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Riot... at the Strip Mall Dojo
Feb. 7th, 2012 12:19 amSummer '97:
You'll find the Terminus All Star Karate dojo right off Moreland Avenue, in a strip mall sandwiched between a Dollar General and a check cashing store. The strip mall also boasts a decent Chinese take-out with delivery 'til four am, a liquor store with a lax policy on ID checks, and the services of a professional psychic that also does nails. The surrounding real estate consists primarily of ramshackle houses slouched hollow in fields of kudzu and empty lots cordoned off by chain link fences. The foot traffic falls heavy here on Moreland, even late at night when everything's closed and its obvious there's nowhere to go but go you must for you can't stop here. There's an abandoned Masonic Lodge a mile North one way and Little Five Points a mile South the other with a long stretch of bad neighborhood in between. Basically an old school ghetto shit hole, with the first few seeds of gentrification sown into the cracks with debt strapped grad students and slacker bohemians.
It's a late Saturday afternoon when we pull into the strip mall and park in front of the dojo. There's five of us in an evergreen chrome 1970 Nova we've christened the 'Fucked Mobile'. Roll Call: Jimmy behind the wheel. I've got shotgun. In the backseat - Germ, Brian, and Spew. We've been cruising up and down Route 23 for the past hour now getting seriously baked and checking out the pre-apocalyptic sideshow along the road; catching red light glimpses of fights, hustles, rants, propositions and shake-downs. When we finally exit the car, it’s in a clumsy spill of arm punches and insidious giggles.
Before us the dojo which, prior to offering 'self-defense techniques at prices that can't be beat', was a Buster Brown's Shoe Store. As such its walls are ground to ceiling glass, giving us a clear view of class in session. The teacher, Big Daddy Sensei, has the bland good looks and laid back authority of a 80’s era sitcom dad. He's cycling through a series of stances, snapping his fists away in a flurry and periodically stomping away at the empty air. He's got two earnest assistants flanking him and five rows of students facing him, the last three of which consist of ranks made up of all grade school aged students. None of them shirk in their efforts though, each doing their best to mime their instructor's barrage of punches and forearm blocks. Behind them a concrete wall with a large American flag draped across it.
Big Daddy Sensei truncates the stances and claps his hands. The students snap out of the mimic trance and at the Sensei’s instructions, break up into small groups to start sparring one another.
Perfect.
We split up and hit the surrounding shops. Jimmy scores us some ciders and beers from the liquor store. I pop into the take-out to pick to score us some munchies. The other three hit the dollar store and return with five pool chairs and a bundle of candy bars.
By the time I come out with an armload of egg rolls, braised wings and crab ragoon, the boys are already setting up the lawn chairs with Jimmy supervising, brazenly sipping away at a Strongbow while perched on the hood of the 'Fucked Mobile'. The boys finally get the chairs assembled with all the grace of three monkeys fucking a football. They scramble quick after a few scolding words from Jimmy, and line the chairs up five abreast along the side walk in front of our ride and facing the center window of the dojo.
"Finally!" Jimmy hops off the car, leans into the open window on the driver's side, cranks the engine, pops the stereo on and dials up the Bad Religion to 10. He leans back out, makes his way to the center chair, collapses into it with a ceremonious burp and takes a fresh glug of cider. I grab the seat to his left, ready to whisper advice to the devil on his shoulder if need be. Germ grabs the right trying to stay on Jimmy's good side and the other boys fill in the blanks. As a final flourish the five of us reach into our respected jackets or back pockets to produce a set of 3-D glasses. From there we take in the show, rooting vigorously for some students and booing others as they engage each other in their training bouts. We crack open the ciders and beers. We light up cigarettes. We pass the egg rolls and dumplings. Nobody dares walk in front of us.
Inside though, the students have begun to notice our presence through the window. Some get flustered and self-conscious. Others can't help but giggle. It isn't long until one of the teacher's assistants gets a glance at us and weasels off to whisper a word in the ear of an otherwise oblivious Sensei, who is quite involved in giving a little hands on hips instructions to the sole female student. The teacher turns around and takes us in a glance.
Damn, if he don’t look as pissed as a man can be.
But do we run?
Nah, fuck that shit... the real show's about to begin.
Sensei shouts over to the other assistant and nods our way. The assistant does a double take. We give a post card worthy wave and offer toasts with our bottles. The students all giggle. Sensei and his two assistants come marching on out the dojo.
