The Romero Strain

by Alan, TS

  “Why, why should we have left you in the tunnel?”

  He cried out, “Because I let him die.”

  “Who? Who did you let die?” I demanded, applying more pressure to his nerve.

  “My baby brother,” he moaned. “I killed him.”

  I released my grip. Joe began to sob.

  “It’s my fault. I should have saved him. But I closed the door.”

  They say the truth shall set you free, a bastardization of John 8:32. However, I believe confession does not cleanse the soul nor does it give absolution. Accepting what you have done and accepting the consequences of your actions are the only way to shed your burden. Joe’s admission was far from burden lifting and far from my ability to console.

  Joe had made a horrible, tragic mistake. In all likelihood, he would never forgive himself, and certainly never forget.

  Someone having trouble coping with personal problems doesn’t need to feel alone, like he or she doesn’t matter, won’t be missed, or feel that there was no one in their life who would listen. To me, that is more of a tragedy than the mistake itself.

  What should I have said to someone responsible for the death of a family member, when the person decided to commit suicide? Should I drag out the platitudes, or say something completely stupid? I had no idea.

  “Joe, there is nothing I can say that’s going to make you feel better or change what you’ve done. However, you think killing yourself is going to make things right. You’re wrong. You don’t get off that easy. Take responsibility for your actions and atone for what you’ve done. I’m sorry for your loss, but you need to consider your new family. How do you think others are going to react to your suicide? Do you think no one will be negatively affected by it? Believe it or not, you’re worth more than you realize.”

  “Why do you even care?” he asked, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

  “Oh, don’t confuse concern with caring. You and I are not friends, and probably never will be, but I see things from a broader viewpoint. We can’t stay down here forever. And when we leave, we’ll need to be a team if we’re going to survive. What you did, that’s something between you and your God. But what you do now is between you and the rest of us. So nut up and start acting like a team member.”

  I had no idea if anything I said would deter him in his resolve to kill himself. But by letting him know that we relied on him for our survival, I hoped he would change his mind and become part of our group.

  As Joe began his departure, Kermit grabbed his arm and pulled him close. He whispered in Joe’s ear, “We’ve all lost friends and family, son, but your marine corps core values go way beyond being in the marines. Once a soldier, always a soldier. Time to do your duty.”

  I wasn’t sure if Kermit knew that I could hear his words of wisdom, but I hoped what he said would make a difference.

  X. Devastation

  June 8th. Joe’s drunken outburst and emotional breakdown was a result of his deep feelings of guilt in regard to his brother’s death. Time and isolation was the catalyst for his violent, destructive behavior.

  People depended on varying amounts and intensities of social interaction to keep them happy, stable, and sane. Exposure to the natural world, which helped make life bearable, was emotionally, physically, and psychologically destructive when denied.

  Our natural world had been denied, and though we tried to occupy ourselves with various activities and social interactions, the lack of natural world stimulus and purpose of being affected our group’s mental and physical health. We were experiencing anxiety, depression, and a feeling of being disconnected from the world, especially after we had watched, from the complex’s command center, the world plunge into chaos and destruction.

  The global mortality rate from the pandemic was not known, but CNN reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that eighty to eighty-seven percent of the human population would contract the disease and die, either from the initial infection, or from the deaths caused by the catastrophic ruin and mayhem brought upon by those who had become the living dead. The doctor scoffed at the WHO, stating, “They look at things on the bright side, not very scientific or realistic. Their mathematic models are based on erroneous data.”

  The doctor’s projection was higher, over four billion, which would leave nearly two billion survivors in the world. New York City was different. There were eight and a half million people in the five boroughs, the English and Irish accounting for one in fifty New Yorkers that might possess the delta-32 gene. Marisol calculated that there could be over fourteen thousand survivors, less any transmutes. Time would only tell, and for us time was an enemy. Something needed to be done to alleviate the boredom and anxiety, and I knew what to do.

