No, God, no

I met a friend from school the other day, he’s writing a book, and needed suggestions on his fight scene. Me, with my violent background, gave him one: with all bottles being broken on each others’ heads, and one guy getting cornered etc. And he says “Dude, I don’t wanna scare my readers off.” I found it so surprising right then that we both came from the same school. What I had just narrated was no fiction, it was a real incident. It actually happened with other guys from my school. I have been an active and passive participant in so many fights that fight scenes are now my forte.

But I stopped beating anyone up since class 8. After that, it’s only been pushing, shoving, shouting, threatening and watching.

I’ll never forget that incident. If it hadn’t happened, I’d probably still be beating people up. I’ll never forget. When she stopped breathing. God, I got the fright of my life. I started pumping, slapping, shaking her, finally, by the time she started breathing again I had sworn I’d never beat anyone up, ever. That was it. There was another girl in the dormitory besides us both, who when I started beating my final victim, was just sitting on her bead screaming like a wild woman. Suddenly I stopped. I realized she wasn’t breathing. The other girl wasn’t screaming anymore, I looked up, she was just sitting there, eyes wide, with her hand covering her mouth. I looked at my victim, why wasn’t she breathing, looked back up at her.

“Oh my God,” I heard the screaming girl whisper, “You’ve killed her.” No, God, no. That was it. This was not meant to happen. I’m no killer. Then I panicked, started pumping and whacking her chest, “Breathe, breathe, BREATHE!” The screaming started. I looked up. “Stop fucking screaming and DO something, go get help.” She ran out, still screaming away.

Just as she was out the door, the breathing strted. In three seconds she was laughing. I’d had enough. I just backed off and ran. The rest of my batch, later, came down with hockey sticks and warned me that if I ever did that again, I’d be dead. I told them I was really fucked up. I was sorry and it’d never happen again. I really was fucked up. I wasn’t lying. They knew it. So they let me go. That was it.

Two years late, that same girl and me, sloshed out of our minds, pried open the grill of my window with her brand new victorinox pen-knife, and sat out on the roof of that same dormitory, one starry night.

And on that roof we got into an argument in whispers about the other making such a racket that we’d get caught by our teachers. She even threatened to knife me with that fucking pen-knife. And I smiled. And we laughed. Ever since then, we exchanged clothes, bandanas, music, books, lies, secrets, pasts, booze and cigarettes. And hickie stories.

It’s too bad. Today, I hear, she doesn’t go anywhere without her booze. What a waste