Memoirs of a Karate Fighter (17 page)

“
Yame
,” cried the sensei. “Straighten your lines.” He then ordered us to kneel. As we closed our eyes in meditation, to reflect on the training and what we had achieved, all I could think about was Clinton and his obviously hurt feelings.

“
Moksu
yame
,” said the sensei, and we opened our eyes before bowing twice to bring the lesson to a close. Back on my feet, I spun around, looking for Clinton. The sun was blazing through the windows and I was momentarily dazzled. It took a few seconds for my eyes to refocus and see that Clinton had slipped away.

In the changing room no one thought it appropriate to talk about Clinton. Instead the conversation was centred around a former member and another of my cousins who had been arrested for attempted armed robbery. It was only as the changing room filled with scornful laughter on hearing a description of his capture that I paid any attention to what was being said. The plan had been to hit a factory on payday as the wages were being delivered. My jaw tightened as someone chuckled and said that my cousin had decided to go ahead with the robbery even though a member of the gang had not turned up with the getaway vehicle and he had used his girlfriend's car instead.

I was back to being lost in grim thoughts about Clinton for a few minutes until I realized that the changing room had gradually emptied to leave only Eddie Cox and me. I asked him what had happened with Clinton. “I couldn't let him train,” he said regretfully. “Not in his state.”

“Come on, Eddie,” I said, my voice rising, “he needs to get back into the flow of things. You know, do the things he was doing before.”

“I know he's your cousin, Ralph, and you're only looking out for him. But it's medical help Clinton needs and not karate. And I can't take the risk of him, or of someone else, getting hurt.”

As Eddie was talking to me, in my mind I saw the smile vanish from
Clinton's face as he was told that he could not train and right then I felt as he had. “He was already changed,” I retorted. “I mean, we were only doing
kata
. It wasn't like there was any risk of him getting hurt or somebody hurting him, now was there?”

“Like the time you nearly hurt him?” Eddie said testily. “Like the UKKW final when you nearly took off his head with that punch? There have been signs, Ralph, and like everybody else I've been hoping that things had turned around for the guy. But now there's too much of a risk. Do you think you could've caught Clinton with a punch like that if he was healthy?”

I tightened my lips and nodded. “Yeah, you're right, it's just …”

“It's all right,” he said sympathetically, “no need to explain. We're all just hoping that he pulls through.” He slapped my shoulder, and as we began to walk to our cars Eddie tried to lighten my mood by making a joke about my relative who had been arrested because of his own idiocy. I could only shrug my shoulders, and Eddie got into his car. I did not care about the man who had brought problems on himself because of his criminal activities, it was Clinton's predicament that was on my mind as I watched Eddie drive away. I began to wonder if Clinton's present state was a cruel twist of nature, or if it was the environment in which he lived which had applied so much pressure that it had finally started to break his mind and spirit. And if Clinton's illness was due to where and how he lived, could it be that I might succumb to the same pressures at some point in the future?

WAS IT ME, or was it the world that was changing so fast? I had gone from a youth preoccupied with karate to a family man, with all the accompanying responsibilities, in only a matter of months. The transition to adulthood in a short space of time would have been difficult enough for me to cope with but it also seemed that the world around me had suddenly grown into a much less pleasant place.

Hundreds of workers had been made redundant at other factories in the area and the lack of certainty about what lay ahead for us sent ripples of discontent throughout my workplace. For the first time, I began to have concerns about whether or not I would have a job to go to in the near future. If I had only myself to look after, or if I were still living with my parents, the spectre of unemployment would have held no fear for me. But I no longer had the option of a solitary life, nor one of dependancy.

I had arrived at the factory's gates in time to find a handful of workers musing aloud amongst themselves on how they would form a picket line. As I walked through the gate, one of them was attempting to start a fire in an open oil drum and his colleagues were too distracted to even notice me. On reaching the maintenance department, my first inkling that things were not as I had been led to believe was the absence of Harold the tea-maker. For the first time in all my years at the factory, I made the tea, and had drunk three cups before it dawned
on me that no other member of the crew was willing to cross the unofficial picket line.

The day before there had not been a dissenting voice when the maintenance department had agreed not to take action to support Dave the labourer. The management, who had been spoiling for a fight, thought they had picked on a soft target when they suspended the factory's resident gigolo after he had reported late for work three days in a row. However, the powers-that-be had not counted on Dave's abiding allure with the female employees in the assembly area, who immediately withdrew their labour. Meetings were hurriedly convened all over the factory. The workers in the tool room and the stamp shop agreed with my department in that they would not take part in any action that did not have official union sanction. Privately, more than one had said that they would not be stopping work for a ‘toe-rag' like Dave the labourer.

