touch of death

justin madu

Curtis had spent the summer between Grades 7 and 8 trying unsuccessfully to reinvent himself. It started when he tried to get everyone to call him “Curt,” which he thought sounded cooler and more mature than “Curtis.” It never caught on. This annoyed him, because the previous year his friend Jashanpreet had asked their classmates to start calling him “Johnny,” which appeared to have both an instant catchiness and staying power that “Curt” lacked.
Curtis couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of what their classmates called his friend’s “Canadian name” because it was like an alter-ego or secret identity, as if Jashanpreet were Superman, hiding in plain sight as Johnny instead of Clark Kent. Curtis never made the observation out loud, instead pretending all memories of Superman: The Man of Tomorrow were wiped from his mind, because that past spring their peers seemed to have unanimously decided that comic books were for babies, nerds, or baby-nerds.
In response Curtis reluctantly packed all of his Spiderman, Batman, and Superman issues into a 53-litre Rubbermaid bin before dragging it across the hall to his younger brother’s room. It was a necessary precaution to preserve his reputation, just in case anyone from school ever stopped by unexpectedly. Still, when he thought no one was paying attention, he would slink into his brother’s room and re-read his old favourites, resentful of the secrecy he had been reduced to while simultaneously relieved that he hadn’t been forced to throw them away like his peers without younger siblings.
The change from Jashanpreet to Johnny was seamless, and when “Curt” didn’t work out, Curtis tried to ask Johnny for tips to get a name change to stick. Johnny flatly denied ever being addressed by anything else. Curtis dropped it, and the issue had not been discussed since.
After the name change fell flat, something new came up. Earlier that year, during a sleepover at Johnny’s house, Johnny’s older brother TJ had lent the two younger boys his DVD player and a copy of Rush Hour 2. They had never seen the first Rush Hour, but that seemed inconsequential: this was an opportunity to watch one of TJ’s movies—it was like he was inviting them into being teenagers. Johnny handled the futuristically thin disc with painstaking care, in equal part wanting to show he was mature enough to be lent things but also hoping to avoid the catastrophic argument that would ensue if even a fingerprint showed up on the movie. TJ was sixteen and worked as an after-school grocery cashier—this meant most of his clothes were brand-new and he had even given Johnny his Sony Discman as a hand-me-down when he bought a five-gigabyte iPod. But all that was beside the point. Sure, the DVD player was stylish and slick, but it was not nearly as captivating as the kung fu on the Rush Hour 2 disc.
The chemistry between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker was so captivating that, somewhere in his gut, Curtis knew kung fu would lead to everything he wanted: respect, popularity, and handing out ass-kickings. The boys agreed to learn kung fu together. They fell asleep on the floor of Johnny’s living room that night imagining themselves fighting faceless thugs and criminals with the effortless fluidity of Tekken 3 characters.
In the weeks that followed, Curtis took to posing in the bathroom mirror while misquoting the film from memory. His mind often wandered to the question of whether he was more like Chief Inspector Lee or Detective James Carter, but he was unable to make a consistent choice. It took nearly a month for him to build the nerve to beg his mom to enrol him in karate. When he finally asked, she offered a compromise: the karate class he wanted was across town, but there was a judo dojo near their apartment. The shift stifled Curtis’ excitement because he didn’t think Jackie Chan did judo, but it would have to be good enough. He called Johnny immediately, but when he shared the news, his friend explained they would not be attending class together. His parents had refused his request. When asked if any amount of pleading would change their minds, Johnny just sighed. His parents insisted that if he had time to spend on karate or judo, he would be better suited doing homework. This struck Curtis as remarkably unfair, because Johnny’s grades were fine, but it didn’t seem to strike his friend as unreasonable and so he didn’t mention it.
Because judo was within walking distance, Curtis would be going to and from class on his own. He felt very adult saying goodbye to his mom and little brother before locking the apartment door behind him. This wasn’t a minor excursion: he was going to an appointment. A judo appointment. Even as weeks passed and the novelty wore off, the feeling of being important, of being somebody, still washed over him joyously at least once during the twelve-minute walk.