Sensei slams open the door, storms over with his two assistants behind him and with a southern fried accent demands: "The hell do you all think you're doing?"
The boys and I trade baffled looks and shrug. I lean over, flip up my 3-D glasses and smile at the Sensei: "Dude, what's it look like we're doing? It's Saturday afternoon. My buddies and I are having a few beers. Eating some Chinese and watching a little 'Kung-Fu Theatre. Now if you don't mind, you're kinda breaking the fourth wall here."
"Yeah, well..." Sensei growls with both thumbs tucked into his black belt all John Wayne posturing for the onlooking class, “… the only fourth wall I’m gonna be breaking is when I put your skull through one.”
"Whoah, take it easy there Pirandello-San, we were just having a few laughs, s'all..."
"Oh is that right?" Sensei huffs tugging at his belt with his hooked thumbs. "Well we'll see how you're laughing when I come there and ..."
... and an empty cider bottle smashes directly into his face.
"Sorry." Jimmy stands up, flips his 3-D glasses up and cracks his knuckles with a gleeful menace, " I got bored and stopped listening. So, we doing this or what?"
The more gung-ho of the two assistants, dashes forward towards Jimmy letting out an impressive battle cry. One cut short when Spew kick a big fat old boot out to trip the assistant and send him tumbling towards the pavement face first. He goes down hard and before he can get back up, Jimmy steps right on his hand to elicit an agonized wail before stepping casually over his body.
Big Daddy Sensei is still reeling, the other assistant is looking on stunned with the horror. Despite his meticulous training, the appearance of actual blood and combat has short-circuited his resolve. He begins to falter back at Jimmy's advance. Jimmy points at him as he approaches. "What?"
The Sensei manages to snap out of the shock, wiping blood and glass out of his face... just in time for it to meet the tip of Jimmy's knee. Jimmy in a blur grabs the Sensei by the back of the head, flattens his nose with a wet crunch and the man goes spinning around before stumbling into a crouched ball of pain rolling around the sidewalk. Face cradled in hands, an incoherent whimper leaks through his fingers. Jimmy turns back to the other assistant. "S'up? You want a piece of this or not?"
The assistant takes one look at Jimmy then at the Sensei and his buddy... and then he sees the crowd that’s built up. The delivery boys, the prostitutes, the dealers, the professionally deranged… all watching with charged silence. That’s when he bolts. Back into the dojo sprinting to some office no doubt to dial 911. Normally bad news, but police response time in this neighborhood ranges in the hours not minutes. Still it never pays to fuck around in these cases and so we start grabbing our shit for a quick exit.
"Hey!" A diminutive voice shouts behind us. "I want a piece of ‘this’… Bitch."
The boys and I turn as one. Standing there in front of his fallen Sensei is a chest high ginger kid, looking neat in his white Karate pajamas and brandishing a pair of nu-chucks that seem disproportionately large in his tiny freckled hands.
The boys and I turn towards each other. Exchange arched brows and then burst into laughter. A good belly roar, Jimmy doubled over clutching his gut and the rest of us stomping about snickering. None of us noticing that the kid had mossied on over our way and was now defiantly standing in front of Jimmy.
Jimmy wipes a tear out of his eye and kneels down giving a good natured rub of his red scalp: "Kid, you got some balls, I’ll give you that."
To which the kid replied with a swift kick to Jimmy's groin: "Right now that's two more than you've got, asshole!"
The kick lands hard, Jimmy doubles over again but this time he ain't laughing. He looks up at the kid with genuine confusion and is met with a nu-chuck whack to the face. Germ races over but the kid spins around and strikes him right in the side of the knee with the nu-chuck, sending my buddy to buckle down and put him range of a knife chop judiciously delivered to the throat. The kid turns to the rest of us and goes all Bruce Lee with the nu-chucks, as they orbit lightning fast around the torso.
Brian and Spew move in on the kid with raised fists. The kid waits for them to approach and then rolls under a lunged grasp from Brian, tumbling under his legs and popping up behind him where he throws another kick to the back of his leg. Brian staggers forward and the kid jumps up on to Brian's back, and leaps off him to deliver a flying spin kick to Spew's face. The kid lands, spins around and in a whirlwind of motion begins slapping the two of them wildly with the business ends of the twirling nu-chucks.
"How you like the Kung-Fu Theatre now, bitches?" The kid yells triumphantly before I whistle for his attention. He spins around ready to dole out some more justice but instead is met with a blast of shaken up Pabst sprayed into his eyes. Blinded the kid reels back wiping at his face. I grab Jimmy up under his arms and drag him to the car.
