Oh, so you're an atheist?
A militant atheist in my time: but that was then and I did what I had to do.
No regrets either.
I'll tell you in second..
Take your time - I have lots of happiness to share if you need some.
What, like this? (I take it that you didn't follow it up with the hammer fist)
No, not really. Gerry came at me with fists and boots flying all over the place, his coordination was second rate. As a drummer, I have complete independence in all four limbs. I also have pin-point accuracy also from the discipline of the basic rudiments of drumming. I also have rather long arms and legs and I stand at 6'2'' in my bare feet. So when a guy shorter and broader than I comes at me, I try to dodge and dance around my opponent to see where their balance and technique lies. Once I spot an opening, it's all over: one clean fist to the face (anywhere, doesn't matter) will either knock him flat out or else merely hurt him badly while setting him off in a rage.
Once the emotions are added in, the task gets even easier.
An angry and uncoordinated shorter opponent isn't much of a threat to me.
Gerry took the punch I gave him, but when the other bystanders were picking him up, I was already walking away. Then something really sad happened. He yelled down the street after me: '
I'm going to get my big brother after you - you're DEAD'.
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned back to him with a look of total sorrow on my face: he was bleeding and holding his nose/mouth. I knew if I went back that the lads would force us to continue but Gerry had enough, he was all fucked up. I went home, told my parents what happened and waited until school next morning. As soon as I was in the gate, the teachers nabbed me and I brought to the head brother's office: he booted me out for three weeks.
I tried to explain that neither Gerry or I wanted to fight, that we were gang-banged into it.
Didn't care: Gerry had to go to the hospital and then the dentist - I was out on the streets two minutes later.
I walked towards home and the only thing I could feel was sympathy for Gerry - I liked the guy, we got on well.
Then Fr Arthur drove past and stopped the car, he asked what I was doing at ten in the morning walking away from school. I told him what happened, he took me over to his digs (the same one he shared with Anthony Walsh) and gave me a cup of tea and told me to wait there. An hour later he came back and told me to return to school after lunch break, things were sorted out.
I found out then that Gerry had made it clear he had no beef with me - only with the gang that banged us. We talked about it after school and forgave each other. I felt particularly bad because, for all the boots and swings he made, none really connected. I only hit him once, and when he fell, I was already picking up my school bag to leave. Then the thing about his brother: that was when I saw in his face that he didn't really mean a word of it, he was just trying to save face. I felt horrible. But we got over it and got on with things, even though a bond was broken.
Didn't see him again for years, he left after InterCert and went into building with his brother's business. Then started his own, and was hired to do the concrete in the basement of a house I was doing the finishing for. He was a huge fucker by then. But in his eyes?
Still the cheeky little teenage boot-boy I remembered.
We didn't talk about the scrap, ever.
But I'll never forget it.
Even though it turned out as it did, I've always been ashamed of hitting someone I considered a friend and fellow artist.
Perhaps I'd feel different if I just let him hit me a few times - fall over, get up again - and quit?
See, that opens another door to a whole other situation: I'd be constantly targeted like I was for being so tall in primary school. I had to learn to use my few attributes in violence like the Old Man taught me: height and length equals distance and accuracy. Better to make one big hit than stretch a scrap out and get bruised all over before taking the other fucker down. My specialty then was to weave and dodge and wait until I could grab the opponent's hand/wrist/arm and pull the fucker over my shoulder and head first into the dirt. I used that one loads of times. It got the fuckers off my back.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
Violence isn't in my nature, it takes a lot to rile me up into a foaming-at-the-mouth anger.
Last scrap I was in was at the jazz club some years back: one sleazy fucker passed my lady and said some shit about her (rather large) breasts. I tapped him on the shoulder and said aloud: 'you ever speak to my lady like that again and I'll fuck you up'. He snarled at me and fucked off to the toilets, then came back pointing his phone at me saying his mates were coming over. So I stamped him on the back of the ankle with the heel of my boot. He swiped at me and missed. Then again. Another miss. After the third time I waited for his over-reach and then planted him right in the nose/teeth and down he went.
The music stopped, the bar staff and doorman came over and lifted the cunt up and tossed him out the front doors.
They barred him: they know me well for many years, they knew my (then) lady too (she's a popular chef) and that it certainly wasn't either of us who started the shit. They said that the same guy did the same shit all the time and I wasn't the first to plant him.
Lookit: your name is Jambo and you chosen weapon
IS Dutch Gold - everyone knows this.
Scrap?
No?
Ahh.. . ..
(there was with some others, mind), so we just shared a few black eyes and other bruises between us after our fight