Always (3 page)

Guidebooks never told you everything. Seattle was another country.

SELF-DEFENSE IS NOT JUST A SKILL, IT’S A WORLDVIEW. LIKE THE SCIENTIFIC
method—or religion, or motherhood, for that matter—once you accept its method-or religion, or motherhood, for that matter—once you accept its precepts you see things differently. I didn’t intend to tell my students this. Just as you don’t try to interest six-year-olds in natural history by discussing physiology and adaptive evolution—but take them, instead, to a pond to watch tadpoles turn into frogs—on the first day of class you don’t tell grown women to change their lives. You show them how to punch a bag.

I parked outside Crystal Gaze, under the only streetlight. It was a long way from the side door. I turned off the Saab’s heater and got out. 5:56 on the second Tuesday of February. My breath hung in a cloud as I zipped my jacket. The sky was the heavy grey of unpolished pewter, shading to iron in the east. The still dark reminded me of Mørketiden, the days of Norwegian winter when you don’t see the sun.

Crystal Gaze is Atlanta’s alternative bookshop and personal wellness center, more comfortable with chakras than choke holds. My class, the advisory board had decided, could go ahead as long as it was in the basement space. It was a very nice space, they said, even without a window: newly painted, new carpet, and a room air-conditioner; big and bare, eminently suitable for physical activity. It also had its own convenient side entrance. In other words, sweaty women reeking of the body would not trample through the main floor and disturb patrons who were browsing their way to the next level of spiritual enlightenment. They agreed I could bring in four big mats and a punch bag and leave them for the duration of the course.

The stairwell smelled of concrete dust. My boots echoed. There were damp footprints on each tread, including one set of those pointy-toed, needle-heeled shoes that look as though they would leave the wearer utterly crippled. I peered more closely. Two sets of pointy toes. Or—no, one set whose owner had walked down, then turned and taken a couple of steps back, then decided to head back down and go through with it.

Americans rarely have the same appreciation of punctuality as Norwegians, so when I opened the basement door at precisely six o’clock I was mildly surprised to find nine women already sitting on the corded blue carpet. Nine pairs of shoes were lined up neatly under the bench. Second from the right were the pointy-toed spike heels: brown fake-alligator ankle boots. Several of the women could have owned them—lots of lower-tier business clothes and careful makeup—though I’d bet on the white woman with the curly hair in a powder blue blouse with a wide silver stripe. At least she was wearing trousers, unlike the woman in the brilliant green skirt and matching jacket.

“We will begin with the closed fist,” I said. “Please stand.”

They gaped at me, then a stout woman with wiry grey hair and sensible workout clothes stirred, said, “Don’t need names for that, I guess,” and hauled herself to her feet. One woman who had been sitting in full lotus position with her palms up stood with the ease of a dancer, or perhaps a yoga practitioner, though the muscles around her eyes were tight. Another—matte black dye job, who had sat with legs spread and weight tipped back on her many-ringed hands—rose with the awkwardness of a day-old foal, just a bit too quickly to match the boredom she was trying to project. There were several obvious cases of nervous tension, including Blue Blouse; one openmouthed possible breathing difficulty, which I hoped wouldn’t develop into asthma due to poor air quality; and one set of tilted shoulders that looked to be more the result of habitual bad posture than a structural deficit. On first assessment, the only possible powder keg was a white woman who jerked to her feet and kept her chin down; who didn’t lift her eyes from the floor, even when the door banged open behind me.

“Oh,” said the latecomer. Softball muscles played in her forearm as she shifted her gym bag from right hand to left, and through her warm-ups her quads bulged like those of a soccer player. “Sorry I’m late.”

I wheeled the punch bag and frame away from the painted breeze-block wall and into the center of the room. The heavy bag swayed. I dropped the stabilizer on each leg and slapped it into place.

“This bag is filled with sand. You can’t hurt it.” It couldn’t hurt them, either, because I’d had it fitted with a custom cover of latex over foam to protect their beginner’s hands. I nodded at the middle-aged woman with the wiry hair. “Come and give it a try.”

“Me?”

Basic rule of animal behavior: control the leader of the herd. For a group of women who had been together less than ten minutes, that meant the cheerful motherly one. “Stand here. Make a fist. No. Keep your thumb out of the way.”

