Pyrrhic

I remember my first fight. 7th grade - there was a kid that lived down the block, one Brian Neville, who one day decided that he was going to pick on my little sister. He started calling her names. I told him to knock it off. He gave me a shove. "Make me." Although I had successfully managed to avoid fighting, I actually thought about it a lot. This was junior high in the Wild Midwest; lots of hormone-crazed assholes who I'm sure eventually grew up to become serial killers or prison guards. I decided that if my usual approach to avoiding a fight - charm 'em with kindness and wit, defuse things before they got out of hand - did not work and I had to fight someone...well, I wouldn't start it, but by God I would finish it.

"Make me." He repeated it. My sister was in third grade. He was calling her names. A real tough guy. I obliged.

When Brian tried for that second shove, I grabbed his arm, punched him in the stomach, and when he keeled over I grabbed a handful of his hair and dragged him screaming down the length of the driveway, pausing once or twice to kick him in the side. I think my sister might have been crying. I know Brian was. "You fight like a girl", he sobbed. I didn't say anything to him, just looked at him - through him - as he got on his bike and pedaled his chickenshit self home.  I'd given a bully a beating that he surely deserved, but all I remember is feeling hollow, even vaguely sick. My first fight would be my last.

I got a call today while on my lunch break. It was Beth. "Lucas got into a fight at school." "Oh, no", I said. "What happened?"

"Well, he didn't start it. Two of the bigger boys in the pre-K class started pushing and hitting him."

I saw red. Grabbed the steering wheel and squeezed it until my knuckles turned white. "Fuck. Who was it." Not a question. For a split second I thought about those two little shits and what I'd...

"Lucas won't tell me. But one of them was sent home - he's apparently done this before - and the teacher was watching and she stopped it before anyone got hurt. And I guess Lucas stuck up for himself - he hit one of them back."

"Good." I was surprised at the vehemence. "Too bad he's not in karate. A nice flying spin kick to the  teeth would have taught that kid a lesson. I'll talk to Lucas about it when I get home."

When I walked into the house, he was sitting in his little chair, watching The Wonder Pets and eating crackers. His first fight, I thought. "Hi Daddy", he said. I made dinner, let him talk to my parents on the phone, then got him into his bath. At some point during all that, we talked as best we could about what had happened. I told him that he wasn't in trouble, and that it's ok to protect yourself if someone starts hitting you, and that you should run and tell the teacher if that happens again, and that you should never start fighting with someone. He seemed to take it all in stride - kids are resilient, or so we tell ourselves. But he seemed tired, in a way that I hadn't seen from him, and I wondered if - perhaps hoped that - he felt like I did after my first and only fight.