The Size of The Fight in The Dog

I'll confess that some of the details are foggy, clouded with Guinness Draught and the rapid passage of time, but I know this for sure:

My last fight took place in the late 1990's.
It was at a BW3 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.
I certainly didn't win but I'm not entirely sure I lost.
And most importantly, it may have started with a combination of one flaming hot wing and a drunk sorority girl and while the night ended with two snowballs and a cold walk home, the story took fifteen years to really reach it's conclusion. 

Initially, I was certain I was a bad ass.  I fancied myself being able to fight anyone I wanted and figured in most cases I was going to win.  Of course no true bad-ass uses the word "fancy" in any form so there's that. But back then, the evidence was seemingly more weighted in my favor.  My dad was tough. His brothers were tough. My brother is tough. My cousin Sam is the toughest guy that most people know. My sister once laid out a girl that called her a slut and I've witnessed my mother cause her fully-grown nephew to actually scurry from her in fear for his life. Tough runs in my blood. As Max Cady said, "I guess you could say I had a leg up, genetically speaking."

 I was itching to test this hypothesis and I found it in the form of a kid named Jason Drobney. He was fat and I figured not too bright. I ran my mouth and he proceeded to hand me my ass so thoroughly and completely that any notion of my being tough left me completely, never to return. I was seven years old.

Getting that out of the way in a fashion that was so absolute actually served me pretty well. I didn't feel the need to prove anything in that regard. I knew what I needed to know at an early age. There's a degree of liberation in an ass-whipping of that magnitude and it comes on a few fronts. First, getting your ass kicked certainly isn't pleasant but it's not that big of a deal. I've had a catheter and I can promise that I'd rather have Jason Drobney show up right now and whip my ass again than have a needle shoved into my bladder. Second, it completely erased any of the drama in the alpha-male moments with which all boys and young men are faced. I remember once being asked "You wanna go?'' and saying in response something like "Well, we can but, I know how this is going to turn out." I think the guy called me a queer which is still better than being punched in the face. That scenario actually makes my most important point. Like a blind guy who can hear a pin drop, my lack of ability in terms of fisticuffs has given way to an excellent command of sarcasm. Outside of a professional cage fighter, how many times does a person find themselves in a physical altercation after the age of 30? Even smaller is the number of people who really want a physical altercation. For most people the desire and opportunity to tell someone to fuck off with the perfect combination of words, timing, and tone is at minimum a weekly occurrence. It's a terrible feeling. You sit bolt upright, struck first by epihpany, and then the inevitable and profound disappointment that the moment will never come again. I am proud to say that I experience these moments few and far between. From the asshole at the gym who thinks he's the traffic cop of the Eliptical Machines or a douchebag regional manager who fidgets with his balls too much and wields his title because it's just about all he can wield-I've come out on the winning side of a verbal sparring more than I've lost and I'm just fine with the trade off. For that, I owe more than a small debt of gratitude to Jason Drobney.



  I headed once more into the breech on a freezing cold St Patrick's Day.  My friends and I had been drinking for about nine hours. I remember thinking at one point that I had drank myself sober and it was this faulty logic that found me alone at the bar at midnight watching hockey and drinking by myself. Continuing this line of stellar thinking,  I thought the fact I was in the bar alone might make me seem more appealing, brooding and mysterious, to the co-ed set. Owing completely to my obtuse nature and counter to my goal of sleeping with someone, I then assured a "no sex for me" proclamation by ordering the messiest and most unattractive food I could: one dozen Garlic Chicken Wings.  Possibly on purpose, the counter guy made me one dozen Blazing Wings. From a comparative stand point, this is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning bolt. The Spicy Garlic Wings are at the absolute end of the spicy range that I can withstand; twelve of them turns me into a quivering, watery-eyed,mucous-filled mess.  Looking down and seeing the red sticker with the word "Blazing" would have, on any normal day, sent me immediately back to the counter. Without hesitation I thought "fuck it," and put the wing to my lips. I can tell you that as unlikely as I was to see someone naked that night, I removed all doubt within a nanosecond when I got that Blazing sauce on my lips.
"oooowwwWWWWWWWW MOTHERFUCKER,"
 the syllables went from a normal range to a bellow as I frantically searched the table for water or ice or a hand gun. I  ran to the bar to see if I would be allowed to shove my entire face in the ice maker or at least procure my own bucket of ice to consume.
 I was suddenly and cruelly stone sober. I was frantic and pacing and fidgeting and twitching but I was not drunk. This was ultimately what made my decision to eat that wing, or rather place it to my lips and spit it out like it was venom, a good one. Had I not eaten that wing, I would certainly have experienced Jason Drobney 2.0