I found their ignorance difficult to believe. Dornan had tried to warn me. He had watched me thumbtack my poster to the public board in one of his cafés and shaken his head.
I don’t think you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Anyone could show up. Southern women with big hair, big teeth, big nails. Women with husbands and babies.

“The thumb always goes on the outside of the fingers,” I said, and raised my hand to show them. They all nodded and flexed experimental fists. I got behind the bag and steadied it against my body. “Now hit it.”

The stout older woman glanced around, but didn’t seem to find any hints, so she stepped up to the bag, and gave it a tentative tap. Self-consciousness, the curse of Western womanhood.

“Again, only this time, say ‘Blam!’ ”

“Blam?”

“Like a cartoon. Pretend you’re in a Saturday-morning animation: Blam! Pow! Zap! You’re an invincible superhero. It’s not really you hitting this bag, it’s the character you’re playing.”

She pulled a face at her audience, moved half a pace closer to the bag, said “Blam!” like a ten-year-old boy waving a homemade lightsaber, and thumped it. The difference was audible. “Cool!”

Everyone grinned. I nodded at her to go again.

“Whap!” she said. “Zammo! Bam bam bam!” Her face got red and her hair stuck out.

“Okay. Good. Next!”

They lined up. The newcomer assaulted the bag with a flurry of ferocious punches, added a couple of elbow smashes, and finished with a “Whomp, whomp, you asshole!”

“Next.”

The yoga woman, light but competent, followed by Dye Job who shrieked “Fuck!” when her fingers got mashed between bag and ring metal, a lesson she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Blue Blouse and Green Skirt surreptiously removed rings and pocketed them. Blue Blouse was clearly embarrassed but hit the bag anyway, after a fashion. Then, because it was her turn and it was expected of her, Carpet Starer came to the bag, managed “Bang, bang,” in a tight whisper, and poked it with her knuckles. I nodded and called “Next!” because I had seen so many women like her—in shelters, in hospital emergency rooms, bleeding bravely in their homes—and it was important not to let her know I was paying attention. Next was Green Skirt, who unselfconsciously hitched up her skirt, brushed back her bangs, and flipped her hair over her shoulders before beginning. Then Sloping Shoulders, then Breathing Difficulty.

Now that everyone had had a go, I made the line hustle.

“Run!” I said. “Faster. Hit it three times. And again. Experiment: stand closer, try the other hand, point the other leg forward. Shout when you hit it. Hit it five times. Don’t think. Do. And run. And again.” The air began to hum, and muscles plump, and just before the room kindled I clapped my hands and said, “Enough. Please sit.” They did, in an obliging circle, some smiling, and Blue Blouse scooted to her left with an ingratiating bob of her head—teacher’s pet—to make a space. I took it.

“I am Aud Torvingen. Aud, rhymes with crowd.” They waited for more, but I wasn’t interested in proving I was qualified to teach them, and the name of the class, Introduction to Women’s Self-Defense, was self-explanatory. I nodded to Blue Blouse that it was her turn. She told us she was Jennifer, and we went round the circle briskly: Pauletta, with the green skirt and a gold cross. Suze, the latecomer. Katherine, the bad posture. Sandra, the carpet starer. Kim, with long red nails. Therese, the yoga woman. Christie, the dye job. Tonya, the breathing difficulty with carefully straightened hair. Janine, the middle-aged woman, “Or Nina, I don’t mind which.”

“Pick one,” I said.

“Nina, then.”

“Fine.” I waited a moment. “Self-defense has only one goal: to survive.”

“And kick butt!” said Nina.

“No.” They blinked. “One goal, to survive.”

“Wait a second,” Suze said, “just hold on.” She leaned forward. “You’re saying we can’t fight?”

“I’m saying that from a self-defense perspective, the only goal is to survive. Fighting is neither here nor there.” Wrinkled brows. The flick-flick-flick of Kim’s long red nails, one by one, against her thumb. “Of course, once you’ve ensured your survival, kicking someone to death is an option.”

Therese lifted her shoulders, momentarily losing that Zen poise as nasty reality intruded on her nice, clean middle-class understanding.

