Haymakers: Part I

By Will Berkeley

Haymakers is how Tae Kwon Do delivered Mister Berkeley to Brown University. I trained under Billy Blanks, pre-Tae Bo fame, in the eighties. Three high schools. Two black belts and one black sash in Kung Fu. Throw in a little wrestling, boxing and Judo. And you're a go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Berkeley
• Release date: Sep 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311947949

Will Berkeley

I am a Boston based fiction writer. I used to be a black belt in Tae Kwon Do which I earned from Billy Blanks before Tae Bo made him famous. That black belt was stolen along with my mountain of martial arts weapons in a break-in. You didn't hear about it on the news because I wasn't home. Never too late to roll weapons especially on crooks that steal black belts. What the hell! You can take everything else. You didn't earn that. Avi is me. Chris Sargent Photography credit.

Book preview

HAYMAKERS: PART I

Published by Will Berkeley

Copyright 2015 Will Berkeley

Chapter

I got the rail out of town for fucking fighting. That's kind of an unusual trajectory up to Brown University. But that's how I done it. My grammar was horrific in the eighties. But my test scores were through the roof. Actually above it. I tore the roof off that motherfucker. Banned books was how I done that. Some people burn them. Not me! For God’s sake.

I swear by them for fuck’s sake. Jesus, Mary and Saint Fucking Joseph! I swear by them all the night by flashlight after lights out. After Rosary Beads. God help me stop cursing! My mind was such an unholy roar of profanity back in my professional Tae Kwon Do fighter days. Hey, cursing is a nice accompaniment for a ranked fighter. You incite the fuck out of everybody. And I’m Irish Catholic too. Nice and white. Fuck you. That’s how I got my fights right off the ground.

However I was too ashamed to present my profanity and dyslexia to anybody that I was not actually fighting. I preferred not to talk. I preferred to fight like most fighters. Most of us are dyslexic. Hey, we like fighting. It beats spelling. And being a fighter? I prayed to God to stop cursing constantly. And get me out of this Irish Catholic condition, God. Amen. Fucking get on it, God. Ah fuck. I did it again. Fucking dyslexia. Catholicism sucks too.

I was under contract in the eighties with God Almighty and family to stop cursing. Fuck was my favorite word. It’s a fucking versatile word. I used it almost exclusively. How was I doing with cleaning up it? Not so good. Hey, I am fucking improving with the cursing and grammatical horrors. Maybe only on the grammar a little bit. Cursing you can forget it, dude. God must a done it to me on purpose. It's like fighting Tae Kwon Do professional. I got nowhere else to go. I been kicked out of every decent fighting sport out there. At least I am good at Tae Kwon Do even though my sport has no sponsors. I will say that. Ranked on the East Coast right now. My number is 1. I am happy with being the best at something even if it is Tae Kwon Do fighting. I been kicked out of boxing, Judo and Kung Fu just to list off the notables. So I am pretty proud that I am still in Tae Kwon Do probably because it has no sponsors. No decent sponsor would have me as champion because I am an appallingly brutal fighter. Then I roll weapons and everybody faints. I am Master level at that. This is not a celebrated situation in the eighties in New England.

My Irish grandmother used to walk me to the town library for self-improvement. I mean talk Gaelic Irish grandmother. Not fake Boston Irish. Real Irish! Irish that even spoke Irish! You aren't just Tae Kwon Do fighting your whole life. Spinning swords, street fighting and frightening everyone. Since when is fighting professional a bad thing? Nobody even watches but Tae Kwon Do fighters. I can see your problem with the street fights but I have those deeply disguised these days. I don’t even let anyone watch me do swords outside of competition. The world is staffed by nothing but critics. I got a fuck load of them.

You're going to the Library to work on your grammar if you want to go to Tae Kwon Do today! Okay fine. You have me at Tae Kwon Do. I am currently kicked out of Kung Fu so I have to go where I am welcome. Pretty much I am welcome nowhere in town at this particular moment. It’s not my problem that nobody cannot no fight for nothing in this town. They have to come after me in packs. I am available for the coyotes. I will say that. My Nana would then flip out on me for about half an hour. I just stand there and shrug in my cheap sneakers.

I can’t even fight the goddamn bullies anymore. Because my Tae Kwon Do privileges will be unreasonably suspended. I have professional bouts that I must attend. And Professional fighters are supposed to beat the bag out of bullies! Nobody would accept my position. Not even my coach Billy Blanks. I had to ramp all the way up to him to stop getting kicked out of dojos. He had the best Tae Kwon Do Academy on the East Coast. Perhaps all of America.

