Always

by Nicola Griffith

  Therese probably thought of found objects as sea-etched glass and drift-wood from Jekyll Island. For Kim it might be a lottery ticket. Sandra, now, she would understand the concept: the heavy-buckled belt he pulls from his pants, the quart bottle of Gatorade he’s drinking from when she foolishly mentions she forgot to buy the mushrooms, the broom handle brandished like a quarterstaff when he sees a footprint on the kitchen floor.

  “What you do with those tools is up to you. I can tell you what I might do in any given situation, or at least give you my best guess, but that doesn’t mean you should do the same.”

  Pauletta touched her crucifix lightly. “So, okay, what would you do if you walk into a bar and there’s a guy with a knife?”

  “Walk out again.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s one option. Prevention is better than cure.”

  “But what if he’s threatening someone?” Suze asked.

  “This isn’t Bodyguarding for Beginners or Heroism 101.”

  “So you’d let him cut some girl, just walk out and leave her?” Pauletta.

  “Depends.” It always depends.

  “On what?” Suze, leaning forward again.

  “Everything. How I’m feeling that day, what city I’m in—even what part of town in that city. What the assailant looks like, and the potential victim. The number of exits. The general mood of the bar.” They were not getting it. Women with babies . . . “Anyone here have kids?” Nods from Therese, Nina, Sandra, and Kim. “What would you do if your child came home from school crying?”

  “Oh,” said Therese after a moment.

  “Right,” said Kim, nodding, “it depends.”

  “I don’t get it,” Suze said.

  Therese said, “If my twins come home at the end of the day it means one thing, if it’s at eleven in the morning it means something else—”

  “If Carlotta’s crying because some girl stuck gum in her hair I have to do different things than if it’s because her teacher died in a car crash,” Kim said.

  “But you always comfort them, first,” Nina said. “You make sure they’re safe—”

  “And that they feel safe,” Kim said.

  “Yes,” said Therese. “And you always try to find out what happened, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “Basic principles,” Nina said. They smiled at each other, pleased.

  Suze frowned and opened her mouth. I forestalled her. “Basic principles. That’s what I can give you. Any mother will tell you that if you take a favorite toy from a two-year-old he will scream. I can tell you that if you kick the leg with enough force at a particular angle you will detach the kneecap.”

  Suze brightened. “So are you going to show us that kneecap thing now or what?”

  I studied her a moment. I nodded at her quads. “You already know how to kick things. That’s not why you’re here. One of the things you need to learn is who to kick, and when.” I looked around the circle: different ages, races, classes. Different ways of looking at the world. “When do you hit someone?”

  “Depends,” Nina said. Fast learner.

  “Yes. On what?”

  They all looked hard at the carpet, like teenagers desperate not to be called on in class.

  “Everything?” Christie said.

  I smiled. “Yes. Let’s go back to what Pauletta said earlier. Walking into a bar . . .”

  Every student learns at school how to fake attention. I watched it start to happen now.

  “Or a supermarket at night. Or an empty church.” Most of them came back. “How do you approach it? What do you do? What do you look for?”

  “I walk in like, Don’t fuck with me!” Suze said.

  No one said anything.

  “Not looking like a victim is a good first step. But it takes a lot of effort to project aggression all the time.” I paused, trying to think of a metaphor that might mean something to all of them, something American. “You’ve all seen old westerns. The gunslinger steps through the saloon doors and stops.” Nods. “That is exactly what not to do.”

  If gunslingers really had paused in the saloon doorway, conveniently backlit by the noonday sun and blind in the sudden interior gloom, their days would have been short. The unassuming ones would have lived longest, the ones who slipped through the swinging doors behind someone else, slid along a side wall, and looked over the room before ghosting up to the bar and ordering what everyone else was drinking. By the time the bad guys in the black hats at the card table had realized he was there, he would have known who was the ringer with the derringer in his pocket, where the exits were, and whether the gang leader might be delayed on his draw by the necessity of first dumping the pretty saloon girl from his lap.

