fights.

Fights and physical altercations have always upset me. Not watching them, I mean I love Steven Seagal movies and shit like that. Boxing is my spectator sport of choice. I’m talking about getting into fights; I find the experience highly emotionally upsetting. Now this isn’t due to a particularly bad experience or anything. I’ve been in a few, but I’ve never been hurt and I’ve never had my ass kicked.... One time a guy stirred up some shit. He was drunk and just plain wrong. He was aggressing and aggressing and eventually created a situation where I physically couldn’t walk away and then he attacked me. So I fucked him up. Then I went and got a beer from the store, had a few cigarettes and cried.

The first time I remember this sensation was in either first or second grade. We were on the rug having storytime and Jack wouldn’t stop fucking with me. Now Jack was just one of those fucking kids. Every elementary school’s got one. He was a bully but not in a punch you in the face take your money kind of way. In a mess only with people he knows and test everyone’s limits kind of way.

One time there was this other kid, I forget his name, that Jack was “friends” with. He was totally socially awkward- I’m sure that when he hit high school he was that kid with a gigantic LL Bean backpack with his initials monogrammed. Anyway, Jack was telling everyone how the awkward kid had this big dick- it was crazy how big it was. So he yells at him and tells him to stand up on this bench. “No, no Jack I don’t want to…” “Get up here!” So he does, and in front of everyone Jack pulls his pants down so we can all see his big dick.

So back to the rug, Jack’s messing with me. I forget exactly how, but there was no call for it. I’m trying to tell him to leave me alone while still listening to the story but he won’t. Finally I snapped, grabbed a handful of his hair slammed his head into a wooden cabinet a few times. Then I got up and yelled something to the effect of “leave me alone!” I stood there confused for a second and then my teacher told me calmly to sit outside for a moment. I did. And I almost cried. I remember being on the verge of tears, doing what I could to hold them back when Sal came along.

Sal was a Puerto Rican kid with an Italian name from the projects over on Ninth Avenue. This was the kid you were actually scared of. He wasn’t in any “gifted and talented” program like me and Jack. His younger brother was a grade ahead of him because Sal was left back so many times. He wasn’t a loud mouth class clown type, he was just tough and scary looking. I remember thinking Sal looked like a football player and everyone in the school was intimidated by him. Me and my best friend used to joke that anything associated with Sal was tough, we’d joke: “yo Sal looked at me once, I’m hard!”

So I’m sitting in the hallway feeling pretty upset and here comes Sal. Oh fuck... “What’s up, why you sitting in the hall?” “I uh… Jack was messing with me” “And? You do anything about it?” “Yeah, I hit him” “Good, that kid’s an asshole, don’t worry about it.” And I didn’t. Sal walked off, I relaxed a bit, went back into class, never got in any trouble and Jack never fucked with me again. Sal spoke to me, I was hard.