Haiku

by Andrew Vachss

  I was grateful for this. When his tales are met with skepticism, Michael retreats. Ranger does not. The last time an account of his exploits had been laughed at by a stranger we had allowed to share the warmth of our oil-drum fireplace, I had been forced to intervene before Ranger could conclude his demonstration of sentry-removal techniques.

  “She was getting rid of something,” Michael said, slight fissures beginning to show in the eggshell of his self-control. “Whatever it was, it has to be worth heavy bucks to somebody, am I right?”

  “It would take a team of Navy SEALs to—”

  “No, no, no,” Michael interrupted Lamont. “We don’t have to actually retrieve whatever she tossed in there. All we have to do is let her know we know, see?”

  “Blackmail!” Brewster exclaimed, awed at the very thought. Such crimes apparently occur frequently in the books he collects.

  “Slackmail! Crackmail! Hackmail! Trackmail!” Target muttered.

  His last clang resonated within me. Unless reined in, our clan would splinter, each wandering off into the territory to which he was most accustomed—the territory I have been trying to help each of them decide to leave.

  “Why have you told me this?” I asked Michael.

  “Come on, Ho,” he said. “Who else would I tell? We need you to make this work.”

  5

  In Michael’s obsessed and possessed consciousness, there is no room for morality. His mind is capable of highly complex thoughts, but all his thinking is reserved for the computation of odds. He has been waiting for that one bet he cannot lose, that “mortal lock,” for many years. With each change of season, his connection to reality more closely resembles a frayed wire.

  It was through listening that I knew a “mortal lock” in Michael’s language meant an outcome literally outside the possibility of failure. A “mortal lock” is well beyond a mere “sure thing.” The word “mortal” carries the weight of the term—the “lock” is a death-grip.

  The unenlightened often confuse insanity with stupidity. Many of us down here see things not visible to others. Some of those, like Ranger’s recurring license-plate number, are images, not insights. But Michael’s recounting of events was no “vision.” He and Ranger had seen the car. They had seen the woman throw something in the water. And Michael knows that his once-legendary ability to “smell money” in any situation has not totally deserted him.

  So they all turn to me. For wisdom and guidance. As many once did.

  6

  My name is not Ho. I entered this world without a name. I had no more need of a name than I had of a title.

  It was Ranger who named me. I encountered him within several weeks of beginning my walk. Typically, I would hover about the fringes of one group or another. Not seeking admission, but looking for … I did not know what. One night, a man walked up to a group standing around aimlessly, waiting for darkness to blanket the city before seeking places to sleep in safety. I watched as, one by one, each person within the group detached himself.

  “How come you aren’t pulling out?” the man I later came to know as Ranger asked me.

  “I am still trying to understand why the others departed,” I replied.

  “I’m a fucking psycho,” he said, as if by way of explanation.

  “Ah.”

  “You’re not scared,” he said, moving quite close to me.

  “I am not,” I acknowledged.

  He peered closely at my face for several long moments. “I know you?” he finally asked.

  “I do not believe so.”

  Several more minutes passed in silence.

  “I got a good place to hole up,” he said. “Plenty of room for you, if you want.”

  7

  We spent the next several days in each other’s company, exchanging very few words, sharing whatever we managed to scrounge.

  One night, we approached a group together. Some left at once, but several remained, falling into place behind a tall, slender black man. As if following some protocol, Ranger proffered two tins of what is called “canned heat.” This is a significant offering, because there are many uses for such.

  The black man accepted the tins, extended his right hand, and said, “Lamont.”

  “Ranger. And this is my partner, Ho Chi Minh.”

  “Ho, okay?” Lamont asked, extending his hand.

  “Hai!” I agreed.

  When Ranger and I departed that night, Lamont came with us.

  8

  I understood Ranger had meant to confer respect by the name he had assigned me. Ranger considered Ho Chi Minh to have been a master strategist and a most formidable leader of men. So I did not question the name I had been given, nor did I question how a Hmong tribesman such as he believed me to be might have come by a Vietnamese name.

  In our world, a man may acquire a name in many ways. In the generic tribe outsiders call “The Homeless,” there are both volunteers and conscripts. But this is not the French Foreign Legion; there is no ceremony where a man is allowed to choose the name by which he shall henceforth be known. Some have names thrust upon them, usually as a reflection of their habitual conduct … such as the one now known simply as “Forty.” Originally he had been dubbed “Forty Fathoms,” in tribute to his ability to plunge to the floor of Dumpsters in his daily search for … whatever he seeks.

  Forty’s name had been shortened over time. Not as a rock is reduced by eons of river-flow, but more as though the rock had been deliberately honed to a knife-edge. Little is wasted in a world where some live on the discards of others. Lengthy names are unwieldy here, especially for those who have never disclosed their own in full.

  Thus, over time, I became “Ho.”

