Karate Kid

The plan was fiendishly simple. Kill my brother, a stroke of genius. And who could blame me? No one. No jury in the world would convict a helpless, abused, doe eyed preteen of murdering such a callous individual. I’d parade countless witnesses that would corroborate my story, neighborhood kids that witnessed every wedgie.

So I enrolled in self defense classes. Cal, or sensei, was a seventh degree black belt that ran a studio with his son, Cal Jr. Cal was portly with golden skin, slicked back hair, and an overbite that gave some words a sucking sound. I never once saw him out of his gi, coveted for the black belt that proclaimed him a badass beyond reproach. It wrapped tightly around a rotund belly, he’d rest his hands on the knot as he looked over the class, casting disparaging looks, remarking about our softness and lack of discipline.

His son was the epitome of deception. Soft, soft spoken, shy to a fault. It almost made me doubt the veracity of his black belt, faded; possibly one of his fathers’s pulled from the closet, next to the untouched loafers, just under the tweed sport coat with leather elbow patches.
Pictures of Cal Sr. fighting in tournaments adorned the walls near the shrine, an alcove at the end of the empty studio where swords were mounted on a marble alter. Their lacquered handles gleamed seductively under the recessed lights.

No one was allowed to touch them out of respect for the weapon. Weapons were the last resort of the warrior, Cal would say, he must first learn to use his brains. It was that last resort I always waited for him to describe. Hoping he’d offer the justification for the hate I felt, that at times made me sick to my stomach. I’d wait patiently for him to elaborate, but he only talked of defending, never offending, of Sun Tzu and The Art of War whose teachings hung from a tapestry opposite the shrine:

When able to attack, we must seem unable;
When using our forces, we must seem inactive.
When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away.
When far away, we must make him believe we are near.
If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

I studied them. Learned to recite them on command. Except the last one. It slipped from my memory, evaded repetition, and washed away like liquid through a sieve. The last tenant mocked me, exposed me for what I was, a spy infiltrating to learn how to kill my brother, to use the art of defense to wage, not protect.

During sparring sessions my anger exposed me as a fraud. I’d rage toward opponents, no longer a representative of the tenants that hovered above, their essence betrayed.
Cal stopped every match, yanked me aside and reprimanded me for ignoring the first, last, and only rule of sparring, no contact. With each infraction I was sentenced to pushups until he saw that I needed a lesson in control.

He summoned Cal Jr. to the room, paired me against him, mumbled something about seeing if I had what it took. I saw it as my chance to expose him as a fraud. Cal Sr. offered the pads, shin, elbow, and head. I waved them off. We bowed to the master to show respect, to each other.
Fight! Cal asserted. I was already in my stance, brimming with energy, on the balls of my feet aching to move forward. My head snapped back. The hard rubber sole of Cal’s shoe hit front while the solid concrete assaulted my back. He flattened me with a kick I never saw.
I sprung up; water welled in my battered eye. Cal Sr. cupped my head in his meaty paws and rotated it left to right, checking the damage.

“Pay attention, your weight’s all over the place. Center.” he advised. “Are you ready?” he asked.
I was already poised, weight on my heels, primed to take the brunt of an oncoming attack. Fight!
Cal Jr. stood, immovable. I waited, ready to defend. The anger begged to engage. It built like steam against a turbine. When it was clear that Cal wasn’t going to initiate, I shuffled forward only to meet the gaze of water stained ceiling tiles. My legs were swept out from under me. I was once again flattened by an attack I never saw coming.

I had fantasies of becoming Cal Sr.’s progeny, the chosen one prophesized to take the art of self defense to the next level and beyond. I searched my body for a mark that slated me The One. I only found a mole that loosely resembled Charlie Brown. But the position was filled. Cal Jr. was next in line. The best I could hope for was to teach the Saturday morning toddler class when Cal Sr. was too tired. I quit after receiving my brown belt.

Suicide Watch

During assessments I used to have to ask if patients had any suicidal ideations. Most veterans answered no because they knew I'd paste myself to their sides if they answered yes. An affirmative was always followed up with whether or not they had a plan. Only once was I given details. He was transferred to the psych ward and spent a portion of his thirty day stay in four point restraints. If conspiracy is father to the felony, the plan is the offspring of ideations.


