Tell Me No Secrets (26 page)

Thinking of you. Thinking of you
.

And then it was Saturday, cloudless, sunny, and cold.

The classes were held in an old two-story building.
WEN-DO
the sign proclaimed in black letters almost as large as the structure itself.

“Please to give me your coat, then please to put this on and please to go inside,” the young Asian woman behind the reception counter instructed, as Jess exchanged her long winter coat for a short, dark blue cotton robe and matching sash. Jess was wearing a loose sweatshirt and pants, as she had been advised over the telephone. They were gray, she noted, suppressing a smile, her favorite color. “You are early,” the young woman giggled, her high black ponytail bouncing with the gentle movement of her shoulders. “Nobody else here yet.”

Jess smiled and half-bowed, not sure of the proper protocol. The young woman waved her toward a curtain to her right, and Jess, bowing again, stepped through.

The room she stepped into was twice as long as it was wide, and empty except for a series of dark green mats stacked in one corner of the well-scuffed wood-planked floor. Jess caught her reflection in the wall of mirrors that ran along the left side of the room, lending it a depth it didn’t have. She looked ridiculous, she thought, a cultural hybrid in her American sweats and Oriental robe. She shrugged, pulling back her hair and securing it with a wide elastic band.

What was she doing here? What exactly was it she hoped to learn? Did she really think she could protect herself from … from what? From the elements? From the inevitable?

She heard a shuffle behind her, turned to see a woman with a noticeable limp emerge from between the green flowered curtains. “Hi,” said the woman, who was probably the same age as Jess. “I’m Vasiliki. Call me Vas, it’s easier.”

“Jess Koster,” Jess said, stepping forward to shake the woman’s hand. “Vasiliki is a very interesting name.”

“It’s Greek,” the woman said, checking out her reflection in the mirrored wall. She was tall and big-boned, her dark hair framing her olive complexion and ending bluntly at her square jaw. Aside from her limp, she looked quite formidable. “I was attacked over a year ago by a gang of thirteen-year-old boys. Thirteen years old! Can you believe it?” Her tone indicated that she couldn’t. “They were after my purse. I said, ‘Go ahead, take it. There’s nothing in it.’ So they took it, and when they saw I only had ten dollars, ‘cause I never carry around much cash, they started beating me, shoved me to the ground, kicked me so hard, they broke my kneecap. I’m lucky to be walking at all. I decided as soon as my therapy was over, I was enrolling in a self-defense course. Next time anybody comes at me, I’m going to be ready.” She laughed bitterly. “Of course, it’s a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped.” She tied an extra knot in the sash at her waist.

Jess shook her head. Juvenile crime had reached epidemic proportions in the city of Chicago. A whole new building was being erected to deal with these violent young offenders. As if a building could do any good.

“What about you? What brought you here?” Vas was asking.

Fear of the unknown, fear of the known, Jess answered silently. “I’m not sure,” she said out loud. “I just thought it was probably a good idea that I learn how to defend myself.”

“Well, you’re smart. I tell you, it isn’t easy being a woman these days.”

Jess nodded, wishing there was a place to sit down. Again the curtains parted, and two black women stepped inside, their eyes warily scanning the room.

“I’m Vasiliki. Call me Vas,” Vas stated, nodding in their direction. “‘This is Jess.”

“Maryellen,” the older and lighter-skinned of the two women said. “This is my daughter, Ayisha.”

Jess estimated Ayisha’s age as seventeen, her mother closer to forty. Both were very pretty, although a faded purple bruise was visible under the mother’s right eye.

“I think it’s neat, you taking this course together,” Vas was saying as the curtains parted again and another woman, short, plump, and middle-aged, her hair noticeably salted with gray, entered the room, tugging nervously at her blue robe. “Vasiliki, call me Vas,” Vas was already saying. “‘This is Jess, Maryellen, and Ayisha.”

“Catarina Santos,” the woman said, her voice tentative, as if she wasn’t sure.

“Well, we’re a regular little United Nations,” Vas quipped.

“Here to learn the ancient Oriental art of Wen-Do,” Jess added.

“Oh, there’s nothing ancient about it,” Vas corrected. “Wen-Do was developed only twenty years ago by a couple in, of all places, Toronto, Canada. Can you beat that?”

