One of the other men interrupted. ‘You took out two bouncers?’

‘You’re an Aussie, right?’ This was another student. ‘You took out two Aussie bouncers?’

‘Correct and correct. I disabled them in self-defence.’

‘Two guys diss his threads and bam. Bam, bam, bam.’ The student performed a punching action in time with his bams.

‘No bamming was required. I used a low-impact throw and a simple hold.’

‘Judo?’

‘Aikido. I am also proficient in karate, but the aikido is safer in these situations. I used aikido on the neighbour who damaged my clothing—’

‘Do not mess with this man’s threads.’ The student was laughing.

‘—and on the police officer—’

‘You threw a cop? Not here? In New York? Where was his partner?’

Jack interrupted. ‘I guess there were consequences for Don. Whoever won the fight, you got arrested, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘And then?’

‘Total disaster. Threat of criminal prosecution, deportation, lack of access to my child, restrictions on working with children, forced attendance… And the necessity of deceiving my wife, which is incredibly stressful and has unpredictable consequences.’

‘You were too ashamed to tell your wife what you’d done, right? That you’d got yourself into trouble again.’

I nodded. Although my justification for not telling Rosie had been to protect her from stress, there was some truth in Jack’s observation.

Jack addressed the group. ‘Doesn’t sound so clever now, does it? We all get angry and we fuck up. Why? What makes us angry?’

Again, nobody raised his hand. I could empathise with Jack. It was like the first class of the semester with new students. As a fellow teacher, it was my responsibility to help Jack out.

‘To understand anger,’ I began, ‘it is necessary first to understand aggression, and its evolutionary value.’ I continued for approximately a minute. I had not even begun to explain the consequent evolution and internalisation of anger as an emotion when Jack stopped me.

‘That’ll do for now, Professor.’ The use of the formal title was encouraging. I was surely the top student at this point, and I could not see any challengers. ‘We’re going to take a break, and afterwards I’m going to be looking for some contributions from the rest of you. Don, you’ve earned your gold star and you can shut the fuck up.’

Everyone laughed. I was class clown again.

Most of the students walked outside and the requirement for the break became obvious. Several, including Jack, were nicotine addicts. I stood in the courtyard drinking my instant coffee with Dave.

One of the students, a man of about twenty-three, BMI approximately twenty-seven as a result of muscle rather than fat, approached us, dropped his cigarette, and stamped it out with his boot.

‘Wanna show us some moves?’ he said.

‘We will be returning inside shortly,’ I said. ‘Exercise will make us hot and uncomfortable and unpleasant to others.’

He performed some shadow-boxing moves. ‘C’mon. I wanna see what you can do. Beside talk.’

This was not the first time someone had challenged me to demonstrate my martial-arts skills. I did not need Jack’s advice to know that it was unwise to spar with an unknown opponent in poor light with no protection. Fortunately I had a standard solution. I stepped a few paces away to create some space, removed my shoes and also my shirt to minimise the perspiration problem, then performed a kata I had prepared for my 3rd Dan karate grading. It requires four minutes and nineteen seconds. The students gathered in a circle to watch and at the end clapped and made noises of appreciation.

Jack walked up beside me and addressed the group. ‘This stuff’s pretty, but nobody’s invincible.’ Without any warning, he grabbed me in a chokehold. It was competently executed, and I suspected he had used it many times with success. I predicted that this was the first time he had applied it to a 4th Dan aikido practitioner.

The safest defence is prevention and I automatically moved to block him from applying the hold. Part way through the manoeuvre, which would have ended with him immobilised on the ground, I made a decision to allow Jack to complete the hold. He was attempting to illustrate a point, and my action would undermine his lesson. I expected that Jack would hold me for a few moments to demonstrate the technique’s effectiveness and then release me.

Before he could do so, a strange voice said, ‘That’s enough. Let him go. Now.’ The voice was strange because it was Dave doing his Marlon Brando-Woody Allen combination. Jack let me go, looked at Dave, and nodded.

Dave was shaking.

We returned to class, and I followed Jack’s instruction to shut the fuck up. Nobody else spoke much at all. Jack’s advice on self-control consisted of two principles, repeated numerous times:

1. Don’t get drunk (or consume methamphetamines).

2. Walk away.

They had zero relevance to my interaction with the police, but there was a clear connection to my meltdown problem, though on the most recent occasion I had run rather than walked. What if it was infeasible to walk away? What if I was in a lifeboat after a shipwreck? Or in a space station? I needed Jack’s advice, but was under instructions to remain silent.

I whispered to Dave, ‘Ask what to do if you can’t walk away.’

‘No.’

‘It’s further practice for self-confidence,’ I said. Dave had stopped shaking.