When my anger chews me up and spits me out I fight back, swinging at ghosts, hitting only tangible things that matter most. I push love away, try to snap bonds in half. Isolate. I drag myself to therapy and pit my PhD in pain against her Masters in Social Work. So far she's held her own. We'll see what happens when I really try to push.


In session three she asked if I still felt like using. Of course I do, because this year has been so hard. But its less like a craving and more like a golden parachute. My way out of pain, however temporary. After thirteen years I'm smart enough to know that when I pull the cord, an anvil will jettison from the pack and drag me to the ground.


After I admit that I want to use she asks, "Do you have a plan?"


Funny how the same follow up exists for relapsing as for suicide.


Coincidence?


I think not.

WAAAAAH!

There are benefits to being neurotic. For instance, I get to swing pendulous between extremes, moods turn on a dime, loving and hating at the same time makes for an interesting day. My neurotic side gets edgy at the prospect of a new therapist and shoots down potentials for having a lazy eye or a turkey neck. They're all crazy as Christians, he'll lament. I choose a woman so he'll compare her to Mom, orchestrator of this mess I call a psyche. She'll examine. But I'll shut her down at the door. Sorry, Bryan's unavailable at the moment, but if you'd like to leave a message....

I tried a male whose timidity fell somewhere between kitten caught in a thunder storm, and turtle surrounded by bored teens. I swear he salivated at my list of symptoms and their catalyst. I wrote him off, delighted that I present such a challenge.

I see her Monday. A smell something like potpourri or sleepytime tea will permeate the air. I'll decline all beverages. She'll interpret my choice of chairs. Hers will be cordoned off with everyday trinkets, glasses maybe, a cell turned off. Books will line the shelves, the titles will spill forth like bullet items on a resume. She read Jung and Erickson but finds Freud too...too...whatever. He snorted cocaine to quell a crippling fear of social occasions. Ditto. Call him what you like, the man had impecable taste in narcotics.

I'll need her to challenge me if this is going to work. She'll have to fight because I protect it. Cup it in clenched hands crowbars can't pry. Over time, she'll push me to release it, but how can I release the very thing that defines me?

My essence.

My pain...

Hindsight

Flashback to 05/02/1987. Like any other 17 year old, my friends were my world, impressing them, my priority. Twenty two years later, Blaine sets up dinner on a night that we're all free. Ritchie and Tommy blow it off. Pete's detained by work. Blaine, Chris, Duane, Rachel, and I sit down to dinner. Olivia, our waitress, is wonderful, engaging, attentive. Alcohol flows, tongues loosen. The skeletal remains of past insecurities wash up on waves of nostalgia. But I am inherently different now...or so I thought.

I wear my past like a red badge of courage, proof that the depths of depravity are inhabitable. I flaunt it, deliver it on the butt of jokes about amorous cellmates and rusty shanks. Dad's ring tone is Darth Vader's labored breathing. Part of it is a giant fuck you to the other survivors who hide it like a hairy mole. Grandma behests, Don't tell a soul, lie if they ask...except when she marched me to the Social Security Office in Lynn. She told them I paced the floor non-stop in an effort to squeeze an over juiced system for disability. And why shouldn't you? The Spanish and the Blacks all do it all the time.

And so I sit through dinner. Split a burger with Rachel, my arm around her, caressing. We check out her ass when she goes to the bathroom, their praise validates my petty existence.

At her expense.

There was a time that I was quite astute at keeping my neurotic side from grabbing the wheel and driving us into a ravine. I think it's time to go back to therapy...

Lilliputian

I’m little. No huge revelation there. Just take a look. Big is the last thing that comes to mind when looking at me. But I’ve always fantasized about being big. Working out everyday and gulping protein shakes only made me look like a blow fish, over-inflated and still…little.

They say you have to think big to be big. So I earned two college degrees. But intelligence is all relative. Compared to say, a vascular surgeon, I’m really little. I overcompensate with an outrageous personality, but little men with big personalities just look like assholes most of the time.

My littleness was tempted by the power of things like firearms. I felt so big the first time I held a gun. But when it went off by mistake it only shed light on how little I was. After I checked and rechecked to see if my stray bullet killed anyone, I realized I wasn’t big enough to wield it.

So overwhelming was my desire to be big that I followed other bigs like my father and brother into jewelry stores to rob them. For that they sent me to the big house where I had to survive amongst the most dangerous bigs in the world.