  XI. A Warrior’s Way

  I stood before my new students like I would in any class that I had taught. I began by introducing myself in my kwoon given Cantonese name, Sui Lóng, and asked them to use this while in class. But the class was different from any I had taught. My students were not merely pupils, but people I had bonded with and cared about. We relied on one another for our survival.

  My friends needed to learn as much as I could teach them in a short span of time. I wanted to defend the honors and the traditions of the various martial arts in which I was trained, for I may have been the last person who could carry on the warrior arts. I hoped I was worthy of the task.

  * * *

  I said, “You may ask why you need to learn martial arts since Master Sergeant Brown is instructing us on the proper use of a machine gun and a pistol, but what if you drop your weapon and you are unable to pick it up? Or if your enemy is too close? This is where hand-to-hand combat techniques will be vital to your survival. Stature and strength doesn’t matter. Every one of you can take down almost any opponent providing you execute the maneuver properly. Marisol, you could lay the Sarge out, put him right to the mat.”

  “No way.”

  “Way!” I responded. “Bruce Lee once said, ‘Using no way as way’. Which means don’t have preconceived notions about anything. In Jeet Kune Do it is efficiency, directness and simplicity. In Muay Thai it’s ‘be fast. Be accurate. Be powerful’. If you combine the two philosophies, you can become almost invincible.”

  I turned to Marisol. “Marisol. You think you can’t take down Kermit because you’re smaller and he’s stronger. Is that a correct assumption?”

  “Si,” she confirmed.

  “When I studied in the Philippines some years back, there was this seventeen-year-old girl. She was about five-feet tall, ninety-eight pounds, wore her hair in a butch-cut, and had no chest at all. She looked like an eleven-year-old boy. Well, me being nineteen years old at the time, cocky and arrogant, the teacher thought I needed to be taught a lesson, and rightfully so. So he matched me up against this girl in a stick fight.”

  I twirled my bastóns, which had been fashioned by Corporal Drukker and were made out of the handle of a push broom.

  “The girl made me her bitch, not once, but twice that day. As we made our bows I boldly told her, ‘Girly boy, you’re goin’ down!’ Whereupon she proceeded to repeatedly beat me on every part of my body. Once she got bored with that, she knocked me out. When I awoke I was so badly battered that I needed to be carried to my room. It took her less than two minutes to completely humiliate me in front of my fellow students.”

  “Yeah, but she was a gangsta girl,” Marisol blurted out. “I’m not.”

  I responded with, “You’ve completely missed the point. Most women and men become victims, why? Because they don’t know how to protect themselves, not because they can’t. With the right training you can take almost anyone down. Even if you’re a woman.”

  David raised his hand.

  “Yeah, David.”

  “You said she defeated you twice that day.”

  “No, I said she made me her bitch twice that day.” I tried to change the subject but Marisol wasn’t going to have it.

  “What happened? Ho
w did you become her double bitch?”

  “It’s not appropriate in front of you girls.”

  Julie knew I made the statement more for her benefit than Marisol’s. She responded with, “I think we girls have heard nearly every offensive remark ever invented come out of your mouth. So just tell us.”

  No, she hadn’t.

  “Okay. That night, as I lay on my straw mat on the dirt floor of the little hovels which we called our rooms, battered, beaten, bruised, humiliated, and in extreme agony, she came to me. She never spoke a word when she entered. She disrobed, proceeded to arouse me, and as soon as I was hard she strapped a condom on me, mounted and fucked me.” I could see Julie was getting out of her comfort zone with my frank and explicit language. “And when I say she fucked me, believe me, it was all about her. It only took me about three minutes before I was ready to…” I hesitated, looking for a suitable word, trying to alleviate Julie’s uneasiness. “… let loose. And just as I was about to, she reached down, grabbed my balls, and squeezed me so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Well, after that moment, I no longer had any desire to ejaculate. She continued to pleasure herself at my expense and when she was fully satisfied, she stood up, closed her robe, looked me straight in the eyes, and left… leaving me standing at attention, so to speak. So you see, that’s how she made me her bitch twice that day.”

