The Great Kung Fu Conspiracy

A Short Story

"After long study, an all night Kung Fu movie marathon and the better part of a case of cold ones, I have come to a conclusion. The martial arts, Kung Fu, Jiu Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Chop Suey, etc., were all created in the South," he said.

His words snapped her awake and reminded her of why she was here: to get proof. They've been over this same subject for the past two hours. She looked over at Ben's wild red-rimmed eyes and clenched fist and slowly shook her head.

"We have to get definitive proof, Ben," she said, "No one will believe us."

His face reddened and he said, "I know. Someone is going to point out that these are actually ancient arts created in the Orient hundreds if not thousands of years ago. You can't prove that to me. As far as I'm concerned, anything that happened before May 12, 1967 is questionable. I wasn't around to see it so I can't swear that it happened. Come to think out it, I can't swear that last week actually happened because I don't remember it either."

He burped and pulled up the bottom of his sweat-stained 'Reach for a Georgia Peach' T-shirt to delicately blot the thin semi-circle of beer foam from his upper lip. Angela brushed her hair back, tucked it behind her ear and said, "It happened, baby. Remember when we finally got Snooky over at the Enquirer to run our story on The King?"

Ben nodded furiously and part of his beer slopped out of the bottle and landed on the picture of Regis Philbin on Angela's shirt. Regis was angrily pointing toward her left breast and the speech bubble floating above his head said, "Is THAT your final answer!?" The small amber-colored bead of beer slowly rolled down her shirt and stopped on Regis's nose.

Intently watching the drop of Miller Lite make its descent down Angela's shirt, Ben recalled the glory and satisfaction of getting Elvis to pose with him next to the five and a half foot rattler (which they later marinated in a peanut butter sauce and then ate). He said, "Ayyup, but Snooky ain't the New York Times! The slant he put on the story made it seem as if The King was make believe! Hell far, ever-body knows that Elvis don't drive no daggum commie beetle-bug car! And the crap about tofu --"

"Now Ben," Angela comforted, "don't get yourself all wound up or Shari'll have to come in here and take away your brewski."

The thought of his wife giving him 'that look' instantly made Ben take a few deep breaths and calm down. He looked over at Angela and thought she was being awfully relaxed. She was just as upset as he was when the Elvis story broke. He saw her reaching up to scratch her neck; sure enough, she had hives. He reached down in the cooler and grabbed an ice-cold gooseneck Miller Lite, unscrewed the top and set it in front of her.

"Here. Let's not get upset. We have work to do," he said.

She winked at him, took a long draw from the bottle and exhaled, "Wellllurp. What have we got so far?"

She turned to the computer, and re-read what they had been working on. "OK, my kids found the mysterious Chinese stick in the woods in the poke salet patch. The pictogram carvings on it translated to," she scrolled down the screen, "uhm, here it is, 'Make moonshine, drink moonshine, UFO lands, big fight,' and the rest is scraped off."

"Yup. Next, I got the suspicion that the martial arts were created in the South when I walked past the TV one night. Shari was watching a karate movie, 'Attack of the Bad Dialog' or something. This one guy was standing dead still, feet spread apart. All of a sudden, he was flying through the air in a giant flip that sent his heels spinning over his head. He landed a few feet away on his feet, nary a hair out of place. 'I can do that,' I said, 'Done it in fact.'" he said.

Angela said, "OK, I have that much, go on."

Ben continued, "Was walking along quail hunting down on Warrior Creek. Took a big step and looked down. Biggest moccasin I've ever seen right between my feet grinning at me. I back-flipped back to the truck."

"Yeah, got that," Angela said as she pressed a few more keys.

"Wait a sec," she opened a few applications, clicked the mouse several times, and said, "It says here that Kung Fu is literally translated to mean 'skill from effort.' It can be used to describe anything that requires a person to invest both time and effort into training to become skillful. You could said that Mark Martin has good 'Kung Fu' but Dick Trickle don't."

