One Punch Knockout

Here is what I thought I heard the poet say; “Knocked a guy out in one punch.”

Nice.

I thought the poet said, “It isn’t easy to knock a man out with one punch unless it’s in a movie.” So, I’m feeling low because the best I’ve ever done is to knock a few down. But they got back up. Later I found that I was mistaken, the poet, like me, just knocked them down. No small thing but not a knock-out.

Knocking a person down, or simply hitting them with intent is the walking embodiment of madness. A conversation. Opposing points of view. An errant stroke of your friends girl’s butt. Crossed wires. Momentary loss of language. Suddenly it’s fist city where the mail arrives in an explosive roar like some idiot firing an RPG.

Rocky the Hodcarrier knocked out the toughest guy in Stockton; hit him in the face with a chain. I don’t recall why he thought it necessary to knock a man out with a length of chain. That story might have been a guide to positive social behavior. I didn’t consider questioning the why part of the story being young and enthralled by the muscle and blood.

Mad fear tears people up; fear and working knowledge of battle. Crazy fear makes normally steady guys random and temporarily dangerous. The set up can be any or a combination of these things or something I’ve missed; love, isolation, misplaced emotion, ignorance, misunderstood compassion, winning, losing, the other and one another . Crazy fear passes like a rain storm. But in the midst of the downpour we slug it out. As it passes we blow clotted snot from our nose then pass from the scene.

Try fighting with a girl.

Women’s rules are different. They don’t punch; instead you are disemboweled with a butter knife. Or worse. I’ve never understood fighting without punching. I notice more and more well bred men employ the tactic of clubbing the opponent with words, but that is a dangerous gambit on their part that could painfully loop back on them when confronting a man with nothing to lose. Bruised feelings hurt the fighter worse than a fist in the nose and almost always invite retaliation. Fighting with words, girl fighting, is a sneaky way to conduct business. Quite honestly, and I am well aware that few things count as rules in fighting, I don’t think girl fighting is fair. Girl fighting isn’t about pounding the shit out of the opponent; it’s about touching coup. Humiliation on the half shell.

I found it important to make amends to a former girlfriend. If you don’t know it’s an AA thing. I felt the need to make things right with her. Possibly buried in a shallow grave was the thought that it might grease the skids to sexual congress. You know, clean things up, clear the air, then add the perfumy tang of sex. The amends process didn’t go quite as planned. Ann, we’ll call her Ann, regarded me as one might a sidewinder. I started, “Ann,” I said, “I done you wrong...”

“You’re goddamn right you did me wrong you sonofabitch. I fucking hate your fucking guts; the shit you put me through. Don’t even think about coming back for your shit. I took a hammer to the camera. Said you wouldn’t show those pictures to your friends; my ass ...” Turning the volume way down I drift into the calm center of a fist fight with Bob Senf. A sirocco of flying fists blot out the waning moon and the single streetlamp perched high on a creosote pole. I’m hitting and being hit and hugging Bob tighter than any girl I’ve ever loved. Catching a looping hook finds me legless with the feeling of being swallowed into the weedy grass and dirt covered patch of ground our ravenous drunken band occupy. Down and in supplication I’ve created shell that only marginally protects me from the hailstorm of punches. I’ve fought this fight many times.

Meanwhile Ann enumerates the myriad sins I’ve overlooked as I endeavor to atone for my recognizable sins.

My mouth again tastes of phantom blood, a link in the chain of recall that selects the distinct and profound bouquet of cut grass, pine, new laid asphalt, stale wine and cigarettes after a punch in the nose. Before the knockdown there is a profound joy in landing an uppercut to Bob Senf’s belly that upon every visit to this memory makes him wince.

Like a freight train punching through a heat mirage crossing the desert floor, Ann rolls on without slowing, she’s possessed of powerful combustion and insane torque. She rides tracks of shimmering mercury, her passing congers tormented dust-devils.

Fist fight with the guys; admire your bloodied knuckles, check for punctures, loose teeth, and broken bones. All’s as it should be, go ahead now, step from the drunken dizzy night with dignity. After all you know this.