Robert Crane - Family

I pushed harder, the last little bit of it resisting, standing out from the white tile. I heard something crack, and felt a sharp sting, pulling my hand back as though I’d touched a lit eye on the stove. I looked at my palm and watched a trickle of blood run down it. My hand; the recurve handle of the scrubbing brush had broken off, and the plastic edge that remained was sharp enough that it had stabbed me when it broke.

I hurried my hand under the sink and turned on the water. I watched the clear liquid turn red as it ran over my wound and down into the white porcelain basin, rinsing the blood down the drain. I watched it swirl, catching the light, and after a few minutes I pulled my cold hand out. The blood had started to clot, and I put a bandage over it, taking care to treat it gingerly, taping it carefully to my skin. Once I was done, I held it up in the mirror in front of me.

I saw my face for the first time since I’d gotten out of the box that morning. Dark circles rested under my eyes, and they were swollen and puffy. My hair was frizzed, because I’d not bothered to straighten it with the flatiron after getting out of the shower. I usually did, because Mother got upset when I let myself slip in hygiene; it wasn’t disciplined to let oneself go, she’d say.

I heard movement out in the living room, the familiar beep of the alarm system turning off, and I jerked in automatic motion. I hurried to pick up the bucket and cleaning supplies, throwing the broken scrub brush into the garbage can and jamming my hands back into the gloves I’d taken off to clean; breaking a major rule, even for ease of cleaning, was a big no-no. I took a quick look, inspecting my handiwork, and realized I had been cleaning for three hours.

I came down the hall to find Mother standing in the dining room, looking at several envelopes in her hands. She was frowning at them, concentrating, and one after another she threw them in the trash can. I brushed past her without saying anything, and stowed the cleaning supplies back under the sink. She tossed another envelope into the garbage and I started past her again when she spoke. “We’re going to do martial arts practice in five minutes.” She let a postcard drop into the garbage and raised her head to look at me. “Did you hear me?” I nodded, and she shook her head as I headed toward my room to change into workout clothes.

The workout was long and focused on katas. I did the same one, over and over, working on my breathing as she watched me, calling out criticism where she felt it was warranted. I executed every move as crisply as I could; blows strong enough to hurt and kill were the standard. Weak hits, anything that looked pretty but lacked force, were called out, and my punishment was to do push-ups. I stared at the blue mats as my arms pumped up and down and my breath cycled in through the nose, out through the mouth. I let out a last breath as I finished my ten push-up punishment, and snapped back to my feet. Laggardly behavior carried its own sort of punishment – more push-ups.

“All right,” Mother said, her arms folded, her navy nylon gym pants clashing against her white t-shirt. Her complexion was darker than mine, partly due to her exposure to the sun and partly due to genetics. “I can see we’ve got some work to do on strength training, but we’ll save that for another time.” Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed me. I stood at a ready position, my hands in front of me and my body stiff at attention. “We need to work on precision; you’re getting sloppy.”

My eyes followed her as she started to move, but I felt a burning inside. Deep breath in through nose, out through the mouth. She walked to the wall and pulled a katana from the pegs and tossed it to me. I reached out and caught it, whipping it around in a wide arc and then returning to a ready position again. I avoided cringing on the upswing; the hilt was mashing against my bandage, and I felt the wetness of blood as my cut tore open under my gloves.

“You’ll do your entire form with the sword,” she said, arms folded again now, taking one small step at a time, as though she were about to circle me. “Crisp, perfect, and with every attack I had better see the appropriate amount of force.” She waved a hand in the air. “This is an exercise in control. It’s not a butcher’s knife, and it needs to be guided properly.”

I nodded and began my kata. Each move, I tried to focus, tried to keep my eyes on the place where my sword was going. I tuned out the pain, the dull, stabbing feeling that came as I wrapped my hand tight around the hilt. Mother didn’t help; she was hovering, following me around. Three times I turned to deliver my next attack and was forced to deviate as she placed herself in my path.

“Testing your control,” she said, stepping out of the way each time – after I had altered my kata to avoid her. Each move caused me pain, as I held the sword in the hand that wore the bandage. I felt blood dripping down my wrist and into my sleeve. Mother had little tolerance for anything but perfection, and admitting that I had hurt myself might reveal that I had been cleaning with my gloves off – which meant the box, again. I was holding my breath now, as much as possible, trying to bottle up the pain. Beads of sweat rolled down my face in a trickle, and I swore they might have been blood as well, as though the pain were everywhere and the blood was too.

I came to a finish and I heard slow clapping start behind me. I turned my head, still frozen in my last move, sword extended, one of my legs far in front of the other. The clapping was maddeningly slow, like a mocking laugh. She put her hands together over and over, letting seconds hang in the air between each clap.

I felt my face redden, as though the blood that wasn’t running down my arm was rushing to it, felt the heat in the room turned up to twelve. My breathing exercise wasn’t working to purge the emotion anymore; the feeling was too strong. I held myself in place, but I felt my hand shake with the sword in it. I knew my face was betraying me, but I couldn’t hold back the tide of emotions. I let my feet drift back to a closed stance, shoulder-distance apart, and I brought the sword up.

My mother raised an eyebrow, a subtle motion, but she stopped clapping, and she fixated on my sword. “What are you planning to do with that? You know what it means if you point it. It’s not a butcher’s knife, but still you wave it around like—”

I flung the sword, felt the hilt release from my hand with one last sharp stab to my palm, and I heard it hit the wall with a clatter and bounce off as I ran at her. My fists were balled up, my rage coming from deep within, somewhere that a million breaths out through the mouth could never expel. I hissed as I came at her, dropping into a low stance as I readied my first attack. I was not thinking, I had no plan, no intention but to hurt her, to hit her and drive the arrogance out of her, to make her feel the same pain she kept pushing on me. I watched her register surprise just before I landed my first blow, and I knew it would be sweet.

It lost its sweetness as she sidestepped out of the path of my strike, moving so quickly I didn’t even see her do it. She landed a punch to my jaw that caused my head to snap back, and I saw a flash of blackness before I came back to myself. My legs felt like rubber bands that I was trying to stand on, unable to support my weight. She hit me again, this time in the belly, in the solar plexus, and I lost all the wind out of my lungs, expelled in one loud noise – through the mouth. I cradled my stomach as I hit the mat without concern for the cushion I was landing on.

I stared up at the ceiling, still holding my midsection, trying to regain my breath but failing, wheezing. I knew cerebrally that I wasn’t dying of asphyxiation, but it felt like I was, like I couldn’t get enough air to my brain or my body, that I was going to die gasping right there on the mat.