Oliver is a boxer who trains with our stick and knife-fighting club. He works in wiring, running cable for various cable TV concerns and as a subcontractor on construction sites, as well as supporting the efforts of computer installation contractors. We were in the locker room speaking with Parish, a young fellow who looks like he should be the guitarist for a black metal band, when Oliver [see Oliver on Stupid Shit and Taking out the Trash] put into perspective what weapons training has meant to him in everyday life.
“Earlier this year I was wiring behind this building in an alley of Greenmount Avenue—a real bad area. I’m on this sketchy ladder that looks like something that Lara Croft would be climbing in Tomb Raider. While I’m up on this thing I look down the alley and there are these dudes down there throwing dice, and they keep looking at me, talking about me. I just knew they were up to no good. Working in a bad area is worse than walking in a bad area. You have your back turned, your hands occupied.
“But now, thanks to this weapon perspective I have from doing this [agonistics] I look around at my environment and I see weapons everywhere. It’s no longer just a space, but an arsenal. I look at these guys and climb down the ladder, go to my van, get my World War One bayonet—basically a can opening sword, and I use that to trim my wire.
“Now they‘re looking at me, and I’m looking at them trimming wire with this thing and then sticking it in the pole.
“They went back to spinning their dice.”
“Anything is a weapon. Even those plastic knives and rolled up magazines we train with will knock a dude out. I’ve gotten to the point where I love knife fighting. The stick fighting is still scary until you get out there and get into it. But the knife is just such a real perspective on combat—there’s no bullshit. As nasty as boxing is it has its bullshit. But the knife, that cuts through all that.”
So, what is the best clue that you are in a bad neighborhood?
That’s right, dudes throwing dice in the alley, the more of them there are the worse the area is. Find a brick or a pipe—if a WWI bayonet is not handy—and get your ass to the busiest street and drop your weapon in the gutter before the cops jack you up for threatening the criminal class they are sworn to protect and house.
