TAKING A BEATING

I remember watching the movie 'Fight Club' and then, later, reading the novel, and that I understood there was redemptive power in the act of fighting, of fighting your way back to pure manhood, the glory of an ass-beating, the promise of freedom through rebellion. But I fixated on that taking a beating part. I felt Jared Leto's cheekbones being smashed in, and I knew there was no glory in that, no redemption.

I think maybe Chuck Palaniuk, or Brad Pitt or Ed Norton for that matter, never have taken a severe ass beating in their experiences. No glory at all. Everyone knows, when it comes to violence, it violates the rules of Christmas and every other ritual gift exchange, because here, giving is much better than receiving. I can still feel what it felt like when I punched my friend Kevin straight in the face, coming out of a hotel bathroom swinging. We were on a high school marching band trip to New York City, all the way from New Middletown, Ohio. And my roommates were engaging in a pillow fight I grew weary of early. I took a shower, came out to a darkened room, and was hit squarely in the face with a stiff pillow shot. I saw stars and punched straight out where Kevin's face happened to be and I felt his nose squish beneath my knuckles and I felt a sick satisfaction in knowing I escalated the action to make the pillow fight cease and ruined the good time with my fist. Everyone went to bed, or else left to go to another room, I don't remember, but I do remember sleeping soundly that night.

So, I know one's better than the other. Because, in a safe environment where you're surrounded by friends and fellows and you want to test the boundaries of your own strength and courage, sometimes you can do that, but most other times, you simply cannot. It will not happen so gently. I've been on the receiving end, one time in particular more worse than any others I can have the resolve to remember, but still somewhat transformative in my teenage psyche. I will recount this for you, despite in its retelling I feel much more the antagonist than I thought I remembered.

It was near Halloween, and the chill in the air of our small town betrayed a fast approaching winter. My sister Linda and I found ourselves gravitating towards the kids up the street, the mishmashed collection of Petersburg's best and brightest miscreants, and for a night somehow joined them in their evening festivities.

Someone said there was a hayride cutting through the outskirts of town. A truck hauling a hayload and a bunch of teenaged kids down black country roads, the kind that surrounded our tiny little town, swallowed up by murk and darkness. But, this wasn't so random of a collection. This was the high school marching band clique that I had been in the band with but never a part of, most of them at least, with their other friends.

And then someone in our group had eggs, cartons of them, and I was enlisted to accompany this ragtag band of egg throwing bandits, an egg in each hand, four or five of us, we took through backyards and alleyways to the edge of Garfield Road, to hide in the shadow of the hill next to the post office. And we waited, but not for long, because we heard the diesel huff of the truck's engine and saw the hayride coming down the street.

Someone said throw, and the eggs sailed through the air, but I hesitated, watching how they did it, and then mine hit the air following, both at once it seemed, and we heard the truck screech stopped. There came another simple command, then, maybe from the same voice. It said Run!

And so I ran, a fat little fourteen year old boy who'd thrown eggs blindly at a group of people, not knowing or caring what they hit. I'm sure it would have been fine if they just hit the street, short of their target. But they wouldn't be stopping if someone hadn't been splattered. We were seen and found ourselves in pursuit, through the small cemetery that was an island between two streets, a small stretch of military graves and ancient headstones that floated there, separated by the larger cemetery a half mile down around the corner. But in the darkness I found myself running faster than I had ever had to run before, and even still I could see my compatriots fading into the distance ahead of me. Maybe I was too concerned with tripping over a grave stone, maybe I was too fat to be chased, but the voices behind me got louder and angrier like a reverse Doppler, until I could feel them on top of me.

