not quite fight club ·
26 August 04

When was the last time I had a fight? When was the last time I got beaten up, and when was the last time I actually kicked someone’s arse? It’s hard to recall. Suffice to say, I’m all but a weak shell.

A moment of random frustration resulted in my fist connecting with the sold wall that creates one quarter of my room. It hurt, a lot. I repeated this feat, and then hit the wall awkwardly. I felt an immediate tingling sensation. It was if the wall had hit me with a cane, rather than me hitting the wall. It peered at me with eyes of rage, holding the cane in its hand, and asking,

“More?”

I grin and bare it, and hit the wall some more. I’ve lost all my strength, if I had any in the first place. I can feel the vibrations trickle through my bones like a tuning fork being hit by a hammer. It traveled down to my neck, my shoulder felt a tight sensation, my neck creaked and my fingers would barely move. The purple tinge glowed across my knuckles like a fortune teller’s crystal ball, when something appears.

I look down at my knuckles, gripping it tightly, trying to resurrect the deadness that lay within them. They cried no more, but I felt the need to express more. I couldn’t use my skull, not anymore, I just didn’t have the guts to, honestly. I’ve weakened in my resolve to hurt myself, even though the voices continue to spin around my hand like spirits that don’t realise they’re dead and scream to return.

The hand trembled, I gripped my teeth as my eyes watered. I could no longer punch a wall and bear it, I could no longer smash my skull and take the pain, and the damage it did to my brain. I have become concerned, I care, and perhaps want to live? I guess that’s the dilemma, wanting to live and wanting to die, and not quite being sure which I want to do. Each day has its moments, and some days I want to die and some days I want to live. The fluctuation between the two is quite frequent, and so perhaps, smashing my fist that day, was a case of not wanting to die.

My last fight in school I lost, I was 12, and it was lunch time. I was a good fighter, or I used to be when I was younger. As I grew older, I wanted to fight less, and wanted to debate more. Thinking more than fighting gave me satisfaction. You always had the assholes, the dumb fucks who thought that deal with problems using a club was the answer. No one ever fought with me, partly because I was known around the school and liked by all, and if not liked, then at least I wasn’t a threat to anyone.

I was known as the high school trouble maker, and I had a reputation that was longer than my years in school. Teachers were concerned I wouldn’t learn, or that I would disrupt pupils. I often encouraged other students to revolt against a class they didn’t like. I could manipulate as well as fight.

Girls were weird back then, either they liked someone who made trouble, or was a good fighter, or they called him immature. Or they’d like the fighter first, and if the fighter got serious, they’d call him a brute. Women were and always will be two faced bitches never saying what they really fucking think. That’s harsh, I guess. Not women, women are cool. Girls are retarded, just like boys. Someone are bitches too, and I can think of a few, but will save that for another time.

If they don’t beat you up, they’ll suffocate you between their tits. Thank God I didn’t experience that myself, but the thought alone made me weary.

So the last fight I had began in the dinner halls. We all sat down, and were going for our meals. Everyone used to sneak in to the senior halls, but this time we didn’t. It was 30 minutes or so before registration. I was always offensive to everyone, but in a funny way. Sarcasm was always something I would live with.

I don’t remember the names of the guys who I ate with, I forget names, faces, ages shit like that. It’s all irrelevant anyway. One was a tall skinny guy, the other was a fat guy who ate a lot. Trust my shitty luck to pick a fight with a guy who was three times my size. By this stage, I was a skinny little shit.

“I bet you he could kick your arse”

“I don’t want to fight him”

“Do you think you could kick his arse?”

“I might be able to? I suppose. Yeah, I could”

“Well you guys want to fight outside?”

“Do you want to fight?”

“Do you?”

“Er…ok then.”

“Um..yeah, outside then”

[zz93]

And that was how it went. Not exactly a challenge then was it? We happened to have a bitch of a mutual friend, who cohersed into a situation that we couldn’t back out of. Neither he or I wanted to fight. We just wanted to have our lunch. We ate what we could, knowing that we didn’t have a lot of time for a fight.

