FIVE AND ONE HALF - Chapter 5

Jessie never destroyed her portrait but showed it around.  Soon I began to get calls from people I never knew. They wanted to have their picture painted and before I knew it I was in business.  

Along with my graphics studies I had taken up photography and with some new programs I bought I could make people look great. 

I was finishing the eleventh grade and still hadn’t had a real date. Everyone was going with some at least once in a while but, “Shorty was left out.”  

Most of the fourth graders girls were as tall as me and a high school boy (not even me) wouldn’t date one so young, though I must admit I was tempted.  

There was one thing my dad did with me and that was teach me how to defend myself.  

Dad was a big tough guy that worked the docks and that was part of the reason he didn’t take to me. He was determined to teach me to fight and protect myself.  

Sometimes late at night he would be showing me how to feint, duck, and slip a punch. But what was the hardest was to take a punch and get up and continue the fight.  

After doing this from the time I was small I had all of the moves ingrained in my psyche and then came the dirty fighting or street fighting like he had to do on the docks.  

After learning all of this and being hard bodied (though small) I decided it would be better for me just to take it and not to get in a brawl so I always just ignored the insults and went my way.  

The last day of school I was walking down the hallway when one of the seniors shoved me into another senior and almost knocked him down. He was one of the meaner guys in the school.  

He grabbed me and said I’m going to get you after school and teach you not to be careless when you walk.  I thought of my old man and how he stood up to all of the tough guys on the docks and I surprise myself and everyone else by saying, “Okay, after school, be there.”

I figured the worst would be a few bruises and a black eye which wouldn’t be so bad.  

I showed up at the place where most fights happened after school and here he came with most of the school following him.  

I thought all this just to see me get beat to a pulp. I had pulled my shirt off and stood waiting when he came up telling me what he was going to do.

I said for him to shut up and fight if he wasn’t afraid of me.

 

In my mind was all the dirty tricks my dad had taught me and without thinking I kicked him on the side of his knee and he buckled.  

Then I kicked him in the ribs and this took most of the fight out of him he was bent over and I kicked him in the throat just hard enough to finish him off. 

He lay there moaning and crying. A couple of his friends stepped up as to take up the fight but some of the football team quickly put a stop on them.  

I helped my antagonizer up and said, “Lets go get cleaned up before we go home.”  He didn’t have any actual wounds that need attention but getting his hands and face washed made him feel much better.  

I told him he was going to be very sore tomorrow so go home and soak in some Epson salts for that would help some. 

He said, “Thanks and I can’t believe you whipped me so easy and fast. You are bigger than you look.”  

This was the only time I had ever been treated like that for I was always looked down upon.  

I truly hoped this was the only fight I would ever be in because it is a sure way to get hurt. 

To be Continued