The Tragedy

The second the Mustang died, so did Carl. He just gave up the ghost and passed away, his last breath wheezing from his lips as the engine growled and clanked and shuddered to a stop. I let the car drift along the deserted highway as I stared into the rear view mirror, waiting for the death rattle. I'd always heard that when you died, there would be a death rattle, a last gasp at life. I didn't hear anything though, and once I realized it I hit the brakes and the grand old car slowed to a stop. I put it in park and got out, not daring to look back at the old man. as I walked away, I let my hand trail along the smooth contours of the Mustang, the enameled surface warm against my fingertips. I kept walking up the highway, leaving the car and my friend in the behind. I didn't look back. There was no point.

HAPPY HOUR

When she threw the drink in his face, the pot-bellied guy with the John Waters mustache reeled back like he'd been hit with a taser. He stumbled back one, two, three paces and then did this weird, mid-fall twisting maneuver where he wrenched his body around and around and ultimately ended up throwing himself face first into the floor. The girls sitting opposite me at the bar went into high, shrill peals of laughter but I was wincing as I'd heard a thick 'pop' when the guy went down. And as the chaos built around where he lay spreadeagled on the sticky barroom floor, I noticed how wrong the angle of his left knee was and knew bad times were coming.

CLOWN WARFARE PART III

It was bedlam. Everywhere you turned there was another brawl, Sad clown versus Happy, circus versus French, rodeo versus...well, everybody. Nobody liked a rodeo clown. I skulked down low on the far side of a burnt-out car, creeping past broken, battered clown body after body sprawled on the pavement. I had my eyes peeled in both directions, my ears peaked for the sinister honk of red rubber noses; but all I could hear were agonized screams, guttural grunts, the meaty thud of clown horn against flesh, the methodical squeak of a clown shoe against something heavy and soft. I thought I saw an alley I could scoot down, but when I rose up from my crouch to make a break for it I was spotted. A big, fat Sad clown in overalls, hefting a loaded rubber chicken in his fist. He saw me and smiled, the leering grin looking sickly against the broad red smile painted across his cheeks. He stated swinging his chicken like a medieval flail in the air, the weighted chicken feel whistling in the air as he turned it and he came for me.

CLOWN WARFARE PART II

In retrospect, there were better places to try and play this clown for information. But at that moment, I was angry and tired and just didn't give a crap anymore. I sapped him across the face with my sock full of nickels, once, twice, three times. He reeled, twisting away from me in an effort to protect his broken mouth, red with blood and lipstick. "So you gonna spill it, Bobo?" I snarled at his shaking back. "Or do I stop playing nice?" And that's when I realized what this clown was leaning against, and that's when I realized that it wasn't empty. So I did what any sane person would do and turned tail and ran before those doors even opened. I was halfway up the block before they finished pouring out of that tiny little yellow clown car of theirs. I heard the squeaks and honks of a dozen pairs of shoes trailing me all the way to the subway. I was three stops away before it hit me: they'd been waiting for me all along.

CLOWN WARFARE

I took a step back when the guy pushed open the door to my cozy- yet empty- little bar. He was in a bright silver jumpsuit, with powder blue stars all over the place. A big curly red wig atop a face painted white, with a big red rubber nose, black diamonds over the eyes and a big red smear across his mouth. That was the part that made me curious, that indistinct red slash across his mouth. You see, there had been a feud running between the Sad clowns and the Happy clowns for as long as I'd been alive. But it had always been a small, petty sort of thing. Spiteful words, maybe a little bit of roughhousing when the circus came to town. But things had gotten weird in the past month, every week it seemed there was a lot more blood and greasepaint on the pavement. There had been a big clown rumble two nights ago, and word on the street was that there were three in intensive care in the hospital. One might not make it at all. So yeah, clown warfare was wrecking the city of my birth. The streets weren't safe, my business was suffering, so suffice to say...I didn't like the look of this clown.

