Last Picayune, I told the story of how my father put me, a 12-year old kid, up for a fight with a couple of bullies. When I looked it over the next day, it seemed a little harsh. I should have added that he didn’t do anything to taunt me or embarrass me after that incident. I don’t even think he told our family.
He repeated that stunt, putting me and my brothers up for fights, because it was 1) how he thought we should deal with bullies, and 2) it was a bluff that scared away bullies.
But he supported me and my brothers in all the things we tried to do with our lives, and never mocked us for our choices, or taunted us for not wanting to fight in the first place. He had a hair-trigger for getting into fights, but otherwise he was a good father to us.
Moth Story Winner
I told that story last week at a Moth StorySLAM in Ann Arbor. I won! What I wrote in the last Picayune is what I told that night, along with the ending I just added here.
After 17 stories told at Moth StorySLAMs, that was my first time I won. I could go on and on about how the judging is sketchy, and emotional momentum plays an oversized role in who wins. It helped a lot that I was picked last, which gave the judges a chance to evaluate everything. But I told it well, and it’s not a bad story if I do say so myself.
Another Fight Story
I thought of another fight story this morning, this one from the 1980s (what a decade!).
When I started my first job out of college, in Columbus, Ohio, I met a young woman through a mutual friend. She was the only non-work person I knew in Columbus, so I did a few things with her. We went to a movie, I went to her parents’ house for dinner and to watch a football game on TV, we passed a couple of evenings together talking and watching TV, and we went to a bar for drinks. Let’s refer to her as “Babs.”
I had no romantic interests in Babs. She was nice enough, funny, and friendly. I suspect the mutual friend who introduced us expected sparks to fly because, if I believed half of what this friend told me about her, she wasn’t particularly hard to get. It’s not like I want more of a challenge in these things. It was more like Babs wasn’t my type, whereas my friend’s only type was that the woman was breathing and had two legs, and he was willing to settle if those things weren’t readily available.
Anyway, the night we went to the bar for drinks, it was to meet Babs’s circle of friends. Among those friends was a young man, we’ll call him “Bob.” He glared at me even when I wasn’t hogging the conversation and I assumed he was admiring my hair (I had pretty fabulous hair back then).
As the evening wore on, Bob grew agitated when Babs laughed at my jokes (I was pretty funny back then—not as funny as I am now, but pretty darn funny). Finally, I realized Bob was sweet on Babs.
Bob dealt with this by withdrawing from the conversation and drinking heavily. At some point, he got up and staggered out the front door without a word. Babs asked me to check on him.
I found Bob urinating on a car parked out front. I wasn’t there to judge him, so I asked,
“You okay?”
“You think you’re something,” he slurred. (He may have said something else, he may have swore at me, in fact, but he was three sheets to the wind.)
He threw a punch and I caught his fist in my hand and pushed him back. I’d like to say it was an awesome move I learned watching Wild, Wild West, and that my cat-like reflexes and superior strength quickly subdued him. In fact, he was so sloshed the punch was more like hailing a cab. Like, I’ve seen people in New York hail a cab with more threatening gestures than that punch. I could have side-stepped it just as easily but I was afraid he might fall over.
I pushed him against a car where he came to rest, the fight gone from him as quickly as it had welled up. I went inside for Babs and together we poured him into my car and drove back to my place.
I invited him inside but got no response. He sat sulking in the back seat of my car, not making eye contact. Babs and I went inside and left him there.
In the morning, I wasn’t sure what I’d find in my car. Honestly, I was thinking a corpse would be my best case scenario, because if he puked or shit in my backseat, that car wasn’t worth cleaning.
Instead, Bob was sleeping, his head down, and no mess in my back seat. I invited him in but he shook his head. So I drove him back to the bar so he could get his car, and that was the last time I saw old Bob.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
I’ve been working on personal essays, my next novel and short humor. In fact, I’m tickled to share that a humor piece was published. Let’s face it, this writing business is pretty rough, so even a small victory like getting this piece published is something of a victory worth sharing.
15 Things to Do With That Economy-Sized Tub of Guacamole From Costco
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Next Picayune
Frequent readers know that I’ll have another story to share, and hopefully more good news about my writing, and also more freebies for readers!
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune. All the best,
–mickey