I was relieved to see Mick Davies; he had been away on holiday and was unaware of the industrial strife. I filled him in on recent events over a cup of tea and I thought that he was having second thoughts about crossing the picket line. To prevent him leaving, I then mentioned another YMCA victory at a tournament the previous weekend, but his response was less than enthusiastic. He replied, “Well, you've done it all before, haven't you?” The conversation became increasingly strained and I was glad for the sound of the buzzer that signalled the beginning of the shift.

There had been a subtle change in my relationship with Mick since I had turned twenty-one. My birthday had held no special significance for me except that my apprenticeship had come to an end. As an apprentice, I had been viewed by those who inhabited the delicate ecosystem of the maintenance department as at the very bottom of the food-chain. Now, I had evolved into a fully-fledged tradesman adjustments were required if we were to preserve the delicate balance in the relationships that enabled us to work as a team. But a further threat of destabilisation within our department came in the form of Mr Pearson, a kindhearted man who was the personnel manager. Mr Pearson had always been on hand during my apprenticeship to offer encouragement and I had often wished that he could have been one of my teachers at
school. Shortly after I became qualified, he had asked me to consider carrying on with my studies and said that he would arrange for me to have the necessary time off to take the Higher National Certificate course in production engineering. He added that when I passed I could then be inducted into the heady heights of lower management. Naively, I had mentioned Mr Pearson's offer to the rest of the maintenance crew while we were seated at the long table and my ‘good' news had been met with stony silence. My decision to take the opportunity to become better qualified had made my relationship with Mick difficult; there was a clear demarcation at the factory between workers and management, and the mere fact that I had expressed an interest in getting promoted had made me a potential ‘enemy'.

I was in the stamp shop trying to figure out what was wrong with a machine when the head engineer approached me. “Ralph, there's no need to worry,” he said, “but your mother just rang.” In that split second my mind was filled with worry as my mother had never before telephoned the factory. I anticipated terrible news about a family member having an accident – or that something even worse had happened. He continued, “She said there was no need to panic but she asked if you would call into her on your way home.”

“Did she say what's it about?” I asked.

“Er, no. She just said there was nothing to panic about.”

“She's never rung me at work before.”

“Look,” he said, scanning the near-empty stamp shop, “with all this stuff going on at the gate perhaps it would be better if you clocked out early.”

“I don't understand it,” I replied. “Everyone agreed to come in and work unless there was proper union backing for a strike.”

He smiled at my naivete. “You still have a bit to learn about human nature and factory politics, Ralph. Once you've got this job finished go and see your mom.”

It was as I strode through the crowd at the gateway that my eyes met those of Dave the labourer. They shone with resentment. The boos and jeering increased in volume. “Scab! Scab! Scab!” spat some of the men, who relished the chance to pay me back for my “Malvinas” chant. I could imagine how they must have talked as they saw me walk from the factory.
“Just shows you, don't it? The Argie-lover has no loyalty to anyone or anything around here.”

“Nigger!” snarled Dave the labourer, the supposed cause of all this trouble.

His words cut through the cacophony like a sharp knife. His lips were still quivering as I stopped and stared at him. He rolled his shoulders and ran his fingers through his oily hair as he looked left and right to the men beside him. I stepped towards Dave and the men around him fell silent and moved away. In that instant he knew that he was on his own and that he had to make a quick decision: was it going to be fight or flight? He could tell by the look on my face what my intentions were and as I closed in on him he abruptly turned and ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

On my way to my parents' home I had persuaded myself that perhaps it was good news that my mother had for me and maybe my dad had won the pools or a premium bond number had come up. But it was obvious to me that there had been no big money win as I opened the door; the atmosphere was too subdued for there to be good tidings. My mom, who had always worked so hard as a hospital orderly in a psychiatric ward, was asleep in an armchair in front of the television. She had not heard me come in and I spent a moment or two studying her. Her head lolled to one side and my heart skipped a beat until I heard her gently snoring. The sight of her made me so thankful for all her daily sacrifices – but it did also make me wonder if I were capable of doing anything similar for my own child. She would wake in a few minutes, and I thought it best to put on the kettle rather than disturb her. Mom stirred as the water boiled. “Hi, Mom,” I called out.

“When did you come in?” she asked.

“Just a few minutes ago, while you were nodding off.”

“Make a pot of tea, please, son. I'm parched.”

“Way ahead of you,” I said, as I brought the pot and cups in to her.