  Lamont knows I am Japanese. He also knows the difference between irony and meanness of spirit. Whenever Ranger is present, Lamont’s favorite response to anything I might say is, “Hai, Ho!”

  9

  I live among the dispossessed and disenfranchised. But, unlike others of my tribe, I have not descended as a result of damage done to me. The wounds that drove me to these depths were all self-inflicted.

  The year of my birth was 1928. My mother earned her living in the only manner available to her. Whoever planted his seed within her was never known to me, just as I would never be known to him.

  As a very small child, I was apprenticed to a temple. I am certain my mother did this because she wished better opportunities for me than she herself could hope to provide. For this, I honor her, always.

  Her last words to me were “Do your best, my only son!” I clung to those words, and tried with all my spirit to be true to them. As I grew, I learned their deeper meaning. I was my mother’s only son because she would never have another.

  My mother did not abandon me. Our life was a tiny raft, adrift in a sea of sharks, with few provisions. My mother dove into that deadly water so that I might be rescued. She intended that the temple become my father—a wise, strong, honorable teacher. And, most of all, my protector.

  10

  I was not yet fourteen years of age when the Emperor’s fleet of falcons descended upon America’s exposed clump of field mice. Even inside the temple, the vibrations were felt. Our monastic isolation, once highly honored, would no longer be tolerated. With the blessing—in truth, the command—of my teachers, I left the temple to become a soldier.

  That command cemented a truth that had been forming in my mind for years—the temple was never the father my mother had so devoutly believed it to be.

  But I did not attain the deeper knowledge of the temple’s fraudulence until the Vietnam War. I watched as monks incinerated themselves to send their message that the killing must stop, much as the courageous monks stand today against the criminals who starve their own people in Tibet and Burma. The courage of such humble men shames the world.

  I remember watching those human torches shining the light of truth. My eyes hazed with tears. I saw then that the temple in which I had been raised had not been worthy of my moth
er’s trust. To spare themselves the fire that lights the Way, the monks of my temple had sacrificed me to those who had abandoned it.

  My mother, a lowly prostitute, had surrendered her own life to save that of her child. And the temple had traded that child’s life to prolong its own.

  Who was more holy?

  As that understanding filled my spirit, I knew I had said my last prayer to false gods.

  11

  The temple was nothing more than a factory, a training ground for those whose life would be spent in service to whoever purchased the product. Because I had not yet learned this truth, I never disclosed to the Army that the prior decade of my life had been a total immersion in the martial arts. By concealing this, I believed I was honoring my mother’s sacrifice. I believed I was showing her spirit how deeply I valued her only legacy: humility.

  To the authorities, my age was no impediment. There was no need for me to lie. I was told that I was seventeen, an orphaned child who had to make his own meager way in the world.

  In the military, my physical skills were almost cosmically superior to those of my compatriots, but my worldly wisdom was inferior to an equal degree. Even boys my own age who found themselves in the military were highly knowledgeable about a world I did not know even existed. The world of my mother.

  Silence served me well. I wished only to appear obedient, but quickly learned that a blank expression and no apparent desire to speak gave me a certain status. A low status, to be sure, but one that enabled me to learn much more than had I asked questions. Because I was considered dull and stupid, others spoke in front of me as disrespectful teenagers might make rude gestures to a blind man.

  I was not dissatisfied with this treatment. The temple had trained me to equate submissiveness with humbleness. But, one foul night, an older man, who was my superior in every way but one, ordered me to accompany him. I acted as if I did not notice the knowing looks exchanged between some of the others as he led me away.

  Those looks changed when I returned. I had been gone only a very short time. And I had come back alone.

  I slept undisturbed.

  In the morning, the others walked around the sergeant’s body lying on the field, avoiding contact as if it were a dead rat.

  This was before our training was completed. Later, we were all transported into the combat arena.

  War alters one’s perspective forever. Near the end, no soldier would walk past a dead rat lying on the ground. What once had been regarded as a symbol of odious filth was now a cherished source of desperately needed nutrition.

  I merely accepted this, never realizing that I had been granted a foreshadowing of my own future.

  12

  When the war ended—or, if you prefer, when my country’s defeat was finalized—I returned to the temple. To this day, my true motive is unknown to me. I was not returning “home.” I had nothing in my heart. Perhaps I had wished to show my teachers what I had learned. I knew only that I must return, and I trusted that knowledge.

  But the temple was gone. Not merely damaged—vanished. Vaporized, as if it had never existed.

  I made my way back to what was left of the city of my birth. Perhaps I was sleepwalking, dreaming I could somehow find my mother. I was soon cured of that delusion.

  Avoiding the occupiers was virtually impossible. Those who found ways to make themselves useful to the conquering forces were tolerated. Some even flourished. But only the darkness of the alleys welcomed those such as me.

  It was not long before my skills became known to those who wished to put them to use. The war had taught me much, but the temple had taught me more. So I knew better than to refuse. Instead, I merely vanished. The gods may not have blessed a man who has nothing, but they do allow him to disappear at will.