Unfortunately his dyslexia was worse than mine so he accepted no excuses for cursing and grammatical horrors. Everybody in my life took the position that I was lazy. Hey, I only have a couple of black belts and one black sash in Kung Fu. I am only Master level at weapons. I don’t have me pegged for lazy. You are lazy with your language skills!

We were kind of late arrivals to understanding dyslexia in the decorated martial artist is what I am driving at. My Nana thought the library could beat it out of me. We had similar fight philosophies, I suppose. Everyone in the United States is lazy. Same deal with martial arts. Nobody trains like me. And stupid to boot. Not your brightest bulbs on the fight circuit. I am like a skeleton. But I am a sly fox that knows how to sneak a hit in. I practice maybe four times as much as everybody else. I also got started in Kung Fu as a toddler. That’s the whole recipe right there.

All I want to do is fight. And even I know that is not right. I am not even in a proper fight sport like boxing because I insist on kicking. I train weapons too. All the banned ones. I am way better at weapons is what I tell my fight critics. I am arguably the world’s first Irish American Bruce Lee. I got to walk to the library for self-improvement because of it. That’s my reward.

Automobiles are a sign of human weakness. Autobuses are for travel. You can read on them. Airplanes are acceptable devil’s work. Men find employment in their deployment. Women find husbands through their steward. Hopefully Roman Catholic Irish pilots. God save us. My Nana would lecture the pants right off me. I have to sit there and take it or I lose my Tae Kwon Do privileges.

Airplanes are for visiting Ireland. Ireland is terrible! All my relatives are dirt farmers. Or crushing foreign despots in war. Yes! Driving Hitler to his suicide. And yes! Which he deserved. But God Almighty up his chair gave you two feet for a reason. For Kung Fu fighting? I am even better at Kung Fu than Tae Kwon Do. That is my biggest secret. I want to be a Tae Kwon Do fighter but I am Kung Fu to the max. I have only been doing that since I could walk. You pick up a few moves when you start Kung Fu at three years old. Roll into Karate after Judo and boxing. You find Tae Kwon Do late in life in the fifth grade. Thirteen years in the fighting can at sixteen years old. I don’t know nothing about fighting is what I would say before I wrecked kids. My weapons are what you watch out for.

Chapter

You will use your feet to walk to the library to improve your station in life, William. You cannot possibly get any better at martial arts. Oh yes I can. I have a line on a former Shaolin Fighting Monk. I bet he can up my game. But all I say is. Can’t we just stay home and read the Bible? It’s raining out. Or I can do a blistering workout down the basement. Stay out of your hair. Roll Kung Fu for say four hours up in the woods by myself before Tae Kwon Do practice. Put on your galoshes! I had no such fine rubbers growing up in Ireland. Black Irish all of us. Roman Irish Catholic. British to boot. We didn’t know who we were. And America has only made it worse. We are very late arrivals to this American experience. We probably shouldn’t have come. I totally disagree. Only one thing is worse than Hingham, Massachusetts. It is called Ireland. There is no decent Tae Kwon Do on that rock. Or it is in urban areas which I am prohibited from entering.

The Good Book will only get you so far, young William. The Bible has awesome stories of violence! Nana would scold me as we were dressing for war with the elements of good old fashioned New England. You latch on to all the wrong parts of The Bible. What?

The Bible is wicked. I love tales of violence. I am Old Testament the max. Lock into the Earth and throw thunder. Kung Fu fighter. You will stop that violent talk right now, William. Since when is violence a problem for me? It’s everything else that is a problem.

Put on your foul weather gear! This is no small walk in the park. It is November in New England. God Almighty up in his chair has made good use of his gravity. It is raining sideways here in the witchy woods of New England. God Almighty has put entire rivers in front of us that we will cross by hopping from stone to stone. I have placed those stones myself. There are no bridges for us. And we will walk through the witchy woods of New England. Have no fear. We will save God’s precious time on our journey to the Hingham Public Library. All capital letters because that is our institution. For the love of God! What time to do I get dropped off at Tae Kwon Do? Periodically everyone throws their hands up and leaves me up there for the entire weekend. My coach takes me home like a stray. They’re the only peaceful weekends for all parties involved. Billy Blanks has no problem with me training around the clock.

