Karate Lessons

"The victim didn't even have a chance."

"It's sad really how these things happen. Someone gets stupid, forgets their limits and we've got another rape attempt."

"Yep here we are two police officers trying to figure out why Mr. or Mrs. So and So is left dead in the gutter. Like I don't have more important things to do with my time than figure out this kid's whole back story. You would think people in this world would learn. Don't they have parents? Don't they have role models?"

"Guess they don't have anyone like you or me to be the fine upstanding citizen to model their lives after. Well anyways I suppose if they learned their lesson and their were no more dead bodies on these fine Chicago streets we would be out of a job (both laugh). And you have got to admit, this case is not like any I have ever seen."

"You are certainly right there. And dead with one blow its like something out of a movie or something!"

"Ya the movies, right. Well let's go see if the other officers are done questioning our Jackie Chan so we can get out of here and I can go to bed."

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Before giving away the ending this story begins a little future back. Try six months ago, in the happy little small town of Monroe Connecticut. Like many stories that end with some poor soul in the gutter, I would have done so many things different. But despite the circumstances of the seemingly tragic end, my story starts with one girl escaping that oppressively mundane state called Connecticut.

This was finally it. I was eighteen, I was grown up and I could finally leave white suburbia forever. Don't get me wrong I lived a perfectly happy life enjoying ever soccer practice, school play and karate lesson I went to. But I was leaving and there was nothing my overbearing, crazily protective mother could do about it. I could just hear her now going on in her sunflower apron, the sunflower apron that she wore every Sunday in order to "prepare for company" as she called it. Which really just meant she was putting eight packets of Ramen noodles into the pot instead of six. She really went all out when her parents came over. All it meant for me was that there would be three people nagging me instead of one. "Don't you know Chicago is dangerous" one would say. "People die in Chicago" another would blurt. And if I just didn't seem to get their point for effect mother would add "Do you want to end up dead in the gutter with no family around?" To that I always wanted to response "Around for what? To neatly clean up the body." But with ever restraint in me I just smiled, because I was going to Northwestern in the fall and there was nothing the three of them could do about it. And it killed them.


After the Last Supper, as I secretly liked to call the very last time I would have to tolerate spending the whole day with my mother, grandparents and that sunflower apron. I ran over to Liz's house, because there was no way a girl who has spent her whole life in small town Connecticut could handle this.

"Ok Liz, so I got in, I'm going to Chicago. But despite my best attempt to not give in an inch to my mother, what the hell am I doing!? I mean this is what I know, small town, soccer moms, blah blah slept with blah blah after home coming. I am assuming they don't care what color Mrs. Jacobs painted her shutters last week in Chicago."

Liz continued to snap her gum and thumb through last months Cosmo hoping something she owned even remotely resembled the shinny pictures . with their equally shining promises. "Don't worry about it kid. I mean what is the worst that could happen? You go, you study, you meat a hot guy and live happily ever after. I mean look at me, I am stuck in this place, no hopes of escape and you're leaving me."

Despite Liz's best attempts to guilt me with her overly made up puppy dog eyes, in her own perverted way Liz's plea only made me more ready to get out of this place and see what the rest of the world had in store. Any thing was better than this.


For the next six months I lived as happy as any college freshman with wavering interests could be. As an English major, or history I still hadn't decided, I attended every journalist club, poetry reading, civil war documentary and political luncheon that I could find. There was not way I was going to waste one moment of my freedom. I was determined to prove to my mother that a girl from the depths of suburbia could survive and possibly even thrive in the big city.


Luckily my favorite partner in crime that never seemed to fail me in times of late night dancing or heavy drinking was my roommate. Corey who hailed a whooping twenty minutes outside of Chicago acted as my guide. She was amazed that there were still people in this world that haven't experienced the seedy jazz clubs and all night dance clubs that Chicago had to offer. And I suspect she liked having an attentive student that was eager to absorb as much information as I could.


