[ Some season 4 spoilers ahead. ]
“Come on, Anthony. It will be good for us,” Daniel said, throwing his sport coat over his arm, as he grabbed his keys from the dresser. His free hand gestured gently toward the front door.
“Dad, come on. We don’t need to have a car ride,” replied the youngest LaRusso child, who begrudgingly grabbed his own coat and walked through the door.
The February weather was warm, despite it being late winter. Gone were the days of seeing your breath in the air, and present were the buds of the burgeoning spring. The All-Valley Tournament was behind them, and hopefully with the new growth present on the earth there would come new life in the LaRusso house and Miyagi-Do dojo. Daniel’s eyes didn’t leave his son as he made his way to the driver’s side seat of his sedan. He studied the teen, trying to gauge what was going through his head. The days following the tournament were quiet, even for a kid who spent the majority of his time locked in his room with his electronics. He came to dinner, but played with his food. Swam in the heated pool, but just floated along there.
He couldn’t help but notice the adolescent nursing his side as he got in the car, worry colored Daniel’s features but he hesitated to comment on it. He wanted this to be a period free of judgment and accusations, just the old proverbial father son time. He turned the radio, with much chagrin, to the local pop station. Everything he knew a middle schooler today would love, or at least he hoped. He couldn’t help but grimace as the most recent Lil Nas X song played over the speakers, as a result he turned it down a smidge. He was trying to reach him on common ground, but at least he could make it as bearable as possible.
The minutes ticked by, indicated by the lights on the touch panel, and still neither of them spoke. The only sound was the faint whisper of the tires on the pavement, and for the first time Daniel wished he had a louder vehicle. Anthony sat there, his arms folded in defiance. Neither of them were willing to budge, a result of Italian stubbornness, and the occasional bullheadedness of the family, but Daniel knew, like many times in the last few months, that if something were to be done he would likely have to swallow his pride and do it himself.
“So… How’s everything going?” It wasn’t much but it was something. Daniel adjusted his face to look as eager as possible to listen, while still being casual, and just hoped it didn’t come off disingenuous.
“I knew you were going to try and have a stupid talk with me. Look, I learned my lesson, alright. I’m taking the trash out now,” he said while adjusting his body so far to the right it looked as though he was trying to will himself into the back seat.
“No, no, there’s no talk. Unless you want a talk, I’m just trying to spend some time with you,” his voice likely sounded too eager, but he didn’t care, he had to reach his son, “I know things have been bad between us. For someone who preaches balance so much… I’m not always the best at applying it. But I’m really trying here, Anthony. I just want things to be better between us.”
The car ride returned to its deafening quietude. The two fidgeted at the discomfort of the force proximity as more vapid music blared from the speakers. After what seemed like hours, Anthony’s breath slowed, and became somewhat labored. His fists were clenched in his lap.
“He beat me up, dad.”
“What, who?”
“The kid who I bullied. I went to the locker room after his fight at the tournament to try to apologize, and he beat me up,” Daniel could tell that this was hard for him to say from his body language and the strain on his words, so he did everything in his power to not pull the car over and demand more details. He tried to keep his breathing in check, knowing that Anthony was waiting for the inevitable freak out, and it would have been a natural response to. A parent’s biggest responsibility is the security of their child. But as he labored through these thoughts, Anthony spoke up again, “I - I know I said a lot of stuff about Mr. Miyagi before. And about how I didn’t want to hear another one of his lessons. But do you think he has one for me now?”
It took everything in Daniel to not raise a fist in victory, and even more to not let a smile dominate his features, but a little one still creeped across his features. “You remember Tom Cole?”
“The guy who bought all those sausages and had them sent to the dealership when you had the… thing drawn on your face?” He could tell Daniel was not impressed by the reference.”Sorry.”
“There are three things you never have to wait very long for in California. Taxes, wildfires, and Tom Cole. But before we had competing dealerships we were actually really good friends. You see, Tom and I started together at Melroy Nissan. And we were the best salesmen on the floor. We used to dominate the valley. Tom was there a lot longer than me. When I was still pining over girls and trying to sell Bonsai trees, Tom was working his way up the ranks. And he always told me that his biggest goal was to get the partnership Gerald Melroy had been waving in front of the staff for years. He said he never found someone worthy of it, and Tom was determined to be the guy to change that. He started getting really cocky when he felt the position was his, and we stopped hanging out. It really got to me, so I started working harder to take it from him. And you want to know what happened? I got it.”
