THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED, it was an accident. Well, not an accident exactly, but unplanned. I was a freshman at NYU, eighteen years old, and I’d been fighting for four years, not to mention some informal earlier training from Paul—how to make a fist, how to draw power from your stance, in a street fight or to defend yourself, always go for the eyes and the groin.
I’d been studying at the temple for four years. There are no belts in kung fu, not at my school anyway. We earn degrees. The first degree came after two years if you passed a written and physical test. The second came a couple years after that. I’d just earned my second degree.
But I’d never been in a real street fight.
Don’t look for it, Mike always warned us, worried that young people overconfident in their own abilities would go out into the city looking for trouble. Some did.
Even I wondered if outside the temple I could defend myself. Sparring is not the real deal. We didn’t wear guards—except the men wore cups and the women wore breast shields inside their sports bras. But we took blows to the center body and limbs to learn what it feels like to get hit. And in sparring, we pulled our strikes to the head, vital organs, lower abdomen, tapping or slapping when a fist might do real damage, actions that taught control and discipline. But we still got hurt—a lot, marking each other with ugly black bruises, massaging each other when it was done. So I knew what it was like to take a blow. But when fear and adrenaline were part of the equation, what would that change? If someone had a real gun or a knife, was crazy, a gutter fighter, not following the rules of the kung fu temple, how would I fare?
The goal is never to find out, Mike answered when I asked.
It was late, that first time. I had spent my evening at Bobst Library, off Washington Square Park, studying and decided to walk home rather than cab it as my uncle would have preferred. It was early autumn, Halloween approaching, the air crisp but not cold. I wore my eternal hoodie, black jeans, and sneakers. It was the perfect invisibility cloak; tons of people in the city wearing exactly the same thing.
My parents had been dead for more than four years. I was constructed mainly of eggshells, emotionally speaking. I still couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone but Paul, some of my teachers, people at the temple. So I’m sure I came off as a bit of a freak, hollow-eyed and shrinking (or trying to) into a slate-gray hood. The world, to me, seemed like a field of shadows, everything suspect, everyone untrustworthy. I felt safe only at the temple, among stacks of books, or with Paul. Otherwise, I was a field mouse staying out of sight, always watching for the wings of death.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A shrill voice, young and frightened, startled me as I walked, heading east on Eighth Street. “Get away from me.”
“What the fuck? Do you think I’m stupid?” Brooklyn, big round vowels, hard-edged consonants. “Save yourself, kid. I’m warning you. Give it back.”
“You’re making a mistake,” the kid wailed. “Help!”
I came up behind them, the two men pushing a ratty-looking teenager up against a brick wall. The street wasn’t deserted, but people were crossing to the other side to avoid the conflict.
The boy, a stick-skinny Latino with a row of piercings in his ear and a kind of dirty, neglected aura, had the wild-eyed look of a cornered animal. I’d lived in the city long enough to know a street kid when I saw one. His thick-necked assailants were grown-up frat boys, twin-like with close-shorn hair, red faces, well dressed in auras of entitlement.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” said one of the men, a blond, as he moved in closer.
“Then don’t,” I said.
The two men both swung to look at me. I hated having three sets of eyes on me, took a step back.
“Let him go,” I said. I couldn’t believe the way my voice sounded, deep, calm. My pulse wasn’t even slightly elevated.
Taking advantage of the distraction, the kid tried to run. But the man with darker hair and one of those giant diver’s watches that are supposed to let people know you make a lot of money, grabbed him, wrenching his arm. The boy—he was a boy, maybe not even as old as I was—let out a cry of pain.
There wasn’t even a thought in my head. I moved in quick and brought my heel down hard on the darker man’s expensive loafer, feeling a small bone snap beneath the strike. I was pushed back by the sound of his scream. The kid looked at me with something like awe, then scrambled down the street.
“What the fuck?” the blond, scared, angry, turned on me. “He took my wallet.”
He reached in with both hands for me. I threaded my hands up through his arms and vise gripped his wrists, using his arms and weight to stabilize myself and bring my heel hard into his groin. He crumpled soundless into a pile of himself on the concrete, his neck gone bright red against the lavender checks of his Brooks Brothers Oxford. I knew it would take him a second to find sound. By the time he did, a great helpless wail of pain, I was gone, running up the street, heading east, pausing only when I got to Avenue C, ducking into a doorway to catch my breath. I tried to disappear into the dark.
“What the hell did I just do?” I asked no one.
There was a homeless man sleeping in the next doorway, buried beneath a pile of papers, emitting an impossibly strong stench, snoring peacefully.
That street kid probably did have that guy’s wallet. But I didn’t care. It wasn’t any excuse for brutality.
“Oh, and that wasn’t brutal?” my dad asked. Did I mention that I sometimes see my dad? That he lingers in the edges of my life, offering commentary and unsolicited advice. Well, I do.
“It was defense,” I said. “I defended the kid. And then I defended myself.”
“Oh, really,” said my dad. He issued a little laugh. “That blow to the jewels was strictly necessary, was it? You couldn’t have gotten away without it, once the kid was clear?”
He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall beside me. He was wearing that denim shirt over a navy blue tee, the one my mom loved because it made his eyes look like sapphires. He had that sleepy look, like he used to after he’d worked overtime and then slept in. He used to smoke out behind the barn, hiding from my mom.
“Meanwhile,” my dad said. “The kid was a thief.”
“A street kid,” I said. “He probably needed the money for food.”
“A junkie,” he said with a sharp exhale. “He needed the money for drugs.”
“You’d let those two goons pound him into the wall? They were looking for it. They wanted to hurt him, wallet or not.”
“You don’t know that.”
My breath came back, my head cleared. There was no wash of regret, no shaky, post-adrenaline nausea. I was calm and solid as I slipped out of the doorway, confident that I was one with the night. I wasn’t concerned that the police would be looking for me. I didn’t feel bad for hurting those men. In fact, I rarely felt anything at all.
“Sometimes right is right even when it’s wrong,” I said, walking by my father.