The Bible has exceeded its usefulness for you, young William. You need library books. Great books. Don’t I know it, dude. You are not going to become a Roman Catholic priest. I will run away! I would never allow it. Thank you, God! The Roman Catholic Church will not be the center of your life as it has been mine. Ash Wednesday is not for you. You cannot complete The Stations of The Cross. You have too many objections before the first Station is done. Then you start cursing worse than any longshoreman. They wish that they had your level of profanity on the docks. I have concluded that it is God given. You should deploy it purposely in the fine art of fiction writing.

I have a fucking jar that I have to put dollars in. I cannot talk. How could I ever become a writer? I am Tae Kwon Do fighter. That's all I got. A road to fucking nowhere. Fuck! I did it again. You can curse all you want around me. I have come to accept it. Sounds fucking great to me. Just don’t do it in church. I don’t plan on fucking attending no more. I got a plan for excommunication. I’m challenging the priest to a boxing match. He’s one of those boxing priests. I am going to take his head off. That will probably happen my Nana would shrug.

The Blessed Pope will merely be a useful accessory for you such as a gentleman’s pocket watch. He will help you keep time. Provide you with a moral compass. I’m just sitting there thinking at least the fucking Pope doesn’t get bossed around by some lay nun in sewer boots. The fucking Pope is not walking through the witchy woods of New England. Crossing entire rivers! He has The Pope Mobile which is probably a boat too. I bet he has a private jet like Gregg Allman too. Cher sitting there across from him pissed! That’s what I am talking about. A hot woman on a private jet completely pissed at you. Gregg Allman on his private jet! Cher sitting right there! His own critic. She is hot too, dude. A Kool cigarette off to the side. I don’t want no woods of New England. You can keep them. I want me a jet. Cher sitting there pissed. That woman is hot! That’s what I want to piss off. Not no lay nun. I want a bad girl like Cher. Then have me a Kool! And all those snipes about the Pope’s toilet routine out in the woods and his classification as a wild bear. He has the fucking Vatican. He has sacred books that I would kill to touch. Not me! Not me, dude! I got no books of my own! All library this dude. Witchy woods and sewer boots. My life sucks! The only thing that I can do is fight Tae Kwon Do. And all that does is get me in trouble. You ever see a professional Tae Kwon Do fighter in anything better than a Camaro? Not me neither. Not a lick a grammar on any of us. Hanging around the dojo the rest of our lives watching smart kids figure out that Karate is something you quit. I got a black belt in that too.

I am the wild bear of the witchy woods of New England. I wish I had world class detractors. Making fun of my toilet routine. The Pope has access to all human knowledge on his bookshelf. All he got to do is read in The Vatican. All of human history at his disposal. Me? I got nothing! I am a pro fighter in an ancient Korean sport. A sport that maybe peaked five hundred years ago.

The Pope has got everything. He could roll Kung Fu in St. Peter’s Square if he wanted to. Even Gregg Allman is envious of that dude. He doesn’t have to put up with Cher sitting there pissed in her chair! Gregg can't drank as much as he wants. Cher will complain. But she can’t do nothing about it.

That’s how my mind worked back then. A complete mess. Would I compare Gregg Allman to the Pope? Swing it through Kung Fu which is what I wanted to be doing. You better believe it. The fucking Pope walks away winners. He can drank as much as he wants. Books and Nuns out the ass. Roll Kung Fu in St. Fucking Peter’s Square. I got nothing. Gregg Allman? I am chasing that dude. You better believe it. I will catch him too. Then surpass The Pope. Pork Cher too! Drank as much as I wants on me jet The Irish Fucking Mist. Slap that right on the side of it. Fuck you, SEC.

You need more practical wisdom for your journey up through life, young William. You are too steeped in the American quagmire. Tae Kwon Do, gangsters and models will only take you so far in life. Library books will be your tool. Particularly the banned ones. What they teach in these American schools is rudimentary at best. But you’re a lucky little boy, young William. I only have an eighth grade education out of Black Irish Ireland. The South to boot. Look what I have done with my life. America, two dead husbands, three college educated children, seven grandchildren. I have been a Governess in the finest homes of Boston. Gentlemen that own entire city blocks have entrusted me with the education of their children. Nothing more than a cardboard suitcase. But here I am. Tougher than any Yankee broad in this town. And smarter too.

We will put no limits on how high you can go. You are free to check out as many dirty books from The Hingham Public Library as you like. You cannot possibly expand your repertoire of profanity. You are topped out there. I want to focus on the banned books though. Those are the only worthwhile books in the adult section. I have read them all. Do not worry about the censors. I will handle them. I am your legal guardian. Your mother, father and stepfather have all consented to this arrangement. You stepmother I shouted down. She is the best educated. A