Fisticuffs

Have you ever heard that little voice in the back of your head? You know, the one that always says “this might be a very bad idea?” Have you? Me neither.

Such an opportunity to deprive myself of all logical thought processes occurred to me one particularly uneventful summer day. My standard meandering train of thought was leading me outside for a good half hour of exercise (the child mind breaks every activity down into thirty minute increments, as that is the extent of our attention span), when my subconscious reminded me of something I had apparently overlooked.

For some reason, I had gone a full eight years without experiencing the mixed emotions of a good-old-fashioned fist-fight. At the time, my current record held on to an anticipated zero, which did none too well for me on the self-esteem meter. Then again, I’d never lost, either. With this veritable tango of illogic tumbling around my cranium, I undertook what I at the time believed the one true test of manhood; I was going to beat somebody up.

I feel it necessary at this time to deny any assumptions that I am a perpetually violent person. I do admit, however, that my spontaneity is through the roof. Moreover, it is a known fact that I have a very weak grasp of many things, with “muscle mass” sitting high up on the list at that moment, though it did not concern me. I was only eight, and nothing much was going on anyway.

Jogging lightly across the street, I entered the epicenter of all childhood activity: the playground. Hunching low, I took refuge behind an oak tree to lie in wait. It took me a moment to locate them. They were all running in circles, a kind of stupor in the category of basic motion. Eventually, a dozen or so of them gathered in a compact group to converse.

Six year olds. A veritable herd of them. Now, which one to choose...?

After several moments, I decided on the large, husky kid in the ball cap and faded blue jeans. He appeared oafish in comparison to the others, and easily fallible. Cheering as mightily as I could, which wasn’t very, I leapt into the potential fray.

As I have noted earlier, the notion of physical strength remained enigmatic, though not for long. I soon learned that the gracious helpings of body cells taking up this young man’s arms were not the result of jelly doughnuts, but of bench-pressing. Okay, maybe not bench-pressing, but something like it. Though, honestly, could a six year old, a second grader, have access to a full body gym? Who was to say?

Eventually, the well-endowed fellow wandered off with his friends to inject one another with steroids, leaving me the task of relocating my teeth. I found four, praying they were all baby teeth, rather than my adulthood incisors. I stood lop-sidedly and stretched, waiting for myself to figure out how to walk again. Once I regained my primary locomotive skills, I gave my head a quick shake. The feeling of one’s brain bouncing back and forth within their skull will never cease to astound me. Why this is so remains one of those many things that I do not understand.

Returning home, I rubbed one hand at my welts and bruises. Scaling the fence, my slightly contorted body thumped to the relative safety of my own back lawn. Noticing that my circulatory system had no problem with pumping blood through severed arteries, I stumbled into the house in search of a Band-Aid. It was nothing serious. Just a scratch. It actually felt kind of good. An actual fight. My record was zero-and-one, but hey, at least I had a record.

Besides, I was only eight, and nothing much was going on anyway.