  “Imagine you’re walking into—Tonya, pick a place.”

  “Kroger.”

  “What time, what day?”

  “A weeknight, after work, but late, maybe nine o’clock.”

  “So it’s dark outside and bright inside. First thing: park near the entrance, under a light. Don’t unlock your door until you’ve looked around. Keep your eyes open and your hands free. If you have to turn a corner on the way to the door, take it wide.”

  “Why?” Therese said.

  It took me a moment to realize she was serious, she really didn’t know why. I had planned this lesson meticulously: an orderly progression of building blocks. We had already wandered off the road, out of necessity, and it was clear that sticking to the plan would be like digging a foundation in sand. I let it go. “Because then you’ll see anyone on the other side before they see you.” Therese nodded thoughtfully, filing away the information for further reflection. Suze said, “Huh,” but quietly. Jennifer looked worried. “So now you walk into the supermarket. It’s bright. What do you do?”

  “Wait for your eyes to adjust,” Kim said confidently.

  Like a sun-struck calf waiting for the hammer. “It would be best to keep moving. Head towards the grocery carts or baskets, and as you do, sweep the place visually. See them before they see you. You’ll grasp things instantly that you don’t consciously know you know. Your subconscious works a lot faster than your conscious mind. So let it do the preliminary work. Swing your gaze slowly from one side of the aisles to the other. If something or someone snags your attention, you can hang a mental tag on it to come back to later. That sweep should take no more than three or four seconds. Whatever you see, don’t stop.” No point spotting a guy in a black hat minding his own business at the other end of the bar if there’s some grinning idiot right next to you swinging an axe. “The trick is to not draw anyone’s attention until you’ve completed the sweep.”

  “So what if there is a dangerous person?” Jennifer, for whom Kroger was suddenly looking like a jungle.

  “Hey, I know the answer to that one,” Nina said. “Leave, right?”

  I nodded.

  Jennifer was not convinced. “But what if they follow you?”

  “Then you get in your close-by, well-lit car and drive away.”

  “But what if you trip or something and he catches you first?”

  Suze stirred restlessly. “Then you fucking hit him.”

  “Right,” I said to the group as a whole. “So let’s go back to the fist.” I stood and motioned for them to do likewise.

  I lined them up, facing me, and held my right hand up, showing them how to make a fist again while I walked along the line, rearranging fingers and thumbs. “Think of your fist as the point of a spear. The forearm is the spear shaft. It has to be strong and straight, no weakness at the wrist. The wrist is where you want all your tension. Good. There are seven basic points to remember when hitting or kicking.” There could just as easily have been six or eight, but human brains find sevens and threes significant. “One, strike from a firm base. The firmer the better, because, two, most of your power comes from the torque generated by your hips. Stand with both feet firmly planted and swivel your hips as you punch—throw that spear forward, don’t pus
h it. You can’t get good movement from a bad base. Three, strike on the out breath, preferably with a good loud yell.”

  “Blam?” said Nina.

  “Whatever you like.”

  “What do you yell?”

  “Probably depends,” Suze said to Christie, who giggled.

  “Four, strike hard and fast. Power comes more from speed than weight.” More strictly, the greater the mass and acceleration, the greater the force. “Five, strike right through the target. There’s no point stopping on the surface. Six, you almost always need to be closer to the target than you think. Seven, be prepared to strike more than once. Let’s try it. Suze, hold the bag. Jennifer, you’re up.”

  It was tempting, watching them flail at the bag one by one, to stop them, to show them how it’s really done, but although I would have enjoyed the whip of power, the hard ram of bone on compact sand, it wouldn’t help. They would try to imitate my stance, my noise, my expression; they would try to learn the lessons I had learnt, not their own.

