Relationships will be challenging.
Family. Friends. Lovers.
Especially lovers.
You can take their pain away. Their injuries. The memories that haunt them. They can hand themselves to you before they die, if they choose to. You can hold their persona and keep their voice with you.
I don’t know what that means. Is it really them or is it some kind of echo of who they used to be?
Are you keeping them from going somewhere better (or worse) or are you saving them from disappearing forever?
I always ask myself before I take something from another person whether I am doing it for them or for myself.
I rarely find a satisfying answer.
I wake up at Anje’s place.
The layout is different every time I come over. Mismatched chair beds and squat wooden sleeper benches crowd the living room. There are stools around an island in the kitchen and a dining room table with more chairs. Both of the smallish bedrooms have two futons that convert into seating when not in use.
Anje’s home is a tiny, informal shelter disguised as an apartment.
She’s the only one who lives here permanently, but even when no one is here, the place is dominated by people. The walls are dense with the photographs of her students and other people who are important to her. There are hundreds of faces overlooking all those empty chairs and beds that are waiting if they ever need them.
There’s almost no technology in the place. No TV, no radio, just a single printer with a cell phone dock setup on the island so she can print out photos. There is a basket near the door where cell phones go when you enter, no exceptions. When you come here, you entertain yourself by talking to other people.
Right now there’s only one phone in the basket. Mine.
An entire wall of the dining room has shelves filled with books. Whenever I am here I scan the titles to remind myself what’s important to Anje. Rising Out of Hatred. The Distance Between Us. Know My Name. Just Mercy. The Boys in the Boat. The Boys of Riverside.
People bring Anje books when they visit. One of the kids from the gym who goes by Merch likes to count the books. Last time I saw him, he said there were now ninety. Merch recounts every time he’s here. Seriously, every single time.
There’s a journal on a stand next to the bookshelf where you can sign your name and take a book home. Everyone returns the books when they are done. Not because Anje can kick their ass, but because of the words she wrote on the front of the journal:
“Return it, someone else needs to read it after you.”
I flip open my bag and retrieve Unbroken from atop the clothes I threw in last night. It goes on the shelf before I mark it returned in the journal.
I don’t see my favorite book, Tattoos on the Heart. Someone must have taken it home with them. Good. All of Anje’s kids should read it.
I asked Anje her favorite book once. She said she didn’t have just one until she met me, but now she does. Wear Your Dreams.
And just like everything else she owns, it’s there on the shelf for other people to borrow.
There’s a note written on the dry-erase board hanging on the inside of Anje’s front door.
“Went to gym to hit something. A lot. Coffee made.”
After Madelaine’s we came here. I returned her memories about us, half the accumulated feelings and everything that went with them. Most everything.
Then we talked and decided touching would have to wait. Adia and Dahlia and Mathild must come first. It was easy to decide. It was also very much not easy to follow through on, tu connais?
I also want to hit something. I guess coffee will have to do.
I know Dahlia is coming. She will absolutely try to kill Anje when she gets here. I just don’t know if I’ll have time to prepare Anje first. Anje will choose her people over herself. So it’s my job to choose her.
But first, I have to take care of my own people.
I’m not one for cross-legged monk under a waterfall meditation. Separating my mind from my body and the world around me is the opposite of my Art. I need connection.
I stand and strip. Briefs stay in case one of Anje’s students wanders in.
Then I kneel and put my palms together as if in prayer, thumbs touching my forehead, fingers pointing toward the sky. This begins the Wai Kru.
I surface the Monkey tattoo on the back of my left hand and bow to touch the floor.
“I honor you, Kru Anucha.”
“A-roon sa-wat, my student,” says Anucha in my mind.
I return to center, surface the Hummingbird Eye on the back of my right hand and bow to the floor again.
“I honor you, Shifu.”
“Good morning, Cassius,” says Vivian.
“I honor my family.” The third bow.
I tuck my toes under me and begin to rise as slowly as I possibly can from kneeling, my hands straight out in front of me where I will see the tattoos appearing.
“Jai yen,” says Anucha. Cool heart.
I call the submerged tattoos, surfacing them two at a time on my palms.
The Bull Moose. The Husky Team. Their dayloads surge into my muscles, hours of stored potential released at once.
Two down, two hundred to go.
“Jai pen nai, kai pen bao.” The heart is the master, the body is the servant.
I rise to a deep squat.
The Lock Pick. The Rifle Sight. Dayloads from skills are stranger. Muscle memory and mind memory intertwined. The urge for the click of the tumbler or the trigger fights my focus.
“Cha cha dai phra lem ngam.” Slowly, slowly, you get a beautiful blade.
I uncoil upwards.
The Seagull. The Cobra. My muscles strain to react, but I stifle them for now. The first four tattoos are crowded further up my arms.
Strength, stamina, agility, dexterity, sight, touch, enhanced for what’s to come.
I am the cool, slow, beautiful blade.
“You certainly are beautiful. Lord have mercy, if I were fifty years younger...” I can almost hear Vivian fanning herself in my mind.
“And also not dead. Very important.”
“Shush, jealous old man.”
Standing position. Arms straight in front of me, palms to the sky.
“You are now prepared to fight. Choose not to,” Anucha says.
“Slowly. You must clearly see each thing before you can master it,” says Vivian. “Shou yan shen fa bu.”
Hand, eye, body, method, step. Especially the eye.
