The Fight

I saw Mr. and Mrs. French stopped at the light where Southgate crosses Euclid Avenue and becomes Hill Street. Before they put up a stoplight, there was only a stop sign. Euclid Avenue was called Nicolas. Back then, Mr. French's old Plymouth, with its huge fins in the back, would have still attracted attention. I was probably the only one who noticed it today. I wondered if they noticed the line of kids leaving the junior high and crossing the vacant lot. If they did, I wondered what they thought was happening.

Maybe they thought it was some kind of after school field trip, or a science teacher who led them to see the home of a trapdoor spider, or some such thing.

More likely, they would assume that the Pink Spot was once again under new management. Back when Euclid Avenue was still called Nicolas, the Pink Spot was one of the original McDonald's. One day, the little man on the McDonald's sign became a pink circle. Its arches had been painted pink. They would be painted white and then pink again for years.

Twice a year, the Pink Spot would be under new management. There was always a Grand Opening, and each new owner thought selling hamburgers for a dime would be great for business. It was always a neighborhood event, and a source of futile encouragement for the new owners. Burgers at The Pink Spot for a dime was a party. But the same burger for a quarter was only for the desperate.

As we made our way across the vacant lot, I realized that this was the first time I'd ever cut across the lot. When I wasn't in school and I took Mike to the store, I always went barefoot. Because of the stickers, there's no way you could cross that field without shoes. Today, as I crossed the lot with a hundred kids, I wore my tennis shoes. They weren't real Jack Percels, but they looked like them. Only the imprint in the dust gave them away as J.C. Penny's. A lot of the guys were wearing their wingtips. With wingtips, the important thing to have was leather soles.

As I walked, I noticed who was wearing leather soles. Guys like Biff Rowe, whose father had an important job at the library, wore the real ones. Guys like Terry Redford wore the fake ones. Even though my wingtips were the fake kind, I wish I had them on today.

This was the first time since I started the seventh grade that I'd been to a fight. I saw part of one, once. Instead of the usual spot, I saw Cliff Cooper and Vince Cameron surrounded by a crowd of kids in the alley that divides David Potter's house from Mark and Kirk Parish. I was on my way home when I saw them.

They stood there like boxers, hands held up in fists while they circled each other around the bunch of kids that came to watch. I guess I missed most of it, because Vince's pale white face had some red splotches on it. He may have gotten hit, but the look in his eye said that he wasn't ready to quit. But two cars were trying to get in the alley, so they decided to finish the fight at the usual place. I was almost home, and I didn't want to see it, anyway. I knew I would hear all about it in school the next day.

As we walked to the alley behind Linda Hayes' house, I thought about school fights and why they happened.

For guys like Vince Cameron and Cliff Cooper, these fights weren't really about school. It was about Winchell's Donut House, where the tough kids hung out before and after school. This is where they smoked cigarettes and drank cokes to imitate the older crowd that would come later. I had never been to Winchell's, except on rare Sunday mornings when my mom would send me out to get donuts.

John Garcia went there, sometimes. John was the kind of guy that was able to hang out with any group of kids. He said that there was one table that was for the toughest guy there and his friends. When guys like that fought, it was for that table.

For the guys that were good at sports, fights happened because of something that happened during a football game, or some other game. These fights weren't as dirty as the Winchell's fights. There was never any kicking or wearing a big ring while punching the other guy.

Sometimes, there would be two guys that just didn't like each other. They may not be as big as the guys from Winchell's or the sports guys, but they fought mad. Mad fights are just as popular for a crowd of kids to watch.

Harold Gretzer was a little guy, way smaller than me, but for some reason John Garcia couldn't stand him, and John was pretty big.

"I'm gonna kick his ass!" John said to me once.

"Why?" I asked him. "What would that prove, that you can beat up a guy half as big as you?"

John never hurt Harold, but he drew a mustache on Harold's picture in every yearbook he signed.

Today's fight was the only bully fight that ever happened after school. Usually, a bully just picks on a kid until some teacher tells him to knock it off. Sometimes, the bully just gets tired of his victim or finds someone else to pick on.

Terry Redford had been bringing this on for a long time. Smashing lunch bags, taunting, pushing me in the hallway and ruining schoolwork. He even took my bicycle, and wouldn't give it back until I started for home to call the police. Terry went to a different elementary school, so I didn't know him at all.

Terry sat behind me in Math. I was having enough trouble with my lessons, but when he wouldn't stop drawing on my neck with a ball point pen one day, I'd finally had enough and asked Mrs. Baldwin to make him stop.

"You're gonna get it!" he hissed at me.

That happened during first period. For the rest of the day, kids kept telling me that Terry was gonna kick my ass. I was so sick of Terry and the whole thing, I just wanted it to end. We had P.E. together, the last class of the day. I expected him to do something then, and that would be the end of it.

