Aver Fede', Sensei

Aver Fede', Sensei by H. Kent Craig
"You think you're hot shit doncha' boy, with all your karate crap, doncha' you little twerp?" Chris mocked me in my own backyard as I practiced my Bruce Tenger karate moves. "Yeah, I know I'm good, better than you'll ever be!" my rising to the challenge even though he was several years and tons of experience older than I and by his uniform and by what his mother had told me and my parents you could tell he had just gotten back from his first tour in Viet Nam and had gotten a plum assignment locally as a recruiter. "Let's see if you're any good, then, Twerp . . . here's a twenty dollar bill to a quarter that you can't land a single blow against me." "You're on, Chris, prepare yourself!' as my young teen-age taught and fit and strong frame prepared itself for battle. Why did you go back to what you knew was a higher probability of death this time? Was it the warrior in you that made you seek out war, real war, once more, the thrill of doing the damned-near impossible in battle and being lauded for it? No, I know better than that. Your country called you to serve and you did. Your personal sense of honor wouldn't allow any action otherwise. My feints good enough to fake anyone else out save someone with two fifth-degree black belts in two different martial arts disciplines and a seventh-degree one in another different one altogether just amused him more than angered him, and the more he laughed at me, the angrier I got before repeatedly charging him with all my skill and all my strength and he just getting so tickled at me he almost wet himself as he just slipped and slid and occasionally threw a gentle blow to me to keep knocking me flat on my ass much to his almost perverse amusement. I finally gave up after my pants split from the strain of my inarticulate kicks at him. "Here's your quarter, Chris, eat it and choke!" me throwing a twenty-five cent piece at him as I shouted and tried to run off somewhere and pout as my eye just caught him waving a "p-shaw" motion at me as he turned and walked away. I was hurt. He had kicked my ass royally. I was embarrassed to death, normally kicking anyone else's ass I had faced in schoolyard combat. He had kicked my ass royally. I was beyond humiliated. He had kicked my ass royally. "Wait, Chris, wait a damn minute . . . how'd you do that, fend me off like that, I should have kicked your ass six ways to Sunday and I didn't land a single blow, how'd you do that?" I catching up to him as he tried to bade me good-bye and nearly reached his car in the driveway, he having brought his mother over to see mine, he pausing for a second. "You fought from anger, Kent, not from focus, and anytime you fight from anger you've lost before you've begun" he opening his car door to get his cigarettes from the dashboard as his mother came out of the front door of my parents' house. "Teach me, please, Chris" my eyes still crying from the real tears of my first true ass-whipping ever. "No, you're too young, too immature, look at what you just did, you're just a kid, Kent, no, I won't" he lighting up a Winston as his mother and mine talked small talk a few feet from us, they pretty much ignoring us. "Please, Chris, I'll do anything, anything you ask, please?" I pleaded through drying tears. He studied my face. He swung at me like he was going to hit me hard in the face. I didn't flinch. He could take my head off with his bare hands and I wouldn't have cared. I was not going to flinch. His full-forced blow landed literally one-eighth of an inch from my face, the force of the wind behind it being so hard it almost felt like knuckled flesh instead of merely forced air. No, I didn't flinch. I was a warrior and I did not flinch. "Very good, kid, very good indeed" he smiled "tell you what, you're on summer vacation, right?" "Yes, Sir" I using "Sir" as the sign of true respect it was intended. "I'll pick you up tomorrow and we'll see. If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do and when and how, and I do mean every single time, then you're training is over, and if I ask you to clean out the catbox or mow the lawn, you do it when I say, correct?" "Yes, Sir!" my eyes now dry and my stance tall and erect once more. Sometimes the good die young and sometimes the good die old. Why, oh why, sensei, couldn't you have done your magic and lived to die old? I know, don't ask questions I already know the answers to. Yes, I remember my koan to this day, it is as much a part of me as the color of my soul: "If a man walks alone, who walks with him?" Sly mother-something damned if the first thing he didn't make me do was clean out his mother's cat's sandbox. I could have, I could have, well, I didn't. Then, flower arranging. Yeah, I said flower arranging, can you believe that nonsense!?! Then, a brush in my hand and ink upon paper. Then, a boring old tea ceremony. Then, finally, a bow and arrow in my hand and my eyes aimed at a target, at the target, himself, twenty-five yards away, he picking off the accurately placed arrows at his heart, he