"C'mon we are only here for any other week and they you are back off to the family just in time for the the part of year where families get the most "jump off the roof would rather kill myself" insane. That's why we are going out tonight. I don't care whose final you have, or what paper you still have to finish. This is our last time to celebrate the end of our first semester of college"

She was always doing that. Every night seemed to be the last opportunity to celebrate the first time of whatever. And despite my ability to look back and see through her fake special occasions, it worked just like it had always worked. Normally we go out to the college scene, hit a few local bars with the rest of the Northwestern freshman, all of who know which bars conveniently didn't card underage students. But since tonight was such a big occasion, the first last time to whatever, Corey had something special in mind. She had been seeing a guy for two weeks now, big stuff from where Corey's relationship history had come from. Not that she was easy, but the only time she hung out with guys were between the hours of 11pm and 3am. Not exactley prime relationship material. But anyways, "Mr. Right" wanted to take her and me down town to a new club that was opening up. Apparently as "Mr. Right" was a prime 27 and knew people that knew people it wouldn't be a problem to get two eighteen year olds in. And again if you are thinking Corey is easy she makes it a rule not to talk to men who, as she says "accede my age by double digits." After hours of picking out the right outfit for Corey, and far less time figuring out what of Corey's she would let me borrow so I would be presentable for Chicago's "in scene" we gathered whatever money we had laying around and called a cab. Twenty minutes later, which in Chicago late night traffic, is really thirty five we reached it. Despite the promising description the areas looked particularly seedy and the only light was from a neon sign of two palm trees, with words in the middle that I assumed said "The Tiki Lounge." I say I assumed because the K in Tiki was missing as were the last three letter in lounge. And I assumed they wouldn't name a club after the Lou. But anyways, after finding Mr. Right who was waiting for us at the door we made our way into the club. Despite its less than promising exterior the inside looked like every other bar with a dance floor she had been too. After a few too many hours of drinking and doing something I attempt to pass for dancing our twenty dollar Target shoes hurt and it was time to go home. I think Mr. Right agreed, especially after he had to wipe off drool that Corey left on his shoulder after being asleep for the past ten minutes.


On the way out I regretted not brining a coat, but wouldn't even admit it to myself because it was something my mother and her sunflower apron would have nagged me about. As me, Mr. Right and the half unconscious Corey were leaving out the side exit Corey, emerging from her drunken sleep deprived slumber immediately woke up.

"Whoa, I am only wearing one shoe, and I am sure I came in here with to shoes."

I assured Mr. Right that yes, in fact Corey had come all the way down town and into the club with two shoes on her feet. Not wanting to leaving behind her twenty dollar Target pump I let Mr. Right lead her back to recover the missing shoe. Unfortunately for myself, and every person in there with a cigarette in their hands, I had the sudden realization that I had been inhaling an insane amount of smoke for the past three hours. As I opened the door to the exit, which took multiple tries, because either it was stuck or after my whooping two Smirnoff Ices I couldn't manage on the first try.

After I got outside and waited for the missing shoe to be recovered I let the cold air hit my face and travel down to my legs. I instantly regretted not borrowing something of Corey's that involved pants. But the cool air of the alley beat the stifling nature of the environment that she just came from. I let myself wander in the night air letting it fulling take over my senses. And I blame these partly occupied senses for not predicting the approaching nature ahead. After I had wandered enough I suddenly became very aware that the alley was darker than it had once been and the light from the side door was smaller and farther away than she had realized. In contrast to the previous calm I began to get the feeling someone was watching me. The more I walked toward the lit door the closer the feeling got, until that feeling was no longer just a feeling but footsteps running behind me. All of a sudden I turned around to see my attacker and before I know what was happening, before I could call for help the pursuit ended with a large unnerving WHAM, like human skin against human skin and a body dead in the gutter. Just like my mother had said.


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"Haha, ya Jackie Chan, that's what we can call it if this sort of amazing thing ever happens again."

"Ya ya like next time we won't even have to explain the details of the case, we can just say 'We got ourselves another Jackie Chan case' and that will be it."

"Everyone will know that instead of the rapist actually being able to follow through with his plans, the victim karate chops his ass like in a kun-fu movie and kills him with one swift blow to the neck."

"How did a young girl from the suburbs of Connecticut be able to pull off something like this. I mean we seen hundreds of these cases each year, and they all tragically end with the victim dead in the ally, not the attacker."

"I don't know I heard her say something about thanking her mother for all those karate lessons every Sunday."