This was a tag team fight, couple versus couple, ex-lover versus new lover. On our side was Helen Crabgrass, a white girl, a petite little snapper from a bad home. She must have been about 16. Her partner, my buddy Mark, another white boy, was an upper-middle-working class kid known more for his sharp wit than his hard hit. Helen's opponent was a young lady by the name of Bobby-Joe Burbank. Bobby stood about 5-11, a big girl who looked oriental but was supposedly part Cherokee. She too was from a bad background, a singular trailer that she'd grown up in with daddy, down next to the metal scrap-yard near the Kellogg-Post's Housing Projects. Bobby-Joe's boyfriend and tag team partner was Helen's ex. His name was Richard Townsend. He was short and stocky and had an eye twitch, but I did not know this yet; the fight was such a sudden blur, and Richard and I were yet to become friends.  I only knew then that his cousin was Michael Mills, a kid whom I'd beaten on repeatedly all through elementary and middle school but was now impressively scared of because he knew how to look mean and lived in a scary neighborhood.
 
I recall feeling mean and cocky too, before the fight. I had an axe handle stashed next to me as I stood behind the open door of my buddy's old Toyota. We all had weapons. In reality we were a swim team, attracted to a nasty scene, excusing ourselves from a parentally hosted swim party to go watch our captain kick ass. In the darkness of the park we saw an old Thunderbird slowly creep our way. No headlights, and then the wheels squealed, smoking towards us. We braced as the tires shrieked and the car stopped before us. Two men lay atop the massive hood of the car. Their fedora hats were tilted over their sunglasses and they casually leaned upon their elbows whilst puffing on the cigs coolly hanging off their lips. 
 
We must have had three seconds to take in their entrance. I did not know which fight to watch. The tag-teams moved to the center simultaneously. Above Helen loomed the massive figure of Bobby-Joe, junkyard devil. Before Mark, the squat figure of Richard, who roared out a war whoop before nailing Mark dead in the groin. Mark had danced a bit and attempted a feeble jab, but Rich was not one for warm-ups. He pulled Bill's coat over his head while repeatedly kneeing him in the testicles. Mark released an agonized squeal and fell crumpled at the victor's feet, a disposable puppet. I trembled behind my car door wondering what to do. The other swimmers seemed frozen. I noticed their heads were all turned toward the girls.
 
Helen had Bobby by the hair. Bobby's head was lowered and Helen was kneeing her in the face and groin, thrusting up the force of her entire body with each knee-jab. Bobby-Joe too, collapsed at her master's feet. Whilst Helen dragged Bobby-Joe along the pavement, Rich kicked Mark in the stomach. Mark continued to squeal and I may have tried to recover his remains. Then again maybe I did not. But I do recall, that at about the same moment Rich was dragging Mark towards a dark corner between cars, my eyes were frozen to Helen and Bobby. Helen had placed Bobby's face on a tall concrete curb. Then she stomped upon her face for quite some time. The noise of Helen's cussing was overwhelming and, recalling it now, I wonder if I'd the urge to wet myself.
 
After Helen's attempted murder, the rest was a blur. We pulled Mark out of the grass somewhere in the dark and drove off. He lay whimpering in the back seat as his beloved Helen cursed and growled and gnawed on empty beer cans while beating her head against the door.
 
The next day I saw Billy Joe Burbank at a shopping mall. Her face was scabbed over and purple. Her head swelled up like a pumpkin and of course one eye was sealed shut. I did not see defeat, but a woman whom absolutely terrified me. Her loss had made her look even meaner.
 
The one particular scene of Helen bashing Bobby's head into a concrete corner did not truly strike my conscious recollections until I saw the skinhead in "American History X" murder the black guy in the same way. Maybe I'd placed it far into the back of my mind in safe denial. Maybe I'd really just forgotten because, really, from that particular fight I'd learned quite a bit. The approach used by Helen and Richard; swift, direct and merciless, has not yet failed to save me in a tight spot. That night was the beginning. I was addicted to the rush, the spectacle of the Saturday night fight club. I recall my buddy Bobby Walsh, a nice guy really, who carried a lock on his belt, strapped loosely about his hips like a gunfighter's belt. I saw him use it on Jack Jeffers one day at lunch next to the school tennis courts, pulling Jack's jacket over his head! and whipping him silly with that bludgeon belt. Later Bob was arrested for numerous armed robberies. Crack habit. Initially he'd used a brick on his victims' heads, but later he'd seen me carrying pepper spray for protection and switched to robbing people with pepper spray until some hard-ass shook off his assault and drilled Bobby to the floor with an ax handle. He's been in prison since 1990, was supposed to get out in '97 but after beating on some guards is now in until 2015. I wonder if he will ever get out.
 
The list goes affectionately on. My closest chum Juan; family man partial to wooden softball bats; a massive Mexican brawler from Denver, a man with the power to pick his opponents up over his head and shake them silly. Simultaneously, Juan dotes upon his friends like a concerned nursemaid when in hostile situations. He is not unlike a Great Dane, a wonderful and patient playmate guarding friends and family with concerned affection and with the potential to rip any trespasser throat out. I always feel safe with Juan and I always know he cares. Yet I have not learned much about fighting from Juan. His victories come solely from power and skill whereas mine come from a pragmatic desire to come out of a fight unscathed. I still count my blessings.
 
As a family man Juan is retired from fight club, but I did see him fight once. His fourteen-year old brother Mario was tossed through a plate glass window by a 26 year-old ex-cop from Boston. Mario had warned the guy, "if you hurt me my big brother will kick your ass". Juan and his buddy Ricky destroyed five tough guys. All of them were cops and all were on probation for excessive violence. Juan saved me from two of them by breaking an ax handle on one's back. They were smashing my head into a wall when Juan jumped in swinging the ax handle. He pulled me out, telling me to get in the car and behave. His buddy Ricky, a stocky little gymnast weighing max 150, sent another ex-cop literally skidding across the dirt from one strike to the chin with a brick. In the end it was the cops on probation that had to call the local cops. The local cops were all regulars at Juan's Tex-Mex restaurant. All innocent victims denied seeing any weapons in Juan's hands. Still, the next day rumors wandered about my university that some Mexicans had started a fight.
 
Now I am in Korea. Here I can sleep on the streets, even in the Russian sailor's district, and wake up the next morning unharmed. Everyday I read about or listen to foreigners claiming Korean men are so much more violent towards their wive's and children than Western men. I suspect it's a crock of shit. I paddle my own children and Koreans are shocked. The whole concept of physical discipline before age 12 seems nonexistent. In the West I've seen kids black and blue from dad's drunkenness. I recall it from classmates in school and later from students in the same schools. One of my neighbors used to stab her husband with a kitchen knife, it seemed, once every month. We could here the fights from our house across the street. Now the oldest daughter of this family takes beatings from her second husband, just as she did from her first. My mother, a teacher, tells me about kids with cigar burns and hair lice. No doubt it exists here as well, but I have yet to see so much of it. Maybe they hide it better.
 
The ultimate irony is that somehow I recollect all of these little stories with twisted affection, like memories of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. I suspect many normal Americans would say the same thing. We all have our impressive fight stories that we share over beers. And now I want to raise my children back there, in America. I want them to experience Americana. Hmm . . .