Ch.6

I woke to my alarm screaming at me, only remembering that I’d been pulled from a very strange dream.

Man, what a weird dream. It was just an impression, but it was a strong one. Then even that started to fade.

I was sore from head to toe, like I’d put myself through a brutal full body workout yesterday!

Funny, I haven’t even been to the dojo in two weeks... I’ve been too busy at work.

Work had just been a little TOO crazy, lately, to be honest. Just too danged busy.

I worked as a privately contracted Server Admin for a bunch of local companies, and I did a bit of more general IT stuff for them on the side.

You know, when the 65-year-old guy in accounting opens the attachment on that random private email ‘on accident’ - you know, the one on their personal email account that they’re never supposed to access from their work PC?

Then the virus in that attachment supposedly from a Saudi prince copies itself onto every computer in the building?

Yeah, you call me.

I say that, because that’s exactly what happened two days ago, and I’d been forced to pull a 30-hour shift to get their systems back up and running again. It had been an emergency job, and it had made me a TON of money off it. Honestly, purely from a financial point of view, I would be able to take the next three or four weeks off, the job had made me that much money!

I had charged them a premium hourly rate, which increased at ten hours and every five hours after that I had to work... time and a half, double time, triple time, etc.! I had made it up to Quintuple time, but technically it was only for a few minutes.

On top of that, I got a flat fee for each system I had to work on... pretty standard stuff for an emergency job like that.

I mean, what else were they gonna do than pay me what I asked? Anyone else would have charged them even more than I had!

They had pretty close to zero chance of getting someone else to come in and fix their crappy mess on such short notice, anyway, and they KNEW it!

They were losing tens of thousands of dollars in revenue every day those systems were down! They were more than happy to pay me a little more than twelve grand to have them only miss two days' worth of business!

I was almost amused when the accountant who’d opened the file complained about how expensive it was, probably dreading the idea of having to pay it out of his own pocket – it was literally, 100% entirely his fault after all! Almost amused doesn’t mean actually amused of course, but his bosses already had my reports on what had happened.

He’d not only opened a private email on his work PC, but he’d opened an attachment from an email from an unverified source!

I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get fired, though. It was a perfect example of the old boy’s network at its finest!

I’d told the accountant, and his bosses, to put me on retainer if they wanted it to be less expensive next time!

It was a sucker’s bet as far as I was concerned, paying a monthly retainer fee, that is. It might be years before they needed me for something like this again, but I’d get $500 a month the whole time, just so they could save a few thousand dollars the next time it happened...

Companies still did it all the time. So did these poor suckers! They were the sixth company to put me on retainer; three G’s a month for doing NOTHING! Well, nothing most of the time.

Sometimes, life was pretty damned good!

Of course, I’d then gone home and slept for fifteen hours straight.

Today was my normal day off, but I had my phone with me just in case another geriatric ward moron decided that his company should pay me thousands of dollars for fixing the mess they made!

I got up and fed my German Shepherd, Banner. He was solid black, with bright green eyes, and a totally awesome pupster! Seriously, I’d had him for a bit under three years, and as far as I was concerned, I’d never not have a dog again.

I had named him Banner for two reasons. First, when I’d been visiting my neighbor, whose German Shepherd had the litter Banner came from, he’d been the first puppy that had run up to me. He was a manic little black ball of adorable puppy energy. I’d picked him up and played with him a little, then put him down to pick up another puppy... and he’d gone absolutely berserk. The moment I put the other pup down and started playing with him again, he’d shut up right away.

He totally hit me with the puppy dog eyes, and that was it for me. I’d come to just see them, but in that moment, I was already a guy with a new puppy.

Yeah, Banner was so adorably cute, I was immediately, totally suckered in.

Between him getting so angry and his green eyes, I’d decided to call him Banner – a reference to Bruce Banner, the Hulk’s alter ego. It had just jumped out at me as an awesome name, and it stuck after I officially adopted him.

Anyway, I fed him, watered him, and took him for walksies, played with him for a few minutes and then left him in the back yard of the place I’d lived since just after I graduated college so he could run around a bit. I knew my roommate, Chris, would bring him in when he got up later.

Chris loved Banner, too, of course. I woulda brought him with me, but there was nowhere for Banner to hang out at NW Kajukenbo, my Sensei’s dojo.

Because I’d decided I needed a workout. I had time today, and it was one of my passions. The dojo I studied at, NW Kajukenbo, was run by an older native Hawaiian Islander, a huge man of Polynesian decent named Kai Hale.

