Excerpt: the kempo kid

“Whoa, this guy! Is he tough or what?” Douglas said, pushing some of the clutter on the desk aside to sit on the edge. "But with a nickname like ‘the Kempo Kid’, I guess you got to be.”

“Kempo? What’s that? Some sort of fancy Kung Fu?” Mitch asked snidely.

“Karate,” Parker corrected. "And actually, it's Kenpo with an N. It just gets pronounced the other way, so it gets spelled with an M. That’s America for you.”

Mitch chuffed. “Whatever. Kenpo, Kempo; Kung Fu, Karate. Same difference.”

“Not really.”

“What does that even mean? ‘Same difference.’ I never understood that,” Morty said.

“It’s just a saying,” Douglas offered.

“I know, but what’s it mean?”

“It’s an oxymoron,” Parker said.

“A what?” Morty said with a frown.

“An oxymoron is a pithy word or saying that juxtaposes opposite aspects. Like bittersweet, or jumbo shrimp, or only choice, or random order.”

“Oh,” Morty said with a nod.

“It’s a weird term,” Douglas mused.

“Well, it’s not meant to be taken literally,” Parker said. “If it was, then that would be like whenever you morons get jacked on Oxycontin.”

The gangsters all looked at one another, and Douglas did his silent chuckle-shoulder shake again. Then he slipped off the edge of the desk to let loose a left hook into the side of Parker’s face.

His head sagging against his left shoulder, Parker turned and spat out another pink glob of saliva and blood. Without looking at Douglas, he muttered, “And that’s one for you.”

Resuming his perch on the edge of the desk, Douglas flexed the fingers of his left fist a couple of times and then pointed at his captive. “You got a smart mouth, Parker Cassidy. And what’s up with that name? It’s like you got two first names.”

“Well, you work with what you got,” Parker sighed.

“Parker ‘the Kempo Kid’ Cassidy,” Douglas mused. “I remember you doing some semiprofessional fights back in the day. You was a contemporary of Clubfoot, right?”

“Keith ‘the Clubfoot’ Cunningham? For real?” Mitch asked.

Parker shrugged.

“Y’all get it on in the ring?”

“Nah, I was one of his sparring partners, and that got me in the fight game for a little bit. I figured out pretty quick that it wasn‘t for me,” Parker said, licking at his bloody lower lip.

“Couldn’t cut the mustard, eh?” Morty smirked.

“Oh, I could cut the mustard,” Parker said. “It was the other condiments I couldn’t hack: fixes, taking dives, extorting fighters and trainers, gambling, and dealing with people like Mr. Magalliano, your boss. Put a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Ain’t Clubfoot still fighting?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah, but not like he used to,” Douglas said. “He joined the Nocturnity Police Department a few years back. Think he’s a detective now.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, Mitch, for real. Sheesh! Is that all you know how to say?” Douglas said, rolling his eyes. Then he looked at Parker. “But this guy apparently couldn’t cut being a cop either. No, he went the private investigator route.”

“What can I say? When I found out the pay and the hours were worse, I knew I’d found my calling,” Parker grinned.