"It's Time You Learned Krav Maga"

Last week I mentioned some of the weird shit my dad believed and it got me thinking about more weird shit.

See, Dale Gribble from King of the Hill wasn't a joke... he was my father. Dale didn't seem like some whacky, out-there, unrealistic cartoon character. My dad said (and did) equally deranged things. Furthermore he also had weird rules for the household.

One of the strange rules was none of the boy's bedrooms could have a door.

But he wasn't just eccentric in his rulemaking. He exclusively wore loose-fitting pants. His style was fluorescent animal print and/or military fatigues.

Another important thing to note for this story: he was one of the most inflexible people I've ever known. Metaphorically, ideologically, but also physically. I have never seen him bend his knees at more than a 20°–God forbid a 90°–angle. Suffice it to say, you'd never catch him doing yoga.

Okay, enough backstory.

At 12 years old, I was starting to want privacy... for exactly the reason a 12 year old boy would want privacy. But since I didn't have a bedroom door, I had to improvise.

A few weeks prior we (meaning my brothers, the neighborhood boys, and I) had destroyed a sofa table for no other reason than we could. After the destruction was said and done, I saw an opportunity.

The tabletop was still intact, so I stripped the broken pieces off the underside and then screwed the tabletop onto the inside molding of my doorway.

I called it my "gate" even though it didn't swing open. It was just high enough off the ground that stepping over it would be impossible for my younger brothers (who were all too short) and also really hard for my dad to step over (since he was too inflexible).

But that wasn't enough. I didn't want my brothers crawling over the gate, so I spaced drywall screws along the top edge of the gate at a 45° angle.

My intention was hostile architecture. I didn't want my dad or my brothers to be able to get in my room at all. The boys wouldn't want to climb over the screw heads. And my hope was that my dad's fatigues would get ensnared on them; keeping him out of my space.

One afternoon I was in a rotten mood. My brothers had been pissing me off so I was taunting them back. Well, Dad went into a rage. Which he always did... even when it was my younger brothers who were misbehaving. I recall him unbuckling his belt in a menacing way and chasing me.

I wasn't afraid of his belt anymore and I was pretty confident my gate would work. As such I retreated upstairs to my room.

I hopped the gate and into my bed. I heard him charging up the stairs behind me. When he got to the doorway he was fuming.

But when he noticed the gate he was confused by the new, unfamiliar obstacle. The gate was truly a test for his rage-tainted wits. He tried to step over it but he could not lift his leg high enough. And that made him angrier.

He started trying to kick the gate down but he quickly realized he couldn't get enough leverage with straight-on kicks. So he went in for a curb stomp. I don't know if he could actually see the screws (he had very poor eyesight), but his attack was on the top edge of the gate where the screws were. They chewed up the soles of his shoes. Meanwhile, the gate didn't flinch.

He went in again for another stomp and this time a screw snagged one of his shoelaces. Now, given how inflexible not to mention how profoundly lazy he was, his shoelaces were always double knotted. This was so he didn't have to bend over to tie them. Well, this time, the lace was snared on the gate and it kept his foot from catching his weight. He lost his balance and fell on his ass.

I remember biting my lower lip to conceal my laughter.

He was absolutely livid at this point. He pulled his foot out of his shoe. Now he had no alternative but to lean over the gate. His cheeks were bright pink... he must have been seeing red.

He was holding on to the outside of the door frame, leaning over the gate, and furiously whipping his belt towards me. He only made contact a few times. I put on a show; pretending to cry, begging him to stop–while trying not to laugh.

Eventually he was satisfied that he had scared me enough. So he untethered his shoelace from the gate and left without saying another word.

Really, though, all he had done was proven my gate worked. In fact, it worked so much better than I could have imagined. He couldn't step over it and trying to kick it down just caused him to fall over.

An hour or so later, my mom told me I had to remove the gate. She said that it had injured him and that I should feel bad about it and apologize.

I was not about to do any of those things.

Then I saw what had happened to his leg.

The right knee of his camo pants had been torn open as he had been leaning over the gate. And there were dozens of scratches–a few fairly deep–on his right leg.

I remember thinking "good."

Maybe the next day or perhaps a few days later, he had not come to terms with my victory. I was in my room, minding my own business when he showed up at the door.

"I thought your mother told you to remove this fucking thing?" Referring to the gate.

"Oh? Did she?" I deflected.

"Gardiner, it's time you learn Krav Maga." He said with dead seriousness.

At this point, at twelve years old, I was just barely taller than my dad. He was quite short for a man and his Napoleonic complex was ready to strike. I get my height from my mom's side, though. I remember standing up from my bed and stepping over the gate to come eye-to-eye with him. He was having to tilt his head back–just slightly–to look up at me. I could see, in his dull eyes, the posture of a vicious, cornered Chihuahua.

My dad, being a fan of WWF wrestling, encouraged us boys to wrestle quite frequently. Consequently, we had a thin, King-sized mattress topper on the floor of my brothers' bedroom. He led me over to the mat and, as I stepped onto it... it became a scene out of a comedy.

"DEFEND YOURSELF," he screamed as this 43 year old man threw a sucker punch at his pre-teen son.

Unbeknownst to him I had been taking karate classes with my cousin Matt.

Also unbeknownst to him, he did not know Krav Maga–let alone any other Martial Art.

I just kinda stepped out of the way, grabbed his wrist and turned my whole body. His momentum did the rest of the work and he was suddenly flat on his back, laying mostly off the mattress topper. His eyes were as wide as I had ever seen them, absolutely shaken by his sudden supine position.

Like an upside down tortoise, being on his back was a life threatening situation. But after a bit of struggling, he made his way to his feet.

He was angry and embarrassed and–needing to save face–he stood on his tippy-toes to meet me eye-to-eye. With the cadence of a coked-out 80's wrestler, he croaked through his clenched, rotting teeth, "Just remember. No matter how old I get, or how big you get. I'll always be able to kick your ass." With every syllable, he prodded me in the chest with his stubby little fingers.

Then he just slinked down the stairs with his tail between his legs.

I don't know if I just kept getting taller, if he just kept getting older, or the fact that I laid him out flat... but he never hit me with his belt again.

About The Author:

Gardiner Bryant

I'm an educator, free software advocate, and storyteller. My passion lies in Linux gaming, self-hosting, the fediverse, and the human stories behind the tech we use every day. I believe in privacy, justice, community, and integrity.