THE SOLITARY SHADOW: OF LOVE LUST AND BLOOD PT. 3

Officer WALTON. I remembered how he celebrated and crowed and pumped his fist with fierce glee over Old Greg's prone, still, bloody, broken body.

The nigh infinite levels of Beat This Fool To Death that I'm about to unleash on Officer Walton, has not been thought until that day...and still hasn't been measured.

I parried a [ comepletely illegal ] really hard downward swing of Officer Walton's baton that would have split the top of my skull open to the brain meat, had I missed the parry. The blow still packed enough power to force me down to my left knee. Seeing me kneel before him, Officer Walton tried to kick my chin off with his right steel toe shod boot...also literally feloniously illegal...but I skillfully and unexpectedly used my left heel to jam his kick at the shin--causing a nasty bruise to rise on the bone [ hematoma style ]-- with a left leg Mkao Osoosi [ miscalled in Brazil a left leg Capoeira Negativa Regional but  I innovatively aapplied it as a kick. It looked this, but I did it with my left leg. The girl in the picture below does it with her right leg.

Officer Walton howled in suprised pain, instinctively tucking his right knee to his chest while his non-baton hand reached down to grab the deep bruise on his bone that my kick just caused while simultaneously hop-limped on his left leg... directly into the nasty right leg upkick I snapped with evil intent to his small intestines [ the intestines are located just below his service belt, just above the groin ], driving him backward two steps and forcing him to do the butt back-bend forward bow toward me like he was giving me a waist deep bow of subservience.

This is an upkick. Imagine this aimed at your pubic hairs instead of your face, and you'll see why the kick messed up Officer Walton's day so bad.

Officer Walton was a good 6 inches taller than me. Now that he'd been driven back a few steps and bent forward at the waist due to his bow, I could risk a quick glance to locate Beans.

Beans was locked in a fight with two teenagers. Beans dropped big Stephon with a slick, hard  Taekwondo switch front kick to the body. The other--Dray--is not only Stephon's younger brother, he's a trained boxer. He slipped Bean's backfist to the temple, slid away from the quick, snapping jump back kick that Beans followed the backfist with. Countered with a hard left hook-right hook combo that bloodied Bean's lip, weaved under Beans' answering ridgehand strike, feinted a quick left hook which Beans reacted to defend, and then landed a swinging overhand right on Beans before Beans could correct his mistake. The overhand right of Dray's staggered Beans and started swelling on his left eye lid.

Beans being occupied gave me the opportunity to deal with Officer Walton.

Officer Walton feinted a [ totally illegal ] thrust with his baton at my head, and when he saw me pull my head back to avoid the feinted thrust, he unleashed a fierce lateral swing--right ear to left ear--at my temple. It was another completely illegal, unapologetically naked, bloodthirsty kill shot without any pretense at being anything else.

I ducked the shot as I hit the Ngoma Ya Udanganyifu..."The Dance of Deception"...which is part of the Nsanga [ miscalled Sanguar by Europeans ] that includes the very improperly named and very improperly executed movement miscalled the "Capoeira ginga". Ngola ( "Ngola" means "Ruler" in the Mbundu language of my people from The Kingdom Ndongo Matamba ) Ginga was a person...not a maneuver. Ngola Ginga was a woman who lived in the middle 1500's, and she was the absolute greatest, smartest supergenius warrior monarch in her era. Bar none.  

My Ngoma Ya Udanganyifu moved me with a rapid, effortless, fluid, flowing grace to my right and below the swinging baton of Officer Walton. Then... without breaking movement... I blended with the right to left motion of Officer Walton's swinging baton, moving under the attack, literally evading and unfurling under Officer Walton's baton attack by turning with the motion of the baton as Officer Walton swung it. From Officer Walton's perspective, I was there and vulnerable to his killing shot one instant, then at the last second before impact I somehow simultaneously moved to my right ,ducked uner the baton and uncoiled to my left... gentle as a ocean wave undulating upon the shores of a sandy beach... into a aesthetically pleasing looking posture combining the beauty of yoga's triangle pose with a sprinter's "loading into the sprinter's starting blocks" posture . From Officer Walton's perspective? I literally disappeared from his line of sight as I put myself in the human body's natural blindspot between the left armpit and left ankle.  

Without stopping my ducking low, flowing leftward movement, I settled  into the Agayu Mountain Pose [ miscalled Esquiva Diagonal ], and swung my right baton with every ounce of power I could muster into the inside of Officer Walton's left knee. I felt Officer Walton's MCL, tendon and bone give and shatter like crystal. Everyone within twenty feet heard the shriek of pure pain Officer Walton gave...

...which I cut off a millisecond later as I...spinning to my left a full 360 degrees like a tornado...stepped into him with a maximum force spinning back fist of a swing of my left baton into his left ear. Burst the ear drum. Fractured his left cheek bone. He dropped without a sound, his baton falling from insensate fingers. I gave not any semblance of a damn. When he went down, a spontaneous, ragged cheer went up from the denizens of the PJs who were safely ensconced in their homes but avidly watching all that was happening.

While Officer Walton was down, I took the bastard's gun from his holster, stood over him. Spit on his face. Aimed at his temple. Cocked the hammer back. The witnesses in The PJs held their breath. Some said: "Don't!" while others said: "Kill his ass! KILL him! They always killin US! And NO!! BODY!!  Cares!"

...I know your grandmother...Don't you do anything that will make her mad or sad...

It was Old Greg's voice in my head. Giving me some Act Right, again.

He killed you, Old Greg! And he'll kill again, if given the chance.

No answer from Old Greg.

But I knew that I was going to obey the last piece of wisdom Old Greg would ever give me.

So I kicked that bastard Officer Walton in his nuts hard enough to rupture a testicle, and stomped on his right ankle. Heard it break. He won't be on these streets again for a year or so. If ever.

I looked up, deciding to help the bruthas fighting Beans, only to see Beans get caught by a jab from Dray--the second teenager, the one who cracked Beans in the face and busted his nose open--then block the hook that Dray followed the jab with. Beans caught Dray with a heel palm to the face, snapping Dray's head so far back that the back of his head touched his spine. Beans fired a hard karate chop at Dray's exposed throat, but at the last instant Dray managed to avoid most of the attack. Only got part of his throat hit, but Beans still raised a welt near his voice box. Hurt, Dray clinched Beans to buy time. 

Mistake. Beans is well versed in Aikido, and Dray literally has no idea what Aikido is. He's a sitting duck. 

I raced to help Dray, but I was not yet half way to them when I saw Beans finish Dray with a wicked iriminage from Aikido ( see below, click the link )

AIKIDO IRIMI NAGE

While Dray lay on the ground, moaning hoarsely and holding his throat, Beans aimed his pistol at the brutha's head.

I raised Officer Walton's gun.

...Don't you do anything that will make her mad or sad...

Fired.

The bullet crashed into the ground next to Beans' foot. That fool...severely startled...liked to have jumped ten feet in the air at the sound and sight of a bullet ricocheting near him. Now he knows how we feel when he does that to us.

Stephon...Dray's brother...had been given time to recover from the brutal switch front kick that Beans had earlier dropped him with. Possessed with intense fury at seeing Beans point a pistol at his downed younger brother, Stephon suddenly, violently crashed into the startled Beans while Beans was still midair. Stephon...6'3" 235 lbs...is a star linebacker for Lincoln High School. He utterly leveled Beans  with a smashing blind side blitz of a hit that caught Beans completely unaware and launched Beans bodily at least 6 feet through the air to smash so violently into the trunks of a brace of trees that I could hear and feel the impact from a dozen paces away. 

Beans limp body tumbled from sight into the grip of myriad scratching slim short leafy branches forming the arms of the bushes in this area.

Stephon helped Dray get to his feet, said something to Dray...I could only pick up:"...alright?" over the din of the general melee...Dray nodded, and Stephon helped him out of the melee toward their house.

Stephon smashing Beans gave me time to dispose of Officer Walton's gun. 

I decided to sling Officer Walton's gun into the bushes. If I held it any longer? I was gonna shoot Beans AND Walton. I knew it in my bones. So I had to get rid of it. Yeah, bushes aren't exactly safe from kids probing them later, but...truth is? Best I could do for right now.

Not giving up the batons, though.

I gave Walton another kick and baton hit to his prone form as I ran by him. With his punk azz.

Seeing the carnage the SDPD was wreaking, and seeing that the brace of cops that I ditched on the other side of the PJs as I began my preliminary run and leaped to the rooftop had rejoined the general melee, I ran into the fray. The cops were too late to note my presence, as they were fully engaged in struggling with the denizens of the Logan's PJ's.

Before they knew it, I was on them. Wielding my two batons like the legendary Samurai Miyomoto Musashi wielding his two katanas.

Technique after technique flew from me.The Kipura technique that we call Nyundo Ond...Spiraling Hammer [ which is similar to the technique Interlacing Cross from the younger Japanese art of the sword, Kendo ] into a wicked storming Nyani Rahisi in a swift low flowing yet staccato groin striking, foot sweeping full spinning assault that started fully standing but was executed very low to the ground...between ankle and calf heigh, below the knee. My flowing, nonstop, unbroken movement flashed into  "Inazunguka Mbele Logi"...Log Spinning Forward aka The Butterfly Roll done correctly for combat, which unleashes a deceptive but devastating array of arcing hand techniques [ armed club strikes for me in this case ] along with arcing kicks; all done midair. The genius of this technique is that it literally allows me to engage up to 6 men at a time.

Launched and hit hard with 4 shots landing cleanly on sensitive parts of the body, putting 4 corrupt cops down for the count. Landed  light as a feather. I smiled. That was a helluva technique!...

...got tackled HARD and blown totally off of my feet while I was stupidly congratulating myself.  Both of my batons flew hither and yon from my surprised fingers, dammit. Got Slammed. Not "slammed". I mean Slammed... capital "S", followed by me involuntarily grunting a guttural "WHOOOFF!!!" and "OW!!"...into the trunk of a tree which exacted its tithe of flesh from my back, then the cop slammed me unceremoniously to the concrete. Cocked his steel toe boot back to do The Honky Tonk Stomp on my head. 

Nah, pardner. That's not how this here barn dance goes.

He stomped but I moved. Kicked his foot out from under him just as his stomping foot was about to touch the ground. Startled, he executed a compleyely involuntary splits as he threw his arms out for balance, vainly pinwheeling them as he fell to the ground. In a animal survival instinctive attempt to avoid busting his head open on the concrete, he threw out his arm to stop his fall...and I caught him full force in the temple with the signature kick of Kipura, The Nusu Duara...the Half Circle Kick.. which the Brazilian "Capoeiristas" call the Meia Lua de Compasso. The Half Moon Kick. The kick banged his head [ and mouth, loosening and scattering his teeth in bloody ivory bit  fracturing his jaw as he bounced ] off the concrete...breaking bones, dislocating his jaw...and he was officially in Snoreville.

The kick brought me back to my feet...just to get grappled and slammed AGAIN. What the hell izzit with people trying to slam me, anyways? I turned the slam onto concrete into a sacrifice throw known as Kutupa Kuelekea Kona..."Throwing Towards The Corner"...Sumi Gaesha aka The Corner Throw in Judo. The cop who set upon me was tossed a clean 8 feet through the air, easy. Would have gone farther, but he crashed into two of his onrushing coworkers.

Up to my feet, starting running away. Didn't get grappled or slammed this time. Good. 

Saw a cop choking a kid...LeDarius. I don't even like that fool. He's a loudmouth braggart, bully, very small time weed dealer who makes it seem like he's the biggest dealer in the PJ's, weed smoker, and he's the kind of teenager who tries to convince eleven year old girls to have sex with him. Can't stand that fool. But even punkass LeDarius didn't deserve to have a PR-24 baton used in a very very illegal chokehold across his carotid and Adam's apple crushing the life giving blood and oxygen pathways that fed his brain. He was sliding into unconsciousness, and the cop was straining with his choke so hard that you could see his face purpling from the effort. He was going to kill LeDarius by continuously applying the chokehold. 

I had a ten meter run at this cop's back, and kicked him as hard as I could in his unprotected, unsuspecting testicles.

He instantly released LeDarius who slumped unconscious and bloody to the ground. The cop howled extremely loud, and mid howl he interrupted himself with projectile vomit. Sagged to the ground. Passed out.

I better check on LeDarius to be sure that he's alive. If that sorry no good jerk LeDarius wakes up, though, I'll knock him out myself. Still don't like him. Lumps on his throat where the baton was crushing his left carotid artery means that he's got hematomas that compromise the blood flow to his brain and...

... Slipped a punch, countered with a West Coast 52 Blocks version of Skull n Crossbones. Got hit...hard...from my rear left flank. Saw stars on that one.   Finished my attacker with Kenpo's Sword and Hammer. That's a cold blooded chop to the carotid followed by a nasty mcnasty hammer fist to the exposed testicles. 