“We’re learning a martial arts system developed in Canada?” Jess asked incredulously.

“Apparently it combines physical techniques drawn from both karate and aikido. Anybody know what aikido is?” Vas asked.

Nobody did.

“Wen-Do’s guiding ideas are awareness, avoidance, and
action,” Vas continued, then laughed self-consciously. “I memorized the brochure.”

“I’m all for action,” Ayisha mumbled as Catarina shrank back against the mirrored wall.

Once more the curtains parted and a young man with a dark pompadour and a healthy strut approached the loose circle of women. He was short and the muscles of his well-sculpted arms could be discerned even beneath his blue robe. His face was well scrubbed and boyish, a small scar, probably the result of a childhood case of chicken pox, sat in the bridge of his nose beside his right eyebrow. “Good afternoon,” he said, speaking clearly from his diaphragm. “I’m Dominic, your instructor.”

“Funny,” Vas whispered to Jess, “he doesn’t look Wen-Doish.”

“How many of you think you could fend off an attacker?” he asked, hands on his hips, chin thrust forward.

The women hung back, said nothing.

Dominic slowly sauntered toward Maryellen and her daughter, Ayisha. “What about you, Mama? Think you could break an attacker’s nose if he went after your daughter?”

“He’d be lucky to get away with his head still attached,” Maryellen said forcefully.

“Well, the experience of Wen-Do,” he said, “is realizing that you are as valuable as any child in your life that you love. Valuable,” he continued, pausing carefully for effect, “but not vulnerable. At least not as vulnerable as before. You may be weaker than your potential attackers,” he said, backing away from Maryellen and addressing each of the women in turn, “but you are not all-weak and your attackers are not all-powerful. It’s important that you don’t think of your
attackers as huge, impenetrable hulks, but think of them instead as a collection of vulnerable targets. And remember,” he said, looking directly at Jess, “anger works a lot better than pleading in most cases. So don’t be afraid to get angry.”

Jess felt her knees trembling, was grateful when he turned away, concentrated on someone else. Jess surveyed the faces of the different women, the mini United Nations, as Vas had accurately described them, so representative of all the changes that had occurred in the city in the last twenty years. So different from the Chicago of her childhood, she thought, escaping momentarily into the lily whiteness of her past, being pulled back into the present by the force of Dominic’s voice.

“You have to learn to trust your sense of danger,” he was saying. “Even if you’re not exactly sure what you’re afraid of, even if you don’t know what’s making you nervous, even if you’re afraid of embarrassing a man who may or may not be a threat to you, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation as quickly as you can. Denial can be very costly. Trust your instincts,” he said. “And get out as fast as you can.”

“If you
can,” Jess added silently.

“Running away is what works best most often for women,” Dominic concluded simply. “Okay, line up.”

The women exchanged nervous glances, shuffled warily into a straight line. “Up against the wall, motherfuckers,” Vas whispered to Jess, then giggled like a small child.

“Give yourself plenty of room. That’s right. Spread out a little bit. We’re gonna be moving around a lot here in a few minutes. Roll your shoulders back. Loosen up. That’s right. Swing your arms. Get nice and relaxed.”

Jess swung her arms from side to side and up and down. She rotated her shoulders backward, then forward. She rolled her neck from side to side, heard it crack.

“Don’t forget to breathe,” Dominic instructed, and Jess gratefully expelled a deep breath of air. “Okay, straighten up. Now pay close attention. The first line of defense is called
kiyi.”

“Did he say kiwi?” Vas asked, and Jess had to bite down on her tongue to keep from laughing.

“Kiyi
is a great yell, a roar from the diaphragm.
Hohh!”
he shouted, as the women flinched.
“Hohh!”
he yelled again. “
Hohh!”

Ho, ho, ho, Jess thought.

“The purpose of kiyi,” he explained, “is to wipe out the picture the attacker has of you as being quiet and vulnerable. It also helps ensure that you don’t freeze up with fear.
Hohh!”
he shouted yet again as the women jumped back in alarm. “Also, it has the element of surprise. Surprise can be a very useful weapon.” He smiled. “Now, you try it.”

Nobody moved. After several seconds, Ayisha and then Vas started to giggle. Jess wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. How could she trust her instincts, she wondered, when she wasn’t even sure what her instincts were.