  They watched each other, subconsciously took note of what seemed to work: when Suze took her weight on her back leg, Jennifer, who was holding the bag, moved back a good inch; when Suze stepped into the punch, Jennifer moved five inches. When Nina tapped the bag, then moved closer by half a step and walloped it, they noticed. Gradually, they adjusted their stances, their speed, their noise, feeling out what worked for them and what didn’t. I wanted them to learn something unique to them, that came from them, not an artificial overlay that would evaporate in the first flash of fear adrenaline if they were ever threatened.

  “Kim,” I said, the second time she hit the bag, “you can hit it harder than that.”

  “I can’t.” She unfolded her fingers and held out her hand, showing me the four perfect crescent-moons on her palm.

  “You’ll have a hard time with some of the finger strikes, too.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Cut your nails.”

  “I’ve been growing them two years!”

  “Your choice.”

  She wasn’t the only one who gave me the withering look so many southern women—of any age, or race, or social standing—learn before puberty: a combination of scorn and the deep existential fear of being the one to stand out in a crowd and risk being pecked to pieces. They seemed surprised when I didn’t wilt.

  By now, Suze—and Christie, copying her—were whaling satisfactorily on the bag. Therese had become efficient, and Pauletta and Nina were encouraging each other with whoops and catcalls. In a pinch, all five of them might throw a punch. The other half of the class—Katherine and Tonya, for whom the idea of punching anything induced agonizing embarrassment, or at least blushes and giggles, Jennifer, who looked away whenever she sidled up to the bag to hit it, and Sandra, who could not seem to make a sound—would probably never hit anyone with their fist even if their lives depended upon it.

  I clapped my hands. “Some of you will find punching easy—fun, even. Practice when you can: at home, at work, in the garden. Some of you will find that punching doesn’t suit you; don’t worry about it; we’ll find something that will. Punching a person, though, isn’t the same as hitting a bag. Suze, where would you punch an attacker?”

  “Right in the fucking nose.”

  I nodded. “Noses are full of nerve endings; even a comparatively weak blow will cause pain and tearing. A stronger blow will break the nose. One problem, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Step in front of me. Imagine you’re going to hit me in the nose.” Suze was about five-seven, five inches shorter than me. “You need to be closer.” Clearly she had never hit anyone before.

  She moved in another six inches. We were standing almost belly to belly.

  “Now, in slow motion, throw the punch.” As her fist neared my nose I said, “Freeze there.” She stopped with her arm fully extended, at an upward angle of about forty degrees. I turned to the rest of the class. “She has to hit up as well as out, which reduces both power and accuracy. A fist strike to the nose of a standing opponent is not efficient when they’re taller than you.”

  “What about his chin?” Jennifer said.

  “Nearly as high up, and very hard on the knuckles. Never hit bone with bone unless you have to.” How did people survive long enough to reach adulthood without knowing these things?

  “So knock him to his knees, then hit him,” Nina said, looking around for laughs.

  “Fine. But how? Suze, you can put your arm down.”

  “Solar plexus,” Therese said. Not gut or belly but solar plexus. Lots of time with a massage therapist, personal trainer, or individual yoga instruction.

  “Good. Come out here and show me. Slow motion, like Suze.” She threw a slow, tidy punch targeted one inch below my xiphoid process. “Freeze it there.” I turned to the rest of the class. “See how she’s thrown the punch beyond the skin so that the fist would end up buried to the wrist? Assuming your assailant doesn’t have abs of steel, that would put them down for at least a minute.”

  “One minute?” Pauletta said. “You mean like sixty seconds? That’s it?”

  “Kick him in the nuts,” Tonya said, then blushed. Half the class hooted.

  “Tonya’s on the right track. If you want a downed opponent to stay down, a kick’s probably the best choice. All right, a volunteer to pretend to be the attacker Therese has just put on the ground and Tonya’s about to kick to death.”

  I wasn’t a bit surprised when Tonya looked at Katherine, who stepped forward. Always easier to kick the one you know, however slightly.

