by Tapati

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing –Carl Douglas

Wing Chun Characters

When I returned from my trip to see my family, I was relieved to be away from all of their drama. Mahasraya was happy to see me and we had a honeymoon period. He had given up on growing psychedelic mushrooms and we had the use of the bedroom. He slept in there alone because otherwise Lakshmana’s crying would keep him awake. He was working for the temple, guarding at night, so we still had the same graveyard schedule as before, waking up in the early afternoon.

Now that he had his own income from guarding, the stipend they paid all householders who worked for ISKCON, he enrolled in a Wing Chun martial arts class with the already well known Sifu Douglas Wong. As always, I was his practice dummy to help him with the various strikes and blocks he needed to practice. Often we would spar, stopping just a hair’s breadth before the actual strike. Some say this is not the best way to practice sparring because in a real fight one might not be prepared to use the amount of force needed. In any event, blocks and strikes were becoming second nature to me. I had always been interested in his martial arts skills and wanted to learn even more. I had practiced some of the Tai Chi techniques with him previously, and he had taught some basic self defense skills when we first got together.

Grandpa holding Lakshmana

by Tapati

Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof –The Undisputed Truth, in Smiling Faces Sometimes

Aunt Gin had a serious look on her face and I thought, “Uh oh. What now?”

“I know your mom talked to you about your grandpa,” she began.

Oh no. I knew where this was going. Mom had talked to me but I had tried to forget what she’d said. I just assumed it was more of her drama. It couldn’t be true.

“Maybe you didn’t believe her,” she continued. “I know you don’t always get along. But I can tell you that everything she told you the other day is true. From the day your grandpa came to live with us he tried to get us to have sex with him.”

The ugly words came spilling out and I wanted to stop up my ears. I couldn’t match these words with the grandpa I knew. I couldn’t imagine him ever doing such a thing. He’d never done anything to me, that I knew for sure.

As if reading my mind, Aunt Gin continued, “We felt he’d never do anything to you because he thought of you as his granddaughter from the beginning.”

“So then why,” I thought, “are you both telling me?” I remembered the pictures of Grandpa in the bathtub with me back when I was a toddler. Why would mom let those pictures be taken, then? Why would she chance leaving me alone with him, if all of this is true?

“Even now, if he goes to give me a kiss he tries to give me tongue,” she continued, planting that nauseating image in my head for all time. This couldn’t be happening, these things couldn’t be true. Not my beloved grandpa!