“Let’s hear it!” Dominic encouraged.
“Hohh!”

Another second of silence, then a weak, tentative “Hohh!” from Maryellen.

“Not ‘Hohh,’
Hohh!”
Dominic emphasized. “This is not the time and place to be polite. We want to scare our attacker, not encourage him. Now, come on, let me hear you.
Hohh!”

“Hohh!” Jess ventured meekly, feeling totally ridiculous. Similar sad sounds echoed throughout the room.

“Come on!” Dominic urged, clenching his fists for emphasis. “You’re women now, not ladies. Let me hear you get angry. Let me hear you make a lot of noise. I know you can do it. I was raised with four sisters. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to yell.” He approached Maryellen. “Come on, Mama. There’s a man attacking your daughter.”

“Hohh!”
screamed Maryellen.

“That’s more like it.”

“
Hohh!”
Maryellen continued.
“Hohh! Hohh!”
She smiled. “Hey, I’m starting to like this.”

“Feels good to assert yourself, doesn’t it?” Dominic asked, and Maryellen nodded. “What about the rest of you? Let’s hear you put that would-be attacker on the alert.”

“Hohh!” the voices began, still tentative, then louder, gaining strength,
“Hohh! Hohh!”

Jess tried to join in, but even when she opened her mouth, no sound emerged. What was the matter with her? Since when had she been afraid of asserting herself? When had she become so passive?

Think anger, she told herself. Think about your car. Think about Terry Wales. Think about Erica Barnowski. Think about Greg Oliver. Think about your brother-in-law. Think about Connie DeVuono. Think about Rick Ferguson.

Think about your mother.

“
Hohh!”
Jess screamed into the suddenly silent room.

“Hohh!”

“Perfection,” Dominic enthused, clapping his hands. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Well done,” Vas told her, squeezing Jess’s hand.

“Now, if
kiyi
doesn’t frighten off a potential attacker, you’ve got to learn to use whatever weapons are around,
starting with your hands, your feet, elbows, shoulders, fingernails. Fingernails are good, so any of you who bite your nails, stop right now. The eyes, ears, and nose are among the targets.” Dominic made his fist into a hook, his fingers like talons. “Eagle claws through the attacker’s eyes,” he said, demonstrating. “Zipper punch to the nose, using those bony knuckles. … Hammer fist down on the nose.” Again he illustrated. The women watched with something approaching awe. “I’m gonna show you how to do all that later,” he told them. “Believe me, it’s not hard. The important thing is not to expect that you’re going to be able to match your force against your attacker’s, which just isn’t going to happen. Instead, what you’ve got to do is learn to use the attacker’s force against him.”

“I don’t understand,” Jess said, surprised she had spoken.

“Good. Speak up loud and clear when you don’t understand something. Speak up loud and clear even when you do.” He smiled. “And don’t forget to breathe.”

Jess gratefully expelled another deep breath of air.

“That’s right, from the diaphragm. You gotta remember to breathe or you’re gonna run out of steam pretty fast. Anybody here who smokes, you should give it up. Breathe deeply instead. That’s all you’re really doing when you smoke anyway. Breathing deeply in and out. You just gotta learn to do it without the cigarette. What is it you don’t understand?” he asked Jess, returning abruptly to her question.

“You said we have to use the attacker’s force against him. I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Okay, let me explain.” He paused for a minute, his eyes narrowing in thought. “Use the image of circularity,” he began, drawing a circle in the air with his index finger. “If
someone pulls you toward him, instead of resisting and pulling back, which is what we tend to do in that sort of situation, use that attacker’s force to be pulled into his body, and then strike when you get there.”

He grabbed Jess’s arm. Instinctively, she pulled back.

“No,” he said. “Exactly wrong.”

“But you told us to trust our instincts.”

“Trust your instincts when they
warn
you of danger. Remember that recognizing danger and getting away as fast as you can always come first. But when you’re already
in
danger, then it’s a different story. Your instincts can mislead you. You have to
educate
your instincts. Now, come here, I’m going to use you to illustrate what I mean.”

Jess stepped reluctantly forward.

“I’m going to pull you toward me, and I want you to resist, the way you did before.” Dominic suddenly lunged forward, his hand clamping down on Jess’s wrist, pulling her toward him.