nolife's last blog made me relive two events of violence in my life.  The first happened when I was 14.  I was the target of a senseless ass kicking.  I lived in Austin, Texas.  Two friends and I went to visit my uncle in Fort Worth for frontier days.  It's a huge rodeo, livestock show, carnival midway, and general redneckish party.  Good fun.

After a day of fun, my friends and I got bored of hanging around my uncle's house (cable television was fairly primitive back then and there was no internet).  We decided to walk to the corner store and play some video games.  My uncle told us to be careful and seemed a little uneasy. 

On the way back to my uncle's house, two older guys with a bottle of booze were on our side of the street walking towards us.  I'm no dummy.  It's not the best neighborhood.  Don't make eye contact.  Don't say anything.  Keep  your head up.  While I'm thinking this, my friend Bob says "hi"  as we're walking by.

"What'd you say?"  "What'd you say?"  suddenly it's on.

I'm with Bob, a wirey guy who had a tough reputation at school.  He'd fight anybody.  Paul, who was kind of a small guy.  He'd never fought in his life and was poorly suited for it.  I'm the biggest of us at 5'11" and 165 pounds.  Big for a 14 year old, but not a match physically or in meaness for either of these guys.  Even three on two we're totally outmatched and they know it.

The guy Bob said "hi" to is squared off with him.  I can see my uncle's house down the street.  My uncle is Dave Murphy.  If you ever want to get in a bar fight, you could hardly do better than have Murph backing you up.  The guy is a monster.  His hands are so big that even today he can't get my wedding ring over the second nuckle of his pinky finger.  Murph could pick one of these guys up and use him to beat the other one to death.  I'm afraid to run to the house because of the asskicking it'd precipitate on my friends.

I'm making a plan though.  As soon as the guy squared with Bob picks up his hands, I'm going to push him into the other guy and run to my uncle's house.  The guy is barking at Bob, calling him pussy.  Without even looking at me, he pounds me in the nose, breaking it.  Since I was the biggest of my friends and I, he put the sucker punch on me.

For those of you that have never had your nose broken.  Saying it really hurts is an understatement.  First of all, it made me temporarily blind.  After the disorientation abated, my eyes were swelling shut and streaming tears.  He hit me so hard, I didn't even know if I was still facing him.  As my vision starts to clear, I get the impression of both of my friends running.  I'm alone with two bad people now.  I can't see which direction my uncle's house is.  I need to buy some time to get my bearings.

Now normally I'm a pretty witty person able to come up with comebacks and quips instantly.  But under the circumstances, the best I could come up with was "Hey, man, what'd you do that for?"

He replies, "Here, I'll do it again" and starts to work my face like a speed bag, two handed.  I wore braces.  The brackets blew through my upper and lower lips.  The fact that he was wearing a big, rectangular "fighting ring" made some of the brackets come loose from my teeth.  The ring also tore cuts in my face.  The worst part wasn't the lip mutilation.  It was when he hit my broken nose over and over. 

I'm not able to effectively protect myself.  I've got my hands up, but it's not helping at all.  Since I can't see him, he's just batting my hands aside and kicking my ass.  All I'm thinking is that if I go down, he might start kicking me.  That'd be my ass.  Then I remember the other guy holding the bottle.  Eventually he's going to want to get in on the fun.

I estimate that my attacker is between me and my uncle's house like he was when the attack started so I run right into him.  I get inside his reach, surprising him and stopping the assault on my face.  I take advantage of his surprise and shoulder him aside trying to run away.  He grabs me by the back of my shirt and says, "get back here, you pussy."  It doesn't even slow me down.  He's standing there with a ripped, blood covered shirt while I'm track starring down the street.