All American Victory

(Painting by Charles Bukowski)

Steve was built solid and hard, but he wasn't tall. Still, he acted with a meanness often enough to make you wary. When he was in the ninth grade, he got into a fight with a fellow over something that I can't remember. But it was a big deal and the fight was going to take place at an elementary school playground late in the afternoon. We all went expecting  a slaughter, for the fellow Steve was fighting wasn't considered very tough. In fact, I considered him a bit of a sissy. He was a quiet kid who joined clubs and "swelled the crowd" as it were, but he wasn't anyone that I could imagine just popping into somebody's head or whose name would enter into a normal conversation. And that is what made this fight so surprising. At least at first.

I showed up with the usual bunch of school hoodlums, everybody acting like they were going to the circus or the fair, laughing and jumping and fake punching each other in anticipation. Steve was walking a little in front of me smoking a cigarette seeming a little serious, and I wondered at that. Past the houses and through the streets, we made our way, the crowd growing larger with every block.  When we finally reached the school playground, no one was there.  Then across the yard, Steve's antagonist crawled out of the passengers side of a lone car and stood looking across the distance. Then the driver's door opened, and his father got out. There was immediate confusion as a collective "What the hell" gasp emerged from the crowd, the father and son walking straight over without saying a word.  Then the father said, "This is going to be a fair fight. Nobody is going to interfere." I could feel some of the older fellows bridle at this, but everyone remained quiet. Until they squared off.

"Kill him," a lone voice cried and then the din went up as Steve charged in, but his punches were flailing ones and just weren't connecting. His antagonist boxed rather than fought, and he just kept moving and blocking punches and throwing his own stinging little jabs. You could see he'd practiced his footwork.  By now, Steve was frustrated, embarrassed, and probably a little bit afraid as he stepped in and caught a good solid right to his cheek that made what was becoming the familiar crunching sound of bone on bone. A good sized mouse immediately sprung up tall and blue under his left eye.  Steve stepped back and touched the mouse, then with a wild scream of hideous frustration, he charged in trying to take his antagonist off his feet.  But the fellow grabbed Steve's hair and didn't go down. He didn't let go, either, and he started swinging Steve around by his long blonde hair, his father getting excited now and uttering his own cheer of encouragement.  We could hear the crackling tear of the hair being yanked out by its roots and the involuntary cry of pain falling from Steve's lips. Then suddenly Steve was free. By now, hoodlum frustration was palpablel and some of the tougher guys were hot to give the fellow a real beating. You could smell the rise in testosterone. Fists were smashing at the air.

"You fucking sissy, you can't pull hair. C'mon you sonofabitch!"

That was when the father stepped in and broke it up. He said, "OK, the fight's over," and he put his arm around his son's shoulder and walked him back across the field to the car. I don't think the boy had been seriously hit.

And then the jeering began as everyone tried make sense of what had just happened, foul epithets following the two slowly retreating backs of victory  Neither of them turned to look. 

Then everyone turned their to Steve, his face swollen, a chunk of hair missing from his head, a small trickle of blood issuing from one nostril.   He looked as if he might cry. Somebody handed him a cigarette.

"That fucking punk. Everybody knows why his father stopped the fight. You would have killed him."

But Steve was winded and the truth is it might have gotten much worse for him. He didn't say anything. He just turned and began walking in the direction of his house.

Steve was different after that, meaner in some ways, but defeated, too. At school, some of the other kids who would dominate the yearbook laughed at him and some of them called him out. There was more to come, but I think this was the tipping point, the impetus for Steve's eventual downward spiral.  There is something about a public thumping that can make the bitter mean turn strange.