Kai taught Kajukenbo to teach people self-defense and for fitness. He wasn’t a teacher that cared about most martial arts competitions, because they were just too wimpy for his tastes. He was ok with protective gear, he had zero issues with it, actually, but he was only interested in competitions that were full contact or at least close to it. He refused to run what he called a belt mill for kids, certifying them in the martial art he loved in return for being paid.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

To him, you either learned and worked hard enough to earn your rank, or you didn’t. He didn’t require perfection, but he DID demand effort and competence!

That attitude has gotten to be a rare thing in this day and age. Kai Hale, the head instructor and Sensei of NW Kajukenbo, had the same attitude that his beloved U.S. Marines had. His way was not only the best way, but it was also the only way! Accept that or hit the road!

Kai was, of course, a Marine himself. So were most of his kids and even a few of his siblings!

I walked into the dojo, immediately bowing and removing my shoes, then entered and headed back to the locker room. NW Kajukenbo was a huge place, in a nice area in western Hillsboro, OR, and it was open every day except Sunday, from 6 am to 9 pm. Kai didn’t have classes to fill anything approaching that kind of time, but he – or one of his siblings, cousins, nieces or nephews, or kids was always there for his business hours.

The building itself was huge, painted a dark brown and covered in a variety of art put up by locals who he encouraged to paint whatever they wanted – within reason, of course. Three stories above ground, and one below, NW Kajukenbo rented space to a child’s day care and a gymnastics training school, as well.

The building, the field/green space behind it, and the parking lot took up the entire block and Kai owned it all!

As I was about to walk into the locker room, I heard a loud bang from the men’s locker room!

“The boss man is out of patience, Jojo! You said you could get this done, and now, you're saying that it's not fucking done! Tell me, what am I supposed to tell my Boss?” said a very loud, very angry voice.

The only Jojo I knew was Kai’s oldest grandson. He was 18 and a high school senior, and lots of the time on Saturday morning it was him who opened the dojo.

“Look, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Grandpa has said for years that keeping this place open costs him as much as he makes – I thought for sure he’d take a decent offer and run with it. He didn’t, though, and you guys are crazy if you think I can make him sell!” Jojo replied, trying to sound tough, and succeeding, more or less.

Damn, Jojo, you should know the old man better than that! He’ll never sell this place, and when he wills it to someone, it’ll probably be on the condition that they keep NW Kajukenbo running to the best of their ability!

BANG!

Someone or something just hit a locker, hard.

Ok, that’s it. I owe the old man too much to sit here and let his grandson get roughed up.

Besides, I had a hunch that these guys were not playing around. Like I could read their feelings, or... sense their motives?

That was a weird thought.

“Hey, everything alright back there? That you back there, Jojo?” I said, walking into the men’s locker room. Jojo was surrounded by four big white men, all of them wearing clothes that looked like they came here straight from a night club. I could tell from across the room that they all smelled like booze, sex, and cigarettes.

One of the guys had his fist planted in a fresh dent in a locker right next to Jojo’s head. Two of the guys were already walking towards me.

The big blond pretty boy in front ran his mouth first. “Hey, asshole, this is none of your business. Your pansy ass little kung fu school is closed, permanently!” He strode towards me, trying to be intimidating.

He didn't exactly fail, but he didn’t really succeed, either! After all, I’d walked in there half expecting a fight, anyway. “You’re a damned fool if you believe that shit, pretty boy. You and your posse of soy boys should roll the fuck out, while you still can. You hurt that kid, and you will regret it for the rest of your very short lives.” I told him, chuckling and shaking my head, but never taking my eyes off of him or his buddy.

Frankly, I had expected that I’d be more scared in this situation. These guys all looked like nasty customers. Instead, it felt like I was almost looking forward to this fight. I was quite sure there was going to be a fight, too.

I hadn’t been in a real fight for a few years, ever since the night of my college graduation party. That had hardly even counted since I’d been drunk off my ass and the guy had sucker punched me!

I’d still beaten the guy’s ass. The thought made me smile, not from beating him up so much as the memory of the feeling of victory.

The four thugs didn’t like that at all.

But seriously, Kai Hale was a retired Marine with a couple of tours in Vietnam, and his entire family was pretty much high-ranking black belts in Kajukenbo, and most of them were either active duty, reserves, retired, or ex-military, too!

The Hale family drank hard, trained hard, and played hard; but if you messed with one of them, then you were going to be messing with ALL of them! These assholes were doomed to fail, the only question was if they would walk out, or be rolled out! There might also be some question as to whether they’d be rolled out in a gurney or a body bag.

Blonde Pretty Boy had walked right up to me, grinning the whole time.

He feinted with a jab and a head fake like he was gonna punch me in the face, then dipped downwards for a double-leg takedown. All one really smooth and obviously practiced move. It was a classic wrestling, jujitsu, or MMA move, and the setup head fake showed lots of practice in situations similar to this one. He’d probably put 99% of people down in a few seconds with a sudden move like that. He’d even done a decent job at it, but I saw right through it.

