The NinJew

Richard Walters' greatest achievement may be to have invented an entirely new genre of book: a "half-biography, half-fictional account" which is also a fitness training manual. Is that three halves? Apparently there's also some philosophy in it, so one's cup overfloweth indeed.

It is the story of how the narrator, who is unambiguously the author, fights crime and terrorism in his Pittsburgh neighbourhood. It is also the story of how he trains "the young dude", Barry, and how Barry comes to be his crimefighting sidekick. "The way I met this young dude remains somewhat mysterious", he tells us, darkly, before describing a series of mundane happenstances that are not in the least mysterious, about how he first came to know Bob, who owns a pizza shop, and hence Barry, who works for Bob.

Before we get to the action, though, a fair chunk of the slender 84 pages is occupied with bodybuilding hints and tips, though in fairness Walters does his best to inject a note of urgency even here:

We ate bombarded with confusing messages from magazines that promise fat loss, but contain recipes for fattening foods. There is no easy way! We have to break out of our comfort zone, We have to really want it! Are we willing to do what it takes? There is no magic about it, There are no pills or potions. It is hard work, sweat, and determination, Face it, most people take better care of their car than they do their bodies.

Imagine your dream body as you would your dream car. Imagine that shiny new beauty up on blocks because it has no wheels, Would it run? Of course not! Think of the wheels as your food. If you don’t eat right, you won't have a dream body. Now imagine your body looking awesome, but there is no engine due to lack of cardio/aerobic exercise. You need cardio in order to keep your metabolism revved up. If you don't do cardio regularly, you won’t have a dream body. Lastly, imagine your dream car a weak, rusted-out chassis (body). This doesn’t even make sense. Who would covet a rusty old piece of junk like that? Think of the chassis as strength training (lifting weights). If you are not strong, you will not have your dream body. GET IT? You have to have all three components:

1. The Wheels—proper food combination; 
2. The Engine—right type and amount of cardio; 
3. The Chassis—strength training.

He bends a metaphor as easily he would an iron bar, see?

The story proper begins one night when Barry is training with him, and his secret life as The NinJew is revealed:

It was after 9 PM. at night. Barry and I were still working out in my Murray Avenue studio. Barry looked out the window. “What are those guys doing? Rich, check this out.”

I saw two big guys standing on the ledge on the other side of the roof.

One guy was holding a crow bar, and the other guy was holding a sledge hammer, I had my suspicion about what they were up to. Recently, some of the stores had been broken into from the back.

Without hesitation, I put on my black ski mask and a pair of black gloves. I took off my glasses and put on a pair of sunglasses. I grabbed my large black flashlight, like the kind the police use. I quickly opened a window leading out onto the roof.

Even Superman goes into a phonebox to perform his transmogrification, but this guy? Little wonder Barry was able to uncover his secret.

Rich sneaks up on the bad guys and is able to subdue them by dazzling them with his flashlight and then spraying them with mace. While they are thus disarmed he ties them up with wire and exits the scene. Barry is impressed. "You're da man!", he exclaims. Rich removes his disguise and they report the would-be burglars to the cops, using a pay-phone so as to remain incognito.

Barry is understandably keen to know more, so Rich tells him his origin story. When he was at Youngstown State University, he was president of the Jewish Student Fellowship, and at their first meeting Muslim students belonging to the Al Fatah group attacked them. "There was a major altercation and it got pretty bloody—until it was broken up by the police". (I can't find any reference to this incident in the newspapers of the period, so presumably this belongs to the fictional half of the book.)

Rich decided he needed to be able to fight back, so he went to the library, where he chanced on Musashi's Book of Five Rings, a classic of Japanese martial arts first translated into English in 1974. This was the inspiration for Rich's becoming the NinJew, a shadowy warrior with an ethos that he sums up with a few words from Sun Tzu:

Ethereal a master leaves no trace to be seen, mysterious under heaven, he leaves no sound to be heard. By these two, a master seals his foe's fate.

To teach Barry how to embody this martial philosophy, he takes him to an ice-rink where they both practice falling over. A key element is invisibility, which he demonstrates by hiding behind some coats draped over a bike. Barry doesn't see him! Some real ninja shit going on here, dude.