  “On the floor. Curl up as though you’ve just been hit in the stomach— no, tighter. Where would your hands be? Right, curled around yourself. Now, think: you can’t breathe, so what would you be trying to do?” She struggled in mock weakness to sit up. “Good.” And it was. In my rookie police classes, the women had always been better at role-playing than the men. I made another mental note, to exploit that. “Good,” I said again. “Okay. Stay like that.” I turned to Tonya. “What could you kick?”

  Tonya circled the reclining figure dubiously.

  “Huh,” Pauletta said, “she’s sitting on her balls.”

  A few sniggers at that. “Tonya?”

  More circling.

  Suze couldn’t stand it anymore. “In the face, right in the fucking face!”

  “That would work,” I said. Tonya was no more likely to be able to kick a person in the face than punch them. “Anything else?”

  “Lower ribs,” Therese said.

  “Good, yes. The floating ribs are easily detached, from front, back or side. Anything else?”

  “His spine,” Nina said unexpectedly. “Circle round and get his spine.”

  “Or the back of his head,” Kim added.

  “Or you could try a combination of spine and head: kick the place where the back of the neck meets the skull.”

  Tonya liked that idea much better: he wouldn’t be watching her kick him. She stopped behind Katherine and took a deep breath.

  “Slow motion,” I reminded her.

  She tried. She would have missed by a couple of inches, she nearly fell over, and she blushed afterwards, but that didn’t matter: she did it, and she didn’t giggle.

  “You can get up now,” I said to Katherine. In the next class I’d show them how to break someone’s spine even with bare feet, but right now I didn’t want them getting locked into one type of body weapon. Beginnings are delicate times. “Now we’ll move on to the fingertip.”

  “Pretty anticlimactic,” Nina said.

  “It’s certainly a different kind of tool,” I said. “Its target—its job, if you like—is different, too. Smaller, more vulnerable, like the fingertip itself. Think of the soft places: the eye, the hollow of the throat, the mouth.”

  “The mouth?”

  “Are you willing to be a guinea pig?” She lifted her hands, as if to say, How bad could it be? I crossed to her side in one stride, hooked two fingers into her mout
h along the cheek, and stepped past her so that she arched back on her heels and my hand was on my shoulder as though carrying a sack.

  “Jesus,” someone said.

  Nina was wide-eyed and struggling and would have fallen, helpless, if I wasn’t supporting her against my back. “I won’t let you fall,” I said. “Are you all right with this?” She swallowed—her whole face moved—but nodded gamely. “From here I can throw her sideways, backwards, or rip half her face off. Not everything is about hitting.” I turned, eased her upright, and took my fingers out. “Thank you.” I walked to the bench and removed a packet of handiwipes from my jacket pocket.

  She flexed her face a few times while I cleaned my hand. “That was . . . It felt so wrong.”

  It was an important lesson: shock, the breaking of the social compact, was as difficult to deal with as being hit in the face with a shovel. But we’d go back to that another day.

  “You could’ve bit her,” Pauletta said to Nina.

  “I could not, not the place she had her fingers. Here, open your mouth—”

  “Nah-ah.”

  “Do it your own self, then,” Nina said, and for the next thirty seconds they all hooked their mouths with their fingers, like suicidal fish, all except Jennifer, who said loudly, “That’s disgusting!” and Therese, who, when she saw me noting her lack of participation, merely raised her eyebrows and held her hands out as if to say Not unless I wash them first, and shook her head. I nodded. I wouldn’t put my hands in my mouth without washing them, either.

  “What else?” said Suze. “How do you get the eyes?”

  “Like this,” Christie said, “ha!” and did an uncoordinated imitation of Bruce Lee doing bui tze, the shooting fingers.

  “You could,” I said, “but it’s hard to be accurate with that move.” And if she missed, she’d break her fingers. “There’s an easier way. All of you: point your index finger at me.”