by Gary Neece
Thorpe closed the gate and continued up the driveway, parking in front of the barn. After feeding Al and Trixie, he removed equipment from his truck and walked to the front door of his home. Thorpe didn’t own an alarm system; the house was so remote it wouldn’t do much good. Besides that’s what his pooches were for. He unlocked the front door, stepped to the side, and ordered the dogs to search the interior. Thorpe hadn’t found the inspiration to decorate yet. His living room consisted of a leather couch, a recliner, an end table, a television and not much else. Crossing the threshold, Thorpe removed a Glock 27 pistol from his ankle holster and a Glock 22C from his waistband. He placed both weapons on the end table, stepped into the kitchen and grabbed a beer. He stood in hesitation for a moment, reopened the refrigerator and removed the remainder of the six-pack; it had been that kind of night. Thorpe waited for the search’s conclusion, then walked out the back door—beer and dogs in tow.
A stone fire pit sat next to the wooden deck. He tossed some logs into the crater, lit a fire and popped open a can. Ice cold beer and a sizzling fire—the finer things. Settling into a chair, he contemplated the events that had brought him to this moment and forged him into who he was—and who he would become.
Thorpe was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His mother, Margaret, worked as a school bus driver for the North Kansas City School District. This allowed her to be home with little Johnny and his sister, Marilyn, during the summer, weekends, and holidays; an important aspect of her job since she was, for all practical purposes, a single parent for interminable periods of time.
Thorpe’s father, Benjamin, was a soldier. At least that was the profession as explained to little Johnny, Marilyn and anyone else who inquired about Ben’s line of work. This much Thorpe did know: Benjamin Thorpe grew up very poor. Ben’s father had disappeared when Ben was young, leaving his mom to raise eight children. At one point, the family’s circumstances became so dire they separated; Ben moved in with a neighbor. From what Thorpe had been able to learn, the neighbor wasn’t much more than a local prostitute gracious enough to feed and house Ben until the family got back on its feet. That never occurred. Ben dropped out of school in the eighth grade and lied about his age to take a job and help care for his brothers and sisters. He had been deprived of both a father and a childhood.
When Ben turned eighteen, his fondness for fighting began to land him in trouble with the local authorities. In those days judges routinely gave young men the choice between military service and jail time. Ben wisely enlisted and discovered he was a natural-born soldier—except for one problem; he didn’t like to take orders from idiots, of which the Army was in no short supply. On several occasions he threatened bodily harm to those with higher rank, and, at least once, made good on his promise.
John was certain by the time he turned ten, his father no longer served in the regular army. Whether Ben left voluntarily or was forced out, Thorpe didn’t know. Ever since he could remember, his father had left home for long durations. “Overseas deployments” were how his mother and father referred to his absences. When Ben returned, usually with a fresh collection of scars, he spent every waking hour with his children and was a firm but good father—at least Johnny thought so. Some of the things Ben did back then would land a parent in jail these days.
Ben began teaching little Johnny hand-to-hand combat skills shortly after he took his first steps. As Johnny grew, the lessons intensified and often resulted in numerous scrapes and bruises. But Ben always let John know the sessions were conducted with the best of intentions.
“It’s a dangerous world full of bad people, Johnny. Someday this may save your life or the life of someone you love.” To John, these activities seemed normal because it was all he ever knew. While other kids and their fathers were playing football and basketball, Johnny and Ben were going over the finer points of disarming an adversary or how to turn household items into lethal weapons. Looking back, Thorpe figured his dad never had a father who taught him the proper way to throw a football or other facets of team sports. And because Ben had to drop out of school, he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn sports in that environment either.
So Ben taught Johnny the only craft he’d mastered. Before Ben left for deployments, he’d search for a boxing or martial arts facility to supplement Johnny’s skills while away. Ben was a small man, maybe five-eight and less than 150 pounds. In those days, instructors routinely accepted challenges from other practitioners or prospective students to prove they were worthy of teaching. Ben would take Johnny to a school, meet with the head instructor, and ask to spar before signing a contract. If the instructor refused, Ben would ask the man, “If you’re not confident in your abilities, why should I be?” Then he’d stand up to leave. Sometimes the instructors would let Ben and Johnny walk out the door. Other times, either because of financial reasons or pride, they accepted the challenge after laying down ground rules such as no biting or eye gouging. The sparring matches generally lasted several minutes but always ended one of two ways—with John’s father standing over a semiconscious instructor or the instructor submitting to avoid injury.
During those matches, John realized his father could have finished most fights much earlier but was merely auditioning the instructors to see if they possessed skills worthy of imparting to his son. Thorpe remembered seeing his father equaled only one time in all those auditions. Ben had taken him to a boxing gym; the head trainer had been a regional Golden Gloves champion and former professional boxer. The trainer outweighed his father by at least fifty pounds and bested his father during the match. However, Johnny felt positive if the fight had occurred on the street, his father would have picked the pugilist up by the hips and dropped him headfirst onto the concrete. A street fight might have lasted ten seconds.
