CHAPTER 17
A few days later, I awoke early and decided to go visit the man on the
top of the hill. It was a gorgeous, misty tropical morning and it
seemed as if I was the only human awake on the entire island. Not
that I expected anyone to be up at six o’clock, it was just that I was
surprised that there weren’t still some people out partying from the
night before. I made my way slowly through it and climbed up the
path to the top of Samrin Hill.
I called “Tree” three times.
“Up here!” came a voice.
“Where?” I called back.
“On top of this big rock! To your left!”
I looked up and saw the silhouetted figure of Tree against the
morning sky, engaged in some strange kind of dance. He looked as if
he were acting out a scene to a karate movie in extreme slow motion.
I’d seen such a thing before, but never knew what the purpose was.
In any event, it looked very impressive.
“Just give me a few more minutes,” he said, “I’m almost done.”
I sat on the ground and watched him. With grace and power, he
performed an all-out assault on what seemed to be a never-ending
array of invisible opponents. He finally emerged unscathed from the
battle, and triumphantly jumped down from the enormous boulder.
“That was cool. Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked.
“Oh, years ago in Singapore I picked up a little from a Chinese
teacher, but mostly from Dee Tok. He studied it from a young age—
that old guy can move like poetry in motion.”
“What do you call it?”
“T’ai Chi. It’s a Chinese martial art that’s like dance, yoga,
meditation and ass-kicking all rolled into one.”
“It seems pretty slow for a martial art. By the time you’ve
thrown a punch, they’ve already taken your wallet and split.”
“Ha, ha,” he laughed sarcastically. “Thing is, when you go that
slow, you can really get in touch with the quality of the movements,
not just the speed and power you deliver them with. And your
movements become so precise and honest, that when the time
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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