Alicja
I couldn't even guess how much Krav Maga has taught me. Balance, strength, posture â it's amazing for all of those and much more.
Self confidence, presence, social negotiations â again top marks.
Hundreds of ways to disable, wound, and terrorize those who wished to terrorize me? Pure icing on the cake. Absolute profit, all the way. Truly.
I mean, I was going to be sweating and exercising anyway, right? Jogging, yoga, whatever, I was going to be doing it, so it's not like extra laundry to be learning Krav Maga, instead of yoga.
I screamed several times, for the police on the phone. The man kicking on the door and trying to shoulder it open added plenty of brutal sound effects. The cops should be arriving in five to ten minutes. Likely sooner.
The door frame â the weakest link of that system â cracked, and the hinges buckled and then tore out of the wood frame. One hundred pounds of solid core door came down, and crashed through the curtain.
The man, tall, athletic â thick curly dark hair â his voice felt north-eastern. Maine, or Massachusetts maybe. He wore a black leather jacket. A nice one. Not a biker or gang member jacket. This was two-thousand dollar cow.
Picking up a small delicate glass globe from the shelf beside me, I threw it at him and followed after it, weapon ready.
He didn't pay attention to me at first. He thought Ocean was in here, or someone was in here with me.
The glass-globe shattered on his forehead and splashed bleach in his eyes.
I rushed forward, following close behind the glass globe. When it shattered, I came in swinging my pipe, connecting the end of the weapon to his forehead.
He yelped in shock, and pain and then stopped, like his power had been yanked from the wall. Just â off, when the pipe connected.
I twirled my pipe, and looked him over. He was big. The three-day beard gave him a nefarious appearance. But it was the thick, early-man brow, which fascinated me most.
"Get away from him, or I'll fucking shoot you, bitch!"
His friend stepped quickly up the steps, gun leveled on me, not looking for anyone else. Just me, and his pal on the floor.
"How's ya mom'n'em?" I said, taking a step back. It was a big gun. Not a fancy one. A massive revolver. The kind that if you run out of bullets you can sell the metal for cash, and then invest in a small business with an attached apartment and start a new life â or something.
He checked his mate's pulse, and I guess he liked what he felt, because he started looking around like his friend had done. "Where is he?"
"Who?" I asked.
"The man who walked you home," he said with a dry rasp as he stood up again.
"Ocean?" I asked.
"Yes," he barked. "Where?"
"Behind you," I said, and waved. "Hi Ocean."
Ocean didn't wait for the man to turn, he just whacked him in the back of his head with his palm, and â turned him off.
"Wow," I said, looking at the second man laying on top of the first one. "You need to teach me that."
"Looked like you were doing fine. I wasn't going to interrupt until you waved."
"I know, and thanks," I said with a beaming smile.
"Do you know these men?" he asked, stepping inside, and studying the door. Then he picked it up, and used it to block the doorway.
"Don't do that," I said, "the police will be here in a couple of minutes. I'll have them set it up before they leave."
He nodded and put it back.
Setting my pipe down on the coffee table, I said, "I was hoping you knew them. That these were the 'whos' you were walking me home for. I mean, it's going to suck if it's these two â and whatever you're concerned with."
"I don't feel concerned," he said, looking around the room. "Is your elder not well?"
"My... who talks like that? Elder? Oma? Um...?" I looked down the hallway, and didn't hear anything from her. Suddenly unsure and a bit nervous, I said, "I'm going to... excuse me... I'll be right back," the sharp concern in my chest, growing into panic.
I ran down the hall. Like most houses in the area, ours was a shotgun shack. Oma's room was the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. I threw open the door and there she was. Laying on her bed. Still dressed. Eyes open â seeing nothing.
On her belly was a leather bound journal. In her hand was an envelope. She knew. She had prepared.
I took the envelope and put it in my back pocket. It would be a letter and I would read it, but after. Not around strangers, and enemies. Not now. After.
I opened the leather bound journal. It was her personal research notes. Her hearts and dreams and deepest wishes. Her most brilliant discoveries. Maybe even a few things of her own. It was the most important item in the world to me. A true treasure, one of very few objects I believed were sacrosanct. And she would have known that.
And she prepared.
Eisenstein once said, "I want to know God's thoughts. The rest is details."
Oma was my world. And these were my world's deepest, most personal thoughts.
Tucking the journal into the back of my jeans, I closed the door behind me, and returned to the front room. Ocean was no longer there. The two men were. And the blue pulsing lights outside told me NOLA police were here as well.
...
I talked to the police, while other policemen took the two men away. Two female officers came. I cried and weakly waved my pipe around, pantomiming what happened â mostly. I didn't mention Oma, or Ocean, or the fact that I wasn't scared. I just wanted all of them to go away. Now. So I acted accordingly.
I signed what they asked me to sign. I said I would press charges.
No, I told them, I didn't know the men. They must have had the wrong house. But look at my door!
We got the door back where Ocean had it before I made him take it down. A little over an hour later the police finished. A car would be parked on the street outside until sunrise. They assured me that sleep was the best thing.
They left.
I fixed the curtain. Checked the shotgun. Put my pipe back. Replaced the bleach ball.
In my room I sat on the edge of my bed, and took out the envelope, and journal. The feel of her journal, the soft well worn leather cover, felt inherently warm. I touched it to my lips, and could smell traces of Oma in the grain. There were marks in the leather. Scratches, like the kind made by fingernails, when the brain is deep in thought or dreaming, and the fingers were left to their own mischief for a time. I traced them gently with my finger tips, remembering.
I wasn't aware of the passing of time, but noticed that the room had become brighter. It was gradual, like it didn't want to disturb me, but there was light to do, and it wouldn't do itself.
I opened a secret cache I made inside my headboard when I was fourteen, and put both the letter and the journal inside. When I made the secret space, I found it amusing afterward that I had nothing important enough to keep in there. Now I did.
I would read the letter after. After she was sent off. After I came back to this house, and felt the space inside empty without her. That could take some time. This house was her only house. She was born here, born in that back room, where she lay now.
When I woke, I called Sean and Mal, then Aintin Cara, Oma's sister. Then I went into the shower to rinse away burning tears.
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