Twelve Mile Limit

7

If Matt, the owner, hadn’t intervened, it would have started right there. Jeth was ready to go at him, and as for myself, this guy, Camphill, his behavior really was noxious, and I was drunk enough to bypass the obvious, rational options-as most drunks will-and had decided to see just how far he was willing to push it. It’s a truism: Almost all bullying behavior is symptomatic of bedrock cowardice, and there was plenty of evidence now that Camphill was a bully.

But then Matt was there. After twenty-some years in the business, dealing with drunks and pissed-off tourists, he knew just how to handle the situation. First he went to work on Camphill with adulation-“You’re really the Gunnar Camphill? My God, I love the work you do”-as he positioned himself between Camphill and us. Then he fed him some man-to-man stuff, first giving us a meaningful look- Stay calm, he’s an asshole, but let me deal with it. “Don’t worry about Jeth. Our locals, they tend to be… different. Just goofing around-the manatee roast? It’s kind of a local joke. We’re all very pro-environment on the islands.” Matt was steering him away, toward the bar. Then he added a bribe, saying, “I just got in a half dozen jars of Russian Malossol caviar. Gray beluga. My own personal stock. Would you and your friends mind trying a couple of ounces, giving me your opinion?”

That quick, Matt had Camphill’s full attention. “Malossol? How did you know I’m a connoisseur of caviar?” Close enough to the bar now for his friends to hear, he added, “When I was studying aikido in Japan, I fell in love with the stuff. My master, Ueshiba Morihei, he got me hooked on the gray beluga. Had it shipped in once a week from Vladivostok, just across the Sea of Japan. Unpasteurized, the finest. There’s an art to serving it, of course.”

Truth is, Matt has an amazing memory for trivia. He probably saw the bit about the caviar in some magazine and filed it away.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tomlinson stand up, use his fingers to comb his hair back. He gave Amelia a reassuring wink before he walked toward Matt. Tomlinson had been uncharacteristically silent during the confrontation, and now I watched him place his hand on Matt’s shoulder-this was a friendly intrusion-then stand there in his flower-print sarong and black Hawaiian shirt, smiling mildly. Looking at Camphill, he spoke briefly in what, after several slow seconds, I finally realized was fast Japanese. Friendly tone. Very animated. He might have been welcoming him or extending an apology.

Pointed-face grinned toward Tomlinson, saying, “Ginger! Finally, here she is. I knew Ginger would make an appearance!” For the first time, Camphill seemed momentarily at a loss. But he recovered quickly, also looking at Tomlinson. He placed his palms together and gave a slight oriental bow, saying, “My friend, I think it’s very rude to converse in a language that others in the room don’t understand. We’ll chat in Japanese another time,” then turned away from Tomlinson, using Matt to emphasize the new focus of his attention.

End of conversation.

Back at our table, Tomlinson took a heavy swallow of his drink, then another before he nodded at me, and said softly, “The actor, he has a very young spirit. Very young and immature-the number of incarnations he’s made into this world I’m talking about. In his mind, no one on earth actually exists but him. Every other sentient being is simply a bit of fleshy furniture or decoration. That’s the way they are during that stage.”

Tomlinson then added, “Plus, he’s a liar. He never studied with Ueshiba Morihei. My friend, the great master, Ueshiba, doesn’t speak English, and the actor doesn’t understand a word of Japanese. Even his gassho, the way he placed his palms together, was a poor imitation.”

A little too loud, Jeth said, “The guy’s an egotistical pahpa-prick.”

Amelia added, “Little boy in a man’s body. I see them all the time in court.”

Camphill and his two friends, pointed-face and tennis player, all raised their heads a little, hearing their words, feeling them, then all emphasized the depth of their reactions by trying hard not to react. Matt had effectively insulated them with a forced truce, but it wouldn’t last beyond the last glass of vodka.

There was little doubt in my mind, then, that Camphill would have to do something to save face, to reinforce his big-screen persona. His friends were going to take this story back to Hollywood, and he couldn’t allow that.

We should have left then.

Half an hour later, when we did walk out the door, we were all a little drunker.

Over there drinking vodka shooters and eating caviar, so were Camphill and his pals.

Timber’s Restaurant and Sanibel Grill are built high on wooden stilts over a parking area that opens onto Tarpon Bay Road, near a sanctuary of lakes and trees, not far from the beach, and only a quarter-mile or so from my house and lab, which is on the bay side of the island.

I was the last of our group to leave. I stepped out onto the wooden deck and had only taken three or four steps when I felt the double doors behind me burst open. I glanced over my shoulder, and there was Gunnar Camphill in his khakis and black Polo shirt, biceps showing, walking fast, his two shorter friends following along behind like ducklets.

