Chapter Thirty-Five

Another week and here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.

This has been a crazy week in my life. I learned on Monday from my pulmonologist doctor about how this idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis lung disease has reached the point where I will need to begin using oxygen therapy all the time — 24/7! I felt some depression for about a day, and then realized how the lessons I’ve learned as a Buddhist would now begin to be helpful — accepting what is and staying in the moment. It’s time to put these into practice and move on.

Once again, I’m really pleased so many of you are following along with my story. Don’t hesitate to leave comments — I love hearing from you. Thanks! And a special thanks to my friends who did some “building up” this past week.

Be well, be in peace,

Ron Rink
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It was about two weeks later on a Monday that Billy came to me while we were at the bowling alley and said, “Okay, Van. Bob Morton has set it up for you to fight a couple of our guys. It’s going to be this Friday after dark. You need to meet me at the Sugar Bowl.”

“Uh, okay, y-yeah, sure,’ I mumbled as I felt my entire body begin to tighten up like the skin on a drum. I knew this would be happening eventually, but after two weeks without anything being said about it, the feeling of trepidation had begun to fade away. And now the moment was back into reality. It had become imminent. I heard those words and the adrenalin started to flow at once.

Billy must have seen my body tense up because he looked at me with a questioning glance and said, “You’re not chickening out are you? You better not be after I’ve gone to Morton to set it all up.”

I could see that Billy was right on the edge of being ticked off—he had the same look in his eyes I had seen when some customer would give him a hard time about the way he was setting his pins.

“No-no, I-I’m not chickening out, don’t worry,” I replied. “I-I guess I was just surprised to know that it’s going to be this week. Can we do some practice fights together before then?”

“Yeah, I was going to show you some of the tricks that both these guys use, anyway. We can practice every day if you want.”

The guys I would be fighting were three or four years older than me. They had both been members of the State Fair Dukes for a couple of years. One of them was called “Crazy Jimmy” because he was known for acting like a maniac whenever he would get in a fight.

“Crazy Jimmy will all of a sudden start jumping around and swinging his arms all over the place right in the middle of a fight,” Billy explained. “He’ll be kicking out with his legs and his eyes will start rolling around in his head and he’ll be screaming like a stupid monkey. It looks really dumb, but it works great so long as it isn’t somebody Jimmy fought before.”

Billy started laughing and jumping around to show me how Crazy Jimmy would act.

“The other guy would drop his arms and back away trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with Jimmy, and Jimmy’d go flying at the guy and have him down before he knew what hit him,” Billy said.

“What you need to do is make your move as soon as he starts his crazy stuff. He’s usually not looking at you when he’s acting nuts, and he’s figuring that you’ll be confused about what he’s doing, so that’s the time for you to get him down.”

The other guy I only knew as Bobby. Bobby was a good-looking guy who always had a bunch of girls around him whenever you would see him around the school or the playground. He was pretty short—not much taller than me.

Billy explained that Bobby’s little fighting secret was that as soon as he could he would go for the other guy’s balls. Billy also showed me that Bobby did something before he would make that move. “Every time I’ve seem Bobby in a fight, he always does exactly the same thing,” Billy said. “I like this trick. I use it myself sometimes. Stand in front of me like we’re fighting. Now watch me.”

Billy started to dance around like we were getting ready to start throwing punches. Then he looked over my shoulder, got a scared look on his face and his eyes got as wide as saucers. Instinctively, I turned my head to see what was behind me. The next thing I knew Billy had his hand between my legs and my hands dropped down to stop him.

“You see,” said Billy as he moved away from me, “the only difference is that Bobby’ll grab the guys balls and start squeezing and twisting as hard as he can. Most guys will grab for Bobby’s hands like you did and drop to their knees. Bobby’d lock his fists together and come straight up under their chin, and down they’d go, ready for a quick drop-kick to one of their body parts.”

“Cripes, I said, “that sounds really vicious to me.”

“It is. I’m amazed he hasn’t broken some guys neck yet. You need to know that as soon as you see him look over your shoulder, that’s when you make your move.”

Billy and I practiced these two tricks over and over again so I would know exactly what to do by Friday.

“Just remember,” Billy said. “Don’t lose your focus. Watch every move they make. Don’t forget that both these guys might figure you know about their tricks and pull something different on you. You’re good, just get them down before they try any tricks, okay?”
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My other blogs for wecould2.com

http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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