"C’mon, let’s go!" I shout. The rest of the boys get their shit together enough to stagger to the Fucked Mobile. I get Jimmy into the backseat and the rest of the boys mount in with Spew taking the wheel. We get the doors locked just in time to see the kid standing in front of the car. With a sadistic grin he smashes out one headlight with a nu-chuck blow Then another. Germ's having trouble getting the car in gear and grinding the engine to start up. That’s when we but the kid's at the side window. He smashes out the side mirror and spits on the window. Finally the car cranks up and we peel out in reverse. But not before the kid flings the nu-chucks at us to shatter the rear window. The small crowd that had gathered get in on the act, pelting the car with bottles and trash as we screech away. We hit Moreland and speed off back to Jimmy's place.
We end up ditching the car about two blocks away and amble our way to the apartment. There his girlfriend Winter sits, cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, playing Tekken 2 on the Play Station when we come stumbling in. Jimmy's gotten his breath back but he looks bad. We all do. Well I don't... discretion being the better part of valor after all. Winter takes in Jimmy and shakes her head - "What happened?"
"Nothin'." Jimmy pouts, pulling a cold beer out of the fridge and placing it down his pants.
"Whaddya mean 'nothing'?" Winter huffs, clearly not pleased with having to pause at such a pivotal match in the game.
"We got in a fight...," I answer, rummaging through the fridge for something to eat. "with a whole dojo. Kicked their asses too."
"Pfff," Winter snorts with a shake of her head, "well as long as you didn’t fuck up my car."
The five of us eye each other carefully and look back at Jimmy.
"No," Jimmy clears his throat, "It’s fine."
The rest of us grunt and nod our heads vaguely in agreement.
"Uh-huh." Winter turns back to the TV, hits pause and goes back into the game. A petite blond woman starts delivering a series of unstoppable combo moves on a bear. We wince at the onslaught at first, finding in the blows a prophecy of what will happen when she finds out what happened to the Nova. But for now there’s nothing we can do but watch the digital carnage unfold. Slowly we all begin to grab seats in the living room around the TV. Popping open beers, packing a bowl and watching her play out a little Kung-Fu theatre of her own.
You'll find the Terminus All Star Karate dojo right off Moreland Avenue, in a strip mall sandwiched between a Dollar General and a check cashing store. The strip mall also boasts a decent Chinese take-out with delivery 'til four am, a liquor store with a lax policy on ID checks, and the services of a professional psychic that also does nails. The surrounding real estate consists primarily of ramshackle houses slouched hollow in fields of kudzu and empty lots cordoned off by chain link fences. The foot traffic falls heavy here on Moreland, even late at night when everything's closed and its obvious there's nowhere to go but go you must for you can't stop here. There's an abandoned Masonic Lodge a mile North one way and Little Five Points a mile South the other with a long stretch of bad neighborhood in between. Basically an old school ghetto shit hole, with the first few seeds of gentrification sown into the cracks with debt strapped grad students and slacker bohemians.
It's a late Saturday afternoon when we pull into the strip mall and park in front of the dojo. There's five of us in an evergreen chrome 1970 Nova we've christened the 'Fucked Mobile'. Roll Call: Jimmy behind the wheel. I've got shotgun. In the backseat - Germ, Brian, and Spew. We've been cruising up and down Route 23 for the past hour now getting seriously baked and checking out the pre-apocalyptic sideshow along the road; catching red light glimpses of fights, hustles, rants, propositions and shake-downs. When we finally exit the car, it’s in a clumsy spill of arm punches and insidious giggles.
Before us the dojo which, prior to offering 'self-defense techniques at prices that can't be beat', was a Buster Brown's Shoe Store. As such its walls are ground to ceiling glass, giving us a clear view of class in session. The teacher, Big Daddy Sensei, has the bland good looks and laid back authority of a 80’s era sitcom dad. He's cycling through a series of stances, snapping his fists away in a flurry and periodically stomping away at the empty air. He's got two earnest assistants flanking him and five rows of students facing him, the last three of which consist of ranks made up of all grade school aged students. None of them shirk in their efforts though, each doing their best to mime their instructor's barrage of punches and forearm blocks. Behind them a concrete wall with a large American flag draped across it.
Big Daddy Sensei truncates the stances and claps his hands. The students snap out of the mimic trance and at the Sensei’s instructions, break up into small groups to start sparring one another.
