Kung Fu High School

by Ryan Gattis

  "Huh?" Remo's mom was watching a dubbed version of Matlock on Telemundo and not really listening to us. She's the cutest old lady in the world.

  "¡Mamá, tráigame un tazón de agua caliente!"

  "Sí, sí." Mrs. Rodriguez shuffled into the kitchen and came back with a yellow bowl but no water, warm or otherwise.

  "Sit," Remo said to me and went to fill the bowl himself By the time he came back with it, his mom had discovered the food.

  "¡Ay los tamales! Gracias, señorita." She clapped her hands together when she said the words and then did a kind of dance where she dipped and swayed at the knees. Like I said, so cute.

  I always make my dad's mom's tamale recipe for Mrs. Rodriguez when we come to visit. I know that she doesn't eat too good with Remo always cooking. Sometimes I bring over two meals a week, but usually at least one. Tamales are one of the only things I can do well though, so I've had to be good with experimenting or else it would get too boring. I made tuna tamales once but that was a disaster. I mostly just stick to ground beef or chicken, but I make pork when we can afford it.

  Remo's mom has early onset Alzheimer's. She'd be asking me who I was in ten minutes. You get used to it eventually. Her condition is why Remo lived at home still. He was probably twenty-six when she got diagnosed. He'd definitely be married and super rich and successful by now if he didn't insist on staying at the free clinic and taking care of his mom.

  "So I hear there's a guy en el hospital who needed some real TLSC." Remo was looking right at Cue. "Tender loving sternum care."

  "Really?" Give Cue credit. He genuinely sounded surprised.

  "Dr. Vanez got called in. Saved the kid's life, as per usual." Remo looked at Jimmy, who was sitting down on the arm of the chair I was sitting in.

  "That's good. I've heard of Vanez. He's the best supposedly." Cue knew Vanez real well. The guy was an orthopedic surgeon and a legend. When we still had a mom and a family insurance policy because of her teaching job, Vanez rebuilt Cue's shoulder. He did an amazing job too. Unless I'm a foot or two away from his skin, I can't see the scars. They blend real well.

  "Indeed he is," Remo said, "indeed he is."

  He made me soak my hands in the hot water. It was almost too hot. Then he took out his tools and sterilized one of the needles before picking out the splinters. Total: five, but one big one underneath a fingernail. That hurt, but as far as splinters went, it was pretty good for me. Last time it was seven. Remo didn't stop with just the removal though. He dried my palms with a towel and then rubbed this real dark brown stuff on my hands. It smelled like tequila and evergreen trees but it looked like mud.

  "What the hell is this?" I asked. He'd picked splinters out of my hands before but never used brown stuff to salve it.

  "Good Mexican medicine, just keep your palms up until they dry. Then rinse it off" Remo went to put his tools away.

  "Just as long as it isn't shit," I said, and I heard Remo laugh from down the hall but he didn't contradict me. Great. It probably was shit, part of it anyway.

  We said goodnight to Mrs. Rodriguez as she got shepherded back to her own room to watch the rest of her show. I did always wonder if she could keep up with those mysteries. I mean, Matlock was an hour long so I'm sure she'd forgotten everybody by the time they figured out who the killer was.

  "So, what did you bring for me today? Jeunet y Caro? A little Delicatessen?" Remo was anxious but probably because he thought we forgot to bring a video again.

  "Warm. Better than that though." Cue pulled a video out of his back pocket. It was wrapped in brown paper. Jimmy and I moved over to the couch and just waited for their little dance to end. Disappointingly, he didn't smell like licorice anymore. I brushed by him to check, dragged the flat of my knee across his, not too slowly, just as I sat down next to him but made real sure to leave a few inches in between in case he thought I was doing it on purpose.

  "Dogme 95?" Remo shouted it from the kitchen. He had put popcorn on the stovetop.

  "Colder. Better than that crap." Cue squeezed in between Jimmy and me. Bastard.

  "What is it, man? Just tell me."

  Pop.

  "Hate."

  Pop. Pop.

  "Hater?"

  Pop.

  "Yeah, La Haine. It's French."

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  "Is it any good?"

  Pop. Pop.