It was 7 p.m. on a Tuesday in mid-August, and Curtis was walking home, still in his white gi. He always expected to feel cool in his uniform. And he did, when he was alone—but he always became self-conscious when passing people on the sidewalk. His yellow belt was draped over his left shoulder while a repurposed black CCM hockey bag carrying his street clothes dangled off his right. The heat of the day was just starting to dissipate, but the temperature still hovered somewhere in the 30s. Sirens wailed in the distance, although he didn’t know if they belonged to an ambulance, fire truck, or police car. He could never tell the difference, and suspected people who claimed to be able to tell were lying. The sun still reflected aggressively off the glass store windows that lined his way home, forcing him to squint as he scanned the sidewalk for broken glass or discarded needles, the way his mom had taught him to.
“Hey you!” a hoarse voice called out from an alley as he passed.
He didn’t slow his pace, nor turn to look.
“Hey, karate kid!” it rang out again. Oh no. As unlikely as it was, Curtis desperately hoped there was someone else wearing a gi walking down the street.
“What do you want?” Curtis asked, trying to sound unbothered. Frustration. He had just spoken exactly the way he didn’t want to: totally unlike Jackie Chan and quite a bit like the concerned thirteen-year-old he was.
The shuffling of uneven footsteps started behind him, and he spun around quickly to face whoever was approaching him.
“Do you know about the dim mak?” the person asked.
She was a woman of an indeterminate age, her skin weathered from years of too much sun exposure. Her face was pockmarked, and deep ridges had bored themselves into her forehead, although he wasn’t sure if they were from an injury, a skin condition, or something else. She smelled faintly of lavender, but it was hidden under the harsh scent of a nail salon that emanated from her clothing and hair. He glanced at her hands, clearly unkempt, and briefly pondered the incongruity.
“Yeah, I do,” He held eye contact with her, noticing how her pupils twitched with a wildness that made him shift from foot to foot. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. She continued shuffling towards him, only pausing once she stood about six feet away.
Curtis had heard about the dim mak—the touch of death—from TJ. TJ considered himself a martial arts movie expert, taking any moment Johnny left Curtis alone with him to try and describe film plots to the younger boy who couldn’t really follow the long-winded summaries. The movies all seemed to be about rivalries between different clans and orders, with other details boiling down to a random collection of terms like Shaolin, White Lotus, and monkey style.
Still, the dim mak had stood out. It had many names: the poison hand, the delayed death touch, vital point striking. It was a method of killing a person with only a few blows, or even a single touch. Sometimes TJ would jab his brother in the stomach harshly with his index and middle fingers and declare he would die in his sleep that night, before walking away laughing to himself for reasons neither Johnny nor Curtis could place. It didn’t strike them as funny, just strange, but they didn’t understand all the jokes in Rush Hour 2 either.
One time Curtis asked his instructor about the dim mak, and sensei Andy assured him it was nothing more than mysticism. Curtis didn’t know what mysticism meant but assumed it meant “nonsense TJ had made up.” When Curtis confronted TJ, he discredited sensei Andy by rhetorically asking how a redheaded Jewish man could be an expert on martial arts. Curtis wasn’t quite sure if this counterargument made sense, but when he tried to ask Johnny about it later, his friend just shrugged and said India was technically a part of Asia. With that, Curtis couldn’t help but stare down at his own pale hands, accepting that perhaps TJ really was more likely to be descended from the Chinese masters than Andy.
“I-I-I know the dim mak. I can teach you,” the woman stuttered a bit before realizing her train of thought. He recognized she was homeless but didn’t know what to make of the fact. He was also pretty sure she was what he’d heard people call a wino. He was unsure of what that meant.
Curtis’ mom had insisted that martial arts would make him more confident. She had been wrong, because all judo had done was make him acutely aware of his total lack of athletic ability. He looked at the woman in front of him, rail-thin but at least five inches taller than him. He had never successfully swept anyone the woman’s size in judo class, even though sensei Andy said it was easier to perform a hip throw on a taller opponent. Panic began to set in. He felt a bead of cold sweat trickle from his armpit and down his ribcage. Despite his body begging him to run, his feet stayed rooted as he stared at the woman. Don’t blink, don’t flinch, his inner monologue chanted.
