ERNIE REYES, JR. STYLE

"You’re twenty-five, dude," Mack was saying. He had a point. He also had a pointless comb-over. Made no sense. He wasn’t bald or even "-ing", but his hairstyle of choice looked like a comb-over. Strange, but to each his own.
I shrugged as we approached the small Ernie Reyes Karate Studio in the strip mall. "I’ve always wanted to learn, you know?"
"Yeah, but don’t you have to start out as a kid to become a master?"
"I don’t need to be a master. I just wanna, you know, be more,.. coordinated, and--"
"Do flips and high kicks and whatnot," Mack said.
He hit the nail on the head. Ever since, well, maybe around the same time as Karate Kid movies, I’d wanted to know karate. Before that, really. My dad would watch Kung Fu Theatre on USA almost every Sunday. At least that’s how I remember it. Those crazy people on the screen would be moving faster than it seemed possible-- of course, the film speed was sped up half the time, but still-- flying through the air. Graceful and,.. deadly. Yep. I had wanted to know karate for almost as long as I could remember. That’s the problem, really. I always wanted to know karate. Unfortunately, one must learn it first.
The shades were drawn shut behind the window facade outside the Ernie Reyes Karate Studio. There was a poorly-drawn window painting of two figures in their karate uniforms or jammies or whatever-- I'm not big on technical terms-- doing some high kicks. And there was a photograph of some kid at what appeared to be a tournament.
"Is that Ernie Reyes, Jr.?" I wondered aloud.
Mack squinted at the picture. "Well, yeah. Isn’t this his school?"
"His dad’s, I think. Man, I remember wanting to be him when I was, like, nine."
Mack nodded.
I smiled like a dork, "The Last Electric Knight was my fucking favorite TV movie for a while."
"What’s that?" Mack asked. "I remember his show with Buck Rogers--"
"Yeah! Sidekicks. The Last Electric Knight was kind of the pilot for that or something."
"Oh."
"'Cept they took out all the, you know, 'electric" and fantasy stuff. Unfortunately."
"Still kicked ass, though."
"Goddamn right."
"So, are you gonna go in, or--"
I considered this. Karate lessons were expensive. Besides, "I don’t think I wanna learn karate in a strip mall."
"But Ernie Reyes, Jr.'s dad--"
"I know, but,.. nah. I want, like, an old shriveled-up master."
"Miyagi style."
"By way of Yoda."
At this point it seemed that we could no longer continue with the pop culture references without feeling incredibly lame and sad.
I had known Mack since we were both ten or so. And fat. Just chunky monkeys, the two of us. We went through grade school, high school, college, and, finally, post-college depression and regression, and the ultimate grudging acceptance of lives of importance and excitement being traded for our current lives of mediocrity together. Sure, we were both only in our mid-twenties, but when you’re in your mid-twenties, you figure that if you haven’t made the proverbial "it" yet-- whatever that may be to you (Mack and I weren’t sure)-- you’d never achieve "it", and might as well settle into a fairly comfortable and uneventful life. Still didn’t mean you couldn’t, you know, want to learn karate and bitch about the mediocrity you’d become after so much promise when you were young, fat, and happily stupid. When all your friends thought you were, like, totally smart and funny and a good writer and should make movies. Or whatever. Aside from the details, every story is the goddamn same.
Except for the people who make "it" happen. Whatever the fuck "it" is. Knowing karate, I guess, most likely wouldn’t help that. Couldn’t hurt, though.