  Joe, of course, had to make a comment. “You really like underage girls, don’t you?”

  For a change I had no desire to verbally spar with him. I had found peace, solace and control in my mediation. I simply ignored him.

  Marisol wanted to know, “Did you ever fight her again?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. After my overwhelming experience, and after a few days of healing, I humbled myself before her, apologized, and asked her if she would teach an unworthy student some of the finer points of stick fighting. See, at the time of the fight, I didn’t realize she was my teacher’s daughter and a champion tournament fighter. Anyways, the last week I was there, the instructor asked if I would like a rematch. Without hesitation I accepted the challenge.”

  “Did you win?” Marisol asked.

  “No,” I responded, knowing I probably could never beat her. “However it was…” I hesitated, and then gave myself more credit than I deserved, “… sort of a draw, and I did get in a few good strikes.”

  “You lost again, didn’t you, mi amore?” Marisol said in a knowing voice.

  “More like got his ass beat again,” Julie snickered, unsympathetically.

  “Okay, I lost. But at least I wasn’t carried out of the ring unconscious. I limped out, battered and bruised, but with my dignity intact and having earned respect from my fellow students and teachers. I even received an acknowledgement as the most improved student from my masters. But more importantly, to me, I earned Bon’s respect.”

  Joe added, “Did you pay her a visit that night and make her your bitch?”

  I was calm in my response, “Joe, you just don’t get it, do you? You never seem to get it. It wasn’t about asserting one’s power over another or getting payback. It was a lesson in respect, inside and outside the ring.”

  Julie said, “You did, didn’t you?”

  “No, Julie, I didn’t. However, she did visit me again and this time she made me a proper man… several times over.”

  “Mi amor, you mean she was your first? Did you love her?”

  “We’re getting off subject here, Marisol. This was a conversation about the ability to overcome one’s enemy.”

  “You’re changing the subject, papi.”

  She knew I hated it when she called me that outside the bedroom.

  Julie asked, “What’s the matter, J.D.? I mean, Sui Lóng. Too embarrassed to admit you loved her?”

  After helping save their lives, I thought I would have garnered some respect. This was not the case. “No, Julie. I’m not embarrassed. It’s just a little bittersweet.”

  “Then you did love her,” Marisol said.

  “Yes. Yes, I did. Happy now? Can we get back to the reason why we’re all here?”

  Marisol probed deeper. “Why didn’t you marry her?”

  I ignored her. “Okay everyone, time to line up and I’ll show you first position in Jeet Kune Do.”

  “You’re not answering the question,” she said, slightly teasing, but still trying to pry an answer out of me.

  Admitting I once loved Bonna was not difficult at all. The moment she brought me into manhood was an experience and memory I could never forget. But it also brought out feelings that I had repressed for so long. It was the source of why all my relationships had failed.

  After my romantic moment with Bonna, I kept in touch with her for many years. We never spoke of our affair or of my returning to her homeland. She was too traditional to speak of it and I was too stupid not to ask her father’s permission to court her, She retired from competitive fighting and married. She had sent me a wedding invitation, though I am sure she knew I would not attend. That was the day I let my heart’s desire go. I never wrote to her again.

  Marisol did have a right to hear my answer; after all, she had given her virginity to me, but putting me on the spot in front of the others was not the appropriate thing to do. She was too headstrong and she did not want to let it go for another time. She was a woman, but she was also a young girl who hadn’t fully matured. It was time for her to bend to my will. I admonished her in front of the others.

  “Marisol, this is no longer the time or the place. We are here to learn. Conversation is over. Line up with the others.”

  The room fell silent as Marisol begrudgingly complied.

  “Okay,” I said, breaking the tension of the uncomfortable silence, “let us begin.”

  And we did. Four times a week we met and I taught them what I knew, hoping that they would never have to use it, but fearing they might.