Ducked a baton swing. Countered with kichwa cha kondoo mume, a wicked  head butt modeled after the charge and clash of rams. Caught this guy in the clavicle-neck-jaw region. Had to jump upward because he's taller than me, but that's fine as it amplified the violent momentum of my head butt. Dipped another baton swing, disarmed the cop with a particularly painful and devious serpentine wrist twist...a highly effective technique from my family's Njia Uhuru Kipura taught by the female Orisha Nana Buruku.  Took the cop out of action by literally snapping his wrist bone and face planting him on the concrete followed by a merciless stomp to the back of his skull. This guy was good friends with Officer Walton who killed Old Greg, so fuck him every whichaways.  Bonus: this technique let me snatch his baton from out of his grip. ..

...Just in time to parry another baton strike aimed very illegally at the crown of my head. I executed the infamous "Defanging The Snake" concept from Kali and originally from the Afrikan Montu [ "Montu" refers to all the fighting arts of Afrika, like "karate" is a general term for all the fighting arts of Japan ] combined with a wrestling overhook. In close, I gave him a good ole nasty straight from the streets knee to the nuts, and a soccer aka international football style headbutt. Down he went.

Got hit hard by another cop then his partner pushed me hard against a tree...not The Big Tree. Tried to pin me there with his forearm across my throat as he jammed his pistol into my stomach and pulled the trigger. In one move, I used a Njia Uhuru Snake technique from the beautiful and deadly Orisha known as Osun to side step the close quarters pistol shot, disarm the cop with Defanging the Snake and counter with the West Coast 52 Blocks version of the East Coast 52 Blocks [ Modern boxing, 52 Blocks, Jailhouse Rock, Kickin and Knockin and the entire system of Kali are all parts of KANDEKA, a subcategory of skills in the art of Kipura from Kongo and thus part of my family's art of Njia Uhuru Kipura ] technique called BUM RUSH, dropping both cops. Got tackled by another cop...swear tuh God if another one of these fools succeed in tackling me, there's gonna be hell to pay... trying to use the nearly 170 pounds advantage of his 280 pounds and his full one foot advantage on me to crush me into oblivion. Pinned my batons. I released them, spit in his eye, bit his throat. He bellowed. Judo reversed him with a bridge and roll, snatched his baton and put him to sleep with a chop of the baton to his carotid. Ducked a baton swing while I was still mounted on the downed cop,  hit the Njia Uhuru Kipura Nyekundi Ya Tai [ "Red Falcon"; it got its name because of the cartwheeling-front aerialing mating dance of the Red Falcons/Red Kites; this skill requires the combat application of a special kind of gymnastic skill called a "front aerial"....although the Njia Uhuru Kipura Nyekundi Ya Tai could call for any variation of "aerial", depending on the situation. ] But unlike the sportive gymnastic skill, which is done on an open floor or gymanstic apparaturs...this skill must be executed while locked in a nasty anything goes close quarters dog fight with one or more opponents trying to hurt you. An "aerial", by the way, is a cartwheel done with no hands. And in this case, I had to add a arcing heel kick to the unsuspecting neck of one cop. The move looked like I added a sports gymnastics "Scale with Hand Support" to my aerial.

What I did looked like a much more difficult, much more combative version of the difficult skill this beautiful gymnast below executed with such grace beauty and power, that she makes it look effortless. That mess IS HARD!! I can't tell you how many times I fell like a dork, twisted my ankle like a doofus, or almost crushed any chance of having kids by nearly busting open my own testicles on this beam despite the groin guard, while trying to learn the combative version of this skill by first refining my balance on the balance beam with the front scale arabesque:

Then going for the gusto with this skill below

 Doing that skill on a balance beam is plenty hard enough. But trust me when I say it's a gazllion times  harder when somebody is up in your face, jostling you about with multiple opponents trying very hard to kill you ] over the follow through kick. 

Blocked another baton strike. Countered. Scored to the knee of my opponent but as he fell he got a shot off at my wrist that made me leap and twist...releasing my baton...to avoid the area covered and aimed at by the pointing barrel and thus evade the bullet. Snagged both my original batons as I hit a Njia Uhuru Kipura "Inazunguka Nyani"...a Reversao Role in the Cardio Capoeira of Brasil...on the ground.  Finished that cop with the Ngao Na Upanga...Shield And Sword...a cold blooded technique that is similar to but much older than Kenpo's technique of the same name in the way that a Cruise Missile is similar to a pebble fired from a slingshot.

For a hot second, I had a space of about 3 feet between me and the nearest cop, who warily had his baton up and was backing away, trying to get a chance to draw his gun. I pounced on him before he could do so, and swept him off of his feet with the Njia Uhuru Kipura Ufagio Ya Nguvu...The Power Sweep. Both of his feet leaped off of the ground, positioning him precariously and terrifyingly in a 6PM position. His feet pointing directly at the sky as if the sky were the 12 on the face of the clock, and his head pointing directly at the concrete. His feet and head were in a perfectly straight line, so if his feet was at 12, his head was at 6.  He clocked his head hard on the ground, never expecting such a move from me.

I had him dead to rights for the stomp to his face when...POW!!

A bullet tore a bit of flesh off of my right shoulder. Blood dribbled down my back. Surprise. Pain.

Dammit. Dropped BOTH batons. Gotta keep moving so the next shot doesn't kill me.

Even through the pain, though, I noted that I got grazed and whoever is shooting is definitely a good shot.

Then I saw him.

BEANS again!!

I should have shot him, Old Greg!!

I got the hell outta there before he got off another shot. And here he comes in avid pursuit, his blood up, his eyes sparkling with murderous wrath.

This time, nobody had an assembled group of cops who'd managed to almost catch us by complete surprise because somebody in the PJ's betrayed us. I took off like a rocket, and Beans found out right away that I'm faster than he is. We'd only gone 100 yards with me hitting corners at canny instances, preventing Beans from ever getting a straight clear shot on me, and I was already disappearing on him.

On the other hand? Beans has ludicrous stamina. Despite everything that's happened thus far, that fool wasn't even breathing hard. I, on the other hand, was definitely less fresh than he was. Plus, to add to my discomfiture, my sweat was causing my bullet wound to sting a lot.

Soon it was just me and Beans. Beans had stopped firing indiscriminately because he knew he'd soon run out of bullets...and the denizens of the Logan PJs are armed. They'd like nothing better than to catch him without ammo or with just a few clips to reload as they avenged the atrocities he committed against us by goring Beans with their fully automatic weaponry.

As a result, Beans ever more carefully navigated the Logan PJ's, which gave me time to lay an ambush for him [ that Kipura Udanganyifu miscalled by slave merchants in Brasil the "Capoeira Malicia" coming through for me, again ].

I was waiting in a tiny copse of bushes and trees amongst the trees and bushes and grassy paths forming the outskirts of the Logan PJ's.  If he wanted my scalp...and he wanted my scalp so bad he probably had a throbbing erection right now...

 Time to say:" Pause!!"  ( https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Paused ) ...

Anywho, he didn't have any choice but to emerge from a specific path that is the only path allowing egress from the PJ's in this area. 

Slowly, suspiciously, cannily, he began to emerge from the parking structure of the Logan PJ's and walk exactly to where I wanted him to be.

 And I had him dead to rights in my sights. Despite the burning pain of the grazing gun shot...in fact, fired all the more furiously because of it...I had a heavy 3 pound rock in my hand, round and smooth like Nature decided to craft a miniature cannonball. Despite the pain of the glancing bullet wound? This suited me down to the ground. As a former lead pitcher for my Little League and Pony League baseball team? I had heat with the fastball, knuckledrop change up and slider. 

[ "Having heat" means that I throw my pitches so fast that the baseball literally heats up from the velocity of my throws. ]

This rock had RAS' REVENGE written all over it...and I planned to throw it so hard into Beans' grill that those words--RAS' REVENGE--would tattoo themselves indelibly upon Beans' face, break through his facial bones and stamp themselves through his brain, burst out the back of his skull, and use his gray matter to hit up a Wild Style graffiti art mural printing:" RAS' REVENGE" on the outer skin of the walls of the apartments behind Beans.

Examples of Wild Style graffiti art:

 I hid myself like a ninja in the immediate underbrush and shrubbery, waiting for Beans to walk himself directly into what I planned to be a mercilessly homicidal fastball of a throw. Even though I was only 15, my fastball was routinely clocked at 72 miles per hour. I figure...even with the gun shot injury compromising my throwing mechanics...that I could throw this mini-medicine ball of a rock at about 45 miles per hour with no problem.

 But like I said...Beans was canny. 

He instinctively knew something was amiss. He wouldn't take the last couple of steps that would clear him passed the lone car--an old skool steel piece of art called a Mark IV--that was well maintained and parked in this parking lot. Instead, Beans used the vehicle for cover while scanning the open parking lot--gun at the ready,swinging skillfully about in flat smooth arcs as he perused his environs. 

 If he keeps staying there, some of the SDPD guys I'd nailed earlier will recover enough to catch up to us. They weren't permanently taken out of the hunt...

 I'd moved to better see the canny adjustments that Beans made and to improve my position. Now I perched behind a triple row of trees shrubbery bushes and rock that began ten yards into a wide field of grass that separated Beans and I by about 40-50 yards.

Nobody would damage or try to steal the car that Beans was using for cover, either. That ride belonged to Big Maniac...old skool ganxta and triple O.G. drug dealer. That's why I wasn't chancing the throw. I felt pretty confident--but not absolutely sure--that I would be able to hit Beans from this distance, even while he hid behind Maniac's car. But when it came to Big Maniac? Pretty confident wasn't gonna cut it. I wasn't gonna risk startin nuthin with Big Maniac for any kind of money or anything like that if I could avoid it at all...

  ...flash of movement about 20 paces behind Beans. 

 ...damn! SDPD again...!

  Wrong. Thank God. Oh waitaminnit...this is worse!

 I saw the boy in his early teens with the Molotav cocktail a split second before Beans would. Even from this distance I recognized Calvin, little Sammy's older brother, and the rage that sent him flying after Beans seeking vengeance...and which would get him shot dead before he got in range to throw his Molotav.

 Dammit!!

The split second I saw Calvin, I stepped out into the open--a direct line of sight shot for Beans to shoot me or me to nail him with my rock--and in the same instant I stepped into the open, I was already firing my rock in a frozen rope of a throw that deliberately--but narrowly--went wide of Beans. In the same motion, I hit a lateral side roll into the bushes on the opposite side [ getting a good shock of pain from my bullet wound, plus scratched by brambles and little sharp rocks hidden by the grass for my troubles ]. Beans was initially swivelling to shoot down Calvin in cold blood, but my sudden appearance caught his attention and the rock I threw flashed so close to his skull that he had to throw himself out of its way. Of course, he didn't know that I deliberately fired wide in order to force him to engage me over Calvin...

 My ruse worked. Beans saw me and immediately fired off a double tap--both missed, although one bullet tugged at and busted open one of my belt loops--and then he had to dodge my SECOND rock. This second rock forced him to engage me yet again instead of merely shooting down Calvin right after he shot at me.

I shouted: "You missed me again, you sheep raping ass!" Then gave him both middle fingers while firing my hips in pelvic thrusts at him. "Come get some!"

Beans got so angry that I thought he would turn into the Incredible Hulk Ku Klux Klansman Cop right there. 

He came after me in avid, blinding hateful pursuit...and in so doing? He raced away from Calvin...thus removing himself for the nonce from any possibility of Calvin's vengeance and saving Calvin from being killed by one of Beans' bullets.

That precious few seconds was all that Tracy needed to flash full tilt--her howling 400 meter speed on full display--into Calvin's unprotected flank. Calvin was completely and totally caught off guard, as he was so homicidally focused upon Beans that tunnel vision had set in. He was knocked reeling--arms pin wheeling--to his left, the Molotov flying from his surprised fingers. SPLAT fell Calvin directly to the ground and rolled a couple of times for good measure.  Preston aka P-Rock...my best friend...swooped on the downed Calvin like a diving falcon. From years of very close friendship [ not THAT close! Stop thinking like that! ], he knows how I think and he'd long gleaned what I was attempting to do.  

Himself a skilled and seasoned martial artist, Preston clamped a paralyzing half nelson hold on Calvin before Calvin knew what was going on, then effortlessly dragged Calvin literally kicking and screaming from the field of battle, back to Calvin's apartment where his parents locked him into their embrace for his safety.

 As Beans barreled at me, I stop thrusting my pelvis like I was a Black and much more coordinated, rhythmic Elvis Presley [ his wooden hip gyrations SUCK!! Yeah, I said it, whatcha gonna do bout it? Thought so. Hahaha ] and ran like a rabbit; taking care to be just on the edge of Beans' vision. I was a shadow, a fleet phantom just maddeningly beyond reach. Merely a glimpse here, a quick movement there...but it was enough to feed and fan the killing passion welling up in Beans. He came after me with total abandon. 

