. The look on Merrick's face pretty much blamed me for 'Fredo and there were plenty of Blades that wanted to have a run at me for what Cue did to Karl. Those two were natural allies, enemy of my enemy and all that. If the Hunters were somewhat dangerous, Melinda would've challenged Merrick and beat him down, but they weren't big enough to be worth her time. To her, they were just sore losers who got outmaneuvered for control of the Waves.

  Neither was brave enough to call me out when there was a very real chance of fighting Melinda instead. So the scores stayed unsettled and then there were five: Blades, Whips, Fists, Runners, and Wolves. It was probably no coincidence that the new numbers of all four of Ridley's families and the Wolves were less than even. Ridley had us outnumbered by four hundred kids. Only a matter of time really.

  HOME

  Jimmy wasn't there when I got home so rather than sit around and be worried about him, I took care of Dad.

  "I want to go before you go, Jennifer," Dad said. "I want to go before you go," and he just kept repeating it. He'd been crying all day. I could tell by his voice before I could get close enough to see his red, old, streaky-cheeked face. The same face he used to have when he drank too much but more wrinkled now and less mad than sad.

  His room was a wreck. The TV tray had been tipped over and the glass cracked on the floor but not all over the place, just a chunk of the lip. The meds had sucked up what water they could, turning into puffy, deformed-looking worm shapes and leaving brownish orange stains on the carpet. Somehow he managed to use the bed as a toilet too. At least it was just piss and nothing else. Always my least favorite thing to do, but it needed to be cleaned and no one else was going to take care of it.

  So I got him up, undressed him, got him into the shower, and perched him on his little bench that Cue had installed the summer before and I was a good girl. When the memory came to me, of my helping him bolt the plastic horizontal to the tile without breaking it into chunky debris, I stayed quiet. Dad didn't need to know. Instead, I took the sheets out to the washer in the garage and started a load, grabbed a sponge, and wiped down the rubber undersheet that protected the mattress, got back to the shower to make sure he hadn't fallen, and soaped/ rinsed him with that two-in-one soap and shampoo stuff that Remo said was so easy on the skin. Would've shaved him but he was fidgeting. Got him out of the shower with difficulty, dried him, and pushed him through the arm, leg, and head holes of clean clothes, sat him down in the chair next to the bed and put new sheets on it. When I got him back in bed he said the same thing but he looked me in the eyes instead of staring off into space this time. "I want to go before you go." I seriously had no idea what to say so I just left the room. That was becoming par for the course.

  The bathroom door flopped closed behind me and I ran some hot water in the sink before dipping the washcloth into it and raking it across the torn skin on my jaw. The wound wasn't so bad but it was swollen. I'd gone over it earlier in the school bathroom before lunch but nothing much, just soaped it, rinsed it, dried it. I certainly wasn't stupid enough to put a Band-Aid on it. Band-Aids, bandages, any of that stuff was a sign of weakness at Kung Fu.

  You got to just act like it's not there, like it didn't affect you, like you didn't even know it was there even though every time you breathed through your mouth you could feel the air rush through the partially open bone cavity in the back. The tooth was loose enough to move with my tongue and I could feel the weird glutinous consistency of coagulated blood in the socket around the tooth. There was another good thing to come from it though: as I wiggled the tooth, I actually found it comforting to taste my own blood in my mouth instead of Cue's. A coppery warm distraction, but only on the surface: it was a reminder of the real and nothing else. Shit, but it still hurt. I popped a painkiller without bothering to read the bottle and left the bathroom.

  But I swear something held my feet from underneath the hallway carpet, hauled me step by step to Cue's closed door, leaned me forward, put my hands on the wood in a groan, and tried but couldn't quite summon the pressure behind those fingers and palms to push it open. I wanted to believe in ghosts right then. That Cue was there and trying to tell me something, that he was moving my limbs, and it wasn't just me, losing control. Jesus, I knew I couldn't even look inside or it'd be over, swimming-in-saltwater over. Still, I had to believe that something under the awful
carpet pushed and pushed what it thought was a solid object, but it was only me, sad little hollow Jen, a child weighing approximately as much as skin and hair combined and nothing else, no backbone, no brain, no fuckin' soul.

  All day Jimmy and everybody else had seen Cold Fish Jen. What they thought was Warrior Jen, Strong Jen talking with my mouth, moving my arms. The Normal Jen that nothing touched and she was so stupid she didn't even know any better so she kept playing the game without understanding all the rules, kept losing it at the wrong times, kept being a piece for someone else to move, kept being when she shouldn't. Because how much better off would everyone've been if it was Jenny en la calle instead? In Cue's place! Jenny as bloody human pizza, all cheap crust and freezing? Papa's angelita in a box? Serious.

  Just as long as I didn't open the door, that baldheaded brother of mine was alive. Sure. He had to be behind me, finally returning home. He wanted to go practice. I swear he was behind me, just out of the kitchen, smelling like a shake, smiling but see-through. Like a real fuckin' ghost. Trying to bear-hug me out onto the back patio but failing miserably because we were different things now, different elements totally. Him, all wind and invisibles. Me, all water and solid at the same time.

  There was a knocking at the front door, carried down the hall to me. I figured it was Jimmy, which I shouldn't've because he had a key and really had no need to knock. Took me almost five minutes to undo the grip beneath the carpet, to improvise bones and move, only to see that it was Remo waiting outside and not Jimmy at all.

  "Damn, I was gonna ask if you were alright but your cam already answered that question for me. I guess I'm just glad you're here." When he said "here" he meant "alive." Remo never went to Kung Fu. He just moved in with his mom when she got sick, but after almost three years, he knew how it operated.