Perfect.
We split up and hit the surrounding shops. Jimmy scores us some ciders and beers from the liquor store. I pop into the take-out to pick to score us some munchies. The other three hit the dollar store and return with five pool chairs and a bundle of candy bars.
By the time I come out with an armload of egg rolls, braised wings and crab ragoon, the boys are already setting up the lawn chairs with Jimmy supervising, brazenly sipping away at a Strongbow while perched on the hood of the 'Fucked Mobile'. The boys finally get the chairs assembled with all the grace of three monkeys fucking a football. They scramble quick after a few scolding words from Jimmy, and line the chairs up five abreast along the side walk in front of our ride and facing the center window of the dojo.
"Finally!" Jimmy hops off the car, leans into the open window on the driver's side, cranks the engine, pops the stereo on and dials up the Bad Religion to 10. He leans back out, makes his way to the center chair, collapses into it with a ceremonious burp and takes a fresh glug of cider. I grab the seat to his left, ready to whisper advice to the devil on his shoulder if need be. Germ grabs the right trying to stay on Jimmy's good side and the other boys fill in the blanks. As a final flourish the five of us reach into our respected jackets or back pockets to produce a set of 3-D glasses. From there we take in the show, rooting vigorously for some students and booing others as they engage each other in their training bouts. We crack open the ciders and beers. We light up cigarettes. We pass the egg rolls and dumplings. Nobody dares walk in front of us.
Inside though, the students have begun to notice our presence through the window. Some get flustered and self-conscious. Others can't help but giggle. It isn't long until one of the teacher's assistants gets a glance at us and weasels off to whisper a word in the ear of an otherwise oblivious Sensei, who is quite involved in giving a little hands on hips instructions to the sole female student. The teacher turns around and takes us in a glance.
Damn, if he don’t look as pissed as a man can be.
But do we run?
Nah, fuck that shit... the real show's about to begin.
Sensei shouts over to the other assistant and nods our way. The assistant does a double take. We give a post card worthy wave and offer toasts with our bottles. The students all giggle. Sensei and his two assistants come marching on out the dojo.
Sensei slams open the door, storms over with his two assistants behind him and with a southern fried accent demands: "The hell do you all think you're doing?"
The boys and I trade baffled looks and shrug. I lean over, flip up my 3-D glasses and smile at the Sensei: "Dude, what's it look like we're doing? It's Saturday afternoon. My buddies and I are having a few beers. Eating some Chinese and watching a little 'Kung-Fu Theatre. Now if you don't mind, you're kinda breaking the fourth wall here."
"Yeah, well..." Sensei growls with both thumbs tucked into his black belt all John Wayne posturing for the onlooking class, “… the only fourth wall I’m gonna be breaking is when I put your skull through one.”
"Whoah, take it easy there Pirandello-San, we were just having a few laughs, s'all..."
"Oh is that right?" Sensei huffs tugging at his belt with his hooked thumbs. "Well we'll see how you're laughing when I come there and ..."
... and an empty cider bottle smashes directly into his face.
"Sorry." Jimmy stands up, flips his 3-D glasses up and cracks his knuckles with a gleeful menace, " I got bored and stopped listening. So, we doing this or what?"
The more gung-ho of the two assistants, dashes forward towards Jimmy letting out an impressive battle cry. One cut short when Spew kick a big fat old boot out to trip the assistant and send him tumbling towards the pavement face first. He goes down hard and before he can get back up, Jimmy steps right on his hand to elicit an agonized wail before stepping casually over his body.
Big Daddy Sensei is still reeling, the other assistant is looking on stunned with the horror. Despite his meticulous training, the appearance of actual blood and combat has short-circuited his resolve. He begins to falter back at Jimmy's advance. Jimmy points at him as he approaches. "What?"
The Sensei manages to snap out of the shock, wiping blood and glass out of his face... just in time for it to meet the tip of Jimmy's knee. Jimmy in a blur grabs the Sensei by the back of the head, flattens his nose with a wet crunch and the man goes spinning around before stumbling into a crouched ball of pain rolling around the sidewalk. Face cradled in hands, an incoherent whimper leaks through his fingers. Jimmy turns back to the other assistant. "S'up? You want a piece of this or not?"