  I could hear Remo pull his popcorn off the burner early. He was a weird guy. For some reason he liked his popcorn really underdone and he'd eat the kernels all the time, real loudly, always during the most tense moments in the movie too.

  "Jusqu'ici, tout va bien ...mon ami ... jusqu'ici, tout va bien ..."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean? I asked if it was any good."

  "So far so good."

  "Well, put it in, I got to see this."

  Mrs. Rodriguez had a VCR from like 1986. It was a top loader. Bad as it was though, it was better than nothing. We didn't even have one. We had to come over to the Rodriguez house to watch anything. That is, if we hadn't already seen it at the video store on Bleak while some Wave was working.

  Well, normal me, quiet Jimmy, loud Cue, and popcorn-crunching Remo finally shut up and watched the movie and Remo ended up loving it. The little French wannabe gangsters getting sucked into something so much bigger than them because of a lost gun that they found and how all the time they were looking for revenge when one of their buddies got hurt by the cops, he loved all of that. In fact, even though it was just a copy the video clerk gave us, he bought it for five bucks.

  "Take the car," he said when we were getting our coats on to leave. "I'm too tired to drive you."

  "No, that's cool, Remo. It's not too late. And we got three." Mr. Cue, always the tough guy. I wouldn't've minded a ride in a warm car.

  "The way I hear it, you got two and a half" Remo didn't need to look at Jimmy this time. "Just leave the keys under the mat, I'll pick it up in the morning."

  KINFÉS

  Alfredo loved his kinfé, probably slept next to it too. When we pulled up outside of our house, he was standing there, playing with it. We don't call them knives here because they're so much more than knives. For one, they're smaller. Two, they're sharp on all four sides, sort of like an awl but longer and with a different blade. Always homemade, but not like a prison shiv that's just made out of anything hard enough to sharpen. It takes a whole lot more to make a kinfé and you got to pronounce it right too. Kinfé, like kin-fay, right? I've seen kids beaten up for saying it all wrong: ka-nee-fay. You ever hear someone call it that, it's usually followed by a good smack.

  When making one, you got to find the right metal, or the right knives. The easiest ones to make come from just stripping four knives of their blades, cutting them in half and then taking the cutting edges and welding or fusing them together, edges out, so that the whole thing looks like an extended tip of a Phillips head screwdriver and sharp all around. It takes skills to make good ones but there's plenty of crap out there. I heard some guys in the Whips make theirs to be disposable and just put them together with sharpened plastic and superglue, then they use duct tape for the handles. The Hunters though, they take theirs real seriously. Most take about a week to make and

  FIGURE 5. HOW TO MAKE A KINFÉ (BLADE)

  FIGURE 6. HOW TO MAKE A KINFÉ (HILT & SHEATH)

  even have a special name. Their type of kinfé is called the fleshhook.

  "What's wrong?" Cue got out of the car and left the door open. He was all business when he walked toward Alfredo. I could see seven Hunters in various positions overlooking the house. They didn't move.

  "We were guarding," Alfredo said. "We got a buzz that the Blades was coming after you tonight because of what you did to Karl Fuck-Head. You know we got your back."

  "What's going on?" Jimmy asked me. All three of us had been squeezed into the front seat of Remo's 1962 whatever-it-was. Nobody knew what make or model it used to be. It had had so much bodywork done over the years that it di
dn't have the tailfins it once had because they got knocked off when Remo backed into a garbage truck. It didn't have the logos and insignias and writing either because all of that had been stolen. There was a trend a couple years ago when the coolest thing was to have the rarest hood ornaments and names off of cars, so Remo's didn't last long. But it was a good car. It had a big couch of a front seat and I liked that I stayed pressed up against Jimmy even after Cue had got out.

  "Looks like fuckin' Alfredo's got some news. He does this all the time. Shows up with some Hunters and makes a big deal out of something. If I had to guess, he's talking about Blades wanting to kill us because of Karl." I said it, then I yawned.

  But I could see Alfredo talking and making everything real dramatic but we couldn't hear him, so I just watched his mouth and put on my best Alfredo voice for Jimmy and just dubbed over him: "Blah blah, yeah, Karl got worse at the hospital today so a bunch of Blades decided it was time to nil you for jumping in on that fight with Jimmy but we showed up and they must've decided not to mess with us blah blah blah."

