Lets Get Physical

“What the fuck?”

I can’t remember which one of us said it. I’d finished a quarter handle of whiskey in the course of the evening, and I know that if I didn’t say it, I thought it. I’d been sitting in my patio, minding my business and enjoying the dark Davis night.

We stared at each other for a moment. I threw another Washington Mutual statement into the tiny, foot tall barbeque and finished the last gulp of bourbon. It wasn’t hard to pretend to be nonchalant: my every muscle was relaxed to sagging, and when I glared droopily, my head lolled sideways.

“I don’t remember inviting you in, asshole,” I said, controlling my tongue as well as one might expect. I wasn’t worried about hiding the fact that I was drunk. It was my home, after all, and I knew I could kick his ass into a corner without resorting to dirty tricks.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” I slobbered slightly, “but I know what you’re not doing, which is fucking off.” I put my best I’m-considering-ripping-your-dick-off-and-shoving-it-up-your-nose face and stood. Slowly. “Why don’t you see to that?”

He looked me up and down. I was shirtless, with a slight post-workout gleam and swell clinging to my melting muscles. He took in the rest of the scene: A pile of unopened envelopes, crumpled receipts, an uncapped handle of Maker’s Mark, a generic brand bottle of lighter fluid, a box of matches, and a small mop bucket.

“That’s quite a blaze you have going there.”

It was actually causing me physical pain. I later discovered singed leg hairs, but at the moment, I was focused on the intruder.

“I’m reconciling my checkbook,” I growled. “New fiscal year and all.”

My boss calls it “physical year” and I have to bite til I bleed to keep from correcting him.

I dropped a stack of old credit card bills, overdraft notices, and preapproved credit card applications onto the mound of smoldering ashes.

“Why don’t you leave, before I start to feel threatened and defend myself?” I didn’t break eye contact ask I scooped up the lighter fluid, popped the top, and sprayed until a fireball burped up from the stack of financial irresponsibility.

“Because you’re making a lot of smoke, and the flame on your barbeque is taller than you are, and because I’m a fucking firefighter.”

“Did you just threaten to kick my ass?”

“Put the fire out.”

I think my response surprised him a little bit, not just by the direction I was taking the conversation, but by the abrupt shift in volume.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NO! OH GOD! YOU’RE HURTING ME! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”

I stepped around the inferno, balling my fists and cracking my neck menacingly. Neighbors would have heard me. I smiled.

“Fuck off before I start defending myself. This shit needs to burn. Fucking credit cards. Zero percent APR, preapproved, no interest for six months! Free checking! Cash back with ever purchase, and you’ll be entered to win a thousand dollars every time you swipe. Not that I fell for that shit. I just like nice things. And now I’m an indentured servant for a company that doesn’t sell a damned thing. Credit card companies don’t sell service. They buy lives. Fuck off. I’m emancipating myself.”

“You’re going to burn your house down, and then you’ll go to jail. That’s not emancipation.”

“I know my fire safety. I have my fireman fuckin ‘chit. I have a bucket of water. I have a shovel and a mess of dirt. I have a lid for the barbeque. Nothings going to happen.”

“You’re drunk off your ass. That’s not safe.”

I spat at the ground in front of him and grabbed the bucket of water. I glared at him as I filled the small metal pit to the brim with water, the ashes of my failure swirling and spitting steam.

“I’m going to say this once, and I hope you don’t listen to me, because I really want to hurt you. You have exactly no time left here in my home. Turn around and leave right now.”

The Final Minutes

“Stand tall!” he shouts from behind the polished metal grill of his men. I gasp for air, stretching my lungs in a desperate attempt to move the hot, used air trapped behind my own mask. I think he’s yelling at me; I am bent at the waist, hands on knees, giving my lower back a short reprieve from the weight of my sweat-heavy uniform. Dry, all the gear weighs around ten pounds—enough to slow a fighter, enough to drain him, and throughout the course of the two hour training session, I dump copious amounts of fluid into it. By the end of practice, everything is heavier, hot, holding the salts of my anguish.

We are nearing the end of the session, and my vision fights to blur and the walls would dance about me if I didn’t hold them in place with grave determination. I am dehydrated, I can tell, but I don’t know how serious it is. The strength and violent vigor of the eager warrior is gone, lost with my water and breath. We are nearing the end. I have to continue to remind myself, because I want to throw myself to the floor and rip my men from my face, pull free the dou, the oven clamped across my chest. I want to take the weight off my feet, which are battered, torn, and tenderized from the repeated launches and stomps involved in this samurai sport. I want to breathe.

There is nothing in me except a refusal to quit, and the knowledge that I do not suffer in vain. I endure, as the sword endures the fires of the forge, so I might be shaped into the perfect tool, the impeccable weapon. My spirit is the hand inside a puppet. I lift myself. We are nearing the end.

I stand tall. It is almost over.

In truth, I do not know if this is true, and I do not dare steal a glance at the clock, lest it leave me with anguishing news. I trust that it is almost over, because if it is not, then even a spirit indomitable could not keep my spent body from toppling.

