Fighting

My brother and I used to beat on each other, but there was some kind of code. We only punched each other in the back. But it was more or less constant.

Eventually, my dad got us both boxing gloves, and we’d whale on each other that way. Even then, head shots weren’t really part of the deal. We never discussed them. Just weren’t done.

My brother is much bigger than I am, and even before he passed me in height, he had me beat on wingspan. Fortunately, he has about as much of a killer instinct as I do, so our boxing matches were mostly the steam release that my father had hoped they would be.

One day, when I was 10 and my brother was 8, I punched him squarely in the face with a jab, right in the eye. He got this shocked, emotionally hurt look on his face and started to cry. I remember it vividly. I felt terrible.

That’s the last time I punched someone.

A few years later, a few years older.  Nice summer evening.  Touch football in Bonner Park with my friends. Other team was some kids from Sentinel, which was the jock high school on the other side of town.

The Doss kids were on the other team. Ulysses Doss (amazing name) was an African-American studies professor at University of Montana. His kids, Kim and Mike, were athletes, good ones.

The game got a little chippy at some point. We weren’t really strong buds with these guys; we just all found ourselves at the park at the same time. I tagged Mike Doss kind of hard, and he fell on his ass. He threw the ball at me. I said whatever the 1984 equivalent was of WTF. He got up and was all like “WTF yourself,” and he knocked off my baseball cap. And then he shoved me.

I get mad rarely, and when it happens, it doesn’t last very long. But I do get there, it’s a total meltdown.

In this case, I had a Sentinel jock (both descriptors being meaningful at that age) getting all bitchy at me for knocking him to the ground, during a football game. Which was irritating. But then he had to challenge me physically. So…everything went kind of red. I lunged at him with both fists up.

I cannot stress enough how stupid this was. I was a scrawny kid of 14 or whatever, and I had never been in a real fight. I wasn’t in bad shape, but it was soccer shape and nothing that was going to aid me in pursuing some act of aggression. Mike Doss was all sinew and quick-twitch muscle, a sprinter and basketball player, like 4% body fat and probably someone who had been in a fight, if anyone else had been dumb enough to engage him.

Miraculously, two or three of my friends took it upon themselves to grab me. One of them grabbed my right arm. Leading with my right, ugh. I would have been killed. The other one or two grabbed the rest of me.

It was awesome, perfect. It appeared that I was going to be a badass and fight this kid, but I didn’t have to lose any teeth or otherwise endure the beating I surely would have gotten. As far as anyone else knew, I got “held back” from exacting vengeance.

I don’t think I ever thanked these friends of mine adequately. I should do that at some point before we all get old and die.