I met Henry when he came to the youth center in N.Y. where I volunteered as a counselor and Tae Kwon Do instructor. He had lied about his age to get in to the center and check out what the martial arts program was about. The age limit was 18 but I was pretty sure Henry was much older. He was a good looking, well-spoken young black man of average height who had been lifting a lot of weights. He was very formal, bowing before introducing himself. I asked him where he had studied.

He hesitated. “With my father,” he answered.“In a school?” I asked.“No,” he answered, “just the two of us.”

Henry wore a white belt with his uniform and lined up in the back with the other white belts. As we ran through the basics I saw him modifying his technique to match our style. When it came time to spar I asked him to step out of rank. The highest ranked student in the class was a green belt and Henry was an unknown factor, not knowing how he would behave when sparring.

He made no objection to this and sat against the wall of the dojang to watch the other students spar. After having seen the power behind Henry’s basic kicks and his level of discipline, I explained to him that I had a school in Paterson, New Jersey, with higher-ranking students and suggested that he come to Paterson to train. He said that he worked as a security guard in a Harlem high school and was off work at three, giving him plenty of time to take the bus to Paterson for class.

Henry showed up forty-five minutes early and stretched while he watched with interest two of the senior students sparring. Class began and Henry now had our basics down pretty well. He knew no forms so for that portion of the class I had Ronald, our youngest student, teach him our first form. He seemed perfectly comfortable having an eight-year-old as an instructor and they both played their parts very seriously.When it was time to spar I paired Hector, my senior student, with Henry.

Hector had won a good many trophies at tournaments, both in sparring and form. Most recently he had taken 2nd place in the black belt division in sparing at the World of Martial Arts tournament in Madison Square Garden. Trophies were presented directly after the winning point and Hector made me proud when, after the 1st place winner was presented his trophy, Hector stepped forward and swept his opponent into his arms and lifted him and his trophy high into the air.

I told Hector and Henry that this was a bit of light sparring, that they should take it easy and just move around and practice sparing techniques. At the command to begin, Hector threw his best kick, a fast round house kick to the head that had won him any tournaments. Henry stepped inside the kick and grabbed Hector by the neck and, judging by Hector’s response, his balls, spun him upside down and slammed him into the wall of the dojang. Henry then immediately came to attention, bowed, and said, “Sorry sir, I’m a little nervous.”

* * * * *

Henry eventually did get to the point where he could spar in the school without hurting anyone. Mostly it was because his sparring partners learned to keep their distance and above all not to hit him, but he was hopeless in competition. It was a delicate balance, the issue of contact in tournaments.

The official rule was no contact, to make a point you stopped the kick or punch a few inches from the target, but everyone knew, especially with the Korean judges, that the sound of a hard punch or kick to the body would result in a point. Many kicked with their instep rather than the ball of the foot for the louder sound and less damage it made upon contact, a bad habit to get into. If Henry could make all three points without getting hit he would win. But if he got hit hard, especially in the face, it was all over.

His eyes would glaze over and despite the gloves and foot padding I made
him wear he would knock his opponent completely out of the fighting area. Even the Koreans would disqualify him.Once he was a point short of a trophy. He threw a careful, pretty, round house kick at about half speed. His opponent stepped right into it and he was knocked out. As Henry turned to walk back to his corner he looked at me, spread his arms and shrugged.

After that incident he said he was not interested in tournaments any more. I felt bad for him but admitted that I had been thinking that, for now at least, it might be best he spar only in the school.

* * * * *

My friend William was involved in full contact tournaments. He arranged
a demonstration fight for Henry at a gym that handled full contact fighters. It was sort of an audition. A match was arranged between Henry and Bruce Leroy, who had made a couple Karate movies; I decided I did not want to watch this event because I could not see any direction it could go other than bad.

However, William gave me a blow-by-blow description of the fight. Bruce Leroy hit Henry really hard. Henry put his hands down and walked toward Bruce Leroy. William said he had his head up and a real calm look on his face. Bruce was no dummy and immediately exited the ring and said to William, “Tell your friend this is a sport.”

The audition was over.

* * * * *

A couple of years after I moved to Mexico Henry came to visit me. We had become good friends. On his visit he finally talked about hisfather, a Vietnam vet, Special Forces, street fighter, martial artist, high school custodian. The first real memory Henry had of his father was the night of his return from Vietnam. Henry had gone to the refrigerator to get some ice cream.While he was looking for the ice cream his father slammed the freezer door on Henry’s head. He then explained that Henry could trust no one, not even his father, and therefore could turn his back on no one. Henry had gotten his first martial arts class. He was seven years old.

His martial arts training also included holding a plugged in radio over Henry while Henry was in the bathtub, giving him a count of three to get out of the tub before dropping the radio into the water, putting a cartridge into a revolver, spinning the cylinder, putting the gun to Henry’s head and giving him a count of three to disarm his father. Henry could climb a water drain with his legs tied together and had many other not so common skills.

On his father’s birthday Henry and his father would fight a bare handed full contact match in the garage until one or the other conceded. I had met Henry’s father only once. I came into the school and found a man watching the class. He was standing at parade rest with his hands clasped behind his back, dressed in blue jeans, sweat shirt, a camouflage jacket and combat boots.

He turned to me, came to attention, bowed, introduced himself as Henry’s
karate teacher, said he was glad Henry was training with me, and left.

* * * * *

Henry had been to Mexico before, to Acapulco. He said that a lot of poor people begged near his hotel where he stayed. He would bring them plates of food from the breakfast buffet, making several trips. He and his new friends would sit on the hotel steps and eat breakfast together each morning. He said he was pretty sure the hotel didn’t like it but that no one said anything to him. It is the only story he told me about Acapulco.

One night we were at Mama Mia’s, up on the second level of the small bar.
We had ordered some food and my friend Francesca Fisher was sitting
next to Henry; complaining that she had not been given a knife to cut her Lasagna with. Henry, a little paranoid at the best of times, now in a foreign country, produced from a shoulder sheath, a large knife, and gave it to Francesca who said “Wow, it’s beautiful, is it ok to cut Lasagna with it?”

I answered for Henry. “If it’s ok to cut people, it’s probably alright to
cut Lasagna.” Francesca nodded and dug into her Lasagna. The next
day we were at a party and I was sitting next to someone I had just
met who seemed like a pretty nice guy even though neither of us had
said much.

We were both staring in Francesca’s direction who was sitting on the
other side of the garden talking with a couple of other women. We watched
as she pointed at Henry and then held her hands up about a foot apart.

“Do you suppose his dick is really that big?” my new friend asked, breaking
the silence.“I don’t know,” I answered, “but his knife is.”

* * * * *

Henry liked San Miguel, he said it was peaceful and that the people were
nice. He hoped to return one day. As I watched Henry roll his clothes military style and place the rolls neatly into his duffle bag, I thought of the story he had told me about his father, and the respect I knew he still felt for him.

I went with him to the bus station and we said our good byes. As he mounted the steps of the bus I wondered if I would ever see him again.

To be continued next issue...