Numb Chuck

I was finishing out my run today walking down the street I grew up on. Half way down I saw that Mr. J was coming out of his house. When he was younger he was a local police officer and in my young memories..kinda of a hard ass. When I was about 10 or so his daughter was dating a martial arts expert. My friend on the street was learning how to use nunchucks from him. We called them numb chucks back then. I can remember my friend whipping them out and doing a routine. He missed my forehead by millimeters. Luckily all my Bruce Lee movie watching gave me some uber reflexes.

Anyway, Mr. J wasn't sure I was who he thought I was. So I decided to say hello. He asked about my folks, and I told him about my mother being in the hospital, but that she was doing fine. Then he told me how his wife had gone through a lot recently, but that she is rejecting the lung from her transplant. He said in a slow indifferent tone, "They said there's nothing else they could do. It's really hard." We just both kinda looked down. Here I am dripping in sweat, feeling really sad for him, and I just couldn't say much of anything. Then in that strange way people do, our voices went back to cordial or cursory and we said our good day to each other.