FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 74
I also didn’t notice that the black Studebaker pulled up about the time the boy got out of his truck, and Mr. and Mrs. McClain and Corrina were standing out past Red’s truck, watching the whole scene.
None of that had time to compute in a mind going a hundred miles an hour. The bell hadn’t rung yet, and I had no idea how much further this would go, so my attention was on the big boy down at my feet.
Foolishly, I stepped up and reached my hand to help the boy up, and he gritted his teeth, grunted, took my hand, got up with a bit of a limp, and as soon as he was on solid ground took another swing at me.
Reaching down to help him up put me in a bad position, too, so that blow grazed the right side of my face. It was a glancing blow, but it did damage and slid across my left eye and that side of the face.
But I was still lower than him. He lunged with that blow, and I grabbed him again by the now-torn and ripped shirt and, grunting myself this time – the way you do when you go up for a big rebound – wrapped him up and drove him down toward the ground.
He didn’t hit the ground that time, either. He landed squarely in that mud tub half full of mud, and, fortunately, did not cut himself badly on the ragged metal edges. I have torn my blue jeans several times just by walking by those jagged edges, so I knew they could put some hurt on you.
I was glad he wasn’t hurt that way because he would’ve had to be heading to the emergency room. I didn’t know him, and even though he was coming at me like a Grizzly springing out of the woods, I never felt any particular anger toward him.
Perhaps I realized what he was fighting for. But I did drive him into that metal mud tub hard, and that’s when I think I tore open my left elbow on the metal but not on the jagged edges, fortunately. It bled worse than anything, covering both of us with blood. I’m not sure he was bleeding himself, but I was, even though he hadn’t even connected on a solid punch.
After I immersed him in that mud tub of mortar, I could feel the air go out of him. I was pretty sure he had no more fight left.
The truth is, I had plenty and would have plenty as long as I avoided his landing one of his big blows or having him get me down on the ground. Both scenarios had already crossed my mind, and I was prepared to avoid them. He wasn’t getting me down, no matter what. I knew better than that. Funny how fast your mind can switch to survival mode.
To gain the leverage I needed to get up from on top of him and the mud tub, I pushed hard off of his stomach with both my arms, including my heavily bleeding elbow, soaking his shirt with blood. That also drove his neck again into the side of the mud tub, so any air left in him, if there was any, was gone for sure now.
I stood up, staggered slightly, reached back into my back pocket for the rag I always kept in my back pocket in my vain attempt to be like Pee Wee, wiped the mud that was now caked on both my hands, hollered for Doocy to get me a towel, then reached down and grabbed the boy by the shirt to pull him up.
I could feel him tense up when I grabbed him. I could tell he was afraid I would sling him down again, and I could’ve, but I don’t know if he would’ve survived it. The fight was out of him – not just for the moment but forever – and you don’t kick a man in the shin when the battle’s over. I was pretty sure he’d never walk up on anybody again and say, “Leave Cori alone” then take a swing.
Thinking back, I am glad I never hit him, for a couple of reasons.
First – and this may sound funny, but it’s true – it’s not nice, and you can do some real damage to somebody. Of course, driving somebody down into a mud tub like a linebacker sacking a quarterback isn’t all that nice either; but that was self-preservation.
But second, you can break a wrist really fast when you hit somebody. To this day Squatlow has a big bump over his right index finger from doing that very thing.
He pulled himself up, but he had to stick his hand down into the mud up to his wrist to help me get him up. He didn’t know it then, but I could’ve told him, that mud can get in your pores and you can have a rash that’ll last a month if you aren’t careful.
He stood up, staggering, and that was the first time I could see his eyes, and they were watering and tears were running down his face. As I said, I felt sorry for him, but just not sorry enough to get killed for.
For the first time, I spoke. It dawned on me that to that point I had never said one word to him, except, “Sir, can I help you?”
“Son” was the first word that came to my mind. I guess I was mimicking Red’s constant use of the term which, to him, meant, “Whut’s wrong with ya?”
“Son," I said, “are you ok? That could’ve been bad; that mud tub could have put you in the hospital. Here.”
Doocy stepped toward me eagerly and tossed me the towel. The Breeze, I promise you, was as happy as if he were giving me the towel at a baptizing to dry off the converted sinner. He showed me all of his missing teeth and acted as humble as Bartholomew or somebody.
I shook my head at him, even in the moment, and handed the boy the white towel. He took it, so I knew he was accepting the TKO gracefully, which, in truth, was the only graceful thing he did the whole time.
As he wiped the mud and blood off of him, I said, “I’ve gotta tell you. You cain’t come in a place like this and do this stuff. Did you ever figure what would happen if you whupped me? Huh? You gonna whip these nuts over here, too? They all jus’ got out of the mental hospital yesterdy. These boys are crazy.”
I waved toward my motley standing together over by the sandpile grinning and shaking their heads like what I said was all true.
“Come heah,” I said, sounding a great deal like Doocy, and I led him to the fifty-gallon drum. I reached half my body into the water because it was only half full by this time of the day; and I washed my face and arms in it, then told him to do the same.
Another funny thing is that nobody said a word the whole time – not the disheveled crew I worked with (except for a little hooping and hollering), not the McClains who were still standing watching, nobody. Everybody was in a semi-state of shock it all happened so fast.
After we had washed up sufficiently, I nodded for the boy to come with me, and as we walked toward his truck, I said, “First off, my name’s Pup,” and he started to tell me his name, but I interrupted him, “and I don’t even need to know your name. But I need to tell you somethin’. You gotta let a girl decide for herself. Yuh crazy? You don’t sway a girl’s heart by doin’ this.”
I pointed emphatically at all the blood and mud all over both of us. I didn’t realize until then that we both were soaked in blood.
The boy nodded in agreement, climbed in his truck, and looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. I returned the look and thought, even in the moment, that it was just like Santiago and the marlin in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. The two of us couldn’t have been more like that if we had scripted it.
It’s not usual that you whip somebody before you ever look at him. But I finally looked at him, and my mind began registering it all. My friend wasn’t a bad-looking fella if you could take away a bloody puffy lip and mortar caked all over his face, gluing his left eye completely shut. I still couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
He put his truck in gear, grinding it a little to get it into first. I leaned in one more time, and said, “For what it’s worth, I can’t say I blame you for what cha did.”
That was the first and only time I saw a weak smile come across his face. What he did next surprised me almost as much as when he took that first swing. He reached out the window with his right hand, grimacing because he just realized he had damaged it good when he hit the brick and the side of the mud tub.
He gave me his hand, and still with some tears, he said, “Pup, Cori done good. I admire yuh.”
He shook my hand, and I’d say his handshake was the handshake of a man, not a boy, even after all that. He let go, gave another half-smile, and wheeled his blue truck around.
I stood, alone, watching him drive away, standing as tall as I’ve ever stood as I admired the biggest adversary I’d ever had.
In a moment, he was raising dust on the well-worn red drive, driving slowly down the hill as he got out of Dodge.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.