The two men are soon to be put to the test in a challenge far more demanding than falling over on ice. Things begin to get exciting when Rich happens on a scene that sets off all his alarm bells:

I saw seven late model pick-up trucks with cabs and three cars parked by the side of the road. There was one guy in each of them. Some were sipping coffee, some smoking, or both. None of them looked like they were there to go jogging or walking. I saw one guy get out of his truck and walk up the road to a different-style truck at the end of the line.

That truck was a semi. It had the logo “Hasad Grocery” printed boldly on its side.

Hasad Grocery, how do I know that name? That's the Arab grocery supplier from Youngstown, I realized. How weird, I thought. The man stood by at the open window of the cab nodding, looking to the right. The man inside was pointing. He was obviously getting directions. Then the man walked back to his truck, got in, and took off. 

Rich "sensed danger. [He] could smell it". Several of the trucks drove off so he gets on his bike and follows one of them into Schenley Park, where things get even more suspicious:

The driver got out of the truck and opened the back of it. To my astonishment, | saw seven big tough-looking guys get out dressed in camouflage military-type fatigues. They each had a rifle in their hands. I could not believe it. They ran into the wooded area of Schenley Park and just seemed to disappear I waited for a long while after the truck drove away. What should I do? I did not have a clue. Maybe the whole thing was innocuous, and I was blowing it up way out of proportion. Maybe this was an army training exercise. I had to find out. 

He returns to the same spot later and discovers the secret of their sudden disappearance: there is a hidden tunnel with its entrance disguised by a "grass carpet". There was snow on the ground but the area around the tunnel entrance was clear of it, so these guys, whoever they are, are not exactly masters of concealment,

Hoping to learn more about Muslim terrorist activity in the area, he visits his old professor back in Youngstown, Dr. Eitan Goldberg, who tells him that there's a lot of it about. He has warned the FBI, but they can't track down the people behind it, even though they are openly training "Jihad Ninjas" in Mill Creek Park. Goldberg, who is amazingly well-informed, tells Rich of another upcoming meeting at the Penguin Conference Center on Belmont Avenue, and Rich determines to go there and spy on the proceedings.

For all his ninja training, Rich's grasp of spycraft is not at the highest level, and this almost proves his undoing. For a start he gets up at 4.00 am when the meeting is at 3.30 pm in the afternoon. The drive to Youngstown is only an hour and a half at most, so as a result he ends up hanging around the duck pond in the park for several hours, killing time. Finally though, he proceeds to the venue and enacts his plan. Disguised as a painter, he closes off the men's room and climbs into the false ceiling above, crawling along until he is above the area where the Muslim group is assembled. They are all talking Arabic, a language he doesn't speak, but he has come prepared with a cassette recorder and he manages to capture much of what is being said, getting through no less than three tapes, before—

—with a crash he falls through the ceiling. The element of surprise means he manages to escape from the hall without being grabbed and he runs back through the streets, to the park and the familiar environs of the duck pond, with the furious Muslims at his heels. He hides out in a tree, having shed his painter's outfit for the all-black ensemble he had on underneath, until finally eluding his pursuers:

It was quiet. Waited. From behind, I heard a rustling, and what sounded like a gun being loaded and cocked. I doubt if they know I am up here, but I am not going to hang around, excuse the pun, too much longer, I thought. 

I took the lighter and ball of Kleenex out of my pocket. I lit it on fire, throwing the fireball to my right. I rolled off the branch on my left side, landing on my toes as gently as I could.

That instant, I saw a man pointing a pistol in the direction of the fire. I spun like a figure skater, balanced on my left toe, swinging my right leg to the side of the man's knee, smashing it to smithereens with the bone of my shin. He went down. I stomped on his right hand, which held his pistol with my left foot, and kicked straight into his right eyeball with my right toe. I grabbed the pistol, threw it in the lake, and ran from shadow to shadow until | was at my car. I fumbled for my keys, opened the door, jumped in, turned the ignition, and took off.