Camphill’s friends’ faces were flushed and mottled, a mixture of excitement and expectation. There was going to be a show, a little slice of real-life adventure theater, and they were the great star’s sidekicks, their man the good-guy hero who won every fight.

Camphill was calling as he walked, “Gilligan? Oh… Gilligan-n-n-n-n,” giving it a loud, humorous read.

JoAnn, Rhonda, and Claudia were already in the parking lot. Jeth and Tomlinson were halfway down the steps, and Amelia was just a few paces ahead of me. I turned when I saw Camphill, then moved sideways to intercept him when he tried to brush past me.

I said, “Hold it… hey! You’re not going anywhere.” I had my hands up, palms up-stop right there-and was backing away just a little to demonstrate that I didn’t want to initiate contact.

Behind Camphill, pointed-face, his voice strangely husky, said, “Kick his ass, Gunnar. The Professor with his thick glasses made you look like a fool in there in front of all his redneck friends.”

Camphill stopped and leaned, his face a few inches from my nose, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he said, “Your little friend needs to take off that T-shirt and throw it away. It’s offensive to me and anyone else who gives a damn about this earth and the creatures who live here. So he takes it off right now, tosses it in that Dumpster, and he walks away, no problem.”

Behind me, I heard Jeth yell, “You want to threaten me, mah-ma-mister? Then come down here and do it to my face!”

Camphill called back, “That’s what I’m trying to do, Gilligan. So tell your bookish friend here to move his ass, get out of the way, so we can discuss this man-to-Gilligan.” The humorous inflection again, telling his friends to enjoy it-it wasn’t going to last long.

He’d been looking over my shoulder. Now he looked into my face as he added, “Okay, Professor. This is your final warning. Get out of my way. Or… or here, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” He thought for a moment, making a show of the process, smiling because he had so many options. He glanced back at his friends as if in some wordless conferral, before he said, “Okay, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to put the heel of my right foot dead square on the right side of your temple. No… your jaw; I’ll go easy on you. Kick you on the temple, I could kill you. It’s going to happen so fast, you may hear it coming, but you won’t see it.

“Now, what I’m worried about is, I might knock you over the railing. It’s sure as hell going to drop you. I don’t want to hurt you-it goes against all my training, my entire commitment to nonviolence-but if you don’t move your ass?” He shrugged. “You’ve forced me. I have no choice. And know what the funniest thing is, Professor? There isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop me.” He paused, giving it a few beats, as if speaking lines for the camera. Then: “Final warning. Get out of my way. Now. ”

I heard Amelia and Claudia, their warning words melding together: “Ford, I don’t think he’s kidding. I’ve read about him. Me, too… he’s got all kinds of black belts, he really does… His hands, he had to, like, register them as weapons or something… It’s no big deal, just let him go… Doc!”

Camphill liked that. He puffed up a bit, his smile broader. “Do us all a favor, Professor. Listen to your little girlfriends. Move.”

Without looking at Amelia or Claudia, I said, “No, I don’t think so. That kick he just described? I’d kind of like to see if he can really do it.”

“Okay, friend, I warned you. Everyone here’s a witness.”

“I’ll testify on your behalf,” I said softly.

Then I watched Camphill take a half step back, knees bending, fists clenched low for balance, and I knew he was preparing to do a spinning back kick, my head as his target.

A few years back, I was having dinner at Mack’s bayside home, and he talked me into watching one of those pay-for-view extravaganzas. It was the “world championship” of something I think they called “Extreme Fighting,” as if there were any other kind, or maybe it was “No-Holds-Barred Fighting.” I didn’t pay enough attention to remember.

Mack was very excited about it because the “Professional Bracket” included six of the world’s most famous and feared martial arts experts from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Films and documentaries had been made about two of the masters; one of the experts supposedly had a cult following. There was also one heavyweight boxer who was ranked in the federation’s top five. The hype was massive, the purse hefty, and the ring an enclosed cage from which only the winner could exit.

The promoters made a very big mistake, however. They allowed four “amateurs” to buy their way into pairings against the number-one seeds.

Apparently, it was a feed-the-Christians-to-the-lions gambit in the minds of the producers-a way of feeding easy meat to the audience before the real fighting began.

One of the amateurs might have been another boxer, the other might have been a martial arts expert, I don’t know. Two, however, were mildly successful former collegiate wrestlers, one from the University of Wisconsin, I think, and the other from a little Pennsylvania school by the name of Slippery Rock.

In the first bout, Mack was shocked when the kid from Slippery Rock-he couldn’t have weighed more than 170, 180-had the famous Ninja on the mat, gasping for air, within less than a minute. The Ninja couldn’t breathe and tapped his lone free hand on the canvas in pain and for mercy.

The kid seemed a little surprised. He’d hardly broken a sweat.