Ironically, or coincidentally, (I can never remember which,)  my Blazing Wing Onset Tourette's Syndrome had attracted the attention of a girl. Be it long island ice tea, pity, or a carnival sideshow-like curiosity, she noticed and began talking to me. I could barely focus on her questions and provided one word answers and she begun to volunteer information without provocation, never once asking why there were tears flowing down my beat-red face.
 "Cheers me, It's my last St Patrick's day in Mt Pleasant."
"I don't have a drink"
"Oh...well this is my last St Patrick's day here so we've been here since like noon. I'll be teaching next year so who knows if I can go out next year or whatever."
(She probably didn't say "whatever" but I'm certain she was in a sorority so she likely would have and in my memory, she did.)
"Yeah," I shrugged as if to acknowledge the fragile nature of a newly graduated twenty-something's dilemma to binge drink and still hold a steady job. I did know that if I didn't get an ice cube, I was going to die. This was my thought as I was suddenly confronted by Fratboyfriend. But for the clear aggression being demonstrated towards me, I was almost grateful for the distraction from the third degree burns seering my lips and tongue.
"Whatthefuckyoudoing?"
Fratboyfriend spoke kind of low but his eyes bore into me.  I thought back on the many ways that not insisting on my garlic wings was proving to be a bad decision. I motioned to the girl and started to say something in explanation. I looked at her and never saw his fist. Instead, I felt it explode against my cheek and clearly felt my knees wobble.  A common cliche in adverse situations is the notion that a person will surprise himself. I don't know if it's true every time but it rang true here. My own poor combat skills notwithstanding, it was easy to see from the start how this was going to end and that was before he clocked me out of nowhere. He was taller, younger, bigger and in better shape. Using my smaller stature to my advantage, I crouched lower and keeping my right arm hidden, I steadied my center of gravity and pushed up with my legs and uncorking my hand, brought it up as hard as I could.  It was his turn for surprise as I grabbed and squeezed his testicles with every ounce of energy I had. I had a vice grip and wasn't letting go. Like a dog who gets both hurt and surprised, Fratboyfriend actually yelped. I took pleasure in this for just one second as I watched him cock his arm and drill me in the face again.
"ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," I groaned as I sank to one knee, my hand still firmly in place and applying all the pressure I possibly could onto this guy's nuts. He yelled louder this time, purely from the pain I knew he was enduring. As he drew back a third time I clearly remember thinking, You might knock me out but if I go, these are coming with me.  I yanked down and twisted with what I figured would be my last conscious act of the evening but suddenly was whisked away and shoved out the front door.  It was over as quickly as it started and I found myself dazed, sitting on my ass in the snow outside the front door. Not exactly sure what or how this all happened, I uttered aloud a confused "what the fuck" pausing between each word and to no one in particular. I could feel sticky, warm, blood above my eye and the pain from being punched twice in the face began to be trumped again from the agony of the blazing wing that started all this bullshit. I slowly began fumbling in a daze and that's how a guy I knew from my Ed. classes found me; sitting on my ass in the snow,  and bleeding while eating one snowball and holding the other against my pummeled face.
He asked what seemed a very obvious question.
You OK man?,
I mumbled "yeah," took another bite of the snowball  and walked off into the Central Michigan night.

I have no recollection of coming home to my roommates that night. I know people were fairly interested and I do recall a variety of reactions to my story . Later in the week a guy I knew from my dorm saw me at a different bar and offered to drive to BW3 "and kick that fucker's ass right now." I assured him being three days later that he was likely not still there.  Another group of friends were less interested in revenge and  altered the timeline, telling people that the punch was a result of me first grabbing Fratboyfriend's testicles. It took some work to undo this version but I applauded their efforts.

