Hero For Hire For.....

I grew up on heroes, in real life my father was my first hero and remained so until his death at 75. Like other kids I still had my fictional ones like Conan, Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Zorro and of course the comic book heroes from Marvel and D.C. comics.

Back in the day there were no fictional heroes that looked like me until Luke Cage: a Hero for Hire came on the scene. http://marvel.com/universe/Luke_Cage (image) http://www.comicvine.com/luke-cage/29-1450/
He was quite inspirational to me and I never forgot him even after I grew up. Fast forward a few years my last karate teacher (I had others but honor the one) an MP in the Army spent a few years in Korea studying Tang Soo Do. He eventually became their Internationals Karate Champion three times in a row (something no white man had done before, not even Chuck Norris while he was stationed there).

I was already pretty good when I met him and he was a “little guy” that at 6’ 5” and brawny I towered over. The first time we fought I figured I’d take it easy on him, not wanting to hurt him too badly. LOL, I got my ass handed to me in very short order. It was like fighting a wet wild cat. I never got to land the first blow he was just that fast. I more or less had to just draw back and wait until he got tired of whipping my azz the fight was that mismatched. Once he was done I looked like I had a fight with a running chainsaw.

I didn’t get mad; I took my beating in stride, swallowed my pride along with a huge slice of humble pie and asked him if he’d teach me. He took me on as his student and taught me a lot of his “secrets”. There wasn’t any such thing as mixed martial arts as far as I know back in that time, but he had what he liked to call a bastardzied fighting style. Tang Soo Do was only the foundation that he built on, but he studied all styles. If a technique worked he incorporated it as his own. If it didn’t he discarded it along with testing and measuring the effectiveness on the streets of Pusan, Korea.

After a time I became his best student (his words not mine). I beat his former best in a match who was nationally ranked in the top ten within the American TSD national organization. My teacher still has a video of it some where that he keeps promising to give me a copy of it. He also had some experience with VIP protection and wanted to start a high risk security venture. He asked if I’d be his partner along with helping to train others. Life threw one of those curveballs and he left the state before we could get any thing going.

In the meanwhile I got married, had a child, got divorced and was left very heavily in debt with child support payments to make. I tried the second job route working for minimum wage. That way hardly seemed to make the extra hours worth it. I was talking with my old teacher who is still my best friend about my plight. He suggested I try my hand at high risk security work on my own. I laughed at the thought at first, but the desperation of my situation made me give it a rethink.

I told him I wouldn’t even know how to go about getting work or how to bill myself. He joked back and said you could call yourself “the living legend” or “hero for hire”. Remembering my old hero Luke Cage, something clicked. I started hiring myself out as “Hero For Hire For All Your Personal Security Needs”. Before I burnt out with the work I hired out as a bodyguard, nightclub cooler and bouncer, self defense teacher, etc. It was slow at first, but after a while I built a pretty solid reputation and the money got better. I just couldn’t keep up with the pace typically getting four hours of sleep a night, not to mention getting real jumpy, twitchy and way too ready to fight at the drop of the hat. I still kept the moniker I first got online with “Hero4Hire4” and use it every where I go on the net. I like to think I did Luke Cage right and made him proud. Now you know.