warning me that I'd experience an ass-whomping like I never had before if I didn't try my best to shoot him with the long-shafted arrows and funny-looking and awkward bow right in his hear. I cried as I shot at him. He laughed at he swatted the arrows away like so many flies. Then, zazen, sitting Zen, sitting but traveling Zen, traveling the length and breadth of one's consciousness and awareness and self-honesty. "If a man walks alone, Kent, who walks with him?" he'd ask me repeatedly and when I couldn't answer he'd swat the living crap out of me with his bamboo cane that he sometimes used in public but always had with him during my times with him, he always landing his blows either atop one shoulder or the other or when he felt I was being particularly stubborn directly across my shoulder blades, never to hurt me, only to get my attention and help me re-focus on the task at hand, helping me grow up even though I didn't know it at the time. If a man walks alone, sensei, does he do so always voluntarily or sometimes is he compelled to because of circumstances? And, does it really matter why he does? Did you walk alone on that path you took the lead on? Of course you didn't. You had, well, you had. Strike and stee-rike again, blow and blow again, thus the training of the disciplines begins in earnest. An hour of zazen and then two hours of training followed by an hour of yardwork or housework. Yeah, very funny, sensei, your mom just hee-hawed with laughter on more than one occasion as I vacuumed her rug or dusted her furniture because you commanded me to. Very funny indeed. But I was getting what I wanted. I was being trained as a warrior. "There is a big difference between a warrior and a soldier, Kent. A soldier fights because it's what he's supposed to do. A warrior fights because do to otherwise would be to bring shame to his name and his honor and he has no other choice. A soldier fights for his country, a warrior fights for freedom from fear, for all of humanity." "Master, am I trained yet, am I, am I?" eyes eager as I finally landed some genuine blows to his steel body, finally knocking him on his own ass instead of me on mine. "No, Kent, you're not." "But Master, I beat you fair and square!" "No, you didn't." "What?!?" "How many blows did you actually land on me?" as he dusted himself off, arising, refusing my hand of help. "I, I, uhhhh, I don't know, I think one, maybe two?" "Until you riddle me the answer to your mystery, no, you won't be trained." "But I beat you, sensei, I beat you in kumite fair and square!" "You did?" "Yes, Master, I did." "Well, I guess that makes you the Master and me your acolyte then, doesn't it?" he embracing me in family-way as I turned and ran away in shame. To be Master, to be sensei, what does it truly matter? Is to be called Master or sensei an honor, or an insult? When you have achieved satori, when you have achieved true awareness, you will know the answer, and not until. Practice and practice and practice again, zazen and martial arts training and more elfing catboxes to clean and more of the same all over again, the seasons turning and turning and turning again. Sitting Zen and mind wandering I see his bamboo rod of correction coming at me once more. "Master!" my hands flying up despite myself, knowing I would have to suffer many more blows of correction and training as a result of my refusal of his love. "Yes, Kent, what is it?" "Master, sensei, when a man walks alone, he never walks alone, he always walks with his honor within him! Please, no more, don't hit me with your cane anymore, I can't take the blows anymore!" He grabbed my face and nearly crushed my cheeks with his strong hands as his energy focused on my mind and soul but that was just show, he knew already, he already knew. "Son, it is done. It is free. You are free. Go, and do not come back. I'll take you home and we shall never see each other again. I can do no more. I have done nothing. You have done this all yourself. You have your freedom. You have your skills. You are now a warrior. You are now a healer, and you are now a poet. Your heart is empty, so go out and fill it. The vessel is empty, the clarity of your new sunrise becons. You are free. Time to take you home." "But Master, Master!" I literally cried "sensei, please, please don't do this to me!" "I haven't done anything to you, Kent, you have done this all yourself. You'll understand in time. Time for you to be yourself." And with that, as he dropped me off at my house in silence, he was gone. Your mother said your orders, the orders you had begged the army for you to get despite the fact that they wanted to stay as a recruiter, came the next day. You never wrote me after that, not the first time. My heart, the heart of a great warrior, ached for your attention which never came. "Heard anything from Chris?" "No, Kent, I haven't" his mom coming in to see my mom and sitting on the couch. "Oh, okay, tell him I said 'hi' next letter and I'll see him when he gets back." Silence. Then a single tear. "I can't lie to you, Kent. You were his