Somehow. Don’t ask me how, I have no clue! I just knew that’s what he was doing!

To put it another way, I could read him like a book. The smile on his face didn’t hide the tension in his shoulders or the change in his gait as he got a few steps away.

As he dropped for the takedown, I beat him to the punch... with a knee to the face! I felt his nose pulp and jaw break as he basically shoved his face directly into my rising knee.

Glancing down at his now unconscious body, I realized it would take a LOT of plastic surgery before anyone could call him a pretty boy again!

I looked at thug number two and said, “You sure you want some of this, buddy? It doesn’t have to go down this way.”

The second goon, because that’s what these four men obviously were, goons, stepped up, seemingly unconcerned I’d just knocked his buddy out cold, and then took a classical boxer’s stance.

A heartbeat later, he was throwing a basic left jab at my face. As his lead foot came forward, I stepped diagonally in and to his left, then stopped his jab step with a little foot check with the ball of my foot to his shin.

The point was to break his balance and I’d succeeded!

While he was still off balance, I grabbed his sports coat by its shiny, grey with black stripes sleeve and collar, then pulled and twisted!

I’ve noticed that it's really hard to keep your balance when you have one foot in the air. It seemed like he agreed!

Already off balance from when I’d stopped his foot’s slide forward accompanying his jab, he was easily thrown over my shoulder to be forcefully slammed into the tile-over-concrete floor! I kicked him in the gut pretty hard while he was still on the floor, too! A grunt was followed by a groan, and I let him roll away from me.

This is just way too easy, so far, for how tough these guys look! Where’s the other shoe?

The guy who’d dented the locker next to Jojo’s face was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “Do you have any idea who we are, asshole?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Was this guy really pulling out an arrogant young master line, IRL?

Fucking priceless!

The Locker Puncher turned bright red and reached for something at the back of his belt and underneath his coat.

Oh, fuck! Knife? Gun? Not gonna find out the hard way!

He was less than fifteen feet away by this point. While he was pulling out what turned out to be a pistol, I dashed forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

Honestly, even I was a bit surprised at how fast I moved.

Peripherally, I could see the whites of Jojo’s eyes... he was pretty obviously about to pee himself.

I couldn’t blame him. Only the massive load of adrenaline making my heart crank up to about 200 bpm’s was keeping me from freaking out and losing it!

As I reached melee range with The Locker Puncher, the gun went off, and I suddenly just wasn’t where the bullet was headed.

Again, to be honest, I had ZERO idea how I did that. I’m sure it looked cool, though!

But I know exactly what I did next. I slammed a roundhouse kick into the side of The Locker Puncher’s left knee, and it buckled inward in a decidedly not healthy manner. My next move was an elbow to his face, followed by tripping Locker Puncher while holding his gun hand and arm in an arm bar.

A moment later, I was kneeling on his back, and he was face first on the locker room floor. “Drop the gun, ass clown, or I’ll break your damned arm to match your newly fucked knee!”

I was absolutely going to, too. Fuck this ass clown, he’d just tried to fucking shoot me!

“You motherfucker, your dead! You hear me, DEAD!” he howled at me, and squeezed of another round. It REALLY sucked, having a gun go off that close to my face, but I’d been very careful both to not touch the gun itself and to force him to aim it away from me and Jojo.

Arm bars and joint locks are pretty good for that kind of thing.

Also, I didn’t give a crap if he managed to shoot one of his own guys. Sensei Kai had always stressed that once a gun or knife got pulled, all bets were off!

For just the briefest of moments, my brain was telling me I should just kill him. Some part of me, deep down, was acknowledging that this guy was major league bad news.

I just didn’t have cold-blooded murder in me, I guess. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with the headache. As far as I was concerned, though, he was helpless now, or he would be in a second. Killing him was just going a little too far. This was modern day America, not the Wild West, and I wasn’t some Iron Age comic book’s gritty anti-hero!

I knew that I was in over my head here, but I didn’t think stopping now was going to fix my problem. “Maybe I’ll be dead, but you’re about to be a cripple, dumb ass...” and then I hyper-extended his elbow, then popped his shoulder out of joint with a sudden, brutal jerk and multiple pops and screams!

He had just tried to shoot me for a second time, after all.

He dropped the gun, howling, screaming, and crying.

Did I feel bad about dislocating his shoulder and hyperextending his elbow? Not even a little bit. Seriously, fuck this guy!

About ten seconds after that Kai came charging into the men’s locker room. Jojo looked like he wanted to die. The thugs that were still conscious looked super unhappy, too.

Kai Hale, my sensei and Jojo’s grandfather, took in the situation in from of him and started laughing.