 I immediately flashed through the winding backways of the apartment complex, guilefully hitting corners just as Beans thought he was chasing me on a straightaway and could draw a bead on me with his gunfire. After a bewildering race and chase that would have confounded the Minotaur of Crete, I flashed right by the areas I needed...the untended wild broad swath of bushes trees and brush separating the Logan PJs from The Cuts. What I was looking for was cunningly hidden by the twenty foot high trees and thick brush; so well hidden that you couldn't see it unless you knew where to look.

 Amidst this literal miniature urban forestland were a brace of steel encased, 8 foot tall electrical generators that serviced both the Logan PJs and aspects of this electric grid in this area of San Diego. 

 That's why I came here...it's a terrific hiding place. And an even better place for an ambush than my first ambush site was. 

 Ignoring the horrific acidic smell of old urine [ from the homeless people who occasionally slept near these warm generators and of course pissed and crapped here too ] I ensconced myself amongst the generators, taking care not to step into any old or new urine stain pools.

 The Towers loomed about 600 meters away, with only the First Tower fully constructed,the Second Tower mostly finished, and the monstrous Third Tower  [ barely more than a huge tower with a completed outer facade but a 3/4 unfinished interior complete with uncarpeted hallways, almost entirely unfleshed out apartments, and completely exposed wiring ] swiftly becoming a casualty to downtown politics. Nobody wanted to create adequate housing for homeless struggling poor working Black and Latino folks barely making 20k annually when those millions could be syphoned off to needy families in the lily white suburbs making an average of 480k per year. Lily white families...who also voted in motivated, consistent, conservative blocs. So the Third Tower swiftly became a place where kids played hide n seek, homeless people and winos squatted, kids snuck off to so they can have sexual trysts, drug dealers frequented to ply some of their trade...

 ...and because of Darius? It was rumored to be haunted. Cannot think of Darius, I berated myself. Control, slow down and shallow your breathing. Focus. 

Summoning my Alkebulan [ one of the correct, indigenous names that my ancestors have for our continent which the Romans incorrectly named "Africa" ] warrior lessons, technique and discipline, I entered the "akili iliyolenga" [ "Focused mind" in the language of Swahili from ALKEBULAN miscalled Africa ] mindstate. This is how I neutralized the gunshot pain for the rest of the night...although I would pay for doing so in the morning. This same akili iliyolenga granted me a temporary "heightened perception" like the kind reported by Marijuana smokers due to the cerebral impact of the chemical THC. In this heightened state? It was impossible for me to fail to note the patch of Yarrow grass-weed...which I would have never noticed in my regular mind state... growing wild, fragrant and untamed in this area. Yarrow not only smelled good and added spice to foods, it also slowed and even stopped bleeding. 

Slowly. Smoothly. Carefully. I quietly snatched up 3 handfulls of Yarrow, applied it to my bleeding injury by packing it over the wound. It stung, and I would have grunted or made some kind of noise indicating how unpleasant and painful this experience was...had I not entered Akili Iliyolenga. The Yarrow? Slowed my bleeding considerably. My training and discipline?  Slowed my breathing to 1 breath per minute. Within moments, I was one with the breeze, the trees, the westering sunfire and the silent shadows gathering around me.

Beans showed up, bursting out of the reeds trees and brush about 12 yards in front of me and to my left. He was scanning the swath of urban forestland intently. He was a good hunter; the bastard. He began to decipher the trail I left for him, followed it slowly right to where I wanted him to be. His back was to me as he intently scrutinized the earth for clues. Agonizing minutes crept past.

And then he'd followed the trail until he was a straight shot in front of me. I could nail him without moving a centimeter from where I was cunningly hidden.

Nail him with what, you ask? Nail him with these here miniature assegai spear heads I have strapped to a handcrafted pouch and tied to the underside of my left wrist, that's what. These magnificent mini-spear heads were crafted with marvelous skill and care by hand since the day of Shaka Zulu, carefully matched to hand crafted pouches specially made for the assegai by Master Crafters in Zululand...in South Alkebulan... and Kenya a West Alkebulan country in Alkebulan miscalled Africa. 

These assegai were specifically made for me by some of my Zulu family members, who were also master practitioners of the fighting systems, the crafts and skills of Old Zululand. My assegai heads were perfectly weighted for throwing, three times as sharp as most throwing knives...with twice the range to boot. I usually use my shuriken [ which I have strapped to a matte black rectangular pouch on my right wrist ] for most throwing work. It's easier to replace them and I have 240 of them. But I needed to be sure that Beans didn't and couldn't come back from our business together. This was the end of the line for him. So the fatally keen assegai heads were the weapon for this business. 

I hunkered in the shadow like a ninja assassin. Even though I already chose the far nore lethal assegai for this work, he was so unaware of my exact location that I could nail him with a deadly shuriken throw from right here...

Then that voice again: 

I know your grandmother!... I knew your father when he was a boy!... I knew your mother before she met your father...Don't you do nuthin that'll make them mad or sad...

 My hand froze on my mini-assegai for a fraction of a second. A fateful fraction of a second.

 POW!! Semiautomatic gunfire. POW!! POW!!

  Sudden, terrified ulalating screams raised from the Logan PJs behind us and to our left.

 POW!! POW!! POW!!

  The sound of SDPD gunfire ringing in the distance.

 Brrrraaat!!! A new staccato snarl entered this impromptu fugue.  Automatic machine gun response. 

The people in The Logan PJs were fighting fire with fire...and breaking out the high powered fully automatic weapons. The extended staccato snarl of AK-47's punctuated by the growling rage of shotguns rose to flail the skies.

Beans looked back at the sound, venomous anger spreading even more poison hate across his visage than usual.

 "Officers down, officers down! They're swarming us!!" the voice crackled across the radio Beans had clipped to the flap on his right shoulder. "Back up needed ASAP!"

Beans snarled. Then spun back to address the swath of brush to my left.

"I know you hear me, nigger! You're never getting away from me, you hear me you fuckin jungle bunny gorilla face shit stain?! You're fuckin dead when I see you again! Hear me?! Fuckin DEAD!!"

Then he sprinted back toward the Logan PJs to help his comrades.

You ain't killin nobody, foo! I mentally railed at him. [ Not fooL with a "L". Nope, I said: "foo!" ]

For a long, hot second I considered going back to The Logan PJs. My heart was powerfully pulled in that direction. Tracy. Shy-Shy. Old Greg. P-Rock. 

And then I realized that Beans was probably lying in wait...ready to ambush me for just such a move. So...hell naw. 

 I crept out the other way, heading toward The Cuts. For a second, I toyed with the idea of using some of my more unusual methods of circumnavigating such dooficity by Beans and returning to the PJs anyway. I felt in my heart a dread certainty that something horrible was happening there, and I needed to stop it.

 But Old Greg's voice in my head brooked no quarter. There was no gainsaying him. Not today, anyway.

So I thread noiselessly through the trees and mini-forest, leaving no imprint of my passing as I glided dark and silent as tree shadows across the grass and earth. I was going to take the labyrinthine unmarked paths and streets and canyonways of The Cuts back toward Big Mama's house.

 I barely entered The Cuts when I realized I was being followed by something bad.

Yep, I was being followed alright. And whoever it was? They weren't good at it. They were more angry than stealthy, and that fouls up your stealth...especially when your stealth sucked in the first place. My tail failed STALKERS 101 in almost every way. That's how I knew it wasn't Beans or Mike Mike trying to get some gitback. They didn't suck at stalking.

But even from this distance, I could feel the anger emanating from whoever was back there. That right there is a bad sign. I don't know who I could've pissed off to that degree. I must remember to ask about that while I'm beating that ass.

How did I learn all this stuff? This is yet another display of Udanganyifu, the most important Principle in my family's fighting and human development system that we call Njia Uhuru Kipura. "Njia Uhuru" is a Swahili language slang shortening of the formal title of my family's art: "Njia Ya Kupata Uhuru Kwa Kipura"..."The Way of Getting Freedom With Kipura". But since that's a mouthful? We shortened it to "Njia Uhuru Kipura"."Kipura's Way of Freedom", or...."The Way of Freedom" Kipura. Like I said before...Kipura is the old skool deadly full human development system from Kongo that for at least 1,600 years spawned hundreds of legends, and amazed the world in the process. Njia Uhuru Kipura is mh family's modernized version of Old Skool OG Kipura from The Empire of Kongo.

"Udanganyifu" is a Swahili term which translates literally as "Fraud, Deception" etc. But that is not its actual meaning in Kipura. Udanganyifu is the creative, effective, oftentimes [ but not always ] unorthodox application of every bit of knowledge that we [ you and I and everyone else ] have accumulated in our lives...both what we learned on our own and what you learned from any and every other teacher, parent, friend, enemy, faith, occurrence etc. in our lives...applied with every ounce of functionality, practicality,  guile, original creativity, cleverness and intelligence that we can produce to achieve a particular goal.

My Udanganyifu is what alerted me to the high probability that Beans was waiting to shoot me if I tried to double back to The Logan PJs. Bit my Udanganyifu is more. than like a Ghetto Spider Sense. Studying the lessons of the ancients and various gods of Alkebulancombined with modern studies executed from.the perspective of and with the wealth of knowledge from Alkebulan drastically enhanced and altered the benefits of Udanganyifu. 

In modern European psychology lingo, Udanganyifu is a mental discipline combining meditation, autohypnosis,rigorous study in spiritual and science fields, all uniquely rooted in a brilliantly synergistic holistic focused and cutting edge combination of Kinesthetic Intelligence, Fluid Intelligence and several other facets that befuddle the European cultural capacity to grasp...like Ka, Ba, Akh, etc studies and the lessons of gods like the Igbo gods Ikenga and Amadioha, Ausette miscalled Isis by the Greeks, Seshat, Sekhmet, Bast. Orisha like Eshu, Anansi, Olukun, Yemaya. Nzamb, Mbombo and Mbokomo of Kongo,  etc etc. 

Truth is? Neither European psychology or any non-Alkebulan approach has a chance of grasping the subtleties of the Alkebulan mind. Zero.

Yo. Trust me. Udanganyifu? Is both a Ancestors and modern thing that you gotta start studying since birth. It's madd helpful, yo. And? It helps thoroughly round you out and develop you as a human being into a much better person. Helps you massacre tests in school. Kill stress. Great for sex...though I haven't gotten to test that old saying out, yet. Udanganyifu? Helps you instantly analyze adapt to and manipulate situations. Craft on the spot functional yet creative solutions. Harmonizes you deeply with yourself and thus allows you to sync all the better and more with Life all around you.

Plus? Madd helpful when shaking White Supremacists dressed up as cops! 

Udanganyifu had me leading the police officers away from most of my friends to the other side of the apartment complexes, up two stories and stranding them there while I doubled back to help Tracy at The Big Tree. Udanganyifu sussed out not only the presence of my followers, Udanganyifu informed every stratagem, tactic, and even the verbal barbs that I use...like the way I outstratagized, outmaneuvered then verbally clowned Samir from the store, and Mike Mike on the b-ball court.

Now this next part that I'm about to do is pretty hard to do, but I had to do it anyway. I had to not let the bad guy know I knew he was back there--that ain't especially hard--but I had to do it in a way where I could track him and not let him kill me. And make that look like I'm doing what I naturally do. All at the same time. Udanganyifu makes this possible, too.

So I kept trotting--keeping the exact same pace that I set when I entered The Cuts after fleeing The Logan PJs. I would occasionally make a show of getting ready to look behind me [ the bad guy would think I'm checking to make sure Beans wasn't there but in reality I was trying to trick the bad guy into thinking that I didn't know that he was there ] and then look. Make a show of listening carefully. Then jogging away again, this time a little slower. 

This is how I saw a bit of a dark emerald jacket peeking out from one tree. A black baseball cap attached to the slightly jutting noggin protruding out from another. The edge of a shoe extending just a shade too much from the tree across from Black Baseball Cap. Curly hair...bangs?...rippling in the wind near Black Beanie. And a couple more tell tale signs. There was a team of at least 7 people following me. 

Usually? When you think of seven people working together? You think of a crew with a cool name, like they have in the movies. The Magnificent Seven. Seven Samurai.  The Seven Servants. Seven...that joint with Bruce Willis. Guns of The Magnificent Seven. Even Snow White had Seven Dwarfs. This crew of  seven nincompoops [ gimme a +1 for using the word "nincompoop" ] and screw ups were nothing like the aforementioned cool Sevens. They're more like...The Sucktastic Seven. The Stupid Seven. 

Now I'm pretty sure as to the identity of my pursuers, but "pretty sure" won't cut it. "Pretty sure" can get me just as dead as messing with OG Big Maniac's car. 

So. I repeated the whole thing again about fifty yards further...and slowed my jog away from The Logan PJs. Jog. Make a show of getting ready to turn and look behind me, then listen. Jog slower than when I started...like I was feeling more and more safe because I was becoming more and more sure that I wasn't being followed. Giving my stalkers false confidence in the illusion that I hadn't noted their presence, and was slowly letting my guard down.