We stood outside, and our friend kept saying, “Well someone start then, or are you going to look at each other all day?” Well that was it really, as a circle grew around us. If you’ve ever had school fights, you’ll know word spreads like a flaming inferno turning a forest into ashes in the blink of an eye. The pressure was on, and so we were more encouraged to get into the fight.

I think it started when someone pushed us both from the back. We happened to be friends of sorts anyway, we saw each other now and again, and said hello or had a chat about whatever. This was different, and we had to fight. We were 12 and there was a ring of bastards around us. As we got pushed into each other, I think I threw the first punch, and knocked him to the floor. He got up, pretty pissed off, in fact very pissed off. As soon as he got up, I just imagined a freight train heading towards me, and it was fucking steaming.

He grabbed me by waist and crushed me like only fat guys can, I was fucked, I couldn’t breathe. Someone shouted, “Help him!”, and as soon as I heard that I punched the bastard in the eye. He let go, but didn’t relent. I regretted ever getting into this fight, all I could think of was not having my lunch and getting to my next lesson, and then it dawned on me that my heart wasn’t in it. I got up, told him to wait. I then told him to beat me up if he wanted to, because I wasn’t going to bother.

I thought this would of course, stop the fight and put people off. Instead he punched me out, and I fell to the floor, hardly able to get up. He was standing over, and asked if I “give up”. I was pissed off by the fact that he didn’t stop, so I smashed his nuts with a fiery fist. Sadly this didn’t have any effect whatsoever. I think his dick was too small to be reached by the fist, as he started barraging me with punches from the top. I was so bored, so tired, and so beaten I didn’t really care.

I have become concerned, I care, and perhaps want to live? I guess that’s the dilemma, wanting to live and wanting to die, and not quite being sure which I want to do.

A teacher came along and broke the fight up. I was in serious pain, he had bruises on his face, and all my bruises were hidden under the uniform. His lip was cut, but mine was swollen, and I felt as though someone had mistaken my lips for an airship and began to fill it with hydrogen. As I walked with my other friends, I cried as I felt the aftermath of pain that shattered through my body.

“Shit man why are you crying?”
“IT FUCKING HURTS YOU CUNT!”

I wailed, and stopped crying, and then we sort of laughed at the ineptness of the fight. How I pretty much sat back, unable to fight, and what a mistake it was picking a fight with someone a helluva lot bigger than me. I learnt a lesson that day, which was not to argue with big people. If they don’t beat you up, they’ll suffocate you between their tits. Thank God I didn’t experience that myself, but the thought alone made me weary. Besides that, I was getting to stage where I was seriously depressed. It was a while coming, and had been since I was a kid, but I was really quite sad about everything. It was also only a year left until I would leave for London, and this was something that sat on my mind for a long time.

We both denied we were fighting in front of the Deputy Head, and were giving a week of detention. Over that time, we got to know each other a little better, and argued over who actually won the fight. Eventually I accepted that he did, and that if we had a rematch, he would probably pummel with his new found confidence. We did end up having another fight, and this time I confidently kicked his fucking arse. He became a bully after that, and his little gang in school, and became a complete arsehole. No one liked him, no one liked his friends and he turned himself into an outcast.

Even thought people around school knew I had got beaten up, I was consoled more than anything. People wanted to know who did it, so they could kick the guys arse. Girls wanted to talk to me, strangely enough, thinking I was a sensitive of guy or something. It was a strange reaction. Even my cousin, who never spoke me to in the three years I saw him there asked me if I wanted him to beat up the guy. I said no, and it was fine.

He gave me a few tips on how to fight, and perhaps it was that, or the fact that he talked to me, seeing as I admired him so much as a kid that gave me the impetus to kick fatty’s arse. Whatever it was, it was certainly a weird time, and a time which caused a lot of change in my mind.

So as I look at these knuckles, I realise that I can build myself up, I can look like a tank, but I’ll never have the heart to fight someone. Hurt myself, sure, but to hurt someone else? Well I would have truly hate them, and then, it wouldn’t be a fight, but perhaps a massacre. Just the thought alone, makes me hungry….