A Legacy Project

Witnessed by you. Visited upon you. Enacted by you. What did you see? Where and when? What happened? What affect did it have on you?

I punched a kid in the face once. This was high school. Guys made a thing about being aggressive. They balled up their fists, they lifted their chins and said, “I’d gonna take care of that guy.” I’d never seen it happen, much less actually punched anyone out myself. One day on the edge of the ball diamond next to the elementary school, Howdy Richards and Craig Olsen got in a fight. As a few of us looked on, they went after each other, more wrestling than fist-fighting, raising a cloud of dust. The pitch of emotion, the intensity of their attempt to overpower each other was terrifying. It wasn’t theater or puffery. It wasn’t a tiff. It was real. They were trying to hurt each other. And then, in a few seconds, it was over. They separated and Craig Olsen, who was in tears, held up his hand and said, “If my thumb wasn’t broke, I’d fight you.” That was it. I knew I never wanted a part of anything like that, ever. But it happened. The night I punched a kid in the face I had gone to a basketball game on a school bus. It was Freeland vs. Shepherd. I must have been fourteen years old. When I left the stands at one point in the game to go to the bathroom, a Shepherd kid started hassling me. It was some kind of sass or badmouth, and maybe he shoved me. Anyway I did it: I threw a punch. I hit him in the face. And I said something like, “You don’t talk like that to Freeland guys.” And felt like a total idiot. He might have wanted more. He might have wanted to hit me back, but I turned and faded back into the crowd, I practically ran for the seats. Amazed at myself. I had just hit a kid. In the face. I’d smacked him. In his face. I punched him out. What was it about hitting someone in the face? Making it not just wrong but very wrong, the most direct assault on another person. Their face. I couldn’t make sense of what I’d done. I wasn’t proud of myself. I felt stupid.