Kung Fu Factory

by Crimefactory

  Wade pulled the knife from his boot without even realizing it and he began stabbing the guy without a nose over and over again. Blood was fucking everywhere. At some point he dropped the knife and it hit the pavement with a clink.

  The other guy, missing teeth, busted eardrum, and now dislocated patella, made one final swing, but Wade caught his punch and twisted his wrist. He then pulled the thug's arm down fast and thrust his knee up, breaking the arm clean in half. Even in the darkness Wade could see the white of the bone, and the screams that filled the alley were a symphony and he smiled at the sound.

  Wade's head was throbbing and he had a few broken ribs. He slowly picked up the knife, but he was still cautious as hell and he reminded himself that he couldn't drop his guard. Not until he was back inside the bar. Maybe not even then.

  Blood ran down his neck as he limped back to the building. He stopped to pick up his bloody knuckles and his belt when the back door of the Red Donkey opened. Wade wiped the blood from his pig-sticker and slid it back into his boot, then reattached the brass knuckles.

  STEP FIVE: DRINK THE PAIN AWAY.

  Alcohol Is A Useful Anesthetic.

  “Hey,” boomed a voice. It was the bartender. His broad shoulders filled up the entire doorway. “This is a bad part of town you know.”

  Wade Monore shrugged.

  The bartender gave Wade the once over.

  “What in the fuck happened to you, Son?”

  Wade shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and wiped snot from his goatee. “I just need a beer.”

  The bartender took a quick look around into the darkness then pulled the metal door closed behind them as Wade crossed the threshold.

  “Sometimes this door sticks ya know?”

  “No shit,” Wade said, as he returned to his barstool and ordered a Coopers Best Extra Stout. Nobody seemed to notice that he was covered in blood.

  Rough place, the Red Donkey. A place for tough customers.

  down by the water

  by chad eagleton

  The American’s money brought Echo Mori back down by the water to the edge of Kabukichō, Shinjuku’s red-light district. There, like a good boy, the foreigner waited outside Seibu Station smoking Blue Devil cigarettes. He eyed her in her zippered purple pants, bondage straps dangling to vinyl Minnie Mouse shoes. On her tight, green T-shirt a Hello Kitty-shaped cloud mushroomed behind a cartoon cutie throwing peace signs.

  Mostly, American Boy looked at her tits. She grew a body when he saw the scooter. “Echo?” He asked.

  “American Boy?”

  He started to name himself, but stopped, remembering the instructions. He nodded. “Atomic, huh?”

  She knocked a cigarette from behind her ear, fingers brushing radioactive-colored hair. She lit it and blew blue smoke over blue lips. “My coming is always felt.”

  He told her, “Got more balls than I do.”

  Echo looked at her B-29 bomber colored ride. Pink stenciled letters spelled E-N-O-L-A G-A-Y across both sides. “I do,” she said.

  He coughed and tapped his cigarette out against the wall. “These are fucking awful.”

  She shrugged. “I like them.”

  “Adds to the atmosphere,” he said opening his wallet.

  “You not special,” she said, taking his roll. “Make everyone wait down by the water and smoke Blue Devils.”

  “Down by the water? Oh—mizu shōbai—water trade—night-time entertainments—“

  She pointed with her Blue Devil. “And Kabukichō’s right there.”

  “Heard you retired.”

  “On break.” She fanned with the roll. “Break over now.”

  “We walking?”

  “No, we ride and you—you ride bitch.” She flicked a strap. “If get scared you wrap yourself up.”

  ***

  On the grounds of Edo Castle, the old man looked down at the little girl. “Do you know where we are?”

  “No,” the girl said, stroking the plastic hair of her Delinquent Girl Detective doll.

  “Matsu no Ōrōka,” he said. “Great Corridor of Pines.”

  The girl shrugged.

  “Do you know what happened here? What was set in motion?”

  The girl looked into her doll’s eyes. They were cold and still. “Don’t care,” she said.

  “Here a man finally tired of the insults to his honor.”

  “Don’t care,” the girl said, again.

  The old man touched the stone marker. “His retainers waited two years before taking their revenge.”

  “Revenge?” The girl looked up. “I’d wait longer.”

  ***

  They cruised Kabukichō. Everyone knew Echo and knew money was coming. They waited and hoped, tossing flyers like prayer scrolls. And like prayers—they went unanswered.

  “There,” she said, again. “Don’t go there.”

  “Looks exciting,” he said into her ear.

  “It is if you want to die. Yakuza bar. City put lots of cameras in. Don’t help. They kill you off screen.”

  “Don’t like customers?”

  “Right now, don’t like each other. Gang war,” she said. “Why feet have been dry.”

  “Got it.”

  “Cotton Candy Volt not too bad. Music loud. Young girls. Looking for dates to buy I-Pods.” She craned her neck back at him. “They really want I-Pods.”

  His fingers xylophoned her ribcage. “Echo your real name?”

  “No.”

  “Why do they call you Echo?”

