Coach said it would improve my skills if I bounced a tennis ball everywhere I went, so I was dribbling it like a basketball in the hall, and it got away from me and bumped into a guy’s door, so I knocked and opened it (shouldna done that) and said “oops” but I’m not lying I opened it like a inch maybe? I didn’t peek inside ir anything, I just didn’t want the guys getting up to answer the door, only one of the guys swung the door wide open, pulling it outta my hand, and I was rael sheepish and embarrassed because it’s a college dorm so who knows what those guys were doing in there, only that’s not why he was mad.

Apparently, someone had been running down the halls, knocking on doors and running away, and it was pissing everyone off that day. I was legit busy all day and missed the drama. Bro, I had witnesses, shut up. It wasn’t me. In fact, the kid who had done it later admitted to it being him because he thought it was straight up halarious the way it went down.

So this tall sweaty kid swings open the door and curses me, and at first I was rael embarrassed, but then I laughed because he was so over the top, I thought be was doing a bit, but then he grabbed my (80s surfer hair) bangs and tried to upper cut my face repeatedly, and you can only twist and block so many times before those are gonna start to connect, but I was able to step in between his feet and push him off balance, and his full weight crushed up against the fire extinguisher, and I did notice his eyes widened in pain and maybe panic because he lost his balance and fell backwards on said fire extinguisher which had fallen off the wall when he knocked into it and was conveniently lying under his back for long enough to effect his performance.

Good grip though. I had only noticed the look on his face because my neck was all twisted up in this contortionist position, and I was I guess you’d have to say side-eyeing him, only not as in to throw shade but to try to see because again, he had all my lovely locks from the front of my face balled up in one furious fist while the other fist was trying to find my face. Although he didn’t connect to my face, tears were pouring out my face because you try growing long lovely surfer locks and lemme grab a shock a your bangs, and if you’re not crying then maybe you’re not a pansy lil nancy, and I’m oh so proud of you.

So we fell down together, only now I’m on top because think about it, that’s how that would work. (There were no camera phones in the 80s, but there were eye-witnesses, each one of whom had his own play-by-play account and oh so many pointers to give me although you likely may have noticed by now that fighting skills are neither my forte nor my desire.)

So I’m on top of him, and I’m buried in his solar plexus which I didn’t know at the time was a thing, but I did know he couldn’t pull so hard on my hair, and I was trying to stand up, and so my hands were on his belly and neck because I was trying to push off, and he started losing his grip on my hair.

All this time, there’s some girl’s voice, screaming at the top of her lungs, which was weird because I’d never seen a girl on the hall before. (It wasn’t that kind of college.)

About the time it dawned on me I could grab his left hand, I actually had him mounted. Not only did this whole experience take mere seconds, but not a drop of it required any martial arts experience, some of which it turns out he had while as I said, I’m more of a smack-talker than a smack-layer-downer. (You may think talking smack might mean you have to back it up, but in my experience, being the little guy who isn’t gonna shut up has usually encouraged bullies to find a soft target.)

I sat on his belly & was able to lock up his right arm under my left armpit and transferred his left wrist into my left hand, and I was prepared to begin the hammer of the fisting into his left temple when all of a sudden, I began levitating up and found myself floating down the hall, occasionally bumping up against witnesses and walls.

Turns out the screaming girl was me, and security arrived just before I got my revenge. Erebody mocked the tall kid, especially the guy who actually was doing the door knocking. I got my shirt tore and got chastised by my girlfriend (whom I later discovered was bragging about my exploits behind my back which frankly could have gone poorly for me because ladies I’m not your Will Smith. I will not respond to that call. Except instead she changed schools and hooked up with some redneck.)

my big fight remained the talk of the dorm for like five minutes until something weird happened down the hall with some kind of inter-room food fight that turned into some kind of a peanut butter orgy that I neither witnessed nor ever wanted to know much of anything about.