Scott Gets Punched

Over the weekend, I got a few reactions to my previous post about “The Challenge”. Some were good, but most were in favor of Kathy knocking my teeth in. I accepted both with a grin as I knew that 1) Kathy stands no chance of beating me this Friday, and 2) even if she did by some grace of God beat me, I’m still a man so, by definition, I’m automatically better than her. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. To quench the gullets of all of you bloodthirsty hounds out there, however, I will share with you now a story of the one and only time in my life that I’ve been punched.

The only fight that I ever remember being in was back in the 8th grade. I don’t know if I’d even call it a fight though as it was mostly just two guys swinging each other around by their clothes. It started out as a football game at Union School in Belleville with a bunch of guys that I went to St Mary’s with. Some were in my class, but most were in the class above me. The Kaffer brothers were there and Ryan, who was in my class, was on my team while his older brother Derek was on the other team. Apparently during the course of the game Derek didn’t like how I tackled him so he started screaming at me. Ryan, one of my best friends at the time, took the side of his brother and ran at me with a flying tackle. We got up, began wrestling around with each other, and ended up with handfuls of the other’s shirt and jacket. Having never been in a fight before, I was pretty sure that I was supposed to punch him, so I balled up my fist and swung hard at his face.

I didn’t connect directly, but I made enough contact to stagger him and make him think twice about coming back in for more. We eventually got back to the game and finished it out. I have no idea who won as I was certain that as soon as the game was over, the Kaffer brothers and the other guys that were there (who were all of their friends) were going to get even with me and beat me to a pulp. My mind was so focused on getting out of there as soon as the game ended that once somebody scored the final touchdown, I never quit running the play out until I reached my bike, hopped on, and rode home where they couldn’t get at me. The incident was never mentioned again by any of us. That’s when I first figured out that when guys have a problem they throw a couple of punches and then it’s over. It’s so nice to be a guy.

That was my first and only fight ever.

But that was not when I got punched.

Having been in that little skirmish in the 8th grade plus my 25 year viewership of professional wrestling has always led me to believe (falsely) that if need be I would be able to handle myself in a fight. I’m not saying I would win, but I think I could do enough to prevent myself from getting seriously injured. But, I don’t go looking for trouble and, in fact, tend to shy away from it if at all possible. Whatever trouble my mouth or actions may get me in, I’ve always been able to joke my way out of it. It always seems though that for every tool you have in belt to prevent you from getting into trouble, a bigger tool will come along with something to prove and nothing to lose. That idiot brings me to my story.

It was about 10 years ago and we had been out at Shenanigans having a few drinks that night. I’m not sure of the entire group, but I do know that Brian and Jeff were there simply because they were both in my car that night. As usual, Shenanigans got really crowded, really loud, and really annoying, so the three of us decided that we were going to leave. Back in those days, Jeff didn’t have a car so even though I had driven out there, I had Jeff drive back. Jeff is the self proclaimed “alpha male” of the group so being able to drive gave him that “in control” feeling that he so wanted. Now, I’m not a small guy, but in comparison to Jeff and Brian, I was kind of the runt so I graciously decided to sit in the back seat.

Halfway back to Brian’s house, we decided that we were hungry and since it was on the way, we should stop at Jack in the Box. I remember driving by the JITB on 161 and it was absolutely packed, so we made the decision to go to the one downtown in hopes that the line would be shorter. To our delight, once we arrived there was no line and we zipped right in and out of that drive thru equipped with enough food to feed ten people. Jeff then pulled back out onto 159 and we set course for Brian’s house.

That’s when we met our antagonist

For some reason that has always escaped me, we ended up driving side by side to a car occupied by two younger guys. We were about 23 or 24 at the time and these guys couldn’t have been more than 19 or 20. Now, us driving next to them must have really pissed them off because they started glaring at us. It wasn’t a playful “hey, let’s see who’s crappy car is faster” type look (I owned a Saturn at the time), but more of a “how dare you” type scowl. Because Jeff was focused on the road at the time and Brian was busy lighting a cigarette, I was the first one to notice these guys and jokingly pointed out the angry kids in the car next to us to my friends. At that point, we all three looked into their car which only further sparked their ire. This was going to get interesting.

It was at this point that I was reminded of the fight from the 8th grade that I mentioned earlier and all of the thoughts of preserving myself that came with it. I wasn’t scared of getting into a fight, and more importantly, didn’t even see why we would get into a fight with these kids who were now moving from right alongside us to directly behind us and back right alongside us again. We had done them no wrong and the only thing they had done wrong to us was act like a couple of assholes behind the wheel. If anything, we found their actions amusing and laughed it off amongst ourselves for awhile. When it came down to it, there were two of them and they didn’t look very big at all. In my car, we had three guys, all over 6’2, ranging in weight from 175 (me) to about 250 (Jeff and Brian). Additionally, Jeff and Brian were professed bad-asses who would beat the crap out of anyone if they were so inclined – and they both had the size and demeanor to leave no doubt that they could. They both worked together at Mueller Furniture in downtown Belleville and, according to lore, there was more than one occasion when the two of them would go at it just to prove dominance over the other. They were a little crazy back then, but that’s what I began to count on that night.

As the ride back to Brian’s went on we began to get even more amused by these guys. We were cracking jokes about them and having a good time. Being professional bad-asses though, Jeff and Brian were able to keep their game face on. Me, being a professional moron, was in the back seat smiling and laughing directly at the guys who were quickly turning into huge pests. We had decided that they were just bored and trying to garner some attention and that as soon as we pulled off of 161 into Brian’s neighborhood that the guys would keep going straight and leave us alone.

