I was jumped once. Such a strange word with an innocence that doesn't matter, a couple of young men in their confusion, throwing as many punches as they can against your body. I was lucky though, cuz they really didn't want to hurt me. Since then I have studied the punch in its perfection. A punch can be the whole body, if you choose; but that choice requires a certain measure of discipline that goes beyond the moment of anger, the moment of betrayal the moment of fear. In this regard, a study of the punch becomes a study of the body.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a fighter, and have spent little time fighting out of all the years of my life. In this way, I am mystified by the idea of the struggle. Perhaps the only thing that saves me from completely separating from such an idea is my clarity of how blessed I am. If I am too drunk, or too trapped in fear, I imagine I am the worst, unlucky, bastard in the world. I sing the blues. I look out at and see nothing, but I hear the cymbals and drums of my words and thoughts against my own skull, blurring everything into an idea that sounds like crooked music. Shit's funky, Yessirr! but it is a funky that makes you dance so when the song is over you are exhausted and spent, like you've just made love and were only urge. It's not clean, but it's not dirty either. It's just how things are.
Jeff Haskins knocked me out in the bathroom at our school in between classes in my fifteenth year. I was unfortunate then and in my blindness neglected to realize Jeff was almost a hundred pounds more than me with the sleeves of his arms almost busting out of his shirt.
“What the fuck is up, I am tried of you always talking that shit, running your mouth!” He shouted out.
And I’m like, “Yeah, Whatever.”
Solei was there, with his always finely cut hair that seemed to tower into the sky like a skyscraper adding something to him that was cool and passionate, defiant, and picturesque. It was that D.C. 1986 high top fade. I sported one for a while, which made me odd and symbolic of something I felt but really never articulated quite well. For those with vocabulary challenges, there is no other way to describe the young man, who many years later was found in a car with his tongue cut out in D.C. murder rate bullshit. Front seat of the car I always wanted to have, a white Cabriolet Volkswagon convertible.
But right then Solei was alive, as I like to say in 3-D and HD, talking shit with a swagger and vibrancy that made him stand out. His pants were always a fabric that could not be found on the discount racks my mother back to school shopped for me and my sister deep in the suburbs outside the city. Solei had finely pressed shirts, and talked shit like he was an adult. You could not see him in school with us and not know he was an adult in some other world when we got off school. I always knew it, but didn't know why; back then. I never thought huslter.
Aw shit, Solei said, Smitty bout to get fucked up.; but I thought, I gotta chance. In many regards I was fearless. My little two steps in the wall mirror at home, my pushups, had not yet begun. Strange, I knew I was angry which seemed to cloud everything in my mind, but hadn't realized beneath that anger was an inability to fight. Perhaps I was naive enough to think that both where the same thing.
For to really know how to fight is to replace fear of others with mastery of oneself. The ego that thing so hard to tame in body work becomes the thing which will take charge of ones skill and put one in the grave, or the prison. You whoop somebody's ass when you know how to fight, your ego will kill them for you, with your own hands. Dare you to practice any art devoted to the body and watch the day, your own hands, arms and bodies emerge like a revelation that is capable of destruction you were previously unaware of. Our own bodies are limited by what our mind imagines them to be. Dare to train or get in touch and you will imagine that even what you thought you were given as a body is far more powerful than you expected.
Gebari was there too, who seemed to have an innocence and distance that snugged in perfectly with Solei's bravado and maturity. One day Solei, had pushed up close to Gebari sounding like one of my Uncles on a mad rampage, and was like, you don't get no pussy Gebari, shit nigger, you even sperming? Yall, check this shit Gebari aint even sperming. Gebari was still by the door. He came in, I saw him behind me.
Jeff backed himself to the wall, took a boxer's stance and bounced alot. Seeing the replay now, you could see there was a deadly power in his bounce. Not really perfect form, he was light enough, but he could move well and was heavy enough to have any quickness be an real asset. In other words heavy handed nigger would knock your ass out.
And he was high yellow with six older brothers, tough as nails, had spent most of his life getting taxed in house by the people who were supposed to love him. Whatever he did to me was simply the truth of the inside suddenly making its way out.
Who knows how I lifted up my hands, I am sure the stance was full of flaws. It would still be half a decade before I learned how to throw a jab. It was all real quick. He jiggled his hands or rather pivoted his upper body from side to side, remaining balanced and rooted. His weight was synced up and he didn't even throw a jab. He just stepped in with right followed by a left hook that blinded me. It was seconds, two punches, and I fell back. Only one punch. He followed through with some more combinations, but he hit air. Cuz my ass was already on the ground.