Ben scratched his chin and said, "Ah, I see. Kung Fu is more than just jumpin' and hollerin' -- it's -- it's like a whole body experience." He thought for a moment about his favorite NASCAR driver and added, "I think Earnhardt Junior has better Kung Fu than any of em -- this week, anyhows."

"Yup, the fancy kicking maneuvers definitely originated from The South," Angela added. "The majority of the strained facial expressions are based on how it feels when you got the day-after squirts from Granny Polly's firehouse chili. Hoo wee, that hurts -- the sweat runs down and stings your eyes and your ass --"

"-- burns for days!" Ben finished for her, squinting his eyes and belching for effect.

"Now," she continued, "we have the drawings that my Uncle Clyde made, remember? He was in Roswell that fateful night in July 4^th, 1947 -- you remember, he was staying with Mac Brazel on a moonshine run. Uncle Clyde delivered the 'shine and was fixin' to leave when they saw the crash. Clyde looked around the wreckage, jumped in his Chevrolet and headed back to Tennessee. He thought those government boys never knew he was there. The pictures he drew of the crash look real similar to the ones on my stick. A couple of years later, Clyde disappeared from his double wide. Aunt Marge swore up and down that little green men took him away. And three years later, Clyde come stumblin' from the woods smelling of onions and cussing like crazy."

Ben slapped his hand on the table, "After that, Clyde done forgot how to make moonshine, cast a reel, load a shot gun, and piss in the woods. It's as if his brain was sucked dry of information."

Angela looked stunned. Ben waved his hand in front of her face and she didn't flinch.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I think whatever intelligence it was that crashed at Roswell, followed Uncle Clyde and stole his memories!" She gasped.

Ben nodded, "It makes sense. The folks in the Orient must have a super secret aircraft and now they are privy to some of The South's biggest secrets. I mean, just look at the 'Red Hornet' maneuver! The guy comes whirling his arms like mad and doing a pretty fair Shuffle with his feet."

"Uh humm, go on," she said as she began frantically typing.

"I was fishing down at Little River with Hawgin' one day. He snagged a tree and jerked the line. Biggest red hornet nest I've ever seen fell out. Them things aimed right at me and Hawgin'. Stung me to death ... twice as I remember it," Ben remembered.

Angela exclaimed, "Yes!"

Ben went on, "Oh, and when the fellow with the fancy arm movements begins to jump around, whirling and spinning and twisting?"

Angela nodded, "Yup."

"That fellow rolling around on the ground now and kicking out, that's what Hawgin' did when he fell into the campfire. I never fell into the fire. I've got more sense than that. T'other fellow over there twisting and jerking and such, he's done fell into a fire ant nest. They're biting him so bad he can't get his pants off," Ben said.

"That's a tricky one, I'm amazed no one noticed that originated in The South. I think we need more research," she said while pointing to the empty cooler and VCR sitting atop the blank television.

Angela picked up the telephone and dialed a four-digit extension and said, "Hey sugar! Can you bring us some more beer? Nah -- a couple of six packs'll do for now. Oh wait! Can you bring 'Crazy Horse, Intelligent Monkey,' 'Big Land Flying Eagles,' 'Attack of the Joyful Goddess,' and 'Dragon Fist'? Thanks."

Ben said, "There's one move where this older fellow came out and started doing all kinds of slow-motion moves. He wasn't fighting at that point, just moving around real graceful and slow. That fellow knows what it's like to get caught in briars. Ya can't move too fast or these things will wrap you up tight. Then, he started some very graceful high leg lifts, still in slow motion. This is crossing an electric barbed wire fence."

"Oh yeah, the 'Briar-Bob-War' maneuver! That's definite Redneck Kung Fu right there," Angela said.

The door swung open and Paul, Angela's husband, stomped in and dropped the four movies on the table. Next, he plunked the beers in the open cooler while glaring at Angela.

"What?" she asked.

Paul looked at his watch, shook his head, and quickly left the room, while Ben put one of the movies in the VCR and fast-forwarded to the action scenes.