 My stalkers were getting my pattern now; which meant that they would strike at any time. 

The fourth time I stopped and looked behind me? I made a show of listening longer and more carefully than usual. They thought I heard nothing but I heard them shuffle into a stop by a small copse of trees about 15 yards away. Some remained standing, but I heard a few crouch low, unintentionally rustling the foliage in so doing. I could see Black Beanie peeking a bit out from the backside of the tree he was hiding behind, too.

Amatuers, I tell ya. I say, I say...AMATUERS, I tells ya! 

This time I make a show of listening and scanning my surroundings very intently for several long breaths. During this time, the wind brought to me the sounds of their inexpert stumbling halting of shuffling feet [ 2 guys two my left in the small copse of trees, standing tall and vainly pressing themselves into the trunks of the slim trees in the copse in a failed attempt to conceal themselves from me ], the wind brought me the "sshhh" sound of a brace of 4 people sloppily crouching behind shrubbery [ which they unknowingly jostled, giving away their exact location ] and of course Black Beanie trying and failing to fart silently while he crouched behind a tree...not knowing that he left his butt hangin out the backside of the tree. The wind also brought to my nostrils the pungent scent of cow manure wafting to me from the direction of E.C.C., which is the direction I was heading.

Me being me? That scent gave me another idea for more trickery to unleash upon The Stupid Seven.

Having decided on this fresh chicanery to unleash on them, I make a slightly exaggerated show of breathing a sigh of relief and muttering to myself [ but loud enough to be heard by The Sucktastic Seven ]:"Got away clean..." and walking--not jogging--walking away and to my left into a natural allee of trees that spilled out into the backside pathways a half mile or so above E.C.C.--The Educational Cultural Complex--and the city library. A  mile ahead and below us was the front of E.C.C., basking in the gloaming shadows of night slashed with halogen street lights.

                                                 THE FRONT OF E.C.C. DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS

From somewhere up ahead, the sound of "Green Sleeves"--the classical music played by many ice cream trucks and recognized in hoods across the nation as the Ice Cream Man's Song [ CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A QUICK RENDITION OF THE ICE CREAM MAN'S SONG ]--floated up to me. The irony is? This song is a very racist song. It's original title is: "NIGGERS LOVE A WATERMELON, HA HA HA!"  Released in March, 1916, by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Brown. The song played on the familiar depiction of Black people as mindless beasts of burden greedily devouring slices of watermelon. When I spread this fact to the ice cream trucks and the kids in our neighborhoods, all except two ice cream trucks stopped playing the song. One truck was driven by Javier who mostly serviced Latin kids, and was racist towards us Afrikan Americans. The other truck was driven by Mr. Reggie, a Black man. But Mr. Reggie was about 70 years old, and too set in his ways to change.

Of course Krazy-K knew about this, too. I heard others tell him the information which I told them. But he hated me so much, that anything I approve of...he instantly disapproved of. So he still linked that song with ice cream.

 Improvising on the spot, I seized on this opportunity provided by the passing ice cream trunk and its cheery hella racist jingle to manipulate my stalkers into falling hook line and sinker into my Udanganyifu inspired chicanery.

"I'm still hungry! Didn't eat all my sodas and Snickers! Lemme go buy some ice cream right quick!" I made a show of muttering to myself loud enough for my stalkers to hear me, then I took off running. My stalkers had to either give up the chase or break into a sprint behind me to try to keep me in range. 

I flashed my 4.5 and under elite speed in the forty yard dash with a quick burst about 8 yards down the alley and--instead of following the steep but short 5 foot drop that the natural path took on its winding way down to the library and The E.C.C.--I dipped into the sheltering trees. Saw a thick sawed off stump of a tree branch about half as thick as a man's chest and length equivalent to the average man's shoulder span. Thick and broad like a half shield. I could tell that this branch used to be part of the trunk of a tree, but had been chopped and chainsawed into its current configuration during the twice annual trimming and pruning that the city does up here. 

If the city remembers that we exist, which happens maybe twice a generation. Mostly during the "lets tax the Negroes, Latins and Samoans even more unfairly than usual" spasms they have, twice per generation.  

Anyway. I saw the partial stump. Seized that mickey-fickey with a roguish grin playing on my lips. Tossed it into the branches of the mid sized tree above me. Then...like a stalking jaguar...I glided up the trunk and branchoes of my selected mid-sized tree.

I selected this mid-sized tree because [ Udanganyifu at work again ] I noted that this tree was set dead center in the second of five rows of tree trunks flanking the path I and The Spoogetastic Seven were on. This tree stood about basketball rim height or a little taller...10 to 11 feet...some twelve feet off the trail. In this way, the shadows and elevated height of the trees would afford me a good look at my pursuers while being well shielded from their first attempts to spot me.

Sure enough, my Seven Supremely Senseless Stalkers came hustling around the corner. Sloppy. In so much of a hurry to catch me that it's clear that they never would have even considered that I might be laying a trap for them. 

Like so.

I waited until all seven slackers were on the trail, eyes focused with tunnel vision intensity on the streets ahead where the ice cream truck was. They were plainly trying to get to the end of the trail where they would have a visual vantage point untrammeled by the girth of tree trunks and the expanse of leaf crowned multi-limbed trees to see where I went.

Never gave them a chance. 

I executed a technique called KUBWA DUARA in Swahili but in English it's known as a Gymnastics Skill called "Giant Swings" done on the uneven bars. The Yarrow hadn't had enough time to fully done its job of healing me yet. Sharp burn from the grazing bullet wound magma flowing its way down my back to my fingertips as I did so, but moments later my Akili Iliyolenga compartmentalized and reduced the pain to nothing. This KUBWA DUARA skill has been performed in life and death scenarios and other real life survival situations for millennia on the Nature crafted gymnastic apparatuses of the Natural World. Trees, cliffs, horns, limbs and other protuberances of animals and jungle flora. Etc. Etc. There was no Gymnastic Code for points, etc. There was only: do it right and you live. Fail and you die. Needless to say? Afrika crafted the world's first hypercompetent survival acrobats, and her blood still runs through the literal greatest gymnasts of all time. Like Simone Biles. In the Swahili language, these skills were called Harakati Sarakasi Ujuzi. Acrobatic Movement Skills. They include the entirety of a much much much much more stringent set of skills that were later watered down by European observers and sporting enthusiasts into what is now known worldwide as "PARKOUR". Looong before the word "Parkour" broke onto the worldstage, we kids from the hood had been doing it for fun as part of our cultural expressions. Unbeknownst to us, we were continuing the cultural imperatives transmitted to us from Kongo and all of Afrika.

 There was also a deadly serious reason to play and practice like this: the police and their dogs...as well as ferocious neighborhood dogs...would chase us. Capture meant being mauled...sometimes to death...by the police dogs. I said "dogs". Plural. They'd set DOGS on us. Just like back in the days of colonial slavery. And oftentimes we were shot and/or beaten to death by the police. AFTER the dogs mauled us. Therefore, these amazing aesthetic acrobatic abilities were infused with the highest levels of functional performance requirements and dipped within that uniquely Afrikan American stylistic scrumptious swagalicious aesthetic which gave rise to Kipura, Breakin [ miscalled "Breakdancing" by White media back in the day ], all forms of hiphop dance, Krunk, Stompin, etc etc. 

Okay. Endeth the sermon.

 As I reached the lowest part of the arcing Giant Swing...I released the tree limb I swung from. This distance I had to travel as I executed an acrobatic skill called in gymnastiics a "full layout" was twice that of the elite gymnast working skills on the Uneven Bars you see in the gif I provided. Why was the distance twice as long? Because friggin trees are way friggin bigger than gymnastic apparatuses are, that's why. So anyway, like I was saying...I executed a full out lay out and snared the lower limb of the tree immediately abutting the dirt trail like it was nothing to do that skill. Swung with all the speed and power I could muster and kicked the crap out of the two guys at the rear of the line of runners in The Sucktastic Seven. Without stopping, I used the moment of my swing to allow me to swing over the lowest tree limb, release, twirl gracefully in midair back toward the second tree that I started the Giant Swings on, snare that tree limb. [ Look at this gif below, and imagine a person KICKING YOU at the part where the girl does the splits with her legs on the lower bar, then continuing up to return to the higher bar as this girl does. That's what I did with my KUBWA DUARA in the trees...except my bars were tricky tree limbs, the distances between my tree limb-bars were more than twice the distances between hers, and I had to duck and block a couple of tree limbs while I was flying midair because they were obstructing the path between my two chosen tree limb-bars ].

I then clambered atop the second tree-limb/bar, grabbed the stout sawed off shield-like tree stump/tree limb thing I espied earlier and ensconced in the limbs overhead in this second tree, then watched The Suckatastic Seven to see if they did what I expected them to do.

They fell for my trickery even better than I could have hoped.

When I swung down from the tree nearest the path and kicked the two slowest guys...fat Terry and slow DeMarcus...neither one of them had a hope of seeing me. I caught them completely and totally unawares. My kick literally blasted both of them from the trail as I had hoped, and clocked fat Terry so hard that it literally knocked him out of his saggy jeans. Seriously. His oversized black jeans with the green thread...pretty stylish, for a moron...were puddled around his fat ankles as he flew. His flabby boxers with the two giant holes [ one in front and one in back, at the most unlovely places providing far too much information about his gluteus and genitalia ], his triple X sized jacket and his oversized shirt were the only things he had on as he flew off the trail and landed in the half mile long, steep, grassy slope leading from this trail directly down to the ECC. DeMarcus? Was knocked clean out of both of his shoes, his green ganxta hat, his green and black checkered flag [ bandana ]denoting his Lincoln Park Bloods affiliation and even his jacket. At least Fat Terry had his jacket on.

They flew through the air, arms pinwheeling, to smack hard into the ground like:

And Fat Terry did an extra roll like: 

The rest of The Sucktastic Seven staggered to a halt, stricken with concern by the cries that Fat Terry and DeMarcus unleashed as they fell. Startled, they first looked around to see if whatever hurled Fat Trey and slow footed DeMarcus from the trail was still on the pathway with them. This is in direct opposition to what most White horror movie directors have the few Black actors they cast do in their horror movies. I always left at that part of any horror movie. That's why I haven't seen 99% of horror movies that's been put out in the last ten years. 

Once the remaining five idjits determined that there was nothing on the pathway that actually ejected Fat Trey and slow footed DeMarcus from the pathway up with them, this quintet of questionable intelligence quotients actually lined up at the edge of the drop to look down at their friends. It was a natural response that most people would have, as they sought to see what happened to their friends and determine the best course of aiding said friends. 

"Oh SHIT, Blood!!" that was DaQuan, younger relative [ DaQuan says "relative" because as a Blood he couldn't say the word "cousin" because the word "cousin"...has the phrase "cuzz" in it. And "cuzz" is the most common identifying term of the Crips, who are the sworn enemies of Bloods ]."Damn, Blood, it fuckin STANK, Blood! They must uh juss put a whoooole BUNCH of that FERTILIZER on that GRASS, Blood! Dem niggas rollin in FERTILIZER!"

Yep. The idea to toss you morons in cow fertilizer came to me when I first smelled it, as you idiots inexpertly hid in that copse of trees before the pathway, thinking you were successfully stalking me. Udanganyifu.

"AHHHHH-HAHAHAHAHA!!! Ohhhh, BLOOD!! Dey clown asses muthafuckin fell off the pathway, Blood! Right in some COW! SHIT! BLOOD!!" exclaimed Bernard aka B-Keeper, as he clustered next to DaQuan and always hyper Tremaine. Why do they call him B-Keeper? Because most high school aged Lincoln Park Bloods like Bernard also attend Lincoln Park High, one of the famous football powerhouses in Southeast San Diego known for regularly producing NFL athletes and even NFL all-time greats like Marcus Allen and many others. Lincoln Park High is called The Bee Hive because of their school motto. Which is a big ole Bee. Thus? B-Keeper. An attempt to harness the intimidating rep of his school's football team and the literally deadly rep of his gang, in order to make himself seem like he is more important and impactful both at school and on these streets than he actually is. 

Yeah, yeah...I know. I had the same roll my damn eyes response when I heard his "B-Keeper" moniker, myself.  

"Damndemmuthafuckasfallinhellafuckinfardoe!" Hyper Tremaine watched Fat Terry and DeMarcus rolling faster and further. Faster and further. Those bruthas were well past 300 meters and still falling on the half mile steep grassy incline. Hyper Tremaine always condensed whole sentences into one word, and he always spoke hella fast with a high pitched voice, to boot. Hyper Tremaine? Was the guy hangin out with Krazy-K and forever fine azz Toni Hunter earlier today. He was the guy speakin extra fast that I told you I'd reveal later. Well, now? Is later. Never say I didn't keep my word. 

So now Hyper Tremaine rattles of another of his one word sentences: "Howdafuckdemniggasfalloffduhgotdamnpathwayyyy---OOOHHHHMUTHAFUCKINSHITCATCHMYASS!!"

