Pistol Grip

I was a full blooded pirate captain by the time I was eight. Errol Flynn's Captain Blood was my hero. My sister still tells that story every Thanksgiving to her two children. They're seven and eight. I sit through it of course. Then she makes me take out my foils, which I just happen to have in my car, so the kids can sword fight with uncle Chris as a referee.

When our mother died my sister became the keeper of the family stories. Cirrhosis and a bad heart took her out before she was sixty. Between the two of us my sister remembers the stories better. She remembers our father too. I don't. He left for another woman before I was toilet trained and could form sentences. I don't remember either him or his leaving. It's empty there. My mother told me why he left when I was eight. I guess she got tired of me asking who he was, and where he'd gone, again and again.

"He left so he could screw another woman," she said slapping a fry pan onto a burner, cursing as hot oil splattered onto her hand, her back to me. "It's been ten goddamn years and, Christopher, I don't want you asking about this any more." I apologized to her for asking, and she waved me out of the kitchen. That night, before I went to sleep, she kissed me on the forehead and said, "everything will be alright." Her breath smelled of red wine and cigarettes.

She saw other men when I was young. I remember them leaving early in the morning, with their pants unbuckled and secret lipstick scars on their necks, but she never married again. I don't know why and my sister and me don't talk about it.

###

I started fencing again last month. It's been five years outside of forays with Beth's kids on the holidays. The Seahawks with Errol Flynn was playing at a revival house just outside of Red Bay and I caught the last show on a Friday night, front row center. When I got home to the hut, as my sister calls my apartment, I searched through the closet for my fencing bag and laid out the equipment on my sofa bed.

I remembered, while other kids were ranging the piles of concrete behind the garden apartment's dumpsters or exploring each other playing doctor in the woods, charged from a morning of Speed Racer and The Bowery Boys, I would settle in front of the TV for the pirate matinee on channel five. My mother worked on Sunday afternoons so my sister and I had the apartment to ourselves. I swaggered around with a thin, pointy, stick for a sword, and an old orange towel around my shoulders for a cape. The cape might have been the influence of Superman or Dracula, but I made it part of my Peter Blood outfit anyway. That's the part of the story my sister likes to tell.

I took my sword everywhere and attacked anything that moved. I challenged invisible adventurers to duels on the sofa and when I got tired of that I moved onto live game. The neighbor's dog, Alexander the Carnivore, bit my leg. The cat leaped on my back and embedded her claws into my orange cloak. She left marks on my back for a week. We never did feel comfortable in each other's presence after that. My sister, who accepted all challengers, snapped my blade in half and punched me in the arm. She's four years older than me and had the height advantage. I got another sword the next day and reminded her that though she may have won the battle, Peter Blood would be back to fight again. Besides, the woods were full of swords waiting to be picked.

When I was eight and a half I saw The Mark of Zorro. I thought Tyrone Power was Errol Flynn with black hair so I changed my colors from orange to black. I used my mother's black silk skirt when she wasn't home. After I saw Errol in The Adventures of Don Juan my mom put a stop to it. I was about to attempt an improvised ear piercing. At the time I didn't understand what the big deal was. They found me sharpening the butchers knife and practicing my technique on an orange peel. My sister brought my mother in on it, "for safety's sake," but then she never had much faith in my handling of weapons. Ear piercing was a serious business to Don Juan de Mara–a Jr.

By the time I was in my first year in college I was truly a connoisseur of Flynn's films. The Master of Ballantrae, Robin Hood, even his later films, Against All Flags, and Captain Fabian, were all etched with the clash of steel in my memory box. I've always had trouble watching his later films though, when he was puffy from alcoholism and his face looked heavy like thick, melting wax.

My first week at school I remember seeing the poster of Flynn, sword at the ready, hair wildly flying with the sea spray, Captain Blood scrawled across the sky behind him, at the University Cinema. The decision to sit through a twelve hour Flynn-festival was an easy one. The fencing club was waiting outside, two men and two women, foils in hands, pens ready to sign people up. Four years of twice a week practice, endless footwork drills and numerous tournaments passed before college ended. Sometimes we would practice in the dormitory halls, the snap-click of crossed foils reviving the undead plastered to text books or inhaling weed from behind closed doors.

I married once. It lasted a year. She said I smothered her. I tried to get her back for a year afterwards until my sister told me to let her go.

"That girl's going to get an order of protection against you if you're not careful," she said.

"She told me that last time I called," I replied.

"Let her go Christopher. You'll find someone else."

"I don't understand what I did wrong," I said.

"That's the problem, Chris. Everybody else can see it but you." She looked at me with those eyes that said maybe it was time to go out and get another sword from the woods because this one was broken. I let her go. I let the fencing go too.

