I'd Definitely Say I Wasn't a LOVER... (Or, My Fights, Round 1)

Me and Ali: two fightin'
peas in a pod.

...so that means I must have been a fighter. If you were to scan my entire school career, from kindergarten to 12th grade, you'd be able to count all my girlfriends on the fingers of one hand even if the hand ignored the explicit warning on most fireworks — LIGHT FUSE. GET AWAY. — and allowed that cherry bomb to expel every digit but the thumb.

LET'S CLARIFY THINGS A BIT
By "girlfriend" I mean someone whom I asked out, and who agreed to go out with me without immediately adding, "April fool!" (I have been asked out before, believe it or not, but those tales are worth recalling in a future post.) There were other girls with whom I'd had a tangible amount of romantic involvement ranging from minimal to I Love You Almost Like A Third Cousin Once Removed, but for this exercise I'm talking about situations where I was able to say, "X is my girlfriend" without appearing delusional or in need of a restraining order.

THERE'S NO PITY PARTY TODAY
And this isn't one of those "poor me what a loveless loser I was in high school" posts. (Not today, anyway.) My point, and I don't have one, is that if you were to tally the number of fistfights I've had during my time in school, well, let's just say my lips touched more boys' fists than girls' lips.

And I write "fistfights" instead of plain ol' "fights" because I don't mean the occasional rough-housing that gets, er, rough. I mean either...

1. A planned duel or
2. A spur of the moment scrum

I've been in both situations a number of times. In my part of town, there was an order to how you initiated a fight. If you felt slighted for any reason, like someone insulting your mother, you would say to the party that wounded you:

"I call you out."

And unless you had enough brains to realize how stupid this was, or were chickenshit, or both, you were to reply:

"I accept."

Hard to imagine a 10-year-old saying something as formal as "I accept," but that was the deal. In fact, there could be hostility between two parties that would only simmer uncomfortably one of them finally "called out" the other. After the acceptance, the two parties would agree on a time and place, though sometimes "Right now" served as both time and place.

I NEVER MADE IT OUT OF THE FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION
I might have mentioned previously that when I graduated high school I weighed a mere, willing-to-sell-a-pancreas-to-return-to-that-weight, 125 pounds. I wore glasses, a real fight deterrent, from sixth grade on. I probably would have been considered thoughtful and urbane, at least among the peers who knew what urbane meant. Still, I found the time to enter into three "major" fights, including two more-brutal-than-average bouts, plus a number of almost-fights and minor scuffles.

And this is not counting the one-sided thrashings I endured from my brother and/or a few of his friends.

If you don't count the earlier fights, which consisted mostly of feeble grappling or, worse, stare-downs and pacing, my first real slobberknocker occurred in sixth grade.

WHERE LOVING AND FIGHTING CONVERGE

If you squint, it looks like a heart. Kinda.

There was this girl, Susan, with whom I enjoyed an almost year-long flirtation. I knew she liked me, but she didn't come out and admit it to me but she knew that I knew she liked me, and I knew that she knew that I knew that she liked me, and you're starting to understand what I was like in sixth grade.

Anyway, though we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, people tended to understand that Susan and I were a couple as defined somewhere between the first definition (two of the same sort considered together; pair) and the second (two persons considered as joined together, as a married or engaged pair, lovers, or dance partners); perhaps the third definition (any two persons considered together) would probably be most accurate, but I would have denied the whole thing.

But I digress. One day the class was watching some program on a television, one of those heavy boxes that traveled from classroom to classroom on a rickety gray cart. I think the program was on Marco Polo, and I was shocked to learn that 13th century exploration of Central Asia and China didn't involve closing your eyes in a swimming pool. We all sat on the floor, and I took my place next to Susan, a seating arrangement I took for granted because I enjoyed the benefits of hanging with a girl who liked me even if I wasn't going to go far out of my comfort zone to reciprocate. After the show, probably something on Marco Polo, I went to the restroom and returned to my seat to find a note.

IF WE WORE GAUNTLETS, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SLAPPED WITH ONE
I forget the exact content of the note, but it was from Alan, a guy with whom I thought I had a good relationship. It read something like: "I had arranged to sit next to Susan, and you stole my spot. Therefore [note: I don't think he actually wrote "Therefore," but that was the super-serious tone I remember] I challenge you to a fight during recess."

I thought it odd to escalate a simple misunderstanding (I had no idea his space was reserved, nor did Susan seem to care), but I was like, OK, sure. Let's fight.

STANDING ROOM ONLY
We settled on some clear spot near the fenced-in handball and tennis courts, away from the disinterested eyes of the teacher aides who patrolled the grounds.

Alan and I circled each other, but other than a few feints and weak jabs, we pretty much moved in a way familiar to fans of the classic mirror scene from Duck Soup:

The ever-growing crowd was starting to get disappointed by the lack of action, and I was getting bored, when suddenly...

SOMEONE DIDN'T READ HIS MARQUESS OF QUEENSBURY RULEBOOK

I bled like this, only from the nose.
And without those abs.

...I was on the ground. My nose felt wet, and when I wiped it, a red streak appeared on the back of my hand. Though Alan drew first blood, I felt emboldened — not to mention a little tough. Just as I was planning my rope-a-dope comeback, however, Alan stopped the fight. I'll forever remember his reason:

"I didn't want to hurt you."

I tried to explain that hurting someone was actually the main objective of having a fight, but he didn't want to hear anymore. The crowd's bloodlust was somewhat sated, Alan and I were friends again, and neither of us had to leave the playground in shame.

As for Susan, I don't think she even knew what took place, or why.

MY CAREER AS A BRAWLER WOULD CONTINUE
I don't remember Alan ever getting into another physical altercation with anyone, after that. He apparently learned some sort of lesson. As for me, that battle was far from my final fight. But since this is far from my final post (one hopes), I'll have to tell you about those other incidents another time.