Benjamin Thorpe would be “on deployment” anywhere from a couple of weeks to six or seven months. He usually returned unannounced, although Johnny sometimes guessed when his father’s appearance was imminent because his arrival was foreshadowed by his mother preparing an elaborate meal of Thanksgiving-sized proportions and spending an inordinate amount of time dolling herself up in the bathroom. Her rituals generally concluded with Ben bursting through the front door, gifts in hand. His daughter, son and wife would pounce on him. It was only during these moments that John ever witnessed his father become emotional; nothing exorbitant, just a glistening of the eyes. Once, a single tear trailed down his cheek before being quickly wiped away.
The next day Johnny would be woken by a pair of boxing mitts landing on his chest as his father stood in his doorway silhouetted by the hallway light.
“Let’s see if you can kick your old man’s ass yet, boy” became his standard line. With that, the two would go down into the basement and unroll the mat. Father would spar with son for a few minutes before putting a solid whooping on the boy so as not to let his head get too big.
“You’re getting pretty good, son, but you’ll never be able to whip your daddy,” his father would say with a grin.
When Johnny turned twelve, Ben decided his son needed real-world experience. “All the classrooms in the world can’t prepare you for a single dark alley,” his father would say. On their first such outing, Ben loaded fishing gear into the car and told his wife they were heading to the lake. In reality, they were headed to downtown Kansas City to pick a fight.
Ben drove around the seedier parts of town before coming across a closed skating rink where a group of kids sat outside waiting for trouble.
“Johnny, just remember everything you’ve learned and concentrate on the kid you’re fighting,” Ben began. “I won’t let anyone else jump on you, and you have nothing to worry about ‘cept maybe a black eye. But the most important thing is this—don’t seriously hurt one of these kids. We’re here to learn, not to send someone to the hospital. They’ll say some nasty things to you, and rightfully so. We’re coming into their place and picking a fight. Don’t get angry about it; put yourself in their shoes. If you
break someone’s arm or go for an eye or anything else dangerous, you’re going to have to answer to me. I’ll take you down to the basement, and you’ll get an ass-whippin’ like you’ve never had before.” Ben held out his fist, and father and son did the over-under fist bump. Ben smiled, and they both walked over to the group of kids.
Thorpe could still picture the scene after all these years. As Ben and John approached the group, one of the kids who’d been sitting on a concrete wall slid off and strode up to them.
“What you want, mister?” The question was meant for Ben, but the kid never took his eyes off John.
“I’ve got ten dollars in my pocket says not one of you can whip my boy. Any takers?”
The kid who’d approached didn’t hesitate “I’ll take your money, mister.”
“Good. Just a few rules. Only you fight my son. Anyone else jumps in, no money. Any weapons come out, no money. If you do pull out a weapon or jump in, I don’t care if you’re a kid or not, I’m going to kick your ass. And finally, if you lose, no money.”
“I ain’t gonna lose, mister.”
The group formed a circle around John and the boy—whose name turned out to be Levi, as in “Beat his ass, Levi.”
Ben shouted, “Lift up your shirts and turn out your pockets, both of you. Any weapons, no fight.” They did as told. John noticed how much more developed Levi appeared to be. John had the body of a child while Levi was beginning to look like a man. Despite his years of training, John was scared.
Ben put his hands on his son’s shoulders, leaned down, and whispered, “Let him come to you, and don’t forget to breathe.” His father stepped away and simply announced, “Fight!”
Levi danced around on the balls of his feet in a boxer’s stance: “I’m going to jack you up. Your daddy oughta give me that ten dollars now and save you a broken mouth.” Levi followed his words with an overhand right. John had been through the drill so many times he didn’t even think, his body just acted. He slapped the punch to the inside with his left hand and slid in behind Levi’s right shoulder. Behind him, John slipped his right arm under Levi’s chin and grabbed his own left bicep. His left hand went behind Levi’s head and he squeezed. Feeling his opponent go limp, John released Levi and watched him crumple to the ground. The seconds-long fight silenced the circle of spectators. Knowing Levi would soon regain consciousness, John locked his opponent’s shoulder, elbow, and wrist, then waited for the inevitable. Levi woke in a compromising position with little recollection of what had occurred.
“What happened?”
“You lost,” John answered.
“Bullshit, I…” Levi didn’t finish the sentence as John applied pressure to the back of his opponent’s hand, causing excruciating pain in both his wrist and elbow joints. “Okay…Okay…You win.”
Thorpe won the fight in a matter of seconds without having to throw a single punch. His father walked over, put twenty dollars in Levi’s hand, told him he’d earned it, and left with his son.
“Good fight, son. One thing: I don’t think you took a breath until I paid Levi his money. If it’d been a long fight, you wouldn’t have lasted. Your muscles need oxygen. Otherwise, good job. How do you feel?”
“Okay. He didn’t even hit me,” John answered, looking up at his father from the passenger seat.
“I’m not talking about physically.” His father tapped his temple with his index finger. “I mean how do you feel up here?”
“A little bad, I guess. I mean…he didn’t really deserve that. I probably embarrassed him in front of his friends.”