  Jimmy only laughed because he was surprised how well my made-up words fit in with Alfredo's flapping mouth. Cue's back was to us. They were both standing in the headlight glow, just to the side, not quite lit up all the way. The conversation looked to be over because Alfredo nodded and the Hunters started leaving.

  "It's okay," Cue turned and said. He motioned for me to pull the keys out of the ignition. We were pretty much parked on the curb in front of the house anyway. Remo'd just grab it in the morning.

  Cue was walking toward me and then he stopped, fell forward. He made a sound like he usually does when he's kidding. Like a thud in the lungs. Like UHH! He makes that sound by hitting his chest with his fist so it sounds real. I swear I thought he was just playing because Cue doesn't do that stuff unless it's for a laugh. And I laughed. I leaned over, took the keys out, popped the lights off with the push of the extended knob. Like pushing in the shooter on a pinball machine. I looked to my right and Jimmy was getting out of the car so I shifted over in the seat and got out on the driver side, through the open door.

  "Ayight, stop playing, I get it," I said. It was late. I really wanted to go to sleep on the couch, or feign sleep and pretend that Jimmy was next to me. I'd raid the laundry basket and grab one of the shirts he wore and I'd put it over one of the cushions and then scrunch up against it fetal or just hide it under the blanket.

  I slipped. I was walking toward Cue, who was still on the ground but no longer hamming it up, and I slipped but I didn't fall.

  "Fuckin' ice!" I didn't say it that loud. Natural reaction. Then I realized it was definitely cold enough for ice to be forming on the road but it wasn't wet enough. Too dark to see. I put my hand down on it. It was warm, wet. I could smell it. I licked my finger to make sure. It wasn't quite blood but it was close. Later, the coroner told me that it was part blood, part spinal fluid. 'Fredo and the Hunters were long gone.

  I just sat down right there next to him. I couldn't breathe so good. He was still warm, everywhere but his ears. His big old ears that he'd had to grow into were freezing so I took my hat off and put it on him. He had something sticking out of his lower back. 'Fredo had shoved the kinfé between vertebrae and severed his spinal cord right above his hips if I had to guess. Really, I had no idea how he got that much force up without rigging some kind of air-powered gun to sling it, but that's possible and I wouldn't put it past 'Fredo. Just to make sure though, the next kinfé had gone right through my brother's temple, shattering that greater wing of sphenoid that pokes out along the coronal suture of a border like Switzerland squeezed in next to the frontal bone of France and the parietal bone of Germany and the temporal bone of Italy. Remo explained it like that to me once when I had a slight fracture of the frontal: your skull is Europe, he had said, your temple is a landlocked country.

  Funny what kind of shit sticks in your mind at moments when control goes right out the window for good. My brother died before he hit the ground. There was no way to bring him back. And there never would be. Not with screaming ambulances and hyper paramedics with needles and drooping bags filled with see-through fluid, not with paddles to shock his heart into beating again, not with bandages to stop the bleeding. It didn't matter if Jimmy got Remo or Vanez or anybody. Nobody could put my big brother's spine and his brain back together again. Kyuzo was still warm under my hand. Maybe his soul was still inside. Tidying up some papers on its desk before it jetted for good?

  I don't remember what Jimmy said. But Remo's car sped off. So he must've been in it. That big old land boat.

  "Oh, Cue," I said, and it was so quiet around me. "Oh, Mister Cue. Baldhead. Baldy..."

  I pushed my hat hard against his scalp, held my hand there on the woolly ridges, fingers spread out where his cowlick was, and with my other hand, I yanked the kinfé free. It took two tries, as hard as I could, to get it all the way out. I tried not to move it much, tried to pull it clean. More bone broke off though, chips maybe. But I didn't look down, looked at my window in my house as I heard the dripping, the splash, and felt something drop warmly onto my calf and slide into the puddle growing under us. My peripheral vision told me it looked like a fig in the dark. A big fig. Mom used to love those. I flattened my hat down over the hole in his head, covering it. Because it was too cold out and I didn't want him to get frostbite. Ever.

