I hit him - hard. He got back up and wobbled over to where I was standing. His lip was bleeding and my knuckles were skinned. I wasn’t sure but I think one of them was probably broken.
“Is that the best you can do,” he sneered? “My sister used to hit me harder than that and she only weighed about 70 pounds.”
“Listen, I said I don’t want to fight – why can’t you just leave it at that? Why get yourself all smacked around and maybe get some real damage?”
“Real damage? You’re going to pass along some real damage to me?” He looked up into the sky. “I don’t see any pigs flying,” he laughed.
The stretch of his lip when he laughed caused it to start bleeding heavily. Large drops rolled over his bottom lip and spilled to the floor. As I stood there, momentarily mesmerized by the blood flowing from his lips, he swung a huge haymaker right that caught me squarely on the side of the head. My eyes momentarily rolled back in my head and I abruptly sat down; not neatly or gingerly, mind you, but with a huge ‘whump’ that rattled my teeth together.
He stood over me and there was no longer a trace of laughter in his face. I knew what was coming next – a swift kick aimed at my ribs but I managed to partially block it with my left arm and I caught his foot with my right hand and pulled over and upward as hard and fast as I could. He fell backwards and his head smacked against the floor. He wasn’t unconscious but he was temporarily out of the fight. I took advantage of his situation and struggled to my feet. My head was throbbing and my left arm was strangely numb.
I knew that I had to do something to stop this fight; it was way out of hand. I did what any self-respecting boy would do.
“Mom, Mike started a fight and when I hit him back I split his lip. The blood on the floor is from his lip – he made the mess, not me!”