favorite pupil among all of them." The childish five-year-old within me wanted to react badly . . . I mean, I didn't know that he had any other acolytes but me!?! "But, but, what?" my heart soaring to my throat. I knew something was coming and it wasn't going to be pleasant. "He's dead, Kent, died in combat near Phau Won. His lieutenant that wrote me told me he evidently stepped on one of those home-made landmines like the VC construct and it was simply way too powerful, thankfully for him . . . his lieutenant said he was within twenty feet of him, just behind him when it went off . . . he saw Chris in front of him, heard the explosion and then there was just this cloud of slightly pink mist that lingered for a few minutes and then faded. Thing must have had enough power to kill twenty solders and it killed only him, didn't even injure anyone else, it just simply vaporized him. He didn't suffer, that's the only good thing to come out of this, he didn't suffer. He simply is no more, Kent, he simply is no more." I rushed to hug her but she brushed me aside with slight wave of her arm that could have only been taught to her by Chris, sending me rolling across the coffee table on to the floor, me picking myself up, not embarrassed at all. "Now, Kent, that wasn't proper, you are his legacy now, he told me that only you 'had made it', that of all his students only you had 'gotten it' . . . now, he's gone and we both shall miss him terribly, but he died as he lived, Kent, he died with his honor intact, and you need to honor him by being the proper gentleman you always were and proper teacher he told me you'd be excellent at . . . that is how we shall keep his memory alive, by honoring him every day by our correct actions and words" her demeanor, well, she was her son's mother, I could see that more clearly than ever. "Yes, I will, my word." "I know" she smiled at me as she and my mother went to the kitchen to kaffeklatch some, my mother giving us some privacy until we finished. "Uhhhmm?" is all I could muster from my dry throat, she just smiling and shaking her head at me. Only now, sensei, my only true teacher and Master other than my Great Lord Jesus Christ Himself, only now thirty years later can I tell the world how much I truly loved you and have failed to honor your memory, failed miserably to honor the precious gift you have given me, the gift of honor, the gift of manhood, the gift of being responsible for one's self. I have achieved much great worldly success, sensei, but I have failed to honor your honor as you taught me. This tome is one first step in many to change that, to honor you. Yes, No. I will honor you, my teacher, but I shall do so by honoring myself and all of humanity, by being the left-handed warrior and the right-handed healer and the heart-center of a poet. "Sensei" literally means "one who has walked the path before." You know, Teacher, I never knew that until recently. Even after I achieved satori, you never told me that. I guess you knew I needed to find that out for myself, as I do a lot of things, even now. "Take your time, no rush." "Thanks, Dear, you're a Dear!" "Yes I am, and you're going to take me to Blackie's later because I am!" my ladyfriend and I bantered about as I approached the registry of The Honored at "The Wall". "Yes, I will, because I love you" I flipping through the pages as I smiled at her. Shoot. Can't find him. Nope. Damn! Was all that had been so important to me just an illusion, just a dream of the butterfly dreaming he was a man? "Nah, you'll take me to Blackie's because you want to get in my pants later!" she playfully quipped as I put my arm around her waist and then the wind somehow picked up and blew the pages over themselves and when the wind stopped there he was, the name of my sensei, a name I at first didn't recognize because it was his proper birthname as opposed to what everyone even his mother called him, but there he was, the only person with his last name resident of his hometown. "Yeah, that too, take a picture of me, okay, please?" "Sure" my willing slave and close friend taking my camera from me as I slowly walked down the path as legions of spirits rose from the perfect June Friday morning, twenty thousand or more. "Mourn for me, mourn for me!" they all began crying in unison, almost overwhelming all my psychic filters and even almost sending my ladyfriend who was also very psychic into near-physical convulsive coma before she re-establisher her filters and we continued before I saw a full-uniformed NVA general sitting atop the slight rise a hundred feet or so away from The Wall. I walked over to him and mentally and verbally confronted him despite weird looks from those others visiting loved ones at The Wall. "What the fart are YOU doing here, mother-sucker?" I almost angrily shouted at him. "I put a lot of these guys here on the wall" he looking up from his Chinese-peasant hat and making direct eye contact with me as he waved his hand casually at the 20,000-deep minion of spirits of dead solders, no, of dead warriors some in full uniforms