Jeader subdivision was a rural neighborhood with dirt roads
near the tiny country town of New Brockton, AL.
There, I grew up along with my two older brothers, older sister, and two
younger brothers. We had some friends in
the neighborhood and walked up and down the roads often, or we rode our
bicycles. We also had some enemies in
the neighborhood, kids who proved to be no-good punks. We all rode the same bus to school. We generally avoided trouble and acted as
friendly as we could on the bus, but trouble seemed inevitable. There were two boys in the
neighborhood—step-brothers—who were bad news.
Well, their older brothers were bad news, and they followed in their
footsteps. They were bad kids. My family tried to stay away from them to
avoid bad influences, but sometimes there was nobody else to play with. When I was about 13, Chris and Shane (the bad
boys) were about the same age, maybe a year younger. My brother Steven was 11, and my brother
Robert was 8. There was another boy
named Gabriel, who was 12, who also had a bad older brother. They lived by us. Gabriel was good when he was around us, so we
played with him a lot.
One day I heard that Chris and Shane were picking on Robert
on the school bus. I don’t think they
did anything really bad to him, but they admitted to picking on him because
they wanted to bully someone and wanted to pick a fight with me. I’d had it with them lately, so I was ready
to oblige. I told them to meet me at the
bottom of Red Clay Hill that afternoon to settle the matter. They seemed happy to fight and said they’d be
there. I immediately started to wonder
what I’d got myself into. I knew they’d
both want to take me on at once, and I was not an experienced fighter, except
against my siblings, but somehow that didn’t seem the same as street fighting. I felt like it was up to me to take up for my
younger brother. Steven was younger than
me, and Brent and Craig stayed after school for band practice. I was nervous as always about fighting,
especially against two unpredictable punk kids.
I wish I could say that I agreed to fight out of concern and compassion
for my younger brother, but I must confess I was more concerned about defending
family honor and my own pride. Plus, I
just didn’t like those boys.
Later that afternoon Gabriel rode up to my house on his
bicycle and said Chris and Chad were ready to fight. I told him to let them know I am on my
way. He rode off toward where they
lived. Gabriel was also friends with
Chris and Chad, but I knew that he was there mostly to keep it fair and to be a
witness so nobody tried to change the story afterwards. I felt like he was mostly on my side, because
he knew I would fight fair and that Chris and Chad probably would not. Anyway, it was on and I couldn’t back out or
everyone on the bus would call me a coward.
I started to get ready by taking some deep breaths to settle my nerves a
bit and come up with a strategy. I put
on a couple of extra t-shirts and a sweatshirt to make myself look bigger. I was average height for my age, but quite
scrawny. I also put on my pee-wee
football jersey over it all because I thought it would make me look tough. I did about 20 push-ups to get pumped up and
flex my muscles, and then I started walking briskly toward Red Clay Hill.
Red Clay Hill was a steep, narrow dirt road in our
neighborhood. It curved through the
thick woods and was fairly dangerous if you went down it very fast, even on a
bicycle. I had to go down the hill to
get to Chris and Shane’s house. The
bottom of Red Clay Hill was halfway between our houses. By the time I approached the top of Red Clay
Hill, word had reached Chris and Shane that I was on my way. As I turned the corner to head down the hill,
I puffed out my chest, bowed my arms, and marched down the hill at the same
brisk pace. I could tell by my shadow
that I must have made a pretty daunting looking silhouette, although I was
still nervous about the whole thing. I
could see people on bicycles at the bottom of the hill but couldn’t make out
exactly who they were yet. Gabriel met
me halfway down the hill and said “They’re leaving. They’re scared!” “Mission accomplished,” I thought to
myself. I would not have to fight them
after all. They had taken off toward
home on their bikes, but Gabriel chased them down and grabbed Shane so he could
not flee. I really wished he hadn’t done
that. I was fine with not having to
confront them face to face. He could
only hold on to one of them, so Chris got away.
He was willing to leave Shane to his own devices.
I stomped right up to where Gabriel had stopped him on the
road. Shane had a look of horror in his
face. Before I could say anything he
frantically exclaimed “I’m sorry! I
didn’t touch your brother!” and stuff like that. I said “are you going to mess with us anymore?” “No, I promise!” he cried out. By this time, Chris decided after all to turn
around and come back. They both promised
not to pick on my family again. I made
sure to keep a mean face on the whole time.
We shook hands and went our separate ways. As I went home, I was quite shocked about how
everything turned out. I had tried to
look as tough as possible, but didn’t think it would work so well. I didn’t tell anyone about that “fight.” I didn’t have to. Gabriel reported it to the kids on the
bus. Chris and Shane avoided the
conversation rather than trying to change the story. I was able to move on and try to forget about
it. I was thankful I didn’t have to
actually fight. I don’t know if I’d have
won.
Sun Tzu in The Art of
War says “All warfare is based on deception…. Hence to fight and conquer in
all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in
breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
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