The assistant takes one look at Jimmy then at the Sensei and his buddy... and then he sees the crowd that’s built up. The delivery boys, the prostitutes, the dealers, the professionally deranged… all watching with charged silence. That’s when he bolts. Back into the dojo sprinting to some office no doubt to dial 911. Normally bad news, but police response time in this neighborhood ranges in the hours not minutes. Still it never pays to fuck around in these cases and so we start grabbing our shit for a quick exit.
"Hey!" A diminutive voice shouts behind us. "I want a piece of ‘this’… Bitch."
The boys and I turn as one. Standing there in front of his fallen Sensei is a chest high ginger kid, looking neat in his white Karate pajamas and brandishing a pair of nu-chucks that seem disproportionately large in his tiny freckled hands.
The boys and I turn towards each other. Exchange arched brows and then burst into laughter. A good belly roar, Jimmy doubled over clutching his gut and the rest of us stomping about snickering. None of us noticing that the kid had mossied on over our way and was now defiantly standing in front of Jimmy.
Jimmy wipes a tear out of his eye and kneels down giving a good natured rub of his red scalp: "Kid, you got some balls, I’ll give you that."
To which the kid replied with a swift kick to Jimmy's groin: "Right now that's two more than you've got, asshole!"
The kick lands hard, Jimmy doubles over again but this time he ain't laughing. He looks up at the kid with genuine confusion and is met with a nu-chuck whack to the face. Germ races over but the kid spins around and strikes him right in the side of the knee with the nu-chuck, sending my buddy to buckle down and put him range of a knife chop judiciously delivered to the throat. The kid turns to the rest of us and goes all Bruce Lee with the nu-chucks, as they orbit lightning fast around the torso.
Brian and Spew move in on the kid with raised fists. The kid waits for them to approach and then rolls under a lunged grasp from Brian, tumbling under his legs and popping up behind him where he throws another kick to the back of his leg. Brian staggers forward and the kid jumps up on to Brian's back, and leaps off him to deliver a flying spin kick to Spew's face. The kid lands, spins around and in a whirlwind of motion begins slapping the two of them wildly with the business ends of the twirling nu-chucks.
"How you like the Kung-Fu Theatre now, bitches?" The kid yells triumphantly before I whistle for his attention. He spins around ready to dole out some more justice but instead is met with a blast of shaken up Pabst sprayed into his eyes. Blinded the kid reels back wiping at his face. I grab Jimmy up under his arms and drag him to the car.
"C’mon, let’s go!" I shout. The rest of the boys get their shit together enough to stagger to the Fucked Mobile. I get Jimmy into the backseat and the rest of the boys mount in with Spew taking the wheel. We get the doors locked just in time to see the kid standing in front of the car. With a sadistic grin he smashes out one headlight with a nu-chuck blow Then another. Germ's having trouble getting the car in gear and grinding the engine to start up. That’s when we but the kid's at the side window. He smashes out the side mirror and spits on the window. Finally the car cranks up and we peel out in reverse. But not before the kid flings the nu-chucks at us to shatter the rear window. The small crowd that had gathered get in on the act, pelting the car with bottles and trash as we screech away. We hit Moreland and speed off back to Jimmy's place.
We end up ditching the car about two blocks away and amble our way to the apartment. There his girlfriend Winter sits, cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, playing Tekken 2 on the Play Station when we come stumbling in. Jimmy's gotten his breath back but he looks bad. We all do. Well I don't... discretion being the better part of valor after all. Winter takes in Jimmy and shakes her head - "What happened?"
"Nothin'." Jimmy pouts, pulling a cold beer out of the fridge and placing it down his pants.
"Whaddya mean 'nothing'?" Winter huffs, clearly not pleased with having to pause at such a pivotal match in the game.
"We got in a fight...," I answer, rummaging through the fridge for something to eat. "with a whole dojo. Kicked their asses too."
"Pfff," Winter snorts with a shake of her head, "well as long as you didn’t fuck up my car."
The five of us eye each other carefully and look back at Jimmy.
"No," Jimmy clears his throat, "It’s fine."
The rest of us grunt and nod our heads vaguely in agreement.
"Uh-huh." Winter turns back to the TV, hits pause and goes back into the game. A petite blond woman starts delivering a series of unstoppable combo moves on a bear. We wince at the onslaught at first, finding in the blows a prophecy of what will happen when she finds out what happened to the Nova. But for now there’s nothing we can do but watch the digital carnage unfold. Slowly we all begin to grab seats in the living room around the TV. Popping open beers, packing a bowl and watching her play out a little Kung-Fu theatre of her own.