Wire Fu

Back in the early forties—1946 was when it all started for us—kung fu by wire was an art form in its infancy. In fact it’s fair to say that it wasn’t yet an art form, but rather a humiliating form of family torture. At least that’s how I remember it.

My father had come back from the war with all kinds of exotic ideas, which isn’t to say that he was enthusiastic. No, rather his were the kinds of ideas that seemed to weigh on him, as if each one bore down on a corresponding vertebra. I can’t say with any authority that he was a smaller man, but he was less substantial of countenance, often staring for hours, shaking his head, mumbling something about the hunting season.

And then he would come to us with one of his ideas. My siblings and I were four then, and ranged in age from five to seventeen. I was the second eldest, but small—smaller even than my baby sister. Maybe that’s why I was my father’s favorite. But though our interests varied greatly by then, we were always interested to hear what our father had to say on any topic. Mom advised us that this was proper behavior, and we didn’t need to examine the hand-shaped bruises on her upper arms too closely to be convinced of it.

The day my father explained wire fu to us is one that remains very fresh in my mind. “Gather around, my children,” he said. And for the next half hour dad’s words tumbled from his lips as he went into deep theory about the nature of defense, the importance of philosophy, and the necessity of art. And then he explained how the portrayal of all these things might lead to a singular moment of cultural enlightenment if you knew what to look for. As he spoke his eyes remained shut, as if he were reciting passages from memory. When any of us had a question he would fall dead silent, and aim his left eye at the bridge of our nose, and say, “Not now,” before continuing.

We didn’t know it then but he was briefing us for an activity the likes of which our family had never before participated in, one that would in fact bring us closer together. But not in the way he thought.

Billy, my older brother, seemed to grasp what was going on, but he was short with the rest of us and wouldn’t explain. Meanwhile, dad was making a racket in the garage while mom busied herself in her den. We sat, as instructed, on the living room floor, giggling about frivolous things to try to distract ourselves from the approaching storm.

My father grabbed the uniforms from my mother and threw them on the floor. “Suit up,” he said to Billy and me, and stood like a coach with his arms akimbo. He told my two younger siblings to sit by mom and watch. I envied them. I wanted nothing more than to be invisible, but dad’s eyes had already found me. I recognized the two football uniforms, but not what my mother had done to them. The modifications she’d made had turned them into marionette costumes, punctured by lengths of nested cable.

Billy grabbed his costume and started sorting through its tangle while I looked at my father with nascent dread. “I don’t understand,” I told him, and I missed him more in that moment than I had since before he’d left for the Far East.

“That’s exactly why we’re doing this,” he said. “Now be a good boy and suit up.”

In the forties the finer details of wire fu had yet to be discovered, but we spent our entire summer discovering them. We jumped and we kicked, spun and dropped, and we wore our lessons like raw medals on our skin. Our chafe marks hardened and thickened like old hash browns every night as we tried to escape through our dreams. But the worst was that dad never watched us perform. He sat stolid, eyes shut, lips pursed into a gash. When I would protest he would simply raise his hand. “Continue,” he would say.

I never forgave dad for allowing Angie to kill Billy. She was tiny, but surprisingly fleet of foot, and when the stud of her cleat caught my older brother in the temple he went down like a side of beef. And then he went up again. And then he bobbed there in the middle of the living room, his cable springs having reached an even tension. Angie began to cry immediately, but I didn’t have anything left inside to cry.

We never again suited up for wire fu, though we did bury Billy in his gear. For his part, dad seemed finally to snap out of it, and he and mom were able to patch up their relationship not too long after they sent the remaining three of us to live with a passing caravan of carnies.

My father had come home from the war missing a key part of himself—the link to his own childhood innocence. Without it he was just a shell of a man. So through us he tried to regain a little bit of that, but though he eventually succeeded, the price was high.

We all learned something from our experiences, and I’m pretty sure it’s don’t fucking roughhouse. It’s dangerous, and best left to trained professionals.

Related Tales

» “Hair” (21 of Dec, 2004)
» “Reality” (22 of Jan, 2004)
» “Figuring It Out” (11 of Jan, 2004)

Comments

• It’s great - I love the image and the story is compelling as well. I love this line “We all learned something from our experiences and I’m pretty sure it’s don’t fucking roughhouse.” Made me laugh.

  quoth Lennox on 13 of May, 2003