  The light stopped them near The House of Soft Velvet. They waited behind a sleek car playing sleeker music. The neon undercarriage turned her shoes yellow and the base throb seeping from the trunk shook her Totoro keychain. “My mother was kyabajō…club girl…work in a hostess bar.”

  American Boy nodded and put his feet down, hands in his lap. He brushed ass, flinched and crossed arms over chest.

  “She was talented hostess,” Echo said. “Club had entire wall of her…keep bottles. She left when I was ten. Just gone. Wandered Kabukichō calling her name. She never answered. No one did. I become Echo that night.”

  He caught estrogen in the car beside them. Giggling girls window-huddled and pointed. He flexed and Echo said, “You ask me other question?”

  “What other question?”

  “Usually two. Already ask first one.”

  “What’s the second?”

  The light changed. Echo hit it. The scooter jerked and American Boy tumbled. The girls laughed. He grabbed as she flowed with traffic. When his hands found boobs, he didn’t move them. The mundane touch bored her.

  “Before we hit the town you need a bath,” Echo said. “You dirty.”

  ***

  Her lip quivered. Little fists clinched and twisted. “Why are you doing this?”

  “You do not cry,” the old man said, gesturing with the kick pad.

  The girl looked up at him, eyes narrow and bangs wet. He adjusted her belt. “Why are you doing this? She’s not coming back. She can’t love you now,” she said for the both of them.

  “No, she’s not coming back,” he said.

  The girl looked away.

  The old man did too. “Because I did love her,” he said. “And because you should not be alone. And this? This is all I have to give.”

  ***

  When American Boy walked out of Bubble Time, his skin pink and raw, a choir of Blue Devils thronged Echo’s feet. “Hope you’re not raw all over,” she said.

  “They were a lot gentler in the sensitive places.”

  “You need a drink.”

  “I do,” he said. “Several.”

  Echo stopped American Boy from John Wayne-ing onto the bike. “No bike. Cross street.”

  “Takedown?” He asked, following her.

  Opening the door to a rings and referees, she said, “Fight theme.”

  “I got it,” he said.

  She waited.

  “No, the other question—I got it. Do you know karate?�
�� He pronounced it ka-rod-ee.

  She laughed. “Go drink,” she said. “Eat some wings. I wait here,” she said, planting bar-side. “Remember, if real nice, you get grappling lesson. But stretch first; don’t want to pull anything.”

  ***

  “You have a long way to go.” The old man walked around her, bare feet padding on wooden floor. “How long will you wait for your revenge?”

  The girl turned her eyes to the picture hanging in front of the dojo. “Years,” she said.

  “And while you wait, what will you do?”

  She looked up at him. His eyes returned her body to the proper stance. She didn’t know. She bit her lip and hoped the answer would come with the pain.

  It didn’t.

  Finally, he said, “Kick. Punch.”

  Again, she looked at him.

  “Kick! Punch! Kick! Punch!”

  She did and continued.

  ***

  “Eye of the Tiger” blasted over beer bottle clinks and bell rings. American Boy found Echo watching the Sony above the bar. K-1 Grand Prix in gory HD glory. Fists staccatoed a nose. “Damn,” he said, sitting beside her.

  She corner-peeked his face. “Looks like you’d know.”

  He pointed at his squinty eye. “That’s from a tit.” He grinned.

  “Haven’t learned what to do yet?”

  American Boy laughed. “Apparently not.” He took her Sapporo from between her fingers and swigged it. “You know that guy?”

  “Fung Kan? Everybody know Fung. He a champion. Heavy, quick fists. Trained by Master Kenji Ohashi.”

  “Kenji? Sounds like a dog’s name. You know him?”

  Echo took her beer back and sat it down on the bar. “He was friend of my mother. Paid for largest keep bottle.”

  “He teach you karate?”

  “He brought candy for me. No one ever gave me candy before.”

  “And then you got in his van?”

  “Come, you need food. Don’t want to faint.” She thumped his chest with Day-Glo rings. It hurt him more than he would admit and Echo knew it.

  ***

  The girl saw something round in his hand.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  She smirked. “This where I snatch the pebble?”

  He glared. The girl looked down at small feet and crooked toes. “No,” he said. “This? This is where…you eat candy.”

  She snatched it, popped it into her mouth before he could change his mind. She grinned, the little, round ball pressed against her teeth. She sucked spit loudly.

  “Is it good?”

  “Yes—“It started behind her eyes, moved into her face, and flared her nostrils. “Oh!” She spat the red ball into her hand. “Hot! It’s hot!”

  The old man laughed.

  The girl fanned her tongue. “This supposed to be some kind of lesson?”

  “No,” he said. “Just funny.”

  ***

  American Boy flicked his Zippo open. She thumbed it closed and tabled his hand. Smoke break adjourned. “Not until he’s done,” she said.

  He sighed. The old man behind the narrow bar knew only the swipe of the knife and the press of cold fish flesh. “I thought there would be naked chicks,” American Boy said.

  “No room,” Echo said. “Besides, would fuck up sushi.”