“Bullshit,” he replied, jutting his chin at her slightly. He had never sworn at an adult before. The words felt foreign as they passed his lips.
“Before all this,” she gestured haphazardly, “I lived in Hong Kong.”
“Bullshit.” He said it again. It felt more natural this time. “You don’t even know what Hong Kong is like.”
“It’s on the coast. I snuck onto a boat to get there.”
This forced him to pause because it sounded right. He thought he had heard news reports about boats from Vancouver going to Hong Kong.
“Even if you know the dim mak. Have you ever used it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t had to.”
“Then how do you know if it works?”
“I know it works.”
“How?”
“I just do.”
He realized quickly the conversation was doomed to go in circles, and he hadn’t grown any more comfortable as the pair exchanged words. Despite his unease, he couldn’t seem to summon the will to leave. Maybe it was curiosity that kept him there. Was it possible that he stayed with the hope that he would have something to report back to TJ? News of the dim mak.
“Tell me how then,” he challenged her, unsure of what to expect.
She took three steps towards him, now only about an arm’s length away, and before he could react, she flattened her right hand, reached out, and thrust all four fingers into his chest. It didn’t hurt, but the surprise of it sent him stumbling backwards.
Almost instantaneously, he started running. He wanted to put distance between them, and he wanted to stop feeling scared. He lived three blocks away, and he was sure he could make it.
He couldn’t tell if she was chasing him because he was too afraid to look back. He shouldn’t turn his back on an opponent. Sensei Andy would be disappointed. He imagined she was only a few feet in tow as he approached his building.
He dropped his bag to the ground and started searching for his door keys. Finally glancing around, he realized she wasn’t there anymore. As Curtis crouched over his bag, his judo belt fell off of his shoulder and tumbled onto the cement. He thought about leaving it there, but in a split-second snatched it up, clenching it in his fist. His free hand found his lanyard and he fought to stop trembling as he guided his key into the keyhole of the building’s thick glass door.
He entered the lobby, tugging the door shut behind him. Still frantic, he entered the stairwell and climbed them two-at-a-time until he reached the fourth floor. As soon as he entered the hallway he saw his apartment door, the familiar brown wood more comforting than it had ever been. He threw it open and tossed himself through, closing it hard behind him. His chest burned as his mom offered a vague greeting from her bedroom, likely watching television while doing laundry. He ignored her, allowing his attention to be directed onto more pressing matters. Tears threatened to leap out his eyes, and he felt as if they were attached to a tether in his diaphragm as the adrenaline in his system plateaued. He staggered into the living room, worried his chest was about to explode from the effects of the fatal dim mak instead of the sprint home. He picked up the cordless phone handset and dialed Johnny’s house. It took two tries because his fingers jittered with anxiety. The phone rang three times before Johnny answered.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Curtis, I need to talk to TJ. He’ll know what to do.”
“What?”
“I need to talk to TJ.”
“Uhh, one sec,” Johnny said before shouting for his brother. As if she were an echo, their mother repeated the message loudly enough it was picked up by the phone’s receiver:
“Taranjeet, answer your brother! He says Curtis is needing something!”
A pause. Muffled conversations were overshadowed by the crackle of the phone being moved: Johnny absent-mindedly rubbing it against his shirt—an annoying habit of his. Finally, Johnny replied.
“He told me to ask you what it’s about.”
“Please hurry. Someone… a crazy lady… she did the dim mak to me when I was walking home. Sensei Andy says it isn’t real, but TJ says it is, and I need him to help me. He has to talk to me right now. Please.”
Curtis desperately tried not to cry or do any of the other things he thought baby-nerds would do, even if faced with potential death.
Another pause.
“Uhhh, TJ, I think you need to come and hear this. I’m not sure but it might be serious.”
Curtis reflexively held his breath, unsure of if it was out of anxiety or anticipation, but instead of words of advice, wisdom, or consolation, only TJ’s quiet, chittering laughter bubbled through the receiver.

Justin Madu is a writer, educator, and general jokester living in BC's interior. He grew up in Prince George, nicknamed "BC's Northern Capital" and tries to capture that experience in writing whenever possible.