Suze was still frowning. “So are you saying we should or shouldn’t fight?”

“You’re grown-ups. Make your own choices. My job is to show you the basic tools and techniques of self-defense: how to stay out of trouble, how to recognize it if it finds you anyway, how to deal with it using what’s available—whether that means words, or body weapons like elbows and teeth, or found objects.”

Therese probably thought of found objects as sea-etched glass and drift-wood from Jekyll Island. For Kim it might be a lottery ticket. Sandra, now, she would understand the concept: the heavy-buckled belt he pulls from his pants, the quart bottle of Gatorade he’s drinking from when she foolishly mentions she forgot to buy the mushrooms, the broom handle brandished like a quarterstaff when he sees a footprint on the kitchen floor.

“What you do with those tools is up to you. I can tell you what I might do in any given situation, or at least give you my best guess, but that doesn’t mean you should do the same.”

Pauletta touched her crucifix lightly. “So, okay, what would you do if you walk into a bar and there’s a guy with a knife?”

“Walk out again.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s one option. Prevention is better than cure.”

“But what if he’s threatening someone?” Suze asked.

“This isn’t Bodyguarding for Beginners or Heroism 101.”

“So you’d let him cut some girl, just walk out and leave her?” Pauletta.

“Depends.” It always depends.

“On what?” Suze, leaning forward again.

“Everything. How I’m feeling that day, what city I’m in—even what part of town in that city. What the assailant looks like, and the potential victim. The number of exits. The general mood of the bar.” They were not getting it.
Women with babies . . .
“Anyone here have kids?” Nods from Therese, Nina, Sandra, and Kim. “What would you do if your child came home from school crying?”

“Oh,” said Therese after a moment.

“Right,” said Kim, nodding, “it depends.”

“I don’t get it,” Suze said.

Therese said, “If my twins come home at the end of the day it means one thing, if it’s at eleven in the morning it means something else—”

“If Carlotta’s crying because some girl stuck gum in her hair I have to do different things than if it’s because her teacher died in a car crash,” Kim said.

“But you always comfort them, first,” Nina said. “You make sure they’re safe—”

“And that they feel safe,” Kim said.

“Yes,” said Therese. “And you always try to find out what happened, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Basic principles,” Nina said. They smiled at each other, pleased.

Suze frowned and opened her mouth. I forestalled her. “Basic principles. That’s what I can give you. Any mother will tell you that if you take a favorite toy from a two-year-old he will scream. I can tell you that if you kick the leg with enough force at a particular angle you will detach the kneecap.”

Suze brightened. “So are you going to show us that kneecap thing now or what?”

I studied her a moment. I nodded at her quads. “You already know how to kick things. That’s not why you’re here. One of the things you need to learn is who to kick, and when.” I looked around the circle: different ages, races, classes. Different ways of looking at the world. “When do you hit someone?”

“Depends,” Nina said. Fast learner.

“Yes. On what?”

They all looked hard at the carpet, like teenagers desperate not to be called on in class.

“Everything?” Christie said.

I smiled. “Yes. Let’s go back to what Pauletta said earlier. Walking into a bar . . .”

Every student learns at school how to fake attention. I watched it start to happen now.

“Or a supermarket at night. Or an empty church.” Most of them came back. “How do you approach it? What do you do? What do you look for?”

“I walk in like, Don’t fuck with me!” Suze said.

No one said anything.

“Not looking like a victim is a good first step. But it takes a lot of effort to project aggression all the time.” I paused, trying to think of a metaphor that might mean something to all of them, something American. “You’ve all seen old westerns. The gunslinger steps through the saloon doors and stops.” Nods. “That is exactly what not to do.”

If gunslingers really had paused in the saloon doorway, conveniently backlit by the noonday sun and blind in the sudden interior gloom, their days would have been short. The unassuming ones would have lived longest, the ones who slipped through the swinging doors behind someone else, slid along a side wall, and looked over the room before ghosting up to the bar and ordering what everyone else was drinking. By the time the bad guys in the black hats at the card table had realized he was there, he would have known who was the ringer with the derringer in his pocket, where the exits were, and whether the gang leader might be delayed on his draw by the necessity of first dumping the pretty saloon girl from his lap.