The Honorable Fistfight

Every Thursday after school we’d meet behind the football field between the tall chain-linked fence and the row of honeysuckle shrubs for fistfights. If anyone had a beef with someone, this is the time and place to work things out. No sticks, no knives and certainly no guns. Just two people with a disagreement.

The rules were that no spectator could intervene during the fight, and no eye gauging because we needed to be able to see the black board from the back of the room the next day in class. All else was fair, including a kick to the family jewels, which was a rare money shot that always put spectators in an uproar.

For some reason, the spring season brought more fistfights, possibly because it was time to ramp up competition for prom dates. Another possible reason was that tension tended to rise toward the second half of the school year when people grew on each other’s nerves, best friends grew tired of each other and bad rumors made full circles.

And springtime also brought the greatest number of spectators, probably because no one had to carry heavy coats and hats and gloves, and everyone was energized by the fresh scent of honeysuckle, irises and buttercup anemones in the air. Perhaps the greatest elixir of male youth is the scent of spring mixed with the smell of testosterone and the taste of blood. From the way it looked, girls liked this elixir as much as boys, and from time to time we all enjoyed fistfights between two girls.

I had never been in one of these weekly fistfights, but I was as excited about them as anyone else watching two people flailing fists and feet and rolling in the grass and dirt, until one or both fighters were too tired to continue, and we slowly picked up our backpacks and baseball caps and went home. By the end of the school year most of the fighters were either civil to each other or were friends. A lot could be said for sharing an honorable fistfight.

Years later I can still observe fistfights, though most are in the form of carefully constructed words and competitive business strategies. Adult fistfights are sophisticated, and tend to leave bruises that last longer than those given between the chain-linked fence and honeysuckle shrubs. These were no more or no less honorable than the fistfights behind the football field, and in the end we all shake hands, slowly pick up our briefcases and satchels and go home.

These days it seems all the young kids bring knives and guns to a fight. Egos are weak and no one knows how to roll up a good old-fashion fist. I wonder what kind of adult fistfights we’ll see tomorrow in the depth of relationships and behind the close doors of boardrooms.