Nothing says “sorry” like a fist.
***
Lauren told me about the guy before:
They had met at work and hung out all the time. She was still living at home and whenever she stayed out, she would say she was staying at her friend’s. Nobody knew she was with him; and even though they were always together they never called each other boyfriend and girlfriend.
He told her that when he was younger, he had loved a girl and they had even been engaged, but the girl had called it off; she broke his heart. And since then, he said, he messed with girls.
I wasn’t sure what that meant. And I asked Lauren if he had “messed” with her.
Lauren looked down at the floor and said, “He would do this thing where he would act like he was going to hit me.”
♦◊♦
In public school I never flinched at the false blows guys throw to show that they are in control, that they could follow through, that they had power. I knew if you didn’t flinch, then that was supposed to show you weren’t afraid. But I didn’t flinch because I thought the game was stupid.
In addition to not flinching, I developed a no-fucking-around stare after I got in one fight back in seventh grade. I had held a kid in a headlock and made him apologize to me. Once, I shared this fight story with a guy in my high school debate class because I wanted to seem macho after he had told me about beating up kids for no reason.
That guy had said he would hit the soft parts of a kid’s body: nose, eyeballs, throat, anywhere on the face; so the kid couldn’t hide from his friends that he just had his ass kicked. I didn’t ask, but I believe because the guy thought I was a fighter he felt he could tell me how to do it: “Hit hard. Hit him as hard as you can at the beginning and just keep hitting, homey. Whale on that motherfucker.”
♦◊♦
I don’t know the guy before’s name or even what he looks like. Lauren never told me. If I knew, then I’d imagine:
I would come out of nowhere. His survival instinct would kick in and he’d try his hardest to fight or escape, but I would be ready with my glasses already off and my running sneakers on. I’d catch him if I had to and I’d beat the soft parts of his face: nose, eyeballs, throat. I would keep whaling on that motherfucker until he crumpled and then I would stand over the puddle of what he once was. He would have to know that I didn’t have any mercy for him, so instead of pleading, in between his gargles for breath, he would ask, “Why?”
In that moment, his question to me would also be my question to myself. I would answer:
“I don’t want you to say you’re sorry; I want you to be sorry.”
Read more in Cameron Conaway’s series, “What’s Your Fight?” on The Good Life.
About Chris Wiewiora
The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
But everybody said, “Watch out — that’s Tiger Man McCool.
He’s had a whole lot of fights, and he always come out the winner.
Yeah, he’s a winner.”
But I’d had myself about five too many, and I walked up tall and proud,
I faced his back and I faced the fact that he’d never stooped or bowed.
I said, “Tiger Man, you’re a pussycat,” and a hush fell on the crowd,
I said, “Let’s you and me go outside and see who’s the winner”
Well, he gripped the bar with one big hairy hand and he braced against the wall,
He slowly looked up from his beer — my God, that man was tall.
He said, “Boy, I see you’re a scrapper, so just before you fall,
I’m gonna tell you just a little what a means to be a winner.”
He said, “You see these bright white smilin’ teeth, you know they ain’t my own.
Mine rolled away like Chiclets down a street in San Antone.
But I left that person cursin’, nursin’ seven broken bones.
And he only broke three of mine, and that make me a winner.”
He said, “Behind his grin, I got a steel pin that holds my jaw in place.
A trophy of my most successful motorcycle race.
And every mornin’ when I wake and touch this scar across my face,
It reminds me of all I got by bein’ a winner.
Now my broken back was the dyin’ act of handsome Harry Clay
That sticky Cincinnatti night I stole his wife away.
But that woman, she gets uglier and meaner every day.
But I got her, boy, and that’s what makes me a winner.
You gotta speak loud when you challenge me, son, ’cause it’s hard for me to hear
With this twisted neck and these migraine pains and this cauliflower ear.
‘N’ if it weren’t for this glass eye of mine, I’d shed a happy tear
To think of all you’ll get by bein’ a winner.
I got arthuritic elbows, boy, I got dislocated knees,
From pickin’ fights with thunderstorms and chargin’ into trees.
And my nose been broke so often I might lose it if I sneeze.
And, son, you say you still wanna be a winner?
My spine is short three vertebrae and my hip is screwed together.