  It probably shouldn't have, but my dad's reaction caught me off guard. . To say he had spent our 25 years together surrounding me with an unwavering and at times smothering protection would be a massive understatement. I knew this but was shocked when, upon seeing my bruised face, he became visibly upset and at first could barely look at me. Once he stopped shaking he looked at my face and in a low growl kept calling Fratboyfriend a "dirty bastard" and say "huhhhh God Damn I wish I had been there.  Dirty Bastard. Sucker punch you like that. Dirty Bastard." At first, I tried to convey how terrible it would have been to have my dad step in and decimate some college kid that punched me but he wasn't having it. I'd hear him mutter "dirty bastard sucker punch my kid..." and I just stopped trying. For 15 years, I always thought my dad was overreacting. It was a pretty minor dust up and provided a good story and happened ten times a night on college campuses. I now know that it wasn't  that I didn't understand what my dad felt.It was that I couldn't. 
As I said, the ramifications of that night stretched long past my time at CMU and stood out clear to me some 15 years later. I fully understand my dad's reaction now and look on it tenderly as oppossed to completely bewildered.

Even at three, my son has just begun to understand that sarcasm I spoke of that has come naturally to his father and grandfather and will someday become instinct for him. He has shown the ability to use it in context to his mother and me and will even attempt it out of context, smirking at me as he tries and fails to be a smart ass.  Additionally, if current trends hold, the fact that he's in the mid nineties for height and weight could add up to the tough gene skipping only one generation and returning in force to Michael. However, like the sarcasm, it isn't there quite yet. Last week at a community rec center, an older boy kept shoving Michael down. "Guys, come on..." my calmer and better half would say while I had to look away to keep from throttling this older four year old kid that was tormenting my son. I took advantage of one particularly rough tumble that sent Michael sprawling. I walked quickly and not at all calmly over to my son and picked him up and was met by the sweet and soulful, wide eyed questioning look and sensed that touch of embarrassment inherent to these first tests. Though it was just a glimpse of what my dad saw, I understood his reaction completely. I don't know if it was my father or my son but I became aware that I couldn't quite talk. It was only for a fleeting second and then, as men sometimes must do, I set aside the sentimental reflections of being a son and threw myself headlong into being a father. I pulled Michael close to me, hugged him tighter then he could possibly understand and kissing his cheek whispered so that his mother could not hear.  "That boy is not bigger than you Michael and you don't have to take that."  Wide eyed, he shook his head yes and walked away as I patted his butt for reassurance. I think now to my dad and the reaction to the fight. It didn't matter that it was minor and it didn't matter that it happened ten times a night to someone else and it was decidedly not a good story to my dad. The second nature to protect and defend me did not lessen because I was 25.  He was powerless to change it and that infuriated him. No amount of reasoning or joking or bravado was going to lessen his rage.  Someone hurt his kid and that was completely unacceptable. I have no doubt that the reaction in my now frail and addled 72 year old father would be exactly the same. "Dirty Bastard, hit my kid..."

I smiled at this thought and watched as the older boy made yet another move. This time my son lowered a shoulder and sent the older boy sprawling on his ass. It wasn't a father of the year reaction and probably not my best moment but thinking of my dad, I hid a small but emphatic fist pump from both my wife and son.

"Push my kid around? Take that you little bastard..."

White Man's Burden

So, I was accidentally racist today.

  I hate my career. The company I work for is fine.  It's not their fault  Regardless of the name on the door, claims adjusting is a thankless job that is at once boring, yet difficult. Very often, it's people at their worst: Unscrupulous vendors who would screw their mother out of a nickel, customers who have been robbed of perspective and logic while in the throes of a stressful and often traumatic event, and the flock of cat herders that are claims adjusters; beaten down and sapped of energy from working too many hours in a job that is completely opposite anything they remotely dreamed they'd be doing with their lives. No one leaves college with the goal of adjusting claims and invariably the claims adjuster will at some point ask themselves just how the fuck they ended up here. Many mornings upon my arrival, as I walk towards the endless sprawl of grey and beige cubicles,  I find myself hating the guys who clear the snow and cut the grass on our campus. The source of my hatred is pure envy. “Lucky Motherfucker,” I’ll hiss as I walk by these guys. Simply put, from a career standpoint, claims’ adjusting is akin to The Island of Misfit Toys from "Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer."  I've even taken to whispering "No one wants to play with a Charlie-in-the-box" when the weight of my career pushes down upon me.

