New Carriage

I was last punched in the face on a street in downtown Minneapolis two years ago, and what’s funny to remember are the little things:

• actually saying the words “Cold-cocked me?!?” seconds after I had been cold-cocked
• the paltry sound of his fist on my face – a non-Hollywood, very faint plip sound – in contrast to the blow itself, which was not paltry and sent me sprawling
• post-fight: cops on the scene… cherries twirling… assailant in cuffs… I was pumped so full of adrenaline I could barely conjure the fine motor skills necessary to hold a pen, but somehow a police report shoved in my face (resurgent sense-memory from the essay-tests of my school days? A blue-book flashback?) elicited from me an outpouring of legalese:

“I was sitting in the vehicle (west-facing) when the assailant approached the car (driver’s side), on foot, with trousers pulled down/low/off and pressed his buttocks region (naked) against the window (d. side, same). As I was, at that time, angered, I stepped out of the car to confront/chastise him. His companions (approx. 5 to 8, one female, rest male) then surrounded me in a semi-circular fashion….”

I have retold the story many times, and the retellings are of course substantially different. But I would like to use this moment to very briefly discuss The Fight Story as a narrative form at large.

Variations on a Theme

There is an essay I admire by Richard Ford called “In the Face” that is, essentially, about hitting people. One of its passages (although not the thesis entire) goes like this:

Where I grew up, in Mississippi and Arkansas, in the fifties, to be willing to hit another person in the face with your fist meant something…. It [...] meant you were brash, winningly impulsive, considerate of but not intimidated by consequence, admittedly but not too admittedly theatrical, and probably dangerous. As a frank, willed act, hitting in the face was a move toward adulthood, the place we were all headed–a step in the right direction.

But I also admire the fight stories of Ron Lyke of Anoka, Minnesota, and appreciate the time he spent with me several years ago talking about his boxing gym. I pestered him then about old times – street-fighting in Nordeast – and while I sensed that he considered these war tales strictly B-roll (I had a microphone; he seemed conscious of “speaking for the record” and made repeated attempts to downplay the tales), I would not relent. I confess now that these stories interested me the most.

Here is Ron delivering a discursive mini-essay about fighting, which might be called “No Ability But a Ton of Heart”:

Here is one called “The Cracker Box Incident”:

Here is another called “Look at That Bubble Come Out”:

And finally, here is a short essay about the craft of boxing itself, a sub-lesson called “A Body Shot Is Better Than a Punch to the Head”:

(I would like to thank Ron for speaking with me that day several years ago, and for his generosity in stories. For those interested in boxing as an art unto itself or as an outlet for competition, I would highly recommend Ron’s most excellent gym: Lyke’s Anoka-Coon Rapids Boxing Gym. Ron is wearing a t-shirt on the home page that reads JAIL SUCKS.)

Phraseology of the Fight Story… and Grandpa Bill

Two other stories, in brief:

I once worked with as a bar-back at a restaurant called Billy’s, and my shift partner was a friendly and gregarious ex-con from Chicago named Terry. Terry had a talent for riffing, and nothing seemed to release this gift more than the fact that I would eat lunch on my break. It was, in his eyes, the height of absurdity. The riffs poured out in the form of giant, improvisatory lists: “Yeah, I see you standin there, slackin, eatin yo slacka lunch… lookin at yo slacka clock… thinkin bout that slacka convention up in Amsterdam… buncha European slackas, cookin up them slacka schemes, findin all kinds of ways for slackin….”

He came to work one day and said he’d been mugged.

“Jesus, Terry,” I said. “That’s awful. You feelin okay?”

“Took my hat. Took my wallet….” And here a great smile spread out over his face and he said: “But I caught up wit that man. I broke him proper!”

*

Finally, I would like to recognize the cherished sequence of family stories passed down to us from my grandfather, Bill, who spent most of his adolescence in Iowa fighting people – either as a matter of circumstance (”Hey, Mister. You Iowans don’t grow half as much corn as we do. And at that… it’s only half as big.” A fight ensued.) or by profession as a bouncer in the Star Beer Garden in Charles City.

Bill has many stories about fighting people, and all of them, unfailingly – no matter the setting nor the characters nor the mechanics of the fight itself – end with the phrase: “And then I beat the piss out of him.” The line is delivered almost apologetically, and is preceded by a long, grave pause.

Recently I heard a variation on the fight stories heretofore unknown to me. We were driving down from Minnesota to visit his wife’s grave (one of the last such trips we’ll make; each physical action for him these days – showering, walking, climbing into a car – is more difficult than the last) and the appearance outside the car of the northeastern Iowan landscape – the gently and almost imperceptibly rolling plains; the water towers marking our progress: Mason City… Rudd… Floyd… – woke in him a visible passion. He was home again. He began telling story after story, and one he told was this:

“Clayton Miller and my sister Amelia come get me in the night out to the Lion’s Field. And there was a lot of men up there. All of em waitin to fight. And so a man up there beat the piss out of Clayton Miller. And Amelia beat the piss out of another man. And a man come up to me, and he had a dog. And you know what? I had my dog. And you know what then? My dog… beat the piss out of his dog.”

The moonlit battle… the field littered with casualties of all species and genders… the weird appearance and martial behavior of the dogs… I was enjoying the bizarreness of the scene so much that I was honestly surprised when he paused and then delivered the de facto amen – the time-honored line we loved, and which marked the story as authentic and true.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under Audio, Physical combat, Speech & rhetoric, The midwest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.