“Good, Johnny. I don’t ever want you to start a fight—just end ‘em. I started that fight not you. You’re a good boy, Johnny, and you’re going to stay that way…understand?” It was a statement not a question.
Whatever Ben did for a living, he didn’t want his son to be involved in any way. The secret fights continued, and John’s opponents got bigger and older until he was fighting grown men. Some fights were easy, and some John lost. More than a few resulted in contusions and lacerations that had to be hidden from his mother.
In addition to fighting, Ben taught his son relaxation techniques, survival and navigational skills and made him proficient with a variety of weapons and firearms. All the martial arts and boxing schools he attended had been miles away from home and been paid for in cash. Ben always enrolled his son under an assumed last name. If John had ever bragged about his training or started fights at school, he would have been sharply disciplined. Ben was a living, breathing manifestation of the book The Art of War. Many of the teachings imparted from father to son were principles of war craft.
“You should never let your potential enemies learn of your capabilities, son. The less they know about you the better.” John often wondered why his father was so intent on him learning these principles, yet pushed for John to become a “nine-to-fiver.” Ben had many responses, most of which were along the lines, “You never know what life is going to throw at you.” Or when his father was in a particularly dark mood: “Son, dynasties, empires, and civilizations have been collapsing since the dawn of time—the mightiest from the inside out. Why should the U.S. of A be any different?”
But there were lighter times as well; family vacations, weekend outings, camping, and lots of horseplay. Ben’s long absences were an emotional stain on his wife, but they rarely fought, and their love for each other was obvious. Still, things hadn’t ended well.
At sixteen, John already outweighed his father by fifteen pounds but was still a heavy underdog in their sparring sessions. By then, John was the one testing the instructors when trying out new schools. He held his own for the simple reason the teacher had immersed himself in a single discipline while John had been cross trained in a variety of arts. John would simply find a weakness in the particular discipline and exploit it. It was during this time father and son had gone out for another “fishing trip.”
On this outing, one of the fish produced a knife and inflicted several slashing wounds across John’s arms and torso. Ben had been moving in to rescue his son, when John secured the wrist of his assailant with one hand and drove the thumb of his other into the man’s eye. As if scooping out the inside of a pumpkin, John thrust his thumb as deep into the socket as he could. Ben grabbed his son and fled. Certain the knife-wielding man was dead or dying, Ben feared taking John to the hospital. So his father drove him home, and the cat clawed its way out of the bag.
Ben and Margaret cleansed his wounds as best they could. Luckily, the blade hadn’t penetrated deep enough to puncture anything vital, and Ben possessed a well-equipped combat medical kit that included local anesthetics as well as antibiotics. Though the injuries were not immediately life-threatening, they were going to leave lifelong scars, especially since Ben himself crudely sewed up his son. Ben was forced to explain why their fishing trips rarely resulted in bringing home any catch. After accepting a bottle of antibiotics and further instructions on how to care for her son, Margaret kicked Ben out of the house.
John’s sister, Marilyn, had been sequestered to her room while his mother fretted over Johnny for three days and nights. The fear her son would be sent to prison prevented Margaret from taking him to the hospital. A week later, when John was recovering with no signs of infection, she allowed Ben back in the house, but relegated him to the basement. Things were never again the same between his father and mother.
Alone with his son, Ben asked, “How do you feel?”
“Dad, the thing I feel worst about is I don’t really feel much at all.”
“It was my fault, son, and mine alone. You did what you had to do to survive. You’re a good boy, Johnny, and you always will be.”
The incident would never be mentioned again. His mother and father were cordial, but Ben’s sleeping quarters remained in the basement, and he was no longer allowed to leave the house alone with his son. Four months later, Ben left for a deployment and never returned. John hadn’t seen or heard from his father since. As the mo
nths passed, John began to resent his mother; he secretly blamed her for his father’s leaving.
One night he heard his mother sobbing in her bedroom and went to her side. She’d lost a great deal of weight over the previous month, and her eyes had become dull and sunken. Thorpe put his hand on his mom’s shoulder, which prompted her to speak.
“I loved your father. You know that don’t you?”
“Loved?” Johnny asked, fear creeping into his voice.
“I loved him. I still do.”
“Then tell him to come back. Tell him that you love him.”
John’s mother shook her head and bit her bottom lip. “Oh, baby, your father didn’t leave us. He knew I was still mad. But he wouldn’t leave us, baby! Your daddy’s a lot of things but he’s no quitter. He wouldn’t quit us, and he sure as heck wouldn’t quit you or your sister.”
“Then why hasn’t he come back, Mom?”
“Johnny, you knew he did dangerous work, you knew something might...happen.”
“What happened, Mom?”
“I don’t know. God’s honest truth, baby! I swear I don’t know exactly what your father does. He wanted to protect us from all that. But he’s never gone this long without contacting me.”
“Is he dead, Mom?”
“I don’t know, but something’s wrong. Your father…I’m worried. And he left with me being mad at him. That’s never happened before and now…this. I could have taken it any other time…but…and now my son hates me too.”