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One held me down as another pulled up my skirt.
I screamed, but a dirty hand covered my mouth –
And then I heard a voice yell out of the darkness, “OI! Get the fuck offa her, you pieces of shite!”
A man came striding up: the head instructor from the Krav Maga studio. He was still wearing his black martial arts outfit.
The boys cursed at him and told him to fuck off. One even pulled out a knife and threatened to kill him.
The 20 seconds that followed were the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life.
The man tore into the group of thugs – kicking them in the side of their knees, punching their faces, ramming his knee into their crotches.
The guy with the knife lunged at him.
The man dodged, then swung the point of his elbow into the asshole’s nose with a loud CRACK.
Seconds later, all the boys scrambled off into the night, bleeding and shrieking in pain.
The man waited until they had fled, then looked down at me.
“You alright?” he asked gruffly.
I nodded in fear.
He extended his hand to me as I lay on the ground. “Let’s get you inside and get you cleaned up.”
He took me back to his office, sat me down in a chair, and used alcohol to disinfect the cuts on my knees and hands. He was in his 40s with buzzcut grey hair. The framed certificates on his wall told me his name was John Morris.
“You sure you’re alright?” he asked.
I nodded silently.
“Fuckin’ animals… gets worse out here every fuckin’ year. ‘Scuse my French, s’il vous plait.” After he finished cleaning my wounds, he said, “I think I better walk you back home. Just in case.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything.
After he locked up the dojo, Mr. Morris walked with me through the dark streets towards home. He asked me questions about school and my home life. I gave the shortest answers I could, mostly because I was utterly cowed by such a powerful man who could fight off five other people at one time. But by the time the walk was over, he knew my name, that I lived with my mother, and that my father was no longer in the picture.
We finally reached the apartment building where I lived.
“Well, Rachel,” he said, “take care. Just a word of advice: probably best if you get home before dark from now on.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Think nothin’ of it.”
As he started to walk away, all my desperation rose up inside me, and I blurted out, “I want to learn how to do what you did.”
He stopped and looked back at me. “Alright – well, just have your mother come by and – ”
“She won’t pay for it,” I said. “I asked her over and over. She says she doesn’t have any money.”
He peered at me for a long moment. Finally he said, “Not a problem. After you get out of school tomorrow, come by and see me.”
Then he turned and walked off into the night.
The next day began my four-year-long tutelage in Krav Maga.