I took advantage of the distracted and befuddled Foolish Five as they craned their necks, raised on their tip toes and strained to see what happened to Fat Terry and DeMarcus. While they were all crowded right on the very lip of the pathway? I ran up behind B-Keeper...who was standing behind Hyper Tremaine and DaQuan...and rammed into him with the stout sawed off tree limb.   I looked like the Black Captain America smashing them with my wooden Captain America shield.

I heard that! Yes, there REALLY WAS a Black Captain America. TWO of them, in fact. The FIRST Captain America was a Black man, a brutha named Isaiah Bradley, and his story was first told in a revolutionary comic called TRUTH: RED WHITE AND BLACK.

  Isaiah Bradley came to the attention of the USA Super Soldier Program because he was the only person who didn't get infected by syphillis when the U.S. Army via The United States Public Health Service decided to infect thousands of unsuspecting Afrikan-Americans with syphillis, while telling us that instead of syphillis...the U.S. Army doctors were giving us booster shots for our immune system to keep us healthy. They maliciously and purposefully denied us treatment, including the use of penicillin, FOR FORTY YEARS. Just to study the long term effects of this disease on the human body. Thousands of lives were wrecked. This is how syphilis and other sexually transmitted disease became prevalent in Afrikan American communities...the government and healthcare conspired to infect us with it. Not a lie. HERE IS THE PROOF

The Army rightly figured that Isaiah Bradley would probably survive The Super Soldier Serum too, since he was infected with syphilis and his immune system soundly thrashed the disease to such an extent that he never actually caught the disease. His immune system's white blood cells natually and without any augmentation trounced the disease into nonexistence. He never experienced a single instance of sickness or any form of affliction.  

They were right. 

But. The Super Soldier Serum wrecked his mind, decades later. He became a mental invalid, after enduring one of the most horrific and inhumane forms of mistreatment and suffering that a person could endure. After becoming a war hero decorated more times than anyone ever...until Steve Rogers himself came along. It was after their screwup with Isaiah Bradley, that the Army scientists were able to fix The Super Soldier's chemical matrix enough for it to work without any possibility of mental deterioration on a later candidate...who would be Steve Rogers. The current and most famous Captain America.

The second Black Captain America was the best friend of Steve Rogers...Sam Wilson. The Falcon. Steve Rogers specifically selected Sam Wilson to be nominated to be the next Captain America. Thus did Sam Wilson receive the signal honor of being the first and only person selected by the original Captain America to carry on his legacy as Captain America.

The way I smacked all three of those guys looked like Captain Sam Wilson America doing this move right here:

O

 Guess that means I'm a kind of Captain America.  A junior Captain Of The Hoods In  America. Haha.

Never say that I didn't educate you about stuff you didn't know. My extensive knowledge of comic book trivia comes in handy.

Anyway.

B-Keeper, DaQuan,and Hyper Tremaine fell into each other like dominoes, and knocked themselves flying fast and far into the air, before dropping like bowling balls off the pathway to the steep slope to join Fat Terry and DeMarcus in ignonimous high speed bumpity bumpity bumpity sometimes vomit inducing rolling all the way down a half mile of green and brown, freshly cow-pied grassy hill. We could see the streaks of cow manure and grass adhering to their clothes and skin as they rolled at gathering speeds so intense that shoes, beanies, cell phones, necklaces, sunglasses, wallets, dollar bills, coins, etc flew off of them to litter their fall with staggered debris.

And then there was two. Dumb and Dumber. Better known as Big Bray [ 6'7" 350 lbs. aka Dumber ] and Krazy-K [ 5'9" 170+lbs. aka Dumb ]. 

Krazy-K and Big Bray were so shocked at my sudden appearance that they both spontaneously expressed the physical jerky actions of someone deeply startled, instinctively going to The Startle Reflex response. They did the startled surprised WTF dance like this reporter below

While they were doing the huck-a-buck startled dance, I cocked back my trusty wooden stump of a tree limb at Big Bray. Big Bray instinctively raised both hands to block the swing at his head...

...and I kicked him with everything I had, right in the nuts. His prior startled movement like the reporter above, combined with the savage power and unexpectedness of me kicking him square in the testicles lifted him screaming and howling off of his feet...

...and to add insult to serious injury? THAT'S WHEN I SMACKED HIM WITH THE TREE STUMP BRANCH LIKE I WAS BARRY BONDS SMASHIN A HOME RUN HIT.

But. Big Bray...even while being batted off of the pathway to fall down the cow manure slimed 800+ meter long slanted grassy hill to his destiny of tumbling falling and joining his friends in besmeared by bovine booboo humiliation...seized upon the trusty shield stump of mine like a drowning man grabbing on a log. He was doing anything he could to prevent himself from taking the fall. The punt to his nuts was bad enough, or so he thought. 

Well. He couldn't stop his doomed date with doodoo dipped deep declining grassy slopes destiny. ( You like all the awesome alliteration littered throughout and spiked into the sentences above? I DO! ) But. He DID freakin rip my shield stump right out of my arms and take it with him. Leaving me unarmed. Facing Krazy-K...and the .40 caliber Smith and Wesson semiautomatic he always carried with him. 

Having recovered from being badly startled, Krazy K recognizing me...the kid he hated above almost all others...and flew into a homicidal rage. He glared menacingly at me from under his black beanie with the embroidered old skool LP green letters on it [ he did look dangerous, gotta give him that ], as he simultaneously snarled like a lynx and snatched at his gun.

Before he could pull out his gun, I was all over him like racism, incompetence, lies, selfishness,  narcissism and corruption on the Trump Administration. Knocked the gun flying from his hand with a devious wrist lock that made him shout in pain. His shout was cut short by a sharp head butt that I planted on the bottom of his chin. I heard his teeth clack together as my head butt clocked him, and he dropped like a rock.

He was dazed but not out. 

"Krazy-K. Remember when you were with Toni...that beautiful sistah...and you and the Stupid Six were talkin all that trash earlier today? You told me to bring my ass? Remember? Huh? Remember? Well, here I am bringin my ass up here so I can kick your. AGAIN! Foo'! " NO ""L". I said "foo" not fooL. I was  enjoying verbally goading Krazy-K's limp form. I knew exactly how to piss him off to the highest levels of pisstivity.

Krazy-K...enraged even further...scrambled quickly to his feet. And as I forced the fight to close quarters? Krazy-K showed he WAS KRAZY...but he wasn't so stupid, after all. 

First, he didn't go for his back up weapon...a Buck knife. He was smart enough to know that I would be all over him and he would be sailing into the How Now Brown Cow Turd Playground to join his buddies down there at the bottom of the slope, before he had a prayer of drawing his knife to cut me. He also didn't backpedal like a NFL quarterback fading back in the pocket when I applied direct forward pressure to him. Another smart tactic on his part, because if he did give ground or fade back in any way, I would have pushed him directly into the funky fecal fairyland, with his buddies.  Instead, he pulled a groovy little half spin to his right, pivoting on his right foot, while firing a hard right pistoning jab-left cross, followed immediately by a right jab- right hook at my head with another smooth half spin to change our positioning and distance. This is called "hooking off the jab", and is a classic boxing tactic of southpaw boxers pivoting to escape orthodox attackers applying forward pressure...while they punish the aggressor for moving in and crowding said southpaw. 

His response would have caught pretty much anybody else off guard. But I read the subtle signs of his stance, his hands and feet placement, the hunch of his shoulders. After the last thrashing I gave him, Krazy-K went and learned boxing and...by the spacing of his feet in his chosen stance, which was different than that of a classic boxer...he learned a bit of karate. Shotokan karate. That's Udanganyifu being manifested through our other Principle, "Kutambua Ya Misimamo"..."Recognition of Positions". This Principle allows us to understand precisely what both we and our opponent[s ] can and cannot do visavis self defense and other actions by carefully studying the actions and reactions that are available to us, relative to the positions we occupy, Stances we're in, environmental considerations, etc.

From my Philly Shell stance, I caught his southpaw jab with my right palm,rendering that jab useless. Then I Mayweather shoulder rolled his left cross. Popped him with a sharp overhand right hand counter to the nose. His nose immediately started bleeding, and he was driven backwards a couple steps. [ Despite my lack of height and weight and his distinct size and height advantages, I pack a lot of heat in my punches. Nobody gets hit by me and loves it. ] That's when he broke with the hook off the jab. I slipped his jab, dipped his hook and caught him with Ufagio...a particularly slick and powerful back leg sweep...as he pivoted on his planted right foot. My sweep took his balance, ripping his right leg from underneath him and dropping him flat on his right butt cheek,and from there flat to his back. 

Furious, Krazy-K scrambled up to his feet and charged me.  He flashed a technically solid left front kick, left jab-right cross combo into a lead left uppercut that was all malice.

When Krazy K from his southpaw fighting stance fired a rear leg left front kick at me, I was in my orthodox left leg forward position. I switched stances on the left front kick, a lightning maneuver that looks like half of The Ali Shuffle, resulting in me bringing my lead left foot back, giving ground to Krazy-K's left front kick and drifting angularly to my right at the same time, now presenting my right leg in front. In a lightning fraction of a second, I had given ground, switched leads and moved 45 degrees to my right, landing so that my right toe was pointing at the outside of Krazy-K's left front ankle. 

Krazy K and I wound up switching stances. Krazy-K started off in a southpaw position, threw a power left front kick and stayed in that now orthodox left foot forward position. I started off in a orthodox position, switched my lead foot by replacing my left foot with my right as I floated backward and off angle to allow Krazy K's kick to fly by me without having to block at all.

  This maneuver is very popular among Afrikan American fighters who are from the hood like me, because those of us from the hood have knowingly or not kept alive key aspects of Kipura via our daily culture. In Njia Uhuru Kipura, my family's art from the country of Kongo in Afrika, this maneuver is called "Kubadali Mguu Wa Mbele" .."Change The Front Leg" This same maneuver is so popular in Taekwondo that it has a name...The Switch Step or Switch Lead...in TKD too.

From his now orthodox position, Krazy-K tracked my evasion of his front kick with his eyes, faked the right leg spin kick with a half turn feint, came back to the orthodox stance, and fired a one-two. Followed hard by a lead left uppercut. I have to admit...that takes some above average skill to pull off.

I didn't remotely fall for his feinted right leg spin kick, slipped his jab-cross, letting it whip through the space my head previously occupied, smothered his lead left uppercut, and instantly executed Kenpo's Glancing Wing Self Defense Sequence. 

The elbow from the technique above? Knocked Krazy-K screwy, but didn't fade him. I purposely didn't put enough "stank" on the elbow strike to put Krazy-K to sleep. Why? Because however much I dislike Krazy-K, I wasn't trying to kill him. Even after I saw his gun, and therefore have reason to believe that he was trying to kill me. 

The power of the knee and elbow combo vaulted Krazy-K off the pathway to join the rest of The Sucktastic Seven in their combo of cow crap caked clothes and skin humiliation. And I took a video of them falling, hollering, their clothes and belongings strewn along the 800 meter drop in various places, caked with thick swaths of stanky cow manure...while I shouted:"WORLD STAR!! These fools tried to jump me, got beat down, and knocked down a long grassy hill filled with fertilizer. YaknowhatImsayin? Yep. These fools got a fantastic voyage ferrying them to Funky Fecal Fertilizer Fairyland. Haha! They're reaping their cow manure karma! Haha!! They got faded by my family's fighting style of NJIA UHURU KIPURA by us ATACX GYM STREET WARRIORS! WEST SIIIIDE!! WORRRLLLDSTARRRRRRR!! "... for Worldstar Videos, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube. Because I'm that kind of brutha.

"Whooooooo SHEEYIITT!" I saw her step onto the pathway right as I finished Krazy-K, because my Udanganyifu has me usually paying attention to my environs at all times. Except for when those cops kept tackling me back at the Logan PJs. I must've really been trippin hard. No excuses for such poor performance. I resolved not to let my hunger get to a point where it compromised my usually acute attention to my environment ever again.

She shook her pretty head, deep chocolate skin gleaming even in this barely lit darkness, her beautiful hair dancing. She removed a long curly errant bang from her right eyelid in order to see unobstructed by her hair as she carefully peered over the pathway to look at The Sucktastic Seven. They were all in various degrees of unconsciousness, vomiting brought on by a combo of involuntarily getting cow manure in their mouths, cow crap caked under their nostrils, and the speedy spinning and long drop of their fall all of them were in various states of undress as they were forcibly unspooled out of about  half of their clothes and belongings by the fall.

"Daaayamn you FUCKED them UP!!" She cackled a musical, sexy, full throated, infectious chocolate laugh.

Toni. Forever fine Toni. She was with Krazy-K's crew earlier. When Old Greg prevented us from clashing the first time. My heart skipped like two beats. I simultaneously felt crushingly bad at the loss of Old Greg and warm because Toni was standing a few feet from me. I played it cool. Didn't even look at her.

Toni was hyped up. 