some in khakis and some in worn-out fatigues that milled around the grounds, their wails of anger and grief almost making me physically throw up despite my hard-psychic filters ". . . the way I figure it, is that I deserve to be here as much as they do" he grinning back at me with darked and chipped front teeth. Couldn't argue with logic, if it did come in perfect if accented English from the thought patterns of a dead guy, of a dead North Vietnamese Army general. Couldn't argue with his logic at all. "Yeah, I suppose you're right, sorry to bother you." "No bother, go see you friend" his head slightly bowing lower to cover his spirit eyes from the eternal blaze of the sun. I scanned the minions but didn't feel Chris' presence, didn't see him, didn't feel him within the horde of departed servicemen. He had died a true warrior and had evidently gone home to a warrior's reward, to Valhalla, to home in heaven as he wished to create it. You are not gone, sensei, and you are not on that wall. Only your name is on that wall and you will forever be in my heart, be in my prayers, be in my actions of correctness as I deal with others day-to-day. I shall honor you by always keeping my honor intact and strong. "Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the ten battalions of dead dudes in army dress wailed at me, knowing, sensing I could hear them and not many if any others who visited The Wall ever could, many of them never having been visited and honored for their sacrifice by even their closest family members. I wish I could have, I truly wish I could have, but I am only one man, I am only a man, not a god, and I was there not to mourn but to remember and honor the one who walked the path before me and didn't show me "the way" but showed me how to find my own path and lead my own way. Next time, Old Friend, I'll bring you a Budweiser even though it's totally skank beer to me and will take a couple of swigs for you and then pour the rest of it on your name on The Wall so you can have a little taste at least if you'd like, it's the least I can do, and if I know you, you definitely would like one more taste of Bud and one more Winston regular cigarette. I'll see what I can do. "Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the chorus rising from the dead gallery even though I was trying my best to ignore them, not meaning to be rude, but damn, guys let me say my good-byes at least, okay? "Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the cries rising, almost drowning out the sound of my tears which fonted forth as I began crying and cried and cried for a full half an hour as my head touched the engraved scratch marks on the black marble and my ladyfriend took some photos of my release of almost-then-thirty years of pen-up grief, a photo I will have to do a painting of and then make prints of to share my memory of your love for me, sensei. You are not dead, sensei, I know you live in the bosom of our Christ Our Savior if you were and did teach me the value of Zen Buddhism and other eastern traditions and you will forever live through me and my students that I have passed your wisdom, knowledge, techniques, and love on to, even though I know you will thoroughly kick my ass for saying this after I cross over when I pass from this plane of existence into the next, and, for once, I will welcome an ass-kicking from you. "Kent, we need to go, Honey, if we're going to the National Gallery so I can pick up some gifts and then to the Holocaust Museum by 12:30, the time of admission on our tickets there." "I know, Sweety, we'll go now. I have said my good-byes to Chris." "No, you haven't" she hugging me close to her as I finish wiping almost thirty frigging years worth of tears salty on my face as we walked the path, not down, but rising to our feet as we made our way back to the street " you'll never say good-bye to him, Darling . . . you only say good-bye to someone you might not ever see again . . . you see him every day, in your heart. It's okay. Those were the tears of a man, not a boy. Do you know how much I love you?" she smiling and kissing me as I tried to hail a cab to go the seven blocks to the National Gallery Of Art, neither she nor I feeling like walking that far. I have walked far, and I have farther to walk still. I walk not proud but aware and happy. I walk unnafraid, but not blind-fart-stupid enough to walk in the middle of the street. That's all so-called "awareness" or "satori" is in the end, having enough common sense not to walk in the middle of a busy street, not to play poker with a man named "Doc" or eat at a joint called "Mom's", all other so-called wisdom being just so much navel lint tasting. "Kent?" "Yes, sensei!" I turned quickly to the voice behind me as I opened the backdoor of the cab to scoot in but as soon as I turned around to see Teacher, his voice was gone. His voice was gone. He was gone. As he taught me well, if you can't build it, break it, fix it, eat it, screw it, shoot it, love it, bury it or send it to the frigging moon, then it's all illusion, anyway.