I stand, and imagine bloody footprints. I form myself into my stance, my kamae. The small muscles of my lower back cramp as I tuck my spine into position, and a pain steals its way into my skull. My stomach turns as my body’s self preservation systems scream into high alert, preparing to eject whatever poison has so wracked my body. I tilt my head back and swallow the threat of vomit. The angle change sends blood rushing through stressed vessels in my head. I might loose consciousness. I might black out and tilt backward on my heels. I would be limp before the back of my head hit the ground.

My neck tenses. The muscles across my back tighten and my core gathers my organs and straightens my spine. My jaw clenches and I say it to myself.

“No.”

I send my conscious mind deep within my own being. Digging deep, people call it. I find my resolve. I find the embers of my intensity. I scream. It’s called kiai, my battlecry. I empty my lungs, my voice shaking my men and echoing through the high-ceilinged gymnasium. There is so little left—so little fuel for the fire. I dig deeper, desperate for something. I wonder if there is anything left to give. I let loose another lungful. The shouting forces blood to the head, and the pressure becomes blinding, so unbelievably intense is the pain. Tears wash the sweat from my eyes and run down my sunken face. The pain does not abate, and part of me wants to slam my head into the wall and escape into darkness. The pain does not abate, and the tears steady rivers down my cheeks. The pain does not abate, but the fire is lit, my body is alive, and I fight. I cannot remember that I am tired, or that I am thirsty, or out of breath. I do not need air. I do not need water. I will fight until my feet are mangle knobs. I do not care. I have abandoned human concern for self. I believe that I am insane, an unreasoning beast. The pain does not stop, and I fight.

The fire rages. The intensity of my kendo exceeds my limit, and the limit is shattered as I pour every mote of my existence into that fire.

“Yame! Kamaete.” Stop. Assume your stance. He calls out the words that stop the fight, but the fire does not die. I am not gasping. I am ready to fight again.

It is his decision. He might have us rotate, and continue training. I do not know the time. Instead, he says the words my body delights to hear.

“Osame, toh.” We crouch and set our shinai into their imaginary sheathes. We are done.

Almost.

We must remove our armor from the kneeling position. Tired hands often fumble, but my fingers find their way easily. I am not rushed. I am not panicked. I carefully coil the cords that keep my mask tight. I set it down gently and fold the tenegui, the dripping head rag. We bow, showing respect to the Sensei, to our comrades.

And then words. The fire is still on, and I control my body with an iron force of will. I am graceful, even. I sit kneeling as I listen to comments, suggestions, and administrative announcements. The blood stops flowing to my feet, and I notice my eyes see in different shades, and my focus is shifting rapidly between the two. My right eye sees more red, my left more blue. It is a bizarre effect.

The headache loosens itself, but does not release me. We bow again. I can let the fire die, but there is more to do. Practice is not over until my equipment is packed, and because it is a Japanese sport, there are specific and painstaking methods of doing so.

The hardest part is folding the hakama, the flowing pleated pants we wear. It must be arranged in such a way that the arrangement of the folds and pleats are preserved, so that it is presentable at the next practice. It is hard to describe how tedious this really is to someone who has not tried. I complete this well, and then lie down and close my eyes.

I am awake no longer.

Road Trip (AC)

I dont have time to write a long post, or to formulate complex sentences. I'm going on a road trip. I just got my hands on enough cash to fund it. I'm flying to SoCal to kidnap Mr. Klein. He's in the middle of school, with finals coming up, so this is very inconsiderate of me. I don't care. Now he'll graduate late with me.

My plane leaves shortly. I'm not packing anything, so I'll get through the airport quickly, but I'm going to need to speed to get there.

I'm not sure where we'll go yet. I'm excited to get home.

I want to show my dear friend what I can do. It's dangerous, possibly divine, but its also really cool, and I'm not above showing it off.

More later. I promise an interesting read on Friday, if I can get to a computer. I'm thinking jungle.

The Weekend

I’ll begin this post by turning away readers eager to read of my progress into super-heroism, for you will find none of that. I flexed only once this past weekend, and did not move my body a mote for its duration.

I did, however, have an incredible weekend. It began with Uncanny, a visual arts event that took place out on a fallowed organic vineyard. I arrived an hour before sunset to see a curious population milling about the huge expanse of rich, soft dirt, leaning curiously toward certain presentations. There was music for dancing, but no dancers. There were live bands as well. Upon arriving (and yes, I got lost first, and sped down dirt roads first), I headed straight to Mr. Bulis’s display, titled “High Tea”. It consisted of a tea table and stools, all hand made, all slightly rickety, all about eight feet in the air. Mr. Bulis was wearing a suit he’d tailored from burlap, walking on painter’s stilts and serving tea from a teapot rigged to a stick using twine. The whole setup was dangerous, but it was one of the most popular. When he described it to me, I thought he would have a set cast of people snootily sipping tea and looking down their noses as passers-by. It turns out he was allowing people to take turns sitting in the sky.