"We saw you swing out the trees like the muthafuckin Black Panther on these niggas! I was like ohhh shit, Blood! Didn't even know you were there! You didn't even make no NOISE! One instant, Fat Trey and DeMarcus and nem was runnin on the pathway. The next instant? Looked like THE SHADOWS KICKED Fat Trey and DeMarcus the fuck off the pathway like DAYAMN!! Nearly jumped right out my skin. I never saw you coming. Like you teleported there, kicked them niggas, and teleported away. You scared the HELL outta me at first! Then you was ON THEM juss whoopin all kinds of ass! I never seen that kinda ass whippin in real life before! It was like some kind of movie! You looked like some ole...John Wick if he was Black. Like...JAMAL Wick, or something!" 

I was impressed that she knew about the movie JOHN WICK at all.

"Nah! You was like on some Michael Jai White tip! On some BLOOD AND BONES..."

I'm starting to like this! Oh waitaminnit.

"...if he was some short sawed off nerdy nigga. Yeah. You're like the bootleg midget counterfeit foodstamp version of Michael Jai White."

I knew it. 

"You know who Michael Jai White IS?" I asked, surprised.

"Fine as HE was lookin in those Tyler Perry movies? Boy. Almost EVERY sistah know who he is. Not you, though. Most of us don't know you. Because... You like Spider-Man...when he's not in the mask. All nerdy Negro Parker..."

"...okay, Toni, I get it."

"...without them cool ass Spider Powers. You got some way less cool karate-fyin, Jaden Smith KARATE KID WHO STAYED IN THE HOOD shit."

"Thanks," I said dryly.

"You're welcome," she brightly replied.

"But I do have my own kinda like Spider-Sense. It's called Udanganyifu."

"You dawn gone...he...WHO?!" Toni replied, perplexed.

"Ooo. Dawn. Gone. Yee. Foo. Udanganyifu. It's when..."

"WHATEVER!! " Toni interrupted me. Went back to what she was saying before. "You got some...not Captain America. Like...Captain Ghetto. Karate shit. Without no cool ass Captain America shield."

"I used a wood stump like a shield..."

"...which ain't cool as Captain America's shield, like I said! You got nerdy glasses. But you do carry them big ole nerdy school boy books. Them books are as big as Captain America's shield."

"Thanks, Toni. I get it..."

"...and you manage to match your clothes good but still look nerdy at the same time. You got nerdy but matched up jeans and shoes on." Toni continued without a pause, just over-talking me.

"Hey! These jeans are 501's. Classics. Flyest jeans on EARTH. These shoes? Peep game. Tailored. Look. Got my ATACX GYM STREET WARRIORS name and the shield with the Afrikan motif that's our family logo. Nobody else rocks these but me and my fam. How can 501's and tailored shoes look nerdy?"

"Doesn't the saying go: "The man makes the clothes, the clothes don't make the man"? Well. The rest of your family looks cool in those. Your older brother, Slim? Look fine as fuck in those. Your younger brother? Look cool in them. You? Made the fuck outta those clothes because... you? Look nerdy in those." Toni instantly responded.

"You're enjoying this too much, " I tell her.

"Not TOO much!" she assured me.  And laughed that laugh of hers. I joined in. 

Pause. "No, seriously, though. The way you got with Krazy-K n nem [ not "them", she said "nem"...and it's not an accident. "nem" is different than "them"; "nem" can mean "them" or "all of them" or "and them" or "and all of them" depending on inflection and sentence context ] niggas trying tuh get at you? It was pretty hot. So were you. Less nerdy. More hot. Pretty hot. Pretty hot, a lot. " She said this in a much quieter voice.

She looked at me. A long, lingering look. She waited until I met her gaze before she spoke. She wanted me to see the dazzling, living infernos of interest in me. Lots. of INTEREST. In her eyes before she spoke her next words.

"Since Krazy-K n nem gone down the hill with the fertilizer, I still need somebody to walk me home. I don't like walking home by myself in the dark. Especially when nobody's gonna be home but me..." she let the sentence trail off.

My heartbeat nearly doubled. Didn't let it show. Looked into her beautiful eyes...

...saw the bangs curled down upon the outer part of her beautiful eyelids. That lovely smooth dark chocolate skin. 

The beautiful curly bangs. Her beautiful eyes, face, juicy lips, curvealicious body. The bangs. Those bangs. Udanganyifu at work again. Hold up.

"You were hiding behind the trees with Krazy-K," I said. "I saw his black beanie and your curls blowing in the wind around the trees that yall thought you were hiding behind."

She laughed, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I was with them. They were walking me home and then they saw you. Hyper Tremaine saw you first. He was like: 'DaregothatEddieGordomuthafuckarightnowlet'sfuckhimupdoerightKrazy-K?'" Toni laughed. She did a pretty good impression of Hyper Tremaine, and she knew it.

"All of you thought I was going to get mopped when they jumped me. Or maybe if things went south for them, Krazy-K thought he would shoot me. He always carryin his gun. And you were right there with them. Ready to watch them jump me. "

"Nah, it wasn't like that, Ras..." Toni began.

"What was it like, then?"

"Don't be like that, Ras! You know I wouldn't uh let them do nuthin to you..." Toni protested.

"Except beat me up pretty good? Maybe beat me into a hospital? And if they wanted to go further...kill me? You know that Krazy-K hates me. You know that I beat him last time we fought, cuz you heard me and you reacted to what I said about two hours ago when me n Krazy-K n nem was having words. Before Old Greg..." pang of pain in my heart when I mentioned his name..."pulled me away. So. How would you stop a ganxta with a gun?"

Silence.

"I like you, Toni. You know this, already. But that? Was foul. In the same vein, though? I'm not going to let you walk home alone, as that CAN BE dangerous for you. You're right. Even though I've seen you fight before and I think that you're dangerous to whoever is stupid enough to step to you." We shared a laugh about that. 

I looked at The Sucktastic Seven. They were starting to come around. I looked at the westering sun. Long shadows were already nearly thick as the night shadows were in this part of The Cuts, because of the combined shadows of the trees and the deeper angle this area of The Cuts took, so it was significantly darker here than it was in other areas of The Cuts or outside in general. It was brighter by a significant shade down there at the bottom of the slope that The Sucktastic Seven found themselves in. 

"There's at least a good half hour of bright afternoon sunlight left," I guesstimated. "If you walk down there to The Sucktastic Seven...who are now covered with cow crap, so they're more The Stanktastic Seven...they can still walk you home. I'll stay here and watch you to be sure that you get to them safely. After that? I'm on my way."

Toni was surprised. She wasn't used to any boys or men telling her "NO" about anything. Especially when she expertly dangled that MAYBE they can get her alone, and she was liking that idea of being alone with said boy or man. She stood still and searched my face with her gaze, refusing to believe that I...nerdy Ras...was refusing HER, forever fine ass Toni. 

Udanganyifu. Something is wrong. Why isn't Toni leaving me right now? She is the best I've ever seen at completely ignoring the existence of a person and totally removing them from even the faintest thought in her head, when she's decided that she's through with them. And nerdy Ras saying NO to forever fine ass Toni? Is the absolute epitome of: "...you never existed to me and never will..." walk off and ignore you to death effrontery.

I saw the thunder begin to crinkle her beautiful brow at the same time I saw movement in the trees from my peripheral vision. Someone was trying to stealthily come up the pathway that we all traversed to get here.

"You REALLY ain't gonna walk me?" She was angry. "You posed tuh be the GOOD one, and you really AIN'T gonna walk me home?"

"Think this through, Toni. If I walked you home? I'm walking right by The Stanktastic Seven..."

"Oh, Blood!! Hahaha! Nigga wait! Hahaha! Did you juss call them niggas The STANKTASTIC SEVEN?! Aww hell no, Blood! Hahahahahaha!"

"... They won't be ready to fight by the time we pass them and get to your house, but they'll be ready to fight before I leave, or just after I'm leaving. They'd catch me on the open street, unless I ran through people's yards and stuff. And if they started shooting...which you know Krazy-K would do, start shooting...then me running passed other peoples' houses is bringing bullets to their homes. Bullets to homes with innocent people, old folks, kids,babies, parents and stuff and even dogs living there. None of them initiated even the remotest form of conflict with Krazy-K. None of them deserve a bullet because I ran by their house and Krazy-K's non-shootin ass missed me. And he WOULD MISS ME because believe me. I am NOT gettin SHOT. Nope. Not me. 

So what if they don't come after me ,but instead lay on me? Set a trap for me because they know I gotta come back this way? What's to stop them from starting back up with me when I come back up this way...this time with gunfire? Or coming to harass you at your house or when you're out and about, just because they saw you with me?"

Toni asked: "If you was worried bout gettin shot, why didn't you keep Krazy-K's gun?"

"Toni. My fingerprints. On Krazy-K's gun. Which shot a lot of people. Doesn't add up to a good look for Ras. I just gave Krazy-K the perfect way to frame me. Anonymous call to the police. One shakedown later? Ras is heading to CYA [ California Youth Authority ] and then the penitentiary." 

"Why not hand it off to the homies?" 

"Now they got the problem I'm trying to avoid. Homies don't let homies get framed for murder."

Toni paused. Thinking. "Why not..."

That's when I took her down with a quick Mkasi...Scissor Leg Takedown...from Njia Uhuru Kipura, the Kongo based but modernized Afrikan art of my family. She was caught totally off guard. She didn't even get her hands out in time to break her fall. She didn't even have time to gasp in surprise. Lucky for her, I dropped her into the thick soft grass on our side of the pathway.

The bullet whizzed by where her upper torso was a moment ago, and tunneled into the earth of the pathway. Burying itself instantly from sight.

I hit a Nyani Rahisi, simultaneously getting myself some brief cover while pulling her out of the firing line.

The new person to the party...the one thinking he was slick coming up the trail while Toni was talking to me...had stepped quickly out from hiding. His gun...a matte black Taurus .380 IBULS ACP Revolver...was well chosen for this kind of close work, and prevented almost any possibility of jammng [ as all revolvers do ]. His Taurus not only was brutally efficient within the 15 meters separating us, it is also ideal to use as a clubbing and shooting weapon when hand to hand combat ensues. As he stepped out, he raised his arm in that relatively rare single arm shooting style that most professional shooters have long abandoned. But this guy didn't have a orthodox shooting stance, and that's how I could tell he didn't have professional training. That made him both more and less dangerous. More dangerous because I could tell...by the ease and comfort, total lack of hesitation and full commitment of his movements...that he's shot a number of people before. With that Taurus. He is mentally very cool with shooting and killing people.  Unlike most n00bs to shooting who later become pros? This guy already was blooded and knew the kinds of things that you can learn only in firefights. Unlike wannabe pro shooters...This guy? Knew what he was doing. Also because he wasn't classically trained? He'd do some off the wall stuff, using tactics that most trained people wont use. His pure street training makes him more unorthodox, harder to predict than a more classically trained shooter. That's what makes him MORE dangerous. But he was LESS dangerous too, because without the benefit of a collective of professional shooters who share their knowledge and skills freely and devise intelligent means to train for ever improving results while addressing every single facet of shooting? You simply can't reach the upper echelons of combat shooting expertise. Even though this guy was blooded and knew what he was doing?  He lacked the equipment and subtle but crucial refinements of technique...and probably lacked the elevated tactics and strategies...that come from real professional training, and can keep you alive when facing another professional.

 But as Fate would have it, his foot came down on one of the upturned chunks of grass and loam pulled up from the earthy pathway by Fat Terry as he fell over the pathway to the cow manured steep drop below. This clump of grass and loam unbalanced the shooter by making his right foot slide unexpectedly to his right as if he was about to start doing The Electric Slide. His gun...initially trained on me, the way I wanted it...swerved to point at Toni...

...I took Toni down with the Mkasi Scissor Leg Takedown...

...he accidentally, reflexively squeezed the trigger. The bullet whizzed right at heart level through the spot that Toni was standing in a fractured second before, bounced off a stout 5 foot high boulder and buried itself in the pathway...

...he put his left hand out to keep his balance. Admirably, even as he fell he didn't take his sunglasses covered eyes off of his quarry...me...and redirected his Taurus revolver at me...

...before he could finish redirecting his revolver, I hit the Nyani Rahisi, pulling both Toni and I into the shelter of the triple row of trees, their tree limbs, tree trunks and shadow...

...and the shooter showed that he was experienced in hunting quarry by not burning another round of his precious five shot cylinder that his .380 came with. This? Is not fabulous. Although I was expecting him.

"You set me up, Toni!" That's why she didn't walk off and leave me when I told her "NO" and she became incensed with me. She was told to keep me on that pathway so that the shooter could kill me.

"I didn't have a choice! They got guns! Said I was gonna get shot!" She looked at me. "Tried to warn you!"

She did, too. Her first words to me on that pathway, were: "We saw you swing out the trees like the muthafuckin Black Panther on these niggas!..."