  "This is all going to end badly now. You know that, right? So don't go tripping off to heaven with that soul just yet. I need you to watch over me. Watch over Jimmy. We'll see you soon enough." They weren't my words but they came from my throat, pushed by my lungs, sounds carved out by my tongue.

  It must've just been wind in the trees, but I'm sure I heard an "okay." It nestled in my ear. So I just kept sitting, smoothing the hat down, stroking his bald head through it, imagining Cue's spirit in the trees of Mrs. Johnson's yard, waiting for a moment before it went to wherever spirits go, just to watch me and see how I reacted to this change, this shock. Maybe he would stay a little longer and keep watching. Maybe even follow.

  And then the car was back. Ground yacht docking. Headlights so bright in my face it might as well've been daytime. Then Remo was next to me and he was checking my pulse. He must've thought I was hurt too, from all the blood on me. But it was my big brother's. My big invincible brother spilling out vincible all over my splinterless hands and khaks and soaking me to the bone, getting me colder as I held him. It was changing in the night air, his blood. On me, it was freezing to solid. We were crystallizing together on our street. The one we truly grew up on.

  THE TALENTED MR. RIDLEY

  I didn't know how long I'd been sitting on the couch when my alarm went off. Hours and hours, easily. It helped that I couldn't feel anything. Not pins or needles. Not the need to cry. Couldn't feel my body sitting. Still couldn't breathe so good and it felt like I had a snow-thick cloud in my chest but it helped that I didn't see his face in my memory, hadn't looked down at him when the lights were on us. So that was good, saying good-bye with my fingers. Not needing anything else to confirm that Cue was gone, at least he was whole as he could be, wearing a hat, frostbiteless in my remembering. My forearm muscles cramped, triceps spasmed. I'd probably been holding fists since I first sat. Please understand, anger was all I had left.

  To not show up to Kung Fu the next day would've been a mistake. Would've been a huge sign of weakness. Even though I hadn't slept, I got ready as usual. Leaned on my routine. But when I put on my leggings, I put my kinfé in its sheath (I'd be avoiding the metal check and sneaking in through a side door). Barbie Bloodclot was her name and I even did a carving on the hilt of a curvy, normal-girl-looking Barbie with claws, not a stupid skinny one. I've only ever used her once to cut. He deserved it. Tried to rape me. Didn't get very far though, and what was worse was that he had to deal with Cue later. That guy's body is buried in the landfill now. Maybe it's weird, but I can't even remember his name. I used to know him.

  With any luck, I'd get a shot
at 'Fredo but the chances of that happening were about as likely as Dad waking up with no pain. When I buttoned up my flannel over my hooded sweatshirt I was mostly just hoping that I wouldn't be forced to use her because I couldn't be held responsible for what I would do to him.

  I tried to give Dad his meds but he didn't want them. I knew he'd been crying. He was in his shell again. He did it every time something went real bad. Happened when Mom died. Happened when he had his accident too. I had to be the one to tell him how it went down. He didn't believe me until he heard the cop cars out front. I left his meds and a glass of water on the TV dinner tray that doubled as a bedside table. He'd take them on his own if it got bad enough.

  The cops wanted the murder weapons but they couldn't find them. They wanted to search the house because they knew who Cue was. I wouldn't let them and they didn't have any warrants. They told me they'd be back. But the cops didn't care who killed Cue. If they had searched the house they would've found 'Fredo's kinfés in the yellow bucket in the kitchen, under the sink. It wouldn't've mattered. They knew it wasn't their score to settle. I pulled the blades out of the bucket and put them in my backpack. It was odd to feel them so dry.

  Jimmy was still in bed fifteen minutes before we had to leave.

  "Let's go, Jimmy. School." It was the most I got out while trying to drink my orange juice. I spilled some on the carpet too.

  "What? You're going?" He sat up in my bed. I'd been on the couch again. Neither one of us had been able to face the prospect of sleeping in Cue's bed.

  "Have to," I said. I didn't realize my glass was empty until I tried to drink again. It didn't matter really, because I couldn't taste it. The faint saltiness of Cue's blood felt like it had seeped into the depths of my tongue, into the core. It was my only taste.