(…or, ‘The Losers’ Pride!’) 1964
I had fought him in the empty lot, off Cayuga Street. He had
called—demandingly called—us on, one and
all, anyone of us that is,
saying: “I’ll fight any one of you right
here and now!”
He was
the new kid on the block.
Thick-boned,
taller than I, ten-pounds over my weight, sandy hair, Anglo-Saxton, type.
He called
thickly, to one and all, we the gang had just finished a game of
softball, perhaps eight or nine of us,
circled him.
There he
stood in the middle, defiant, “Well!” he shouted.
Jack
said, “Is he drunk?” (was the rhetorical question) and we all laughed, we knew he wasn’t; Jack
was
his age, I was sixteen: lean, and strong
as an ox.
“No,” I
said “he’s mine.”
“Okay,”
Jack replied, “take him!”
By not
allowing him full swing at me, I rushed him, threw him to the
ground, fell on top of him, and pounded
on his face until it was near
pulp.
I had
succeeded, I had won the fight, in a matter of minutes, with wallop
after wallop, as the gang went crazy.
I knew
from the start I had to evaporate his steam quickly, and I had, by not
allowing him to get into a boxing
stance;
Back then
I was much more the wrestler, with a strong right blow, when
connected.
His head
must had been buzzing like a swarm of bees.
Jack had
to pull me off him, I wouldn’t let up, lest I make his face
hamburger.
He was so
groggy when he left for home, he could hardly stand, but he just
kept a-going.
I lived
next to the empty lot, on the upper part of an embankment, sort of;
And I was
bushed also, so I went on home, for lunch.
Two days
later, it was Sunday, I heard a knock on the backdoor, opened it,
it was the new kid, I nearly didn’t recognize
him.
His face
was a face so swollen, and bruised, so awfully discolored, nearly
every feature had been beaten out of all
semblance of familiarity,
‘Did I do that? I thought.’
One eye
was half closed, the other of a blood filled narrow rim around the
whole eye. And one ear had its skin raw!
And his lip, puffed and split.
Then I
remembered Jack had to pull me off him.
I noticed
as he stood on the wooden stairway, near the arch of the door,
one side of his jaw was twice its normal
size, compared to the other.
“I’d like
a rematch,” he told me, “I’m pretty sure I can beat you, I’m good
at boxing, you just didn’t give me a
chance to start.”
As if I
would a second time, allow that:
Anyhow, I
responded by saying, “I really don’t care for rematch, but it’s up
to you.”
His
speech had been impaired, and I was sicken by his sight, and we both
sat on the stairway thinking in a long
silence, his pride was hurt, and I think his family poured vinegar on it, and
egged him on to future
decimation, should I have had to go a
second round with him—of
course this was my speculation, he was
no slough.
My
practical judgment bade me otherwise to a rematch, and I said, “Perhaps you’re
right, given time to get into your posture, you would have
beaten me, so let’s leave it at a draw.”
“Well,”
he said, in deep thought, looking down towards his house, knowing
he had told his parents, whatever he had
told them, and my best guess
was that he was going for a second
countdown,
“okay,”
he continued, “but you know, we can never be friends, but neither
do we have to be enemies.”
We shook
hands. And that was that.
But as I
look back on this, it comes to mind: for most men there is an
admirable pride in fighting and winning,
different from a woman’s way of thinking I suppose; but, win or lose you have
to show that the beating
had not kept you in bed, that’s the part
of the loser’s pride, beaten but not beaten.
No: 4560/Written:
9-26-2014
In
Malleable Poetic Prose