WE. Not I. Because she said:"WE...", I had already redoubled the intensity of my habitual use of my peripheral vision to scan the environment when I'm talking to someone, keeping my overt gaze directly on the person or people in front of me while using my peripheral vision to subtly look out for and be on the alert for other people. I wasn't sure if she was trying to warn me or not, but I can't deny that her "WE" let me know that someone else...or a couple someone elses...were still out there, nearby. Waiting to kill me.

No time for this. He's moving on us. On ME. Navigating through the trees. I'd nail him with my throwing assegai or Ninja shuriken, but in this environment with the tree limbs stretching in nigh multitudes from the tree tops down to just about my waist level, with about a third of these trees wearing skirts of limbs that came all the way down to the grass...the chance of being able to nail him was low. The tree limbs..gently waving in the gentle sporadic breeze... interfered too much and would probably pick off the throw. 

"Stay here, Toni. He's after me, not you. Stay here, and don't hide. He can see you clear, and won't shoot you as a result. Got it?"

Toni nodded, did as she was told.

I took one step back from the tree, still facing it and using it for what meager "concealment" it could provide. "Cover."..as in OBSTRUCTING say the path of a bullet, rock, arrow, or sight? It could do. But the shooter creeping up on me could see me a bit less than half of my body pretty easily. Therefore "Concealment"...providing total shielding from sight, or a projectile weapon...this tree could do.

There was one other thing it could do. Be my impromptu trampoline. Recalling my practice time with my binamu [ Swahili term meaning "cousin"] Kent, I took one step toward the tree...then raced up its trunk to the halfway point. Before my momentum slowed, I bounced off the trunk of the tree to one of its lower limbs. Rode the elasticity of the thick bough, then used its upswing to power my arrowing leap between the limbs of the next two rows of trees. Landed like a cat, and scampered away to freedom. Laughing mockingly at my Revolver toting enemy standing dumbfounded in the deepening shadows back there in the trees.

Or so I planned. Not exactly what happened, though.

What REALLY happened was: I got to the tree limb alright. Pretty cool move. Caught everyone a little by surprise. That's when Shooter fired a shot that nearly caught me in the back of the head. Had I not ducked? I would be wearing that bullet in my cerebellum. That's not a easy shot. This guy? Skills. Respect.

What was even worse was that me ducking the shot messed up the necessary force I needed to bounce the tree limb with sufficient energy that its return spring could propel me through the next two rows of trees. Instead? It propelled me through a row and a half.

Made me a better target for Shooter. Thanks, trees. Next time I wanna get shot? I know where to climb. Damn. This hadda happen in front of Toni, too? Double thanks for making me NOT look extra cool, trees. 

The wind through the tree limbs made the sweet susurrus of verdant green tree leaves and its waving limbs seem like the tree was laughing at me.

Oh yeah? Laughin at me now? Aight. Next time I'm up here, I'm uh bring me a match up here and TRIP right on your roots. Turn you into kindling logs.

Shooter instantly fired a shot at me. Only the fact that my hyperadrenalized reflexes moved me out of line of fire a fraction before the trigger pulled saved me from death. Needles of barkskin flew from the trunk of the tree near my head. I was in full flight and Shooter was in hot pursuit maybe 10 meters behind me.

Gave him the Udanganyifu. The same tantalizing thing I gave Beans when he was chasing me. Right when Beans thought he had me in a straight lane long enough to draw a bead on my fleeing back, I cut sharp turns that momentarily had me vanish entirely from his sight for the merest moments.  I would level and direction change into simian movements. I would suddenly hit lateral dives through, over and once under small groups of shrubbery. These maneuvers bought me scant moments at most. But those scant moments count.

Add that to my flying feet truly energized by the real and imminent threat of nearby, hunting, aggressive death? And by the time I hit the last stretch of the pathway I and Shooter and forever fine ass Toni and Krazy-K and nem used to get to this part of The Cuts? I was 20 meters ahead and pulling away like a freight train. I rounded the pathway leading up to ECC back down to the Logan PJs. But instead of going straight, I took the dirt and asphalt alleyway heading on a path parallel to The Logan PJs. I was gonna burn up this alleyway like Kid Flash as I ran straight to Bigmama's House and...

...OG Big Maniac. Chillin. Parked crossways in the alleyway. Blocking the whole alleyway like he owned it. He DID own the alleyway. And pretty much whatever else he wanted to own, in the hood. He was leaning with his back against the driver side window of his fly ride. Ear plugs in his ear trailing to his cellphone. Talkin to somedamnbody. Kill you rather than look at you eyes of his trained right on me. 

His left hand held a badass chrome Desert Eagle .50 AE. The other? Cradled a fully automatic night black and ash grey MCS bullpup. Looked like he was waiting on me.

I stopped faster than The Roadrunner on those old skool Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons, and reversed faster than The Roadrunner too.

But OG Big Maniac was ready for that. He already had both his weapons drawn on me. "Unnnnh-uhhhhhh!" He shook his head, telling me not to try to run. "Unnn-uhhh!"

Damn. I stopped running. Never thought I'd die like this, in a stank alley.

"Turn around." OG Big Maniac said. "Don't take it in the back, like a coward."

Trying hard not to shake, I turned. Before I finished turning, I was ready. OG Big Maniac could see it in my face. "Least you ain't no scary ass lil nigga," he grunted. 

Me making a show of fighting down the shakes? Me turning slowly? Tactics. I had one more card to play, and I was waiting on it. Udanganyifu, one more time.

CRACK! Went the brush above me. Someone was coming.

OG Big Maniac didn't take his eyes off me. He was way too good for that. I was hoping for the merest flicker or waver in attention and focus, but nah. Nothing.  He simply pointed his .50 in the direction of the noise and...

...that's all I needed. I leaped aside like living lightning, and at the same time threw my shurikens in a flat arc of a throw right at his gun hand and forearm. OnetwothreefourfivefasterthanyoucanreadthisorHyperTremainecansaythis...five matte black, night black Ninja Shuriken flashed across the distance between me and OG Big Maniac. The shurikens all flew straight and true.

Except that OG Big Maniac...in a display of quickness that would have done former NFL superstar Ray Lewis in his prime proud...moved his arm and his whole body out of the way. Nobody ever did that to me before. He batted the shurikens away with a casual backhanded swing of his MCS bullpup...looks like it was chambered in .45 caliber, got a bottom ejection port I can see now from the new angle he's holding it at...

...Udanganyifu. Summoning the lessons of the Pataki of the Orisha [ Google it ], I harmonized with my inner Osoosi...the Great Impartial Enforcer of Law, the Flawless Hunter, The Perfect Archer that never fails to hit his target precisely how and accurately where he wants [ and my inner Luke Skywalker as he made his last run toward the only weak point of The Death Star ]. And as my ancestors before me did in their legendary feats of skill, genius, bravery and more, I focused my mind and let my inner energy--Ka--align my breath, body, posture, and movement in the most optimal way possible under these circumstances. Simultaneously my spirit hewed to the teachings of the Orisha and let Osoosi guide my hand as I threw a assegai spearhead straight and true...22 feet exactly... into the bottom ejection port of OG Big Maniac's bullpup. His gun was now a danger to him if he pulled the trigger. 

Without a pause, he shifted the .50 caliber with a trained professional's ease across his chest. He wasn't worried. He had the tactics and the strategies, and he already had this area stacked the way he wanted. He knew he had me. He didn't have to rush.

"You Ras, aint you." Wasn't a question. "The Eddie Gordo ass, nerdy ass school nigga." Why everybody gotta call me a nerd? "I ain't here to kill you, boy. I was just fuckin witchoo." No you weren't. 

"You tite with Old Greg, right." OG Big Maniac stated. Not a question. Didn't pause for the answer. "Came out here to letcha know: he ain't dead."

OHTHANKYOUGODJESUSTHANKYOU.

"He fucked up pretty bad, though. MIGHT die. Aint dead yet. But any old dude can survive this? Be him."

"You didn't come back here to tell me that," I decided to get the obvious outta the way.

"Lil nigga. Next time you try to tell me what my bizness is? I'll kill you." Very calm. He could have been reciting The Lord's Prayer. Or. For him. Prolly Satan's Prayer. He could've been doing any old unremarkable thing instead of making a truly sincere statement of intent to murder if provoked, by the tone of his voice.  He coulda been...Brushing his teeth. Tying his shoes. Waking up from a nap. Zero inflection in his voice as he uttered his willingness to murder me. Of course, I never tried to tell him his business again in life.

"Come out from over there." He didn't have to add that he would offhandedly decide to kill me for defiance if I didn't obey. So. I obeyed.

He looked me in the eyes. He completely ignored Shooter when Shooter arrived, but Shooter wasn't stupid enough to raise a firearm in the presence of OG Big Maniac...and OG Big Maniac knew it. Didn't even look up at Shooter. He was staring at me with that totally impassive measuring stare of a man deciding whether or not to eat a meal he has no appetite for but might have a taste for. 

"You LP now?" First actual question. More dangerous than his statements. OG Big Maniac was asking if I joined The Lincoln Park Bloods. His gang. 

"No," I said without hesitation.

"Why." OG Big Maniac.

"I don't like gangs." I replied.

"Didn't ask about 'gangs', I ask about LP." OG Big Maniac stated pointedly.

"LP is a gang. So. Don't like them neither," I stated truthfully.

"LP my hood," OG Big Maniac coolly replied. Too coolly. Careful, Ras.

"Yeah," I replied. No elaboration.

He gazed shrewdly at me, taking the measure of the short kid standing before him. "You not all the way scary," he finally said. OG Big Maniac never gave compliments. This kind of thing...where he basically is saying that some part of you doesn't suck irredeemably...is the closest he ever got to giving compliments.

"Muhfucka over there," nods to Shooter, "here to kill you. If you ain't dead? See you again. You owe me 5 racks [ $5000 USD ] for my gun. Your ninja star in my port. You gonna work that off for me. If you dead? One of your brothers inherit your debt."

Damn. He saying that if I DON'T get dead? He's going to MAKE ME RUN DRUGS FOR HIM TO PAY OFF THE 5K DEBT. Even though a fix of the port is like $200 max. Even though he literally carries more than 5k with him because a mere 5k to him is like a nickel for most people. It's nothing to him. No. Seriously. It's nothin. One time? 4 bruthas tried to rob him of 5 racks. He killed them all. Then paid 9 racks to cover the funeral costs because their mothers couldn't. 

Like that. It REALLY IS NUTHIN for him.

 He sayin that if Shooter kills me? One of my brothers...Slim or Anthony, neither of whom have ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this..will be forced to pay my debt by working for him. Or he'll kill them both.

Way to go, Ras. Samir. Old Greg. Shoot outs in the Logan PJs where beautiful babies like Shy-Shy get hurt. Krazy-K. Forever fine as Toni. Shooter. Now this.

I bet my day is worse than yours. And it ain't even half way over with, yet.

OG Big Maniac dismissed me from his mind. He looked like he couldn't convince or interest his intestines to generate any particle of a crap about me or Shooter, even if he downed six boxes of Ex-Lax and had the runs. He finally turned to leave, and...knowing that Shooter and I wouldn't dare move a hostile muscle in his presence...took his slow, easy, leisurely stroll toward the black back gates of the PJs so he can enter again without any problem. He didn't even remotely consider moving his car. He knew Shooter and I would risk our own lives rather than mess with his car. There are all kinds of stories about what that dude will do to you behind his [ flyest I've ever seen in my life ] car.

Bruthas say? He literally decapitated a dude just for running TOO CLOSE to his car. And the dude? WAS ACROSS THE STREET FROM HIS CAR. 

As soon as the back gate clanged shut behind OG Big Maniac, me and Shooter went for the gusto. Shooter went for his gun quickly as he could. But I was at a disadvantage. I knew I was quicker than Shooter, by now...but I didn't know how much quicker I am than Shooter is. I need that knowledge in order to calculate my chances of success more accurately. I had to draw my Shuriken throw them fast enough to hit Shooter before he drew his gun or at least fast enough to hit him at the same time. If I hit him shortly thereafter? I'm a dead man. If I remain in the same place when I draw and throw my shurikens? I'm a dead man.

Therefore I had to combine a sunbeam fast draw-throw, with surgical accuracy to Primary Targets with an evasive move that kept me from getting shot. While all Shooter had to do is point and shoot. I had to be much quicker than Shooter on the draw and everything else.   

But I had Udanganyifu working for me. Shooter didn't. 

You see, at a distance of 25 feet, obliquely off my left shoulder, was OG Big Maniac's parked vehicle. Remember? OG Big Maniac was standing in front of it when I nailed his bullpup with my throwing assegai spear head. Neither Shooter or anyone else would take the chance of missing their quarry...especially a quick running, ducking, juketastic, mad maneuvering small target like me...and hitting or even getting too close to hitting the invisible 20 foot curtain of inviolate private space around the OG Big Maniac's car.