THE MERCY OF THE KING

The high priest turned to the gathered masses. "The defendant stands accused of having led an illegal rebellion, and disrupting the flow of the King's grain wagons." Tomas attempted to shout out a word of protest, but was easily drowned out by the delirious roar of the crowd. "I turn now to our most honest and good king for judgment. Who is such a good king, yes? Who's a good king?" The King sat atop his throne, his head wobbling on his underdeveloped neck. A long string of drool dripped from his lower lip as he babbled softly. I would have never gotten a fair trial, not from this court mused Tomas grimly. The High Priest held up a hand for silence, and reached beneath his robes. From one of the many folds, he pulled out a silver keychain, which he then swiftly held before the King's eyes, tinkling and jangling merrily. "Glagloo?" asked the King, who then giggled uncontrollably. "Awwww," replied the crowd, delighted by the King's naked joy. "We shall heed his words! The punishment shall be...death, by stoning! Thus spake the King! All hail!  all hail King Baby!" he shouted, but the people drowned him out with their gleeful noise. The priest cleared his throat and tried again, croaking out at the top of his lungs "ALL HAIL THE KING! ALL HAIL KING BABY!" And as the crowd exulted, Tomas wept a silent tear at the doom that had befallen him. The rebellion was certainly doomed now, all at the soft and unlined hands of the infant king.

WAY OF THE WET FIST PART 3

Strike here, swiftly and without mercy to read WAY OF THE WET FIST: PART 1!

Strike with great precision and all of your power HERE for WAY OF THE WET FIST PART 2!

The four men paused in the alley, looking at the crouching Master Yu.  They were perhaps five feet away from him now; one down, another of their number winded badly (cardio was not a major precept of the Toscani) , most of them stinking of soy sauce.  Master Yu calmly leveled his outstretched left hand again, and carefully swung the plastic carton of milk in a circle around his right thumb.  He smiled larger, and made a ‘come on’ gesture.  

“GET HIM!” shouted Ryback, furiously pacing at the end of the alley.  “CUT HIM DOWN!”  And so they tried.

Luckily for Master Yu, they came at him one by one.    If they had been smart enough to recognize their strength in numbers, he would be dead.  Yet luckily for Master Yu, they were quite stupid. One by one they charged at him, black knives flickering wickedly in forward and backhand thrusts.

 
Master Yu remained calm, parrying their outreaching arms with the heavy half-gallon of milk, and then striking crisply with his left hand.  One by one they attacked; one by one they fell under his speedy fist and the heavy thud of the milk.  As he sent the four men flying into the back of the alley, he kept flicking glimpses to their end of the alley where Ryback lurked at the open end.  The ‘Grandmaster’ appeared unconcerned and stood nonchalantly flipping his knife over his fingers, until he cut himself a little.

Master Yu bobbed backwards to avoid a Toscani knife thrust and swept his left leg into a bent knee, leaving him off-balance.  Master Yu swung the half gallon of milk with tremendous force into the back of the Toscani man’s head.  The milk slammed into the man’s greasy hair and bounced back, a half gallon of liquid force knocking the man facedown into the concrete alley floor.  There was a sickening crack as his front teeth broke, and the man went down.  Master Yu allowed a frozen moment to contemplate his fallen opponent, and then was looking up and ready again.

It was Gino Taft, second in command of the Toscani Tong; and the recent recipient of a can of tuna (packed in water it was healthier than oil) to the gut.  He looked to be on shaky feet, but pulled himself upright to posture.  “You, fuck nuts!”  He growled, as he pointed his black knife blade towards the master.  Master Yu, rolled his eyes.

His knife strikes were short and precise, but Master Yu easily parried them with a few short swipes of his half gallon.  Taft feinted with his knife, and then led in with his right hand in a vicious chop that Master Yu easily spun past.  His spin ended with him standing behind Taft, where he then grabbed him by the shoulder and bent him over backwards over his left knee.  Gino Taft was not used to bending in such a manner (stretching also not a priority in their school) and yelped piteously before Master Yu brought the half gallon milk down in a cruel, swinging arc right into the center of Taft’s face.  Taft’s nose burst open in a spray of red, and Master Yu stood upright, toppling Taft onto the floor of the alley.  As Taft tried to get up, he was laid low by a short, sharp kick to the face from Master Yu and that was it for Taft.  

Master Yu turned again to where Ryback stood at the open end of the alley, his left hand again outstretched and his half gallon of milk again casually swinging on his right thumb.  What a tremendous weapon, he thought.  And I thought milk was no good for kung fu!

He sensed another man behind him, and whipped around in a circle, his half gallon of milk swinging wide.  The milk grazed the face of a third Toscani man with little injury, although it did back the man off for a second.  