Aver Fede', Sensei
by
H. Kent Craig

"You think you're hot shit doncha' boy, with all your karate crap, doncha' you little twerp?" Chris mocked me in my own backyard as I practiced my Bruce Tenger karate moves.

"Yeah, I know I'm good, better than you'll ever be!" my rising to the challenge even though he was several years and tons of experience older than I and by his uniform and by what his mother had told me and my parents you could tell he had just gotten back from his first tour in Viet Nam and had gotten a plum assignment locally as a recruiter.

"Let's see if you're any good, then, Twerp . . . here's a twenty dollar bill to a quarter that you can't land a single blow against me."

"You're on, Chris, prepare yourself!' as my young teen-age taught and fit and strong frame prepared itself for battle.

Why did you go back to what you knew was a higher probability of death this time? Was it the warrior in you that made you seek out war, real war, once more, the thrill of doing the damned-near impossible in battle and being lauded for it?

No, I know better than that. Your country called you to serve and you did. Your personal sense of honor wouldn't allow any action otherwise.

My feints good enough to fake anyone else out save someone with two fifth-degree black belts in two different martial arts disciplines and a seventh-degree one in another different one altogether just amused him more than angered him, and the more he laughed at me, the angrier I got before repeatedly charging him with all my skill and all my strength and he just getting so tickled at me he almost wet himself as he just slipped and slid and occasionally threw a gentle blow to me to keep knocking me flat on my ass much to his almost perverse amusement. I finally gave up after my pants split from the strain of my inarticulate kicks at him.

"Here's your quarter, Chris, eat it and choke!" me throwing a twenty-five cent piece at him as I shouted and tried to run off somewhere and pout as my eye just caught him waving a "p-shaw" motion at me as he turned and walked away.

I was hurt. He had kicked my ass royally. I was embarrassed to death, normally kicking anyone else's ass I had faced in schoolyard combat. He had kicked my ass royally. I was beyond humiliated. He had kicked my ass royally.

"Wait, Chris, wait a damn minute . . . how'd you do that, fend me off like that, I should have kicked your ass six ways to Sunday and I didn't land a single blow, how'd you do that?" I catching up to him as he tried to bade me good-bye and nearly reached his car in the driveway, he having brought his mother over to see mine, he pausing for a second.

"You fought from anger, Kent, not from focus, and anytime you fight from anger you've lost before you've begun" he opening his car door to get his cigarettes from the dashboard as his mother came out of the front door of my parents' house.

"Teach me, please, Chris" my eyes still crying from the real tears of my first true ass-whipping ever.

"No, you're too young, too immature, look at what you just did, you're just a kid, Kent, no, I won't" he lighting up a Winston as his mother and mine talked small talk a few feet from us, they pretty much ignoring us.

"Please, Chris, I'll do anything, anything you ask, please?" I pleaded through drying tears.

He studied my face. He swung at me like he was going to hit me hard in the face. I didn't flinch. He could take my head off with his bare hands and I wouldn't have cared. I was not going to flinch. His full-forced blow landed literally one-eighth of an inch from my face, the force of the wind behind it being so hard it almost felt like knuckled flesh instead of merely forced air. No, I didn't flinch. I was a warrior and I did not flinch.

"Very good, kid, very good indeed" he smiled "tell you what, you're on summer vacation, right?"

"Yes, Sir" I using "Sir" as the sign of true respect it was intended.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow and we'll see. If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do and when and how, and I do mean every single time, then you're training is over, and if I ask you to clean out the catbox or mow the lawn, you do it when I say, correct?"

"Yes, Sir!" my eyes now dry and my stance tall and erect once more.

Sometimes the good die young and sometimes the good die old.

Why, oh why, sensei, couldn't you have done your magic and lived to die old?

I know, don't ask questions I already know the answers to.

Yes, I remember my koan to this day, it is as much a part of me as the color of my soul:

"If a man walks alone, who walks with him?"

Sly mother-something damned if the first thing he didn't make me do was clean out his mother's cat's sandbox. I could have, I could have, well, I didn't.

Then, flower arranging. Yeah, I said flower arranging, can you believe that nonsense!?!

Then, a brush in my hand and ink upon paper. Then, a boring old tea ceremony.