This strategic and tactical manipulation using all the knowledge I have from every walk of life I or those who taught me ever trod upon, I used now. Udanganyifu. I knew that if I placed myself just outside of the 20 foot curtain at 25 feet, Shooter would hesitate just a fraction or 5 longer to ensure he wouldn't get too close to or violate The Nothing Around OG Big Maniac's Car Zone.

While Shooter hesitated those few fractured moments in time, my trained and well honed reflexes had already taken over. I'd palmed three sharp ninja shuriken with my left hand and hit a side roll to my right as I slung my left hand in a flat, fast, tight arc back toward my left ...letting fly with the shuriken. Shooter was taken completely by surprise by my slick lateral roll and even more by surprise by the shuriken that I flung--straight and true--into his weapon hand. Most people would have been caught by surprise by the flying matte black shuriken [ even if they think they're mentally prepared for it ] because their color allowed them to meld seamlessly into any dark or shadow. Tree shadow. A person's shadow. Even daylight has a difficult time exposing these shuriken as they absorb daylight like they're sharp edged quantum singularities tumbling through the air at their chosen target. At this time of the afternoon? The encroaching night and long shadow of the nearby Projects largely engulfed them, shielding them from view. The skein of blurring twilight dropping from the skies and rising from the ground was shot through with soft chiaroscuros; every bar of light juxtaposed with a vibrant column of dark. The soft creeping light shone an almost otherworldly pearly silvery argence like shades of lovers undulating from their coffins to the Earth to embrace in the spirit as they had in the flesh. The thrumming columns of dark gave shape, purpose, depth, texture to the light. The columns of dark spread out like a Manta Ray's wings, coloring much of this alleyway with dark grey and inky black shadow strokes. Turning this stretch of concrete into Nature's Pointilist dark oil painting.

I would have enjoyed it a lot more and a lot better, if I wasn't engaged in trivial pursuits like fighting for my life n making sure that my brothers weren't going to be auctioned off to OG Big Maniac if I died, er nuthin.

The shuriken I threw bit across the back and front of Shooter's gun hand, forcing him to scream like a frickin girl as he dropped the weapon from fingers gone numb before he could squeeze the trigger.

 Eatcha hearts out, Hawkeye, Naruto and Boruto. 

Shooter reflexively grabbed his right hand like a shocked female would--what a punk--and I pounced on him. In a last desperate act, he tried to bend over and grab the .38 Smith and Wesson snub with his left hand, but I batted his arm aside with a full powered left hammerfist-low block, fired a full powered right front kick into his nuts--he shrieked a high pitched squeal like a mouse, hahahaha--then I racked him with a right heel palm strike to his chin so hard that it lifted him off of his feet and dropped him like dirty laundry on the concrete a few feet away. That technique is called Thrusting Salute, an Orange Belt Self Defense Sequence in Ed Parker's Kenpo Karate.

I'd followed Shooter like a starving velociraptor to finish him off...but I'd knocked his beanie and gangsta sunglasses flying in opposite directions, so I could look at his face now. What I saw stopped me from flashing into the brutal Kenpo Dance of Death technique which would have kept my stalker on the ground until the ambulance came for him.

Mike Mike? Nah.

When Shooter fell flat on his back after being racked by my Heel Palm Strike, I heard the "pop" of a snapping fabric...and suddenly? Good sized breasts...like 34 Cs...sprang into being under Shooter's nondescript semibaggy male black long sleeved sweatshirt. Shooter was wearing one of those things that held down breasts from view.  I'd just snapped Shooter's breast binding. 

No wonder Shooter didn't drop like a rock when I kicked him in the nuts. No wonder Shooter was screamin like a girl. Shooter didn't have no nuts.  HE was a SHE. A SHE that I knew.

Regina.

Now this stuff is starting to make sense.

Regina was the girlfriend of a Crip from Ghost Town Crips named TripStyck--swear tuh God, that's his street name, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried--and Styck and I had righteous beef. I'd ended it a little while ago by sending him upstate at the ripe old age of 19 for aggravated assault, armed robbery, drug trafficking, lewd conduct with minors [ he routinely sexed 13 and 14 year old girls, two of whom are supposed to be pregnant with his kids right now ], multiple counts of grand theft auto, and multiple counts of breaking and entering, armed robbery, grand larceny and petty theft. Word is he just started his 10 year stint...cuz he had to spend a month in the hospital I put him in first.

"You were visiting one of your homegurls at the Logan PJs, weren't you?" I said while crouching over Regina as she lay on the concrete, writhing in agony. Tears of serious pain drenched her face, twisted her smooth dark skin into a rumpled Snickers brown mask of torment."Then you saw me from inside your home girl's apartment. That's why I didn't spot you right away. You waited until I was distracted with Mike-Mike, and you called the cops. Smoove dimed me out to po-po. Then you snuck the gate open for them and ushered them in, knowing that I and everyone else would see them and escape before they could catch me...if you didn't help them catch me. 

But you didn't count on me fighting so well, and since even you like the kids like Shay-Shay? I know you didn't mean for her to get hurt. But nobody in the hood is gonna give you a pass. That's both sides of your butt cheeks up in smoke if the hood finds out. So...you decided to take vengeance for Styck by killing me.

You know that Styck got two 15 year old girls and a 13 year old girl pregnant while he was with you, right?"

I just had to smh. That's when I saw her reaching for it in her ankle. Slapped her hand away.

This girl had a back-up Smith and Wesson revolver in her socks. With a holster. 

This girl is really. Really. Trying to kill me!! Waitaminnit now, Styck ain't THAT important to her--! Is he..?

No. He wasn't. 

"This isn't all for Styck, is it? You knew he was cheating on you, and you weren't going to take that. Good for you. But you're gonna use his name and your status as his girl to get the chance to hustle for LP. You're trying to make money...the illegal way...to come up for yourself and help your family with bills.

That's why OG Maniac didn't blaze you off top for bringing a gun into the vicinity of his car. He made you off the rip. Knew it was you despite your disguise. You prolly gotta put in work for him in order to push illegal weight to make cash for your fam. And that's why he was in the alleyway at all, blocking the alleyway with his car. That's why he didn't shoot me. He wanted to test you by giving you the chance to shoot me. See if you were worth servin for him. I couldn't figure why he was doing all this til now. "

I got Regina's green and black ganxta rag,wrapped her back up Smith and Wessie snub in it. Emptied the shells. [ The snub was filled with hollow point bullets. 8 shots. That ammo is illegal for civilians to possess in here in my home state of California's streets. And it's double illegal in San Diego. She meant business; she was really gonna kill me ]. Still wrapped in the Lincoln Park ganxta rag, I tossed the revolver under a mess of tree roots and bushes about 8 feet away. Then I walked back to Regina's prone, pain wracked form.

Nigga! We coulda been eatin Snickers instead of karate-fyin females and stupid niggas like Krazy-K!  My stomach thundered unhelpfully. I ignored it.

"I should call po-po on YOU. They'd swoop you up no prob. They probably didn't get enough scalps today and they're gonna be facing a protest due to their actions here today, so they'll want someone...ANY one...they can pin some trumped up charges on to justify their screwups."

I looked at her and still pondered a few things. I had more to say but I was expecting someone shortly, so I went back to the area that I hid Regina's .38 and waited.

Sure enough, right on time, Krazy K came staggering out of the part of the miniforest that I'd just left. Holding his head and limping. Breathing hard. At least he succeeded in gettin most of the cow manure off him, lol. He espied Regina on the ground and said:"SHIT!" and staggered over toward her. She was still on the ground prone. In less pain now but still in pain.

"OH  SHIT!" Krazy K said again. He staggered limped and weaved his way over to her. I was trying not to laugh. He bent over her still prone form. "All thith thit I went through to get that faggot-ath karate boy..." I heard him mumble. Translation from Non-Lisping Non-Busted and Bleeping Lips, Non-Cracked Tooth English to Untrammeled English :

"All that shit I went through to get that faggot-ass karate boy..."

 Kinda hard to make out his words because he was slurring. His lips were busted, face scratched up, tongue swollen and probably bleeding still from the hellacious bite he gave it when I was smacking him around. Lololol. I waited for him to help Regina up. Then I'd nail him.

But he didn't help her up.

"All thith thit cuth that fuckin fuckuh..." he lisped. Which when translated from Non-Lisping Non-Busted and Bleeping Lips, Non-Cracked Tooth English meant: "All this shit cuz of that fuckin fucker..."

"Thumbody gone gimme THUMthin..!" Krazy-K said with a truly loony look in his eye.

And he started tearin at Regina's clothes. Tryin to get her shirt open and pants off.

Regina--deeply surprised, angered and startled--started fighting and pushing at Krazy-K as best as she could,but she was still incapacitated from my Thrusting Salute Kenpo attack. Krazy-K will overmaster her in moments. Thinking fast, I quickly packed the bullets to the snub in a ball of earth and mud and flung them--love my fastball--in a laser beam of a straight line toward the culvert on the other side of the generators that I had hidden by when I was leading Beans into my trap. I picked up the gun in its bandana and tucked it behind my shirt.

Regina was making more and more sounds of anger, deseperation and disgust as she strove with all of her power to stop Krazy-K from violating her. She was losing, though. He already had one hand on her firm left breast and he was yanking for all he was worth on her pants. Lucky for Regina? He wasn't worth much. Bought me the time I needed.

I purposefully let him hear me coming from behind him. He looked around at the sound of my approach. "Krazy-K!" I called. He saw me and I saw--even in the gloaming of twilight switching to night--his eyes narrow with sheer venom and a flash of fearful shock. He both hated and feared me. Good. Lemme give him some more reason to feel that way.

Just as I'd hoped and figured he would, he rose off of Regina as he saw me rapidly approaching him at a run and staggered to his feet. He went for something in his right back waistband--I'd saw it when he first stumbled his way up here and confirmed it as he weaved and staggered toward Regina--and pulled a massive Buck knife. He lumbered forward with a heavy right handed  arcing stab toward my neck...and I flashed into kenpo's signature technique, 5 Swords. Before Krazy-K had ANY idea what was going on, I'd blasted the knife from his hand with a double karate chop to his forearm that traumatized the nerves along his radial and ulna, slammed a wicked handsword into his carotid, rocketed a merciless heel palm strike into the bridge of his nose [ breaking it ], fired a right inverted punch into his solar plexus [ he blew all the breath from his useless lungs in a single whoosh like he was the North Wind or something ], fired a left handed samurai blade of a handsword into his left carotid as I cross stepped with my left foot, and pivoted into a full powered, truly vicious downward swinging right handsword which chopped hard into the juncture of the back of his skull and his neck. Temporarily shorting his central nervous system.

He was out cold and in need of medical attention before he hit the ground.

I dropped the gun--wrapped in its Lincoln Park green and black bandana--on him. Then I turned to help Regina. 

She was looking right at me. She'd seen the whole thing. The rush of adrenalin of the last few moments had actually got her to sit fully up, with her round butt planted on the ground like her round firm secy butt was a chair. You know her butt gotta be way sexy if I noted the sexy of it even right after she tried to kill me.

"You're welcome," I said into her intense, conflicted gaze. I waited as she instinctively properly replaced her shirt and pants. Then I began walking slowly toward her." I'm going to help you to your feet..." I began slowly and calmly. Hopefully reassuringly.

"FUCK you, nigga!" she retorted. Guess I wasn't that reassuring.

So I stood still. Watched her try to get to her feet. Fail. Fall. Try again. Fail. Fall. And again. Fail. Fall. 

"Your body is still in shock and pain," I told her.

"From your karate shit!"

"Which I wouldn't've had to use if you didn't try to get me dead. And that same karate just saved you from Krazy-K. What da hell made you choose THAT fool for an accomplice?"

She remained truculently silent.

"So I'm going to help you up," I said from ten paces away. Then I began to slowly and nonthreateningly walk toward her. I saw where her right hand was placed before I got any closer. I was trying to give her a chance. I really was.

"Regina," I said. "Put the knife down. It didn't help Krazy-K...and he's in better shape than you are in now. What do you think I'll do to you if you try to use it?"

"I ain't got no--!" Regina started explosively.

I cut her off. " Don't try it. I saw you scoot over there to get the knife when I disarmed Krazy-K. Throw the knife away or I give you another taste of my shurikens." And I wave the shuriken that I already threw at her [ and retrieved ] that forced her to drop her gun in the first place. 

Reluctantly, she threw the Buck knife into the forest.

"Now I'm going to help you up." I said.

"FUCK--" Regina began.

"Shut UP." I covered her mouth with my hand. She tried to bite it, but I jammed that too. She began to struggle, but I overmastered her instantly. I'd heard the sound of the engine trying to cruise stealthily up on us, and I recognized its distinct pitch instantly.

Quickly I whispered in her ear:"Follow my lead or we're dead."

And I kissed her just before the blinding klieg lights flashed on us. Just before we heard the distinctive klikk klikk of shotguns locked loaded and drawn on us. Just before strong voices used to command and brooking no quarter shouted:"FREEZE!! POLICE!!"