I've been in one fist fight in my nearly twenty years of existence. I distinctly remember this event...a hot, dusty day in Saudi Arabia (do they come any other way?), a rasping breeze that brushed my cheek like muted licks of flame. School dress code required jeans and a t-shirt, minimum. No shorts. I sat on the bleachers, alone since my best friend had just moved away to Kentucky, not feeling anything in particular except a dull sense of time slipping by. Maybe a little perspiration. They called me Q-Tip, since while growing out my flat-top my head had assumed a somewhat afro-ish appearance because the hair wouldn't lie flat. Crampin' my style, dig? I hated my hair back then.
So I'm sitting there minding my own business, perhaps staring a bit after the random females walking by (they liked to push the dress code to its limits) and watching the boys play basketball, slowly melting into puddles of saline -- then three Swedes walked behind me, I could hear 'em talking. I recognized only one: Oscar, the biggest. He was in my US History class -- US History was a graduation requirement here. He suddenly had my undivided attention when he mentioned the name of my current crush, and proceeded to make racist remarks about her while discussing what he'd like to do with her if she could be convinced to remove all her clothes for him.
Somehow I was standing in front of these three students before I really knew what I was doing. Something had triggered a heretofore unknown reaction, and I was pissed off -- really, really pissed off. Insults to the girl I wanted, racism which I loathed...justice. I thought I could bring justice. I expressed to Oscar that I felt his remarks were unkind and uncessessary, and he responded by informing me that I could "come over here" and tell him that. I muttered an expletive, and ran forward with my heart racing a bajillion times faster than it should have been -- Oscar had this incomprehensible look on his face. Surprise, maybe, anger, maybe. Instead of talking, I drew back to hit the boy -- like a bolt, Oscar charged and nailed me good on the side of the jaw before I could even try. I fell down and stayed there.. Oscar stood over me as if stunned, then briskly walked off without saying a word, his friends behind him, staring back at me nervously.
I was drawn to think back on this incident today while enjoying my lunch at Huddle House. I was pleased with the day, having secured a parts manual for my busses that I had been hunting for several months, my muscles ached comfortably from the excercise I had done yesterday -- something I planned on repeating this evening. It felt good to be active rather than sedentary in front of a computer all day long. I felt an urge to go camping, to go explore an island, maybe even do some homework later!
A lady appeared from the bathroom in the back -- I hadn't seen her come in, I might have been watching the thermal convection currents swirl the creamer in my coffee. It mixes itself, you know. Ordinarily, she wasn't the type I'd pay any attention to. Obviously a lot older than me, a pack of cigarettes in her hand, with a tired look about her. She just seemed really tired -- I can relate to that. Learning to live on six hours of sleep or less takes some time, and a lot of java in the morning. On four hour nights I resorted to herbal sleeping pills, usually about once a week. I had some practice from a previous summer job that involved twelve hour shifts and 3am. No, this woman wasn't anything special to me. But she had a black eye and a bruised face. I couldn't help but stare. This wasn't something I was used to seeing. Her friends turned and began to talk with her, some expressing shock.
I overheard, I was only two tables back and across the aisle, we were the only ones in the restaurant. Her husband had beaten her. Why? Because he's a worthless son of a bitch, that's why. Cautious laughs, nodded agreement; blown cigarette smoke from the waitress, shaking her head in disbelief. Her brother wanted her to press charges, but her husband had threatened to press charges against her if she did. Why? Because she hit him back, that's why. She was going to press charges anyway, her mother would get her out of jail, but nobody would bail out her worthless husband. She was sitting now. Her face was red where it wasn't purple, flushed with embarassment or anger. Was he drunk? No. Had she done anything? No. Why? She doesn't know. There was a brief silence, the air conditioner blew a stale cigarette smell over me, a long strand of my hair floated gently to and fro across my field of vision. I felt like I shouldn't be staring, that I should pay my bill and leave; but something held me there those precious moments. Someone asks why she doesn't just divorce the bastard. The lady suddenly scowls, the eges of her mouth quiver...she buries her face in her hands. Because he's all she has. I feel an intruder in this intensely personal meeting. I stand, walk to the register, pay my bill quietly, leave the tip, and drive home.