My ankles warn me every time there’ll be a change in weather.
Guess I kicked too many asses, and when the kicks all get together,
They sure can slow you down when you’re a winner.
My knuckles are so swollen I can hardly make a fist.
Who would have thought old Charlie had a blade taped to his wrist?
And my blind eye’s where he cut me, and my good eye’s where he missed.
Yeah, you lose a couple of things when you’re a winner.
My head is just a bunch of clumps and lumps and bumps and scars
From chargin’ broken bottles and buttin’ crowded bars.
And this hernia — well, it only proves a man can’t lift a car.
But you’re expected to do it all when you’re a winner.
Got a steel plate inside my skull, underneath this store-bought hair.
My pelvis is aluminum from takin’ ladies’ dares.
And if you had a magnet, son, you could lift me off my chair.
I’m a man of steel, but I’m rustin’ — what a winner.
I got a perforated ulcer, I got strictures and incisions.
My prostate’s barely holdin’ up from those all-night collisions.
And I’ll have to fight two of you because of my double vision.
You’re lookin’ sick, son — that ain’t right for a winner.
Winnin’ that last stock-car rce cost me my favorite toes.
Winnin’ that factory foreman’s job, it browned and broke my nose.
And these hemorrhoids come from winnin’ all them goddamn rodeos.
Sometimes it’s a pain in the butt to be a winner.
In the war, I got the Purple Heart, that’s why my nerves are gone.
And I ruined my liver in drinkin’ contests, which I always won.
And I should be retired now, rockin’ on my lawn,
But you losers keep comin’ on — makin’ me a winner.
When I walk, you can hear my pelvis rattle, creak and crack
From my great Olympic Hump-Off with that nymphomaniac,
After which I spent the next six weeks in traction on my back,
While whe walked off smilin’ — leavin’ me the winner.
Now, as I kick in your family jewels, you’ll notice my left leg drags,
And this jacket’s kinda padded up where my right shoulder sags,
And there’s a special part of me I keep in this paper bag,
And I’ll show it to you — if you want to see all of the winner.
So I never play the violin and I seldom dance or ski.
They say there never was a hero brave and strong as me.
But when you’re this year’s hero, son, you’re next year’s used-to-be.
And that’s the facts of life — when you’re a winner.
Now, you remind me a lot of my younger days with your knuckles clenchin’ white.
But, boy, I’m gonna sit right here and sip this beer all night.
And if there’s somethin’ you gotta prove by winnin’ some silly fight,
Well, OK, I quit, I lose, son, you’re the winner.”
So I stumbled from that barroom not so tall and not so proud,
And behind me I could hear the hoots of laughter from the crowd.
But my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth are still in my mouth.
And y’know…I guess that makes me…a winner.
-Shel Silverstein
Dunno, man. I was 17 or so in the same type of situation. Had this girl I liked talking about how her ex (a friend of mine) was a real dickhead and would push her around, that he was stalking her. I wasn’t dating her but it kind of got at me in a visceral way.
I found the guy (wasn’t hard he was a friend) and decided I was going to show him how I felt about it. So I saw him sitting in his truck and walked up saying ‘hey man, blah blah blah’ then shot a couple of jokes his way talking smack then crushed him in the face. I waited until he had looked away then was turning back toward me and got a helluva lot of momentum. I mean I put him into the passenger seat I caught him so good. He just layed there for a bit kind of crying and then asked “what’d you do that for?” I told him not to push his girlfriends around…that’s what it felt like.
So a couple of years later someone was telling me about this girl. Really not even me, now that I think about it, it was in a group of people and we were talking about old times. He was telling us about how she lied to this guy and got him to kick this other guys ass really good because she didn’t like the way he broke up with her.
I realized I was that guy, that I got played and that I crushed my friend for no good reason.
I’m 37 now – that was 20 years ago and I still wish I could take that one back…
Standing at the bottom of the short staircase, I saw the belch of fire, felt the burn as my head swung to the side. Wetness trickled down my temple as I turned to run. I thought I’d been hit; it was just the powder; I had been grazed across the top of my head. This was the aftermath of me beating this dudes ass, running him off the block, humiliating this dude and letting him live. I’ve got major hands they say in my hood, but this night taught me much. Dudes ain’t just taking ass whoopings no more.