Last month I found out about The Swordsmen, a club in Ellenville. I met an old member of my college fencing club on the corner of fifth and twentieth outside of the publishing house I work at. He gave me the floor times and directions. My belly had been expanding from happy-hour forays with business associates and an abandoned health club membership. I dreamed that night I saw Errol Flynn standing in the middle of a gym floor, the sign Willets Road Elementary School hung in a banner above him. He had a foil in his hand and his pierced ear sparkled. He shouted out footwork and blade-work to a host of handsome youth while ladies in tight corsets watched from the stands, fanning themselves.

The first person I met at Willets Road Elementary was Sam. He was eighty-two, five foot four in a slouch, white haired, sour breathed, and had palsied hands that shook like a rattler's tail. His knickers were worn, stained brown from years of sweat. They bagged loosely above his calves, the knee straps long worn out. His jacket was threading, stretched out at the collar and wrists. He must have shrunk since he first bought it. He had a vacant look on his face. I said hello and extended my hand slowly, putting my equipment bag down on top of the stage next to his. His bag was filled with seven or eight different foils and épées.

He stepped out of his daze, emerging from another place, and smiled slightly, as if his lips couldn't move anymore or they'd crack. "You must be ... " he began, hesitating, squinting his eyes.

"Chris Hohner." I smiled. His face was a little red, and there were lines around his cheeks. His handshake was soft, his palms clammy.

"You must be the guy who called about the foils."

"No I..."

"Well here, let me show you what I have."

Before I could stop him he was at his bag, showing me an old foil, French grip, worn at the pommel, point tickling the air in front of my belly. People were entering from the door behind me and beginning to limber up. I glanced at them and tried to make eye contact with someone, anyone.

"This French style is good for beginners to try. Young people today see the pistol grip and like to shoot each other like it's a gun not a foil," he continued.

My gaze went back to him when the word beginner sunk in. "I'm not exactly a beginner ... "

"That's what I mean, kids learn on the pistol grip, can't get the right motions down and we can't seem to make champions like they can in France or Hungary. See what I mean?" He pointed to a thin teenager who was practicing his lunges with a pistol-gripped foil in the corner. Fencers were pairing off on the floor, saluting and beginning to bout. The snap-clash of foils filled the air.

"Well, thank you Sam but ... "

"I bought this foil on old Nassau Street with Richard over there," he pointed to another old man with his foil, the blade slicing the air in front of me. I sucked in my stomach as the foil tip passed inches from my ribs. Richard, balding with thin strips of white hair on his pate, was getting dressed by the far door. "Of course I can barely see the damned thing these days, with my cataracts acting up. I have to go into surgery tomorrow morning. They say I can't fence for a month or so. But this was my first." He sliced the blade back past me to his side so he could look at it again. His hands were shaking and I could barely see the blur of the foil myself. I tried to get the attention of a man behind Sam who was dressed and limbered, ready for a bout, but someone else stepped up to him and challenged, before I could. I looked back at Sam who was still talking to me, shaking foil in hand. I finished dressing and stood leaning against the stage. Sam's breath had the sour milk smell my grandfather's used to have when I visited him in the hospital right before he died. I took a deep breath and willed myself to be patient. He pointed with a turn of his head towards Richard and continued talking.

"Richard and I were both eighteen. Looking for a football. Back then you know all the sporting goods stores were on one block in Brooklyn, so we took the bus across and came out on Nassau Street. We looked around at Schmidts, where we always went, when instead of seeing a football, we saw this blade and another crossing it on a shelf. There were two masks in front of them. We asked how much they were, and the fellow told us there was a special on them, just for us, two-fifty apiece. And you know we weren't from poor families so we had some change on us then. We asked about the masks and he said he had another special, just for us, and that he would give them to us for one-fifty each."

"A dollar fifty?" I asked.

"A dollar fifty each. So of course we bought both, forgetting all about the football. Then we walked across the street to Cobby's, where all the sports books were and got a book on fencing for twenty-five cents." Sam was still staring at the blade.

I figured he was about wound out, and I prepared to make up an excuse and leave. I wanted to get some fencing in before the evening ended, and I ran out of motivation. There were some good fencers on the floor.

"Richard has a pacemaker now but he can still fleché. Oh not as fast as he used to, but he can still fleché."

Now I knew what a fleché attack was, though in my college career I had never perfected it. The running, lunging assault was designed to score a touch quickly. It was an advanced movement, and difficult to do well.

"He was U.S. champion with foil three times in a row. Course I never took a title, but I tell you I've beaten Richard a few times myself. That's one thing age has given me."

I looked at Richard getting dressed and watched as he covered his sagging frame with a tee shirt. His white skin looked thin, easily bruised, delicate. I smiled at Sam.

"My legs have outlasted him. Because of his heart." Sam looked up at me and winked. "He can't go as long as I can. My legs are still good. Course I can't see well and my aim's off." He looked at the foil again and watched it shake. I followed his gaze. "But I can outlast him now. See I'm still in better shape than him. Always was before too, but now I got the legs." He broke wind and looked at me, smiled. I shook my head in disbelief and smiled too.

