I have never had any fighting skills, even back in sixth grade [when we too were surrounded by violent, hostile schoolgirls,] the boys from my neighborhood fought with a kind of ritual. First, there would be yelling, sneering, some so's-your-old-mans and maybe a couple of shoves, then we would be at each other with more wrestling going on than actual punchs. The idea was, even in the mud of March or November, to pull the other down, get on top somehow and make the little sumbitch say "I give." If you could, you got his arms pinned under your knees and then started punching away until the "I give." came. It was the height of bad behavior to throw more than one punch after the "I give." Very bad.
Once, Steve Brown had just gotten Larry Lorentzen to say "I give" and then, to the horror of those gathered, started throwing rights into Larry's face. Now, nobody liked Larry all that much, he was a jerk in sixth grade and I'd bet a bunch he's a jerk now, but this, this was a violation of our Valley Street tribal ways. We all jumped onto Steve, pulled him off Larry and beat on him for awhile while yelling at him about the "I give."
It was never very pretty or artful and I wanted to hear some of your stories because I am convinced that brawls at any age are hardly ever anything but quick and dirty and over quickly. (I loved squinney's story. [Goldarn man, it was them's was fighting. Can't I eat first and then go?]
The careful separation of what's right is right, what's wrong is wrong and it's wrong to let a good meal go.
Anyway, three minute New York movie:
Night before last.
Two people, man and woman, at the bottom of a staircase on the 42th Street platform of the A,C and E line uptown.
He's got her arm, she's yelling and trying to go up the stairs.
It's Russian or Polish or something Slavic maybe. I wish Dag had been there to tell me what. He yelling and has that big schoolyard bullyboy sneer going on. She's on the edge of tears and you can tell she's really scared.
Down the stairs bounces a guy about half the size of the armtwister and, without saying a word, he grabs the guy's wrist and, like he was unlatching a gate, separates the two and steps between them. He said something then, but I didn't catch all of it. I did hear the word "lad". The bullyboy is a little shocked and he's holding his wrist, the woman steps back to the staircase railing.
And this is when the art comes in.
Bully shakes out his hurt arm and takes a swing at halfsize with the other.
It's a big roundhouse of a left. Halfsize just ducks under it. (Think being on a small sailboat that's coming about and you are letting the boom over your head.) Halfsize takes a step away from the stairs and ---just stands there. Arms are slighly tensed but not up in a ready to fight stance. Bully comes charging at him, halfsize just turns a little and just lets him pass. Bully stumbles, turns and, arms spread wide, charges again.
uh. That would be a mistake.
Two, maybe three, maybe four, left jabs, hard ones, to his now non-sneering mush followed by a straight right right straight into the sharp end of his chin,{Cue the Batman "Kapow!!} he went first to his knees before flopping to his left, out cold. The woman ran up the stairs. Halfsize looked up after her and then glanced at the pile of bully at his feet.
This all took 30 seconds, forty tops. So what's the rest of the movie?
Cops arrive. Four of them.
What happened? Anybody see?
Yes, says the crowd of New Yorkers, poor fella, fell down the stairs and hit his face.
Boy, this city should warn people about those stairs.
There is no sign of halfsize.
I remember thinking 'How beautiful was that?" There was no anger in halfsize's movements nor any wasted energy. You see those films of lizards and big insects, wop, zap, the tongue unreels, strikes and returns. Same thing here only on a human scale. Arcs and tangents, poetry and dance. And I remember being a little, I don't know, jealous, I guess.
I have never had any fighting skills, the few fights I was in after sixth grade were about the same as the ones I had in the sixth grade, yelling, a few shoves and then back to the bar. Quick, dirty and no art.
I remember thinking I would like to be able to be that calm in a fight.
And I would have liked very much to have been the one who punched that guy in his mush.
You too?
Joe(the only word I understood in all the yelling was 'Chicago')Nation
