“Wow!” They exclaimed.
I was not the fastest child. I did not have the best stamina. I did not even have the necessary coordination to catch or pass, nor the rhythm to move my body in time to music, nor the barest shred of the mental equipment necessary for group action. Physically, I had one only thing going for me.
I had what my grandfather referred to as a cannon. My father called them my two best friends. They were my left hand and my right hand, and I knew they would always have my back.
“Come and watch everyone! BC is on the punching bag!” It didn’t take long for a crowd to gather.
When I was about five years old my father, laying on the floor, jokingly dared me to punch him in the face. Some deep want inside of me came alive and turned my hands to fists. In the next moment, I jumped into the air, moved all the weight in my body into my hands, and struck. After my fist finished its journey across his jaw, my father looked at me shocked. Blinked. And then tried to laugh so I wouldn’t notice his eyes were watering.
I was nine when I took Karate classes. The adults in the crowd shook their heads as eventually the punching bag began to dent from the impact of my hands. I could hardly believe it myself. Even then I looked like the kind of kid who loved Star Trek, spaceships, and books about dragons. My size was ungainly and seemed like an accident of nature. That I could hit as hard as I could was seen as impossible. Until I started hitting something. And then it was spectacular.
I loved hitting. It felt right. Graceful and functional. I could time it to perfection. For someone who had always felt like they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, I found this addicting. The action fit my body like a well tailored suit.
Pivot the waist as you swing the hip. Extend the arm. Keep the wrist flat with the forearm. Mind your thumb. Wait for the pressure of the explosion. Fast as you can, now. Faster. All the impact at once. Explode on the punching bag. Otherwise you’re just pushing. Again. Other hand. Again.
I did not do it well. I did it perfectly.
I was the chunky kid with the mean older sister, and for the first time I knew what it was like to be feared. No one wanted to spar with me. My first week I had hit a boy named Cody too hard, even with the gloves, and knocked the wind out of him. He was four years older than me. It was the one thing I had ever been good at physically and I was loathe to give it up.
Every day at practice, I struggled with the jumping jacks. Struggled to find the timing. Struggled with the push ups and the sit ups. I pushed myself through all the activities I did not care for, waiting until we were released to do whatever exercise we wanted. I went to the punching bag, now wrapped with duct tape, and began to hit.
Hitting imagined monsters. Devils. Rachel. I imagined her there a lot and I would start to froth at the mouth. I wanted to hit the bag hard enough and well enough that I could kill her imagined visage so well she would die in real life. Take that. And that. And this!
My Karate instructor won the lottery about three years after I quit going to practice. I don’t know where he is now, but I imagine he’s happy wherever he went. He was happy even then, without the money and thought he was doing me a favor by putting me on the speed bag. He probably was.
“Come on, BC. We all know you can throw a jab. No point working on it anymore. We need to teach you timing. I don’t just want you to hit this as fast and as hard as you can.” He showed me what he wanted. “I want you to control it with your hands.” He showed me a series of punches. I could barely keep track of the ball.
I hammered the speed bag on the first punch, and sent it zinging back and forth so fast that I could not see it to hit it a second time. It wasn’t a regular speed bag. That would have been too simple. This speed bag had two elastic cords coming out of either end that attached it to the floor and ceiling. Hitting it was like snapping a rubber band and trying to catch it again in between your fingers after you’ve just let it go shooting across the room. Or at least that’s what it felt like every time I hammered into it.
“No, BC! Come on pal. Not hard. Control. The speed bag is about control.” He showed me again. He was really a nice man. In the little kid classes he used to stand in front of us while we were throwing practice punches and let us hit him in the stomach. Except we were always done before he got to me. He used to wink at me too when he called a stop there. It made me smile. I was so damned proud of my punch. He knew it and encouraged it.
“I’m trying.” I liked slow meticulous work. I liked carving. Drawing. Reading. I couldn’t get the hang of the speed bag. “It just… I’ll just have to work on it some more.”
“Well just keep trying pal.” He slapped me on the back as he left.
Seeing I was getting ready to hit something, the adults began to gather around. The same interest people have whenever anyone has a reputation for doing something well from playing the violin to tap dancing. They watched me unsuccessfully swat at the speed bag. Then they began to leave. The one thing I was good at was taken away. I clenched my hand into a fist. And swung one last time to vent my frustrations.
A punching bag would have had enough mass to slow me down and stop me. But the speed bag was little and too new for me to counter what I had started… All the weight of my body pushed out through my hand. I spun on my heel following my fist around in a loop. That too would have been fine… had not little five year old Trisha Marie been standing immediately beside me. She followed me around a lot, that little Trisha Marie.
My fist found her jaw. Her head turned. Well, snapped. In any case, her body jumped a full inch off the ground before falling backwards.
“Oh crap!” I shouted, as the attention of the adults returned to me.
Trisha Marie lay flat on her back, knocked out, only mumbling when she was shaken.
“I’m… I’m so sorry!” I stammered. I let go of my fists like I had just shot her and was trying to get rid of the gun. The adults ignored me as they huddled around her.
She came to a few minutes later, I cried and told her I was sorry. I was. I wanted to hit a monster. An evil person. Not little five year old Trisha Marie. She forgave me.
She later developed a bruise on her face that I’m sure raised a couple of uncomfortable questions at school. I took it easy on the speed bag after that. I had a cannon. I figured it was prudent to learn how to aim it in the right direction.