  13

  After many false starts, I began to teach. My youth, which would have counted heavily against me with Japanese students, actually proved to be an advantage with the American servicemen I trained. They assumed I was too young to have been a soldier. The tale of my being a child prodigy of the arts, raised in a remote temple that had been destroyed during the last bombing—that was a much more acceptable legend to those who created it. And spread it, widely.

  As I taught, so I learned. Two decades passed. Twenty years during which I had no desire other than to perfect my art, and pass this knowledge to my students.

  I could not search for the remnants of a temple that had never existed, so I created one of my own. Those who called themselves priests had trained me as one would a Tosa—a large dog to be placed in a raised cage, where it would fight to the death for the entertainment of the high-borns.

  I would not call myself by their name, but I did seek purity in all things. I lived very simply. I never tasted sake, I never ate animal flesh, and I never knew a woman as a man would.

  I became a monk without a begging bowl. A monk without gods. A monk with ice encasing my heart.

  I served only my art.

  14

  The Southeast Asian wars of the late 1960s brought a large influx of American soldiers to Japan. By then, I had acquired a perhaps exaggerated reputation. I had also developed a working command of English, albeit a somewhat pedantic one.

  Immediately following the nuclear-ending war, many opportunities to learn the language of the conqueror had emerged. The privileged classes, the merchants, even the criminal organizations all saw the value of being able to converse in the foreign tongue.

  I had educated myself through dictionaries and encyclopedias, studying any “high literature” originally written in English by using its Japanese translation as my Rosetta stone.

  The Japanese people of that era reveled in accounts of American racism. Much of our news media highlighted the struggle of those who had been denied full citizenship merely because of the color of their skin. Images of American government brutality were commonplace. The deaths of those who had stood against their oppressors were duly—even smugly—reported, as if Japan were a society in which all were equal.

  Hypocrisy became our national pastime, feeding our voracious appetite for evidence of cultural superiority. We were well aware that our country had no need of racism; we allowed only a single race to be “Japanese.” Instead of skin color, we separated our citizens by an equally immutable factor—the status of their birth. There will never be an election called to determine the next Emperor of Japan.

  So, although my classes were open to all, none were interracial. Eventually, it became universally believed that I taught Japanese students special techniques which I would not share with foreigners. This would seem quite logical to those who spread the myth, since it was accepted that Japanese servility toward our conquerors was a mask. A mask that would be removed in the fullness of time.

  In Japan, respect is granted both by and within one’s social class. Over the years, I had trained many Yakuza. One day, a man who had been with my school for quite some time requested a private audience. I sat patiently through his lengthy recital of the noble roots of Yakuza, their adherence to a centuries-old code of honor, and how they had successfully resisted all attempts by the high-born to extinguish them.

  His recital perfectly paralleled the lies of the temple. In Yakuza legend, great men with deep humanitarian commitment would rescue abandoned children from lives of despair and bring them together to form families whose allegiance to one another was as powerful as the call of blood. Just as the monks we called “master” would address us as “son,” the leader of a Yakuza clan is “oyabun.” This means a father who has chosen his own sons, just as the high priests had chosen us.

  In either case, those chosen must consider themselves to have been honored by the choice.

  Perhaps this once was truth. A child without a family is an open vessel, eager to accept whatever is offered to fill its emptiness. There have always been such children. Perhaps, long ago, there truly were those who took them as their own, and trained them in their ways. Tradition is created onl
y when practices outlive their practitioners.

  But, although I was still a young man, by the time the Yakuza legend was recited to me I was aged in my understandings. I knew the lost children were still sought out, brought into families, and sworn to allegiance. But their “fathers” were no more worthy of the name than were the “priests” who had raised me.

  Thus, I waited for what I knew was the actual purpose of his visit. And, as expected, the Yakuza finally conveyed the most humble request of his oyabun that I become the exclusive teacher of his family.

  Not a word was said about me joining the Yakuza clan. It was clearly communicated that I would not be expected to mark my body, or to accept the “tasks” I was to train others to perform.

  I was told only that the clan would be honored by my presence. No threat was uttered. But the cost of refusal was as clear as it was unspoken.

  For years, several of my American students had been offering to finance the establishment of a school in their country. An investment, they termed it. I had always graciously refused. The evening following the Yakuza’s visit, I contacted those students … and gratefully accepted their offer.

  15

  Another two decades passed. I continued to study, to learn, and to teach.

  I did not name the style I eventually created. This I considered the ultimate act of humility. My students were expected to follow that same path. Those who insisted on a “name” for the style I had synthesized from a hundred others were quickly culled, as were those who demanded any indicia of “rank.” I required all those who sought promotion within the system I had created to submit to testing of my own design, with myself as the sole judge.

  I was far from the temple, both spiritually and physically. I rejected the Yakuza as I had the priests. From the moment my childhood died, I had ceased to regard submission as humility.