I knew I had lost them for it was only 3:30 A.M., and I was the only one on the freeway. I did not see another vehicle until I went through the tollbooth on the Ohio Turnpike. Now what? 

Rich seems to have spent an awfully long time up that tree. The meeting started at about 3.30 pm and he used up three cassette tapes recording it, before his fall through the ceiling. Even if they were C120s that still only takes us to 9.30 pm. How long did it take him to get to the park? From Belmont Avenue to the Lily Pond in Mill Creek Park is a two hour walk according to Google Maps, so less than an hour for a fit man to run. He arrived at the park at 10.30 pm, then—though why he didn't go to ground in some closer spot on the way is anyone's guess—and somehow managed to spend almost five hours hiding out, up a tree, in the winter, before his triumphant escape. Maybe it is a ninja thing.

The next day he takes his tapes to Rabbi Faziro, who speaks Arabic, to get them translated, but what the Rabbi learns when he listens to what was said during the meeting horrifies and dismays him:

“I am sorry to bring you sad news. I translated the tapes. they are planning to carry out a very evil plot against Israel and America. It involves a combination of three horrendous, violent, terrorist actions, which they plan to publicize simultaneously on September 11, 2004, by satellite TV.

Essentially they hope to hold America hostage by instilling mass fear and hysteria. They desire to cause the sentiment of the American people to pressure Israel to submit to total Palestinian control. They hope to incite the American public into a fury of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel hatred.”

Specifically, he told me, their plans concerned three coordinated actions:

Currently, they were training terrorists to simulate Ninja assassins. They had them clothed in black with black masks. They were teaching them martial arts. They practiced with swords, knives, and sickles at night in the woods of a park called Mill Creek. Apparently it had miles and miles of wooded area in which to train in secret.

They were planning to send these trained Ninjas to small towns and remote farm areas to instil terror by murder and mutilation in places that had rarely seen violence, or bloodshed.

There was a demonic creature that led the Ninja training. They called him “The Big One.” They were frightened by his physical size and strength. They were tormented by his raw hatred and depraved nature. He was a corrupt tyrant. He epitomized evil and sadism.

They knew this would make national news and they would lay claim to their hideous deeds. It was February 19. They planned to begin this terrorist action on June 15. Until then they would continue to train.

It is not clear how the plan is supposed to achieve its end goals, but it does indeed sound terrifying. Rich determines to defeat the plotters before their evil schemes bear fruit:

Politely, I asked for the tapes. “Let me assure you that my underground gang of Jewish warriors,” (I stretched the truth a bit since there were only two of us, thus far) will handle this matter discreetly. We will destroy them before they have a chance to do any harm. This will be done in a manner that is totally invisible. They will disappear as though they never were. No one will see, no one will hear. Please, Rabbi, do not worry. You, Israel, and the good people of America will be safe from evil decree. Pray for G-d’s help.” 

Rich tells Barry about the plot and the two of them prepare to train for their daunting mission. To get a better idea of what they are up against, he returns to Mill Creek Park in Youngstown and spies on the terrorists. As well as "The Big One", a huge, shirtless muscle man with upper body "covered in all black and dark green camouflage paint", he counts about 200 others, all dressed in Ninja gear.

It might seem that Rich and Barry face impossible odds against such numbers, but they come up with a meticulous plan of attack. Barry is to borrow a bow and arrow from a friend, a weapon he has no experience with but as Rich says, when the time arrives he "better be real good at that". Furthermore, he tells him:

“You will also carry six knives: two strapped to your ankles, two in holsters on each side of your waist, and two at either side of your chest. You will need to practice throwing and fighting with the knives as well. The knives and your hands will be the weapons you will use to destroy the Ninjas. I will use the same short iron bars that I have been training with. I will paint them black. We will paint all our weapons black. They will be invisible, and so will we. We will be all in black. We will come to our enemy in the shadows of the dark, from behind, from below and above. That is why we have trained at night in the dark. We have trained for invisibility. Now we must practice. I will meet you here tonight at 9 PM. Bring the bow and arrows. I will bring the knives and bars. I will teach you to take out the ‘The Big One’ from above. You will climb high in a tree with all your gear.”