Now Master Yu faced two men at once, in their haste to defeat the older man forgetting the one-at-a-time rule ingrained in them from such films as Marked For Death.  He swung his half gallon back and forth in a wide arc, doing his best to keep these two greasy-haired bastards at a safer distance.  They could do nothing but take ineffectual swipes at him, snatching their arms back from the angry sloshing of his weapon.  Ahh, that’s right.  They cannot kick.  thought Master Yu.  

Master Yu swung another gurgling strike at the man on his left, then abruptly stopped midswing and leapt forward with a kick to the head.  His foot struck the side of a greasy head, sending the man face first into the wall.  Yu then leapt straight up into the air and delivered a sharp kick with his left foot directly into the temple of the knife-wielding man left standing.  This man having been the recipient of the other can of tuna he’d let fly with at the battle’s beginning.  The kick was more than enough to put the man down for good.  Landing on the ground, Master Yu turned to swat away yet another knife strike from the last Toscani man before swinging the half gallon into that man’s soft midsection.  Such a durable weapon!  he thought.  What kind of plastic is this?

Then, Ryback made his move.  With his right hand, he sunk a fist into Master Yu’s kidney from behind, utilizing the most deadly weapon of the Toscani school: the cheap shot.  A poorly considered attack, the force of his blow accidentally sent the older man out of range of his next knife thrust.  Master Yu grunted, but rolled with the impact and came up on his feet in the same stance he’d maintained for the entire battle: left hand out and inviting, the half gallon of milk on his thumb; swinging slightly.  

“If your daddy knew how stupid you were, he’d trade you in for a pet monkey.” Ryback grimaced.  The quote from Fire Down Below went unnoticed by Master Yu, as his first conquest of the battle sprung up from where he had been quietly bleeding on the ground and lashed upwards with his blade directly at Master Yu’s back.

Master Yu was swift however, and managed to twist and avoid the man’s knife strike.  He brought the man down for good with a swift milk-elbow-milk combination to the face and throat.  Master Yu turned back to his last two opponents and assumed his stance again, only to be taken aback by a pair of grim and knowing grins.  

The doughy man had missed Master Yu entirely, but the knife strike had done its damage.  It had neatly sliced the bottom from the half gallon of milk on a diagonal, leaving Master Yu standing with an empty plastic carton.  
Ryback stood with his arms out, one knife at the ready.  His last crony -Austin Storm, so named after hit films Executive Decision and Hard to Kill- circled around, trying to get into Master Yu’s blind spot.  His greasy pony tail was askew, lank hair framing the puffiness about his face from where the half gallon had struck him.  Master Yu twisted and turned, trying to keep both men in his line of sight.  He dropped the diminished half-gallon to the alley floor, and tried to fight the feeling of panic that had set in.  “The fight’s not over yet, Danny.  I’m not scared of you and your bully boy.”

“Maybe you should be,” Ryback whispered; inwardly pleased that he could naturally quote Hard to Kill without it seeming too forced.  It of course went over Master Yu's head.  That was weird.  Why is he whispering?

Austin Storm giggled, and bent to pick up another knife from one of their fallen compatriots.  When Master Yu turned to kick at him, Ryback floated in and viciously punched the older man in the kidneys again.  Master Yu slumped heavily to the ground.

Ryback laughed, pointing his knife at a prone Master Yu.  “Now it’s over, old man.  You put up a good fight, but now it’s aaaaall over.  You’re done, and with you your school is done.  Get ready to-“ and then they heard a cry from the open end of the alley.  “UNCLE!”  

It was his nephew, On Pui racing down the alley with a pair of large plastic bags in either fist.  He had returned from the pet store with a large orange carp and a large white carp in bags filled with aquarium water.

Heavy bags of water.  

Austin lunged forward, but On Pui tucked and rolled and then was straight up with a knee to the chest of the pudgy Austin Storm.  He swung the bags wildly, hitting Austin in the side of the head one, two, three, four times in quick succession.  The water sloshed violently as the force of his strikes rattled his brain.  Austin thrust wildly about with his knives in either hand, but On Pui danced back on delicate feet, easily avoiding his opponent’s flustered attacks.  Then On Pui paused, and then whirled around in a circle before bringing both aquarium bags around in a three hundred and sixty degree arc to hammer the man into unconsciousness with his mighty bags of fish.