I begin the first form of Regarder Doucement. The slow regard. A ritual Vivian created from her family taijiquan, named in French for her only student.
I let the tattoos surface randomly. Choosing would take too long.
The Bull Snake. The Blowfish. Self-loathing. Deathwish.
Phillipe’s right. I do not deserve this much power. No one does. I could create a tattoo to collect all my heartbeats. Perhaps I should? Wouldn’t the world be safer?
Pushed by the arrival of the new tattoos, the first ones are now wrapping around my arms.
“Cloud Hands,” Vivian says.
I am still except for my hands drifting over and over, slow as weather, describing a sphere in space before me.
The Razor Blade. The Spiked Chain. Self-harm. Violence.
If I release the dayloads of all of my tattoos at once it would take only a few seconds. The damage would be spectacular. Like swallowing a grenade.
Four of the worst, back to back and I’m weakened from dying yesterday. It’s too much. I need a counter.
The Brick. Once again Anje saves me as I tame the Chain’s violence with her discipline.
Some mornings the draw is kinder. They’re behind me now, and I let the rest come faster. Brushstroke motions anchor me against this maelstrom of ink.
“Golden Rooster.”
I raise one knee, the foot a pendulum beneath it, and gather my entire weight over the narrow country of one sole, my calf tensed like sculpture.
The Floating Spores. The Weeping Sore. Disease. Injury. Marks of suffering flow from my palms, collected from those unable to carry them longer. Bile rises and the heat of sickness fills me.
“Sky Spear.”
I pull one leg up vertical beside my head, my hand gripping the raised foot, eyes on toes pointed to the ceiling. My hamstring screams louder than any tattoo.
The Abacus. The Third Eye. Abilities. Memories. Gifts left behind as inheritance for others’ benefit. I recall a wedding I wasn’t at. My hands know a violin I never learned. People I don’t know smile at me in recognition and I smile back.
“Sword Bridge.”
My leg swings out to the side until my heel hangs at eye level. I hold it trembling, untethered in the air, as I sweep my gaze the long distance from thigh to ankle.
The Screaming Mouth. The Dark Tear. Terror. Despair. Dozens more burdens taken in part or whole stream from my hands after them, crowding other tattoos onto my face and chest.
Ink invades my throat, my nose, leaking out again from my eyes and ears. Choking me. I am going to drown in it...
“Horse Stance.”
I drop to a solid foundation, legs spread wide to opposite sides, knees bent. The imagined ink recedes.
The Footman’s Shield. The Laughing Child. Courage. Loyalty. Joy. Peace. I can breathe again. The earliest tattoos I summoned now swirl around my waist towards my legs.
“Heron Glides.”
I become a horizontal line, from my fingertips to outstretched toes, all poised above a single foot.
The remaining tattoos stream forth two by two. Enhancements and debilities, physical, mental and spiritual.
“Snake Creeps Down.”
I sink towards the floor, arms now a diagonal line, one angled to the ground, the other to the sky. One leg is folded beneath me, the other pushed forward to meet my down-thrust arm.
Finally, the other tattoos that hold people, like Anucha and Vivian, emerge. But they are quiet, as they always are until I speak to them. All except for one. The Gardener.
“I will escape and destroy you, Cassius. It is inevitable.“
“Tornado Kick!” Vivian responds.
Slow becomes fast. I leave the floor sweeping my right leg to head height and turn a full circle in the air. The tattoos swirl as I do.
“Dragon Coils!”
I land and drop low, threading my free leg behind and then beneath the supporting leg, pointing forward while never touching the ground.
The Caged Tiger is last. Shame and Rage. It must always be last, its fury safely spent against my other tattoos.
The shame is never spent.
“You cannot contain much more,“ says Anucha. “You must choose what to pass on.”
I uncoil my leg and rise to my feet.
Standing. Still carrying everyone.
“Until tomorrow, my friends.” I think, feeling Vivian and Anucha’s regard. Then I fade them all.
My skin is my own again, except for the six that are always there. Fuck meow, that was real work.
There is one last thing that I skipped last night. In my defense, I had a lot on my mind. The room glows white as I collect a single heartbeat into a tattoo of a cartoon rabbit that I create over my heart. Thumper.
I fade it to join the rest.
“If you wanted your heart to skip a beat, I could have helped you with that.”
I have no idea how long Anje has been standing in the door, but the look on her face isn’t helping with the not touching.
I need that coffee now.
The layout is different every time I come over. Mismatched chair beds and squat wooden sleeper benches crowd the living room. There are stools around an island in the kitchen and a dining room table with more chairs. Both of the smallish bedrooms have two futons that convert into seating when not in use.”<--This bit makes me feel so close to the character, and I cannot quite pin my finger on why that is. The personal space, maybe. Plus, I already love the character so this just adds onto the character building for me.
I also want to hit something, I guess coffee will have to do. Loved loved loved that. 1st the note and then him feeling the same why? True love, hehehe.
When he and Vivian are going on about him being beautiful I was cheesing so hard.
And oh snap! I really need some visuals of these ‘cloud hands.’ I pictured that perfectly. 👌
Who the hell is this Gardener… damn. 👀
And all throughout is that beat of coffee, punching things, and resisting that touch.
Fudging loved this one.
I read half of this yesterday, but I won’t comment until I have typed it up in Google Docs while I read it again.