They practice that night for five hours, which is evidently plenty for two men who expect to fight two hundred. The following day they travel back to Youngstown and in the afternoon, after a well-earned nap, they cycle to the park to meet the foe.

After a muddy hike through the park, they creep up on a group of armed guards. Barry "takes out" nine of them with bow and arrow while Rich adopts a more hands-on approach:

I moved sideways. I was crouched down low in an exaggerated bow-legged position. My knees were pointed aside. My head was turned toward one of the guards. I had rehearsed this walk. It was light, straight, and swift, yet unhurried. They did not see me. To all effects, I was invisible.

I stood behind one of the guards. I did a swift roundhouse kick to the outside of his knee, striking with my shin.

I felt the snap. Simultaneously, I clubbed the back of his head with my short bar, which I held in my left hand. I thrust straight up and into his throat with my other short bar, which I held in my right hand. The guard dropped to the ground.

The two continue to fight although greatly outnumbered until Rich unleashes his secret weapon: misinformation.

“We have got you surrounded!” I shouted. To my surprise, it worked. Most of the ninjas ran away. They disappeared in the woods, Only about a dozen stayed to fight. Of course, “The Big One" was lurking in the background.

They quickly dispose of the remaining few before the inevitable Boss Battle with "The Big One". Lest we mistake the nature of this monster, Rich first empties both barrels of his literary shotgun:

I estimated that he stood about six-five and he weighed about 300 pounds. He was all muscle. His muscle was not the beautiful kind that many covet. His were awful and ugly. He had leprous scabs which smelled like burnt corpses.

His pants were stained with yellow brown excrement. He emanated horrendous, odorous gases. His stench was sickening. He epitomized evil throughout the ages.

Barry is not deterred. "He is mine!" he cries, only pausing to deliver a sermon on what "The Big One" represents:

"This demon who stands before us is the symbol of hatred and evil. He is Amalek, the ruthless tribe that attacked the Jewish people when they left Egypt. He is Amalek in every generation: Haman, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, and Bin Laden. He is all of the horrors of persecution. He is the evil decree of each of our exiles. This demon manifests in me my inner rage. He is the cause of my anger.” I was awestruck hearing Barry’s words. “Rich, assure me that you won't interfere. I am not afraid to die for this cause. Rich, stay away. He is mine. I must destroy him. Rich, you wait here.”

Barry took off his sunglasses and threw them to the side. He did not seem to be under his own power, but that of an invincible force brought down into his physical form. The thought came to me from the prayer: “In Your hand is power and strength, and it is in your hand to make anyone great or strong.” 

Barry looked up at The Big One and smiled. “My G-D is Master, He could have destroyed you himself. To do so would be beneath His honor.” He removed his hooded sweat shirt and said, “We do not exist by virtue of the garments of the natural world.” He flexed his muscular body. His upper lip almost touched his nose. He snarled, spitting saliva through his teeth. “He is mine!” he roared. 

Barry and The Big One fight, and although The Big One kicks Barry in the face, breaking his jaw, Barry manages to stab him in both eyes, causing "dark green slime" to flow and then blood. Nevertheless, it is not until Barry chops off his head with a sword that the Big One is finally brought down, with the emission of gases so volatile that when Rich sets fire to his corpse using only his trusty Kleenex tissue and a box of matches, it goes up like a bomb.

Rich takes Barry to the emergency room before returning to the woods to dispose of the remaining bodies by burning them after soaking them in gasoline. Somehow he does such a good job that the local newspaper reports the cause of the detritus as mining subsidence, which is handy. No awkward questions about piles of dead terrorists in the woods, thank goodness.

So there we have it, a profound meditation on the nature of violence. Walters, after Bruce Lee, says his philosophy is one of "fighting without fighting", though it might more honestly and simply be described as, well, "fighting". 

Is there a message to this book? Walters says there is, and states it openly in his final paragraph. Anyone who cares to can buy their own copy and read it for themselves, but I offer here instead one more practical and universal: "ALWAYS. CARRY. KLEENEX".