“Nah, that’s okay,” I said, heading for the door. “But I’ll probably see you around or whatever.”

“Great!” he called as it shut behind me. “Well, I’m mostly just here, so, you know—”

I didn’t actually hear the end of his sentence because I was already gone. It probably wasn’t important.

But then, over the next few weeks, my life turned into this kick-ass training montage straight out of Rocky IV, except I was both Rocky and Drago at the same time. And this was totally, absolutely real:

• Out of nowhere all of a sudden, that awesome Joe Esposito song “You’re the Best” from The Karate Kid started blasting everywhere.
• Sensei Billy told me to mop the floor. I asked him if that would teach me some kind of cool muscle memory, and he told me his mom made him do it so he figured he’d make me do it. I told him to fuck off.
• Sensei Billy shouted, “Again! Again!” for no reason.
• I ran around the block a couple times while Sensei Billy smoked a clove.
• Sensei Billy brought out an old Casio synthesizer and made me play arpeggios to enhance my finger speed and agility, using both hands, starting at middle C and going faster and faster. I’d never played before, but I was like this natural virtuoso. Notes of fragrant sonic honey rained forth from my fingertips. Small children passing by began to weep. I finished the exercise, smashed the Casio to the ground, and never played again. I was just too good for this broken world.
• Just kidding, I sucked. I shouted, “What the hell does this have to do with Mortal Kombat?!,” smashed the Casio to the ground, and never played again.
• I told Sensei Billy that if we didn’t start actually playing Mortal Kombat immediately, I was gonna fucking leave and never come back.
• Sensei Billy agreed, then pressed stop on his Sanyo boom box. “You’re the Best” stopped playing, and Sensei Billy muttered, “Goddamn song was driving me nuts anyway.”

So yeah, it was all pretty frustrating and I lost respect for him almost immediately. But it did help me get my confidence back, because I was like, “I’m way cooler than this idiot, and I’m only ten.” After all that garbage, he finally started teaching me about Mortal Kombat.

“Let me guess,” Sensei Billy said. “You chose Raiden because he reminded you of Big Trouble in Little China.”

“Duh.”

“You have good taste in movies, but that was a mistake. He’s a split second slower than other characters, and he has a tell whenever he performs his flying-torpedo move. It’s lightning fast—haha, see what I did there?—but he crouches right before he takes off. A good player will see this, block the move, and effectively counterattack before you can recover.”