The winter of 2014 has provided unprecedented weight. Flooded homes from frozen pipes all over the Midwest have put an unbearable load upon adjusters everywhere. I’ve correlated this winter to the suffocating snow that drove Jack Nicholson insane in "The Shining."  I've begun telling people I'm one snowfall from typing "All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy" while sharing drinks with Lloyd the imaginary bartender

The combination of corporate life and this particularly brutal winner has festered a special kind of hell for those of us in the insurance industry. Surly and short tempered, we snap at our loved ones and are constantly on edge. Honestly, anyone in the Corporate Cotton Dockers Circle of Hell can understand this to a point. At it's core, there is an isolation that is difficult to convey to someone outside life in a cubicle.  This is what makes the movie "Office Space" so fantastic . Anyone who spends time in this setting will tell you how spot-on this movie is. From the corporate speak to the omnipresent cubicles and overwhelming dread. It hits the mark with almost no hyperbole. To say I’ve been relating to this movie lately would be an understatement. I live this movie from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM.  For comfort, solidarity, and a touch of masochism, I have been watching the movie incessantly and even decided to download some of the music from the movie. Specifically, I downloaded most of the hardcore rap that appears on the soundtrack.

The morning of my unintentional act of bigotry was exactly the same as every other morning because, sad as it might seem, all my mornings are exactly the same. One slight difference today was the sound of “Still” from The Geto Boys pumping through my nondescript four-door sedan. “Still” is the song playing as the characters destroy the copier that has become the symbol of their professional scorn. I pulled into a Speedway, with a smile on my face and the radio as loud as it can go while the Geto Boys scream “Die  Motherfucka  Die Motherfucka, still fools!”  Completely clueless to my surroundings as I am most of the time, I left my car on and volume at max and went inside. A minute later, Diet Pepsi in hand,  I exited the store and walked to my car.  I could hear the muffled bass straining to escape.  It’s worth noting at this point that I am a forty year old white man with not an iota of gangster in me. As I approach the car, Gangster Rap blaring, this occurs to me and I feel instantly sheepish.  As if  my life was playing out in some improbable movie, it is then I notice three black men in their early twenties walking through the parking lot towards me and headed into the store. The sheepish feelings turn to complete  embarrassment. The bass makes it very clear what type of music this lame-ass honkey is listening to and I am focused only on my utter whiteness. I quickly open the car door and the constrained  lyrics explode from the passenger compartment. 

But it isn’t lyrics per se.

It’s a single word at the end of a line. One single terrible word.  It’s a word very often used in this genre. It's a word no white person should say and probably even listen to. As I open the car door that word blasts out at a bone-jarring, spinal-tap 11 and hangs in a cloud of white guilt over the Speedway parking lot. Without a thought, I plunge headlong and do the absolute worst thing I can do in this scenario. Like a panicked and wild animal with a look of complete mortification on my face, I look instantly into the faces of the three black dudes. 

My friend Tiffany accurately observed that all my problems really seem to go from awkward to terrible when I try and "fix" the situation. I related a story to her once and my habit of doing this was more than she could take. Eyes burning into me and mouth half open with hand on her forehead and completely exasperated with me, she literally yelled at me:

“DON’T TRY AND FIX IT! JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!”

It’s great advice.

I have never once listened to it.

 

My solution to fix it was a weak barely audible "sorry."

I have no idea what I'm apologizing for. I didn't say this word. I didn't write it. I didn't even sing it.  I am within my Constitutional First Ammendment Rights to play and enjoy this song. I wasn't sorry I like the song, so to these guys who did nothing but cross paths with me, I'm saying "Good Morning Gentlemen,  Terribly sorry you're black and I'm white." Of course it wasn't what I meant. If anything I'm sorry I'm such an idiot. I'm sorry that I heard that word and looked immediately at these guys. I'm sorry, at that particular moment, that I was anywhere but a casket.

 

I slid meekly into my car and made the only good decision I made that morning. I wanted nothing more than to rapidly leave that parking lot and then die. I grabbed the shifter of the caucasian-mobile and was just about to throw it in reverse and speed away in a cloud of exhaust, rubber and shame but I stopped. Considering these guys never really batted an eye and that all of this sprang from one terrible reaction to another, all within the trappings of my stupid mind, appearing to fear for my life would be the only way I could look like more of an asshole and I had well exceeded expectations of that particular goal.

 Just like we do with my three year old child when he acts like a little butthole, I took ten deep breaths and drove slowly and gratefully to the isolation of my cubicle..