That's exactly what he did. As soon as I came out on the field, he came at me. He hit me a couple of times and tripped me. I got up and brushed myself off, glad it was over. Boy, was I wrong about that! I was already hurt because I didn't know how to make a fist. I was sticking my thumb inside my fingers. I didn't hit him, he accidentally hit my hand and sprained my thumb.

At three o'clock, I started walking home. I didn't ride my bike to school because I lived so close that it wasn't worth it. As I walked, a crowd of kids began to gather around me. The crowd grew so large that I wasn't able to go straight to the stoplight. I was steered towards the vacant lot. As we walked down the path that led to the alley, I realized that there was no way I was gonna get out of fighting Terry.

I had this jacket that my big sisters talked my mom into buying for me. It looked like animal fur and was very popular at Sunny Hills and Fullerton High schools. I left it on, figuring that it was more important to cushion Terry's punches than to make it easier for me to hit him.

"Take off your glasses!" Terry ordered.

"I can't see without them," I replied. It was true. I was so nearsighted that without them, Terry would be nothing but a blur.

"Then there's gonna be kicking!" was his answer.

I might as well have taken them off, because the first punch broke my glasses in half. They fell to the ground, right at his feet. They told me later that Terry stepped on them on purpose before kicking me in the leg with his big, hard wingtips.

I have no idea how long the "fight" lasted. All I remember was trying to dodge his kicks while he used my face for a punching bag. Finally, kids started walking away. "I thought there was gonna be a fight," I heard someone say.

Richard Angeleno found my glasses and walked his bike as he helped me home. There was a couple of my friends with me, but I couldn't see them to know who they were. I just remember everyone asking me why I didn't fight back, or why I fought him in the first place. Everyone kept saying that I should have taken off my glasses.

I wish that I had. I had to miss school the next day so my mom could take me to Mr. Smith to fix my glasses. He said it would take a couple of weeks, so he put my old, scratched lenses in the only pair that would take them. I had to return to school wearing big, dorky gray frames over my two black eyes.

I was expecting the humiliation of returning to school wearing those glasses with two black eyes would be worse than the fight. Well, I was wrong about that, too.

It turned out that most of the kids felt sorry for me. They thought Terry was a prick for picking on someone smaller than him who couldn't even see to protect himself. And the weirdest thing was that I suddenly found myself with a bunch of new friends—new friends who were all big guys.

The only further humiliation of my fight came from my own mother.

Months later, Mom and I went to Open House Night at school. I was showing her something that I made in Art class when I saw Terry and his mother. They were on the other side of the classroom when I saw him. I don't know if Terry saw me, because he never looked over at us. In fact, I tried to get a look at his face, but he kept his head down the whole time.

I thought of confronting him right there in front of our mothers. I wanted him to explain to them why he bullied me, took my Stingray and rode in circles around me until I was almost home. I wanted him to tell our mothers why he beat me up and broke my glasses. I wanted to know what it was that I ever did to him and why he would hurt me as bad as he did.

I didn't. I knew it would make a scene and probably start something else and I didn't want that. He'd left me alone since the fight. I wanted to keep it that way.

I don't know why, but as Mom and I left the classroom, I pointed Terry out to her and told her that he was the kid who beat me up. Mom said,

"That's him? I thought you said he was much bigger than you."

David Stein and I didn't hang out together, but we were friends. When I needed a drummer for my Beach Boys lip-sync band in the fifth grade, David was happy to do it. I don't know why he fought Terry. I don't think it was to avenge me. I'm guessing that Terry thought he could win, because David was a head shorter than him.

It was now obvious that Terry was trying to fight his way up the ranks. I think a lot of kids didn't think my fight counted and Dave was a nice guy that everyone liked, so the cheers were for Dave. I was there to watch the fight.

The whole crowd stopped the fight quickly, saying they should wait until David got the cast taken off his arm and was ready for a fair fight. They fought long enough for everyone to see that Terry would have his hands full fighting Dave when his arm healed.

There never was another fight between those two because my new friend, Lester Mesa, offered to fight Terry. Lester wasn't a fighter, he was just happy to be a part in everything. Lester was the guy who broke David's arm in a fight, so Terry never fought Lester, either. Terry did fight Robert Volmer, who was game but just too small. He was even smaller than me, but he sure could fight!

I learned to stay away from fights but it wasn't that hard because I never faced any more bullies. Well, at least not in a vacant lot with a gang of shouting kids.

*****

Author's note: I couldn't say for sure if this fight was the beginning of the skill I've always had for controlling big angry guys. I once tended a bar that was always full of bikers and construction workers. The phone behind the bar could only receive calls, so I couldn't call the cops if there was trouble. I have to give credit to Kay, the barmaid who taught me how to tend bar, for the ability to assume authority without bloodshed. I can't count the times I've had some drunk hulk looming over me and saying, "If it was anyone else but you..." lolol