“I’m gonna go back,” you say defensively, just like you say it every time to Yona, who stopped believing you would ever return to Florida Keys Community College about a year ago. “Look, even community colleges want you to actually pay the tuition. And I got this eating habit I can’t kick, so that’s what all my disposable income from working at three different bars is going to.”
“I also have an email from William Nakahara, who runs one of the most respected martial arts schools in south Florida. He says you have the potential to be his finest student.” She smiles. “I’ve known Kaicho Bill for thirty years, Ms. Ruiz. I’ve heard him speak that highly about maybe six students over those years. Seven, now.”
You blink in amazement at this out-of-left-field praise. Every time you step into the dojo, you expect to be unmasked as a fraud.
“I’m spearheading a new program for the navy, Ms. Ruiz. I’m trying to convince the secretary to approve an all-female SEAL fire team. I’m trying to find the best of the best from police forces and in the military, but I’m also looking for special people in martial arts schools. You have exactly what I’m looking for to fill out the team.”
“Uhm—” You squirm in the guest chair, the leather making strange noises in response. “Ma’am, with all due respect, there’s much better fighters just in our dojo.”
“I’m not looking for better fighters, Ms. Ruiz, I’m looking for smarter fighters. From what my aide tells me, and from what these transcripts tell me, and from what Kaicho tells me, that’s you.”
Lydia sat in one of the folding chairs set up near the front desk at Grandmaster Ken’s Martial Arts School of Miami, one of seventeen branches he had all up and down Florida from as far north as Tallahassee all the way down to a tiny one in Florida City. But the Miami one was his main headquarters — if he hadn’t completely eschewed Japanese terminology, it would be called the honbu—so this was where he taught. The adult color belt class had thirty students. Grandmaster Ken — a burly, broad-shouldered white guy with a shaved head and a goatee — led the class, with three black belts wandering throughout to check on individual students.
Kaicho Bill’s dojo had had lots of Japanese decor. There was the shinzen, the spiritual center, which was a tiny reproduction of a Buddhist altar. There were three flags on the wall, one American, one Japanese, and one Florida state flag. Japanese art decorated the entire place, and there was a wooden placard over the entrance to the dojo floor that had the words nanakorobi yaoki in kanji characters — it was a common saying among martial artists: “seven times fall down, eight times get up.”
Grandmaster Ken had none of that. The only flag he had was the Stars and Stripes, and the only decor was a big shelf full of trophies. The grandmaster himself wore a black gi while all the other students wore white ones.
The students were all in a fighting stance. “I want to see left jab, left jab, right cross, right roundhouse kick, left back kick. I want the back kick to be groin height. Go!”
Together, all the students did those techniques, with varying degrees of quality.
“Stay together! Go!”
Lydia noted that the higher belts — purple, blue, and black — were moving in perfect unison. The lower belts, not so much.
Grandmaster Ken went to several of the students to yell at them for not keeping up. But he seemed to be yelling only at the women. She saw two yellow belt men whose form was awful — they had strength and speed, but they got the sequence wrong several times.
At no point did Grandmaster Ken say a word to either of those two, but the one time that Yona was a second late with the roundhouse kick or another woman with an orange belt kicked too high or too low on the back kick, or a third threw only one jab, he was all over her.
After the fighting drill, he called out techniques and pointed at a student to perform that technique.
To a male purple belt: “Right side-high kick. No, that’s a regular side kick, side-high is to the side, and don’t bend your knee.”
To a female blue belt: “Hook block. Wrong! That’s a forearm block! Ten push-ups!”
After class, a sweaty Yona went straight to the changing room. Lydia noticed that they didn’t clean the floor for the next class.
Yona immediately went outside, with Lydia following, and lit up a cigarette. “Good workout,” she said weakly.
“That was some bullshit. For the whole year I was in Kaicho’s dojo, you know what word I never heard? ‘Wrong.’ Carajo, even my instructors at SQT weren’t this hard-assed! This asshole is always telling people what they do wrong. Kaicho tells people how to do it right.”
“Yeah, well, that was Kaicho. This is Grandmaster Ke—”
One of the black belts who’d been helping teach came out, still in his gi. “Hey, Yona. Grandmaster wants you to pick up his kid tomorrow at three.”
“No problem, Master Ethan.” Yona wouldn’t make eye contact with this guy, either.
“Good. And we’re still on for drinks after fighting tomorrow night, right?”
Before Yona could agree, Lydia stepped forward. “Actually, we got plans tomorrow night.”
Ethan looked down on her as if she were a fly that had gotten into his soup. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Senpai Yona’s friend in from out of town.”
Waving a hand in front of Lydia’s face, Ethan said, “Don’t give me that senpai crap, you’re in America. And she ain’t no senpai or master or nothin’. And if she wants to be one, she’ll go out with me tomorrow night like she said. Grandmaster Ken doesn’t like people who go back on their promises.”
Lydia looked at Yona, who was cowering near the wall of the dojo, taking a drag on her cigarette, and trying very hard to shrink herself into a ball.
Then Lydia turned back to Ethan. “She didn’t know I was coming into town — it was a surprise. And tell you what. I’m a yellow belt in karate”—she avoided saying what discipline—“and I’m a decent fighter. I was thinking about coming to the open fighting tomorrow night.”
“It’s for real fighters, little girl, not decent ones.”
“So you’re scared to bet me?”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ’cause I’m twelve.”
“You ain’t that old. What I’m sayin’ is, you get one solid punch or kick on me tomorrow night, then you can have drinks with Yona. If you don’t, I take her out and we toast what a pendejo you are.”
At the epithet, Ethan started to move toward her, arms raised, fists clenched.
Then Yona stepped forward. “It’s okay, Master Ethan, it’s fine, my friend’s just a little jet-lagged from her trip.”
Ethan backed off, and then stared right at Yona. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, right after I kick your ass,” he added with a look right at Lydia.
He walked back into the dojo, and Lydia immediately turned on Yona. “Why’d you stop him?”
At the same time, Yona cried out, “What the fuck were you doing?”
“He was being an asshole, Yona. They’re all assholes, far as I can tell. And I’m gonna enjoy kicking his ass fifty ways from Sunday tomorrow night.”