hairâthick and wavy, the kind you want to run your hand through for good luck. More than once, he was mistaken for the Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz, and sometimes, good-naturedly, heâd play along and say that going for the gold isnât all itâs cracked up to be.
It was only natural that people at his funeral were shocked when they saw Dixon. For a while I heard the stuff about the whole top of his head having to be sewn back on, but the worst was about his earsâplastic imitations that would surely outlast the rest of him. I know how it went on from thereâhow he was flying on LSD and ran straight toward the lights of that truckâyou know, the old moth to the flame. How my mother tried to climb into the coffin with her onlyson when she first walked into the memorial service. How the big heart-shaped arrangement of tulips was secretly from the fire chiefâs wife. The problem is, if you were mining any of that for the truth, youâd be digging all the way to China.
Tony Ramirez told us one day that it is an endless path, this karate. I didnât have forever, though, so I asked him if I could double up on classesâtake two a week. He shrugged and said, âTake three a week, but it may not happen any faster.â
I had been his student for several months, and I knew his whole lecture about the most formidable opponent being ourselves, but that did not change what happened in Kentucky Fried Chicken last Friday night. I was waiting for a 15-piece bucket when Jenner walked inâa pair of dusty Dingo boots and a big moth-eaten suede hatâthatâs how I saw him. He didnât acknowledge me in any way, just kept looking at the menu board as if this was the biggest decision of his life. I hated that he wouldnât look at me.
People donât get to choose when things happen, and if you ask me, real talent is taking events as they occur and making them count. Luck would have had me running into Jenner in a couple of months, but happenstance put the two of us right there that night with a big black and red picture of the Colonel smiling down at us. The counter girl delivered my bucket of chicken, and as I turned to head toward the door I said âheyâ to Jenner. He looked down, kind of startled, and what I did next surprised even me. I walked over to the straw dispenser, not much more than a wooden box, and I gave it an edge-of-hand strike and the box splintered and a few straws rolled down onto the floor. Just a few plastic straws, but God, they were beautiful to me. I stared over at Jenner, didnât say a word, actually couldnât. I was gritting my teeth against the white hot pain in my hand, but he didnât know that. All he knewâand I could tell this from his big fool blue eyesâwas that Heaven and Earth were on their way.
Tony Ramirez looked at my hand and this week heâs making me practice with the twelve- and thirteen-year-old beginners, but I donât care. There is a certain satisfaction I get in towering over all of my classmates. And my karate shout is the strongest one in this class.
Iâm not like some of the people in this town who have grown radar ears, but I do hear things. Eleanor Goodway, one of my motherâs oldest friends, came into my insurance office the other day. I was surprised because she has both term and whole life policies up to her ears, but she was there for a different reason. âHillary,â she said, bending over my desk, lowering her voice as if this was privileged information, âchicken is nothing to lose your head over. I know these fast food places gyp you every once in a whileâmore legs than breasts, or the biscuits are a day oldâbut to break a plate-glass window over ten dollars worth of food . . .â She shook her head at me the way sheâs been shaking her head at this whole town for the last fifty years. She took a handkerchief out and dabbed at her nose and the smell
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