Then, finally, a bow and arrow in my hand and my eyes aimed at a target, at the target, himself, twenty-five yards away, he picking off the accurately placed arrows at his heart, he warning me that I'd experience an ass-whomping like I never had before if I didn't try my best to shoot him with the long-shafted arrows and funny-looking and awkward bow right in his hear. I cried as I shot at him. He laughed at he swatted the arrows away like so many flies.

Then, zazen, sitting Zen, sitting but traveling Zen, traveling the length and breadth of one's consciousness and awareness and self-honesty.

"If a man walks alone, Kent, who walks with him?" he'd ask me repeatedly and when I couldn't answer he'd swat the living crap out of me with his bamboo cane that he sometimes used in public but always had with him during my times with him, he always landing his blows either atop one shoulder or the other or when he felt I was being particularly stubborn directly across my shoulder blades, never to hurt me, only to get my attention and help me re-focus on the task at hand, helping me grow up even though I didn't know it at the time.

If a man walks alone, sensei, does he do so always voluntarily or sometimes is he compelled to because of circumstances? And, does it really matter why he does?

Did you walk alone on that path you took the lead on? Of course you didn't. You had, well, you had.

Strike and stee-rike again, blow and blow again, thus the training of the disciplines begins in earnest.

An hour of zazen and then two hours of training followed by an hour of yardwork or housework. Yeah, very funny, sensei, your mom just hee-hawed with laughter on more than one occasion as I vacuumed her rug or dusted her furniture because you commanded me to. Very funny indeed. But I was getting what I wanted. I was being trained as a warrior.

"There is a big difference between a warrior and a soldier, Kent. A soldier fights because it's what he's supposed to do. A warrior fights because do to otherwise would be to bring shame to his name and his honor and he has no other choice. A soldier fights for his country, a warrior fights for freedom from fear, for all of humanity."

"Master, am I trained yet, am I, am I?" eyes eager as I finally landed some genuine blows to his steel body, finally knocking him on his own ass instead of me on mine.

"No, Kent, you're not."

"But Master, I beat you fair and square!"

"No, you didn't."

"What?!?"

"How many blows did you actually land on me?" as he dusted himself off, arising, refusing my hand of help.

"I, I, uhhhh, I don't know, I think one, maybe two?"

"Until you riddle me the answer to your mystery, no, you won't be trained."

"But I beat you, sensei, I beat you in kumite fair and square!"

"You did?"

"Yes, Master, I did."

"Well, I guess that makes you the Master and me your acolyte then, doesn't it?" he embracing me in family-way as I turned and ran away in shame.

To be Master, to be sensei, what does it truly matter?

Is to be called Master or sensei an honor, or an insult?

When you have achieved satori, when you have achieved true awareness, you will know the answer, and not until.

Practice and practice and practice again, zazen and martial arts training and more elfing catboxes to clean and more of the same all over again, the seasons turning and turning and turning again.

Sitting Zen and mind wandering I see his bamboo rod of correction coming at me once more.

"Master!" my hands flying up despite myself, knowing I would have to suffer many more blows of correction and training as a result of my refusal of his love.

"Yes, Kent, what is it?"

"Master, sensei, when a man walks alone, he never walks alone, he always walks with his honor within him! Please, no more, don't hit me with your cane anymore, I can't take the blows anymore!"

He grabbed my face and nearly crushed my cheeks with his strong hands as his energy focused on my mind and soul but that was just show, he knew already, he already knew.

"Son, it is done. It is free. You are free. Go, and do not come back. I'll take you home and we shall never see each other again. I can do no more. I have done nothing. You have done this all yourself. You have your freedom. You have your skills. You are now a warrior. You are now a healer, and you are now a poet. Your heart is empty, so go out and fill it. The vessel is empty, the clarity of your new sunrise becons. You are free. Time to take you home."

"But Master, Master!" I literally cried "sensei, please, please don't do this to me!"

"I haven't done anything to you, Kent, you have done this all yourself. You'll understand in time. Time for you to be yourself."

And with that, as he dropped me off at my house in silence, he was gone.

Your mother said your orders, the orders you had begged the army for you to get despite the fact that they wanted to stay as a recruiter, came the next day. You never wrote me after that, not the first time. My heart, the heart of a great warrior, ached for your attention which never came.

"Heard anything from Chris?"

"No, Kent, I haven't" his mom coming in to see my mom and sitting on the couch.

"Oh, okay, tell him I said 'hi' next letter and I'll see him when he gets back."