But I wised to the fact that to survive, I’d have to play the cards I was dealt. I embraced little and realized that bigs were the minority. I dropped twenty five pounds, toned down my personality, and let my guard down because vulnerability attracts other littles, especially female littles.

But nothing makes me feel littler than my felony conviction. It looms the biggest detriment to my littleness. Nothing looks as large on an application as --Have you ever been convicted of a felony. Massachusetts Law says I can seal my record, 15 years after the last day of my sentence, including probation. My record is eligible for sealing in 2017.

Maybe I'll apply to work in a flying car factory.

Getting Baked

Budgeting is hard, especially since I don't make any money. Training is in the dumps.

Discretionary income?

Please.

So we tighten our purse strings. I can't spend over ten bucks without hearing it from Rara. "Three dollars, three times a week, is nine dollars, that's thirty six dollars a month that we could put away." So I try not to spend. I bought braided bully sticks for Mow the other day and was handed my ass on a platter. Damn that broad can do math quick. She figured what that would cost us over a millennium, then broke it down to me in terms I understood. "If we want to buy things for her to chew, maybe something else needs to go, like chips," referring to my inability to stop buying munchies. (Notice she didn't say wine.)

I feel guilty. Rachel gets up for work at 5am every morning. So do I, but I move from the bed to the couch, switching one snuggle buddy for another. The neurotic part of me feels castrated. I'm the man, (picture me beating my chest here), I should be bringing home the bacon.

On the other hand, we have gotten creative. We cook together more. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we huddle around the mixer, baking, sifting through cookbooks and magazines for recipes. We eat healthy for the most part, incorporating grains, fruits, and veggies, whenever we can. The challenge is to avoid ingesting five hundred calories before the batter even sees the inside of the oven. Time is spent contemplating baking them at all.

Ever notice how hard it is to make broccoli taste better and how easy it is to turn a sugar cookie into an insulin coma? The other night we made the aforementioned. Rachel made a sweet lemon glaze for the topping. I melted down chocolate. We voted on which were the best.


Any guesses?

Showdown at Fresh Pond

It was a great walk up until that point. Mow frolicked in the small stretch of wood bordering the golf course, nothing new, but when she boldly stood at its edge and looked my way, I knew it was on. She baited and I fell hook, line, and sinker calling, "Mow Mow, this way."

She glanced back, poised to blow me off. I readied. We looked like two gunslingers, facing off at high noon, that is if showdowns consisted of one gunslinger running headlong into an open field while the other shouts obscenities. My blood boiled, propelling me forward.

I swooped upon her and grabbed her up, anthropomorphizing her with talk about how mangy mutts don't disobey me. I catch myself, as always, on the edge of an abyss. The edge of my anger. She did what any pup would do. I try to remind myself that running full speed toward a dead fish sounds like the most fantastic thing ever to her. I let her go, along with my homicidal ideations, and breathe. I leash her and deescalate, finding it hard to do these days. Eventually, I drop the leash again. Before my end hits the ground, she bolts back to the rotting carcass a few hundred feet back. I blast past her, feeling a measure of sick satisfaction that I outran a ten month old puppy. Her eyes begged, please Dad, don't kill me. Again I caught myself before committing the deed. Mow would live another day and I would be forced to temper my rage.

My therapist constantly points out the fact that my anger is never commensurate with the circumstance. Dubbed male's disease, he reiterates that I am struggling with the pain I'm in by dumping my anger on convenient targets. He adds that anger is usually equal to how weak I feel, that males especially, combat feelings of weakness by spewing anger on the world.

But I continue to fail at reconciling with the fact that I am human, and as such, try to deny my own ambivalence. No one can be all one thing all the time, and every powerful emotion has an equally powerful opposite. The equation sounds so simple: to acknowledge that we are comprised of both a healthy and neurotic side means that great love gets countered by stifling rage. I love you, and hate you equally.

It has never been more apparent that this concept eludes me as when Rachel says things out of the blue like, "It's the paradox of being Bry," referring to a conversation she had with her brother, Austin.

"Meaning?" I ask.

"You can be so resistant to change, you fight it tooth and nail, yet I've never met anyone with such a tremendous capacity for it."

Mow is safe, for now, but ignorance hasn't proven blissful at all. It becomes more and more apparent that digging out of old habits is like digging out of prison one painful spoonful at a time. But I'm hopeful...

Editor's Note: No Mow's were harmed during the writing of this post.