Ryback went for On Pui, hoping to blindside him from behind.  But On Pui heard him coming, and whirled about in a blur of white and orange fish, the bags from the pet store striking Ryback in the side of the head with tremendous force.  Ryback was staggered.  On Pui let out a terrific yelp and advanced on his weakened opponent, but Ryback was ready and socked him deep in the stomach.  On Pui fell back, windmilling his bagged fish to keep Ryback from advancing any further.  Ryback cringed, and turned to run.

Right into Master Yu’s left fist.

Rocked by the blow, Ryback stabbed out only to have his other hand slashed again by an edge of Master Yu’s diminished milk bottle.  The sharp plastic carved a furrow into Ryback’s right hand, the pain causing Ryback to drop the knife to the alley floor.  But Seagal never loses, he thought in a panic.  

Pained, a shouting Ryback chopped his left hand at Master Yu’s throat, but the master cagily whirled and spun and whipped his cut up half gallon up and across Ryback’s face.  A thin line slashed up the man’s face, splitting his eyelid open.  Ryback wailed in shock and fear, flailing about in a circle…

…right into a face full of white and orange fish, slamming into his face yet again.  The impact of the heavy bags of water and fish was the end of him, his short and greasy ponytail flipping in the air as he fell to the alley floor among his men.

The fight was over.

On Pui twitched with adrenaline, hopping from one downed man to another, satisfied by the dull groans and slow breathing of those unconscious.  “Uncle, are you all right?  Are you hurt?”

“No, On Pui.  I am unharmed, but somewhat winded.”  And he was.  He stood there, looking over the remains of the battle.  Noting the brown streaks of soy sauce on the alley floor and walls, the milk slowly curdling in the summer sun.  Looked down at the handle of his cut up half gallon of milk.

“I can’t believe these assholes.  What were they thinking?  Did they really think they could come and try and knife you to death in the alley to your school and get away with it?”  On Pui kept on hopping, nerves on edge.

Master Yu looked up from the remains of the half-gallon.  “I think I have discovered a new fighting style today.  And it appears that you have as well, On Pui.”  On Pui looked confused until his uncle pointed at the bags of koi.

“What?  Holy shit!  They’re still alive!”  And they were, the tails of the carp flickered as they moved about in their temporary homes still clutched in On Pui’s fists.  

“A fine omen.  I take that as a sign, a signal from the divine tha-”

“Man, I’m so glad I didn’t kill them.  I didn’t even think about it, I just saw they had knives on you and I-“

“On Pui, I fought and defeated three men with a half gallon of one percent milk.  You fought and defeated two men with two plastic bags filled with water.”

“…well, there were fish in there too.”

“Ssh!  I think we have discovered something.  Unarmed men, defeating multiple opponents with vessels filled with water.  This is something we need to study.  Something we can perfect, so that we can use these techniques against opponents less lowly than these of the Toscani school.”

“Yeah, never know when the Van Damme School is gonna attack.”  Master Yu frowned at his nephew.  “I don’t really see the sense in attacking people with gallons of milk or…is that soy sauce?  It smells like soy sauce.”

“The proof is laying all around you.  We have triumphed with this new approach to kung fu, this new…way of fighting.  We have innovated something here, and that is not to be taken lightly.”

“I don’t think a bag full of carp is tournament legal, Uncle.”

“…just go put the fish in the pond and call the police already.”

WAY OF THE WET FIST PART 2

Strike here, swiftly and without mercy to read WAY OF THE WET FIST: PART 1!


Strike here with great focus and energy to read WAY OF THE WET FIST PART 3!

“Out for a walk, old man?” sneered ‘Grandmaster’ Mason Ryback.  Who had been born Danny Lo some thirty years before as Master Yu remembered.  Upon the founding of his school Danny had taken it upon himself to rename based on his two second-favorite Seagal films, Hard to Kill and Under Siege.  “You’d better enjoy the sunlight while you can.  There’s not going to be too much sunlight in the nursing home.”  His four cronies guffawed loudly, then their laughter abruptly stopped short as they reassumed what they likely thought to be their ‘cool,’ intimidating glare.

“Danny, did you really just throw a knife at me?” Master Yu refused to indulge in this foolishness.  Why can’t kids today just shamelessly copy Bruce Lee like we did when we were younger? he wondered.

“YOU WILL CALL HIM MASTER RYBACK!” shrieked the chunkiest flunky to his left, face red.  He surged forward into the alley, only to be held back by Ryback’s outstretched arm.

