The Match

Everybody was really excited about the fight.

Normally, some jerk would report the thing to a teacher,

but it didn’t happen this time.

Jay, an eighth grader,

the captain of the middle school lacrosse team

told Olly, a big oaf-y seventh grader,

to meet him at the back field,

so named because it was a couple of blocks

behind the school.

The fight was over Olly calling Jay,

a sonofabitch,

because Jay had knocked Olly’s backpack

off his back and onto the floor

as they passed in the hall.

Jay could not abide the insult to his mother,

so the match was set.

Jay, in addition to being an athlete,

considered himself a connoisseur of boxing.

He followed all the great fighters in different weight classes

and expounded on the Philly shell or peek-a-boo defense

Olly was into: Dungeons & Dragons,

comic books about adolescent radioactive black-belt hamsters

and his pet cat, Clint.

He was tall and pudgy

with an unkempt wispy mop of hair.

His complexion was pale and pasty

from a life indoors

It was a late winter day

before the spring sports started,

but with fine spring weather

Only boys were allowed to go to the fight,

because, it was reasoned, that girls

would more likely narc the thing out.

A circle formed and the chant began,

quietly at first, and building to a crescendo:

“fight, Fight, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!”

Both boys stepped from opposite ends of the circle

to face each other.

There in the light of day

without his baggy coat

Olly was for the first time on full display.

Somehow, around the school

he was stooped and awkward looking,

but outside, though he was very pale,

standing upright, he looked big.

As the two squared up,

Olly’s hands balled in fists

and looked almost as big as Jay’s head.

Jay seemed to register this as well,

but his face was set with determination.

He feigned a right punch  

and then swung a left hook at Jay’s body.

There was a lot of force in that shot

and Jay just swatted it away,

sending John stumbling into the ground.

The group shouted, “Ohhhs!”

Jay’s buddies followed up with encouragement,

“You got this.  You got this.”

He jumped to his feet and

Hopped from side to side with his fists

low on either side of his face.

He started bobbing his head from side to side

in the manner of Mike Tyson.

Jay was not Mike Tyson.

Olly swung a haymaker at his head.

In his life,

it was the first punch he had thrown.

Instinctively, he through his weight into

the looping shot

All that mass of him, his thick legs,

his wide back, twisting at the waist.

It all drove into Jay’s left fist

which was held at the side of his face,

ostensibly to protect it.

There was a long audible crunch,

a bite on a crisp celery stalk.

The force of the blow broke bones

In Jay’s hand and face.

He fell to the ground and moaned

clutching his face,

sobbing uncontrollably.

The boys were all silent for a moment

“Yo! That was some straight thug shit!” 

Jay went to the hospital.

His parents were outraged

and demanded to know

who had injured their son.

Jay wouldn’t give up Olly,

or anyone else.

He was grounded by his parents

for a month

and coach took away

his captain title.

The following fall

a bunch of Jay’s buddies

recruited Olly

for the football team

to shore up

their porous line.

Olly became the team’s center,

and within a year,

captain.