Then the wrestler from Wisconsin-big guy, two hundred plus-had the heavyweight boxer down and unconscious before anyone had time to understand what had happened, and the boxer might have died if doctors hadn’t come charging into the caged ring.

Neither of the wrestlers used holds that were legal in amateur wrestling, but every experienced amateur wrestler soon learns all the illegal stuff, all the dangerous and dirty little tricks, and they know how to use them.

It went that way all night. One martial arts expert after another was quickly eliminated and unfailingly humiliated-a big letdown for the promoters, but no surprise to me. Out of all the so-called “fighting” disciplines, there are only two groups who actually fight. They fight it out, toe to toe and hand to hand, day after day after day. Those two groups are wrestlers and boxers. The other disciplines pose, they practice and play-act-which is why they are sufficiently naive about actual combat to take themselves too seriously.

Boxers work hard, but no sport requires more discipline, courage, or mental toughness than amateur wrestling (and that’s why it’s a national tragedy that colleges are eliminating wrestling because of a misused but well-intended piece of legislation called Title IX). Only wrestlers and boxers actually fight for a living. The rest are interesting and often stylish pretenders.

Which is why I did not take Amelia’s advice, why I did not move aside.

When Camphill shifted his weight toward me, preparing to jump, spin, and kick, I reached across and grabbed his right wrist and bicep, moving with him. I pulled and ducked under his arm and leg, then came up behind him just as his feet returned to the deck.

My hands on his shoulders, controlling his body, I said into his ear, “You missed,” as I reached around and pried his mouth open, avoiding his teeth by using only the middle fingers of my hands.

Then I hooked a finger into each corner of his lips, applying pressure, pulling his mouth wide, until he arched backward, and I heard him making a hoarse, gasping noise, shocked and in agony, his nails scratching at my wrists as I kneed him hard, twice, on the coccyx at the base of his spine, the very sensitive and easily bruised remnant of our primate tail.

The next morning, I knew, Camphill would have trouble walking. If he could walk, and it would probably be impossible for him to sit.

Had I wanted to rip his face from ear to ear, I could have done it easily. Drunk as I was, mad as I was, that wasn’t my intent. I was giving him a signal-letting him know that, if he continued, the consequences would be serious. There is nothing pretty, heroic, orderly, or theatrical about a real fight. It is brutal, messy, and damn dangerous.

Pointed-face and tennis player were screaming at me. It seemed as if I were in a vacuum, yet a few of their words and phrases pierced through: “Kill him, Gunnar… what are you waiting for!… My God, Gunnar, your face… there’s blood. You’re hurting Gunnar’s face!”

The harder Camphill tried to pry my fingers out of his mouth, the more pressure I exerted, so there was some blood, a slight ripping of tissue, but not much, and, finally, he stopped struggling.

Still speaking into his ear, I said, “I’m going to let you go. If you try to fight back again in any way, I’ll put you down on the deck. Then I’ll put you in the hospital. Count on it.”

I slid my fingers out of his mouth.

I thought he’d heed my warning. He didn’t.

As I released him, wiping my hands on my fishing shorts, he relaxed and shrugged-a decoy posture-then exploded, side-kicking me hard on the left shin, which hurt like hell, and tried to spin his right elbow back into my ribs. I managed to catch the main impact of the blow with my arm. Even so, it put a little wheezing sound into my breathing, caused me to double up momentarily. It also infuriated me.

When he came at me again, I locked my hands on his right wrist, got myself behind him once more, and, without giving him time to react, bear-hugged, lifted, and launched him up over my head, as I arched backward steering his body-a potentially deadly wrestling throw called a “suplay.”

Had I continued arching backward, I would have pile-driven the top of his skull into the floor. Instead, I did a fast quarter-turn so that only the side of his face slammed down onto the wood. Then I pinned him there, using my right elbow to burrow into his neck until I finally heard him wheeze, “ Enough. No more!”

I stood and waited to make certain he wasn’t going to leap to his feet. Then I turned and limped toward the steps, hearing pointed-face say, “You’re going to let him do that to you, Gunnar? He got lucky, for Christ’s sake. Go get him!” as Amelia took my arm, helping me.

The side-kick had been nasty. I’d be feeling a burning sensation in my shin for a week, maybe longer.

I turned to her when she squeezed my arm and saw an intense, appraising expression on her face. A little bit of surprise in there, too, as she said in a low voice, “My God, you’re something. Professor-I figured, yeah, the perfect nickname ’til watching you just now. Like he was a sack of corn or something, that’s the way it looked when you threw him. Un-damn-believable. ”

I used peripheral vision to make certain Camphill wasn’t rethinking his surrender. “He’s a sack of something,” I said. “You want to get another drink?”