From screen left came a younger man who apparently announced his intention to attack an older man. He did so by moving his mouth about three times. At first, they figured he was adjusting his chewing tobacco. A few seconds later the announcer said, "Now Double Chin, I must inflict severe bodily injuries upon your person in retaliation for the poor grades you afforded me as a young child in your school of multi-discipline learning." In mid leg-lift, the old man suddenly jerked up and away to land on his feet a few yards away.

"Damn. I wish he'd do that again. Every time I get zapped in the balls it knocks me flat on my ass," Ben said.

"Shh. These are masters who've studied the Southern art of Kung Fu for years!" Angela said.

Ben elucidated, "Yanno, the basic Kung Fu styles are named after animals for some reason. Prolly cuz there's so many dayyum critters 'round here."

Long minutes ticked away as they intently watched the videos and made notes (and imbibed in several cold beers).

Ben ejected the last movie from the VCR and stammered, "What we got? Read the stuff that we (hic) talked about."

"We got some real good stuff to prove our thing that we wuz thinking about," Angela said as she paused to belch loudly and then giggle for ten minutes.

"OK, thar's the Crane or 'Rooster' Style," she said. "In the movie a Crane Style fighter hops around on one foot, reaches his arms out and angles his hands from his wrists. He darts in and out very fast in a kind of pecking motion. The Southern basis: Trying to grab a hot biscuit out of the oven without burning your hands and fingers or reaching for the last piece of fried chicken before Cousin Earl gets it," she read from the screen.

"Next, you mentioned the Tiger Style: Low crouch with hands reaching out like claws. Long raking moves are the attack," she continued.

Ben said, "Yup, the Southern basis: Reaching through the tool box on the back of the truck for that socket that just slipped off the sliding tray."

"Here's my favorite, Bear Style: Large powerful sweeps and occasional rib-crushing hugs. Southern basis: Aunt Mabel's vise-like hugs-o-love," she read from the screen.

Ben disagreed, "Naw, this is based on Friday night high school football -- pure and simple. Period. Aw hell, it could be either, I reckon."

"OK, I'll make a note," she continued, "Next, there's the Chicken Style is where the fighter twirls around and bounces off the wall while flapping his arms wildly. The Southern basis of this is when Granny chops off the hen's head and it runs around the barnyard."

Ben nodded, "Ayyup, didja get the Eagle Style, with the high swooping attacks and a lot of jumping around as opposed to the high swooping attacks and a lot of jumping around as found in the other styles? It's based on Crop dusting. These fellers swoop down from high and lay a whupping on various critters with an assortment of pesticides. Also, this could be Grandma walking around after everybody is done eating and she picks up the plates to be washed."

"Yeah, it's here. I think I'm ready to print this and send it to Snooky," Angela said.

After starting the printing process, Angela asked, "We'll prolly have to go underground and use our aliases like we did last time, won't we?"

Ben pulled on his ear and said, "Yup. The government tried to cover this up for all these years and they'll be looking for us."

"Yeah. They'll probably send some one after us like on the X-Files -- I just hope we won't be forced to dye our hair and pretend to like sushi. Dayyum, we're out of beer again," Angela replied.

Suddenly the door flew open and Shari stood there with hands on her hips. She said, "Ben, it's time to go home now the flat's fixed. The nice folks here at the Exxon want their movies and break room back."

Paul walked up and put his hand on Angela's shoulder. "Turn off the laptop honey -- now that their car is fixed, we should head on to the air port to catch our flight to Austin for the Net Wits Convention. Are you drunk?" He asked.

Angela leaned over and whispered in Ben's ear, "Look at em! I think Paul and Shari work for the X-Files!"

Ben eyed Paul and Shari suspiciously and whispered back, "You come at 'em from the left with that funny stick and I'll go for the right with a combination tiger/crane Ku Foo toe-jam attack."

Stay tuned for more conspiracies and other ... uh ... stuff!