"Want to have a bout?" he asked me.

My smile left quickly and spit caught in my throat. I sighed, trapped, and said, "Sure, why not."

"Good. Give me a few seconds to get ready." He almost put the foil down, but hesitated, then took it with him to the fencing strip in the middle of the gym floor.

I followed, head low, wondering if I could stop after a quick five touches. Resigned to the bout, I stopped on the center strip, and looked at him. He was lost in thought, gazing at the old foil, hand still shaking.

"Ready?" I tossed the word across the strip, touching him like a tap on the shoulder, a gauntlet thrown to the floor.

We saluted, and put on our masks. "Ready, fence."

He flechéd twice, scoring both attempts.

"Keep your guard up. Extend quicker on your ripostés. You have a longer reach. Use it." He said the words quickly, the mask pushed half up over his eyes like a knight's helmet.

I was still trying to figure out how he had scored againsts me. I nodded, breathing heavily. We began again. I couldn't get my point near his body. He pressed me aggressively backward, attacking, probing, and keeping me on the defensive. He moved so fast that I could only back up and parry. He scored three more times and I cursed hotly, slapping his blade to the side after the last touch. He turned his back to me and walked back to the middle of the strip. I followed, sweat coating my forehead and stinging my eyes. We stood, en guarde facing each other, not moving.

"Attack," he said, still not moving.

I stepped forward and extended. He beat my blade away.

"Come on, what are you waiting for?" he continued.

I extended, advanced quickly, circled his blade as he tried to riposté and lunged. Landing short I lunged again and he retreated. I lunged again and he retreated. I lunged again and he stepped back then forward, beat my blade, extended quickly and scored on my chest. I fell to one knee, my legs in muscle fatigue, sucking air deeply. He walked past me.

"Come on again," he said returning to the center of the strip. I gripped my blade tightly and took my helmet off to wipe away the sweat with my sleeve.

"You little bastard," I said quietly.

"What was that?" he asked, crouching slightly in his en guarde position.

"I said that was fun for a warm-up." I crouched into my en guarde.

"Ready, fence."

We fenced for twenty minutes, Sam stopping at times to correct my stance or suggest a countermove. He worked me up and down the strip, until, arms and legs shaking, I caught him on a stop thrust riposté, my first touch of the bout.

"About fucking time," I yelled. Other fencers stopped nearby to see what had happened, then turned away.

Sam stopped, saluted, and took off his mask, extending his hand to me. "Good finish," he said, "but you are still too timid. You must attack to win. Waiting leaves your opponent all the initiative. Practice."

I took off my own mask, squinting my eyes, sucking in deep breaths of air and shook hands with him.

"When I was still in school," he continued, "I would come home at two or three in the morning and pick up my foil." He looked down at his weapon again. His hands were still shaking. Sabers, foils and épées clashed to both sides of us. He didn't seem to hear any of it. "I would stand in front of the mirror and practice, disengage, coupé, extend, parry quarto, parry sexte, riposté, riposté, riposté. Twenty minutes in my skivies, standing in the bathroom, my bare feet cold, the roaches watching me sometimes. Even those who had money had roaches back then. Sometimes my sister would wake up and come in from her room. She would watch her Sammy try to be Douglas Fairbanks. Boy she would laugh at me." He looked at me and let his blade drop to his side. His body seemed to sag into the floor. "Will you be able to come again this month? We need new fencers. The sport is dying and you learn quickly."

"Sure," I said.

He turned and started walking off the floor towards the bags.

"Hey Sam," I yelled.

He stopped and cocked his head at me, a white eyebrow raised.

I took one final breath and steadied myself. "Thanks for the lesson."

"I don't give lessons anymore," he snapped. "I retired from that. Now I fence. And by the way, you should try the French grip. Get rid of that pistol shooter. Learn the right way first." He turned and went over to talk to his friend Richard, who was also finished with his bout.

I packed up my gear and limped home.

The next morning my hips and legs stung as if fire raced through them. I called my sister from work.

"Beth, it's Chris. What's up?"

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean, what's wrong? I'm just calling to say hello, see how you're doing."

"Chris you never call just to see how I'm doing."

"Well this is a new trend I'm setting. Jesus Christ."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm fine and the kids are fine. Now what's going on with you, little brother?"

"Stop with that little brother crap, okay."

"Right, sorry. The kids will be coming home from school soon and I just got home from work so I'm a little tense."

"That's all right. So everything's fine?"

"Yes. The kids are fine. Pete's fine. I'm fine."

"Good, that's all I wanted to hear."

"That's all?" she asked.

"That's all," I said.

The phone was silent.

"You want to come over for dinner some time?" she asked. "The kids would love to see you."

"Sure, that would be great. I'll bring my fencing equipment."

She laughed.

"Hey, by the way," I began. "How old you think Errol Flynn would be if he was still alive?"

THE END