A stone fire pit sat next to the wooden deck. He tossed some logs into the crater, lit a fire and popped open a can. Ice cold beer and a sizzling fire—the finer things. Settling into a chair, he contemplated the events that had brought him to this moment and forged him into who he was—and who he would become.
Thorpe was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His mother, Margaret, worked as a school bus driver for the North Kansas City School District. This allowed her to be home with little Johnny and his sister, Marilyn, during the summer, weekends, and holidays; an important aspect of her job since she was, for all practical purposes, a single parent for interminable periods of time.
Thorpe’s father, Benjamin, was a soldier. At least that was the profession as explained to little Johnny, Marilyn and anyone else who inquired about Ben’s line of work. This much Thorpe did know: Benjamin Thorpe grew up very poor. Ben’s father had disappeared when Ben was young, leaving his mom to raise eight children. At one point, the family’s circumstances became so dire they separated; Ben moved in with a neighbor. From what Thorpe had been able to learn, the neighbor wasn’t much more than a local prostitute gracious enough to feed and house Ben until the family got back on its feet. That never occurred. Ben dropped out of school in the eighth grade and lied about his age to take a job and help care for his brothers and sisters. He had been deprived of both a father and a childhood.
When Ben turned eighteen, his fondness for fighting began to land him in trouble with the local authorities. In those days judges routinely gave young men the choice between military service and jail time. Ben wisely enlisted and discovered he was a natural-born soldier—except for one problem; he didn’t like to take orders from idiots, of which the Army was in no short supply. On several occasions he threatened bodily harm to those with higher rank, and, at least once, made good on his promise.
John was certain by the time he turned ten, his father no longer served in the regular army. Whether Ben left voluntarily or was forced out, Thorpe didn’t know. Ever since he could remember, his father had left home for long durations. “Overseas deployments” were how his mother and father referred to his absences. When Ben returned, usually with a fresh collection of scars, he spent every waking hour with his children and was a firm but good father—at least Johnny thought so. Some of the things Ben did back then would land a parent in jail these days.
Ben began teaching little Johnny hand-to-hand combat skills shortly after he took his first steps. As Johnny grew, the lessons intensified and often resulted in numerous scrapes and bruises. But Ben always let John know the sessions were conducted with the best of intentions.
“It’s a dangerous world full of bad people, Johnny. Someday this may save your life or the life of someone you love.” To John, these activities seemed normal because it was all he ever knew. While other kids and their fathers were playing football and basketball, Johnny and Ben were going over the finer points of disarming an adversary or how to turn household items into lethal weapons. Looking back, Thorpe figured his dad never had a father who taught him the proper way to throw a football or other facets of team sports. And because Ben had to drop out of school, he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn sports in that environment either.
So Ben taught Johnny the only craft he’d mastered. Before Ben left for deployments, he’d search for a boxing or martial arts facility to supplement Johnny’s skills while away. Ben was a small man, maybe five-eight and less than 150 pounds. In those days, instructors routinely accepted challenges from other practitioners or prospective students to prove they were worthy of teaching. Ben would take Johnny to a school, meet with the head instructor, and ask to spar before signing a contract. If the instructor refused, Ben would ask the man, “If you’re not confident in your abilities, why should I be?” Then he’d stand up to leave. Sometimes the instructors would let Ben and Johnny walk out the door. Other times, either because of financial reasons or pride, they accepted the challenge after laying down ground rules such as no biting or eye gouging. The sparring matches generally lasted several minutes but always ended one of two ways—with John’s father standing over a semiconscious instructor or the instructor submitting to avoid injury.
During those matches, John realized his father could have finished most fights much earlier but was merely auditioning the instructors to see if they possessed skills worthy of imparting to his son. Thorpe remembered seeing his father equaled only one time in all those auditions. Ben had taken him to a boxing gym; the head trainer had been a regional Golden Gloves champion and former professional boxer. The trainer outweighed his father by at least fifty pounds and bested his father during the match. However, Johnny felt positive if the fight had occurred on the street, his father would have picked the pugilist up by the hips and dropped him headfirst onto the concrete. A street fight might have lasted ten seconds.
Benjamin Thorpe would be “on deployment” anywhere from a couple of weeks to six or seven months. He usually returned unannounced, although Johnny sometimes guessed when his father’s appearance was imminent because his arrival was foreshadowed by his mother preparing an elaborate meal of Thanksgiving-sized proportions and spending an inordinate amount of time dolling herself up in the bathroom. Her rituals generally concluded with Ben bursting through the front door, gifts in hand. His daughter, son and wife would pounce on him. It was only during these moments that John ever witnessed his father become emotional; nothing exorbitant, just a glistening of the eyes. Once, a single tear trailed down his cheek before being quickly wiped away.
The next day Johnny would be woken by a pair of boxing mitts landing on his chest as his father stood in his doorway silhouetted by the hallway light.
“Let’s see if you can kick your old man’s ass yet, boy” became his standard line. With that, the two would go down into the basement and unroll the mat. Father would spar with son for a few minutes before putting a solid whooping on the boy so as not to let his head get too big.
“You’re getting pretty good, son, but you’ll never be able to whip your daddy,” his father would say with a grin.
When Johnny turned twelve, Ben decided his son needed real-world experience. “All the classrooms in the world can’t prepare you for a single dark alley,” his father would say. On their first such outing, Ben loaded fishing gear into the car and told his wife they were heading to the lake. In reality, they were headed to downtown Kansas City to pick a fight.
Ben drove around the seedier parts of town before coming across a closed skating rink where a group of kids sat outside waiting for trouble.
“Johnny, just remember everything you’ve learned and concentrate on the kid you’re fighting,” Ben began. “I won’t let anyone else jump on you, and you have nothing to worry about ‘cept maybe a black eye. But the most important thing is this—don’t seriously hurt one of these kids. We’re here to learn, not to send someone to the hospital. They’ll say some nasty things to you, and rightfully so. We’re coming into their place and picking a fight. Don’t get angry about it; put yourself in their shoes. If you break someone’s arm or go for an eye or anything else dangerous, you’re going to have to answer to me. I’ll take you down to the basement, and you’ll get an ass-whippin’ like you’ve never had before.” Ben held out his fist, and father and son did the over-under fist bump. Ben smiled, and they both walked over to the group of kids.
Thorpe could still picture the scene after all these years. As Ben and John approached the group, one of the kids who’d been sitting on a concrete wall slid off and strode up to them.