Silence. Then a single tear.

"I can't lie to you, Kent. You were his favorite pupil among all of them."

The childish five-year-old within me wanted to react badly . . . I mean, I didn't know that he had any other acolytes but me!?!

"But, but, what?" my heart soaring to my throat. I knew something was coming and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

"He's dead, Kent, died in combat near Phau Won. His lieutenant that wrote me told me he evidently stepped on one of those home-made landmines like the VC construct and it was simply way too powerful, thankfully for him . . . his lieutenant said he was within twenty feet of him, just behind him when it went off . . . he saw Chris in front of him, heard the explosion and then there was just this cloud of slightly pink mist that lingered for a few minutes and then faded. Thing must have had enough power to kill twenty solders and it killed only him, didn't even injure anyone else, it just simply vaporized him. He didn't suffer, that's the only good thing to come out of this, he didn't suffer. He simply is no more, Kent, he simply is no more."

I rushed to hug her but she brushed me aside with slight wave of her arm that could have only been taught to her by Chris, sending me rolling across the coffee table on to the floor, me picking myself up, not embarrassed at all.

"Now, Kent, that wasn't proper, you are his legacy now, he told me that only you 'had made it', that of all his students only you had 'gotten it' . . . now, he's gone and we both shall miss him terribly, but he died as he lived, Kent, he died with his honor intact, and you need to honor him by being the proper gentleman you always were and proper teacher he told me you'd be excellent at . . . that is how we shall keep his memory alive, by honoring him every day by our correct actions and words" her demeanor, well, she was her son's mother, I could see that more clearly than ever.

"Yes, I will, my word."

"I know" she smiled at me as she and my mother went to the kitchen to kaffeklatch some, my mother giving us some privacy until we finished.

"Uhhhmm?" is all I could muster from my dry throat, she just smiling and shaking her head at me.

Only now, sensei, my only true teacher and Master other than my Great Lord Jesus Christ Himself, only now thirty years later can I tell the world how much I truly loved you and have failed to honor your memory, failed miserably to honor the precious gift you have given me, the gift of honor, the gift of manhood, the gift of being responsible for one's self. I have achieved much great worldly success, sensei, but I have failed to honor your honor as you taught me. This tome is one first step in many to change that, to honor you.

Yes, No.

I will honor you, my teacher, but I shall do so by honoring myself and all of humanity, by being the left-handed warrior and the right-handed healer and the heart-center of a poet.

"Sensei" literally means "one who has walked the path before."

You know, Teacher, I never knew that until recently. Even after I achieved satori, you never told me that. I guess you knew I needed to find that out for myself, as I do a lot of things, even now.

"Take your time, no rush."

"Thanks, Dear, you're a Dear!"

"Yes I am, and you're going to take me to Blackie's later because I am!" my ladyfriend and I bantered about as I approached the registry of The Honored at "The Wall".

"Yes, I will, because I love you" I flipping through the pages as I smiled at her. Shoot. Can't find him. Nope. Damn!

Was all that had been so important to me just an illusion, just a dream of the butterfly dreaming he was a man?

"Nah, you'll take me to Blackie's because you want to get in my pants later!" she playfully quipped as I put my arm around her waist and then the wind somehow picked up and blew the pages over themselves and when the wind stopped there he was, the name of my sensei, a name I at first didn't recognize because it was his proper birthname as opposed to what everyone even his mother called him, but there he was, the only person with his last name resident of his hometown. "Yeah, that too, take a picture of me, okay, please?"

"Sure" my willing slave and close friend taking my camera from me as I slowly walked down the path as legions of spirits rose from the perfect June Friday morning, twenty thousand or more.

"Mourn for me, mourn for me!" they all began crying in unison, almost overwhelming all my psychic filters and even almost sending my ladyfriend who was also very psychic into near-physical convulsive coma before she re-establisher her filters and we continued before I saw a full-uniformed NVA general sitting atop the slight rise a hundred feet or so away from The Wall. I walked over to him and mentally and verbally confronted him despite weird looks from those others visiting loved ones at The Wall.

"What the fart are YOU doing here, mother-sucker?" I almost angrily shouted at him.

