The Traveler

As they drove to South Los Angeles, Vicki explained that the Divine Church realized that their young followers might be tempted by the flashy materialism of New Babylon. Teenagers were encouraged to be church missionaries in South Africa or the Caribbean. It was seen as a good way to channel youthful energy.

Hollis Wilson was part of a well-known church family, but he refused to become a missionary and began to hang out with the gang members in his neighborhood. His parents prayed for him and locked him in his room. Once he came home at two in the morning and found a Jonesie minister waiting to exorcise the demon in the young man’s heart. When Hollis was arrested in the vicinity of a stolen car, Mr. Wilson took his son to a karate class at the local Police Athletic League. He thought the karate teacher might be able to add some structure to Hollis’s scattered life.

The disciplined world of martial arts was the true power that pulled Hollis away from the church. After receiving a fourth-degree black belt in karate, Hollis followed one of his teachers to South America. He ended up in Rio de Janeiro and lived there for six years, becoming an expert in a Brazilian style of martial arts called capoeira.

“Then he came back to Los Angeles,” Vicki said. “I met him at his sister’s wedding. He started a martial arts school in South Central.”

“Describe him to me. What’s he look like? Big? Small?”

“Broad shoulders, but slender. Nappy hair, like a Rastafarian.”

“And what’s his personality?”

“Confident, and vain. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”

Hollis Wilson’s martial arts school was on Florence Avenue, wedged between a liquor store and a video rental outlet. Someone had painted words on the sidewalk window in garish reds and yellows. DEFEND YOURSELF! KARATE, KICKBOXING, AND BRAZILIAN CAPOEIRA. NO CONTRACTS. BEGINNERS WELCOME.

They heard drumming as they approached the school and the sound got louder when they opened the front door. Hollis had taken sheets of plywood and built a reception area with a desk and folding chairs. Pinned to a bulletin board was a class schedule and posters advertising local karate tournaments. Maya and Vicki walked past two small dressing rooms with old bedspreads hung in place of doors and looked into a long windowless room.

An old man was playing a conga drum in one corner and the sound bounced off the concrete walls. Wearing T-shirts and white cotton pants, the capoeiristas stood in a circle. They clapped their hands in rhythm with the drum and watched two people fighting. One of the fighters was a short Latino man wearing a Think Critically! T-shirt. He was trying to defend himself against a black man in his twenties who was giving instructions between the kicks. The black man glanced at the visitors and Vicki touched Maya’s arm. Hollis Wilson had long legs and muscular arms. His braided dreadlocks came down to his shoulders. After watching for a few minutes, Maya turned and whispered to Vicki, “That’s Hollis Wilson?”

“Yes. With the long hair.”

Maya nodded. “He’ll do.”

Capoeira was a peculiar mixture of grace and violence that looked like a ritualized dance. After Hollis and the Latino stopped sparring, two other people entered the circle. They began lunging at each other, mixing in cartwheels and punches and spinning kicks. If one person went down, he knew how to kick upward with his hands flat on the floor. The motion was continuous, and everyone’s T-shirt was damp with sweat.

They passed around the circle once, Hollis cutting in to attack or defend. The drummer beat faster and each person fought a second time and then a final series of matches that emphasized leg sweeps and lightning-fast side kicks. Hollis nodded to the drummer and the fighting was over.

Exhausted, the students sat on the floor. They stretched their legs and took deep breaths. Hollis didn’t look tired at all. He paced back and forth in front of them, speaking in the cadence of a Jonesie preacher.

“There are three kinds of human responses: the deliberate, the instinctive, and the automatic. Deliberate is when you think about your actions. Instinctive is when you just react. Automatic is when you do something from habit because you’ve done it before.”

Hollis paused and stared at the students sitting in front of him. He seemed to be evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. “In New Babylon, many of the people you know think they’re being deliberate when they’re just on automatic. Like a bunch of robots, they drive their car down the freeway, go to work, get a paycheck in exchange for sweat and pain and humiliation, then drive back home to listen to fake laughter coming from the television set. They’re already dead. Or dying. But they don’t know it.

“Then there’s another group of people-the party boys and girls. Smoke some weed. Drink some malt liquor. Try to hook up for a little quick sex. They think they’re connecting with their instincts, their natural power, but you know what? They’re on automatic, too.