Copyright © 2009 Ryan Priest
All rights reserved, Wild Child Publishing.
Growing up in small town Texas, Jake spent his youth waiting for the next Bruce Lee or Billy Jack movie to arrive at the local Cineplex or play on free TV. That was it, though, as far as actual instruction went. No one back then even knew the words kung fu or karate, much less where to go to learn them.
He’d special-ordered books and worked his way through their lessons the best he could. He’d even got himself a cross language phrasebook and set to teaching himself Japanese. When he turned eighteen, instead of finishing out the high school year, he’d laid down a summer’s worth of fast food pay for a one-way ticket to Tokyo.
The big dojos in Tokyo refused to train him, sometimes even hastily shooing him out the door. Undeterred, he dug in, got a job teaching Japanese people to speak conversational English, and continued to look for some point of entry into the Asian martial arts society.
To understand why Mishima took him in, you’d have to see a picture of him. In the highest position on Jake’s photo wall, even higher than the picture he’d taken with Chuck Norris, there’s a photo of a young, pudgy Jake: seventies’ mustache, thick ovular glasses, topped off with a bad perm. Standing next to him though, halfway down the frame, is a grinning, white-haired Japanese man of no more than five feet.