“Guess so. I, on the other hand.” She splayed a hand near her throat.
“Are about as complicated as it gets!” Clyde hadn’t meant to say it and cringed now that he had. But Esther burst out laughing, and her face, when laughing like that, relaxed, her blond hair tumbled, her eyes drifted shut, and those long white lashes touched the tender skin of her cheeks.
Every time Clyde thought about Tina his mind shifted immediately to Jay. He could not have one without the other, he realized, kicking himself for letting that happen. Leaving Walmart, Clyde turned up the hill to Liberty Ridge.
It was a warm evening. Jay met the class—Dale, a nice dark crescent in the thin skin beneath his eye, and Clyde—in the yard, then walked them to one of the open foundations. He told them to climb down. The pit held a foot of slick and frothy orange water that stank of fart gas and hummed with insects. At Jay’s words, Clyde and Dale bowed in. Then Jay said, “Good technique, now, keep it clean.” He shouted down, “Hajime!” Start fighting.
The first thing Dale did was sweep Clyde’s legs. Clyde didn’t even know you could do that and his back and head smacked the water with a giant splash. Dale was suddenly on top of him, driving one hard punch after another into Clyde’s chest. Beyond Dale’s head, Clyde saw the streetlamps blink on in a line.
“You just gonna let Dale murder you in that pit!?” Jay yelled down from the edge. “Get off your ass, Clyde! Ain’t no lyin down in training!”
Now that he’d been given the idea to do it, Clyde pushed Dale off. He was a mean bastard, but he was light as a kite. The rank water sloshed around them, staining their clothes and adding weight.
Back on his feet, Clyde choked down the vomit he felt pushing up and kicked an empty milk jug out of the way. Cigarette butts, the beige plastic ends of Swisher Sweets, empty fifths of cheap bourbon, and chicken bones pooled at his feet. Mosquitoes stood on his face. Dale circled. His thin purple lips held a sadistic grin. Clyde wanted to punch the fuck out of that ugly mouth. Dale jumped at Clyde, driving a knee up into his stomach that forced the air from his lungs with a cartoony ooff sound. With no breath and his body flushing with panic, Clyde just shut down. Dale drove a punch. Clyde felt it in his lungs and didn’t care if he died.
Jay shouted, “Yame!” and Dale hit him one more time before backing off. As Jay climbed down, Clyde grabbed his knees, barfed into the water, and tried to breathe.
“Stand up, Clyde.” Jay helped him to standing and put his own arms behind his head to show how to suck air. He put a hand on Clyde’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. They were close, Clyde could feel Jay’s heat. “You okay,” Jay said.
Clyde tried to say “Osu,” but couldn’t. He didn’t think he had it in him right now to fight Jay. At the far wall, Dale was climbing out. Clyde wanted to yank him down and drown him. Jay said, “Don’t know where you’s going, white boy.”
Clyde knelt in seiza in an uncluttered corner in the filth. Jay and Dale squared off, Jay said, “Hajime!” and proceeded to give Dale a fierce beating, pushing him back and back and back, getting him against the wall and driving punches into his gut. He kicked him in the head, stomach, thighs, he swept Dale’s feet. When Dale finally started blubbering, Jay said, “No crying in training, faggot.” Clyde grinned but Dale didn’t see it. Jay winked at Clyde and told them to line up. For the next hour, standing in that pit, they did kihon, arms and shoulders burning. When class was over, and they were walking slowly on wet bare feet in the road, Clyde realized he felt better, he’d got the liquor and sickness out. Nearing the house Jay told Clyde, “Stay for supper.” It wasn’t a question.
After showering, Jay asked Clyde if he’d written his letter yet. Clyde hadn’t, so Jay led him downstairs and opened a blank document for him on the computer. He stood over Clyde’s shoulder and said, “Dear IRS bastards,” snickered, and went back upstairs. After a few false starts, Clyde wrote:
To Whom It May Concern,
I was surprised to receive your notice demanding payment of $862 due to a mistake made three years ago by you, the IRS. If I’d been the one in the wrong, I’d gladly pay you what you say I owe you. But since it was you, I don’t see why I should have to suffer. Why should I pay to cover your accounting error? It doesn’t make sense. If this was the way corporations were run today, we’d be in even worse trouble than we are already in. And believe me, if you stepped outside the comforts of those pearly gates, you’d see that most Americans are suffering now as much as they were during the Great Depression. In short, I simply DO NOT HAVE this kind of money. Nor do I know anyone who does. Since the plant where I’d worked since high school (Mr. Longarm, Inc., my employer during the year that this mistake was made) closed for good, I’ve been unable to find good work. This was three years ago, by the way, and I have looked. I work two part-time jobs today and my combined earnings are not enough to cover even room and board. Forget about luxuries like telephone, cable, and gas, which seems to only go up and up despite the fact that no one here has “bounced back” from the economic collapse.
When Clyde finished, Jay grabbed his Winstons and a book from the shelf in the front room. “Let’s take a walk.” In the street, he lit two cigarettes. “You read that book Jimmy gave you?”
“Mm,” Clyde said, inhaling the cigarette. He liked smoking now. “I’m reading it.”
Jay looked disappointed. “Finish it,” he said. “When you’re done I wanna give you Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Behold a Pale Horse, and Unintended Consequences because them four books one hundred percent predicted what the United States government is up to right now.” Jay’s eyes bugged out and he shook his head, his lips making a funny sound.
“What’s the, uh, protocols, uh,” Clyde said.
Jay huffed. “It’s actually just a record of a meeting these old important Jews had a hundred some years ago.”
“About what?”
“Oh,” Jay said, “nothing much. They just laid out their blueprint for how Jews could control the economy and media and rule the world. Supposed to be secret but somebody leaked it. Oops. Some people think it’s fiction but, uh, let’s see here.” He used his fingers to tick things off. “Disney. Run for twenty years by Michael Eisner, Jew. Disney owns ABC-TV and radio, and Radio Disney, targeted at: children. Get ’em while they’re young. There’s a reason why young people today overwhelmingly support shit like gay marriage and miscegenation. Ain’t evolution. Disney also owns enough daily newspapers to reach a hundred million people. Then you got Viacom, run by Murray Rothstein, a Jew who changed his name to Sumner Redstone. Viacom owns MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, TNN, CMT, and a shitload of publishing companies.” He took a drag and spat. “Time Warner. Largest media company there is. Originally founded by Polish Jew brothers Hirsch, Aaron, Szmul, and Itzhak Warner. About ninety percent of the top brass today is Jews, and they run Time, Warner Bros., CNN, AOL, the biggest Internet service provider by far, HBO and Cinemax, and Warner Music, where most of that fuckin gansta rap shit comes from and which is run by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., big fuckin Jew whose dad—” Jay said, stopping. “Take a guess what Edgar Bronfman, Sr., does?”
Clyde was stunned. How was it that he’d never heard any of this before?
“He’s president of the World Jewish Congress!” Jay stomped in a circle around Clyde, wagging his head. “Hell, Clyde, I could go on all day. And don’t even get me started on Behold a Pale Horse. Chapters of that book are just scary, they’re so accurate. Once you read ’em, this shit’ll make a lot more sense.”
“Osu,” Clyde said.
“In Japan, part of an uchi deshi’s training is reading. Couple hours a day set aside for betterment of the mind, learning all the history and philosophy associated with the physical. Body’s just a machine, but part of that,” Jay tapped his temple, “is the mind. Can’t ignore the mind. Uchi deshi gotta remain ever vigilant, and acquiring knowledge and