Most of us were good people. We tended to get along with others unless we were in the mood to turn the world upside down and break things. A couple of us lived together. Others just stayed around long enough to make it seem like they did. We were a family of heathens. Woven together by endless parties, chaotic girls and drugs. Some days we'd have disputes. We'd caste certain characters out of the click for weeks because 'they were acting gay' or because we were bored or because we were young and insensitive. Other days, we'd share our inner most secrets with one another and cry or laugh it off. Either way, they taught me a good deal about myself. Or at least who I thought I was. They showed me how to be social. Showed me how to express myself. How to enjoy life. But more importantly, they showed me that you are really only as hard as the punch you throw.
It was my Sophomore year in high school. Everything was below us. Social giants. We were bloated egos walking around halls made of glares and fear. No one fucked with us. And if they did, well, we were real quick to reassure them not to. It was good having a group of people to hide behind. It made me seem that much more powerful, even if I had only been in one fight.
My first fight was extravagantly set up, just like the majority of all fights were. But this one was overwhelmingly crazy. We had brought a few golden glove boxers in their late twenties with us to a party in this big ass field one Friday night. 9 or 10 kegs, a dj, a stolen blow up Godzilla from a local car dealership. Massive amounts of drunk young people. Including a group of folks who apparently came just for me. See, the week beforehand, we had stolen a keg from a party and mercilessly savaged the party goers for going to the wrong school. Every one of us fought someone and no one really fought back. Except for a chick. She decided to throw her bottle at me as I ran to my boys defense. I didn't do anything but yell at her. It was loud anyway and I was caught off guard by a random bottle to the head from a girl. She didn't leave us alone and continued to drag her drunken nonsense into the outbreaks of brawling. Unfortunately for her, one of my boys didn't give a shit that she was a chick. As she chased after us while we were leaving, she stormed up to my face and started swinging and spitting at me. I didn't do much but laugh. Out of no where, my football playing, 6 ft. 2 body guard of a friend came plowing down the drive way behind her. He lowered his shoulder, kept his feet moving and before I knew it, the chick was face first on the ground behind me.
Well, I guess in her sloppy state, all she could remember the next day was me. And the ground. So out through the grape vine went her story and sure enough, her brother and his friends decided to seek revenge the following week in the field.
I was walking amongst my boys, scoping out the scenery and the drinks when I noticed a gargantuan dude shadowing me throughout the crowds. I knew the guy. He played basketball with my biology years ago. I thought he just recognized me. And he did. Just for a different reason.
One of my boys came up to me to say whats up. Behind him, this big mother fucker was charging straight at me. He pushed my boy out of the way, reached over and put his cigarette out on my head. A ruckus broke out between me and the guy. A wall of people separated us and then it split open again.
"Listen, this dude over there thinks you beat up his sister and he wants to fight you. You wanna fight him?"
I looked over and there dancing around was a guy about my size with his shirt off screaming 'I'M 150 POUNDS AND ILL FIGHT ANYONE HERE'. He didn't look too tough. Kinda seemed clownish to me. So I agreed. I knew what it was about. I knew I didn't do it. But my pride was on the line. And even though I hadn't been in a fight, this was not the time to publicly bitch down.
A senior on the hockey team pulled me aside and asked,
"So this is your first fight right?"
"Yeah."
"You know how to fight?"
"I donno. I might."
"Well, what your gonna want to do is get out in the circle and kick him right in the nuts. Dont even give him a chance to hit you."
I laughed.
" Okay, I'm not going to do that but thanks."
I walked out into the circle. We were surrounded by a towering crowd of people who only gave us maybe 10 feet to fight between them and the car boxing us off. The dude was getting rowdy as fuck, holding his arms out, strutting around like he had already won. He had to have been hammered. Or he must of just thought I wasn't going to hit him. But that was his mistake because unfortunately for him, the second he approached me I punched him right in the fucking face. He dropped to the ground and I just stood there, kind of in shock that I just did that. This was an incredibly dumb move on my part. The time I gave him to get up was the time I should have taken to continue to beat his ass. But I didn't. And he got up, through a right hook at me and as I ducked, he hit me enough on the top of the head to get me down on my knee. Then he kicked me in the shoulder, aiming for my face but missed. Somehow, he got me in a head lock. But a lame head lock. One where I was behind him and he only had a grip on the top of my head. He then proceeded to hold me there and rock punch after punch into my temple. I didn't care. He was going to get exhausted and I was just going to get mad. I wasn't going to waste energy and try to pick him up. He had almost 40 pounds on me at the time. So I let him do this for a little until he asked me if I was done... and I tapped on his back. I guess this made him feel like he had won so he let go and the second he did, I swam up his body, threw him up against the car by his shirt, swept him across the side of it breaking the mirror and then punch him the face again. His eyes rolled back and I felt his legs give out. I wasn't going to stop. I kept swinging until his friends came up and grabbed him, put him in their car and drove away.
I threw up after the fight from being dizzy. Those temple shots did a number on my brain. It felt a lot better while I was fighting but afterward, I wasn't doing so good. The comments people gave me after it was done didn't make me feel good either. Apparently, the head lock achieved the crowd vote. I still have people ask me if I was the kid who got 'beat up in during that big field party.' And that was almost a decade ago. However, in my boys eyes, I won. They watched the fight. They saw the other dudes nose bleed. They saw the punches I threw. And they counted. In our books.
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