I stopped running. I just couldn't anymore. And they came to a stop then, behind me, and I felt the first punch land on the back of my head. It bent me forward, as I tried to cover up the best I could but the punches kept coming, in my back and uppercuts to my face and more punches to my skull, making me see purple sparkles behind my eyelids every time. Three or four dudes, just taking their shots and me, taken to screaming and blubbering and just being their heavybag. I told them I had nothing to do with the egging, that I was their friend, that I was chasing the kids who really did it. I didn't fall down, I don't know how but I knew if I did I could get kicked and stomped and I knew I didn't want that. So I cried a little and begged some and finally they stopped hitting me. They ran away triumphant, while I stood in between graves and refused to believe it was over.

I crept in the shadows to the store only a hundred yards in front of me, the corner store in the middle of town offered a shadowy retreat so I could collect myself and figure out how to get home. It was there where I examined myself to make sure I was intact. And I felt one of the braces connected to a front tooth was loose in my mouth, just spinning on the wire. Nothing else seemed damaged, no teeth actually missing. I didn't have a mirror to see how bad my face looked, but I forgot all about my face when I realized I had pissed my pants.

The pee stain on my crotch ran down my leg in a dark streak, the denim soaked to an inky black against the relief of the faded blue. I guess they hit the piss button in my brain, the one that tells me to go, and I went all right. To make matters worse, the hayride was still going on, this time now with a shared story of a beatdown and what if they caught me creeping home? I did not want that at all. I went down the back alley that ended on the edge of the Presbyterian church and avoided any detection, knowing the hayride couldn't fit down there. I climbed through the fence that separated our yard from the church and went in the front door, where Linda and a bunch of other neighborhood kids were hanging out and watching TV. Linda saw how jacked up I was and I may have began to cry at that point, but I don't remember, but she kicked them all out and drew me a bath and didn't mention the pee stain on the front of my jeans.

So there were many implications in this experience for me. Firstly, I realized I would probably see these guys again in some capacity, since I was still in high school band with them and we lived in an area with a severly small population. I went to church with one of the guys there, so I couldn't really get away from any of them. This was a problem especially since I found out I pee my pants when I get beat up, and did not look forward to peeing my pants in front of people in broad daylight. Secondly, I had escaped this beating with only broken hardware in my mouth, but it would have to be explained to my mother and my orthodontist, and so I decided my cover story was that I had fallen in gravel, thus explaining (I guess? I don't know why I emphasized the gravel part) my damaged braces and any facial discoloration. I also skipped Sunday services, out of fear mostly, and then began to dread going to school the following day.

But I went, and nobody had anything to say, including the kids who'd been throwing eggs with me. It felt like a non-event, and while I did not seek out the people involved with my beating, I don't feel like I was hiding, either. But when the bus dropped me off in front of my house, a car pulled into the alley and stopped in front of me. The window came down, and it was one of the boys who'd been there, I'm not sure if he was one of the punchers, but I knew for sure he'd seen it all.

"Hey Sam, you need to tell Jason Himes to leave us alone." I wasn't sure what Jason had to do with this situation, but I let him continue. "You cracked one kid's tooth and splattered eggs all over someone else, of course they were pissed off. He had to go to the dentist today to get his tooth recapped. But you tell Jason if he lays a hand on any one of us, we're coming back to take it out on you."

For some reason the scariest kid in town had threatened to give out multiple beatings to all guilty parties, Jason Himes, who had once threatened to murder me if I kept fighting with my neighbor Greg, while Jason was on his paper route. That had been two years prior but I was still terrified of him, but had had minor if any contact with him since. But Linda did, I guess. She went and explained what had happened to me, and he became my instant defender. Linda told me all of this, afterwards. For some reason Jason took my case, in a way.

So we existed in a state of detente, and Linda and I took up with Jason and his delinquent ways, the first real 'bad influence' upon us as my Mom would call him. But just know there's a treasure trove of stories about him I could share, but this is about getting a beating and living in the afterlife. The afterlife lingers and flickers and never really goes out, just as a reminder to fight with everything you have when you must absolutely have to. I will never piss my pants in battle again. And if I do take a whipping, I will not be ashamed to tell my Mom that her baby had just been beaten. There is no shame in that.