I later became friends with Oscar in Saudi Arabia, that place where I lived not so long ago. Not until today have I really considered what truly happened that day. I lost my taste for violence then. I always thought it was because I was no good at it, and perhaps that's true. My younger sister can easily kick my ass, after all -- that does a little something to your ego! Since that time, I felt that beating someone up accomplished nothing. I couldn't really give you a reason though. Today I think I figured it out for myself.
Oscar knocked me down. Oscar won. But Oscar wasn't pleased, really, or vindicated -- it didn't make him right. He later apologized for his remarks, one of the reasons we became friends. That day behind the bleachers, someone was weaker, that person fell. One was stronger and faster, that person prevailed. Physically. Morally, the guy on the ground won -- he stood up for what he believed was right. The six-foot-something dude standing over him had only proved his physical strength over some scrawny white kid, and perhaps impressed his two friends. Oscar was superior in size and physical ability only. Nothing was accomplished that day, but talking a few weeks later we were able to settle our differences.
Today, perhaps, a man will go to prison with his beaten wife in tow. Later on the woman will be bailed out by her mother. The man will sit in his cell, the man will be angry. I don't think he will be sorry. He'll get out, maybe apologize -- she's all he's got, too -- life will go on, the pain momentarily forgotten. But one day he'll do it again. Maybe this time he won't stop at mere battery. I privately hope that the woman will come to her senses and leave this man.
What makes people behave this way? This is one thing I can't hope to understand, I think. Woman is beaten for no apparent reason. Woman stays with man. Love? Perhaps loneliness, or the threat of being alone. But perhaps more confusing is the man -- for what reason would you attack someone you loved? Someone to whom you made eternal vows to protect and care for? An understanding embrace and whispered words strike me as a better way to resolve any problems in a marriage or *any* relationship rather than smacking someone around. Talk it out, don't fight it out. On a far broader scale, it makes me wonder about war. The US wins wars because we are mightier on the battlefield, not necessarily because we're right. Take a look at Nazi Germany if you want a really good example of an unjust victor.
Earlier in the day I made a phone call to a girl I had nothing in common with. She liked horses, swimming, she was in college "sometimes," and she lived in Dahlonega. She currently worked as a baby sitter. I'm scared of horses, big suckers! I don't swim but I scuba dive; she's scared of sharks, scared of tanked air. I'm a full-time student with comparatively little in the way of free moments, putting hundreds of miles a week on my cheesy "Sport" hatchback, listening to old Nirvana tapes. I'm unemployed. I'm 19 and she's 23. She talks with a heavy Georgia accent and bad English. Somewhat amused at what opposites we had turned out to be, I had asked her what had driven her to respond to my ad. She was kind of quiet for a minute, talking around it until I asked again, not unkindly.
"I'm kinda lonely...lived here for twelve years, ain't never had no one. I'm really lonely."
Earlier, before I went to lunch, I wasn't going to call her back. She was too old and not a thing in the world like me, yet another failure to connect in the great Internet Dating Experience(tm), up to this point comprised mostly of bubbly emails from 16 year olds. Maybe it was the age group I fell in. I was becoming more and more confident that pulling the ad from the web was a good thing. As I hung up the phone, her voice seemed to break up as she asked me to call back. I said I probably would, and now I probably will. Not out of pity, really...something like respect, or responsibility. I almost feel like I owe it to the lady at Huddle House. It's an odd feeling. I really feel almost sad after what I witnessed today, but a little wiser as well. I begin to think that if people could just understand the futility of violence, domestic or otherwise, the world would be a place filled with more happiness and love, and less of a thing that pessimists like to call "reality."
Peace.
Andrew W. 2/9/00
E-mail me at: astrogeek@dork.com
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