The sudden elevation changed the world. The table in front allowed the sitters to temporarily ignore the frightening height they’d reached, though the wobbly chair was a constant reminder that their time in high society could be cut short in a violently painful manner. Mr. Bulis claims there was no metaphor, but I insist there is. Then again, that’s what I’m trained to do: inject significance into art that may or may not have been intended by the creator. That’s what all English majors do. We bullshit. Sorry. It’s true.

And then the sun went down, and the whole place became a wild pagan festival. Visual displays became glowing pieces of wonderment. Music was everywhere, and nobody was pretending. We did not come to this place to project a personality. We came to see, to hear, and to exist. The lack of pretense and lie was the most enjoyable part of the evening, I think. People began dancing to the music, kicking up small clouds of dust and losing themselves in the crowd and the heavy bass. I didn’t see many people who knew how to dance, the way one might expect people to know how to dance on a floor. This was not a club. This was madness, a release, and nobody cared. I danced too, and I don’t know how long.

There was a display which lead people away from the crowds, from the lights and the noise, into the darkness. Glowsticks lighted the way, drawing the curious like pixies or goblins into the deep dark. At the end? Quiet, peace, the soft clanging of chimes in the distance, and a sofa. I was accompanied by a pair of girls. They pulled their cell phones out to light their way, but I insisted they put them away. Their eyes would adjust, if they let them. We do not spend much time beneath darkness and trees. This was a thing of beauty.

And then I walked on stilts and talked to cute girls, and the night was over.

That was Thursday. I missed Friday’s post. Sorry.

Friday, I started cooking a pot of chili I’d begun prepping the day before. That was two hours of work. Then I left to pick up Lindsay at the airport. There was an accident, and I was late. No problem though.

Until we got back to my apartment. She couldn’t find her ticket, and I could tell she was just about ready to freak out. I’ve lost stuff and subsequently lost control enough times to know what she was feeling, and how close she was to breaking down. I tried to keep her calm. I spoke with a mellow voice and did my best to engage her in conversation while leafing through her books and looking for hiding places. This was an expensive trip for her, and she lost the reason she got on the plane in the first place. I told her to call United. That took a while, but eventually, she found the number and made the call. I heard her squeal “really?!” from my room, and my arms shot upward in triumph. I had been looking forward to this weekend for too long to have shit like that happen.

I went to a friend’s house then, because I said I would. Lindsay was welcome, but she opted to work on a paper, which I guess worked out well. I got to try my hand at playing drums, which was a lot of fun. I was late returning home. I’d intended to make it back with time enough to make the drive to the airport to recover her ticket. We tried. We drove down there, but we were too slow. Somehow, I managed to get lost on that drive too, and we wound up at the airport despite giving up.

Megan called needing instructions later that night. I totally misunderstood her. She told me they were on the 5 toward San Fransisco, and had just left Stockton. That puts them just south of Sac, and maybe 40 minutes away from Davis. It turns out they were going south, and by the time they stopped and decided something was wrong, they were 100 miles away from Sac. Damn, I wish I’d caught that.

And then there was more difficulty with the map, caused in part by cell phone static, and in part by anticipatory intoxication. I am bad with maps and directions anyway. Try getting me to guide you when I’m senseless.

They arrived in Davis with the sun.

The next day, we gathered ourselves, directions, tickets, music, and made our way to Berkeley. We were all stinking of envy as we drove through that town. I wish I’d applied there, but I distinctly remember deciding I didn’t like Berkeley’s city. As a veteran college student, I appreciate it more now.

The concert was simply beyond words, so I will not try. We saw Arcade Fire, for anyone who doesn’t know yet. We were in the front, standing.

A few things to note then…

1) I didn’t think very hard leaving the house. I wore sandals, shorts, and a thin button up, and brought nothing else.

2) Despite having listened to Arcade Fire ravenously for four months, I did not know the lyrics.

3) I did not know the lyrics because I was listening to the albums starting with the oldest, and working my way backward. I knew “Headlights Look Like Diamonds”, a song they had not played for a few years, better than most of the stuff they performed. I regretted not being able to sing along with most of them.

4) Sometimes a good quesadilla is better than a large burrito. I don’t need to add any more beans to my diet anyway.

5) The opening act was really cool. I fell in love with the drummer, but Kevin says she looked like a boy.

And then the concert was over. Sure, there are details I’ve missed, but the point is that it’s over. My guests left in a flurry, and the weekend that had been sitting in an envelope on my bookshelf for the past four months is over. I was seriously bummed.

This is where the flex comes in. That’s what I’m calling it now, because I kind of have to flex my awareness in order to slip between moments. I flexed, after they’d left. I knew I could stop time to an extent, (though not completely—infinitely small moments still pass between instants), but I wanted to go back. I wanted to have my weekend again.

I sat and flexed and pushed and sweated, fought until tears poured free, but I could not move backward. There is only forward, though I can adjust the size of the steps I take.

Like the conclusion of my last post, I have learned that there is no turning back, so I’d better do it right the first time.