  Everyone grew stronger. Kermit lost some weight, Marisol and Julie gained muscle––especially Julie, whose body became lean and cut, and reminded me of Bon. Joe gradually grew stronger, but didn’t lose much weight. His attitude also grew more willful, which reminded me of myself before my fall.

  David. He surprised me, on purpose. After the death of his brother, shortly after he formally announced the disbanding of his group, he decided to seek a new path in life, one that would not take him to the same tragic end as his brother Christian.

  DD Dominion once again became the simple, unassuming David DiMinni. He embarked on a career path using the college degree he had achieved years prior to his music stardom, and a healthy lifestyle of proper nutrition and exercise. As part of his regimen in making his body healthy and strong, he was studying the Okinawa martial arts style of Isshin-Ryu Karate, which meant one heart way. Isshin-Ryu was a fifty-fifty blend of Shorin-Ryu and Goju-Ryu karates, which was considered the perfect blend of soft and hard, linear and circular movements. But he had not told me that he had been studying Isshin-Ryu long enough to have earned, like myself, a shodan. David and I often spared vigorously, testing our skills, and on many occasions we walked away sore and bruised.

  I had found in the master sergeant a good training partner. Though at first he had been out of practice, it was only a month before he had the stamina and strength he needed to go full-tilt with me.

  “Today,” I announced to the class, “Master Sergeant Brown and I will go toe-to-toe full-out. This will be our first no holds barred match. We have set some rules, due to the fact that we don’t want to hurt one another. There will be no face or groin strikes. And that’s about it. David, I would like you to be timekeeper, and everyone else will be judges. At the end of three, three minute rounds, you will vote for a winner.”

  We took our positions and bowed to one another.

  As we sized each other up with a few leg kicks and hand strikes, I taunted him. I wanted to see if I could rattle his cage and cause him to make a tactical mistake. Unprofessional as it was, I wanted to see how he handled himself. I star
ted off innocently.

  “How come you always call me son?” I asked, as I bounced and pranced around our makeshift fight ring like Bruce Lee, adding in a few thumb to nose wipes.

  “How old are you?” he responded with a question.

  “I’m twenty-eight.”

  “That’s why I keep callin’ you son.”

  “How old are you?” I returned.

  He wasn’t going to tell me. He was quick with his response, “None of your damn business.”

  I replied with a smart-aleck answer. “Oh, you’re so old you don’t remember?”

  “Is this a dance studio or a martial arts studio?”

  “Why? You asking me on a date? Or you just looking for a little slap and tickle?”

  “You tryin’ to talk smack to me, son? Next thing you know you’ll be getting all 8 Mile on me. Come on; step up to the plate. The sooner I smack the frosting off your flakes the sooner I can start making lunch.”

  We engaged one another with a few more tentative strikes.

  “What’s for lunch, fried boot again?”

  “First you insult me, then you insult my cooking. What’s next?” He was being rock solid.

  I retorted with, “How about a good morning kiss?”

  “How about brushing your teeth first?”

  Kermit wasn’t going to be distracted. He struck at me hard.

  “Time,” David shouted.

  We stepped away from one another. After a moment we approached one another, and began the second round.

  “Are you done with the psychological cow manure?” he asked.

  “Indeed I am,” I warned.

  This time we engaged one another in combat. Kermit surprised me. Though I was able to defeat him, he pulled out some moves I didn’t expect. He knew some French street fighting, known as Savate, and some Krav Maga of the Israeli Commandos. I was exhausted and the olive drab A-shirt I wore was soaked in perspiration. He had made me work for my victory.

  After our match I congratulated him and expressed my honor in being able to compete against such a worthy opponent. When I questioned him on where he learned his techniques he simply responded with, “Even a cook needs to know how to defend himself.” I later found out he had been stationed in France for several years. Though I never did find out how he learned Krav Maga, he did teach me some of his moves. It was nice to learn again.