CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Damien and His Brother Coming to Kick My Ass

Sunday, November 10, 2013

this entry brought to you by the national, "i should live in salt"


I knew this girl in high school, her name was Kim. Kim was super cute, we sat next to one another in English class. At the time I didn't know it, but she had a crush on me. This was my second year of high school and I'd already started to develop an idea of the kind of girl I liked, and Kim, adorable as she was, was the kind of girl who dotted her eyes with hearts-- a far cry from the sullen punk rock girls I was getting eyes for.

School ended and I didn't put much thought to her, assuming I'd either never lock eyes with her again or, at best, get ignored while passing one another between classes, but she showed up one day at the mall my friends and I hung out. She'd dyed her hair black since the last time I'd seen her, was wearing black pants, a black shirt. Not goth, but much closer to all the kinds of people I was hanging out with. She was pleased to see me and attached herself to me, which, honestly, I didn't mind. I liked this new Kim.

She took me to the Claire's Boutique and bought me some "best friend" paraphernalia, insisting I never take it off. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this was the third time in the prior six months that a girl did this for me.

And then there was Damien. Damien was sketchy as hell. He was 23-- much older than any of the rest of us, who were all generally between fifteen and sixteen and eighteen at the oldest-- short, skinny, and had a rat face; his hair was buzzed on the sides and long up top, a craggy mustache and soul patch, and a long pinkie fingernail-- make of that what you will. But honestly, when you hang out with the group of friends that I did in high school, all of my personal friends were great, honest people. But when friends and friends of friends and hangers on all got together, the people on the fringes of the group were beyond "sketchy"-- drug dealers and various scum of the earth. Nobody in my group liked Damien, but he wasn't as bad as some people we were unfortunately acquainted with, so we put up with him.

And Kim, bless her heart, got swept up in his bad boy schtick, and within days of her showing up to our mall, she was dating him. Of course, this didn't last long. After about three weeks of this nonsense I sat her down and told her what a sack of crap Damien was. She dumped him promptly, thanking me almost tearfully and with hugs, telling me what a good friend I was.

Damien, of course, was incensed, and he approached me at the mall telling me that he was going to get his brother and he was going to kick my ass. I rolled my eyes. Whatever.

The truth of the matter was I honestly didn't think Damien would notice his girlfriend of three weeks was missing. I was sure he was having sex with some other girl as well and wouldn't miss her at all.Yes, he was pissed at me because I'd been directly involved in his piece of property no longer being there to make out with him, but with Damien's various drug habits, not to mention the availability of low self esteemed girls of his own age, I was sure he would immediately forget about it.

To my surprise, however, he showed up with his older brother the next day, who, while not much taller than Damien, was essentially a large mound of muscles in a tight black shirt. He was very Guido-looking, dyed black hair slicked back, a single earring, and wearing a black wife beater that was impossibly tight. He was staring a hole through me, arms crossed.

"I gotta hand it to you, Chris," Damien said, grinning. "I thought you'd puss out. I definitely have to give it up to you for having the balls for showing up."

"Really?" I asked coolly. "You date some sixteen year old still in high school for three weeks and when I tell her you're a sack of shit, which you are, you come to kick my ass for it? Is this worth it? Does your brother even know you were dating a sixteen year old? Does he even know her fucking name? Had he ever heard about her before yesterday? This is really worth it to you?"

I watched Damien cool off. He was still eyeballing me, looking me up and down, sizing me up, but I could see all the color returning to his face.

And after a moment of silence, his brother, arms still crossed but with eyes considerably less intense, made a loud sighing noise and said "Are we going to kick this guy's ass or not?"

Now, I'm a pacifist. I'm not an aggro kind of guy, I'm not the type to fight. But I honestly understand "family first", to the extent that I can understand why someone else would feel like protecting his brother if someone was picking a fight with him. I can see saying "Who is picking on you? Let's go kick that guy's ass." I'm not saying that's the route that I would take if I had a brother that needed backup, but it's not like I don't understand the idea of backing someone up in a fight.

But it was clear that the prior day, Damien went up to his brother and said "Hey, I need to kick someone's ass tomorrow, want to come?" And his brother said "Sure, I got nothing to do tomorrow." Or, more likely, his brother said "Sure, I got shit to do tomorrow so let's make sure we're back before 4."

And as much as this story is about this guy I knew who was a sack of crap and tried to beat me up for the dumbest reason possible, who clearly thought that a girl was his fucking property just because he'd made out with her a couple times (I'd asked; they'd never had sex), this story is actually about Damien's brother. The guy who was going to go beat somebody up just because. Not for money, not for honor, just because. Because there was time open on his schedule.

Fuck that guy.
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Incidentally, this was shortly after I quit karate, so out of all the times when somebody could pick a fight with me, this was absolutely the best moment to do it because I was still sharp and, moreover, flexible as hell. 34 year old Chris would be significantly at a disadvantage were this to happen now.
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with love from CRS @ 2:37 PM 

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