Daniel paused for a moment, the image of an utterly disheveled Tom Cole resonating in his mind. He took a deep breath before continuing, “We had a Christmas party that year, and the big news of the night was my promotion. There was Tom in his best suit, and he was destroyed. He got belligerently drunk and made a complete idiot of himself. To make matters worse, he started harassing some of the girls. So I escorted him out. He resisted and tried to fight me, so I took him down in front of everyone. I never laid a punch, he really defeated himself, but it humiliated him. I taught him a lesson, and made a spectacle of him. Joking about how pathetic he looked. I took the one thing he was living for from him, and I was fully aware the whole time. It was his fault, but that didn’t really matter in the end. I could have handled it in a better way, but I wanted to make an example of him, and I did, and he’s hated my guts ever since,” Daniel paused for a moment to let his words take hold in the young man’s mind. Anthony blinked a bit, and he could practically see the gears spinning in his head.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. What does any of this have to with Mr. Miyagi?” Well right after that I felt something terrible. Sometimes it hits us right when we’re in the act, and we know we should stop, or help, but we don’t. I watched him stumble down the road until I couldn’t see him anymore, and then I went to Mr. Miyagi’s,” he turned down a road at last, in front of him the darkness was illuminated by street lights and restaurant signs. He parked the car in front of a little gelato store. Before long the two emerged with matching helpings of stracciatella. They found their way back to their warmed seats before Daniel continued, “There he was, in his humble little house, with his humble Christmas tree. Just a Bonsai with some strings of lights and a few Disney ornaments thrown on it. I always offered to get him a fresh one, but he just said he could come to my house if he wanted that. Now, Mr. Miyagi was almost never visibly upset. You could just tell that he was disappointed. Or maybe it was just me. Either way, you always felt like you needed to do your best around him, that he deserved that. So I told him everything, and this is what he said in return.”
And in a flash Daniel was a younger version of himself, standing near his best friend. His top button undone and his tie askew, his hair slightly unkempt from running his hands through it, something he did when he was stressed. And there was Mr. Miyagi, who almost never looked different, always the same stern but jovial man, just with a little more white in his hair now. He stopped pacing around his home in his late night slippers, and directed Daniel to a couch where he took the adjacent seat.
“One day, when Miyagi boy, he and Sato were each given silver coin by father. American sailor come to town with many thing. Sato and Miyagi spend many hours talking about what we buy. When day come we make way to docks. Pass by big rice paddy. Middle-age man work field, do so for long as Miyagi remember. Big, big family. Very poor. Every day man remove boots, leave them by dock, and go out to work. Miyagi come up with idea to play prank on man. Say to Sato, ‘steal boots’. But Sato much better man than Miyagi. Instead, Sato ask Miyagi for coin. Miyagi reluctant to give it up. Eyeing candy. But he give up. Sato take his coin and Miyagi coin and put one in each boot. Then he say to Miyagi, ‘let us hide and wait to see what happen.’ Miyagi and Sato wait few hours, long, long time. But man finally return for boot. First put one foot in, feel coin. Shock. Then put second foot in second boot. When foot feel coin, and man remove it, emotion overcome. Man start sobbing. Fall to knees and thank heaven.” Mr. Miyagi smiled and placed his hand on Daniel’s shoulder before standing, as his back was turned he made his way to his makeshift Christmas tree and began trimming it as he finished his tale. “Miyagi’s life change that day. Very clear money mean great deal to man. He very glad Sato better boy than him. Never spend dollar better. Never underestimate the impact a kind action have, Daniel-san.”
And then he was back in his car, and the air was thick with emotion. Anthony still stared blankly out the window, his expression mirror in the glass, but indistinguishable. Finally he broke the silence and spoke, “what do we do when we’re trying to be different, but people still want to think of us as the bad guy?” A tear escaped his eye, though it was clear he was fighting it. Holding on to the last vestige of pride, but all of this had brought a wave of memories to the boy, though Daniel did not know what they were.
“Then we try… we try to live in such a way that people know who we are. That there’s no question. We try to be the type of men Mr. Miyagi was. We learn from our mistakes… and let them make us better men.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Anthony?”
“I love you.