“Hey!” he murmured.  “Play it cool,” he hoarsely whispered in what Master Yu supposed was supposed to be a Seagal-esque voice.  Ryback turned a glare onto Master Yu.  “That little stunt you pulled at the gym the other day...bad move.  The Toscani Tong” -so named after Danny Lo’s number one favorite Seagal movie Above the Law- “had a lot of money riding on that match.  That trick you pulled with the judges…not to cool.  Your nephew was supposed to lose.”

“Oh, so telling them that you paid off the referee wasn’t cool?  I’m terribly sorry that you feel this way.”  Master Yu was not actually sorry.  “Maybe you shouldn’t have paid him off in the parking lot.  Or maybe you could have at least gotten that idiot to leave his payoff in his car, instead of leaving it in his gym bag, and then leaving that right next to the judges table.”

Ryback’s air of cool started to slip, his nostrils flaring impressively.  “Maybe so.  Maybe so.  But you should have been smart enough to keep your stupid old mouth shut, old man.”

“Oh, please.  On Pui didn’t lose.  Your man hit him a full four seconds after he’d been kicked in the stomach.  We all counted.  Including the judges, who were then quite rightly wondering how the hell the referee had managed to call the point for your man.”  Master Yu felt himself getting angrier, although underneath his anger he was calculating the odds.  Five against one in a small alley was not good news.

“Shut up!  Shut your damn…old mouth!”  Ryback stepped forward, fixing the leopard-print belt that marked him ‘grandmaster.’  “The point is…you cost the Toscani Tong quite a…lot of money...to a number of…concerned individuals.”  

“Would you stop the dramatic pauses, Danny?  It’s ridiculous when Seagal talks like that, its worse when you do it too.”

More glares.  “We’re in deep.  In fact…we’re going to have to leave town for awhile.  But before we do…we figured we ought to leave just one more rival school…in pieces.  You may think you’re above the law…well you’re not above mine!”  

With that, Ryback made a curt gesture with his left hand, and his four men suddenly produced four black, ceramic blades identical to the one buried in the alley’s back wall.  Suddenly this was serious.  

The four men advanced swiftly.  Which for them was not very swift at all.  More of a fast walk.  They were somewhat pudgy.

Master Yu found himself literally with his back up against the wall.  In a regular fight, he was mostly confident that he would be able to fight his way out of the alley.  But with all four of his opponents armed (and now Ryback produced yet another blade) he found he did not like his chances.  A quick glance around the alley confirmed that it was entirely empty.  The knife was buried hilt-deep in the planks of the wall, and was no use.  Master Yu considered throwing his keys at the men, but thought it to be dishonorable.  He crouched down, his left hand out in invitation of their first strike, and his right hand...laden with the small bag of groceries.

He smiled.

Grandmaster Ryback tried to maintain the level of serene violence that he saw in his idol, Steven Seagal; but found it slipping.  After their disgrace before the Yu-Ban, he and his school were in thirty large to Fat Carl.  And Fat Carl was angry, and supposed to have mob ties.  And Ryback and his second-in-command Gino Taft (so named for the smash Seagal hits Out For Justice and On Deadly Ground) soon agreed that an angry fat man with numerous mob ties would be bad for the continued health of the school.  Their plan was to kill Master Yu, steal his van and whatever cash he had on hand , take a dump in his koi pond, and then flee to Fresno.

He tugged on his oily ponytail and grimaced in what he felt was a manly way at the old man in the back of the alley as his men advanced.  Master Yu was rifling through his groceries frantically.  “This is for my school.  Fuck you and die!”  Ryback felt good, paraphrasing the master like that.

Master Yu raised his cans of tuna first, and whipped them with great force directly into the two foremost Toscani men.  The impacts were brutal, sinking deeply into the considerable gut of second-in-command Gino Taft and striking another in the throat with a meaty thud.  As the two men toppled, Master Yu shattered the top of the small bottle of soy sauce against the ground and splashed it frantically into the faces of the other advancing men.  They clutched at their eyes and screamed piteously. “Aaaaaah! My eyes!"  "So salty!”

Master Yu allowed himself a small smile, and readied himself for the next wave of attacking jackasses. He hefted his primary weapon in his right fist: a half gallon of 1 percent milk.

Organic.