We all suffer by Kevin Wikse.

"Put a rusty nail in it!" Obsidian Knife chastised me as we drilled some rough-and-tumble skills for controlling the opponent's inside. My thumb stab to his ear drum wasn't yet weaponized enough for him. My grave error of affording my enemy a moment of safety would not go unpunished. He kicked at me as he further berated me and my Twinkie-flavored white-bread culture. I laughed in response but minded those bullwhip front kicks. His kicks were lightning-fast. He had a habit of obliterating an opponent's knees on the trajectory up to their nutsack with his rocket-powered foot. In addition, he could cover far more distance than you might guess by exploding forward off his back leg. 

His kicking skills contained a wicked "rusty nail.:

An opponent never has the luxury of safety. That is a commodity for which we are perpetually out of stock. Now, severe injury, maiming, permanent disfigurement, crippling, and, of course, straight-up death, on the other hand...well, that was readily dished out. 

Obsidian Knife emphasized and encouraged the use of my thumbs in combat. My hands were tremendously strong—by his account, the strongest overall he'd ever encountered, saying my hands were like the talons of T'senahale, a monster Thunderbird of which I eventually make a spiritual pact at Shiprock or Flying Rock in New Mexico, the same giant rock's shadow Obsidian Knife and I often trained in. 

He was well acquainted with my perchance for the grasping and seizing techniques I employed from the Chinese Boxing I practiced, namely Southern Mantis and Lion Style Baguazhang. Immobilizing and ripping skin was fine, but if I wasn't also employing my thumbs as tools of war, I might as well bite them off. Obsidian Knife and I developed a little system of very close-quarter combat we dubbed "cactus thorns." Ripping, tearing, and jerking movements sent the opponent into the oncoming path of an impaling thumb and how to apply the thumb in digging and hooking motions whilst latching on to the opponent with the strength of the hand and four fingers. 

"No mercy for them is mercy for our people," he says to me. The C.I.A., before their "Finders" program, Child Trafficking for profit, a decade prior, circa the 1970s, maybe earlier, targeted the Native Reservations, and hard. Obsidian Knife, in his capacity, would hunt down the predators. Recover the children, mainly newborn infants, and feed the agent or agents to the ravenous desert. 

"These men, sometimes women, would beg me to spare them, to just let them go. Here they are, my people's crying children stuffed into the back of a trunk to be sold, raped, and murdered, and they beg me for mercy..."

"Did you ever give it?" I asked him. 

Obsidian Knife turned his head to meet my gaze. Suddenly, the hot summer day turned as cold and dark as the Antarctic as he replied with the frostiest "No" that I, to this very day, have ever heard. 

"Your thumbs need to be rusty nails," he spoke curtly and walked back towards his house. I followed, trudging behind him, wondering what unpleasant transformative exercise awaited me. He had me stand on his front porch while he went and retrieved two 2X4 boards, about 3 feet long each, and some old rusty weight plates. Obsidian Knife had me hold out my hands, palm up, and my elbows pressed into my ribs. He placed the end of a 2X4 in each hand, with the majority length of it extended before me, having me bear down hard and heavy with the tips of my thumbs to secure the boards in place. 

He watched me maintain the boards for a few minutes. 

"That's easy for you, isn't it, you fucking meat bag," was his backhanded compliment. 

It's true, it was. 

He placed a 5lb weight plate at the very end of each board. This was not so easy; after a couple minutes, it was agony. I held on as long as I could, but both weight plates fell to the ground as my hands and fingers collapsed. A sharp and stinging pain went across my back. Obsidian Knife held a switch in his hand and a sadistic look on his face. 

"Again!" 

Our routine was decidedly simple. I maintained the weighted boards until I couldn't. Based on my perceived effort, Obsidian Knife might hit me, or he might not. He mostly hit me. This lasted about 20 to 30 minutes and continued nearly daily for a few months. 

"We all suffer, that cannot be changed. But what do we suffer for? Now, that can be changed."

Obsidian Knife suffered to be the sharpest tomahawk possible for his people. 

"Your Jesus has a significant impact on our people. The best and worst thing you Twinkie fucks did to us. Before your people came and put the name Jesus in our mouths, we called him "Lame Deer." He taught us the mysteries of suffering and sacrifice, but primarily through acts of courage. To use the blood trail to lure away enemies so others could escape. Never had we put much thought into the passive act of suffering. But here you came, rubbing in our faces the image of a man writhing in agony for others, us included, so that we and others wouldn't have to suffer? But his followers, in turn, made our people suffer so we could be like him. 

Through his pain, we found purification and the ability to make our suffering matter. The flesh is meant to feel pain; through that anguish, the spirit is compelled to make miracles occur. We discovered the truth of Jesus that your people never knew or forgot in making others feel the pain of their savior. We hung him on the Cactus out of respect so he could lead us by example. 

We all suffer, but for what?

Look at your hands; if you were to press that hard with your thumbs into your palms instead of the boards, you would have the marks of your Lord. See what I have done for you? I make you tremble in pain and bring you nearer to Jesus. With that same strength, you will impart terrible pain to others and make them meet Jesus, too." 

"My thumbs are rusty nails; remember, Jesus might need a tetanus shot." 

Obsidian Knife's face scrunched up in a sardonic look, and he squinted at me momentarily. He exploded with laughter. 

"You are fucking funny!" 

The first time I deployed the thumb spike or Cactus Thorn, for real, I remember shuddering later when reflecting on how easily I was able to penetrate between his ribs. Such was the shock to his system; his face drained of color as I dug my thumb ever deeper, feeling him collapse into me. I directed him to the dirt and decided he'd never rise again. With his fall came the fall of a small-time underage prostitution ring

Obsidian Knife was delighted to hear this; the method worked remarkably well. However, he sensed a gnawing concern in me. I did not train these hands to wield the Devil's power to please and do the Devil's work. Since suffering mattered, I sometimes worried about who got the merit. 

Dawn, the following day, he wrapped a metal crucifix with roses, the stems still replete with thorns. "Hold it with both hands and squeeze till you bleed." He instructed while holding a bible open to Psalm 144 under my hands, directing me to read it aloud before the pages became too blood-stained to read. 

1. Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:
2. My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.
3. LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!
4. Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
5. Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
6. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.
7. Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children;
8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
9. I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword.
11. Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:
12. That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
13. That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets.
14. That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.
15. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD

Blood dripped and stained the pages. He poured holy water and tequila over my hands, which burned, but in a good way. Ripping out the pages of Psalm 144 from the bible, he folded them around the crucifix and told me to hold it with both my hands till the bleeding stopped. 

What I did next will remain the secrets of Curanderos along the Rio Grande. Regardless, Obsidian Knife had opened the door to a stream of Christos or Christ consciousness, for which I am still trepidatious. It is a straight path to heaven, but narrow as a razor's edge and with the depth of Hell on each side. It is to suffer with each step along this path to remind you that each foot placement must be made with complete sobriety and exacting, calculated awareness, lest I misstep and fall. 

"Make your suffering matter."

-Kevin Wikse