Wrong

As soon as we turned into Brian’s neighborhood, these little idiots turned right along with us and followed us all the way to Brian’s house. While we pulled into the driveway, they passed the house, turned around, and parked directly in front of Brian’s on the opposite side of the street. Now, had we been smart people, we would have waited in the car to make sure that they weren’t coming out of theirs with bats, pipes, or possibly guns to even up the three to two advantage that we had. Instead, we all immediately opened our doors, grabbed our food and drinks, and got out of the car.

Luckily, the driver stayed in the car, but the passenger opened his door, hopped out, and fast walked over to Jeff looking to start a fight. Jeff had already rounded the back of the car and was heading up Brian’s sidewalk on his way to the house when the guy reached him and got in his face. This kid started in on him: “What’s your problem man? You got a problem? What’s the f’n deal?” Now, from what I’ve heard from Jeff and others, you don’t get in Jeff’s face, so I was bracing myself for the exact moment when Jeff dropped his food and drink, grabbed the guy by the shirt, and knocked him into next week. What I saw, however, was totally different. Jeff’s bad-ass response to this was “Man, I just wanna go inside, eat my food, and relax. I ain’t got no problem.” With this, he turned his back on the little punk and walked to the front door.

Fail

Having not gotten any satisfaction from Jeff, the guy next turned his attention to Brian and me. As he rounded the back of the car towards the driver’s side, he sized up his options, and decided that I would be the safer of the two to go after. “Hey what’s up Smiley? You got a f’n problem Smiley (apparently he liked my smile)? What’s your f’n problem Smiley?” Now, having seen Jeff in action, I figured that we were going to shrug off this little dude and not give him the attention that he was so desperately craving, so I also gave him the “man, I don’t have a problem. We just wanna go inside” speech. I also suggested that he and his friend should just leave as he didn’t want any trouble from us.

At this point, I leaned back into the car to get the rest of my food. While in there, the little troublemaker got in Brian’s face and gave him the same “what’s your problem” act that he had given to Jeff and me. I figured that at this point, Brian (who has a short temper) would have gotten sick of this and just knocked the guy out. I was moving slowly so that I could hear the sound of the guy hitting the driveway on his way down, but instead all I felt was Brian getting pushed into me as he and the punk began a little shoving match. Being a good friend and also wanting to watch, I pulled my head out of the car to see what was transpiring. Unfortunately for me, the only thing that I saw transpiring was a fist closing in my face

Once again, as I mentioned earlier, I have only been in one fight in my life. In that fight I threw one punch which was probably not the hardest punch in the history of the world. Not only that, but I had never been punched. Hell, before that moment I had never even had someone take a swing at me where I’d be able to use my amazing cat-like reflexes and backlog of wrestling maneuvers to dodge the punch, use the guy’s momentum against him, and turn it into a pinning predicament (I do have to pin a guy in a fight, right?). So, I have to say that I was both surprised and disappointed to see this fist coming directly at me. Surprised because I was amazed at how fast it actually happens, and disappointed because there was no audience screaming along to let me know that I should expect this punch allowing me to use my previously referenced skill-set. As a result, the only thing left to happen was the inevitable.

Crack!

As my head rocked back from this cheap shot to my mouth I quickly experienced two things that I’d never experienced before. The first was the realization that I’d been punched. It wasn’t like I expected it to happen, but it had happened nonetheless. I always pictured some elaborate drawn out affair where I was in a fight defending the honor of a fair maiden or fighting for her love. This was definitely a disappointment in that regard. The second thing I experienced was the realization that, amazingly enough, it didn’t hurt.

I’m not sure if it was an adrenaline thing, or if maybe the guy was just a pansy and punched like a girl, but either way I felt the sting but nothing else. I immediately tasted the blood from my lip and my gums but it didn’t bother me. I was pissed.

As I quickly got my senses back, I totally expected to see Brian, who was standing less than a foot from the guy when he punched me, pummeling him with both fists into a bloody pulp right there on his driveway. Nope. What I saw was Brian looking at me with a “did he really just punch you?” look on his face. Feeling the need to take action into my own hands I began fast walking (that’s right, FAST walking) towards the guy as he was running towards his car. He had gotten a head start because as soon as he punched me he took off running so by the time that I had fast walked halfway there, he was already getting in and the driver was speeding away.

I quickly turned back around expecting to see bad-ass Brian and bad-ass Jeff sprinting towards my car so that we could chase them down and beat the living piss out of them, but instead I saw Jeff still standing at the front door taking a drink of his water and Brian still standing there with the same dumb “what just happened?” look on his face. These were my bad-ass friends and we had let the punk get away.

When we walked into the house to enjoy our food, I immediately went to the bathroom to see the damage that this little punk had done to my movie star good looks. Thankfully, he had just busted open my lip and cut my gums a little. There was a lot of blood but not a lot of visible damage. I was kind of proud of myself at that moment as I had taken a punch and survived. In fact, I thought it was pretty bad-ass of myself to take a cheap shot directly to the face and not even go down. I was the man!

I then went into the living room to confront my two “bad-ass” buddies as to where they were and ask them why they didn’t have my back. They started throwing out excuses like “I didn’t even know what was going on,” and “I don’t want to have a fight in front of my house and have these idiots know where I live,” but I wasn’t buying any of it. The truth of the matter was that my two huge bad-ass friends had just stood there when it counted and only I had taken off at a decent half jog to make this punk pay for his actions. He’s lucky he got away.

And this, Kathy, is why you should be scared for this Friday. I am a bad-ass on and off the golf course. Be afraid, Kathy. Be very afraid.

The same goes for you McHale.

Thanks for reading