"I put a lot of these guys here on the wall" he looking up from his Chinese-peasant hat and making direct eye contact with me as he waved his hand casually at the 20,000-deep minion of spirits of dead solders, no, of dead warriors some in full uniforms some in khakis and some in worn-out fatigues that milled around the grounds, their wails of anger and grief almost making me physically throw up despite my hard-psychic filters ". . . the way I figure it, is that I deserve to be here as much as they do" he grinning back at me with darked and chipped front teeth.

Couldn't argue with logic, if it did come in perfect if accented English from the thought patterns of a dead guy, of a dead North Vietnamese Army general. Couldn't argue with his logic at all.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, sorry to bother you."

"No bother, go see you friend" his head slightly bowing lower to cover his spirit eyes from the eternal blaze of the sun.

I scanned the minions but didn't feel Chris' presence, didn't see him, didn't feel him within the horde of departed servicemen.

He had died a true warrior and had evidently gone home to a warrior's reward, to Valhalla, to home in heaven as he wished to create it.

You are not gone, sensei, and you are not on that wall. Only your name is on that wall and you will forever be in my heart, be in my prayers, be in my actions of correctness as I deal with others day-to-day. I shall honor you by always keeping my honor intact and strong.

"Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the ten battalions of dead dudes in army dress wailed at me, knowing, sensing I could hear them and not many if any others who visited The Wall ever could, many of them never having been visited and honored for their sacrifice by even their closest family members.

I wish I could have, I truly wish I could have, but I am only one man, I am only a man, not a god, and I was there not to mourn but to remember and honor the one who walked the path before me and didn't show me "the way" but showed me how to find my own path and lead my own way.

Next time, Old Friend, I'll bring you a Budweiser even though it's totally skank beer to me and will take a couple of swigs for you and then pour the rest of it on your name on The Wall so you can have a little taste at least if you'd like, it's the least I can do, and if I know you, you definitely would like one more taste of Bud and one more Winston regular cigarette. I'll see what I can do.

"Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the chorus rising from the dead gallery even though I was trying my best to ignore them, not meaning to be rude, but damn, guys let me say my good-byes at least, okay?

"Mourn for me, mourn for me!" the cries rising, almost drowning out the sound of my tears which fonted forth as I began crying and cried and cried for a full half an hour as my head touched the engraved scratch marks on the black marble and my ladyfriend took some photos of my release of almost-then-thirty years of pen-up grief, a photo I will have to do a painting of and then make prints of to share my memory of your love for me, sensei.

You are not dead, sensei, I know you live in the bosom of our Christ Our Savior if you were and did teach me the value of Zen Buddhism and other eastern traditions and you will forever live through me and my students that I have passed your wisdom, knowledge, techniques, and love on to, even though I know you will thoroughly kick my ass for saying this after I cross over when I pass from this plane of existence into the next, and, for once, I will welcome an ass-kicking from you.

"Kent, we need to go, Honey, if we're going to the National Gallery so I can pick up some gifts and then to the Holocaust Museum by 12:30, the time of admission on our tickets there."

"I know, Sweety, we'll go now. I have said my good-byes to Chris."

"No, you haven't" she hugging me close to her as I finish wiping almost thirty frigging years worth of tears salty on my face as we walked the path, not down, but rising to our feet as we made our way back to the street " you'll never say good-bye to him, Darling . . . you only say good-bye to someone you might not ever see again . . . you see him every day, in your heart. It's okay. Those were the tears of a man, not a boy. Do you know how much I love you?" she smiling and kissing me as I tried to hail a cab to go the seven blocks to the National Gallery Of Art, neither she nor I feeling like walking that far.

I have walked far, and I have farther to walk still. I walk not proud but aware and happy.

I walk unnafraid, but not blind-fart-stupid enough to walk in the middle of the street.

That's all so-called "awareness" or "satori" is in the end, having enough common sense not to walk in the middle of a busy street, not to play poker with a man named "Doc" or eat at a joint called "Mom's", all other so-called wisdom being just so much navel lint tasting.

"Kent?"

"Yes, sensei!" I turned quickly to the voice behind me as I opened the backdoor of the cab to scoot in but as soon as I turned around to see Teacher, his voice was gone.

His voice was gone. He was gone.

As he taught me well, if you can't build it, break it, fix it, eat it, screw it, shoot it, love it, bury it or send it to the frigging moon, then it's all illusion, anyway.

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