I couldn’t believe it. Chris was serious. There would be no way to worm my way out of the mess I was in. “Okay, friend,” I said as sarcastically as possible. “Let’s do this.” But before we were turned loose on one another, our “corner men” had to pat us down for weapons. Apparently Dave and Rosie had discussed the ground rules on their way home from the Dunes the night before. It became obvious that they had actually been looking forward to our little “battle-royale” since I threw down the challenge at the party. They took their jobs seriously as they each diligently searched Chris and I for hidden weapons. It was all so surreal that I just stood there and tried to force myself to believe that it was all really happening. Suddenly reality, and Chris’s left fist, hit me square in the jaw. Game on. I shook off the initial blow and circled around Chris while he searched for another opening. As he came back in close, I ducked a left hook that would have surely killed me had it connected, and threw my right arm around Chris’s neck. I squeezed with all my might and found myself controlling my flailing opponent in a deep headlock. With my left, I fired uppercut after uppercut into Chris’s face. I landed at least six or seven shots before he finally managed to wrestle himself free. “Wrestle” being the key word, because Chris was a member of the school’s wrestling squad, and he knew exactly how to end the fight at any time. We danced around for a few more minutes and then he made his move. He lunged at my legs for a textbook takedown and had me laid flat on my back before I had any chance to react. His fists started raining down on me while I lay pinned under his weight. We would have never met in an official wrestling match because he outweighed me by a good forty pounds. But there were no such safeguards in place on the golf course that day, and Chris proceeded to pummel me relentlessly. I finally managed to roll onto my belly, which did nothing to stop the pounding Chris was giving me. It only slowed his attack down when his fists started to ache from hammering them repeatedly into the back of my skull. After a few minutes, he at last rolled off of me, utterly exhausted. I lay there for a while, half expecting him to resume, but thankfully, he did not. Our corner men helped us to our feet, dusted us off, and inspected our wounds. I was bleeding from my nose and from a split and swollen lip. Blood trickled down Chris’s face from a nasty gash above his left eye. While catching our breath, we both took a second to look at each other and admire our handiwork.
Dave broke the silence. “Are we all done?” We both nodded. “Good. We still have a case and a half of beer left over from last night.”
“Love Shack?” I asked.
“Love Shack,” Chris agreed.
I vowed to never fight again. As the wise Dave Richards once said, “Fightin’ just gets in the way of drinkin’ beer.” Who could argue with that?
No comments:
Post a Comment