She put a cup to her mouth with two hands and rolled her lips after a first sip. “Ah, a nice cup of tea,” she sighed, “just what I needed.”

I was too anxious to know about why she had telephoned me at work
to take a drink. “Mom,” I said, “why did you ring the factory?”

Her eyes immediately became sombre and her lips compressed momentarily. “Clinton,” she said sadly, “he was …”

“Yeah, he was?” I interrupted.

“… he was brought into hospital again yesterday.”

“Back to Accident and Emergency?”

“No,” she said gravely, “he's in the psychiatric ward. He was examined and diagnosed as having schizophrenia.”

“I knew it!” I blurted out, sad and yet relieved that a doctor had finally confirmed my suspicions about Clinton's mental health and that he was now in a place where he could receive treatment. I had visited him during the previous week to find him back underneath his old car. Although it was cold and dark, I felt that I had to get down and join him and see just what he was doing. With the aid of a lamp, Clinton explained the
difficulty
he was having in fitting the gearbox. It only took me seconds to see that the gearbox was for another type of vehicle and I told him so. He dragged himself from under the car and marched into his house. Sensing he would be out again, I waited next to the car and it was not long before he reappeared carrying a bag. I could tell that he was planning to do something that could have had dire consequences. He went past me without a glance and I sped after him, demanding for him to tell me where he was going and what was in the bag. When there was no response we ended up wrestling with one another on the pavement. He had been heading for Leslie's house with a machete in the bag. After calming Clinton and guiding him back to his house, I went to find out why Leslie had sold Clinton a gearbox that could not possibly fit his car. Leslie explained that he and Errol had told Clinton that there was no way he could use that gearbox but he had insisted that they sell it to him. Leslie was dismissive when I told him about the machete but I knew I had saved someone from getting seriously hurt – or worse – that night.

My mother's news that Clinton had been diagnosed with schizophrenia prompted me to ask about the nature of the illness. “Schizophrenia,” I said, “isn't that split-personality and someone going totally insane?”

“Don't be silly,” Mom replied. “You'd be surprised at the amount of people walking the streets with mild cases of schizophrenia. Clinton will be all right once he's receiving the proper treatment, it's when this illness
goes untreated that things can turn very bad.”

“Bad for who?”

Mom raised a reproachful eyebrow. “The person with the illness, of course.”

I drank my tea to give myself time to think of a question that was not as stupid as my first two. “How is he now?” I asked.

“A bit drowsy and confused because of the drugs he's on. But he was asking for you.”

“I'll try and see him in the next few days,” I said. I brought the cup back to my lips to try and hide my embarrassment as I realized that I was already making excuses about not finding the time to visit him. The hospital was in walking distance from where I lived. “Anyway,” I added, to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between us, “at least he'll get the treatment he needs. When did you find out about him?”

“His mother rang me last night and I went into see him today. It was so sad to see so many young men in there.” Her voice began to waver and she shook her head as a tear threatened. “I had a talk with his mom and she reckons that Clinton's troubles started with karate – she says that someone told her that he was once knocked out. Do you know anything about that?”

While it did not happen at every session, someone getting rendered unconscious was not that unusual at the karate club. A few professional boxers had trained with us from time to time and muttered their doubts about our sanity after viewing the amount of punishment that we sometimes dished out to one another. I, along with several others, had been kayoed but had not suffered any lasting repercussions. “No, I don't recall Clinton ever getting knocked out,” I replied – and almost immediately I thought about the punch I had landed on him during the Wado Ryu national championships. “We control the punches, you know, Mom, so people don't get hurt.”

“Ralph!” she snapped back, “don't take me for a fool. I haven't forgotten all those times you came home with a swollen face, or that time I found blood in the toilet. Do you really think that all those kicks and punches haven't affected you?”

“Mom, it's not karate that had made Clinton ill!”

Mom snorted sceptically. “Your father and I have been talking.
We think you should consider giving up karate and think of Hilda and little Nadine a bit more.”

I bit my lip in frustration: I had intended to ask my father for a loan towards a deposit on a house, but there was no way I could approach him now, as I could easily guess the one condition he would attach to lending me the money. “Look, Mom, karate didn't turn Clinton this way,” I insisted. “He's always been a bit eccentric, even as a kid he'd do some strange things. I'm telling you, Mom, karate didn't make Clinton the way he is.”

Mom fixed me with a stare and said, “And I remember you telling your sister that karate is a test of the mind as well as the body. It's easy to see the damage when the body fails the test, but what happens to the mind, can you tell me that?”