My first and only fight

I have always hated physical violence. Even in adolescence, when coming of age boys have an overabundance of testosterone, I wasn't one of those boys who like to throw a few.

We used to punch each other into concussions using hockey helmets and gloves. I always lost against the boys my own age. We were doing for sport... I remember getting my bell rung and feeling like my brain was floating in a bucket of water. Not my idea of a good time, but much less dangerous than what most of my friends were doing. Most of the boys I grew up with loved to fight. They looked for the thrill of knocking someone out. And in most cases, they did. Every once in a while, someone would lose a tooth or get a few stitches. It was more like an right of passage for them. When it came to physical violence, I talked a tough game but I never wanted to get into a fight of my own. I always tried to take the high road as my gramma told me to.

I never associated courage with getting into a meaningless fight. In my first year of high school, many of my friends weren't adjusting well to the new school and were getting knocked around by bigger, tougher guys from a neighboring town. One guy decided to threaten me one day. He told me that he was going to beat my brains out. I was stupid scared. This guy was a trained boxer. He was skinny, but he looked fast. He challenged me to a duo at high noon on the smokers hill. Not being a smoker, I was way out of my comfort zone. Not only did I not want to fight, I didn't want to do it in enemy territory.  I ignored the challenge, hoping it would go away. I didn't show up and I never heard a single chicken reference, not even one pacock.

So I started using the strategy of walking away and it worked quite well for me until my senior year. This one kid who was 2 years younger than me but about my size started egging me on for a fight. I wasn't scared of him, but there was no reason to fight. I held nothing against him, and I had no idea what was up his ass.

On two occasions, I walked away from his physical provocation. I didn't want to fight. But he persisted daily with smirks, chicken calls, and rumours. He started to tick me off. After about two weeks, I met him in the stairway. We were all alone. My temper got the best of me and I lost it. I told him I was taking him down that day, when he least expected it. I told him, I was going to hurt him and it wasn't going to be pretty. Looking back, that was so uncharacteristic of me. My anger was speaking for me. I had lost control.

An hour later, we were on our way to the bus and he confronted me one last time. Everyone was laughing because it was so atypical of me. He pushed me twice and I backpeddled twice while informing him to stop it. On the third attempted push, his hands were down low, while my hands were clenched hard as rocks down by my hips. There's no way, he saw what came next - a clean right uppercut straight under the jaw. I surprised him, he fell back and slipped to the ground. Before he had a chance to get up, he saw a foot hit him three times in the head. Then it all stopped. I was out of control. Someone pulled me off. I got on the bus and it was all over.

The police called my parents. I had given him a concussion and he had decided not to press charges. The police told me to expect a retaliation. For the next 6 months, I kept an eye over my shoulder. Who had a pissed off with this dirty style of fighting? Who was going to revenge the concussion? Nada. I graduated from high school and left all of that stuff behind me for 3 years.

Then during one of my summer jobs, my high school challenger got hired with my crew. Three years had passed. I was older, he was older. But I wondered if he still had a bit of revenge left in him. I let the first week go by to size him up. He seemed like a pretty good guy. In the second week, during one of our breaks, I started to apologize for my youthful indiscretion. Before I could get out my second sentence, he stopped me. He told me to forget about it. He said that he was just as much responsible and that it was buried.

He had forgiven me. He was a good guy after all.

Since that one fight in high school, I've been punched in the face. I've been kicked in the guts. I've been challenged and I've been called a coward. But I never fought back with physical violence. Maybe I'm a wimp. Maybe I'm a chicken.

I don't want to hurt other people. Call me what you want. I really like myself this way.