  “I’ve wanted to eat sushi off naked chicks since I saw Showdown in Little Tokyo.” He fretted his lighter. “You know, we passed other sushi bars. Ones that people were smoking in.”

  “This best. Bring girls here. They know you know sushi. Not just cream cheese and cheap rice.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Echo window-watched. The Hungry Ghosts drifted by in Dropkick Murphys shirts. Haunting their corner. Her mother always avoided Yakuza. When Echo was older, out of spite and out of love, she lost her virginity to a Hungry Ghost.

  Sometimes she thought he took it with him back to Hell.

  Echo exorcised memories and said, “Oh, they know you have money, too.”

  “By eating here?”

  The old man sat the first dish before America Boy.

  “That,” she said. “Fifty dollars American.”

  “You shitting me? Will it give me head?”

  “No,” she said. “Eat. Don’t fuck up with Soy Sauce.”

  He did and she didn’t need to see his face. She knew and she watched Ghosts.

  “Holy fuck,” he said. For a moment, the exquisite taught him manners. Through fingers and a full mouth, “that’s fucking bad ass.”

  “It is.”

  He sipped sake. “You know those guys?”

  “Everybody know those guys—Yakuza.”

  “In Dropkicks?”

  “The war,” she said. “Started over an Irishman, a German, and a dead kid.”

  “Sounds like a bad joke,” he said, the thwap of a blade a full stop to his sentence.

  “There a girl in there somewhere too. But it is—bad joke.” She pointed at the next plate. “Eat.”

  “Is that a fucking tentacle?”

  “Pretend it’s a Big Mac.”

  He stared at it. “I don’t see any special sauce.” He pointed at the plate and looked at Echo. “Want some?”

  “Don’t eat fish.” Before he could ask, she said, “When mother left. Kept waiting. Waiting for her. All I find in fridge was fish. It gone bad. Rotten.” She didn’t tell him about the smell that even here threatened decorum. She fought gagging behind a smile.

  “I can dig it. Vodka killed me on Taco Bell.” He choked the tentacle down. “What’s this place called?”

  Echo told him in Japanese. “The Old Man and the Sea,” she added in English.

  ***

  The dojo was empty.

  The girl called his name.

  No one answered. She stepped into the room and bowed. She hurried across the cold floor and knelt.

  The old man watched her from outside. He watched and remembered—he couldn’t find her at first, so he followed the echo of her small and hollow voice through the apartment. When he picked her up, she kept calling her mother’s name over and over and over and over. Her lips didn’t even seem to be moving. The name spiraled upward through the dark inside, escaping from between small, uneven teeth.

  The old man hoped he had made the right decision.

  ***

  American Boy found her in a back booth. She conjured a Blue Devil to a bass incantation and a benediction’s strobe.

  “I met a girl,” he told her. “Her name is Rina. She wants me to meet her at The House of Soft Velvet.”

  “We passed earlier,” she said. “Love Hotel.”

  The speakers pounded that deep into American Boy’s skull. “Am I gonna get rolled there? Some sumo motherfucker gonna be waiting to take my wallet?”

  “When meet?”

  “Like 20 minutes. She already left.”

  “I take you. Go up first,” she said. “Make sure no sumo.”

  “You gonna kick his ass if there is?”

  Echo grinned.

  “I knew you knew karate,” American Boy said. “I fucking knew it. All you guys know karate.”

  ***

  When Kenji Ohashi entered the dojo and saw her sitting there, for a moment, he was afraid she would ask him that question again.

  “Why did she die?” She had asked him all those years ago.

  “Everyone dies,” he had told her.

  “But why?”

  “Life is suffering.”

  “Are you my father?”

  “No,” he told her, but not that he wished he were. “She died to protect you.”

  But she didn’t ask again. No, now she touched her hair and said, “You don’t like it.”

  “Is it permanent?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You don’t like it, do you?”

  “Why do you say that?” Kenji asked.

  “Your face.”

  Kenji laughed. “No, it’s perfect.”

  “I thoug
ht so too.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “The color? It’s called Atomic Fireball.”

  Kenji offered her a piece of candy. “And the polish?”

  She took it and put it in her mouth. “Bitter tears,” she told him.

  Kenji grabbed her wrists. “Are you ready?”

  “When the time comes. But—“

  “But what?” He gripped them tighter.

  “There were 47 ronin? There’s only one of me.”

  “Then strike first. Strike harder.” Kenji’s jaw set. “Show me you’re ready. Strike me.”

  “But I’m scared,” she said.

  “Then be scared. But strike.”

  She did—hands out, swift upward arc toward the wrists. Broken grip and a step back to a front kick. The blow stilled his breath.

  He winced, but not so she could see. “There. You are ready now. You have everything I have to give,” he said and opened his arms.

  ***

  Echo knew five Yakuza and a cripple waited for her. On the second story of The House of Soft Velvet, Echo opened the door to a room of goodbyes.

  She dropped the bad English. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m Johnny So Long,” the cripple said. “And these are the Sayonara Boys.”

  Echo eyed the Sayonara Boys, naming them by feature. “Where’s Rina?” She asked.