We sat at the Raven Inn, in the dining room, alone, my back to the doors, his to the wall. This place was new to him and he came in sensibly, through the back door, off the ditch-like lot, not on the street were the Groes stalking, slouching and drinking at the gas station across the street, and at the bus stop at the near corner, have lurid eyes on their hereditary prey. For their traditional game, run almost to extinction, has no other watering holes near Baynesville Station, but the Raven.
He wears jeans, dark shoes and a Brazillian fight shirt. At 5’ 8” 185, he is hard and fit, his face, under that rounded Arуan skull, etched with grit. The skull looks well formed for boxing. I soon discover a video on his phone, of him bare-knuckle boxing to good effect. I am especially impressed that he cradles the taller man he works over so his head won’t sling shot into the concrete barn floor. We have trained in two of the same schools. A man that has certified one of my head coaches in BJJ, once cornered for Ax in Brazil. He loved his time in Brazil fighting.
He had military parents and has been a good son. He is an old fighter and a young coach, in that late 30s transition zone. He is gracious to Nancy, the aged bar maid, who is well used to the extreme courtesy of the fighting men that meet this old snow crow under her watch. Our conversation ran from 7:30 to 11:00, the final half hour shared with Jason, Mystarch of the Esoteric Cafe, who has stopped in after work.
We have spoken twice on the phone and now once in person. Ax would not let me pay, even gave a donation to the tramp life poetic. He tendered an invitation to a belt promotion at his private school in nearby Appalachia on the coming weekend. I could not make it due to a lady’s commitment. We kicked the cracker barrel down the road to September, when I will visit his facility and meet some of the men he trains. The line-ups of strong fit men in his photos and videos makes me sad on two counts:
The men with paper jobs, like him, being functional members of the economic order, have their faces blocked out. Why? How can a cog be the High Enemy of The Machine?
These men, according to Ax and the few I have met and spoken to in their fraternity, are simply men with “American spirit,” who insist on spending their free time with men of European origin. As members of the only races of men who are not permitted the choice of free association under the green heel of this fiscal nation, they must hide their desire to do what all other types of men do, which is to associate preferentially with men of the same type and values. The mere desire not to have masculine pursuits turned into, bitch and moan, shuck and jive, step and fetch, pussy hunts of utmost acrimony. It is a crime to test each other among the men who you may expect to stand with you in hard times, rather than denounce you. Good character has consigned these men to the shadows.
The other note of sadness is that when I was his age, and even more so, the age of the men in his group, only a tiny few were permitted by the feminine social pressure to engage in physical training for combat. The boomer cracker was separated from all of human manhood throughout history, by an explicit and implicit ban on any fighting art that was not top end military technology killing. No greater pariah existed in my life than I, for being the only man of my age grade to maintain an interest in sub military combat arts beyond adolescence. From having Doctor Young explain to me that white men were incapable of sustaining boxing efforts against African American supermen, to gun owners laughing at me for practicing self defense, I have long known myself as a member of the most singularly forsaken cohort of men in human history—the men who could only, respectfully engage in two activities: money and philosophy. Looking at those pictures of young men, that makes me glad for and sad for them at the same time, rings like so many coffin nails in my soul. Knowing that my generation, shamed away from all combat sports except for football, which was then re-configured and corrupted to be gifted to our new masters, are now rapidly passing like lepers in the shadows, brought me around inside.
Invited to attend boxing training and introduce stick and knife, I committed on the spot to visiting Ax’s new home town. For he was driven from West Baltimore as I was driven from the East and Northeast. I live on the trains and he drives hours a day, back and forth between the fair Misty Mountains and wretched, soul-drinking Mordor.
Ax has trained around the world and interacts with men of all races. But a life time in and around Baltimore, has moved this man who does not entertain physical fatigue, to declare, “I have Negro fatigue. To earn a living I have to suffer the insults of these people. But where I have a choice, I chose to live and shop in places where I will not be attacked, insulted and harassed with empty bullshit for the color of my skin. I’ve had it. I support MY men. We have a private gym open to US, closed to the enemy. This entire idea that the enemy must always be invited into your house, is simply unacceptable.” [0]
“We have had men lose jobs for preferring their own kind in their private life. I will try anything in the combat realm. Men of every group should work together building better men—only our group is denied that right. So this is confidential. I’d like you to take a look at our methods for building better men and see what you suggest.”
We rose and shook hands, the two screwed-over crumbs and the still prime cracker, and I felt a bit better about living the life of a loser—that some like kid down the wicked way might have a strong hand extended to him, rather than sneaker treads across the knuckles one beaten day. [1]
…
Notes
-0. The vampire has no power over he who does not invite him in. See Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
-1. This is not hyperbole. I was publicly beaten by boys of my own race while youth of the same kicked, tripped and stepped on me, and later, men shamed me for being unable to beat a mob of the very fellows who any tribe or clan would have assigned to build me up rather than tear me down.
